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Vineeto’s Correspondence with Konrad Swart
VINEETO: Hi Konrad, I have read What I as a person with a practical approach to life notice from your conversation and conviction is that you never talk about how you are in your daily life. How are you with the woman you live with, how are you when you go shopping, how are you in relation to other people? For me the relationships to different people have clearly shown me the flaws I still had to tackle, shown the occasions where consciousness is not pure but inflicted with greed, anger, superiority, jealousy, sorrow, pity and other such emotions. Only since I have eliminated those emotions in me have I been able to be with whoever I meet in an easy, equal, benign manner, fully interested in the person in question in that moment, undistractedly or undisturbed by any flaws in my behaviour. And exactly this is for me the test of any concept of consciousness, ‘tautology’ or other: does it work in actual life, does it work in my relationship to other people. How else to test if the thought construct is not just a sweet elaborate fairy-tale, good enough for discussion, but not applicable with the person I live with?! What I am interested in is who is the man behind the thoughts, who is the person living his daily life and how do your concepts translate into action? Looking forward to your reply.
KONRAD: When reading your letter there is one thing that struck me. Your whole orientation seems to be focused on a type of relation that is directed solely to your fellow men. In other words, you seem to be a very, even exclusively, social oriented person. In understanding my position you must first understand, that this is not the case with me. Of course, social matters are also a concern for me. But my scope is not restricted to that. My position is, that you can only be totally at ease with the world you live in if there are four areas you have to be aware of. These four areas are 1: existence. 2: life. 3: society. 4: consciousness. Each of these 4 areas have their own problems, and their own tools for solutions. VINEETO: First of all, I am not an exclusively social oriented person. I have said that relating to other people for me is the ultimate test if the particular concept of consciousness, of which I have had several in my life, works. All religious, moral, philosophical and spiritual concepts have failed that test. None has delivered peaceful living with other people in my life, let alone with a man for 24h a day. – By the way, my name is Vineeto and I am a woman! Only cleaning myself up totally of any feeling and emotions, the very stuff the self is made of, has enabled me to do that. And by eliminating the very cause – the self – that produced those fickle, unreliable and often explosive emotions and feelings I am now able to be completely at ease, both on my own and with anybody who comes into my life, be it the man I live with or someone I meet for only 10 minutes. KONRAD: Now let us go back to your question. You asked: ‘What I am interested in is who is the man behind the thoughts, who is the person living his daily life and how do your concepts translate into action?’ My actions are not limited to the social domain. Concerning existence, first my age. I am 43 of age. Then my environment. I live in some kind of ghetto in the Hague, in the middle of a social environment wherein many conflicts occur. (Schilderswijk) Even yesterday I heard how my neighbour who lives above me was beating his wife very severely. And across the street just a month ago there was some shooting going on into houses that are uninhabited. They have become uninhabited because first there was a fire, and later there was a tremendous gas explosion, that destroyed the houses so severely, so that they became uninhabitable. Although this environment has its problems, it has its benefits, too. Turks, Kurds, people from Surinam, people from India, from Croatia, from Serbia, from east Germany and Chinese live together with people from Holland, who are the minority in this ghetto. (Most, who could not live with other cultures, have left.) This is one of the things I like about this neighbourhood. For it enables me to have direct contact with many cultures without having to make long journeys. The reason I live here is also because the rents are very low. This means, that I do not have to work too hard to uphold the things I have. So I have chosen to live at an as low as possible level of income. For this enables me to study a lot. Especially in Holland such a choice is rational, because the taxes are very high. (In fact, they are the highest in the world, and the highest rates begin at the lowest levels.) My girlfriend is very supportive to me. We are both working at making a course in logic that does not need to have my presence, and still is able to train people. Both she and me are very interested in computers. Concerning conflicts with others, the only one’s I have are self chosen one’s, and then only in discussions through E-mail. Within the social domain I do not have any conflicts with people in my direct vicinity. On the contrary. There are a number of people who are supportive in the things I try to accomplish. This makes me suspect, that there are some limitations in the e-mail medium, that makes communication to be somewhat limited. Some things can only be made clear to direct contact. Some of my activities are making music in Just Intonation (I have worked on a system to do this for 10 years now, and have just composed my first CD), programming, writing a book about economics, sometimes giving lectures, and sometimes giving concerts. I help some studios with their music equipment, and install and configure their systems. I also work in an advisory capacity in that area. Well, there are more things, but they are not high on my priority list right now. For example, sometimes I study some physics and mathematics, but lately I did not have the time to do this. Extending my computer programming skills takes up a lot of my time lately. This is also, because I consider this a form of meditation. VINEETO: What I understand from your description of your social contact is that you seem to take the ‘safe’ role of an adviser, tutor or Guru. Even the relationship to your girlfriend is that she is supporting your teaching-concept. From my own experience I know that power, in whatever nice form it is played out, is still power. It makes the other inferior, passive, obedient, dependant and denies their capacity to think and find out for themselves. No wonder you have more trouble on the internet, where not everyone accepts your authority and self-acclaimed role as a Guru. It has nothing to do with the limited communication or missing direct contact. I do understand very well where you are coming from. KONRAD: You see, my orientation is only indirectly social. By studying all of these things control is in the focus of my attention. Control over existence. This control over existence includes the control over my own brains. From this capabilities and products emerge that are also interesting to others. And that makes people to take notice of me. Not because they are interested in me as a person. Far from it. No, they are interested in what I can do to enrich THEIR lives. And the activity to do this gives me an opportunity to learn, to expand my skills, etc, without the question you have asked is ever asked. They do not think about asking about me as an individual, as a person, because that aspect of me is not their primary interest in me. This has suited me fine, because in this way I could keep ‘the process’ hidden from my environment for many years. And, to answer your question, this is also how logic functions in the social domain. For logic makes the brains powerful. And in this way it transforms the individual into something that has a lot to offer to his fellow men. VINEETO: Interesting to note that you only seem to talk to fellow men – as you also addressed me as Peter and not by the name I signed my letter with. Logic is the male weapon to tackle life, but it has utterly failed – as you can see in the way human beings treat each other on the planet, which ever system of logic they follow. Those fellow men do not ask you about your life as a person or an individual, because they themselves fear scrutiny. They want, like you do, a theory that explains all nicely and avoids all ‘practical’ problems. Your theory therefore does not get tested in actual life and that is exactly where it fails. Just an example for you (I pinched it from Peter): the rockets that scientists were sending to the moon 40 years after Einstein’s theory of relativity were still built by Newton’s laws of physics, not Einstein’s. His grand theories still remain theories and have spawned whole schools of theoretical fantasies. Any practical benefits of his theories are yet to emerge. That’s why I have asked you how you are in your daily life, with your fellow human beings, with your wife. If your theory can’t even produce equity, then what possible value is it? KONRAD: Let me go a little deeper into this. Once people believed in a God. (Many still do, of course, but let us not go into that.) Now there was a man, called Thomas Aquinas, who asked the following question: If God is almighty, can he make a stone he cannot lift himself? Then he said: If he can, he is not almighty. And if he cannot, he is also not almighty. So if God is almighty, he is NOT almighty. Or, to say it differently, to be almighty is self-contradictory. Therefore it cannot exist. Now how come that almighty cannot exist? Because it goes against logic. Therefore this example shows clearly, that God himself has to bow for Logic. His followers then concluded: ‘Well, if even God has to bow for logic, let us study logic instead.’ Of course, this conclusion took a couple of centuries before it became more prevalent. But now there are many people who consider being religious as plain stupid. VINEETO: It looks now that LOGIC is the new God, because God has to bow to him. Logic can prove or disprove anything, depending on the thesis – especially if the issue is a metaphysical one. Didn’t you know that something that does not exist cannot be proved wrong? How for instance would you want to prove that you don’t carry your dead grandmother in you aura? Impossible! Because in the first place there is no such thing as an aura! Quod erat demonstrandum. KONRAD: Now in our century the biggest problems are social in nature. And there exists a question that is similar of that of Thomas Aquinas. To begin with, no individual in modern society can, with only his own capabilities as his tool, take care of himself. In one way or another the social structure makes it possible for us all to become a group that, as a whole, is viable. But if we are on our own, we cannot take care of ourselves. This observation was basic to Adam Smith, who wanted to have a better understanding in what way society makes us viable. His ‘Wealth of Nations’ was the outcome of this interest. It was the real beginning of economics. The most important insight in that book was the clear awareness, that the division of labour was at the root of the viability of communities. Although no individual can produce everything he needs himself, a social structure based on division of labour can cause us all to fulfill the needs of each participant of this structure. Now you talk a lot about the interactions you have with others. Your main concern is in that area. But have you ever asked you the following question: ‘If I do not have any skills, insights, understandings, productivity, can I be of interest to others?’ If you do not have any of those, you are just a burden to others. Not a contributor, no matter how friendly you are, without emotions, or free from them. VINEETO: My main concern is not the interaction with others. My main concern is to clean myself of the ‘self’ – the emotions, feelings and instincts that every human is born with and that have produced all the suffering on the planet up till now. My interactions with others have brought the problem to the surface again and again, so I could see the particular emotion, examine it, trace it to its root and eliminate it. That has been an immensely thrilling and rewarding exercise. Not only have I become harmless towards other people – a non-contributor, if you like – but I am for the first time in my life contented, happy, thrilled, delighted about each moment. Living in actuality requires no particular skills or productivity. It requires intent and determination, the courage to go all the way, to disappear entirely as a separate psychological and psychic entity . Then, and only then, am I not a burden to anybody on the planet but a catalyst for delight and more delight, for whoever comes my way. This is very well possible. The insights and understandings on the way to this actual freedom were of importance to me at the time and may be of help to someone else. But eventually everybody has to do the job himself, no-one can do it for somebody else and everybody will encounter different obstacles and related insights on the way. KONRAD: In general you can ask this question in the following way: ‘If I do not have any means, capability, insight, that can make anyone’s life more fulfilling, (including that of your own) is it then possible to have relationships that are not burden-some in some way to others?’ I assert, that such a thing is not possible. But if that is so, then developing yourself leads automatically to a position whereby you have no conflict with others. Simply, because you are such a useful individual to others. So the strange situation then occurs, that our interdependence can be used to speak out freely to others without this being a source of concern. But, on the other hand, if your focus is solely on the social domain, you do not see clearly that non-conflictuous relationships with others is an EFFECT, and not a CAUSE. In this case you manoeuvre yourself into a position whereby you become totally dependent on the judgement of others for your well-being. VINEETO: In my position, as you call it, I am not at all dependent on the judgement of others for my well-being. My well-being has nothing to do with others, it has only to do with my own state of well-being and perfection. I know without doubt that I have cleaned myself up, have made myself perfect, 99% of the time, and that eliminates the need for someone else’s approval. The relationship is ‘non-conflictuous’, as you say, when the behaviour of the other doesn’t cause any ripple in my well-being. If I don’t feel insulted, there is no emotional reaction required from my side and there will be no fight. The insult did not take place, even if it was meant to be an insult. If I don’t have any expectations from the other, there will be no contract, no disappointment, no sulking. In that way, freedom and peace are solely the responsibility of each person who wants to be free and peaceful, and therefore it is possible for everyone who has the necessary intent. KONRAD: Let me tell you a story that illustrates this. At the end of his life, Archimedes designed all kinds of contraptions to defend the city he lived in, that happened to be under siege. Now it happens, that this city still fell, and the conquerors invaded it. When they came to the house of Archimedes, he was involved in some geometrical problem. He had drawn lines and circles on the ground to help him with this. Now when one of the soldiers entered, Archimedes said: ‘do not step on my circles’. The soldier then killed Archimedes. Later on the conquerors went out searching for Archimedes. Then they discovered that he was killed by this soldier. The soldier’s excuse was that he did not realize who Archimedes was, for else he would not have killed him. Still, the soldier was punished for his deed. Although this story has no happy ending, it illustrates one point very clearly. Capable individuals are spared for the dangers others have to face. So if there is just an awareness of the role skills play in the social domain, that alone could make us look at our fellow men with totally different eyes. Namely as worth-while fellow beings. This last thing is the root of respect. VINEETO: I suspect, being such a skilful philosopher, that you put in your stories simply to confuse the issue. Archimedes has nothing to do with the issue at all. KONRAD: And now comes the crux of my response to you. You wrote: ‘For me the relationships to different people have clearly shown me the flaws I still had to tackle, shown the occasions where consciousness is not pure but inflicted with greed, anger, superiority, jealousy, sorrow, pity and other such emotions’. [endquote]. I have big trouble with this statement. Consider, for example, greed. Greed is basically the desire to have more material things. If you succeed in eliminating greed, you also do not respond positive to those methods and factors in existence that can expand your means. This includes the capabilities of your fellow men. So you see? Greed is a two-sided emotion. If greed is accompanied by a clear insight in how means are brought into existence, it does not necessarily lead to violence. It can even lead to its opposite. VINEETO: Greed is part of the survival instinct that we inherited from our animal ancestors and as such is blind and destructive. No method of control has kept the lid on it. All the wars, rapes, robberies, billionaires, white-collar thieves and poverty still go on. To state that you only need to channel and control greed is a poor solution which has been tried and failed by many before you. KONRAD: Take anger. If you never feel anger, you cannot feel revolted by the fact that Nazi Germany has slaughtered 5 million Jews. So the elimination of this emotion can make you stop investigating the causes of this, and thus make it possible that it will happen again. Therefore the question is not how to eliminate anger, but to investigate when anger is at its place, and when not. VINEETO: Anger is in its very nature destructive. How can anger about Nazis in Germany eliminate suffering. The retribution from the ‘good’ guys that took place at the end of World War II was as cruel, uncontrolled and devastatingly disastrous as the actions of the ‘bad’ guys before. To investigate the causes of violence and eliminate them, I don’t need to be angry, I only need to apply understanding and intelligence. Anger will always be blind. KONRAD: Superiority? If you cannot judge a certain method to be superior, and therefore you applying this method as making you being somebody superior, you will never defend this method to others as really being superior. In this way you will never try to make things better. VINEETO: I have talked about superiority before. I judge a method as being superior if it works. That is simply applying my brain as to what is sensible and what is stupid. There is no need to feel superior because I can see the obvious, if a method works, has results in daily life or not. And if it is obvious then anybody can check it out. It does not need an extra authority applied to it to make it more True. Why believe an authority if I can find out for myself? I can tell from my life that Richard’s method works, there is no need for feeling superior. Whoever objects is simply silly, blinded by beliefs that have been repeated for centuries. KONRAD: Jealousy? This one is a little more complex. Jealousy consists of the fear of losing your spouse. But this is also a sign that shows how special she is in your life. This is, why many women are flattered by the fact that their spouse is jealous. The problem with jealousy is not so much the emotion, but how it is shown. If you try to limit your spouse in her actions (by trying to place her in a position whereby she is not able to meet