Vineeto ~ Selected Writings

When Peter and I started to throw out love it had a great impact on my sexual ‘identity’. It was an intense and scary time because right behind the nice, embellishing veil of love lingered all the monsters and demons of being an animal, a whore, a slut, not human and having sex with a ‘stranger’. Enjoying sex without ‘being in love’ is still considered one of the greatest sins of Christian morality. And Eastern spirituality regards any kind of sex as the biggest obstacle to enlightenment.

It has nothing to do with my happiness and inhibits any sensible behaviour. Those blind instincts cause, among other troubles, possessiveness, jealousy, rape, murder and overpopulation. Identified and seen as what they were, these instincts eventually lost their significance and their grip over me. Now I can enjoy the sensibility and pleasure of sex without being driven, free of the need and dependency that used to be the inevitable consequence. I now don’t need to reinforce my female sexual identity or practise my manipulative power over men – hence the need for flirting has disappeared. Relating to men without the restriction of sexual flirtation is indeed a freedom to meet them in a new and fresh way.

Now I started to question the idea of higher love and compassion – whether they were values that still had any significance for me on my way to freedom. Given that I had seen through the belief in the ultimate authority of God I could now more easily explore the nature of the bonds with the Master and face the fears which came along with dismantling my relationship with Him – he who claimed to represent the ‘Absolute Truth’ in the spiritual world. I now set out to compare his promised ultimate goal of enlightenment with my already experienced delightful glimpses of freedom.

My only knowledge about enlightenment had consisted either of what I had heard and read from the Master or of the borrowed bliss or ‘energy’ that I felt when sitting devotionally at His feet. He had been ‘big daddy’ for me, he knew what was right and wrong, he told me what to do with my life, where to search and what to find! But then ‘big daddy’ had died and I had not found any tangible evidence of my being closer to enlightenment despite a lot of intent and effort. Also, there existed no consistent pathway or map, which could establish my position relative to the goal. When I noticed that friends were having a harder time to cope with the ‘world’ after long meditations I didn’t know if that was to be considered a success or a failure. After leaving Poona I meditated regularly for two years and tried to really understand Rajneesh’s teachings. However, the hope of finding something worthwhile in my spiritual search started to fade, but because of my life-long habit of blaming myself, I did not dare to question the validity of the teachings themselves. ‘It is only because I am not pushing hard enough, I am not meditating enough, I am too dumb or too lazy’, I thought.

After I met Peter and began to use Richard’s new method of examining and stripping away beliefs, I was challenged by the success of our continuously improving relationship. My life was becoming easier, happier and more thrilling every time I explored a new issue. However, I found myself quite torn apart because I was also desperately trying to hold on to my old ways. I was afraid to leave the fold – this imaginary ‘community’ where right and wrong was clearly defined and confirmed by everyone around me. I was trying to live in two worlds at the same time. Loyalty to the Master became quite a gut-churning issue. How could I dare to question His love, His authority, His power, His great vision? How could I be a traitor, stepping away yet again from another group that had provided me with meaning and a sense of belonging as well as financial and emotional security?

Exploring a way no one has ever gone before has been, and still is, immensely scary at times. First the fears had names like ‘I am afraid of losing friends or my job’, ‘I will be lost and lonely when I leave the fold’, ‘I will be persecuted as a traitor’, ‘I will grow into a poor old woman and nobody will take care of me.’ Each time I had to encounter the dominant fear at the time and examine the belief that supported the fear. It always took some effort to not believe in the fear, but to take a closer look. Once the belief behind the fear was identified as just a belief the next thing to do became obvious and easy. I realise that I can easily take care of myself and I am actually safe – nobody is hurting me, I won’t die of hunger or face any other terrible danger.

Eventually those fears are becoming less and the survival instinct itself, the ‘fear of disappearing or dying’ surfaces – quite a serious threat. But it is also the very thing that I am intending to do, to eliminate this ‘self’. I have learned to see that whenever such a fear-attack would rush through me, it was the ‘self’, my identity, which caused the fear in order to re-affirm its existence. I find that I can sit out those fear-attacks on the sidelines, once I recognize them for what they are – simply an emotion or feeling, not a fear produced by an actual danger. Once identified they lose their power and eventually fade, giving way to the direct experience of the world as it is – a marvellous, wonderful and safe place.

Writing this chapter has activated my fears once more. I thought, ‘Oh dear, when this book gets published, the shit will hit the fan. People will despise me, won’t talk to me, and will turn away. Everybody will know that I don’t agree with their beliefs... I will be all on my own.’

The experience left me shaking for another day, and I am glad to know that the door marked ‘dread’ is as much a delusion as the door marked ‘enlightenment’. Quite a Rocky Horror Picture Show, just more real – and yet, all happening inside one’s own head!