Peter: In the End

The setting for these events, as Richard has alluded to, was a remote end-of-river location in the subtropical forests of the Eastern Australia seaboard on two moored rafted-up houseboats that form the physical genesis of the world’s first convivium – in our case, a floating convivium.

The circumstances were that I found myself alone with Richard as the other potential convivium members had recently departed in a fear-fuelled flurry. Departing was not an option for me given my conviction that convivialist living would offer a practical demonstration of the ingredients necessary for a contagious out-breaking of global peace-on-earth.

Thus the setting and circumstances occasioned the perfect ambience in which I was able to contemplate the fact that indeed it was Richard and I who had first been prepared to do whatever it took to bring about a floating convivium. We reminisced about the time when two 60 year old grey-beards were prepared to build a boat by ourselves by pooling our combined labour, income and assets so as provide a guest cabin for sincere actualists as a way of facilitating the spread of a virtual and actual freedom.

And here we were, the very same grey-beards, a convivalists ship on my electronic drawing board almost ready to be built, and the atmosphere was pregnant with the next taking-action step. Given the circumstances it was obvious that it was I who needed to take that step (to lead by example as it were) and that Richard had a pivotal part in bringing that step (my becoming actually free) to fruition.

Some time in the evening of a day of delightfully relaxed reminiscings, reflections and musings, I leaned forward wondering what it was like for Richard living in the actual world of people, things and events as distinct from living in a self-created illusionary bubble of one’s own making. Wondering about the nature of his experiencing, I suddenly became aware of a quite extraordinary sweetness – a sweetness that was palpable rather than feeling based. I heard the words ‘This is not only for me, this is for everybody’ as I was literally being bathed in this sweetness.

This all-consuming experience of sweetness lasted perhaps less that a minute but this precursor left me with the utter confidence to proceed further into the actual world – indeed it was so seductive an experience that I was literally compelled to investigate further. Perhaps an hour or two later in an increasingly intimate ambience between us, I moved over to sit beside Richard on the couch as I wanted to be closer to him rather than talk over the coffee table that separated the two couches.

I happened to remember that Richard had often said that he had been on his own in the actual world (for 17 years to date) and that he would like someone else to join him in the actual world and not for his sake but to prove that he was not a freak-of-nature, as it were, but as definitive proof that global peace and harmony amongst human beings was indeed possible in that an individual actual freedom from malice and sorrow was a repeatable occurrence.

As I remembered where Richard was, I reached out and touched the side of his actual face with my fingers. As I tenderly stroked it, I ‘saw’ him as Robinson Crusoe – on his own but not lonely – on a tropical desert island, playfully content and self-sufficient, but ever casting an eye out lest a playmate hove in to view over the horizon.

In that moment I knew that Richard’s first playmate in the actual world of sensate delight would be a male best-mate playmate and that female playmates would then follow soon after.

After this, the sweet relaxed atmosphere that I experienced between us continued and became all-consuming as the “outside world” faded more and more in the background so as to completely disappear, as did the experience of time moving as I became more and more totally absorbed in the conversation and events unfolding, as it were.

The following evening, I found myself back on my couch, leaning across the little table that separated us, explaining to Richard that I experienced him as being on the other side of a veil – with only his face bulging through as it were. As I was explaining this to him, I was waving my hand in front of my face so as to illustrate the veil and I happened to look down at the table in front of me.

On the woven table mat my attention was drawn to a dark blue plastic cigarette lighter, an empty glass, a tobacco pouch and other sundry items. All of a sudden, Richard’s phrase “the actual world of people, things and events” came to mind and I found myself acknowledging that the things on the table existed in actuality, i.e. did in fact actually exist, and this being the case, here I was waving my hand in front of “people”, in this case Richard, saying that I experienced him as if behind a veil, i.e. not actually existing. It took only a few more seconds of switching my attention from the things on the table and my waving hand for the whole illusion of a separating veil to collapse – along with my illusory self-centred identity as I was gradually becoming aware of [i.e. everything actually existing].

The whole experience was like a seamless transition between two worlds – from being a feeling being trapped within an illusionary all-encompassing self-created and sustained bubble to being here in the actual world. There was no dramatic end for ‘me’, no death-like traumatic experience, no prior psychic events or escapades, no “wall of fear”, no “abyss” – rather there was a profound experience of sweetness, a ready acknowledgement of my destiny and a final understanding that the feeling of separateness was nothing other than an illusion of ‘my’ own making.

What pleases me most about becoming actually free of the human condition is how easy it was for me, which means that there is no reason that it should not be equally easy for those who will follow in my footsteps, and Vineeto has already proven that this is the case.

The other thing that has become startlingly evident, now that I am actually free, is that whilst my freedom was, in part, facilitated by an actual intimacy with Richard, the first human to become actually free from the human condition, this direct contact with Richard will not at all be necessary for others. When seen in a broader context (as a humanity-specific as distinct to a personal-specific experience) for each of us the desire was for an actual intimacy with a fellow human being (finally bringing to an end of the feeling of separateness that isolates every human being from other human beings and from the actual world) and that the overarching motivation for each of us was to facilitate (by taking direct action) the spreading of peace on earth.

Such perfection ...

Cheers ... Peter

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