other men) then she will experience this as suffocating. However, if you understand, that vinegar is not the way to attract flies, but honey is, you express this jealousy of yours differently. You do not try to limit her span of activities, but you express your feeling about how special she is more directly. VINEETO: Now, this statement on jealousy is really cunning. I suspect you are quite afraid to tackle that issue. That’s why you turn it round and say that the woman wants you to be jealous. You express your feeling about how special she is not because you mean it but because you want to bind her. You are not openly jealous, just more tricky. Jealousy is part of possessiveness that comes in the packet of instincts to continue the species. It has been the cause of many horrendous crimes and murders. Most impulsive crimes are crimes of jealousy. In my relationship with Peter there is neither possessiveness nor jealousy. We simply live together because we enjoy to. Each is free to do what he/she wants and that is the basis of our peace and harmony. When I felt jealousy I simply had to look for the cause of it, and that cause is fear, fear of being alone, insecure, unprotected, abandoned. Eliminating the fear has made jealousy completely redundant. And why should Peter prove through jealousy that I am special to him. I am, that’s why he lives with me. There is no need for any other proof. If one day he should decide to live alone, or with someone else, I will still be at ease because I have no fear to be on my own. KONRAD: Sorrow? Don’t you feel any sorrow about the victims of wars? So I cannot see any reason why this is a negative emotion. Only, if you are a sad person and you expect of others to help you end it, this places a burden on others. However, if you investigate the root causes of it yourself, it leads to clarity. VINEETO: The sorrow I felt for the victims of wars did nothing for the victims of wars. It neither stopped the wars nor did it console the victims. It simply added to the sorrow that is already plentiful and rampant in the world. Clarity comes when I find that compassion for others creates as much mess and interference in other people’s lives as it continues the cycle of superiority and inferiority. The famous Mother Theresa is an obvious example. You seem to be trying to exorcise the Devil with Beelzebub, as the saying goes. Compassion adds to sorrow and suffering, it does nothing to eliminate it. KONRAD: The point is not whether emotions are negative or not, but how you deal with them. You only have to be perfectly clear about their origin. This is what I have against the approach of Richard. By eliminating emotions as such you do not become better, but worse. The important factor is not whether you have emotions, but whether you deal with them from full understanding. So the only thing you have to be careful about is whether you control your emotions, or your emotions control you. If this last thing is the case, you can make improvements into the lives of others, and in that way you make improvements into your own life as well. At least you are a contributing factor. VINEETO: How do you know that by eliminating emotions I become worse. Since you don’t know how I live, that can only be an assumption. The point is that the old system of Good and Bad, of judging emotions and controlling the bad ones has failed for 3000 years. The prisons are full of people who fail to control them. Your neighbours are another good example. Even Gandhi, after repressing sexual feelings for eighty years admitted sexual dreams in his very old age, and he was no weak man. I have replaced the value system of Good and Bad with ‘silly and sensible’ and it works. Why don’t you give it a practical try? Another story to help you with the decision: Kant, the famous philosopher, was asked by a young girl if he wanted to marry her. It took him three years to weigh the Pro’s and Con’s of marriage and since they were equally balanced in his findings he went over to agree to the marriage. Her mother opened the door and told him that she got tired of waiting for his answer, married someone else and had two children. So, if you wait too long, life might be over and you find you wasted it on something that doesn’t work.
KONRAD: You know what? I stop here reading you. Probably the rest you write is just one huge attack on what I represent, and probably there is nothing good you can find in me, now that your mind is set. So I do not want to waste any more energy on you. Not again such a stupid exchange of misunderstanding upon misunderstanding. The basic problem with our communication is that you have drawn far-reaching conclusions from some honest mistakes. How could I know whether you were a man or a woman, when your e-mails begin with ‘Peter’? And then again, how could I know that Vineeto is a woman’s name? I just thought it to be some name Osho Rajneesh has cooked up. VINEETO: I took some time to let your letter sink in and to mull about the response. I usually like to let some clarity emerge before I answer, especially when the letter is as emotional as yours has been. I did not mean to attack you when I said: ‘Logic is the male weapon to tackle life, but it has utterly failed.’ It is simply my experience. For instance, I have seen you discuss with Richard for pages and pages as to whether there is anything worthwhile in his approach to freedom. Now, if someone offers me a key to a prison door, like he does, I don’t think up reasons why it should not work, compare it to other keys with a different colour or form – I try it in the lock. Only then I can decide with the confidence of the experience, that the key opened the lock or not. His key to the prison door of the Human Condition is the simple question, asked with intent and honesty over and over again: ‘How do I experience this moment of being alive?’ and then examine the upcoming emotions, feelings, beliefs and passions. Now, this is what I call using common sense instead of logic: logic in this case is used to defend an old pattern and not look at its mis-functioning, common sense is trying something new. And in my life I have mainly come across men who were very good in finding excuses with abstract logic not to try something new, neither to examine nor feel their emotions, let alone get rid of them. It could be scary but it may well be successful. I have seen logic being used to wander from the subject, to build castles in the clouds, to create theories that don’t hold any water when it comes to actual situations of daily life. Women, on the other hand, generally use emotional outbreaks to distract and divert from an issue or subject that scares them. They are conditioned to swim in emotionality rather than sort things out, i.e. eliminate the cause, with a strait-forward intelligence. Accordingly, I had used sulking, guilt, stubbornness, being paranoid or angry to not give up my dearly held familiar beliefs and behaviours – often unconscious – even if those beliefs had failed for years. In order to live in peace and harmony, instead of using my well-practiced defence mechanisms, I had to put exactly those female ‘weapons’ under scrutiny and cast them aside. Only without the clouding of rationalizing, emotions and instincts can COMMON SENSE – our innate intelligence – start functioning to solve our practical problems. It has been this very common sense that brought us all the comfort, technology and communication that we are enjoying today. In the first place I am not attacking you, I am questioning your theories. I for myself know there is a vast difference between the two, because I can easily function and live without theories or beliefs. But it seems that you don’t see a difference between your teaching and your person or ‘self’. Your response has exactly proven the point I was making about feeling insulted. Having cleaned myself up of emotions I never feel insulted, annoyed, attacked or even bored by anyone’s statement. Therefore I can examine the given argument for its contents and check out the facts. This is where I found Richard’s method invaluable. I can look at the issue rather than the personal feelings. If the issue evokes an emotion in me, then that has to be checked out first. Usually I would take some time and examine why this particular point brushed me up the wrong way. Given that every emotional response is a defence mechanism of the ‘self’ – which I consider harmful and redundant – it was then obvious that these very emotions were the substance of the ‘self’ and had to be eliminated. My main question to you has been and still is: Does the concept that you are teaching change the person in his behaviour to other fellow human beings, or does it avoid exactly this frightening, but so vital issue. Neither logic nor the controlling of emotions has ever succeeded in eliminating malice and sorrow, wars and ‘domestics’, suicide and murder from the world. I understand that this is exactly what you are trying to do with your concept. I just doubt that it works, and further, you have actually proven in your response to me that it doesn’t work. Your concept of logic and tautology does not appear to change your behaviour to fellow human beings, ‘when push comes to shove’ (as the Australians say). KONRAD: Let me point at an anecdote. Some people had heard from Krishnamurti. They heard that he was called by others the ‘world teacher’. So they went to him to put this ‘arrogant bastard’ right. But when they actually met him all of this aggression vanished, because they saw immediately that they were mistaken. VINEETO: Talking about Krishnamurti – he was the one who was treacherous, suspicious, malicious and dishonest in his relationship to his mistress of long years (the wife of his best friend). He even dragged people to court in his old age and inflicted immense suffering on those closest and dearest to him. The daughter of his mistress had lived with him in the first 20 years of her life and has given a very detailed and amazingly objective account of his actions in his private life, that depict a stark contrast to his ‘teachings’ in public. And he was even recognised to be enlightened! It certainly does not save him from being a nuisance! – Not that Rajneesh was any better. He was another nuisance on the grand scale! KONRAD: In fact, my definition of love is: ‘Not putting anything in the way of what your partner wants’. It is a special case of a more general principle: ‘Every individual is there in the first place for him/herself. Therefore it is wrong to ask anything from anybody, or to take anything for granted.’ VINEETO: I agree with you that this would be a good contract to start a harmonious relationship. In my experience though, the moment love with all its conditioning enters, it destroys this wonderful intention. There is simply no way to forever control, i.e. repress emotions, they do surface quite soon in the course of living together, as you can probably testify from your own experience or the evidence your neighbours seem to give you. With love enters inevitably possessiveness, jealousy, expectation for attention, care, admiration, ‘I scratch your back, you scratch my back’, and in no time freedom and harmony are replaced by compromise, discontentment, misunderstanding, battle and defeat. KONRAD: My loved one has had many relationships before she met me. None of them lasted long, because all of these men wanted her to be their servant in one or another form. She was even fed up with men, before she met me. She said that the principal thing she appreciates so much about me is that I do not put any claims on her without her consent, and that I do anything to help her to develop herself in the way she wants. VINEETO: Is she also helping you to develop yourself in the way you want? Or have you already arrived? How can she ever be equal to you if you are her ‘developing aid’? You would always be the superior one. The moment the other starts thinking for him/herself, peace is over. KONRAD: I have written a booklet about the sexual differences between man and woman, and this little booklet has contributed so much understanding between many men and women, that many relationships were improved by it. You will probably think that is because I pleaded for male domination of some sort. But the contrary is the case. This book was completely about how relationships could be built on total mutual respect. It was my aim to end all kinds of subtle manipulations, so that honesty can surface, resulting in total equity. VINEETO: I am interested as to what those sexual differences between man and woman are? Are you talking about physical differences, or those of sensual experience, or differences in the degree of sexual intensity? Difference in the conditioning or factual permanent differences that can supposedly never be eliminated? In my experience there are simply ‘in-bits’ and ‘out-bits’ in us human beings and they fit perfectly. But I did not find any qualitative difference in the enjoyment or intensity of sexual pleasure. To reach to that understanding and experience though, I had to dig deep into the psyche of female sexual conditioning and completely eradicate it. Repression, fear, guilt, morals, shame, fantasies, power-battle, manipulation as well as my cherished love-dreams are only a few examples of what I had to throw out in order to fully enjoy each of our sexual encounters as fresh as if it was the first time – and so did Peter. As long as there is conditioning of any kind operating there are differences, but once I reach the actual experience of the senses, there is no difference in the pleasure that simple friction can produce. Even if you should be opposed to everything else I have been saying up to now, I can tell you, it was well worth cleaning myself up, if only for the tango of sexual pleasure that I now enjoy. The depth of sensual experience deepens with every belief thrown out and there are literally no limits to what a wonderful dance man and woman can have together! It far exceeds any imagination or dream I ever had of what was possible. Should you be interested in what Peter or I have written about our exploration and findings, this is the
address: So Konrad, I am curious if you will read this one to the end, or even feel moved to answer it. Whatever the case, I have immensely enjoyed our conversation. * P.S. I send you the last letter again, just in case you have deleted it. I think I made some interesting points at the end.
VINEETO: Hi Konrad
KONRAD: So you cannot be insulted? Well, take this then: You have an utter disregard for logic and the role it plays into your own very life. You use the products of the theories of others on a day to day base, but claim that you do not use any theories in your life. You are right. You do not use them directly, but in a PARASITICAL way. For you do not want to know the theories, but you do NOT want to be without its products. That is simply hypocrisy. ...<SNIP> Richard is just a confused soul, who has erected a complete metaphysical system on this difference, but denying that it is a system at the same time. ...<SNIP> And you are somebody who has found in Richard’s vision something that can give a justification to your own hypocrisy, so that you do not have to learn to think for yourself, but can feel comfortable in the belief, that thinking and logic as such is worthless. Therefore you do not have to learn for yourself, but on the one way you can continue to live in a parasitical way on the products of thinking of others, and in the same way it allows you to deny that you need to participate yourself. Well? Are you angry now? For this is what I REALLY think of you. THIS is the picture I have of you. (If you are angry, please continue below, for then I show that I just attack you to make a point.)’ VINEETO: Well, Konrad, sorry to say, you missed the target completely, but thank you for the great joke. I had such a good laugh. Because you see, it doesn’t matter what you cook up about me, it is simply an idea someone has about me. It is not actual or factual. So why should I feel insulted? I know from checking myself out thoroughly that I am neither hypocritical nor parasitical nor following a ‘confused soul’. In my frequent peak experiences I have seen and experienced the actual world beyond belief-systems for myself, fully relying on my senses and the clear functioning of my intelligence without the distortion of emotions and beliefs. So whatever someone else is saying about me is measured on my own findings and something so off the target simply does not apply and causes no stir. But I enjoy when these pictures come out in the open because it might clear up the communication. And you have even send off another of your searching missiles via Richard to get me to keep up the communication when you wrote:
And you say I am drawing conclusions! What do you mean by ‘to keep it simple for her’? Do you consider me some kind of retarded idiot or just an untrained female? Your demonstrations are far from irrefutable and they don’t go against my feelings because these feelings simply don’t exist. It is just that the argumentation gets so complex that I don’t even know where to start with the refuting. You will often find me not responding to some of your arguments, because I want to stick with the subjects that interest me more. I agree, e-mail has its limitations. Writing takes up more time than any talk would do. What got my main attention out of all the writings that went back and forth is the one you have sent to Richard the other day:
I have until now only this much description of what you call ‘your process’ and I am fascinated by
it because it reminds me strongly of the first peak experiences I had after I met Peter and Richard. For the description of it I will attach what I
have written in But the shock from the contrast was immense, it left me shaking for days. I, for myself, can definitely say that it was fear that coloured the interpretation and memory of this experience. What helped me since then to go back and be familiar in this pure, pristine, actual state was being able to communicate with Peter in this actuality, and the delight of meeting another human being so intimately as never before. It helped me to notice that even without beliefs I can still rely on my senses – seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, thinking, talking, reflecting. With growing confidence I now can enjoy the heightened intensity of the senses, be safe in being with other human beings without the protective shell of ideas, beliefs, emotions and instincts. And it is now my experience that it is absolutely possible and imminently desirable to live in that state 24 hrs. a day. I am not lacking anything I would need to survive, my brain functions more sensibly and better than ever to supply whatever I need to take care of myself. I am writing this, I notice, to seduce you to experiment with what you call ‘your process’ into that direction, using all the senses and meeting another ‘human being’ as a delightful addition to being on your own, because I found it the best way to be alive since sliced bread. By communication this process for me has become practicably applicable, testable and magically down-to-earth. Becoming grounded into my senses as the media to experience the world rather than relying on my imagination and fear has helped me immensely to dwell in this ‘state’ for longer and longer periods, interacting with people with an ease I thought I could never have. And you say it yourself that there was ‘An absolute certainty based on absolutely nothing ... NO doubt.’ I call it obvious and evident. So, Konrad, I leave you with this to ponder about, having more interesting subjects in mind to talk about later, sex for instance. There is a lot to add to your findings about sex from my experience, but that will be another chapter!
