# Actual Freedom ~ Commonly Raised Objections Commonly Raised Objections # Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Asked Questions ## Richard is not the First to be Free from the Human Condition RESPONDENT: I have a question for Richard. I find your claims that you were the first to attain an actual freedom from the human condition a little hard to take. My question is how do you know this to be true without having met every single person alive or dead? I’ve read the recent correspondence on this issue but I cannot see a clear answer. It’s important to me as I’m of the school ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof’. I have no problem with your verifiable claims and the methods you outline allow for verification, which is great. RICHARD: Okay ... given you have literally asked for ‘extraordinary proof’ the following link provides a description of how I actually know – experientially know – and quite ‘extraordinary’ it is too: (Richard, Articles, A Brief Personal History, #2). I have supplied a brief exegesis of what can be found on that page before: • [Richard]: ‘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 ... 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. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 46, 6 August 2003). 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. RESPONDENT: I have two questions: Firstly, Why is the universe here? Why do I exist? Is there a reason? RICHARD: (...) RESPONDENT: Secondly, What difference does it make whether Richard is the first to find actual freedom ... RICHARD: It makes no difference whatsoever who was the first to find an actual freedom from the human condition as it is what is found that makes a difference ... as expressed thisaway (also only a few weeks ago): • [Co-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’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 94, 5 August 2005). RESPONDENT: ... and why do people spend so much time debating it? RICHARD: It has got me beat ... ... it is simply a fact that somebody has to be the first to discover something new in any field of human endeavour (such as discovering the cure for cancer for instance) and why there is so much brouhaha about being able to live in this actual world 24/7, for the remainder of one’s life, now being possible for the first time in human history defies sensibility. Perhaps an analogy might go some way towards throwing some light on this peculiar how-can-you-know-you-are-the-first-to-discover-it phenomenon which pops up every now and again ... for example: suppose you were to announce that you had finally found the cure for cancer by discovering the root cause of the disease – hence by eliminating the cause then the effect, the cancer, is no more able to arise/exist and health abounds – and if, upon going public with this discovery, you were to get repeatedly told that you cannot possibly know you were the one who finally made this discovery which many, many people have sought, would you not have to wonder if they were all stark staring mad? Yet, of course, you would not have to ... and why not? Because virtually everybody will readily acknowledge there has been no cure for cancer thus far in human history – excepting snake-oil ‘cures’ that is – and it is the discovery which would be examined for validity and not (in lieu of actually examining the discovery itself for validity) the validity of any how-can-you-know-you-are-the-first-to-discover-it explanation ... such as which announcing the long-awaited discovery of peace-on-earth appears to almost mandatorily require the provision of. Is it an addled addiction to the snake-oil ‘cures’, a strait-jacketed fixation on logical impossibilities, an entrenched credulity that life is the pits and the universe sucks, which gives rise to this peculiar question or something else ... something else like, for instance, an ingrained dubiety (just-who-does-this-man-think-he-is-anyway), or even invidia, perchance? Or is it, and maybe even more likely, nothing other than a knee-jerk reaction to the price of admission? RESPONDENT: Why make the statement about the pristine newness in the first place? RICHARD: The following perspicacious observation from an earlier co-respondent brought forth as good an answer as any: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Do I understand correctly from your mail, that your being unique in this is not what is important: that you merely wanted to stress with it that you bring something that is entirely new? • [Richard]: ‘Yes. 