Please note that Peter’s correspondence below was written by the feeling-being ‘Peter’ while ‘he’ lived in a pragmatic (methodological), still-in-control/same-way-of-being Virtual Freedom before becoming actually free.
Selected Correspondence Peter Imagination PETER: Hi Mark, Just a note to you about nothing in particular. Good to read your posts. I am at present writing a bit on the Glossary for our web-site and wrote a piece on imagination which I thought I’d post off as it explains a bit about how, and why, we are as we are – i.e.. inflicted with such a pervasive belief that it is not only impossible but somehow ‘wrong’ to be happy. I recently observed a 1 year old baby for a few hours and it particularly struck me that her brain was still in a very formative stage. She had started to get some basic senses sorted out a bit – co-ordination, eating, touching and handling things, recognition, mobility, etc., but walking, talking, communicating, reflecting, contemplating, etc. were still to come. It was a bit like a computer yet to be programmed with the full software – only a few basic functions just working but yet to have a full input of data and as such incapable of any useful independent functioning. I wondered exactly what information she would receive in the coming years until she was able to leave the shelter and protection of her family and emerge into the world as an independent human. It became very apparent that what she was already being programmed with was an imaginary view of the world, rather than an actual view. So here’s my bit on imagination – imagination –– The action of imagining or forming mental images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses. Scheming or devising; a fanciful project. The faculty of fanciful thought. Oxford Dictionary Peter: The human brain with its ability to cogitate, reflect and communicate is the peak of intelligence known to be currently manifest in the universe. These unique functions, when overlaid over the instinctual rudimentary ‘self’, produce in humans a much more sophisticated and complex self than in any other animal. Further, this individual sense of self has been painfully aware not only of a ferocious world of wild animals and a harsh environment, but also of the fact that it could die or be killed at any moment. At some seminal moment in evolution, there began a faculty of fanciful thought, an escape from harsh reality and a retreat into the world of imagination. The sun became a thing of awe in the face of fear of darkness, the night skies and stars things of wonder in the face of the hell of life on earth. Thus the world of the heavens was to be eventually seen as populated by good and evil spirits, later to be personified as gods and goddesses, demons and devils. In the face of instinctual fear, humans escaped into a fanciful imaginary world that was to become so strong, so powerful, and so convincing as to be eventually accepted as being as real, and as substantial, as everyday reality. Curiously, this world of imagination is not only confined to the spiritual world but is also rampant in all scientific communities as is evidenced by the meta-physical ruminations of theoretical physics, pure mathematics, psychology, anthropology, psychology, astronomy, etc. Various attempts have been made to crack through, or escape from, the stranglehold this imaginary psychic construct has over humanity, but all have failed to go all the way (up until now). This capacity for imagination is imbibed with mother’s milk – the first stories we are told, and therefore the first world view we have, is of an ‘other-world’ of fairy stories, fictionary romance, heroism, tales of good and evil – all totally imaginary and having no relevance to the physical, actual world of people, things and events in which we live. We are, in fact, inducted into believing the imaginary world to be primary and real, and consequently to regard the physical, actual world as secondary and illusionary. This primary imaginary world includes both a ‘real’ world-view and its associated ‘spiritual’ world-view, neither of which are actual. This obsession with imagination, belief, trust, faith and hope offers a continuing haven of denial of the facts of the Human Condition and prevents us from getting up off our bums, or up from our lotus position, and taking the necessary action that will lead to the eventual elimination of malice and sorrow from this fair planet. The Actual Freedom Trust Glossary So, when things get a bit rough, or a bit strange, or a bit weird, it is just that we are ‘wiping’ the computer back to the hard disk and wondering like hell whether we can keep operating. Well, experience shows that the whole system runs so, so, so much better without imagination, without beliefs, and without emotions. It is a bit of a weird thing to do because ‘you’ are, in fact, nothing other than this program that has been installed. It is all you have known yourself to be – except in the PCE, of course, when the programmed ‘you’ has a little glitch and crashes and Bingo – you, as flesh and blood body free of fear, aggression, malice and sorrow emerge for a peek into the actual world. And all we are trying to do is dismantle the program installed in the brain that essentially says nothing more than ‘It is Impossible to be Happy and Harmless’. There is a lot of fine print, subtle nuances and silly nonsense but that is the core message of the installed program. What a cheeky delight to prove everyone wrong ... RESPONDENT: My first questions relate to what is (apparently) lost in AF. If there is no imaginative faculty, no mind-space at all in which to visualise objects and processes, how is it possible to understand systems and processes that do not occur right before one’s eyes? For example: could Peter continue being an architect if he were to experience the final physiological transformation that Richard has undergone? By what means could he design and mentally manipulate new architectural plans if he had no imaginative faculty? How could he understand and discuss plans with a colleague, without seeing an actual representation of them? How could he rearrange mental images if he has no ‘mind space’, no inner eye? Would he become useless (as an architect) without his CAD software? PETER: The reason I thought to respond was that I have made a living as an architect whilst being a ‘normal’ person and continue to do so whilst being virtually free of malice and sorrow. I have also had numerous PCEs so I know by experience what it would be to be work as an architect free of the burden of passions and imagination. As I remember it, when I was normal the design process was a somewhat tortuous process – it was an essential part of the process to try and form a mental image of what I was designing before I tried to convert the mental image into a drawing. This forming of a mental image sometimes began even before the job started, before I met the clients or saw the land. The mental image was then based solely on what ‘I’ wanted to do, which was often at odds with what the client wanted to do or had the money to pay for or what best suited the site, the climate, the local regulations, the ease of construction, and so on. In other words the image of what I wanted to do was utterly selfist, passionate and imaginary and not at all not rooted in actuality. This process of forming a mental image and then trying to actualize it in some form is often termed ‘the creative process’ and I very often suffered angst and anguish going through this process – feelings that are well-documented as being part and parcel of being a ‘creative’ person. Of course many self-aggrandizing feelings also arise – there is no more smug feeling than ‘me’ feeling that ‘I’ am being creative – particularly when ‘I’ receive the plaudits of others for being ‘the creator’. However this feeling of smugness always had a hollow ring to it for me because ‘I’ was often aware that ‘I’ was claiming credit for something ‘I’ was not responsible for. Sometimes I would put this feeling into words such as ‘it wasn’t me who did it’ and I have heard others do likewise. I have also heard people say things like ‘there is a creative force that works through me’, often implying that ‘there is a Creative, aka Divine, Force that works through me’ and the more megalomaniacal even get to think and feel that ‘I am the Creative Force’. There is so much self-indulgent twaddle that has been written about creativity as to make the word creative hackneyed and I was aware of this even in my pre-actualist days. When I became an actualist I started to become more attentive to my feelings and this included the feelings that were