KONRAD: I do not consider you a retarded idiot. But I DO consider you to be an untrained female. For if you were a trained female, and really knew what I was talking about when I sent you the Maxwell equations, you would not have failed to notice that the last equation I sent you was false. I sent you the following set of formulas: div E = q/eo curl E = – dB/dt c^2 curl B = dE/dt + j/eo curl B = 0, The last equation if this set is false. It should read: div B = 0. It is a mathematical description of the impossibility of the occurrence of magnetic monopoles. Just for the record, I did not do this deliberately. I just observed my mistake when I reread this letter. Still, I think that you have not had the training to understand these kinds of equations. I suspect that even the much simpler law of Newton: F = dp/dt, the equation that describes what all macroscopic movements have in common, is beyond you. So if you are unable to understand these equations, you are definitely untrained. And therefore your statements about the consequences of these formulas, and these formulas themselves to be products of common sense, cannot be statements of somebody who really knows what she is talking about. There is a saying here in Holland. When somebody is making fantastic claims, but is not aware of existing true knowledge that contradicts it, we say: ‘He is saying things uninhibited by true knowledge.’ This saying says, that we must always look at whether a person that makes certain claims has enough knowledge to be taken seriously. This saying warns us that if somebody asserts certain things, but is unaware of that there is true knowledge that contradicts these assertions either implicitly or explicitly, these assertions should for this reason only considered to be suspect at best, and usually as invalid. In fact, it is often enough to dismiss everything this person says about this area, because he or she has not taken this true knowledge into account. VINEETO: Well, Konrad, sorry to say, you missed the target completely, but thank you for the great joke. I had such a good laugh. Because you see, it doesn’t matter what you cook up about me, it is simply an idea someone has about me. KONRAD: If it is just an idea, as you say, how come then that you did not respond to my remark about science being mainly not the result of common sense? I think I know the answer. Your lack of training about these matters is so extreme, that you do not even see that this argument I make is a very valid one. You DO make use of things that are the product of logic, scientific thinking, and vast ideological development of scientific method, just by using household appliances. Only you are completely unaware of that this is what you are doing. This is not just an idea. It is the result of me observing that you are not going into this particular argument in a way that shows that you really know what I am talking about. In fact, you are not going into this argument at all. How far does this lack of training go? Have you ever been on a high school or some equivalent? Do you, for example, know what the abc formula is in elementary algebra? Or are you ignorant about that one? Or does it even extend further? Are you able to solve simple puzzles like: ‘If the weight of something is one kilo more than half its weight, how much does it weigh?’ (2, of course) with the aid of simple algebra? For if you are not able to do this, you are not even able to really understand what I am talking about. You are then definitely completely and totally blind to the connection that exists between household appliances and the understanding of physics and logic. And then it is definitely the case that if you assert that all of these things are just the result of the application of common sense, you do not know what you are talking about, and are therefore hardly in the position to refute my statements. VINEETO: Well done, this time you hit the target: I was annoyed and I think that is what you wanted to achieve! First I tell my story and then I will have a look at your side of that game: In order to get to the root of my annoyance I had to look at the ghost that you had revived. It was connected to an experience that the little girl I was 35 and 40 years ago had when the boys said: ‘We do not want to play with you because you can’t climb trees as well or because you are wearing a skirt’ ... basically because I was not a boy! I am sure they believed their reasoning to be as serious and valid as you believe yours to be! Then, feeling excluded from the pleasures they seemed to have, I competed with boys on intellectual terms to be part of their club. I topped high school with best grades in the male subjects like maths and physics, but I still did not belong. I did not understand about male and female battling, about sex, or why humans are so quick to attack and hurt each other – so just being good in math did not work. Nor did later in life any of these subjects help me to be a better or happier human being. Mathematics still can’t explain how egg and sperm turn into the girl I was then or the woman I am now. Life consists of very much more than equations and puzzle-solving! Those algebraic puzzles were a favourite pastime in my teens, but since then I have moved on to more life-related questions like: How to become completely happy and harmless! If the above mentioned training is what you request from women to accept her as a partner in communication about vital questions of human behaviour, without arrogantly snorting on her, then I pass and have no further interest in any exchange. This is the typical male world, consisting of competition, arrogance, throwing about knowledge which is irrelevant to the subject talked about. If you insist to stay in that world of equations then good luck! * VINEETO: And there we come to your part of the story. You answered in an earlier letter to my writing: Women, on the other hand, generally use emotional outbreaks to distract and divert from an issue or subject that scares them. They are conditioned to swim in emotionality rather than sort things out, ie. eliminate the cause, with a strait-forward intelligence. Accordingly, I had used sulking, guilt, stubbornness, being paranoid or angry to not give up my dearly held familiar beliefs and behaviours (often unconscious); even if those beliefs had failed for years. In order to live in peace and harmony, instead of using my well-practiced defence mechanisms, I had to put exactly those female ‘weapons’ under scrutiny and cast them aside. KONRAD: Well, let me tell you that I have been married to a woman using just those techniques you described. The marriage only lasted for 4 years. So I can go along with you here. VINEETO: Now, I have told you I have cleaned myself up from the female parts of the disease called ‘Human Condition’ and you very happily agreed to this being a good idea. But it does not mean that I took on the male parts of that very same disease. This has often been the typical male reaction to Peter’s and my writing: The men would fold their arms, lean back and pass the book on to their girlfriends, saying, ‘look, he has confirmed that you are wrong. Go and change so I can be happy.’ They completely missed the point of the matter! Leaving the ‘female’ and ‘male’ world behind, means that I entered the world of common sense, practical down-to-earth thinking and communication on the basis of facts perceived through the senses and applying my intelligence without the burden of either emotions or rationality. This is the third alternative to ‘male’ or ‘female’ thinking, using common sense to evaluate facts and solutions as either sensible or silly. Mind you, common sense has nothing to do with common knowledge or physicist’s equations. It is the free operation of the intelligence based on the perception of all the senses and unaffected by emotions, feelings or otherwise preconceived ideas. Mind you, the important thing is to take the situation in account with ALL your senses – which gives common sense the down to earth quality that the abstract thinking you are using is lacking so much! The male version of the disease called the Human Condition includes arrogance, superiority, theorising, display of knowledge just to impress or attack, competition, aggression, malice, repression of feelings and emotions and such more. How can one gender be right and the other wrong? Now you did not even consider that men as well have their share of cleaning up to do. Your response quoted above displays very well those male weapons and they were meant to harm, to put me off and to score points. I call this outright malice. How can you claim to be advanced in your ‘process’ when you have not even eliminated the instinct to hurt and attack? And why did most great thinkers, logician, scientists and spiritual gurus need wives or caretakers to look after their physical needs, while they were retreating into a construct of thought, based on either logic or spiritual belief to escape this so terrible world? I take it that you are no different to those escapists, Konrad, as becomes obvious in the following quote! There we come to the second subject I want to respond to. KONRAD: Well, let me tell you something else. In my eyes, what you describe, sorry to say, is peanuts when I compare it with what I had to go through when the process started in me. In the early years this ‘process’ was so severe, and was so painful in my head, that it took me no less than 1 1/2 years, in the first year meditating for 8 hours a day, and the 1/2 year after that 5 hours a day, to let my body adapt to the immense pressure that penetrated my skull, and to be able to perform the most basic tasks of daily life. In this period of time I had very frequent and very severe cramp-like attacks, much like epilepsy, with its severity. And even during the 8 years following these years, wherein I continued to meditate for at least 2 hours a day, these attacks persisted. My body had to adapt to an energy that was of such an extremity as only somebody like Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti and the likes can imagine. In fact, Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s passing out at the most odd moments because of the severity of this energy was a very known phenomenon to all of the people close to them. It happens that my constitution is much stronger than that of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti, and therefore I have never passed out. Still, every time such an attack emerged it was a very intense ‘discharge’, causing me to be totally out of breath. VINEETO: This is what I mean by escapist: sitting in a room with closed eyes for hours on end, retreating just into the head and pretending the rest of the world does not exist! I tell you, compared to your coco-nuts I do prefer my peanuts. At least there is no headache or epilepsy-like symptoms! You compare yourself to J. Krishnamurti, thinking what a great achievement your process is (is this maybe called ego?). If you read Radha Rajagopal-Sloss’ book ‘Lives in the Shadow with J. Krishnamurti’ you can see for yourself that this man as a human being in his private life had no quality worth emulating. Your ideas of achievement go along the scales of suffering – Greatest He Who Suffers Most. But this will also be the solution that you are offering to other people: suffering. As if the world is not already full of it! Why add severe headaches to the trouble everyone already has?! So, I do prefer peanuts, thank you. Because ‘following a confused soul’ as you put it, I examined and experimented successfully with Richard’s radical new method and ended up without beliefs, without sorrow and malice, experiencing the world as paradisical as it is, rich with pleasures and delights, enjoying their full impact on all my senses in this very actual physical world. To say: ‘You are still missing the point. Actuality is also just an idea’ is simply not understanding that ‘actual’ is the experience of the world as it is, after ideas have been stripped. Otherwise it would be call ‘idea-l’ not ‘actual’. I had joined your conversation with Richard because I saw you were operating merely in the world of thought-constructs, ignorant or in denial of the body, the senses and the delights of being alive after all hindering emotions and beliefs are eliminated. You were and are still trying to find reasons and excuses not to come in contact with this actual world of the senses and of common sense. I admit that I have failed. It has been great pleasure and learning but I can’t see a point in continuing. I had simply wanted to present to you – as does Richard – another way of living, happy and harmless, relying on and delighting in the senses, on intelligence and common sense. You prefer to compete with J. Krishnamurti in suffering, while trying to tell me off and saying I am just ‘following a confused soul’. Strangely enough, you are having miles of in-depth conversation with Richard, taking him very seriously there. This behaviour is illogical, hypocritical and looks plain silly. I have come to the conclusion that you are not interested in becoming happy and harmless, you prefer your version of achievement and suffering. It is your choice, but know well that you are making a choice.
