Exploring Death and
Altered States of Consciousness

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 cosiness of the virtual freedom, that I had enjoyed for so long, into the big Unknown.

Having decided to go into the face of death, fear arose, big fear. The dormant instinct of survival – now challenged – awoke from sleep and spread fear and doubt all over my body and brain. Everything went on alert to protect what I knew as me. One of those protecting methods was to create doubts, ghosts upon ghosts of doubt. Am I doing the right thing? No one has ever done it before, without going through enlightenment, and won’t I get lost? What if I end up accidentally enlightened? I was dead sure by now that this was a calamity I definitely wanted to avoid. Maybe I am not capable for such an unnatural task? Maybe I am not cleaned up enough and pushing too early? How will I know what is the right direction? And on and on they went in hours of chasing my tail, round in circles without any sensible outcome.

I spent a lot of time in the day to contemplate dying, trying to figure out of what it will consist of, how I will experience it, how it was for Richard. I would call that whole process ‘gathering intent’, adjusting direction, becoming clear that now I was going for the final price. Along with sorting out relationships came hours of deep sorrow, a seemingly endless personal farewell to everything and everyone who I had cherished, held dear, appreciated and felt close to. Well aware that the days of the leisurely ease of virtual freedom lay way behind, with the bridges burnt and no return, now an all-engulfing sadness pervaded me, a bitter-sweet drama that was played out worthy of the supposedly last days of my self. Denial and rejection went hand in hand with ‘pushing the vehicle up the hill’ ie. contemplating on the extinction of the self. What I found was a repetitive circle of fear – frustration – doubt – fear and the only way out is intent, intent to not stop at second best, whatever happens.

The next time that I am lying on the couch, pursuing my death I notice that I am still busy with farewell. We had spent an afternoon with Richard and his companion and reported events. Now I am acknowledging the relationship I had had with him, the joy, the ease, my appreciation for his patient support, his priceless discovery of freedom, the actual world behind the spiritual delusion. My freedom will be a present to him as much as to everyone else. I notice that by saying ‘goodbye’ to him I am also leaving the last signpost. No outer orientation, just my own intent can guide me now.

As more relationships to people have their last pass-by I realize to what extent the self is made of my relationships with people. Becoming aware and letting my emotional bond in those relationships dissolve there seems to be less and less substance to this strange cloud floating around somewhere in my chest.

One day, imagining death again, I encountered a rush of glory going all through my belly, filling the chest area and filling my eyes with tears of joy and anticipation. I could see the ‘self’ enjoying the dignity of a willing death, agreeing to the undeniable fact that only the ‘self’ was in the road of experiencing the perfection of the universe. As close as the ‘self’ is able to I stood at the brink of actual freedom. By sheer obvious comparison I had to admit that I would never be able to accomplish or compete with the purity and crystal clear magic of this perfect universe. This glimpse alone was a thousandfold greater and more magical than any ‘self’ would ever be able to produce, no matter how much I would clean myself up and make myself perfect. This very realisation was to be the defeat of the ‘self’. But at the same time there was the utter joy and celebration of having seen and experienced what I would be dying for and that it was worth all of me.

You would think that was it. Well, it turned out to be one of the trick cards the ‘self’ had in stock – pretending that all was finished and accomplished now, and would I duly please take my mind of it now and finish the search! Waking up the next morning with shoulders stuck to my ears I knew I had deceived myself, the journey was far from over! What a cunning little bugger this oh so perfect ‘self’ could be! A little embarrassed I admitted my trickery to Peter, we had a good laugh and kept looking.

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 focussed 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.’

One day, at dusk, I felt the fear approaching again, tensing my back muscles and increasing in intensity like the swelling sound of cicadas in the bush. This time it was warmly welcomed like a longed-for ally, announcing the approaching of my impending destiny. I have no objections whatsoever, no doubts, not even excitement of something going wrong. A delicious complete undivided yes! to whatever wants to happen. This is doing what is happening, indistinguishable, without choice, clear and obvious. A wave of gratefulness sweeps over me towards everyone who knowingly and unknowingly has contributed to who I am and what I have become – parents and family, teachers and friends, masters and co-seekers, enemies and lovers. They all had part in the perfecting process of me now standing at the brink of completion.

There are physical sensations of fire and tingling in stomach and back, which slowly fill up the whole chest-area with heart-warming feeling. A wave of greatness overcomes me, compassion for all humankind in general and the few people I know in particular. Fear is constantly transformed into fire that fills the heart, melting the strong tension in chest, back and neck.