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’. And thus all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides have gone on forever and a day. Now the opportunity exists for an eventual global peace-on-earth: with 6.0 billion outbreaks of individual peace-on-earth no police force would be needed anywhere on earth; no locks on the doors, no bars on the windows. Gaols, judges and juries would become a thing of the dreadful past ... terror would stalk its prey no more. People would live together in peace and harmony, happiness and delight. But do not hold your breath waiting’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 15, 22 December 2002). RESPONDENT: Yes, that’s literally more than two questions, but the ‘spirit’ of the questions are singular. RICHARD: As far as can be ascertained the singular spirit of your queries appears to revolve around whether there is a meaning of life to be found and if so why inform one’s fellow human beings upon making that discovery. RESPONDENT: There are two gaps. Can they be filled please. RICHARD: Sure ... (1) there is indeed a meaning of life to be found ... and (2) it is fellowship regard which occasions public disclosure of same. RESPONDENT: Richard claims to be the first one on the planet to experience Actual Freedom: How can he or anyone know this to be a fact? RICHARD: The following link provides a description of how I experientially know: (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 46, 6 August 2003). I recently supplied a brief exegesis of what can be found on that page: • [Richard]: ‘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 ... 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. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 46, 6 August 2003). 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. After the ‘something turning over in the base of the brain/nape of the neck’ event of September 1981, and as the western-style mysticism I was experiencing moved deeper into being an eastern-style mysticism (I can recall telling my then wife at that time I was jumping out of the frying pan into the fire as somebody had to sort this mystery out), I just knew that, in order to be able to speak meaningfully about going beyond enlightenment I had to go through enlightenment so as to, not only understand it experientially, but to be able to have insider information, so to speak, to pass on to my fellow human beings. For what is the point of enabling peace-on-earth, and thus demonstrating the actual way to live life for a benighted humanity, if one cannot explain the how and why of it? 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]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 46, 6 August 2003). 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. 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]. RESPONDENT: You offer a method to attain actual freedom and that does allow for verifiable results – but again this cannot prove that no else has previously attained actual freedom before you – how can it? RICHARD: As nowhere do I say that the actualism method proves anything of the sort (it just happens to be the method which worked for me) this is a pointless question. 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. RESPONDENT: Richard ... why the obsession with proving you are the only one to be in a state of ‘actual freedom’ as you put it? RICHARD: I neither put it that an actual freedom from the human condition is a ‘state’ nor do I have an ‘obsession’ about anything ... let alone ‘proving’ that nobody else either currently alive or in human history has been actually free from the human condition. RESPONDENT: It seems rather childish. RICHARD: Why does it seem ‘rather childish’ to report something new to human experience? RESPONDENT: I don’t doubt your claims nor does it matter to me if it is true or false ... RICHARD: If I may interject? Why does it not matter to you that somebody has finally found the answer, not only to all the misery and mayhem which epitomises the human condition, but to life itself? RESPONDENT: ... but I don’t see how there is any way to verify such a statement nor to even care. RICHARD: If I may point out? You cared enough to write this e-mail and inform me of your concern. RESPONDENT: Humans have been on this planet for how long, no doubt in search of the ultimate or freedom or whatever name one chooses to give it: Do you actually think no one has succeeded before you? RICHARD: No, I do not ‘think’ that nobody has succeeded before ... I know that nobody has. RESPONDENT: Just checked your website and bio. It’s all nice enough, but I don’t get how you think what you’re talking about is unique. To me, you seem to be on a well-trodden path. RICHARD: And what ‘well-trodden path’ would that be, then? RESPONDENT: Well goodness, where to start? You are aware of the old Zen saying about mountains and rivers? Or the endlessly repeated admonitions of modern-day Advaita folks like Wayne Liquorman about how ASC’s aren’t it, and there’s No Way? Or the Dzogchen teachings linked with Tibetan Buddhism about how ordinary mind is the Way? RICHARD: As none of the above even remotely resemble the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition I would suggest checking the web site again ... in particular the very first sentence on The Actual Freedom Trust home page (immediately below the logo) before doing so. I mention this because it is only when the import of that very first sentence sinks in is it possible to read what is on offer on The Actual Freedom Trust web site with both eyes open. ‘Tis only a suggestion, mind you. RESPONDENT: Anyway, you can assert all you want ... RICHARD: If I may point out? That sentence is a statement of