KONRAD: I suggest you continue your conversation with me when the troubles the vision of Richard will undoubtedly cause in your life becomes acute? For I consider it a pity that such a well-intending person like you falls in such a delusion like that one Richard has concocted. For make no mistake. I appreciate your attempt to make me see something you consider to be wonderful. Therefore I consider your attempt as originating from a sense of you wishing well-being to bestow on anybody else. Therefore, if you have come to your senses, I welcome you to resume our dialogue. VINEETO: Thank you for your kind attempt so save me, but I am too far gone. I have come to all my senses including apperception (which you say does not exist) and after observing and experimenting with all kinds of madness offered by hundreds of people for thousands of years I have chosen Richard’s method, because it delivers the most attractive and reliable madness. A madness, were I am without malice, sorrow, fear, anguish, instincts, emotions, beliefs, intuition, love or compassion. But a madness that is a constant delight and out from control, sensuous and delicious, benign and alive. KONRAD: So you are over 40 years of age. Have you not gained ANY wisdom in all of these years, that the above has not even be suspected over the years? VINEETO: You are wrong here. In my 45 years I have checked out all the possibilities, Western and Eastern and have made a choice, 180 degrees in the opposite direction of both. Freedom dares to go all the way, getting rid of everything that is in the road of experiencing this universe as the actual paradise it is. You offer logic and enlightenment, Richard found life beyond enlightenment, paradise here-now on earth, and a method that works. His proposition is simply more attractive. KONRAD: I suggest you continue your conversation with me when the troubles the vision of Richard will undoubtedly cause in your life becomes acute? VINEETO: Don’t hold your breath, that is very, very unlikely to happen. Here are some puzzles, which you in the mean-time, as a good mathematician, should be able to solve; it is about two human beings living together:
P = pleasure, B = body, S = Self + self, D = delight. Now the question, to be answered only by life-experience: what is ˙? If you can solve the puzzle by actually experiencing the equations, I will call you wise! Mind you, this is NOT a koan!
VINEETO: Hi Konrad, I just read your last e-mail to Richard and it looks like you got the meaning of dualistic completely the wrong way. In your mail to me you are trying to convince me that Richard is wrong and why. In your e-mail to Richard you tell him why Vineeto is wrong and has misunderstood you completely. I think in your strange logic you have gone a bit too far!
VINEETO:
P = pleasure, B = body, S = Self + self, D = delight. Now the question, to be answered only by life-experience: what is ˙ If you can solve the puzzle by actually experiencing the equations, I will call you wise! Mind you, this is NOT a koan! KONRAD: Indeed, this is not a Koan. It is worse, for this is rubbish. To point out just a few errors: You have neglected to introduce a unit of measurement. Next to this, you use incommensurable magnitudes, and equate them. For an introduction to an explanation of these matters, see: ‘Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology’, written by Ayn Rand. What kind of school did you go to, you said, that made you get high degrees on mathematics and physics? I have a far better puzzle. Suppose you have a glass of red wine, and a glass of white wine, containing exactly the same amounts of wine. Now take a spoonful of white wine from the glass of white wine, and mix it with the red wine by stirring. Now use this same spoon to get a spoonful of this mixture of red and white wine, and mix this with the white wine. Obviously, after these two steps both glasses contain exactly the same amount of wine. Only now they both contain mixtures of red and white wine. The question is this: is the ratio of white to red wine in the glass containing originally only red wine the same, smaller or larger than the ratio of red to white wine in the glass containing originally only white wine? If you calculate this, you will be up to a surprise. For the result of this calculation (that is more difficult than you might think) is completely counterintuitive. VINEETO: And then just 4 hours later you send the answer. KONRAD: Since you are probably not capable of solving this riddle, I give the solution to you. At the end we have two mixtures of both red and white wine. Now what you can see, is that the total amount of wine in both glasses is the same both before and after the exchange. The only difference is, that before the exchange took place we had pure red and pure white wine, and after the exchange took place we have two mixtures. Now imagine that the red and the white parts of the wine are separated in both glasses. What has happened is that the extra red wine in the glass originally containing white wine was white wine before the exchange took place. The same applies to the extra white wine that is contained in the glass originally containing only red wine. Since both glasses contain exactly the same amounts of wine both before and after the exchange, these parts must be equal. And therefore the ratios are equal, too. So we come to the unexpected conclusion, that if we mix the wines in such a way that the total amounts before and after mixing are the same, the ratio of the mixtures is always the same, no matter the method of exchange. This outcome does not only apply to the mixing of wines, but it applies to any mixing of any substances, as long as it is an exchange of this type. Are you able to follow this argument? If not, you are not able to think abstractly, and maybe the philosophy of Richard has already done its destructive work. But, then again, maybe you have never been able to think abstractly. And then you have found in Richard a perfect defender of your vision, and Sartre is vindicated once more. We are not looking for persons that can help us in our development, but we are looking for persons that help us to defend the positions we already have assumed. VINEETO: Well, Konrad, this time I think they pulled your leg with your clever book-solution. I will explain, why. Imagine the two glasses contain originally only 3 teaspoons of white and red wine each. You take out one spoon full of white wine out and add it to the red. The proportion is: 4 teaspoons of 3:1 red/white wine in glass one From the first mixture you take out one spoon full (3:1 red/white) into the white wineglass and the new proportion is: 3 teaspoons of 3:1 red/white wine in glass one Yes, you are right, I checked it again with 20 teaspoons; the proportions are the same. It is 20/21 white : 1/21 red wine, added to (19x21)/21 white, resulting in 20:400 = 1:20 red/white wine in glass two. See, even with my simple translation into finger-counting I could come to a satisfying solution! I did have to check on you, because you already once have led me up the garden path! (curl B = 0, and then it was div B = 0) And now that I have solved your puzzle, we can go back to my puzzle, which you so cheaply dismissed as rubbish. It is not rubbish at all! Since you missed the point altogether I have to explain a bit more in detail – it is about sex. Just because you don’t seem to understand these matters as I do – by experience – there is no need to snort. Life equations don’t have measurements like numbers, they are still facts:
P = pleasure, B = body, S = Self + self, D = delight. Now the question, to be answered only by life-experience: what is ˙?