A feeling of perfection washes over me. I recognize that the ‘I’ is as perfect as can be and thus has fulfilled its every ambition and longing, every dream and aspiration, every hope and goal, every task and responsibility. It can go off stage now. Now in the face of death the ‘I’ is as perfect as can ever be. Immense joy and glory rush through me as it mutates into a shadowy vague substance, lingering about to record the next events to happen. A curious sensation in the top of the spine of someone snipping at wires, as if severing some information connections.

As I lie and wonder what has happened besides the fairy-tale of glorious emotions I notice that my intent is now replaced by confidence and the faculty of doubt has seized to produce any kind of wobble. Intense fear is still present but accompanied by an all-encompassing confidence that everything is happening perfectly. Nothing can go wrong. But surprise there is for sure!

Later on that night I went into an exploration of what enlightenment feels from the inside. In all my year of spiritual search I had been vitally interested of what exactly this enlightenment is that I found so desirable at first. I had investigated descriptions from the different ‘holy’ men and spiritual Scriptures, but could never quite grasp this mysterious ‘state of being’. Now it was obvious. The intense pulsing of the heart, the love and compassion for each and everyone, benevolence and concern mixed with the grandeur of ‘Divine Love’ or ‘Universal Love’. It is a very seductive state with this cozy warm sensation filling the whole chest- or heart-area continuously and an utter at-ease-ness, because every aspect of personal concern, ego or identity is non-existent. And there is no doubt, whatsoever. No doubt about any theory or philosophy running in my head as I try and make sense of this new state. In this cock-sure security I could write Scriptures, poems, treatises on each and every spiritual subject, make up an illusory world of heavens, hells and Divine Laws and methods how to get there. As long as I keep the ‘Love’ flowing, there is no fear involved either. I am convinced I found the Truth – if only there wasn’t this nagging concern that maybe I am cheating myself!

I recognize a satisfaction and pride of finally standing equal as a woman besides all those superior men I have aspired to emulate, copy, obey, surrender to or at least understand. Now I know exactly where they are at. Big deal! Seeing the Power and Glory in action and its impact on me I turn away. This is not the perfection I am searching for, this is not the purity that I know from pure consciousness experiences.

And then I reached the door marked ‘insane’ that Richard had been talking about. Fear reached another crescendo and turned into stark terror. Frantically I try to at least keep up the reporting, the cognitive exploring entity. But I realize that if I want to go through that door, the ‘pioneer’, the ‘scientist’ and the ‘reporter’ will have to stay behind.

As I wake up after a few hours of sleep I am desolate. Frustrated and desperate that the ‘self’ is still in operation and control, that I am not able to reach my goal, I have to admit that I have failed. I had done everything I could think of, feel about and imagine of – nothing had ultimately worked. All my efforts, all my so highly valued explorations and findings have not been able to set me free. No hope, no will, no passionate intent. I am lost empty-handed in no-where-land.

I said to Peter: ‘Forget about everything that I was so cock-sure about yesterday. I have no idea of anything.’

Peter: ‘So, you got out of your enlightenment-stuff then? Congratulations!’

I see that every of my ‘death-experiences’ up to now has been induced by deliberately willing death. It worked to go into the world to enlightenment, to diminish the personal self. But it was a failing device to rid myself of the psychic entity; the psychic survival-instincts are still fully operating inside, inventing one scheme after the other to keep up the illusion that I was indeed getting closer to the desired goal. Willing death was not enough because the ‘who was willing it’ stayed untouched.

The impact and the very paradox of this revelation was devastating. I cannot do anything but something still needs to be done. Squirming about in despair I could but face the facts. And the fact was that the end of ‘me’ is inevitable. Nothing less than the inconceivable it stood there. The only thing to do was to stop denying the fact.

Richard: Where you say ‘now if this is true’ (true as in actually happening) I must ask: Is it? Because otherwise your whole case is predicated upon a conditional premise ... and as such amounts to an intellectual exercise. For if it is true, then it is a fact. Be it initially depressing or not, a fact is actual. One cannot argue about a fact as one can about a belief or a truth ... one can only deny a fact and pretend that it is not there. So ... what is it?

