# Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

Richard’s Selected Correspondence ## On Noumenon RESPONDENT: Unfortunately, your method has not helped anybody to achieve this lofty goal to extinct the ‘passionate instincts’. RICHARD: On the contrary ... the very reason why this flesh and blood body is actually free from the human condition (sans the entire affective faculty/ identity in toto) is because of the identity in residence all those years ago (1981-1992) utilising the approach ‘he’ devised – a course of action which has become known as the actualism method – to full effect. Incidentally, it was not a [quote] ‘lofty goal’ [endquote] ... it was a very down-to-earth, sensible, and practical goal. RESPONDENT: At best your method has helped people to reduce the effects of their instincts and affections on their behaviour. RICHARD: Again, what the actualism method did was rid this flesh and blood body of the entire affective faculty/ identity in toto. RESPONDENT: From a practical point of view, it does the same like Buddha’s method. RICHARD: Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s mindfulness method did not, does not, and never will, rid flesh and blood bodies of the entire affective faculty/ identity in toto. RESPONDENT: Besides, no neurological state and no extinction of whatever (psyche, ego, instincts etc.) can end the noumenon. RICHARD: There is no noumenon whatsoever here in this actual world. RESPONDENT: No phenomenal change of any kind can have an effect on the noumenon. RICHARD: Where did I say that the extinction of the entire affective faculty/ identity in toto was a [quote] ‘phenomenal change’ [endquote]? RESPONDENT: The noumenon is a metaphysical truth. RICHARD: There is no metaphysical truth in actuality. RESPONDENT: Your superstition of facts simply blinds you from seeing this truth. RICHARD: I do not have a [quote] ‘superstition of facts’ [endquote]. RESPONDENT: How can a phenomenal world exist without a noumenon from which it arises? RICHARD: Where have I ever said that a phenomenal world arises? * RESPONDENT: Besides, no neurological state and no extinction of whatever (psyche, ego, instincts etc.) can end the noumenon. RICHARD: There is no noumenon whatsoever here in this actual world. RESPONDENT: Yes, sure not. RICHARD: I am also pleased that this matter has been settled as well. * RESPONDENT: No phenomenal change of any kind can have an effect on the noumenon. RICHARD: Where did I say that the extinction of the entire affective faculty/ identity in toto was a [quote] ‘phenomenal change’ [endquote]? RESPONDENT: You didn’t say that. RICHARD: Indeed I did not ... I am on record on many an occasion as reporting/ describing/ explaining that it is all an illusion/ delusion being played-out. RESPONDENT: I say that. RICHARD: You can, of course, say whatever you will ... the saying of it, however, does nothing to alter the fact that there is no affective faculty/ identity whatsoever in this actual world (I only get to meet flesh and blood bodies here). RESPONDENT: The extinction of the entire affective faculty is a phenomenon. RICHARD: It is nothing of the sort ... the extinction of the entire affective faculty/ identity in toto is but a playing-out of the illusion/ delusion. RESPONDENT: It takes place in the phenomenal world, or does it not. RICHARD: It does not ... it takes place in the noumenal world (to couch it in the terminology you are using). RESPONDENT: Because the noumenon is, per definition, untouched by whatever takes place in the phenomenal world the extinction of whoever’s affective faculty proves nothing regards the noumenon. RICHARD: As the noumenon/ the noumenal world is nothing but the affective faculty (which term includes its intuitive/ imaginative facility) writ large, so to speak, the extinction of the entire affective faculty/ identity in toto is, simultaneously, the ending of its noumenon/ its noumenal world. Put succinctly: it is but a drama being acted-out in the illusion/ delusion ... ‘my’ demise, in toto, is as fictitious as ‘my’ existence is, in its entirety. * RESPONDENT: The noumenon is a metaphysical truth. RICHARD: There is no metaphysical truth in actuality. RESPONDENT: Yes, I understand your position. RICHARD: That is not my [quote] ‘position’ [endquote] ... that is a report/ description/ explanation coming from actuality. What issues forth from this keyboard in regards life here in this actual world comes immediately from the direct experience of this moment in eternal time at this place in infinite space as this form of perpetual matter ... there is this which is happening and the words write themselves in accord to the very thing being referred to as it is occurring – they are coming directly out of actuality – and not from some nebulous [quote] ‘position’ [endquote] such as you would have be the case. Just so that there is no misunderstanding: nothing coming from here regarding life in this actual world is a standpoint either ... and neither is it an idea, an ideal, a belief, a concept, an opinion, a conjecture, a speculation, an assumption, a presumption, a supposition, a surmise, an inference, a judgement, an intellectualisation, an imagination, a posit, a postulation, an image, an analysis, a viewpoint, a view, a stance, a perspective, a world-view, a mind-set, a state-of-mind, a frame-of-mind, or any other of the 101 ways you may come up with of overlooking a direct report of what it is to be actually free from the human condition and living the utter peace of the perfection of the purity welling endlessly as the infinitude this eternal, infinite and