# Actual Freedom ~ Commonly Raised Objections Commonly Raised Objections ## Richard is not the First to be Free from the Human Condition RESPONDENT: Richard (...) one quick question: How do you KNOW that a tribesman of Papua New Guinea twelve thousand years ago didn’t become actually free? RICHARD: Unless you can provide suitably referenced information which unambiguously demonstrates that a tribesman of Papua New Guinea twelve thousand years ago did become actually free from the human condition your query is about a hypothetical person – an intellectual creation, an abstract person, an imaginative entity – who has no existence outside of your skull. In other words, your query currently looks something like this: • [example only]: ‘How do you KNOW that a hypothetical person/an intellectual creation/an abstract person/an imaginative entity who has no existence outside of my skull didn’t become actually free? [end example]. RESPONDENT: Fair enough ... it’s just that (I think) you claim to be the only person ever yet to be actually free. RICHARD: More to the point I report being the first *flesh and blood* person to be actually free from the human condition ... and interestingly enough the many and various hypothetical persons already (purportedly) actually free from the human condition prior to 1992, which many and various peoples write to me about from time-to-time, did not exist in their many and various skulls prior to those many and various peoples coming across The Actual Freedom Trust web site. Might I suggest? Just pause for the nonce so as to allow the implications and ramifications of that observation to sink in before reading on ... and I will put it in personal terms for your convenience: • That hypothetical person – that intellectual creation/that abstract person/that imaginative entity who has no existence outside of your skull – did not even exist in your skull before you came across The Actual Freedom Trust web site ... let alone exist as a flesh and blood body at a particular place in space at a particular moment in time. RESPONDENT: I didn’t realise that you mean by this, ‘as far as you know’. RICHARD: It depends upon what the person whom I am responding to wants from me: if they want information about an ordinary way of knowing I add the ‘for as far as I have been able to ascertain’ qualifier to my account of regular research; if they want information about an extraordinary way of knowing I provide an experiential report. Not that it makes much difference, of course, as by and large they remained convinced that their hypothetical person is more credible than this flesh and blood person (even though they knew nothing about an actual freedom from the human condition prior to coming across The Actual Freedom Trust web site). Again I will suggest a pause before reading on ... and I will put it thisaway this time: • The many and various hypothetical persons already (purportedly) actually free from the human condition prior to 1992, which many and various peoples write to me about from time-to-time, did not even exist in anyone’s skull prior to 1992 ... just as an actual freedom from the human condition is entirely new to human experience/human history so too are these many and various hypothetical persons entirely new to human imagination/human mythology. RESPONDENT: I mean, yes, my hypothetical person is an intellectual creation (etc), but ... RICHARD: If I might interject (before your negative conjunction takes you away from the import of what you have just acknowledged)? Your hypothetical person is an intellectually created free-from-the-human-condition person ... and not just yet another one of the many, many, not-actually-free-from-the-human-condition people in the past who had no access to written records and who lived and died far from any kind of historical civilisation. RESPONDENT: ... [but] it seems clear to me that there were many, many people in the past (let’s say the remote past), who had no access to written records and who lived and died far from any kind of civilisation. RICHARD: Indeed so ... the peoples of the New Guinea highlands, for example, first came into contact with peoples from elsewhere in the world circa 1932-33. RESPONDENT: I don’t think all these people were or are pure inventions of my mind (at least not in the same way that, say, Martians are). RICHARD: Indeed not ... it is only the hypothetical person already (purportedly) actually free from the human condition, prior to you even knowing that there was an actual freedom from the human condition, who is a pure invention of your mind. RESPONDENT: I think they actually existed. RICHARD: The peoples of the New Guinea highlands, for example, certainly did ... I have seen both black and white footage of the first contact and several interviews, on colour video, of some still recently alive (being but 70-odd years out of isolation they could still clearly remember the first contact). Needless is it to add that none of them have spoken of a remote ancestor being actually free from the human condition (or of even knowing about such a condition)? RESPONDENT: It seems to me that you are saying for sure that none of them were ever actually free. Are you? RICHARD: Yes, both for as far as I have been able to ascertain by regular research and as experientially determined by the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago, nobody either living or dead prior to 1992 has ever been actually free of the human condition. RESPONDENT: If you are, how do you know? RICHARD: By both regular research over the period 1981-2005 and the experiential exploration through the period 1985-1992 of the identity then inhabiting this flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: Is it through strange and extraordinary knowledge ... to which I have no access? RICHARD: Anyone can follow in the footsteps of the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago, if they so desire, and thus ascertain for themselves that only one person has gone beyond spiritual enlightenment/mystical awakenment (previously considered to be only possible after physical death). RESPONDENT: Unless you can provide suitably referenced information which unambiguously demonstrates that a tribesman of Papua New Guinea twelve thousand years ago did not become actually free from the human condition I’ll have to assume that it was possible that he may have. RICHARD: I will draw your attention to the following: • [Respondent]: ‘I mean, yes, my hypothetical person is an intellectual creation (etc) ...’. [endquote]. You are, of course, free to assume whatever you like about your hypothetical person – your intellectual creation, your abstract entity, your imaginative figure – who has no existence outside of your skull. You could assume that theoretical personage also be a Martian, for instance, for all the difference it would make. RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘In 1985 I had the first of many experiences of going beyond spiritual enlightenment (as described in ‘A Brief Personal History’ on my part of The Actual Freedom Trust web site) and it had the character of the ‘Great Beyond’ – which I deliberately put in capitals because that is how it was experienced at the time – and it was of the nature of being ‘That’ which is attained to at physical death when an Enlightened One ‘quits the body’ ... which attainment is known as ‘Mahasamadhi’ (Hinduism) or ‘Parinirvana’ (Buddhism). Thus I knew even before becoming actually free that this condition was entirely new to human experience while still alive ...’