happening when I was trying to mentally conceptualize a design, as well as those feelings that were happening during the putting-it-down-on-paper stage. I started to become attentive to not only the emotional ups and downs that I went through but also to the effect these feelings had on others in my interactions with clients and builders, as well as those most close to me. Late one night in my first year as an actualist, as I was working on the drawing board, I had a pure conscious experience whereby my mind became aware of itself working. There was apperception happening in that there was no ‘me’ being aware – there was simply the brain being aware of the brain in operation, in this case doing the task of designing a house. The process that was happening was fascinating to observe – there was a continual consideration of the parameters that governed the design: the client’s requirements, past experience, site considerations, planning and building regulations, structural considerations, climate considerations, budget, ease of building, appearance, durability, workability and so on. There was a repeated shuffling of ideas and information operating – a trial and error process of working out the best solution – and it was magical to observe, even more so because there was awareness of only part of the process that was going on, there was a good deal happening ‘on the back burner’ as it were. Sometimes a particular issue was set aside for a while whilst another issue was addressed and when I returned to it later the best solution came instantaneously which made it apparent that there was an awareness only of the surface activity of the brain in action. The operation of the human brain is such an exquisite intricacy as to be truly wondrous. With no ‘I’ in the road to agonize over the process, nor a ‘me’ present to either exalt or despair at the outcome, there was simply the brain doing what the brain does – think, plan, reflect, evaluate, compare, compute, assess and mull over, as well as simultaneously being aware that this is what it is doing. And not only that, whilst the brain is being apperceptively aware, it is also serving as the central processing unit for the sensory perceptive system of the body – continually processing the myriad of sensate information that is this flesh and blood body’s sensual sensitivity to whatever is happening in this moment. In a PCE, it is wondrously apparent that the brain itself is not doing the sensing, it is only interpreting or making sense of the sensory input – and only doing so when and if it is needed to do so. There is an awareness that it is the eyes that are doing the seeing – there is no image of what the eyes are seeing that is transferred to the cerebral brain, there is an awareness that it is the ears that are doing the hearing – there is no sound that is transferred to the cerebral brain, there is an awareness that it is the skin that is doing the feeling and touching – there is no tactile response felt in the cerebral brain … and so on. In a PCE, the brain, bereft of any illusionary identity together with its associated affective faculty, is incapable of forming mental images or indulging in imaginary scenarios – it is either apperceptively aware that it is involved in doing what it does, thinking and interpreting sensory inputs or it is not, in which case there is no thinking or interpreting going on, simply a sensual awareness of being conscious of being alive. Now whilst such ‘self’-less experiences of apperception only occur in a PCE, an actualist who has got to the stage of being virtually free of malice and sorrow can operate and function with very little of the debilitating effects of ‘I’ stuffing things up or ‘me’ strutting the stage like some disembodied drama queen in a dream, or a nightmare, of ‘my’ imagination. In virtual freedom it is readily apparent that there is no need to indulge in imaginative fantasies nor to attempt to create mental images – in fact should they occur they are quickly seen for what they are – a pathetic substitute for the sumptuousness of actuality. To bring this back to the business of being an architect, it means that any attempt on ‘my’ part to form a mental image, either prior to or during the design process, only inhibits the doing of the designing – a practical doing that happens anyway and happens at its very best whenever ‘I’ am absent from the scene. I don’t know if that answers your question but I had fun writing of my experiences as an actualist. As I said, there is so much twaddle written about so-called creativity that it is good to have some sense written about the actuality of creating something. RESPONDENT: In what way is, say, Einstein’s physics inconsistent with actual observation of the actual universe’s behaviour? PETER: Einstein’s physics has no relevance at all to the actual objective observation of either the matter that is this actual universe or to the qualities of that matter and this glaring anomaly is explained away by Einsteinian physicists with the glib dismissal that Einstein’s physics do not apply to ‘locally-observable phenomena’ or to any conditions that we can experience on earth lat alone those that we can sensibly relate to our everyday lives. Local phenomena and objective observation are not the realm of Einstein’s physics – a sure sign that His physics have nothing to do with actuality. Einstein apparently has such a Guru status within the scientific community that few dare to question his theories for to do so would be to dare to challenge the accepted current status quo of science itself. RESPONDENT: Better still, so as not to get too far off track, how is it (Einstein’s physics) inconsistent with what one experiences in a PCE? PETER: In a PCE, there is no psychological or psychic faculty present to be interested in, let alone capable of, indulging in imaginative scenarios or fanciful thinking about the nature and properties of matter and energy. RESPONDENT: Which says nothing at all about whether the imaginative model is useful in describing, explaining and predicting the behaviour of all observable phenomena (not just locally-observable, either). PETER: I was replying to the question you asked me – [Respondent]: ‘how is it [Einstein’s physics] inconsistent with what one experiences in a PCE?’, [endquote]. not the new question you had yet to ask me. [Respondent]: ‘whether the imaginative model is useful in describing, explaining and predicting the behaviour of all observable phenomena (not just locally-observable, either). [endquote]. I can’t provide an answer to a question you didn’t ask me. Have you noticed that I replied to both of your questions about Einsteinian physics and that you are now moving off-track again by rephrasing the question, replacing the words ‘Einsteinian physics’ with the words ‘imaginative models’? To make it clearer to you, I will rephrase my response – [rephrased]: In a PCE, there is no psychological or psychic faculty present to be interested in, let alone capable of, indulging in imaginative scenarios or fanciful thinking (that which gave birth to Einsteinian physics and continues to sustain it) about the supposed nature and properties of metaphysical (not locally-observable) matter and energy. [end rephrase]. As for your new question, in a PCE, whilst one is able to speculate about down-to-earth matters as in – conjecture about, theorize about, hypothesize about, guess about, take a guess about, surmise about, muse on, reflect on, deliberate about, cogitate about, consider, think about – it is impossible to indulge in imaginative scenarios or fanciful thinking because there is no psychic or affective faculty operating that is able to do so. Imagination – The action of imagining or forming mental images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses; the result of this process. 