Then the question to ask is: ‘Why depression? Because when I see the fact of something ... the fact sets me free of choice. Is it not choice that causes the affective reaction ... in this case: depression? Now, if I am feeling depressed, can I see clearly? Would not this affective reaction be colouring my seeing? Yes? No? If yes, then there is something I can do – now – about my depression. Then – and only then – I will be able to see the ‘problem’ of the six billion plus 180,000 clearly. When I see clearly ... then I can proceed ... for then there is action. Seeing the fact – which is seeing without choice – then there is action ... and this action is not of ‘my’ doing. Richard, List B, No 23a, No 21, 12.10.1998

We found a book by Bernadette Roberts, a Christian mystic, called ‘What is Self?’ where she talks about no-ego and the no-self, only to describe that after enlightenment she gets even further lost into the fantasy of being one with Christ. And recently, when somebody asked me about the so-called Akashic Records, I experienced that ‘bliss-state’ again for about an hour, the state Mrs. Roberts seems to talk about. I finally got a grip on it – I could experience it and describe from the ‘outside’ what was happening. This blissful state seems unemotional, no love or compassion is felt in the heart, everything is a cool ‘oneness’. One feels all-pervading, ‘I am everything and everything is me and everything is divine’.

The experience can easily be mistaken as intimacy because the sense of ‘me’ is so expanded across the universe and spread so thin, so to speak, that ‘me’ is hardly noticeable. As ‘I am every thing’, one is of course ‘feeling’ intimate with the physical world and is able to psychically tune into the religious experience of others. (see Bernadette Roberts, ‘What is Self?’). Fascinating and seductive and very eerie. I think this could be a bit like the parallel universe scientists fantasize about. One then lives in a universe where everything is a virtual replica of the actual, with the glow of divinity, unity and timeless-ness to it – and as it is a virtual reality, it is controlled by the imagination of the one who makes it up.

This ‘parallel’ universe ‘feels’ and is ‘imagined’ as intimate or not-separate from ‘me’, and yet it is twice removed from the physical body, the senses, this actual world. This ‘insanity’ of ‘feeling one with everything’ is the barrier that prevents one from experiencing the world directly with the senses as a flesh and blood body. Wow, I really understand why these guys are so far out there, lost and locked in an imaginary space that has almost no return-ticket.

But then, you only have to pinch yourself and where it hurts, that’s actual.

It is good not to be trapped by this complete insanity. It is the same type of disassociation that people suffer from that are in an insane asylum. The film ‘Awakening’ depicted some of those people. There was one woman who could not walk to the window because the checker pattern on the floor was interrupted by a black line until the doctor changed the black line into checkers. In her ‘world’ the black line was dangerous. The religious insanity is being locked into another type of fantasy-world, where one isn’t really the body and one’s True Self will be free only after death – it is an altered state of consciousness, forever cut off from common sense.

Richard: Is not ‘understanding’ something the same thing as ‘analysing’ something? To understand something is to intellectually grasp a concept successfully. This may be the activity of ‘I’ thinking as clearly as ‘I’ can possibly think, yet it is not the same clarity as the clear seeing obtained in an insight ... and an insight is seeing the fact.

When one sees the fact there is action ... and this action is the actualising of the insight so that one’s personality is changed, irrevocably. This change is the beginning of the ending of the ‘self’ one was born with. ‘I’ can not stand exposure to the bright light of awareness for too long without crumpling like a leaky balloon. ‘I’ survive only by being able to lurk around in the shadows of inattention and obfuscation.

‘I’ was born with the instinct to survive, and ‘I’ will do anything to stay in existence, for it is in ‘my’ nature to do so. Intellectually grasping a concept and calling it an insight is part ‘my’ game plan. The seeing of this fact is a direct experience of the actuality of the Human Condition. ... this is actual wisdom. And out of that wisdom there is the essential intensity for the actualisation.