. [endquote]. It is your ‘thus’ which I do not grasp. RICHARD: It is my [quote] ‘while still alive’ [endquote] words which are the key ... I will draw your attention to the following: • [Richard to Respondent]: ‘Anyone can follow in the footsteps of the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago, if they so desire, and thus ascertain for themselves that only one person has gone beyond spiritual enlightenment/mystical awakenment (*previously considered to be only possible after physical death*). [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 90a, 15 July 2005). For example: • ‘There are two kinds of nirvana. One is achieved by the Buddha while still alive, but he remains alive only until the last and most tenuous remains of karma have been expended. When these disappear, the Buddha dies and then enters the nirvana that is not burdened by any karmic residue at all’. (©1994-2002 Encyclopaedia Britannica). For another example (from Mr. Satya Goenka’s accredited master): • [Mr. Ba Khin]: ‘On the termination of their lives the perfected saints, i.e., the Buddhas and arahants, pass into parinibbāna, reaching the end of suffering’ [dukkha]. (www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/bps/wheels/wheel231.html). Or, in Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s own words, even: • [Mr. Gotama the Sakyan]: ‘There is that dimension where there is neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor wind; (...) neither this world, nor the next world, nor sun, nor moon. And there, I say, there is neither coming, nor going, nor stasis; neither passing away nor arising: without stance, without foundation, without support. This, just this, is the end of dukkha’. (Nibbana Sutta; Udana viii.1). Do you see the end of suffering was indeed previously considered to be only possible after physical death ... in a realm that had nothing to do with the physical whatsoever: ‘neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor wind’ (no physical world); ‘neither this world nor the next world’ (no more rebirth); ‘neither earth, nor moon, nor sun’ (no solar system)? RESPONDENT: How does entering the Great Beyond equal knowing that nobody has ever been there before? RICHARD: Because physical death is the end, finish ... kaput (there is no after-life in actuality). Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘Then the condition I went on to experience had the character of the ‘Great Beyond’ – which I deliberately put in capitals because that is how it was experienced at the time – and it was of the nature of being ‘That’ which is attained to at physical death when an Enlightened One ‘quits the body’ ... which attainment is known as ‘Mahasamadhi’ (Hinduism) or ‘Parinirvana’ (Buddhism) and so on. It seemed so extreme that the physical body must surely die for the attainment of it. To put it into a physical analogy, it was as if I were to gather up my meagre belongings, eradicate all marks of my stay on the island, and paddle away over the horizon, all the while not knowing whence I go ... and vanish without a trace, never to be seen again. As no one on the mainland knew where I was, no one would know where I had gone. In fact, I would become as extinct as the dodo and with no skeletal remains. *The autological self by whatever name would cease to ‘be’, there would be no ‘spirit’, no ‘presence’, no ‘being’ at all*. This was more than death of the ego, which is a major event by any definition; this was total annihilation. No ego, no soul – no self, no Self – no more Heavenly Rapture, Love Agapé, Divine Bliss and so on. Only oblivion. It was not at all attractive, not at all alluring, not at all desirable ... yet I knew I was going to do it, sooner or later, because it was the ultimate condition and herein lay the secret to the ‘Mystery of Life’. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Articles, A Brief Personal History). RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘... furthermore, in the ensuing years, as I proceeded to penetrate deeper and deeper into the state of being known as spiritual enlightenment, the psychic footprints, as it were, of those who had explored some of the further reaches of ‘Being’ itself gradually became less and less in number and finally petered out altogether leaving only virgin territory wherever the (psychic) eye would look’. [endquote]. What did these psychic footprints ‘look’ like? RICHARD: They looked more or less like the footsteps to be found in the metaphorical term ‘follow in another’s footsteps’. RESPONDENT: I am quite willing to accept that you entered a state where the whole history of human experience revealed itself to you ... RICHARD: As nowhere in those quotes do I say that I entered a state where the whole history of human experience revealed itself to me then what you are being quite willing to accept is your own invention. RESPONDENT: ... (‘extraordinary proof’), but as I am not in that state I cannot be sure if you are right. RICHARD: This is really quite a simple matter to comprehend: prior to those experiences of going beyond spiritual enlightenment/mystical awakenment, whilst paddling a canoe around a group of uninhabited islands in the tropics off the north-eastern Australian seaboard for about three months in 1985, the end of suffering was universally considered to be only possible after physical death (peace on earth was just not possible); those experiences demonstrated just what was required to have that most salubrious condition come about (the extinction of identity in toto and not just ego dissolution); the experiential penetration deeper and deeper into the further reaches of ‘Being’ itself only served to reinforce what was already known from a four-hour pure consciousness experience (PCE) six months prior to the commencement of the path that would eventually lead to an actual freedom from the human condition (that such a freedom was entirely new to human experience). RESPONDENT: You say you ‘traversed territory which no enlightened being has ever navigated’. RICHARD: Presumably you are referring to the words I wrote immediately following the above quote? Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘I was truly on my own ... no one had ventured into this terrain before. In other words I traversed territory which no enlightened being has ever navigated – virgin terrain somewhat akin to the ‘white-out’ experienced in a featureless landscape of snow and ice – until that ‘Great Beyond’ which has been proposed heretofore to only be possible at physical death became an actuality whilst the flesh and blood body was still alive. I am, of course, referring to not only that which has been described as ‘The Peace That Passeth All Understanding’ (only as an actuality and not a fantasy)’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 46, 6 August 2003). RESPONDENT: Can you explain, in greater depth, how you knew that no enlightened (or unenlightened) being had ever been there? RICHARD: To keep with the metaphor: not only were there were no footprints there were no markers at all indicating the passage of another ... no blazes, no droppings, no trampled undergrowth, no abandoned campsites, no discarded equipment, no parched skeletons, and so on, and so forth. It truly was virgin territory. Which is not at all surprising in view of the fact that the end of suffering (aka ‘The Peace That Passeth All Understanding’) had previously been considered to be only possible after physical death ... the ‘Requiescat In Pace’ (R.I.P.) ubiquitously inscribed upon tombstones, for another example, most certainly does not refer to life before death. Viz.: • [Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene]: ‘My kingdom is not of this world ...’. (John 18:36); ‘Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world’. (John 8:23); ‘Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword’. (Matthew 10:34); ‘In my Father’s house are many mansions: if [it were] not [so], I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you’. (John 14:2). * RESPONDENT: You say that ‘it was manifestly obvious that what the human race had made of such (PCE) experiences was a degradation of the actual’. RICHARD: Presumably you are referring to this: • [Richard]: ‘I also knew early in 1981, at the commencement of the path that would eventually lead to an actual freedom from the human condition, that such a freedom was entirely new to human experience as I had had a four-hour pure consciousness experience (PCE) six months prior wherein it was manifestly obvious that what the human race had made of such experiences was a degradation of the actual. Speaking in the context of the only religio-spiritual language I knew then (from the culture I was born into) I would say, to anyone prepared to listen, that everybody has got it wrong because nobody has to physically die to get to heaven ... that eternity was just here right now because, as it was already always happening, it cannot cease at physical birth and recommence at physical death after a 70+ year interregnum’. [endquote]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 46, 6 August 2003). A pure consciousness experience (PCE) is, of course, not an actual freedom from the human condition. Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘The on-going experiencing of the already always existing peace-on-earth is entirely new to human experience ... everybody I have spoken to at length has temporarily experienced such perfection, in what is called a pure consciousness experience (PCE), but nobody has been able to provide a clear, clean and pure report as an on-going actuality. Usually the PCE is interpreted and/or translated according to selfish personal desires, and by corresponding cultural conditioning, as a variation of the many types of an Altered State Of Consciousness (ASC) which perpetuates the ‘self’ as the ‘Self’ (by whatever name) in some spurious after-life ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 15, 22 December 2000). RESPONDENT: I guess you were witnessing (‘extraordinary proof’) what the human race had made of PCE experiences, the residue (‘psychic footprints’) of their expressions and explanations. RICHARD: Nope ... that four-hour PCE was in 1980, whilst being a normal person, whereas experientially determining the petering-out of other enlightened/awakened beings’ psychic footprints was during the latter part (1985-1992) of being an abnormal person, night and day, for eleven years. RESPONDENT: Thus somebody you had never met, who had left no record of their PCE, who had privately PCEd perhaps just before dying, left a ‘psychic footprint’ which you picked up and deemed a degradation. RICHARD: There is no psychic ability operating in a PCE (when the affective faculty is in abeyance so too is its epiphenomenal psychic facility). * RESPONDENT: If you were able to pick up on the ‘psychic footprints’ of those who entered or nearly entered or did not enter the state of actual freedom, are you able to still do that? RICHARD: The following should be self-explanatory • [Co-Respondent]: ‘For some reason, I do believe you are telling the truth, and I find it fascinating that the universe is not allowing you to become aware of others who have made the same discovery (you’d probably say because no-one has). [Richard]: ‘Yep ... and, just in case there has been a misunderstanding, the universe is not god/goddess and thus neither allows nor prevents such an awareness you refer to. In other words: I am no longer psychic. • [Co-Respondent]: ‘I understand that I am placing human qualities on this thing called the universe (everything) but I don’t fully understand your reply. Could you expand on this please. • [Richard]: ‘Sure ... as the awareness you refer to is a psychic awareness it has no existence outside of the human psyche – there is no ‘spirit’ or ‘presence’ or ‘being’ in actuality – and there is no such facility operating in this flesh and blood body (when the affective faculty vanished so too did its epiphenomenal psychic facility). Hence it is impossible to be aware of anybody else actually free from the human condition by such means’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 54, 21 October 2003). RESPONDENT: If I became actually free tomorrow would you feel my footprint? RICHARD: I will draw your attention to the following: • [Respondent]: ‘... just because you’ve not encountered someone through research or whatever doesn’t mean they didn’t exist. • [Richard]: ‘If I may point out? To describe my explicit account of *what the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago experientially determined* as merely being [quote] ‘whatever’ [endquote] is not indicative of an engaged dialogue’. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 90b, 20 July 2005). /p> In other words, it was the ‘being’ possessing this flesh and blood body in 1985 who experientially discovered that no-one had gone beyond enlightenment before then ... not me (I am simply providing a report of ‘his’ experience). * RESPONDENT: One respondent says that your ‘proof’ (‘no one had ventured into this terrain before’) does not tell him/her about anyone else. RICHARD: Presumably you are referring to this: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘I have previously read the link supplied and the proof that you offer is not a proof for the uniqueness of your actual freedom ... • [Richard]: ‘You have to be joking, right? Here is the remainder of the brief exegesis, of what can be found on that page, which I provided in the very e-mail you are now responding to (the first part I have already re-quoted just above): [Richard]: ‘... furthermore, in the ensuing years, as I proceeded to penetrate deeper and deeper into the state of being known as spiritual enlightenment, the psychic footprints, as it were, of those who had explored some of the further reaches of ‘Being’ itself gradually became less and less in number and finally petered out altogether leaving only virgin territory wherever the (psychic) eye would look. I was truly on my own ... *no one had ventured into this terrain before*. [emphasis added]. I did not need any more proof than that – indeed there is no other proof than that – and, just for the record, I would have preferred there had been tracks to follow as it was an enormously risky journey to go all the way through the institutionalised insanity known as spiritual enlightenment. It was an incredibly hazardous thing to do ... I could have got lost forever and never come out the other side. • [Co-Respondent]: ‘... it tells me that you have attained actual freedom but does not tell me about anyone else. • [Richard]: ‘As it tells of absolutely everybody else I would suggest a re-read ... here is what I also wrote to you by way of an explanatory note: [Richard]: ‘In other words I traversed territory which no enlightened being has ever navigated – virgin terrain somewhat akin to the ‘white-out’ experienced in a featureless landscape of snow and ice – until that ‘Great Beyond’ *which has been proposed heretofore to only be possible at physical death* became an actuality whilst the flesh and blood body was still alive. I am, of course, referring to not only that which has been described as ‘The Peace That Passeth All Understanding’ (only as an actuality and not a fantasy) but to being the actual experiencing of what has variously been called ‘the meaning of life’, ‘the purpose of the universe’, ‘the riddle of existence’, and so on. In short: being the experiencing of infinitude itself. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 56 20 October 2003). RESPONDENT: As your proof was a subjective and extraordinary experience which I am not having nor, as far as I can positively identify, had before, it also does not tell me about anyone else. RICHARD: You are simply repeating the same inconsistent argument as my co-respondent came out with ... they make out that take my word for it about me (‘it tells me that you have attained actual freedom’) yet, conversely, will not take my word for it about no-one having ventured in the terrain before (‘but does not tell me about anyone else’). RESPONDENT: It tells me about your subjective experience. RICHARD: You have written elsewhere that at the age of 20 you embarked upon 10 years of spirituality/mysticism ... are you trying to make out that you do not know the ‘Great Beyond’, by whatever name, has been proposed heretofore to only be possible at physical death (and not whilst the flesh and blood body is still alive)? RESPONDENT: Again, fair enough, I haven’t got a problem with that. RICHARD: Then why bring it up in the first place? RESPONDENT: As you say, you are not in the business of proving to me that what you have experienced is so. RICHARD: Presumably you are referring to this: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Richard, with respect, just because you say so does not make it so. • [Richard]: ‘You do seem to be under some misapprehension: I am not in the business of proving to you (or anyone else for that matter) that an actual freedom from the human condition is entirely new to human experience ... I am simply providing a report of how I know it is. What another does with my report is their business’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 56, 20 October 2003). RESPONDENT: I do not require proof from you, rather I would like to be sure, of what you are reporting, I can and cannot currently know. RICHARD: As it is blindingly obvious to all but the most intellectually challenged person that one cannot personally know what goes on in the further reaches of ‘Being’ itself unless one is spiritually enlightened/mystically awakened then if it is indeed the case that all you are wanting to be sure of, of what I am reporting, is what you can and cannot *currently* know this entire exchange has been much ado about nothing. * RESPONDENT: For example I can know of the kind of knowledge you appeal to in such statements as ‘in those six years nobody has ever come back to me with a single instance where somebody else is already actually free from the human condition.’ That kind of knowledge is, I think, familiar to me. But the ‘extraordinary proof’ is not. I can know, along with you, that nobody has left any record of having discovered a cure for cancer, but I cannot know, as you seem to, that one solitary man or woman, somewhere far away in space and time, discovered the cure and died without leaving any record of it. RICHARD: I have no knowledge whatsoever that the cure for cancer was not discovered by one solitary man or woman, somewhere far away in space and time, who died without leaving any record of it ... and neither have I any knowledge, for that matter, that Mr. Edmund Hillary and Mr. Tenzing Norgay were not the first to have ascended Mt. Everest, on May 29 1953 (someone from Tibet/Nepal/Mongolia/Wherever may have already done so 10/100/1000/10,000 years ago and just never got around to informing their fellow human beings). Nor have I any knowledge that someone from, say, Outer Gondwanaland might have not already been to the South Pole long before Mr Roald Amundsen travelled there or whether Mr. Yuri Gagarin was indeed the first human being to leave the planet’s atmosphere or whether Mr. Neil Armstrong was certainly the first human being to set foot on the moon or whether ... and so on, and so on, through the entire Guinness Book Of Records. In short: your argument is a variation on what is known as an agnostic argument (that nothing can ever be known with 100% certainty) such as what Mr. Karl Popper made popular and stems, as I understand it, from the occasion wherein, prior to the exploration of Australia’s west coast, all (European) swans were white ... meaning that, somewhere, somewhen, in an infinite and eternal universe a purple swan may very well exist. Or not, of course, which is why, by and large, Mr. Karl Popper’s logic has been discarded as merely abstract and/or irrelevant and/or useless by many thoughtful human beings. RESPONDENT: So you seem to be relying on two modes of knowledge, the regular look-it-up-in-a-book type and the highly irregular picking-up-on-psychic-footprints type. RICHARD: No, I am relying (to use your phrasing) solely upon what was experientially determined by the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago ... the regular research was purely for the sake of verification by another means (for as far as it is possible to ascertain). RESPONDENT: As the latter informs you about every person who ever did (or does) live, why bother with the former? RICHARD: Since when has the entirely sensible procedure of verifying