Here are some of the latest ideas on life by your favorite Monkee!
Peter had one of the most exciting experiences in his life just a short time ago. For quite a long while he’s been studying different beliefs and ways of thinking, trying to find answers to the questions he’s always had about life. He found when he first started studying that no one religion or philosophy would answer all his questions. So, he’d take a bit from one religion, a bit from another and fit them together.
Gradually he developed a philosophy that was beautiful because it was Peter’s philosophy. It wasn’t anyone else’s way of thinking, it was his alone. But things didn’t fit as well as he would have like them to fit. It was almost right, but there were things that somehow seemed out of harmony. Like, where do jealousy, envy and anger come from? Peter spent a lot of time meditating about these things.
Suddenly, in a matter of only a few hours, as he was meditating, the answer came to him. Peter saw that everything in life, from thoughts to actions to situations to words, could be understood in terms of different aspects. He named his aspects numbers One, Two and Three.
One, the ultimate Permalink
One, the first and total aspect, contained Two and Three. One was God, goodness, change and totality. One was the ultimate, the aspect where al life was growing toward.
Two was the least harmonious aspect. Two was negatives and misunderstanding and things like hate and envy and jealousy. Two was, in other words, division or separateness. When you are twoing you feel separate or away from life and people around you. Two is when you feel all at loose ends with yourself. Two is when you really despair of ever being better off, even though you know from the very deepest part of you that things are ungroovy. Twoing is playing games and believing that they are reality.
Three was between Two and One. Three was when you played games in order to change the things (Two) to get them a little groovier. For instance, if you felt something like envy you’d try to play games with it, perhaps admit it suddenly, then try to change it, because envy is not something nice to feel. Almost everybody plays games, so almost everybody is in Two or Three most of the time. But when you know you’re playing games, you are already more into Three than Two. Whenever someone is meddling with your mind or your thoughts or your nature, that is Two or Three because they are playing games. If you’re the one that’s going the meddling, that’s Two or Three, too.
Three is a step toward One from Two. For instance, grieving is definitely Two because it’s not harmonious at all. But when you flip yourself around and change your grief into a laugh, “laugh at the whole thing,” then that’s Three. Laughter, itself, is a Three. The blues expressions, “laughing to keep from crying,” is a statement of this. You’ve taken something that’s not smooth at all and turned it into something better.
Three isn’t enough Permalink
Now, Three is the stepping stone between Two and One. Once you’re in Three most of the time you find that it isn’t enough. You know that there is something more and so you look round you and then you find yourself developing into One, which is the most harmonious.
It isn’t necessary to go through Three in order to reach One. If people wanted to, they could just empty themselves of Two and allow the One to grow on the new-found soil. But people get scared because One is so very much different and so much groovier than Two, that they feel there must be some hitch. So, they use Three as a step in-between, a little time to get their bearings, before they continue on to One.
It’s like a circle. You start at Two because everybody is confused and starts at Two. Then, gradually, you turn Two’s into Three’s playing amusing games for a while. Then you get tired of all your games and you get on to the last, and most harmonious step: One.
The goal of all religions is Oneness with truth. Wholeness is. Everything that’s really good is One. The people who are One are the ones who live the really happy lives. They absorb and/or generate all the groovy things life has to offer. They live.
Everything they do is from the very innermost part of their lives. Because it is because it’s theirs and not anyone else’s, it is real. It’s harmonious because it’s whole and it’s God.
More understanding Permalink
If you regard life in terms of One, Two and Three it makes things easier to understand. Sometimes you feel something ungroovy (Two) and you don’t like it, so you react. But if you react to anger angrily, then you stay trapped in the vicious cycle of misunderstanding. If you first remember that what is such a drag is Two, then it’s easier to evolve or develop either by laughing at it all (Three) or ever farther, simply by understanding with Love and without judgment (One).
There is understanding that a Two’s bum trip is his own hang-up. One is understanding that all men are brothers and that one person’s joy is everyone’s joy, and so in one person’s grief everyone’s.
This was you are thinking only one thing. That is, the One scheme of things, instead of the confusing multitude that makes it impossible to maintain. It not only simplifies and clarifies life, it makes it possible to rechannel your own energies much more sufficiently. It can free you, if understood, to a life of the utmost joy and love.