This actualisation is the ending of ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety. Richard, List B, No 12, 16.2.1998

After an afternoon talking to Richard I understood several points about death:

• I had had spent two days with the hopeless effort to grasp ‘death’, to understand what death is. It had been accompanied with occasional great fear, tensions and racing thought, yet I had been unable to make sense out of the fact that with death everything stops. Finally I understood that there is nothing to understand. Death is the end, it is not to understand, nothing to comprehend – it is unknowable. With it I could also drop the doubt that I may be too stupid to become free, because I had not been able to solve an unsolvable puzzle.
• The other thing I understood was the point of the elimination of ego and soul. In order to become actually free, ego and soul die together. It seems quite impossible to lose one’s ego only without being thrown into enlightenment when – with no ego to keep the balance – the soul has unrestricted reign. So, coming closer to the point of extinction, the trick is not to get sucked into the glamour and glory of Love and Bliss, but to stay put until it is all over.
• When I asked Richard how to die, how to do the final step, he replied, ‘you just do it’. It sounded very puzzling at first until I realised that the ‘how to’ was part of my standing on the brakes. There is no ‘how to’, there is only the 100% willingness to agree and actively initiate one’s complete elimination.
• Further I understood that the sentence ‘you just do it’, ‘you just push the button that brings about ‘your’ demise’ also maintains that all the doing is ‘my’ doing – there is no waiting for ‘it’ to mysteriously happening at some mysteriously ‘right’ time. The only one who can do it and who chooses the time to do it is ‘me’. So I can gather my 100% intent, without wasting time in waiting for something else and go ahead – just do it.

Later, at home, I put the understanding into action. Great fear grabbed me but I was determined not to fool myself this time with some dramatic performance. Applying apperception instead of being sucked in by the drama I watched the weirdest occurrences like heart-palpitations, paralysed forearms, frozen torso and great tension in the back of the neck. There was no emotional interpretation of what was happening, just the delicious thrill of the actual process of disappearing.

And then, half an hour later, I opened my eyes, had a little talk with Peter and off we jumped into bed for an scrumptiously delicious tango of sexual delights. I found the following correspondence that helped me understand more about psychological and psychic death.

Respondent: Are you (the thinker or chooser) bringing about this psychic death?

Richard: Yes and no ... and I am not being tricky here. Yes, in that ‘I’ bring about this ‘death’ in that ‘I’ deliberately and consciously and with knowledge aforethought set in motion a ‘process’ that will ensure ‘my’ demise. And no, in that ‘I’ do not do the deed itself for an ‘I’ cannot end itself. What ‘I’ do, voluntarily and willingly, is to press the button which precipitates an – oft-times alarming but thrilling – momentum that will result in ‘my’ inevitable self-immolation. What one does is that one dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here as the universe’s experience of itself. When ‘I’ freely and intentionally sacrifice ‘myself’ – the psychological and psychic entities residing inside this body – ‘I’ am gladly making ‘my’ most supreme donation, for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear.

It is a welcome release into actuality. I am finally here. I discover that I have always been here ... I have never been anywhere else for there is nowhere else ... except illusion and into delusion. The ‘real world’ and the ‘Greater Reality’ had their existence only in ‘my’ fertile imagination. Only this, the actual world, genuinely exists. This exquisite surprise brings with it ecstatic relief at the moment of mutation ... life is perfect after all. But, then again, has one not suspected this to be so all along? At the moment of freedom from the Human Condition there is a clear sense of ‘I have always known this’. Doubt is banished forever ... no more verification is required. All is self-evidently pure and perfect. Everything is indeed well.

It is the greatest gift one can bestow upon oneself and others. Richard, List B, No 12, 6.3.1998

It doesn’t happen all at once and the fear involved seems to be a matter of temperament, because Peter seems to be much less afflicted with it than I am. But with naiveté and intent it turns into the delicious wonderful thrill, everything is psychedelically alive, thriving with live, vibrating in colours, sounds and tastes.

The door that I found had three words written on it: ‘Death’, ‘Insanity’, ‘Oblivion’

While ‘death’ stood for death of the psychological entity, the ego-death it seemed almost like a duty to fulfil. ‘Insanity’ had the air of a lot of giggle, fun and bizarre stories. It stood for the death of the soul including all of societies morals and values, emotions and beliefs. Oblivion appeared the most attractive of them all. Oblivion is the demise from humanity, the instinctual bond to all human beings, to original cause for the experience of separation.

Considering each of them with the respective objections and attractions they each gave way to the layer underneath it – the psychological entity revealed the nature of the ‘soul’, which on complete discovery and understanding revealed the raw nature of the instincts, strongest of them all the instinct to survive, the bare fear.