something by some other means been a bother? RESPONDENT: Is it to offer something ordinary to those who do not have access to the extraordinary? RICHARD: Also ... I prefer my fellow human beings to not have to take my word for anything. RESPONDENT: That would seem reasonable. Again, I’m not claiming that what you know is false, just trying to be clear about how you know it. RICHARD: Yet I was clear about how I know it right from the very beginning: • [Respondent]: ‘It seems to me that you are saying for sure that none of them [the many, many people in the past who had no access to written records and who lived and died far from any kind of civilisation] were ever actually free. Are you? • [Richard]: ‘Yes, both for as far as I have been able to ascertain by regular research and as experientially determined by the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago, nobody either living or dead prior to 1992 has ever been actually free of the human condition. • [Respondent]: ‘If you are, how do you know? • [Richard]: ‘By both regular research over the period 1981-2005 and the experiential exploration through the period 1985-1992 of the identity then inhabiting this flesh and blood body. • [Respondent]: ‘Is it through strange and extraordinary knowledge ... to which I have no access? • [Richard]: ‘Anyone can follow in the footsteps of the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago, if they so desire, and thus ascertain for themselves that only one person has gone beyond spiritual enlightenment/mystical awakenment (previously considered to be only possible after physical death)’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 90a, 15 July 2005). RESPONDENT: I’m sure that’s about it. RICHARD: So endeth the feeling-fed doubt, then? * RESPONDENT: How does entering the Great Beyond equal knowing that nobody has ever been there before? RICHARD: Because physical death is the end, finish ... kaput (there is no after-life in actuality). Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘Then the condition I went on to experience had the character of the ‘Great Beyond’ – which I deliberately put in capitals because that is how it was experienced at the time – and it was of the nature of being ‘That’ which is attained to at physical death when an Enlightened One ‘quits the body’ ... which attainment is known as ‘Mahasamadhi’ (Hinduism) or ‘Parinirvana’ (Buddhism) and so on. It seemed so extreme that the physical body must surely die for the attainment of it. To put it into a physical analogy, it was as if I were to gather up my meagre belongings, eradicate all marks of my stay on the island, and paddle away over the horizon, all the while not knowing whence I go ... and vanish without a trace, never to be seen again. As no one on the mainland knew where I was, no one would know where I had gone. In fact, I would become as extinct as the dodo and with no skeletal remains. *The autological self by whatever name would cease to ‘be’, there would be no ‘spirit’, no ‘presence’, no ‘being’ at all*. This was more than death of the ego, which is a major event by any definition; this was total annihilation. No ego, no soul – no self, no Self – no more Heavenly Rapture, Love Agapé, Divine Bliss and so on. Only oblivion. It was not at all attractive, not at all alluring, not at all desirable ... yet I knew I was going to do it, sooner or later, because it was the ultimate condition and herein lay the secret to the ‘Mystery of Life’. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Articles, A Brief Personal History). RESPONDENT: This doesn’t answer my question I don’t think. How does entering the Great Beyond equal knowing that nobody has ever been there before? RICHARD: Because there is no after-life (physical death is the end, finish ... kaput). RESPONDENT: What you say above is that ‘death is the end’ ... RICHARD: What I say above is that *physical* death is the end. RESPONDENT: ... and that your condition was that. RICHARD: No, I did not say that (this flesh and blood body is quite obviously still alive). RESPONDENT: As you haven’t died yet I can’t see how you can be sure that this was so ... RICHARD: That which was previously considered to survive physical death has no existence in actuality. RESPONDENT: ...but that aside, you don’t explain how this condition revealed the fact that nobody had ever been there before. RICHARD: If identity in toto does not become extinct before physical death it will at physical death. RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘... furthermore, in the ensuing years, as I proceeded to penetrate deeper and deeper into the state of being known as spiritual enlightenment, the psychic footprints, as it were, of those who had explored some of the further reaches of ‘Being’ itself gradually became less and less in number and finally petered out altogether leaving only virgin territory wherever the (psychic) eye would look’. [endquote]. What did these psychic footprints ‘look’ like? RICHARD: They looked more or less like the footsteps to be found in the metaphorical term ‘follow in another’s footsteps’. (...) RESPONDENT: You say you ‘traversed territory which no enlightened being has ever navigated’. RICHARD: Presumably you are referring to the words I wrote immediately following the above quote [now snipped]? Viz.: [Richard]: ‘I was truly on my own ... no one had ventured into this terrain before. In other words I traversed territory which no enlightened being has ever navigated – virgin terrain somewhat akin to the ‘white-out’ experienced in a featureless landscape of snow and ice – until that ‘Great Beyond’ which has been proposed heretofore to only be possible at physical death became an actuality whilst the flesh and blood body was still alive. I am, of course, referring to not only that which has been described as ‘The Peace That Passeth All Understanding’ (only as an actuality and not a fantasy) ...’. [endquote]. RESPONDENT: Can you explain, in greater depth, how you knew that no enlightened (or unenlightened) being had ever been there? RICHARD: To keep with the metaphor: not only were there were no footprints there were no markers at all indicating the passage of another ... no blazes, no droppings, no trampled undergrowth, no abandoned campsites, no discarded equipment, no parched skeletons, and so on, and so forth. It truly was virgin territory. RESPONDENT: I do not understand what your metaphor refers to. RICHARD: It refers to: 1. No one having ventured into that terrain (the further reaches of ‘Being’ itself) before. 2. To traversing territory (the further reaches of ‘Being’ itself) which no enlightened being has ever navigated. 