2 The mental faculty which forms images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses, and of their relations (to each other or to the subject). Oxford Dictionary Not only does the PCE reveal that imagination is a passionate ‘self’-centred activity, mostly based on communally-accepted beliefs and fears but an on-going astute observation of one’s own imagination in action also reveals this to be the case. * PETER: What does become startlingly apparent about the nature and properties of matter is that the matter that is the universe is not merely passive – the very matter that is this universe is in a constant state of change and transformation, often imperceptibly slowly, sometimes dramatically evident. RESPONDENT: Sure, but none of this is inconsistent with relativity, or the ‘Big Bang’. PETER: I was referring to the ‘self’-less experiencing that one has in a PCE – an experience which is objective – and as such has nothing at all to do with the subjective thought-experiments that spawned and feeds so-called relativity theory. The pure consciousness experience of the matter that is this universe is also completely at odds with the ‘Big Bang’ theory – a theory that would have us believe that the matter that is this universe is not constant, as in being in a constant state of change and transformation, but that it ephemeral – i.e. was born (apparently out of nothingness) due to a miraculous thus-far-inexplicable event and will therefore eventually die (apparently into the very same nothingness again), again due to a miraculous thus-far-inexplicable event. PETER: Humanity is genetically/ instinctually and historically/ socially bound to consist of separate feuding tribes and families and religions. You only have to observe the fierce ongoing resistance to any attempts to break the stranglehold this tribal conditioning has on human beings. The blind, senseless resistance to the ‘globalization’ of trade, commerce, communications, language and culture is fascinating to watch. A united Europe is now a faded post-war dream, as every tin pot region seeks autonomy and independence, every religious/ spiritual group declares their right to be different, and groups desperately seek to preserve their cultural roots, traditions, language, beliefs, superstitions, sacred places, buildings and holy relics. The only way to regard, and treat, others as fellow human beings is to rid yourself of all this rubbish – a process of ‘self’-diminishing that can, if undertaken with pure intent, lead to ‘self’-immolation. GARY: That the way to an Actual Freedom consists in a process of brain engineering/ re-engineering is given credence not only by Richard’s findings but also neurological findings of the amazing plasticity of the nervous system and human brain. The brain adapts not only to changes in the environment in response to certain types of stimulation but also changes in behavior. In other words, when I become more happy and harmless, the changes in my behavior towards others is actually producing further changes in my brain, which then leads to further changes in my behavior, etc, etc, through a continuous feedback-loop. While I am sure this may be hotly debated by some, I think we are seeing that the human brain is capable of some amazing adaptations and rearrangements, all of which signal the plasticity of the nervous system. PETER: The most amazing thing about the human species is that it is equipped with a brain that is uniquely capable of studying and understanding its own operation. This study is in its infancy in understanding the electro-chemical circuitry but this same capacity makes it possible for you and I to make our own studies of how we have been genetically and socially programmed, compare notes and share our insights and discoveries. Understanding this amazing ability, and experiencing it in action, is to experience that this actual physical universe is far more magical and fantastic than any ‘self’-centred paltry imagination can conceive or any ‘self’-centred inflamed passion can perceive. What is actual is beyond belief and beyond imagination. PETER: It does take time to write and I have always preferred quality to quantity, interest to disinterest, vitality to weariness, down-to-earthness to holier-than-thouness and talking common sense rather than exchanging hackneyed and rehashed platitudes. Which is why I particularly enjoy writing to you given that we are able to talk freely about any-thing at all. GARY: I still find it absolutely fascinating to be writing to someone on the other side of the world and be able to compare notes about experiences which are to some extent universal to all humans. The potential of this medium is astounding. As you say, it does take time to write, and it does take time to respond to these posts, and I ordinarily go through cycles of interest and disinterest with it. Generally reading a post and allowing it to infiltrate my consciousness for awhile before responding, but working at it over several days in a slow, methodical way. And I must say that I find myself forming mental images of the people with whom I am talking, and these mental images crop up from time to time. It does seem to me, however, that the imaging process has gotten less and less and I am more concerned with the content of the post and responding genuinely and sensibly based on what is being written to me. Also there is the realization that one’s images probably have little or nothing to do with the actual flesh-and-blood person. Why is it that we form these images and why is it that they are important to us? One can see it happening with this Internet medium, but one also sees it happening in more personal, face-to-face interactions: one may make a friend, say, at work, and then one wonders about them, forms images of them, wondering about what they are really like, with their family, with their lover, etc. It clearly is an activity of the imagination. PETER: It has been a fascinating to experience the demise of my imagination and it has been most evident in my work and in relating to other people. As an architect, it is taken for granted that the faculty of imagination is vital in the process of designing – Imagination – The action of imagining or forming mental images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses; the result of this process. Scheming or devising; a device, a plan, a plot; a fanciful project. Oxford Dictionary I remember a particularly vivid experience of designing a building during a pure consciousness experience and observing my thinking during the process. Rather than having a pre-conceived imaginary idea of what the end result would be, I was able to develop and formulate a plan based on the physical constraints – client requirements, site, budget, orientation, layout, materials, construction, etc and include client preferences of appearance and style combined with a few of my personal quirks. A constant flow of ideas was proposed, tested, evaluated and either proceeded with or rejected as unworkable and this progression gradually led to a design that was then readied for client review. There was a gradual building up of a plan from initial idea to final result – most definitely not a blinding flash of imagination that produced a mental image of the finished result. What this experience made clear was that the brain does its job extremely well when ‘I’ am absent from the process of thinking, when ‘I’ stop imagining that ‘I’ know best and when ‘I’ stop insisting that ‘my’ feelings are the most important thing on the planet. Since this experience I have had the hands-on practical experience of more and more experiencing ‘me’ being absent in my work. It has been a daunting experience as all ‘my’ passions, professional pride, ‘my’ creativity, ‘my’ usefulness and worth has been relentlessly beaten out of me. Whenever I did experience the pain of becoming emotional about an issue with a client, I simply knew that ‘I’ was yet again objecting to what was happening and that I had something to investigate. Even when I was asked or instructed to do something that in my experience did not work, or was not the best solution, I came to see that emotionally objecting to the situation only served to make me unhappy and therefore most likely to sabotage the situation so as to seek revenge. This relates to yet another of Richard’s questions that I recently mentioned to No 17 – ‘Can I emotionally accept that which is intellectually unacceptable?’ Peter, The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List, No 17, 26.2.2001 The experiential answer to this question is a constant in-your-face business in the world as-it-is, with people as-they-are, and no more so than in the workplace. If it were not for the challenges that came up in my work these issues and these emotions would not have come to the surface to be investigated. * GARY: I still find it absolutely fascinating to be writing to someone on the other side of the world and be able to compare notes about experiences, which are to some extent universal to all humans. The potential of this medium is astounding. As you say, it does take time to write, and it does take time to respond to these posts, and I ordinarily go through cycles of interest and disinterest with it. Generally reading a post and allowing it to infiltrate my consciousness for awhile before responding, but working at it over several days in a slow, methodical way. And I must say that I find myself forming mental images of the people with whom I am talking, and these mental images crop up from time to time. It does seem to me, however, that the imaging process has gotten less and less and I am more concerned with the content of the post and responding genuinely and sensibly based on what is being written to me. Also there is the realization that one’s images probably have little or nothing to do with the actual flesh-and-blood person. Why is it that we form these images and why is it that they are important to us? One can see it happening with this Internet medium, but one also sees it happening in more personal, face-to-face interactions: one may make a friend, say, at work, and then one wonders about them, forms images of them, wondering about what they are really like, with their family, with their lover, etc. It clearly is an activity of the imagination. PETER: I was watching a National Geographic program the other day – one of those usual ones that always end with a doomsday guilt-laden scenario ... unless we humans see the Light. The Guru-scientist summing up at the end of the film blatantly stated that it required imagination to see the worst – to be able to concoct a doomsday scenario for something so robust, reliable, consistent, abundant, exuberant, copious, resplendent and immense as this paradisiacal planet. He didn’t say the last part of the sentence – this is what is so obvious to me from watching these programs and from my own observations ... even to the point of simply glancing about me as I sit at this keyboard. Imagination – be it real-world fear-filled or other-worldly bliss-filled – only serves to obscure the magnificence of what is physical, palpable and sensately evident and to prevent a direct sensual intimacy with the people, things and events that comprise the actual world we live in. Imagination always has an emotional component to it – most commonly it is fear-fuelled or desire-fuelled or, if you are a spiritualist, it often has a fantasy-escapist ‘I am a goody two shoes’ or ‘I feel so Good I must be God’ bent. The only effective way to eliminate imagination is to progressively eliminate this emotional component – to take the wind out of its sails. As you do this, you are more and more able to become aware of the brain functioning – the brain being aware of itself in operation, which is apperception. This bare awareness then enables you to be aware of what you are as opposed to ‘who’ society and blind nature fashioned you to think and feel you are. Apperception is not an innate quality in human beings – it is a quality that is evident in a PCE and obtainable by anyone willing enough to sacrifice all they hold dear for an actual freedom from malice and sorrow. An ongoing apperception is something only ‘you’ can cultivate by dismantling ‘you’ as a social and instinctual identity. There are no short cuts in the process, no quick fixes, no journey other than the journey and who would have it any other way. Apperception is the beginning of the end of ‘me’ – the alien parasitic spirit entity that dwells unhappily and resentfully within this corporeal flesh and blood body. Once it starts to happen it does take a while to gain the confidence that it is the real thing and not another figment of your imagination. As confidence gathers it is from this solid base of bare non-emotionally-corrupted awareness that you can quietly and anonymously slip out from control – and the freedom that was always here then becomes more and more actual. RESPONDENT: Imagination, still reveals its actual effects to me in everything I do. It is how I make a living as a designer. PETER: I came to realize how limited human imagination is when I began to look at the Human Condition from a wider perspective. Most of what humans treasure as great literature, art, poetry, sacred texts, music, fables and legends has as their basis either malice or sorrow. Most of what we regard as entertainment is based on violence or sadness. The test of greatness of human imaginative stories is the extent that we are stirred to feel vengeful for the aggrieved, pity for the underdog, saddened at loss, moved by hardship, outraged by the offensive, angered at the hard done by, stimulated by violence, distressed by suffering, etc. I also came to see that impassioned human imagination was so meagre and paltry when compared to inventiveness, resourcefulness and ingenuity of the electro-chemical brain that is the human body. One only needs to look out at the stars at night to know that what is actual far, far exceeds human impassioned imagination. And yet when cosmologists contemplate the universe they imagine black holes and dark matter – an escape portal to other worlds or some ‘other-universe’ within this universe. This planet is estimated to have between 2,000,000 and 4,500,00 plant and animal species, offering such a variety as to be mind-boggling when compared with the fantasy alien life-forms from outer space created by human imagination. The insect world has such a plethora of species that it may well be an impossible task to ever categorize them. The oceans provide such an amazing multiplicity of life forms that defy any limits of human imagination. Each day brings a new, fresh and unique combination of weather conditions, each moment animate life is arranging and rearranging itself into a myriad of new forms, and this occurs on a paradisiacal planet that is so huge that it is impossible for a single human being to see all of it in a lifetime. The fact that the astounding actuality of this infinite physical universe is beyond the comprehension of a ‘self’-centred human mind has lead to wonder and amazement which has traditionally lead to feelings of awe and reverence and humility – the seeds of the spiritual ‘Universe and I are One’ delusion. Actuality is far, far bigger than mere feelings or impassioned imagination for it is actual, patently palpable, infinitely varied, observably tangible, manifestly obvious, always apparent, clearly evident, eternally existing and it is happening right here and right now, under our very noses as it were. * RESPONDENT: For the following reasons I am not yet convinced that the Actual Freedom perspective is such a wide and wondrous path. I do not limit the imagination in the ways you referred to above, e.g. ‘stirred to feel vengeful for the aggrieved, pity for the underdog, saddened at loss, moved by hardship, outraged by the offensive, angered at the hard done by, stimulated by violence, distressed by suffering, etc. etc?’ For me these are but momentary events or reflections and the majority of the day is spent using the creative imagination happily and harmlessly. PETER: For an actualist these ‘momentary events or reflections’ are vitally significant for these bleed-throughs of instinctual passions are opportunities to investigate one’s psyche in action. Some people do reasonably well in coping with, or ignoring these momentary flashes of anger, irritation, or frustration, gloominess, melancholy or despair, but for others these feelings can permeate for days or weeks or flare up into more serious ‘events or reflections’ such as outbreaks of verbal or physical aggression or experiences of overwhelming sadness or despair. These feelings and emotions that directly arise from our instinctual programming are the root cause of all the violence that humans inflict on each other and all the sorrow and despair so evident on the 7 o’clock news. You do well to stick with ‘creative imagination’ for the ‘real’ world of human interaction is a ferocious place. Actualism is only for those who are unwilling, or unable, to turn away to the imaginary spirit-ual world. ALAN: I have already speculated a bit in my mail to Vineeto – here is a bit more. We have been engaged, over the last months, in examining and eliminating the beliefs and conditioning labelled as the ‘human constitution’, by asking ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ As a result of the elimination of this human constitution I no longer (or only very, very occasionally) experience any feelings whatsoever. The necessary disconnections and reconnections in neural patterns have been made in the neo-cortex and the software program has been un-installed. Now we are tackling the more difficult job of erasing the hard disc (and the recycle bin) – of severing the link with the amygdala – the basic instincts, the primal self. I suspect that all one can do is allow that ‘link’ to wither away through disuse and, when sufficient brain cells have died (or neural pathways been disconnected), then this primal self will finally expire. PETER: My favourite description of the process that happens to the old pathways that have been forged since birth, and reinforced constantly since then, is that when new paths are forged with common sense – sometimes painstakingly – the old ones simply atrophy. This is easily attested by the observation – ‘Did I really believe in that once upon a time?’ One can initially feel a fool but it gets really delicious when one cannot remember ‘who’ it was who believed such a nonsense and why. One starts to realize that one is becoming free to such an extent that one is fresh again every moment and that the very act of believing is disappearing. With belief goes imagination, and only that which is actual becomes apparent and obvious. PETER: Hi Everyone, Just a note with some more about theoretical scientists. I had dug out some relevant quotes but Richard was quicker to reply. I thought I would leave it but a recent meeting twigged me to post them anyway. Vineeto and I were invited out to dinner recently, and after the meal the evening turned to an interesting discussion on life and the universe. We merrily talked of what is actual and they merrily talked of what is spiritual, so few alleys of conversation were pursued to any depth. The woman was particularly interested in the ‘method’ we were using and I asked her: ‘method to do what?’ As it turned out, she didn’t have an aim in life but was just interested in finding a new method per se. She was simply on a spiritual quest for methods, paths and teachers. That conversation soon dwindled, and in an attempt to inject a bit of common sense into the evening I steered the discussion back to the actual – tapping the arm of the chair to give an illustration of what is actual. The man immediately told me it was a scientifically proven fact that the chair did not exist as the essence of matter was ethereal and constantly fluctuating between here and there – pointing over there – and as such could not be actual. Needless to say I nearly fell off my chair, literally, as what I was comfortably sitting on had magically been transported, by scientific theory and this man’s belief, over to the opposite corner of the veranda. Which only goes to prove that believing what theoretical scientists say could be a danger to one’s health – as well as one’s sanity. So a few quotes – from the late Darryl Reanney’s book – The Death of Forever – A New Future for Human Consciousness. Longman 1991 While his teaching background is microbiology and biochemistry he draws on a broad range of theoretical sciences to substantiate his vision in understandable form.. As such, he reveals much that is usually ‘hidden’ from the lay person by scientific jargon and bewildering mathematical complexity. [Daryl Reanney]: Now, however, we reach the threshold of the truly mysterious, for we must look to the far reaches of physics, to the paradox-ridden realms of the very small and the very large. There await us bejewelled creatures, strange beyond dreaming, that are born of the highest faculties of the human mind. In this mirror, we will see almost nothing we recognize. Does this mean that we are abandoning reality for illusion? Not at all: we are doing just the reverse. In reaching this far into the realm of the invisible, away from the homely metaphors of everyday life, we are approaching reality. We must not complain if we find it strange. Indeed, it is this very strangeness that tells us that we are ‘on the right track’. When science was young common sense was our guide. The model of the world we built up from new discoveries was based on familiar objects – clocks, pistons, billiard balls. As science has progressed through its great conceptual revolutions – relativity, quantum mechanics, super symmetry – its discoveries have become more exotic, more remote from everyday experience. Easily recognizable images based on familiar things have given way to abstract theorems which tell of particles moving backwards in time, of a universe structured in eleven dimensions and so on. During this process, the status of common sense has been inverted: no longer our guide in the search for truth, it has become our adversary. D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 138 Hard to even make a comment on that one, given that science is reaching far into the realms of the invisible – and apparently the realms of the unmeasurable – exotic imagination runs riot in the search for the truth. [Daryl Reanney]: Mathematics is like a fishing line which we can cast into the future by virtue of its logical coherence and predicative power. When we analyze the cargo of information it brings back into the present, we find ourselves struggling to understand concepts for which there are no words, no images, no layers of reinforced experience. What we see in these mathematical cryptograms are signals from the future which our brains, at this verbal, ego-self stage of their evolution, cannot hope to comprehend. D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 140 No words for the truth as we try to interpret the signals from the future? No words to describe the truth from the further shore? [Daryl Reanney]: ... quantum mechanics is par excellence the field of science where commonsense breaks down completely. In particular, the link between cause and effect blurs. In our everyday world of ordinary experience, we take it for granted that a ball will not move unless some force (like a kick) is imparted to it. In the micro world of the quantum, an electron on one side of a barrier can simply ‘reappear’ on the other, without physically ‘moving’ – an effect called quantum tunnelling. D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 145 Now we get to the crux of the matter as to why I nearly fell off my chair – it was being ‘quantum tunnelled’ at the time. In a bid to inject a degree of common sense (?) into this I’ll risk a quote from Paul Davies about Quantum Theory. [Paul Davies]: ‘The basis of this theory is that in nature there is an inherent uncertainty or unpredictability that manifests itself only on an atomic scale. For example, the position of a subatomic particle such as an electron may not be a well-defined concept at all; it should be envisaged as jiggling around in a random sort of a way. Energy, too, becomes a slightly nebulous concept, subject to capricious and unpredictable changes.’ – ‘The Edge of Infinity’ ... Beyond the Black Hole. Penguin, p 90 Now, if we note the word theory and Mr. Davies words ‘... only on an atomic scale ..., ... may not be ..., ... should be envisaged ..., ... slightly nebulous ...,’ then I am quite happy for them to imagine, invasive and theorize for all they will, as long as the chair doesn’t fly across the room and the coffee cup becomes so nebulous that it can’t hold coffee. It is a far, far stretch from Mr. Davies description of the ‘theory of things so small that we can’t actually substantiate them’ to the fantasies of Mr. Reanney and the Mystics. They are frantically clutching at straws in order to turn the actual into an illusion, the substantial into the insubstantial, the obvious into the apparent, the material into the ethereal – in short to escape from this actual world, as evidenced by the senses into ‘another’ world of imagination. [Daryl Reanney]: Quantum mechanics also demolishes another commonsense concept – the idea of ‘nothing’. The quantum view of ‘nothing’ is crucial to our understanding of Genesis, which requires us to believe that ‘nothing’ is where ‘everything’ came from. <snip> D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 145 It is important to remember that the vacuum is the dominant structure in physical reality – the particles of the so-called ‘real’ world are only minor blips in this ocean of incessant virtual action, with its paradoxical background of spacetime foam. Across the breadth of the cosmos, the familiar building blocks of matter are outnumbered by the infinity of come-and-go ghost particles that boil in the vacuum state. The almost unthinkable amount of energy locked up in the quantum vacuum may turn out to be the key that unlocks the penultimate secrets of Genesis. If a bulb of vacuum contains enough energy to destroy a universe, surely something equally small must contain enough energy to create one, under the right circumstances. D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 146 [Daryl Reanney]: As the cosmos shrinks beyond atomic dimensions, the matter it contains will become dense beyond imagination and the radius of spacetime will contract towards zero. At its ultimate limit, this process leads to a spacetime singularity in which the curvature of spacetime becomes infinite, enfolding in its vanished embrace a universe of imploded matter. Like an image fading in the mind of God, reality itself dies and the sum of all things ceases