fact ... not an assertion. RESPONDENT: ... the plain fact is, you’re saying nothing different from what Zen, Dzogchen, Advaita and several other systems, Eastern AND Western, say. RICHARD: Hmm ... as it would appear that the explanation as to why that very first sentence is of import, which I wrote in my prior e-mail, has passed you by I will re-present it here: • [Richard]: ‘I mention this because it is only when the import of that very first sentence sinks in is it possible to read what is on offer on The Actual Freedom Trust web site with both eyes open. It will save you a lot of needless repetition of the ‘Tried and Failed’ ancient wisdom in any future e-mail if you do. RESPONDENT: All manner of crimes have been committed throughout history by people claiming to know the one true way. I don’t believe for a minute that what you have on offer would turn out the kind of drones that kill for their religion. RICHARD: Then why say it in the first place? Uh oh, I see why now ... look out folks, here comes the ‘but ...’ (and it is the despotic-dictator type of a ‘but’ too). RESPONDENT: I say it for the reason that it is very off-putting to hear you claim that you were the one and only. RICHARD: Why? Somebody – anybody – has to be the first to discover something new in any field of human endeavour ... why is this so difficult to comprehend? RESPONDENT: It sounds like aggrandised nonsense and seems very deluded. RICHARD: Why does it sound like aggrandised nonsense, and seem very deluded, to hear/read that somebody has finally enabled the already always existing peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as a flesh and blood body? RESPONDENT: Your whole heroic story sounds overblown. RICHARD: That would be because any journey through the human psyche is both fantastical and phantasmal: the human psyche is an illusory/delusory/hallucinatory metaphysical realm chock-full of chimerical will-o’-the-wisps and bizarre states of being ... and feeling/intuiting oneself to be god/goddess, the timeless and spaceless and formless source of all time and all space and all form, is about as bizarre as ‘being’can get. RESPONDENT: It begs for a sceptical response which is a shame given your valuable material and methods. RICHARD: And just what ‘valuable material’ would that be? That I am this flesh and blood body only (sans identity/affections in toto); that physical death is the end, finish; that I am not a god by whatever name as no such being/presence exists in actuality; that there is no timeless and spaceless and formless realm; that peace-on-earth is already always just here, at this place in infinite space, right now, at this moment in eternal time; that the pristine perfection of the peerless purity this actual world is ensures nothing dirty (no ‘being’ or ‘presence’) can get in; that the meaning of life lies open all around and has never been hidden, and that the way all this became apparent was by being attentive to how this moment of being alive (the only moment one is ever actually alive) was being experienced, perchance? RESPONDENT: Many of us think of despots when we hear notions of ‘the one true way’ or in your case ‘the one true way so far’. RICHARD: As no other method has set any body free from the human condition just what makes you think of despots when I say it is the only method which has been effective thus far? RESPONDENT: The only differentiating barrier you have between yourself and other people who have found what you have found, is a very thin one crafted from language. RICHARD: What ‘other people’ are you referring to? If the one example you offered up is anything to go by then none of them have found what I have found. * RESPONDENT: But I do believe that freedom seeking ideologies such as yours that attempt negate other modes of freedom seeking are fascist in nature and doomed to starve from a lack of input from the wider ecology of ideas and modes of perception. RICHARD: Ha ... so the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition – being as happy and as harmless as is humanly possible (virtually free from malice and sorrow) whilst still being a ‘self’ – which is a path marked by the sheer delight at the enjoyment and appreciation engendered by being here on this verdant and azure planet is a ‘fascist’ ideology in your eyes because it negates everything which is not actual, eh? Perhaps, upon sober reflection, you may care to re-examine your belief? RESPONDENT No. 53: Humans have been on this planet for how long, no doubt in search of the ultimate or freedom or whatever name one chooses to give it: Do you actually think no one has succeeded before you? RICHARD: No, I do not ‘think’ that nobody has succeeded before ... I know that nobody has. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 53, 15 October 2003). RESPONDENT: I don’t understand why you claim to know the experience of every individual that has existed bearing in mind that not everybody that has come to ‘actual freedom’ would have necessarily ‘gone public’ anyway. RICHARD: No such (abstract) person, or persons, as you imagine has ever existed. RESPONDENT: Surely it would be more accurate to say that with the current evidence available to you it appears (to you) that nobody has succeeded? RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: Are you making this statement from the perspective that by definition if the ‘self’ has finished then the understanding has not been acquired by a ‘person’? RICHARD: No, it is not a matter of definition, but a matter of fact ... where are these other persons (or person) that have been, or are, already actually free from the human condition? Moreover, had you ever even known about/heard of an actual freedom from the human condition until you came upon The Actual Freedom Trust web site? Speaking personally, I have travelled the country – and overseas – talking with many and varied peoples from many walks of life; I have been watching TV, videos, films, whatever media is available; I have been scouring the books (and journals, magazines, newspapers, and latterly, the internet) for twenty plus years now, for information on an actual freedom from the human condition, but to no avail ... and I would be delighted to hear about/meet such a person or such peoples, so as to compare notes, as it were. Furthermore, since I went public in 1997 there have been many peoples like yourself asking this very question – my search engine shows that I have provided the ‘scouring the books’/‘whatever media’ response 48 times – and have asked the ‘where is this person/where are these people’ question on almost as many occasions ... for just one example at random: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Your claim that you are ‘the only one’ can not be true. • [Richard]: ‘If you could provide names and addresses or book titles or URL’s ... or refer me to the relevant magazine articles, newspaper reports, manuscripts, pamphlets, brochures or whatever it is that you are cognisant of I would be most pleased. I have scoured the books for twenty years ... to no avail. (Richard, List B, No. 33f, 22 August 2001). Now, whilst I have a vested interest in the matter and have, thus, scoured the books most assiduously more than a few of my co-respondents would be only too pleased to have me be in error that the already always existing peace-on-earth has been enabled for the very first time (as strange as that may seem) ... yet 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. Mostly there is a deafening silence (other than, perhaps, the faintly decreasing patter of scampering feet as they head for hills). RESPONDENT: That I can (intellectually) at least understand. The fact is that in this body there is a sense of self, but in the body who will hopefully respond there is (according to Richards quotes) no self. Therefore there is a difference of understanding being expressed by the two bodies. Are you saying that there has only been one body in the history of mankind that has expressed truthfully this understanding? RICHARD: No, it is not a matter of truthful expression, but a matter of fact ... I am saying that, up until now, there never has been a body actually free from the human condition (mainly because everyone has been looking in the wrong direction). Given it is so patently obvious that there has never been any peace on earth thus far in human history I am wondering whether an analogy might go some way towards throwing some light on this peculiar how-can-you-know-you-are-the-first-to-discover-it phenomenon which pops up every now and again. For example: suppose you were to announce that you had finally found the cure for cancer by discovering the root cause of the disease – hence by eliminating the cause then the effect, the cancer, is no more able to arise/exist and health abounds – and if, upon going public with this discovery, you get repeatedly told that you cannot possibly know you were the one who finally made this discovery which many, many people have sought, would you not wonder if they were all stark staring mad? Of course not ... and why not? Because virtually everybody acknowledges that there has been no cure for cancer thus far in human history – excepting snake-oil ‘cures’ of course – and it is the discovery which would be examined for validity, and not the validity of the how-can-you-know-you-are-the-first-to-discover-it explanation (in lieu of actually examining the discovery itself for validity), which seems to be an almost mandatory requirement the announcement of the long-awaited discovery of peace-on-earth brings forth Is it an addled addiction to the snake-oil ‘cures’, a strait-jacketed fixation on logical impossibilities, an entrenched credulity that life is the pits and the universe sucks, which gives rise to this peculiar question ... or something else? Something else like an ingrained dubiety (just-who-does-this-man-think-he-is-anyway) for instance? RESPONDENT: I can take what you have generously given and not feel obliged to buy into your unverifiable (i.e. by anyone but Richard) and inflated claims of uniqueness. RICHARD: Ahh ... this is the way I usually put it (just substitute the phrase ‘buy into my discovery’ for the words ‘believe me’ and it will all fall into place): • [Richard]: ‘... I do not want any one to merely believe me [buy into my discovery]. I stress to people how vital it is that they see for themselves. If they were so foolish as to believe me [buy into my discovery] then the most they would end up in is living in a dream state and thus miss out on the actual. I do not wish this fate upon anyone ... I like my fellow human beings. What one can do is make a critical examination of all the words I advance so as to ascertain if they be intrinsically self-explanatory ... and only when they are seen to be inherently consistent with what is being spoken about, then the facts speak for themselves. Then one will have reason to remember a pure conscious experience (PCE), which all peoples I have spoken to at length have had, and thus verify by direct experience the facticity of what is written. Then it is the PCE that is one’s lodestone or guiding light ... not me or my words. My words then offer confirmation ... and affirmation in that a fellow human being has safely walked this wide and wondrous path. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 12d, 23 November 2000). As it is the PCE which verifies what I have discovered I will re-present, from my previous e-mail, just what those ... um ... unique claims are comprised of (the way an actual freedom from the human condition differs from the ‘Tried and Failed’ solutions to all the ills of humankind) for your always sober examination. Viz.: • [Respondent]: ‘... it is very off-putting to hear you claim that you were the one and only (...) it begs for a sceptical response which is a shame given your valuable material and methods. • [Richard]: ‘And just what ‘valuable material’ would that be? That I am this flesh and blood body only (sans identity/ affections in toto); that physical death is the end, finish; that I am not a god by whatever name as no such being/ presence exists in actuality; that there is no timeless and spaceless and formless realm; that peace-on-earth is already always just here, at this place in infinite space, right now, at this moment in eternal time; that the pristine perfection of the peerless purity this actual world is ensures nothing dirty (no ‘being’ or ‘presence’) can get in; that the meaning of life lies open all around and has never been hidden, and that the way all this became apparent was by being attentive to how this moment of being alive (the only moment one is ever actually alive) was being experienced, perchance? (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 56, 22 October 2003). You may recall my observation in a prior e-mail that, due to the rapid expansion of the information age, it is simply not necessary to do a (physically impossible anyway) door-to-door survey of every man, woman and child currently alive and thus be motivated to access the following URL: www.globalserve.net/~sarlo/Ratings.htm There you will find that Mr. Deva Sarlo, and his fellow collectors, have done your leg-work for you and have collected together a list of over 1250 people offering solutions to the human condition which you can peruse at your leisure and see for yourself whether an actual freedom from the human condition is indeed entirely new to human experience or not ... and here are a couple more URL’s where you can cross-check the information provided: http://www.nonduality.com/morea.htm, http://www.angelfire.com/realm/bodhisattva/gurulist.html Either that or cease claiming that what I have discovered is an [quote] ‘inflated’ [endquote] report of being entirely new to human experience and thus begin to contribute something of substance to this discussion list. ‘Tis high time for the ‘fascist gatekeeper’ either put up or shut up, eh? GARDOL: Please bear with me. Looking at the long list of CRO’s, you will find this one at the top: ‘Richard is not the first to be free from the human condition’. A niggling point to some ... RICHARD: This is an apt place for some background information: in the middle of October 2003 several people, most of whom were also writing to a Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti forum, all began writing to The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List with a similar theme: • [Respondent No. 53]: Richard ... why the obsession with proving you are the only one to be in a state of ‘actual freedom’ as you put it? It seems rather childish. I don’t doubt your claims nor does it matter to me if it is true or false but I don’t see how there is any way to verify such a statement nor to even care. Humans have been on this planet for how long, no doubt in search of the ultimate or freedom or whatever name one chooses to give it: Do you actually think no one has succeeded before you? Does it matter?’ (Wednesday, 15/10/2003 7:13 AM AEST). • [Respondent No. 54]: ‘I have a question: I don’t understand why you claim to know the experience of every individual that has existed bearing in mind that not everybody that has come to ‘actual freedom’ would have necessarily ‘gone public’ anyway. Surely it would be more accurate to say that with the current evidence available to you it appears (to you) that nobody has succeeded?’ (Thursday, 16/10/2003 7:02 AM AEST). • [Respondent No. 55]: ‘Just checked your website and bio. It’s all nice enough, but I don’t get how you think what you’re talking about is unique’. (Thursday, 16/10/2003 11:07 PM AEST). • [Respondent No. 56]: ‘I have a question for Richard. I find your claims that you were the first to attain an actual freedom from the human condition a little hard to take. My question is how do you know this to be true without having met every single person alive or dead?’ (Friday, 17/10/2003 2:12 PM AEST). First of all, it will be noticed that they are numbered sequentially (53, 54, 55, 56) and that the emails are likewise dated (15th, 16th, 16th, 17th). Second, before responding a simple check of the IP address, from whence those emails were routed (a university address), evidenced that the striking similarity of theme was not just a chance grouping but a concerted effort. Third, a later perusal of the then-current messages on the Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti forum, where with many a chortle they discussed their enterprise amongst themselves, showed that one person (Respondent No. 53) had orchestrated the entire affair. Fourth, in essence what was being advanced was an academic epistemological argument – which was consistent with the university-based email addresses – wherein no consideration of the extraordinary experiencing itself was ever evinced ... on the contrary it was dismissed out of hand. Fifth, the lack of importance being placed upon the extraordinary way of knowing is readily ascertained by the fact that up until then – six years after first going public – queries about how it was known that an actual freedom from the human condition was new to human experience/human history were answered, on each and every occasion, with the ‘for as far as can be ascertained’ type of reply (the regular way of knowing). Sixth, that egocentric/egotistic preoccupation (upon who was first), which exercised the minds of those particular respondents, is not at all important – it is simply the fact that somebody has to be the first in any field of human endeavour – as what is important is the discovery itself (an actual freedom from the human condition). Lastly, experience has shown it is usually the case that those having that self-centred fixation (on the discoverer) are not interested in what is of importance (the discovery). GARDOL: ... (including me at first) but it became more important as I examined it more completely. So let’s start at the top of the page you find when you click the first CRO. [Respondent]: ‘I have a question for Richard. I find your claims that you were the first to attain an actual freedom from the human condition a little hard to take. My question is how do you know this to be true without having met every single person alive or dead? I’ve read the recent correspondence on this issue but I cannot see a clear answer. It’s important to me as I’m of the school ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof’. I have no problem with your verifiable claims and the methods you outline allow for verification, which is great’. [Richard]: ‘Okay ... given you have literally asked for ‘extraordinary proof’ the following link provides a description of how I actually know – experientially know – and quite ‘extraordinary’ it is too: [link snipped without indication]. I have supplied a brief exegesis of what can be found on that page before: [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). [endquote]. Thus I knew even before becoming actually free that this condition was entirely new to human experience while still alive ... 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. 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’. [endquote]. Now I found something troublesome about his ‘extraordinary’ proof. RICHARD: Just so there is no misunderstanding, then, here is what that word indicates: • ‘extraordinary: out of the usual or regular course or order; special; of a kind not usually met with, exceptional; now esp. so exceptional as to provoke astonishment, admiration, or disapproval; (synonyms): unusual, uncommon, rare, unique, singular, unconventional. (Oxford Dictionary). As going beyond spiritual enlightenment (as described in detail on the page the surreptitiously-snipped link in the above exchange opened to) undeniably qualifies as being out of the usual or regular course or order and/or of a kind not usually met with – as in exceptional, unusual, uncommon, rare, unique, singular, or unconventional – there is really nothing of a troublesome nature (as in full of, characterised by, or causing a disturbance of the mind or feelings, such as worry, perplexity or vexation) intrinsic to that extraordinary experiencing in or of itself. As to why Gardol would want to say, then, that he found something troublesome about that experiential evidence is exposed immediately below. GARDOL: He says he ‘knew even before becoming actually free that this condition was entirely new to human experience while still alive’. And he knew this because as he travelled deeper and deeper into ‘spiritual enlightenment’, he