3. To virgin terrain (the further reaches of ‘Being’ itself) somewhat akin to the ‘white-out’ experienced in a featureless landscape of snow and ice. RESPONDENT: Did you enter some kind of mystic state where residues were left of former experiences? RICHARD: The identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body during that period (1985-1992) was already in some kind of mystical state – popularly known as spiritual enlightenment/mystical awakenment – and was exploring the further reaches of ‘Being’ itself (an apotheosised field of consciousness wherein metaphysical knowledge is directly attainable). RESPONDENT: Did you become one with a kind of psychic field that you saw was unbreached? RICHARD: The identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body during that period already had access to that which you refer to as ‘a kind of psychic field’ (popularly known as the ‘Akashic Records’ or the ‘Aetheric Library’) ... just all fully enlightened/awakened beings do. RESPONDENT: What? RICHARD: A transcendental state of being wherein ratiocination in general, and illation in particular, is not required to obtain such knowledge. RESPONDENT: Okay. I’ll just have to take your word for that. RICHARD: Not at all – it is scattered all throughout the voluminous religio-spiritual/ mystico-metaphysical literature that metaphysical knowledge is directly attainable in the transcendental state of being popularly known as spiritual enlightenment/mystical awakenment – and you have written elsewhere that at the age of 20 you embarked upon 10 years of spirituality/mysticism (that you even created and published a mystic magazine into which you poured considerable time, energy and money) so surely that is not news to you? (...) RESPONDENT: This doesn’t answer my question I don’t think. How does entering the Great Beyond equal knowing that nobody has ever been there before? RICHARD: Because there is no after-life (physical death is the end, finish ... kaput). RESPONDENT: What you say above is that ‘death is the end’ ... RICHARD: What I say above is that *physical* death is the end. RESPONDENT: ... and that your condition was that. RICHARD: No, I did not say that (this flesh and blood body is quite obviously still alive). RESPONDENT: As you haven’t died yet I can’t see how you can be sure that this was so ... RICHARD: That which was previously considered to survive physical death has no existence in actuality. RESPONDENT: ...but that aside, you don’t explain how this condition revealed the fact that nobody had ever been there before. RICHARD: If identity in toto does not become extinct before physical death it will at physical death. RESPONDENT: Hm. Still doesn’t answer my question, at least to my (quite possibly imperfect and misguided) satisfaction. Far too cryptic. RICHARD: If you cannot comprehend my response to your very first question – a response which is pivotal to the entire issue – there is no point in proceeding further. RESPONDENT: Indeed. A shame though. RICHARD: You give up far too easily ... why not have another go at comprehending my response to your very first question instead? RESPONDENT: In fact I do comprehend the answer to my question. There is no afterlife. It all ends with the body. RICHARD: Good ... now, with that bit of comprehension held firmly in mind, try re-reading the sequence further above until you come to the question mark I placed at the end of my sentence starting with ‘Do you see ...’. If your answer is in the affirmative then there is every possibility it will all fall into place. RESPONDENT: What I don’t comprehend is how entering the great beyond informs you of whether anyone, alive or dead, having left a record or not, has ever been actually free from the human condition. RICHARD: Because no-one has been able to enter into the ‘Great Beyond’ before – into ‘That’ which was previously considered to be only attainable at physical death when an Enlightened One ‘quits the body’ (which attainment is known as ‘Mahasamadhi’ in Hinduism or ‘Parinirvana’ in Buddhism and so on) – as physical death is the end, finish ... kaput. Which is why I said it is my [quote] ‘while still alive’ [endquote] words which are the key to grasping my ‘thus’ in the quote you provided as being an answer in particular which you would have me clarify. RESPONDENT: This seems to me to be this; Me: How does entering the great beyond equal knowing that nobody had been there before. Richard; Entering into the great beyond equals knowing that nobody had been there before because nobody had been there before. RICHARD: I have re-inserted the sequence, which came before the latest question and answer awaiting your response, for your convenience ... were you to have actually re-read that sequence further above, with that bit of comprehension [quote] ‘There is no afterlife. It all ends with the body’ [endquote] held firmly in mind, until you came to the question mark I placed at the end of my sentence starting with ‘Do you see ...’ then there would have been every possibility it could have all fallen into place. You wrote the following further on in this e-mail of yours I am currently responding to: • [Respondent]: ‘I don’t know what you mean by an engaged discussion ...’. [endquote]. Just for starters: an engaged discussion means actually reading what your co-respondent writes ... and especially when they suggest a re-read. RESPONDENT: What am I missing? RICHARD: An interest in actually comprehending my response to your very first question, a response which is pivotal to the entire issue, perhaps? For instance: • [Respondent to Co-Respondent ]: ‘... to me this matter is fairly superficial. I just tossed it off’. (Thursday 14/07/2005 7:48 AM AEST). Needless is it to add that when that ... um ... that tosser gravely informed me a mere six days later (Wednesday 20/07/2005 4:04 AM AEST) that they did feel that, if I cannot give them a good answer to these [matters], then perhaps there was a reason to doubt me I did look askance at their averment of having read all of my collected-together responses to the same or similar question at the link they were advised to access (let alone having not understood them)? RESPONDENT: So you were still alive when you entered what had previously been thought of as unattainable before death. How does that reveal that nobody had been there before? RICHARD: Perhaps if it were to be put sequentially: 1. In order for that which had previously been considered as unattainable before death (a dimension, by whatever name, where there is no suffering) to become apparent, whilst the flesh and blood body is still alive, ‘Being’ itself ceases. 2. That ‘Being’ is what was previously considered to be that which ‘quits the body’, at the physical death of an Enlightened Being/Awakened One, and which attains to that dimension, by whatever name, where there is no suffering. 3. As there is no such ‘Being’ in actuality it is patently obvious that physical death is the end, finish. Kaput. 