Vineeto ~ Selected Writings

Discussing with Peter all the different options of how to do it best has been intimacy in practice – wonderfully easy and exquisitely delightful. So this is our joint presentation, and as I am looking at it I can say that I am pleased about the end result. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as we had fun creating it.

It all started when, one bright day in the beginning of October 98, Peter announced that he had decided he would not wait for me any longer. He would now go for the last step to freedom. I remember clearly him sitting on the moss-green railing of our balcony, his feet firmly pressed against the wall below for support, cigarette in hand and grinning mischievously. I was shocked that now was the time to die, to completely extinguish the ‘self’ I knew myself to be. No more procrastination. No more postponement, lingering on in this cozy delightful virtual freedom, wondering what emotion still wanted tackling – leisurely, pleasurely, at ease.

We had had several months of joyous exploration into the Human Condition since Peter’s Journal had been published. We lived day-in, day-out in perfect peace and harmony and enjoyed the leisure time in our little flat, doing very little, walking into town, having sex, playing on the computer, writing, watching TV, laying around on the couches and talking a lot. More and more we had cleaned ourselves up from instincts, emotions and beliefs, finding here and there bits in the ‘cupboard’ of our psyche to be swept out.

Now that pace had changed. Peter ‘charged for the bunker’! What about me? Surely I would not want to hang around any longer when he is disappearing! So I got myself into forward gear, checked on the direction and started the motor to drive away from the familiar coziness of the virtual freedom, that I had enjoyed for so long, into the big Unknown.

When Peter talks about an issue, an experience or how he perceives a situation I know exactly what he is talking about, and so does he when I tell my story. We are not in different movies or from different planets; we live in the actual, factual world, able to understand each other’s train of thought and make ‘common sense’ of our experiences. There is no female, emotional world for me to wallow in and no male, rational world for Peter to retreat to. By not being in different camps there is now no need for love, whose only function in the past was to provide a ‘bridge over troubled water’ – the abyss of gender. The actual permanent intimacy we enjoy now is vastly superior to any temporary good feelings of love, which we both had experienced before.

It has been a wonderful thrill, joy and support to go through this whole journey with Peter together. Since no personal relationship would spoil the sincere intent of both our investigations we could scientifically explore the ways our brains are wired and what is the easiest and quickest way out of this maze of emotion around death. I was often astonished and amazed that I never experienced a retreat or rejection from his side, again 180 degrees in the opposite direction to the spiritual approach. With each of us being focused on our own discoveries and willingness to die we were thus able to compare notes, detect deceit or confusion, remember intent, and, after all, share the delights of the day. We would have a cup of coffee in the morning, go down town for lunch, do our shopping, lay around and talk, watch TV, have sex, write or play card and meet people just like before. Nobody would guess our state of madness, our seemingly impossible mission or at times our desperate attempts to see through the thick of it all. In this way we were not only pioneering to find a direct way to actual freedom without going in and out of Enlightenment, but also proved that it is possible to ‘stay in the marketplace’ and do it together with another human being.

One of our typical conversations would go like this:

Peter: ‘How is your conundrum?’

Vineeto: ‘Oh, it hasn’t appeared today yet, I expect it any time. How about you?’

Peter: ‘Mine is buzzing away in the background, giving every moment the thrilling experience of the adventure of a life-time.’

I have found that by living in virtual freedom I have shifted my whole focus and emphasis from solving emotional problems and debunking beliefs to sensually and sensately enjoying ‘wee-things’ (as Billy Connolly said), the everyday things that life consists of – breakfast, rain, typing, coffee, walking, shopping, talking, sex, shower, watching TV and going to bed at night-time. And maybe half an hour of the day was spent pondering about ‘fear, death and deep matters’ of ‘me’. And thus the perspective changes, the focus changes from the imaginary to the actual, from the dramatic to the ordinary, from serious introspection to delightful hedonism – gay abandon, as Peter calls it. So it has been literally a turning away from giving importance to the ‘metaphysical’ to focusing on the actuality of life, the universe and what it is to be a human being. And what a delight that is, each moment again, just to be alive, breathing and listening, tasting and seeing, smelling and touching. And then you get to do things on top of it – sheer delight.

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