And it is a fact, proven daily by my experience of living with Peter, that once we removed every bit of ‘Self’ and ‘self’ from sexual intercourse, there is only delight. To get rid of ‘self’ and ‘Self’ means that we both eliminated every emotion – love and any occurring aspect of relating: jealousy, bargaining, need for attention or emotional support, pleasing, fear, imagination, wanting love instead of sex. Further it was necessary to separate procreation from sexual pleasure, to remove the sex-drive from the simple pleasure of the sexual play. Without the difference of the male and female sexual instinct there is no difference between a man’s and a woman’s sexual experience. Without the driven need to have sex it simply happens when it seems a good time for another pleasure in the day. It is like deciding when to have a cup of coffee – now, or in two hours’ time? In the course of this ‘clean-out’ we came across ‘ghosts’ like fear to be just an animal, to be immoral, to be selfish, to be out of control. But these ghosts can simply be recognised as fear, imprinted since centuries to keep men and women in their place. Without aggression and malice operating there is no necessity to keep anything under control as there is neither aggression nor need for defence. KONRAD: I have written a book about problems in love relationships. There is one aspect of sex that might be of interest. Have you ever wondered about why almost all rape is done by men? Have you ever wondered, why most prostitutes are women, and if there are male prostitutes, they have almost no women clients, but homosexual men? Have you ever wondered about why the law places property rights on the chastity of women? Why not the other way around? Here is a very simple biological explanation of all this, rooted in the biology of the male sexual apparatus. It is simply this: Men have all kinds of glands producing all kinds of fluids that is released in the sexual act. Of course, women, too, produce certain fluids. But there is a very big difference. The fluids that women produce are some variation of sweat, that is only produced during the sexual act, while this is not so with the male fluids. Male fluids are produced constantly, not only during intercourse. It is first produced and then stored in several reservoirs in his body. His semen is stored around his testicles. His lubrication means and other material for nurturing his semen is stored in another reservoir underneath his bladder. The problem is, that these reservoirs are slowly filling, until they are completely full. And when they are full, the least sexual stimulus makes men horny. The only way these reservoirs can be emptied is with an orgasm: in the sexual act, self-stimulated or spontaneously. The fluids are NOT taken up by the body, if the man refrains from sex, as many seem to believe. In other words, sex is a need for men, much like going to the toilet is for everybody. It is not so for women. Women may find sex, when done properly, and all conditions are right, a nice thing to do. But they do not NEED it. Men, however, do. I can put it even stronger. Because men have this biological problem, they are all potential rapists, while NO woman can be. This potential becomes actual as soon as men deny this aspect of their biology. No morality can stop this. For no morality can stop us to go to the toilet to empty our bowels, simply because it is a biological need. Not realizing this difference causes much misunderstanding between men and women. Men do not understand how women can do without sex, while women do not understand why sex is such a big thing for men. Women have no problems with refraining from sex. Men have BIG problems with this. However, traditionally speaking, women have another ‘problem’. They can have children. It is not realized enough, that having children is really a full-time job, when done properly. Added to this many women see their ability to have children as an obligation. They think, that if they do not have a child at least once, something will always be missing into their lives. This means, that women who hold this conviction are looking for a situation wherein this full time job can be made actual. So they are looking for a man who takes care of them. (Two jobs is for many people too demanding.) Not realizing all this leads to what I call ‘A deal relationship’ The woman is looking for a man to give her security, while a man is looking for a woman to give him sex. In this kind of relationship both men and women think they need each other, while in fact they both do not. It is a simple matter for a man to do something about his sexual need without bothering his woman partner. He only has to question the morality, wherein he is forbidden to act on this simple biological problem. If he frees himself of this morality, he stops demanding for his wife to be a sexual toilet whenever he is in sexual need. This frees him from his sexual dependence of her. And as a corollary, the sexual industry is recognized for what it is: namely an answer to a NEED of MEN. On the other hand, women have to free themselves from the notion, that not having children means not leading a completely fulfilling life. VINEETO: What you are stating here is the difference in sex-drive of male and female. Interestingly enough you say that men, for physical reasons, cannot change their need for orgasm – or ejaculation, to be precise – they can only act on it one way or the other – and what a poor solution you offer, masturbation – or do you tell the men to wait for nocturnal spontaneous releases? While the women should learn to refrain from their physical programming of the sexual instinct: having babies! No, both have to recognize the instinct and eliminate it – not work around it – in order to live in complete peace and harmony and to enjoy a fulfilling sex-life. You are repeating what everybody has been falsely teaching before: that instincts cannot be changed. Why not?! Human beings are equipped with both consciousness and intelligence sufficient to sort out, understand and extinguish their instincts, should they so desire. The actual survival of the species ‘humans’ is no longer threatened by lack of numbers any more but our very happiness is still ruined by the blind sexual instinct to procreate. It is now time that common sense and intelligence take over the job of the instincts and let sexual play be pleasure and delight and not the cause for unwanted children, pain, suffering, shame and guilt. Logically speaking, you need not find a solution for the problem, but simply eliminate the problem – the base sexual instincts themselves and the social conditioning and beliefs around sex and their resulting emotions. But this includes the extinction of ‘me’, my very ‘self’. Scary – Yes. Rewarding – unbelievably so!!! KONRAD: Biologically speaking BRAINS and MINDS of both men and women have exactly the same capabilities. VINEETO: Well said, and they have the same capacity for sexual pleasure too. Women just have been more repressed by religious and social morals and restricted by the fear of pregnancy. Using Richard’s method, Peter and I have proven that it is possible to actually get rid of the instinctual passions. The old fairytale of a necessary gender-battle, compromise and resentment has ceased to be an excuse. Man and woman both can rid themselves of the sexual instinctual drive, the bummer or a birthmark that keeps men and woman adversaries for life. When a woman dares to stop being a woman and a man dares to stop being a man, two human beings can meet in direct, tangible, delicious intimacy. Liberated from all the instincts of procreation, fear, desire, nurture and aggression as well as from emotions, fears, romantic love, affections, ethics, morals and beliefs, sex then becomes the all-senses-encompassing intimate dance of two human beings, fitting perfectly well in their physical plumbing. Then, and only then, can you compare their amount of sexual pleasure and you find that women enjoy sex as much as men do, once it is cleaned from restrictions of pregnancy, morals, fears or respecting men’s fears. Then neither masturbation is necessary nor the ‘deal relationship’ you describe. Then freedom is experienced in every movement of the sexual dance, independent and intimate, without need or fear, fully present in all of the involved senses. Delight is a very poor word for this serendipitous experience of being alive. KONRAD: Again, I do not deny that there is something in the way Richard says the world can be experienced. Only what I see is that it destroys a capacity within us that has taken no less than one million years to develop, and is even now not yet completed in its development. VINEETO: Richard’s method destroys the psychological and psychic entity , that has taken no less than one million years to develop. But now it is redundant and harmful to be driven by blind nature’s instincts and it is time to be replace them with intelligence and apperception. Konrad, it is time for pioneers, and I thought you may be one, but it seems as though you are gripped by logic and the failed solutions of the past. Logic is a good tool to find the proportion of white and red wine in those two glasses, but it is utterly hopeless and useless to question and remove sexual instincts. KONRAD: This is my last mail. Do not bother to answer. For, to begin with, you probably find this puzzle of wines boring. And, secondly, you probably do not care whether your abstract thinking is destroyed or not, or present or not. I hope it is the last. For you cannot miss anything that has never been there in the first place. VINEETO: Well, if you read it or not, reply or not, is of no concern to me. It gave me a good opportunity to explain and write about one of my favourite subjects and a very important one at that, for the realisation of mutual sexual pleasure between men and women is an essential ingredient for paradise on earth. Thank you for being the audience.