found himself in ‘virgin territory wherever the (psychic) eye would look’. RICHARD: That is just an out-and-out fabrication ... it is clearly and unambiguously reported, in the above exchange, that Richard knew this because of many experiences of going beyond spiritual enlightenment. Gardol’s worse-than-cheap trick of slyly shifting the focus onto the text which follows the word ‘furthermore’ – which means ‘in addition, additionally; moreover, esp. used when introducing a fresh consideration in an argument’ according to the Oxford Dictionary – so as to make out that it is the main extraordinary evidence is so deceitful it almost beggars description. What is written in the above passage he quoted is quite specific: • [Richard]: ‘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 website) 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]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 46, 6 August 2003). Needless is it to add that that, in order to go beyond spiritual enlightenment, identity in toto goes into abeyance. GARDOL: While in other places on the Actual Freedom website Richard rails against the cunning entity that inhabits human beings ... RICHARD: As a timely interjection, before Gardol goes on, here is a (misattributed) passage he chose to quote later on in this diatribe of his: • ‘Unless one is *motivated by integrity* then one will remain a very, very cunning entity either fighting it out in the ‘real’ world or travelling on the spiritual path of self-discovery seeking self-satisfaction and self-aggrandizement’. [emphasis added]. (The Actual Freedom Trust Library, Honesty). And here is what Gardol had to say further above: • [Gardol]: ‘I regard the Commonly Raised Objections (CRO’s) section as most beneficial in this undertaking. I must say that I find it charming and also *a great display of integrity* that they have made these disputed points so easy to access’. [emphasis added]. Moreover, given that the entity Gardol goes on and on about (below) is none other than the identity who, as a direct result of those extraordinary experiences/ that experiential evidence, altruistically ‘self’-immolated, in toto, for the benefit of this body and that body and every body, there is no way the epithet ‘cunning’ could have any application ... as is made obvious on the page the surreptitiously-snipped link in the above exchange opened to. Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘I was able to experience what lay beyond Enlightenment several times (...) 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’. (Richard, Articles, A Brief Personal History - Part 2). Here is a useful word: • ‘invalid [an invalid assumption/ argument]: having no force, efficacy, or cogency; (synonyms) baseless, unfounded, groundless, unjustified, unsubstantiated, unwarranted, untenable, illogical, irrational, unscientific, false, faulty, fallacious, spurious, unacceptable, inadequate, unconvincing, ineffectual, unsound, weak, useless, worthless’. (Oxford Dictionary). GARDOL: ... here he takes the insight of his own cunning entity as a fact. RICHARD: No, here (in the above passage Gardol quoted) Richard clearly takes the experiential evidence of going beyond spiritual enlightenment, with identity in toto in abeyance, as the fact ... a description of which is on the page which the surreptitiously-snipped link in the above quoted exchange opened to. Here is a useful word: • ‘mislead: lead astray in action or conduct; cause to have an incorrect impression or belief; (synonyms) misinform, misguide, misdirect, delude, take in, deceive, fool, hoodwink, lead astray, throw off the scent, send on a wild-goose chase, pull the wool over someone’s eyes; inf. lead up the garden path, take for a ride’. (Oxford Dictionary). GARDOL: Moreover he admits the basis of this fact lies in the perception of his (the cunning entity) own ‘psychic’ eye. RICHARD: No, he reports that the basis of this fact lies in the many experiences of going beyond spiritual enlightenment (where identity in toto is in abeyance) before becoming actually free of the human condition (where identity in toto is extinct). And, even more to the point, he already knew six months prior the commencement of the path, which would eventually lead to an actual freedom from the human condition, that such a freedom was entirely new to human experience. Here it is again (from the oh-so-conveniently omitted third CRO): • [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’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 56, 18 October 2003). It goes with saying, of course, that identity in toto is in abeyance during a PCE. [‘more in Richard, Gardolcorrespondence’] RICHARD: As far as I have been able to ascertain there is nobody else living an actual freedom from the human condition ... RESPONDENT: How did you ascertain that? RICHARD: The same way that I ascertain anything about anybody and everybody ... I ask and I listen. Plus I read about other people’s experiences in books, journals, magazines, newspapers and on the internet. I watch TV, videos, films ... whatever media is available. I have been scouring the books and