4. Thus no Enlightened Being/Awakened One has ever ‘quit the body’ at physical death and attained to that dimension, by whatever name, where there is no suffering – indeed there is no after-life – as all what has ever happened is that they were interred/were cremated just like anybody else. 5. Ergo, an actual freedom from the human condition is entirely new to human experience/human history. RESPONDENT: Richard, I have been following your explication of why you know without a shadow of a doubt why you are the only person to have experienced what you call actual freedom. It isn’t just the circularity of the argument that grates. RICHARD: As it is not a circular argument the grating you are experiencing is self-inflicted. RESPONDENT: ‘I know because I know’. RICHARD: As that is not what I am saying it is obvious you have not been following my explication of how I know that an actual freedom from the human condition is entirely new to human experience/human history after all. In a nutshell, then: 1. In 1985 I had the first of many experiences of going beyond spiritual enlightenment/mystical awakenment (as described in ‘A Brief Personal History’ on my part of The Actual Freedom Trust web site). 2. Those experiences had the character of the ‘Great Beyond’ – which I deliberately put in capitals because that is how it was experienced at the time – and were of the nature of being ‘That’ which was previously considered to be attained at physical death when an Enlightened being/Awakened One ‘quits the body’. 3. That attainment is known as ‘Mahasamadhi’ in Hinduism, or ‘Parinirvana’ in Buddhism, and so on, and is hailed as being the end of suffering (peace-on-earth being considered not at all possible). 4. Thus I knew even before becoming actually free from the human condition that it was entirely new to human experience/human history while still alive. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 90c, 4 August 2005f). How you can get [quote] ‘I know because I know’ [endquote] out of that defies sensibility. RESPONDENT: You use ancient texts that speak of what can only be experienced beyond death. You experienced these things in a living breathing body, therefore you are the only one. Doesn’t it occur to you that any information about that which is beyond death is suspect? RICHARD: Any information about that which is beyond physical death is not just suspect ... it is spurious. RESPONDENT: After all if bodily death is the end period, there is hardly any way a dead person can relate the ‘truth’ to the living. If the ‘new’ state was accurately known, then it had to have been gleaned in this world of sensibility. RICHARD: What the ancient texts speak of (and the modern texts for that matter) was gleaned in the world of delusion. RESPONDENT: Maybe just maybe the death spoken of was the death of the Self. RICHARD: So as to forestall quibbling over the hoary topic of ‘Self’ shall we cut to the chase and refer to that which (supposedly) does not die at bodily death as [quote] ‘the divine’ [endquote]? Viz.: • [Respondent]: ‘I would agree that there are no deities in actuality. There is the eternal stillness. The only absolute. Richard just chooses to not speak of it as the divine. He dances around it with euphemisms. And probably rightly so. To put a limit on the ‘limitless’ is unthinkable’. (Wednesday 29/06/2005 3:43 AM AEST). RESPONDENT: Meaning that the old spiritual texts reveal that the transformation was known in antiquity. RICHARD: There was no [quote] ‘transformation’ [endquote] ... what is it about the word ‘extinction’ that you do not comprehend? RESPONDENT: I am quite sure that when you were making the transition you were traversing the ‘unknown’. RICHARD: There was no [quote] ‘transition’ [endquote] ... what is it about the word ‘extinction’ that you do not comprehend? RESPONDENT: That is, the unknown-to-the-self. Alone in the wilderness it would be very easy to think that no one had been here before. Especially if you misunderstood the original texts to be speaking of a literal after-death state. RICHARD: There has been no misunderstanding of any texts, period. RESPONDENT: Another sad situation with you is that you link ‘acknowledgement of your singularity’ as necessary to use the methodology you have developed. RICHARD: What is linked (to use your phrasing) as necessary to the use of the actualism method is the comprehension that identity in toto is what is standing in the way of the already always existing peace-on-earth being apparent. RESPONDENT: Questioning your ‘priority’ of discovery is tantamount to rejecting ‘peace on earth’. RICHARD: It matters not one jot who discovered an actual freedom from the human condition – somebody has to be the first to discover something new in any area of human endeavour as a matter of course – as what does matter is the discovery that, in order for the already always existing peace-on-earth to be apparent, identity in toto becomes extinct. RESPONDENT: Why can’t your techniques stand alone as methods to help diminish suffering? RICHARD: The approach the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago devised – a course of action which has become known as the actualism method – was never intended to merely [quote] ‘diminish’ [endquote] suffering but to bring it to an end once and for all ... here on earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: New people coming to this site will continue to challenge your claim of ‘first and only’. RICHARD: Some of the people coming to The Actual Freedom Trust web site for the first time will (presumably) continue to challenge all manner of things ... it is oft-times difficult to accommodate something new to human experience/human history into a pre-existing mind-set. RESPONDENT: There are good reasons for this. RICHARD: The main reason goes by the (misnamed) term ‘cognitive dissonance’. RESPONDENT: Why continue to waste bandwidth on a losing battle? RICHARD: It is neither a battle nor a waste of bandwidth ... it is such fun to sit here at the keyboard and share my experience with my fellow human being no matter where they are coming from or what their agenda may be. RESPONDENT: If you had the precious pearl of great price I think someone other than a few neurotic people like me would have ‘discovered’ you. RICHARD: I do not have [quote] ‘the precious pearl of great price’ [endquote] ... an actual freedom from the human condition is entirely new to human experience/human history. RESPONDENT: By making your ‘specialness’ primary, you actually force most people to reject the whole AF thing. And maybe they are wise to do so. The methodology may be corrupted by your sense of specialness. RICHARD: Has it never occurred to you it is somewhat difficult to report having discovered something entirely new to human experience/human history without also reporting that it is entirely new to human experience/human history? RESPONDENT: I actually think that you have somehow managed to get yourself into a state of unsuffering and continuous ‘happiness’. Nice. But not an unknown state. To the common person, yes. To those adventurers into the unknown long gone and contemporary ones who report similar things as you do, no. RICHARD: No one, either living or dead prior to 1992, has ever been actually free from the human condition. RESPONDENT: Maybe you will evolve to a point where you will destroy all you have written about the desirable state you promulgate now, just as you did with the ‘enlightened state’ material. It might be embarrassing to discover that you actually are on the cusp of the unknown, never having actually destroyed the Self, but settled for identification with a subtle archetype. Wherein comes the inflationary self-presentation of Richard. Saviours and teachers of mankind are prima facia evidence of an archetypical identification. You think that statements to the effect that ‘your intention is to become a regular guy’ is proof of actually becoming a regular guy. It is factual that you made the statement. Not factual that it is true. Or maybe you are still intending to become a regular guy, just hasn’t happened yet. RICHARD: I will juxtapose the essence of your two statements: 1. You have somehow managed to get yourself into a state of unsuffering and continuous ‘happiness’. 