KONRAD: I am still communicating with Richard. I am beginning to suspect, that both he and I have ‘switched on’ the same ‘apparatus’ in our mind, and that there is no difference after all between him and me. I am beginning to suspect, that the differences between him and me are more due to the difference in background, and therefore in how we express ourselves than that there is a real essential difference. Especially his remark, that ‘something turned over’ at his brain stem, and his constant referring to ‘apperception’ as a kind of awareness without a distorting intentionality in the form of an ‘I’ makes me suspect this. Let me quote him:
I am beginning to suspect, that what has happened to him is the same as what happened to me, for, if I really look close at what he describes about how he experiences the world, I do not see any difference between his experience and that of me. Even that ‘brain stem’ part is consistent with how ‘I’ am aware of ‘the process’. For that is exactly where the most intense part of ‘the process’ is active. I am also beginning to suspect, that this ‘apperception’ of him is the way this organ, that has taken one million years to develop, is the way it is functioning in him. VINEETO: Now, that you acknowledge the sense that Richard’s discovery makes, we can really start talking. You say that you have come to understand that the ‘I’ has to be eliminated, that it consists of beliefs and emotions and instincts. Great start! But don’t spoil your understanding and realisation by trying to sneak in just repeating verbally and intellectually what you have seem to understood. With freedom you cannot start at the top. You have to come down from your throne of having something to teach and get down to earth experience. ‘Get dirty’, as the Australians say. Get dirty means to admit that deep down you are still run by the Human Condition like everybody else, that means being malicious, sex-driven, sorrowful, lonely, fearful, resentful and power-hungry for disciples. And that is the preliminary to get rid of it all – to recognize it is there. The rest is easy going, just 180 degrees in the opposite direction as you are going right now – away from great enlightenment, away from being a novelty-teacher, away from the all-knowing, fatherly advising guy to being an ordinary human being, just here and free from all this ancient Eastern rubbish. Now it is to be proven by your every day life, that you are happy and harmless, that you live in peace, equality and harmony with your girlfriend and that you are sincere and benign with your fellow human beings. So, welcome on the path of freedom! I am glad you can see now that Richard has painted you into a corner from where you can only admit that he has got the facts on his side. But once the pride is conquered, then why not be sensible and admit facts. That is much less embarrassing than insisting on the wrong version of looking at the world anyway. KONRAD: Therefore I think that the both of us (Richard and Konrad) supplement each other in the sense that he is the one who can tell you most about the experience of the outside world, while I am the one who can tell you most about the power of abstract thinking. VINEETO: Now, you don’t think I am learning from you the power of abstract thinking. You have changed your mind so many times in the course of our conversation, that I can see the abstract in it but no power. Further I can say that my brain is in excellent condition since I cleaned it from the cobwebs of instincts, emotions and beliefs. It does not need any further training, thank you for the offer. KONRAD: I began to see this, after the very simple awareness, that ‘the container of thought and thinking’ must itself be of a totally different order. I conclude this from a description of somebody else on the Mr Jiddu Krishnamurti mailing list, called [No 12, List B], who is saying things along similar lines. I show you part of my correspondence with [No 12, List B] below. The interesting thing is that all three of us agree on one thing. Namely, that there is ‘something’ in us, some part of the brains, that, at some point, takes over. It is something that is definitely organic in nature. A part, that can become dominant. and when it does, there occurs a change whereby neither thought nor emotions are the ‘things’ that are in control. Whether you are eliminating thoughts and feelings totally, or you allow them to play some role is just a matter of what you want to do with your life. As a musician I have to allow them to play some role, while both [No 12, List B] and Richard make a case for the total elimination of it. VINEETO: I leave it to Richard to sort out the ‘subtleties’ were things are very different between the three of you. He is the absolute expert in the matter. I just stick to the results: does it work in making you a better human being or not? This is a real question, not a rhetoric one. KONRAD: Consider that in Africa malaria is so prevalent, that a certain blood type is developed that make people immune to exactly that type of disease. So why should ‘evolution’ react to an immunizator against such a disease, and not reacting at such a major mental crisis in a similar way? That is illogical. Therefore I suspect, that within the three of us this ‘organ’ has been developing as a reaction to the constant wars, and has become dominant. VINEETO: Now, don’t fool yourself, Konrad. This thing does not just happen at random out of some mystical evolution. One needs to be guided by pure intent and the sincerity and honesty not to escape some cheap ‘shortcut’. This ‘I’ has to die and each one has to find it in him/herself and induce it to die – self-immolate. The measuring scale is delight. The more free, the more delight. The less fear, the more delight. Not the spiritual, cerebral bliss, but the delight of experiencing the senses without the mantle of the ‘I’. KONRAD: But, again, this is just a superficial difference, and no essential difference. It seems, that the only thing that is different in Richard and in me is that he has focused his attention on the outside world, while I have focused my attention to abstract thinking. Or, to say it a little differently, his ‘toy’ is the actual and factual world, while that of me is logic and thinking. VINEETO: No, you are wrong there. It is not only a superficial difference. It is very essential. You cannot think your way to freedom, you have to live it. You have to experience every bit of the instincts, feelings, emotions and beliefs that you are intending to eliminate. Otherwise you won’t be able to get rid of them. I know that as well as I know that I have 10 fingers. KONRAD: Thank you for your mail. All that mathematics stuff is not very interesting, no matter what you apply it on. Would you like it if I keep you informed about how the discussion between me and Richard progresses? And about sex, you are putting all kinds of things into my mouth, like ‘You are repeating what everybody has been falsely teaching before: that instincts cannot be changed.’ ‘Puh, puh’. (Spitting it out.) You are making the same mistake over and over again, namely thinking that I say such things, or imply them, while I have never said them. Take an example of Richard. He is also sometimes not understanding me, but at least he is far more careful about this than you are. What I have said is that the male sex organ functions like the bladder. It fills, and therefore it must be emptied. This is no statement about an instinct, but a statement about physiology. Or do you imply that going to the toilet to empty your bowels is also an expression of instinct? Can Richard’s vision stop you from going to the toilet? VINEETO: That is all the comments to manage about sex? What a poor response! You mean you call those three statements
I wrote mathematics stuff? You must be utterly humourless! Just for you I have put them in what looks like mathematics. They are about life, can’t you see that?! If you need information about the toilet-bit of men, you will have to ask Richard and Peter. As far as they have told me, there is no intrinsic need to empty your testicles regularly after the sexual drive is removed. But I would really like to have a comment on my other statements: ‘Further it was necessary to separate procreation from sexual pleasure, to remove the sex-drive from the simple pleasure of the sexual play. Without the difference of the male and female sexual instinct there is no difference between a man’s and a woman’s sexual experience. Without the driven need to have sex it simply happens when it seems a good time for another pleasure in the day. It is like deciding when to have a cup of coffee – now, or in two hours’ time? In the course of this ‘clean-out’ we came across ‘ghosts’ like fear to be just an animal, to be immoral, to be selfish, to be out of control. But these ghosts can simply be recognised as fear, imprinted since centuries to keep men and women in their place. Without aggression and malice operating there is no necessity to keep anything under control as there is neither aggression nor need for defence.’ And this:
Liberated from all the instincts of procreation, fear, desire, nurture and aggression as well as from emotions, fears, romantic love, affections, ethics, morals and beliefs, sex then becomes the all-senses-encompassing intimate dance of two human beings, fitting perfectly well in their physical plumbing. Then, and only then, can you compare their amount of sexual pleasure and you find that women enjoy sex as much as men do, once it is cleaned from restrictions of pregnancy, morals, fears and respecting men’s fears. Then neither masturbation is necessary nor the ‘deal relationship’ you describe. Then freedom is experienced in every movement of the sexual dance, independent and intimate, without need or fear, fully present in all of the involved senses. Delight is a very poor word for this serendipitous experience of being alive.’ Can you for once stick to the subject, that you have started in the first place. You have told me about the booklet you published to help other couples. And then you said, it is not the last word on the matter. So, please, where is the discussion about sex? So long, awaiting your reply.
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