to be. Some faint hint of what this means can be garnered from an examination of Figure 7.2, which shows that an ordinary black hole is smoothly connected to the ‘flat’ spacetime structure of the surrounding universe. It is this matrix of surrounding spacetime that enables science to measure properties of black holes such as mass. However, if the cosmos is closed, everything is ‘inside’ a black hole. Thus, as the cosmos implodes inwards, there is absolutely no frame of reference to serve as a guide. Here, then, is the Shiva of cosmology, the destroyer of worlds. Nothing can survive transit through a singularity. The spacetime fabric with its embedded ‘memories’ of past events (in which billions of human lives lie encrystallised) is annihilated. The fine structure of matter, everything which gives form to physics, is unremittingly ‘ground out of existence’. By this, I do not simply mean that it is destroyed in a physical sense, overwhelmed by the colossal tides of gravity: rather, infinitely warped spacetime sunders us completely from anything that might have gone ‘before’, just as it does from anything that might come ‘after’. The present incarnation of the cosmos can never remember its parents (if there were any) or transmit a legacy to its children (if it has any). D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, pp. 148-9 What to say? It appears that cosmology has invented the lot. The cataclysmic ‘end’ of the world, the black hole of hell, the ‘parallel’ universes as in levels of consciousness and reincarnation on a universal scale! I guess we will soon see a rash of Past-Universe Therapies for the ‘therapeutically under-nourished’. Alan, if you ever get to this side of the world we could make a bob or two running ‘Meet the other-you’ sessions. We could connect people to their other selves that exist in parallel universes. We could issue certificates to people who could wave them at their partners or the police and say ‘It wasn’t me – It was the me that is now in a parallel universe that did it!’ Could be a winner ... [Daryl Reanney]: In order to bring spacetime back into the realm of physics, Hawking is forced to abandon ‘real’ numbers and use ‘imaginary’ ones. Real numbers give a positive quantity when multiplied by themselves; pure imaginary numbers give negative values when multiplied by themselves. The special virtue of imaginary numbers in this context is that they cause the distinction between space and time to disappear. This makes it possible to use Euclidean geometry to build models of the cosmos because, in this representation, time has no privileged status. <snip> Hawking defends the use of imaginary numbers on the grounds that it is ‘merely a mathematical device (or trick) to calculate answers about real space-time’. However, the universe we live in exists in real time. Hawking’s model predicts that in real time, ‘it [the universe] would collapse again into what looks like a singularity in real time. Thus, in a sense, we are still all doomed, even if we keep away from black holes’. D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 154 Does that also mean that if somehow we could all manage to avoid living in ‘real’ time and hang out in ‘imaginary’ time we would avoid being ‘doomed’ and avoid the black hole? Having invented black holes – a mathematical supposition given credence by the discovery of some, as yet, unexplained observational irregularities in the vast depths of space, the theoreticians are indeed having a field day. I find it telling that the scientists have to resort to fanciful speculation as they approach ‘nothing’, the subatomic where mass (as in substantially evident) disappears; and when they explore the ‘vast’ – the more distant (as in substantially evident) realms of the infinite universe. [Daryl Reanney]: Some years ago, Stephen Hawking was elected to the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge University, the chair once occupied by Isaac Newton. Hawking’s inaugural lecture had the ambitious title ‘Is the end in sight for theoretical physics?’ That is, Hawking was suggesting that science was close to accomplishing its ultimate goal – the unification of all the laws of physics into one coherent, consistent framework which would define and encompass the whole of reality. Such a unified scheme would not just ‘represent’ truth in some abstract way, it would in an important sense be truth. By now, this should not surprise us. As we have seen, the homely metaphors of commonsense and everyday life offer us no guidance when we look at the bewildering cosmos in which we find ourselves. Only mathematics, in whose code nature writes her secrets, can tell us what is ‘real’. D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 156 It comes as no surprise that science is firmly rooted in mysticism, shamanism and alchemy and steeped in the search for the meaning of life. It has been a bare few centuries since science has very hesitantly emerged from the control of the church in Europe. Galileo was forced to publicly recant his finding that the earth orbited the sun because it did not fit with the flat-earth version of the universe described in Genesis. Nowadays we have the ability to eliminate many hereditary diseases with the simple manipulation of genetic codes but research has been curtailed as ‘unethical’ – religion still reigns supreme. One should not meddle with ‘Mother Nature’ or God, or whatever – or there will be Hell to pay! Well, I’m busy meddling with Mother Nature’s implanted instincts – and the rewards are extraordinary. Those who think genetic engineering is the answer to the human dilemma ignore the stranglehold that morals and ethics have on the Human Condition. Better to get on with the job yourself – neither God nor science will be of help. PETER: Hi Everyone, Just a bit more from the meta-physicians of mathematics, theoretical physics and cosmology. I thought I would post some quotes on the subject of infinity as they reveal much about the tortured imagination of the human mind. Imaginative flights of fantasy, such as we see in children’s fairy stories, are well documented, fervently believed in, passionately defended and financially well supported in the ‘adult’ worlds of science, religion and philosophy. Much convoluted and twisted thinking has gone into making up stories about ‘what lies beyond’ – whether it be beyond the stars in the physical world, or beyond death in the spiritual world. The theoretical scientists realm is supposedly that of the physical world but when they encounter infinity – the fact that this physical universe has no limit, no ‘outside’, no edges, nothing ‘beyond’ – they eagerly succumb to the spiritual or ethereal. I remember, it was a stunning realization when I contemplated on the fact that the universe is infinite. No outside ... this is it. And I am nowhere in particular – there is no bottom left-hand corner in infinite space. And there is no room for God. I had had previous glimpses of the infinitude of the universe while sleeping out at night in the desert when the stars alone were as bright as a coastal full moon night. Or the evening when we stopped to camp and sat out on deckchairs to watch the sunset. As the sun was setting to a huge golden-red ball I turned to see the moon rising behind me – an equal sized golden-red ball on the opposite horizon. What a sight, I didn’t know which way to look, such was the magnificence of it all. The actual leaves any paltry imagination for dead. So, on to some quotes from – Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, Beyond the Black Hole, Penguin 1994, Chapter 2 – Measuring the Infinite [Paul Davies]: In science, however, infinity is frequently encountered, sometimes with dismay. Long ago mathematicians began attempts to get the measure of the infinite and to discover rules which would enable infinity to join the ranks of other mathematical objects as a well understood and disciplined logical concept. <snip> Even in science, for many purposes, infinity is only an idealization for a quantity which is actually so large that to treat it as strictly infinite involves negligible error. From time to time, though, the appearance of infinity in a physical theory denotes something much more dramatic – the end of either the theory, or the subject of its description. This is the case with spacetime singularities. There we are brought face to face with infinity, and it seems to be telling us something profound: that we have reached the end of the universe. Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 22 The ‘end of the universe’, in spacetime terms, is an illusion built upon an illusion. Spacetime is an imaginary ‘other dimension’ invented by Mr. Einstein – so whatever is theorized to happen in spacetime is twice removed from the actual universe (with actual time and actual space) that we live in. All this nonsense is based on the stubborn and instinctual fear of acknowledging the fact that the physical universe is infinite and eternal – no other worlds, no other place, no other dimensions. [Paul Davies]: None of the results quoted will be rigorously proved, for the proofs would require many years study of advanced mathematics to comprehend. It is important to realize that the subject of discussion is not a theory about the world, but mathematics. Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 23 A little disclaimer he slips in here but then proceeds to apply his mathematical theories to the real world – predicting the existence of black holes and singularities in the physical universe despite a stunning lack of any factual evidence. [Paul Davies]: Given the fundamental axioms on which all mathematics ultimately rest, the results are therefore correct, beyond any possibility of doubt, as all the proofs rest on concrete and universally accepted logic. This point is stressed because the results often seem impossible to believe; yet they are true. We shall see that measuring infinity can be a very strange experience indeed. Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 23 ‘... impossible to believe, yet they are true’. ‘True’ is a word that is currently so abused as to be useless. Christians believe the virgin birth was true, NDA-followers believe that inert planets hurtling through space affects their moods and behaviour, Trekkies believe in Warp-speed and wormholes, and Mr. Davies believes in an edge to the infinite universe. Strange tales, but ‘true’ ...? [Paul Davies]: The first step on the road to infinity is to discard any ideas about ‘very, very large’. Infinity is larger than any number, however large that number may be – and there is no limit to numbers. We shall see that not only is infinity beyond all limits, but is, in a sense, so large that it is almost impossible to make it larger. <snip> Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 23 I hate to quibble about words, but Mr. Oxford says of infinity – ‘Having no limit or end; boundless, endless; immeasurably great in extent, duration, degree, etc’. Oxford Talking Dictionary So how is it almost impossible to make it larger? Could it be by inventing a plug hole in the middle – a black hole – so we can all disappear down there one day? Or how about a hole that ‘new stuff’ comes flowing in one day? Of course, you would have to bend space a bit around the holes but ... then again ... why not? It is just a theory after all ... truly ... honestly ... [Paul Davies]: [The concept of infinity] in 1600 even contributed to the death sentence passed on Giordano Bruno at the hands of the Church. Bruno had declared a belief in the infinity of worlds, against the established doctrine that only God was infinite. Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 23 How not to win friends in the church. Mr. Davies has no such trouble, as he collected a cool million dollars in 1995 for the ‘Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion’. [Paul Davies]: Many people first encounter the idea of infinity when thinking about the universe. Does it extend for ever? If space is not unlimited in extent, does that not mean that there exists a barrier somewhere – in which case the barrier must lie beyond, and something beyond that ...? Another question, frequently asked by children, is of the ‘what happened before that’ variety. It seems that every event must have been preceded by some cause, and every elapsed moment must have come after an earlier moment. We shall see that the answers to these questions can be bewilderingly different from the obvious. <snip> Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 23 Questions ‘frequently asked by children’ and adult cosmologists? Answers provided by science fiction writers and cosmologists – if there is a difference between the two. The only difference between Paul Davies and George Lucas is that one writes science fiction books and the other makes science fiction movies. As for the cosmological ‘answers’ – beyond the stars we see from earth have come pictures of vast nebula thousands of light years across, fantastic arrays of particles, rocks, gases, storms, eruptions, explosions, lights, clouds. All actual – requiring no imagination. All obvious – raising no question. All perfect – requiring no solution. [Paul Davies]: If the infinity of all even numbers is as numerous as all the even and odd numbers together, it looks, crudely speaking, as though doubling infinity still leaves us with the same infinity. Moreover, it is easily shown that trebling, quadrupling or any higher multiplication of infinity has equally little effect. In fact, even if we multiply infinity by infinity itself it still stubbornly refuses to grow any larger. The square of infinity is only as numerous as the natural numbers. <snip> Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 27 [Paul Davies]: Cantor’s great discovery was that the set of all decimals (i.e. all rational and irrational numbers) is a bigger infinity than the set of all fractions (i.e. rational numbers alone). These issues may appear to be mathematical quibbles, but they run very deep. Centuries of groping towards a proper understanding of time, space, order, number and topology lie behind the work of Cantor and others to grasp the infinite as an actual, concrete concept. Some of the greatest minds in human history have foundered on the rock of the infinite. Few ideas can have so challenged man’s intellect. <snip> Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 32 [Paul Davies]: Measuring the infinite must rank as one of the greatest enterprises of the human intellect, comparable with the most magnificent forms of art or music. Mathematics, ‘eternal and perfect’ in the words of Lord Bertrand Russell, can be used to build structures more beautiful and satisfying than any sculpture. Yet Cantor’s edifice of infinity – ‘a paradise from which no one will drive us’, as his contemporary David Hilbert was moved to say – took its toll. Grappling with the infinite evidently proved such disconcerting experience that when the respected mathematician Leopold Kronecker pronounced Cantor’s work on set theory as ‘mathematically insane’, he seems to have struck a raw nerve. Cantor suffered several nervous breakdowns, and eventually died in a mental hospital in 1918. Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 37 Yep, insanity and madness prevail. And the passion and fervour of Holy Mathematics is indicated by the phrase – ‘a paradise from which no one will drive us’. Their search for God, ‘eternal and perfect’, involves trust, faith and belief in concepts that are held to be truths, all firmly based on the quick-sand of imagination. An imagined new dimension – spacetime that bends, folds and warps, that has holes and peaks; an imagined time that can run backwards, split into two or more and even loop the loop, imaginary numbers that are unreal, irrational and illogical; imaginary matter that is negative, uncertain, anti or virtual, particle and/or wave or even string-like. And from this mish mash come theories which are ... ‘impossible to believe, yet they are true’. ‘True’ they may be called, but factual they are not – nobody has found a black hole, or a worm hole, let alone a naked singularity! It was nuclear chemists and engineers who developed nuclear energy and the bomb. According to the book, [Robert Jungk]: ‘Einstein assured the American reporter W. L. Lawrence that he did not believe in the release of atomic power’, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns by Robert Jungk – as late as 1939 i.e. he didn’t think it was possible. Further, Edward Teller states [Edward Teller]: ‘I believe at the time he had no very clear idea of what we were doing in nuclear physics’. Edward Teller The Americans got to the moon with Newtonian physics and engineering, not Einsteinian theory. [Paul Davies]: Einstein’s general theory of relativity is regarded by many as the supreme intellectual achievement of the human species; certainly it surpasses Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory in elegance, economy and scope. <snip> Yet Einstein’s theory leads irresistibly to a singularity, to unbounded gravitational collapse. It is frequently proposed that the theory should be abandoned in the face of this absurdity. <snip> Tinkering with this great edifice of descriptive and predictive power in order to alleviate the singularity crisis seems like a ‘cop-out’. It was not the way out in 1911, and it would be surprising if it were the solution today. Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, pp. 176-7 The more I read and understand Mr. Einstein, the more mystical and Guru-like he becomes. It’s all mythical tales and wishful thinking of anywhere but here, and anytime but now. Anything to avoid the fact that we are mortal and that neither goodness nor Godness can make us happy and harmless. Anything to avoid the instinctually-sourced malice and sorrow of the Human Condition. Anything to avoid the fact that this is the only moment one can experience being alive. Anything to avoid being here and now in this very actual world, happening at this very moment. What a waste to bury one’s head in the sand or in the clouds when what is actual is perfect, benign, delightful, magnificent, tangible, tactile, tasty, vibrant, alive, immediate and right here on this planet. And it is the destiny of all committed actualists to experience this actuality 24 hrs. a day, every day. To sacrifice one’s self – to psychologically and psychically self-immolate, in order that the perfection and purity of the infinitude of the physical universe can become actualized in a human being. In order that the universe can experience itself as a human being. PETER: I have no trouble at all disagreeing with Osho’s words. He is wrong and history has proved him wrong. RESPONDENT: I have read your mail, and it seems for now you have found your third alternative of searching after having tried searching in the spiritual and in the material. Isn’t it all about searching? If this third one works for you, fine, if Osho works for me, fine, it is all about searching, and what are we searching for? You seem to look for enlightenment, so do I, I guess so do we all, within our own concepts of what enlightenment is. But when the search is something on the outside, it will fail. When you say that the world of Osho is like another eastern religion, it is because you think the happenings, like white robe, meditations etc. are the main stuff. Well, in my experience it is not. They are only means to take us into the realms of ourselves, tools to dig out the direction inwards, they are nothing in themselves. Screaming Yahoo in front of an empty chair – didn’t you scream Yahoo for yourself? To see what it did to you? If you don’t have your focus on yourself, you can go on searching for the third and then the fourth and fifth alternative, you are searching on the outside just the same, and that doesn’t take you anywhere. Believe me! PETER: I suggest that what you will find in searching ‘inside’ is vast and limitless. There seems no limit as to what the human mind can imagine depending on the input. Human superstition and fears have conjured up countless good and evil spirits and gods in almost every possible form, resulting in about 6,000 religions on the planet. Within the ‘inner’ world of every human a passionate Ancient battle rages, while the physical outer world has moved on. RESPONDENT: P.S. The night before last I had a wonderful dream that is still yanking my chains. I was travelling in a mini van type of bus with a group of people and Osho. We were going to meet up with a large group of people and we were asking Osho if he was willing to speak to the people... He turned around and looked deep into my eyes and said: ‘I’m amazed that after all these years you are still attached to my words!’ and I responded, ‘oh, no, it’s not for me... It’s just that so many people there have never heard you speak’... and he just smiles and turns back around in his seat... But of course I do have attachments to his words. And I watch them all the time, the attachments and the words floating around in my brain. But two days later from that dream, I still feel that love stuff from him and from me for him swelling my chest...how can I let go of an attachment like that? It feels the same as it did many years ago... It’s weird too...I’ve never owned a white robe and no plans of getting one. PETER: The whole Eastern spiritual world is based on ‘feeling’ devotion and love, either for a god or a Master. This feeling good, when practiced assiduously, leads to bliss, Divine Love, Universal Compassion, and Timelessness, Oneness with the Whole, Truth, That, God or whatever. If successful one becomes One, self becomes Self, separation becomes Unity, and away we go again as yet another Divine Saviour is born, to eventually ‘leave the body’, leaving yet another Religion on earth. It is all a passionate dream which most people can see clearly played out in other Religious beliefs but love, loyalty, devotion and gratitude prevent from seeing let alone acknowledging it in themselves. It is an insidious trap, one at which the Enlightened Ones are indeed Masters at playing. RESPONDENT: Vivian, Mabel, Winnifred and Florian, among others, have reported a different reality than the one you espouse about being soulless. PETER: Never heard of these people or their reports. I am interested in anyone who has described their experiences. Can you give me some references as to where I can read of them? RESPONDENT: But then you have probably not had any direct experience with the DIVINE yet. PETER: Yes I have had many experiences, a description of the strongest experience I will post below (there goes brevity) RESPONDENT: Not to worry though, it can and will happen without any effort on your part. PETER: No, there is no chance of the Divine entering this body. I have lost my faculty to imagine such experiences any more. I have come to my senses both literally and figuratively. RESPONDENT: And as was written, ‘...you have probably not had any direct experience with the DIVINE yet.’ Your description attests to this. PETER: The writer 2 is confused again. The writer 2 guesses that it is because the writer 2 cannot channel. Thus the experiences are not DIRECT experiences and are only imaginary. * RESPONDENT: Vivian, Mabel, Winnifred and Florian, among others, have reported a different reality than the one you espouse about being soulless. PETER: Never heard of these people or their reports. I am interested in anyone who has described their experiences. Can you give me some references as to where I can read of them? RESPONDENT: These are women who have described to the writer, their existence after dying; between days and years following the event. PETER: The writer 2 is confused again. Does the writer 1 mean that the writer 1 is channelling these women after physical death or is the writer 1 referring to their spiritual death as in Enlightenment? RESPONDENT: Neither. It refers to their visual and audible manifestation. PETER: Do you mean that you their ‘hear’ voices in your head and you ‘see’ them in your imagination? If, on the other hand, you have videos, photos or tape recordings you should let the scientific community know as they have been searching for almost a century trying to find actual authentic evidence of life after death. RESPONDENT: One hears all sounds inside the head. That is how the human body is constructed. These women have appeared as physical manifestations within the context of consensual reality both in private and public settings. The manifestations were as real as an upside-down rainbow, or the end of a rainbow; both of which have been experienced without recording them. The lack of recording did not make any of these experiences less authentic. PETER: One hears all sounds within the head. The ears are indeed the ‘stalks’ or sense organs by which sound is directly transmitted to the brain. In the case of the fans running in this room, an occasional car going by, and my fingers tapping on the keyboard – the source of the sounds, the scientifically measurable sound waves, my ears, as well as my brain are all actual – no ‘consensual reality’ or illusion here. By the way, isn’t the tiny little click of the space bar cute, or is it only my bar that makes that noise? Soon you will be telling me that these words that appear on my screen, and soon on yours, are illusionary as is this communication, and then I know it will be time to stop writing and adding more illusory to your authentic consensual reality. The other day, I had a man tell me that God is everything, and I pointed to our television set and asked him, ‘does that mean the television set is God?’, and he just looked a little blank. If you had been there you could have re-assured him that the television set was just a consensual reality. But, then again, what he calls ‘God’, you would call ‘consensual reality’ while I would call it a television set... Actualism Homepage
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