2. You actually are on the cusp of the unknown, never having actually destroyed the Self. RESPONDENT: Unless you really consider the possibilities stated above, your claims and methodology will become minor footnotes in the literature of the quest for human freedom from suffering. RICHARD: Ha ... unless you really consider the actualities reported/described/explained above your stated possibilities will remain being yet more re-hashes of the many and various objections to being happy and harmless. VINEETO: Seeing that you are having difficulty attempting to understand the core issue of what an actual freedom from the human condition is all about, let me add some – possibly – clarifying comment – RESPONDENT to Richard: So you were still alive when you entered what had previously been thought of as unattainable before death. How does that reveal that nobody had been there before? RICHARD: Perhaps if it were to be put sequentially: 1. In order for that which had previously been considered as unattainable before death (a dimension, by whatever name, where there is no suffering) to become apparent, whilst the flesh and blood body is still alive, ‘Being’ itself ceases. RESPONDENT to Richard: Okay. Got that. The ‘spirit’ or the ‘enlightened state’ which many claim is the source of truth, available now some say, but only in its oceanic full version after death, that has to go. Right. RICHARD: 2. That ‘Being’ is what was previously considered to be that which ‘quits the body’, at the physical death of an Enlightened Being/ Awakened One, and which attains to that dimension, by whatever name, where there is no suffering. RESPONDENT to Richard: Right. The thing which has to go, was thought to quit the body when you die and become one with the full monty. Right. Familiar with that. RICHARD: 3. As there is no such ‘Being’ in actuality it is patently obvious that physical death is the end, finish. Kaput. RESPONDENT to Richard: Er. Nope. Why is it ‘patently obvious’. It’s not at all patently obvious to me. It’s not patently obvious that nothing which in some way I am does not continue after death. It is not patently obvious to me that, without mind, body and spirit I am still, somehow, That. VINEETO: Can you see that exactly this point is the crux of the matter? For Richard it is patently obvious that there is no ‘Being’ surviving physical death because Richard’s ‘Being’ is extinguished … before physical death. As he lives this experience of being a flesh-and-blood-body-sans-identity day and night he knows without a doubt that there is no resemblance of any ‘Being’ whatsoever found in his physical body. Whereas for you it seems impossible to even consider this as a possibility – and therefore you are bound to doubt that Richard’s Being is indeed extinguished and consequently that his condition is something entirely new to human history. * RESPONDENT to Richard: But anyway, moving on. VINEETO: Your ‘but anyway, moving on’ is a throw-away line apparently said in order to avoid sorting this issue. RESPONDENT: You might be right. My reaction is; ‘hardly!’ I would very much like to ‘sort the issue’. VINEETO: If you do, then why not start at the beginning and stay at the beginning before moving on – can you see that the belief in a life after death is a spirit-ual belief because it is based on the assumption that something non-physical (a spirit) will survive physical death? The issue of a belief in a life after death is fundamental to actualism – if you believe in a life after death or if you want to remain ‘open’ to a life after death then spiritualism is for you, if you think a belief in life after death is non-sensical then you will have a firm footing from which to understand what actualism is about – if you are interested in peace on earth that is. * VINEETO: Your circulatory correspondence on this topic seems to demonstrate that you cannot ‘move on’ until you genuinely consider, and take on board, the fact that *all* of one’s ‘being’ is indeed extinguished at physical death. Only then is it possible to ‘move on’ to contemplating the possibility that one’s ‘being’ can self-immolate *before* physical death. RESPONDENT: It seems to me that my correspondence is circulatory because I’m not getting a straight answer to my questions. I am quite willing to accept that it is my crooked reasoning that is warping what is too straight for me to see. But I need to see my crooked reasoning. VINEETO: Your reasoning is ‘crooked’ because on one hand you want to maintain a belief in life after death while on the other hand you want to understand how one’s being – the very being that supposedly survives physical death – can be extinguished whilst still being alive. RESPONDENT: Accusing me of tergiversating, asking pointless ‘yes-but-why’ style questions, circulating around the matter at hand and so forth is all well and good. You might be right. But I need to see exactly what point I’m missing and how I can accept it as plain and obvious and how that might lead to the answers to all the other questions I have. VINEETO: There is no accusation – you are entirely free to arrange your thoughts the way you want to about the issues that concern you. You were merely made aware of the fact that you are tergiversating and circulating around the issues under discussion. Straight thinking as opposed to circulatory thinking means to begin at the start and only ‘move on’ when the first point is understood and resolved. To reiterate for emphasis – the issue at hand is the belief in life after death. I know from experience that at first it takes guts and determination to even consider that physical death is the end but I discovered, the more I looked into the matter, that I, along with everyone else had been sold a dummy and it was a great relief when I finally stopped worrying about a life after death. The way I sorted out the issue of my beliefs in life after death was experientially, not intellectually, i.e. I investigated the *feelings* I had around the issue which allowed me to replace my beliefs with straightforward facts. Descriptions of this process can be found here. A New and Non-Spiritual Down-to-Earth Freedom means exactly what it says, new, non-spiritual and down-to-earth. Actual Freedom Homepage This Topic Continued
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