perpetual universe actually is. RESPONDENT: Your superstition of facts simply blinds you from seeing this truth. RICHARD: I do not have a [quote] ‘superstition of facts’ [endquote]. RESPONDENT: Ok. RICHARD: Good ... that makes it three issues settled in one e-mail, eh? * RESPONDENT: How can a phenomenal world exist without a noumenon from which it arises? RICHARD: Where have I ever said that a phenomenal world arises? RESPONDENT: I said that. RICHARD: In which case I will leave it to you to answer. RESPONDENT: What do you say? RICHARD: This (for instance): • [Respondent]: ‘What brings everything into existence? • [Richard]: ‘If by ‘everything’ you mean all space and all time and all matter (aka the universe) then nothing does ... the universe is already always existent’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 89, 2 May 2005 6:20 PM AEST). * CO-RESPONDENT: I just discovered No. 89’s messages. I agree with him in what he writes about eastern mysticism – having done more or less the same reading circuit – but not on his scientific opinions on evolution apparently close to ‘intelligent design’ should I not have misunderstood something there, which is quite possible. I didn’t look into it closely. No. 89 gives a short résumé of the essentials at: http://lists.topica.com/lists/actualfreedom/read/message.html?mid=911984875 RICHARD: Did you notice that the e-mail at that URL has, towards the beginning, the question about what is so different between Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s mindfulness method and the actualism method – after stating that an actual freedom from the human condition is not at all beyond what the different traditions teach – yet finishes with references to [quote] ‘the Principle or Self. Itself is undying and never born but it brings everything into existence’ [endquote] by any chance? (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 97b, 8 September 2005a). RESPONDENT: There is no contradiction here; the words ‘Self’ resp. ‘Principle’ are not identical with your usage of the word ‘Self’ (passionate instincts etc.); they denote that (‘noumenon’) from which everything (‘phenomenon’) arises. RICHARD: Here the text at that URL which I was referring to by pointing out (further above) that there is ‘the question about what is so different between Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s mindfulness method and the actualism method’ in that e-mail: • [Respondent]: ‘Buddha taught a technique called ‘mindfulness’ (and most likely the technique was very different 2500 years ago than today) which had as an aim to stop instinctive and affective *behaviour* whether for good or bad. What is so different here to Richard?’ [emphasis added]. There is an enormous difference between merely stopping instinctive and affective behaviour and eliminating the [quote] ‘passionate instincts etc.’ [endquote] themselves ... for the extinction of the latter is the end of the noumenon from which everything (supposedly) arises. Put simply: neither ‘Self and/or Principle’ have any existence in actuality. * RESPONDENT: When the Sage says ‘I am God’ or ‘Everything is God’ he means that everything is noumenon BUT not as an object, not as a phenomenon!!! Because the noumenon is not an object the Sage doesn’t mean – like some ill-minded people – that he as a phenomenon is God or that this particular phenomenon is God or that all phenomena together are God. For a metaphysician that is all clear, but if you are a mystic (which I believe Richard was) you make statements like ‘I am God’ in the delusion to be God as an object, as a phenomenon. And that is the mistake of the mystics and all the people that are in ASC’s. A person in ASC still deals only with the phenomenal side of existence. Hence, when he believes himself to be the Divine he mistakes a phenomena, an object for the noumenon. RICHARD: Perhaps if I were to re-post the following you might take notice of it this time around ... and thus finally desist from repeating the preposterous notion that metaphysicians know better than the mystics whose reports/ descriptions/ explanations they studiously review and make erudite pronouncements about: • [Richard to Respondent]: ‘You may find the following informative in this regard: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘What do You understand by being enlightenment?’ • [Richard]: ‘There is nothing other than The Absolute’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25, 30 July 2001). And this: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘I invite all of you who have had a Self experience to try describing it. • [Richard]: ‘Sure ... there was only The Absolute (the Self by whatever name) and nothing else existed’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25, 6 August 2002). And this: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘As an example [of a description of ‘Self’], is the description ‘a very old child’ valid in your case?’ • [Richard]: ‘No, the description ‘there is nothing other than The Absolute’ is what is valid in my case (...)’. • [Co-Respondent]: ‘If you can provide a brief description for your particular Self image, so as to compare notes, I would be pleased to read it’. • [Richard]: ‘Sure ... there was only The Absolute (the Self by whatever name) and nothing else existed’. • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Or is it indescribable?’ • [Richard]: ‘No, it is easily described: there was nothing other than The Absolute’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25c, 25 August 2003). In other words, in full-blown spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment, there is only ‘That’ (the unmanifest by whatever name) and the manifest – all time and all space and all form – is but a dream/ an illusion/ an appearance ... meaning that in reality there is neither creation nor destruction, and thus, neither bondage nor liberation/ neither a seeker after liberation nor the liberated’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 89b, 13 May 2005). RESPONDENT: I just discovered No. 89’s messages. I agree with him in what he writes about eastern mysticism – having done more or less the same reading circuit – but not on his scientific opinions on evolution apparently close to ‘intelligent design’ should I not have misunderstood something there, which is quite possible. I didn’t look into it closely. No. 89 gives a short résumé of the essentials at: http://lists.topica.com/lists/actualfreedom/read/message.html?mid=911984875 RICHARD: Did you notice that the e-mail at that URL has, towards the beginning, the question about what is so different between Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s mindfulness method and the actualism method – after stating that an actual freedom from the human condition is not at all beyond what the different traditions teach – yet finishes with references to [quote] ‘the Principle or Self. Itself is undying and never born but it brings everything into existence’ [endquote] by any chance? RESPONDENT No. 89: There is no contradiction here; the words ‘Self’ resp. ‘Principle’ are not identical with your usage of the word ‘Self’ (passionate instincts etc.); they denote that (‘noumenon’) from which everything (‘phenomenon’) arises. RICHARD: Here the text at that URL which I was referring to by pointing out (further above) that there is ‘the question about what is so different between Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s mindfulness method and the actualism method’ in that e-mail: • [Respondent]: ‘Buddha taught a technique called ‘mindfulness’ (and most likely the technique was very different 2500 years ago than today) which had as an aim to stop instinctive and affective *behaviour* whether for good or bad. What is so different here to Richard?’ [emphasis added]. There is an enormous difference between merely stopping instinctive and affective behaviour and eliminating the [quote] ‘passionate instincts etc.’ [endquote] themselves ... for the extinction of the latter is the end of the noumenon from which everything (supposedly) arises. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 89c, 10 September 2005). RESPONDENT: I don’t agree with that. RICHARD: As you explicitly stated (at the top of this page) that you agree with what my co-respondent writes about eastern mysticism – having done [quote] ‘more or less the same reading circuit’ [endquote] yourself – it is not at all surprising your book-learnt understanding is at variance with my experiential report/ description/ explanation that the extinction of the entire affective faculty/ identity in toto is the simultaneous ending of the Self or Principle (noumenon) from which everything (phenomenon) supposedly arises. RESPONDENT: I say: the noumenon is the universe experiencing itself as this flesh and blood body. RICHARD: Or, more accurately, having done more or less the same reading circuit around eastern mysticism as my co-respondent, your book-lore knowledge persuades you to say that. For instance: • [Respondent]: ‘The universe experiencing itself, as in good old Spinoza or Hegel, in a body. Philosophically, we can discount their pantheism because something which is equal in everything that exists makes no difference. Which is the reason why Spinoza was so unpopular with the church of his times and so popular with the following generations of philosophers: his God came without a devil, it was simply everything-there-is. So he was accused of atheism: because atheism and pantheism are, in the form, identical (forgive the allusion to poor muddled Spencer-Brown). (...) As I understood Advaita teachings, the ‘Self’ and the ‘Universe’ are identical; why should the ‘universe’ have a ‘self’ separate from itself? (Sunday 14/08/2005 8:46 PM AEST). RESPONDENT: It is the condition for any ‘experience’, not different from matter. RICHARD: Just because a transcendental experience, as in the altered state of consciousness (ASC) popularly known as Self-Realisation (aka spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment), is of dedifferentiated spirit/ matter being the thing on whose existence the very experience of spirit/ matter being undifferentiated depends does not mean it is actual ... that suprasensible and thus suprarelational reality (a world without distinctions and multiplicity), otherwise known as Emptiness, Nothingness, Void, and so on, has no existence in actuality. RESPONDENT: This condition will not disappear together with the passionate instincts. RICHARD: As there is no spirit outside of the human psyche there is no such thing, upon whose existence the very experience of spirit/ matter being undifferentiated depends, here in this actual world. RESPONDENT: Glad to have put our disagreement in a nutshell. RICHARD: It is not [quote] ‘our’ [endquote] disagreement ... all what is happening is that your bookwork is at odds with actuality. RETURN TO RICHARD’S SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE INDEX RICHARD’S HOME PAGE The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one. Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997- . All Rights Reserved. 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