All ‘I’ am is my feelings, all ‘I’ am is my beliefs and all ‘I’ am is my instincts. ‘I’ consist of nothing else. And facing and acknowledging this obvious fact, ‘I’ knew that ‘I’ would never succeed to reach ‘my’ goal, ‘I’ would never make the 100% mark, ‘I’ would never attain the prized freedom. By the very nature of actual freedom that is an impossibility. ‘I’ would always be stuck at the 99% mark. ‘I’ cannot improve any further. ‘I’ can never claim the success. A feeling of failure struck me as ‘I’ realised ‘my’ limitations. That is the end of trying and achieving, the end of ‘my’ job and the end of ‘my’ mission. Acknowledging the obvious fact of not being able to succeed as ‘me’, I have to give up – and cease being in the road. There is a sense of redundancy and relief that are both delicious and ambrosial. Here ‘I’ am, with nothing left to achieve – the very prerequisite for being happy and harmless.

I thought I need to find out more about the feeling of impatience. Impatience has always been one of the driving forces in my life and kept me going, counteracting the innate inertia to get me back on the track of what I wanted to achieve. But the more I am actually here and enjoying life, the more the feeling of impatience becomes a nuisance and is, in fact, preventing me from enjoying what is happening here in this moment.

Of course, for most of the process on the path to an actual freedom I need a lot of impatience, a burning discontent and dissatisfaction with life as it is and with the second rate compromise of living that both real-world and spiritual-world solutions have on offer. But with the incremental dismantling of all the emotions that constitute my self I come to understand the role that impatience is playing now – preventing ‘me’ from disappearing.

The main fuel for this feeling of impatience comes from the notion that there is something better ‘out there’, in the future – that magic ingredient that will then make life as perfect as the ending of children’s fairytale – and then they lived happily ever after. And yet it is this very feeling of impatience, that particular bit of my ‘self’, that prevents me from the sensate-only experiencing the perfection of this moment.

Impatience is my ‘self’ telling my ‘self’ to go away in order for life to be perfect thereafter. What a furphy! Who am I trying to fool? This is what cunningness in action looks like. It is fascinating to see the self splitting itself into two yet again in order to pretend that there is change happening without really having to change anything. Seeing through the charade, I experience the thrill that accompanies the shift from a furphy to an actual experience, from ‘feeling impatient’ to actively dismantling the ‘self’, from stepping out of the ‘real’ world to arriving here. I understand that the only way to approach self-immolation is by welcoming the death of ‘me’ with free will, open arms and a full YES. It is a magic formula, that turning around 180 degrees again, a yes to immolation rather than a no to life as it is. When death is welcome with the same thrilling anticipation as a sexual playmate then I know I am on the right track.

So impatience is being replaced by an understanding of redundancy – the more I experientially understand about the human condition the more ‘I’ become redundant because life in the actual world is utterly safe and already perfect. ‘I’ am not needed to stay alive. The more I understand the chemical, psychological and psychic programming of the brain, the more I can see that this programming is outdated, faulty and redundant in every single aspect – ‘I’ am not needed at all. Virtual Freedom is the ongoing increasing experience of ‘my’ redundancy, kind of getting used to not interfering with perfection. The way I see it now is that death is simply an extension of this continuing discovery of ‘me’, the spoiler, being redundant, turning 98% redundancy to 99% and 99% to 100% ... ... pop.

The only way I can reach this 100% redundancy is by being here all the time, doing what is happening without emotionally interfering – and if there is an emotion, then investigating it, nutting it out, sitting it out, thinking it through, understanding its follies and furphies. In the end, every emotion is understood as nothing but an objection to and fear of being here – and an objection to being redundant as an entity.

A death sought after, because of frustration with being here, can only lead to an Altered State of Consciousness because a strong negative feeling can only produce a strong good feeling as a chemical balancing act. A similar balancing act happened when my frustration with real life had lead me to fall in love with a spiritual master twenty years ago – I was desperate to escape the ‘real’ world, eager to seek a feel-good recipe to get out of ‘real’ life.

Self-immolation is different in quality, a more and more dispassionate, yet utterly sensate and thrilling experience. In the process of experientially understanding my tender and savage instinctual passions in operation they lose their grip, fire and reality ... and finally their credibility, until I simply observe a process of chemicals rising and subsiding.

What a marvel is the human brain!

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 calls them, the everyday things that life consists of – shower, breakfast, rain, coffee, working, typing, walking, shopping, gardening, watching the birds, talking, sex, 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 joie de vivre – gay abandon, as Peter calls it. So it has been literally a turning away from giving importance to the ‘metaphysical’ to focussing 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.

For the follow up of Vineeto’s story of becoming actually free click here.