talking with many and varied peoples from all walks of life for nineteen years now for information on an actual freedom from the human condition ... but to no avail. Now the information exists – and has taken on a life of its own – and I am well content and having so much fun. As facts and actuality can be commonsensically conveyed by the written word, this means that the third alternative to being either ‘human’ or ‘divine’ can be accessed by anyone discriminating enough long after I am physically dead. All I have ever wished for is for the words and writings of an actual freedom from the human condition to exist in the world so that they are available for anyone who comes across it, in any indeterminate future, to draw affirmation and confirmation from ... for anyone to avail themselves of if it be in accord with their own experience and/or aspirations. That is, it is an affirmation that their experience is not only valid but a confirmation in that a fellow human being has traversed this territory in an eminently satisfactory way. I just happened to discover the already always existing peace-on-earth, the purity of which is so perfect that I am reporting my experience to my fellow human beings. The ‘flow-on’ effect from reading actual freedom writings is that if one minimises the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings (as explained further above) and activates the felicitous/ innocuous feelings in conjunction with sensuousness then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness. If it does not ... then one is way ahead of normal human expectations anyway as the aim is to enjoy and appreciate being just here right now for as much as is possible. It is a win/win situation. RESPONDENT: ... the belief you have that you are somehow the only one who is actually free ... RICHARD: In all my years of travelling, talking with people, reading, watching media and now the internet I am yet to come across someone who experiences life as I do. Hence it is not a belief. RESPONDENT: Of course; I also have never met anyone who experiences life as I do. RICHARD: May I ask? Are you capable of following a discussion sequentially? This is a side-stepping response ... I was talking about experiencing life sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul (an actual freedom from the human condition) ... as well you know. RESPONDENT: But that does not make me the first to experience actual freedom anymore than it makes you. Simple really. RICHARD: This is a total waste of a sentence. RESPONDENT: Normally I would not persist in persisting Mr. Richard. but you have claimed you are free and I am not. In fact; I am beginning to suspect it is the other way around ... but at least I accord you the right to claim freedom for yourself Mr Richard. RICHARD: There is more to an actual freedom from the human condition than having ‘the right to claim freedom for yourself’ ... it means getting off one’s backside and actually doing something about one’s malice and sorrow and the antidotal pacifiers of love and compassion. It means enabling peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: And ... you are the only person on the planet doing that? RICHARD: For as far as I have been able to establish thus far ... I have travelled the country – and overseas – talking with many and varied peoples from all walks of life; I have been watching TV, videos, films, whatever media is available; I have been reading about other people’s experiences in books, journals, magazines, newspapers (and latterly on the internet) for twenty years now, for information on an actual freedom from the human condition, but to no avail. I would be delighted to hear about such people ... so as to compare notes, as it were. RESPONDENT: Are you aware that in Australia recent legislation will make such a spurious claim on your part not only fanciful and rude and arrogant; but blatantly illegal as well? RICHARD: It is not a ‘spurious claim’ as it is simply a fact. If you know of such a person, or persons please let me know. RESPONDENT: You have no right to announce that your Third way is the only way and that all other ways fit into your simplistic categorisation scheme as normal or spiritual and thus FALSE. RICHARD: It is not a question of having ‘no right’ (or having the ‘right’) ... a fact just sits there making your ‘no right’ (or ‘right’) look silly. It is a fact that there has been only two ways thus far in human history – materialism and spiritualism – and it is a fact that there is now a third alternative. Facts can not be legislated out of existence. RESPONDENT: You are publicly and permanently making claims that will under the present or future laws of Australia rend you and/or the Actual freedom Trust liable to prosecution. That is a statement of my considered opinion. RICHARD: I have noticed that this whole area of litigation and lawsuit rather dominates your thinking ... nothing like getting the law on your side to prevent an outbreak of peace-on-earth, eh? RESPONDENT: How many have you taught successfully? RICHARD: First, I do not teach anyone ... the PCE does that. I am not required for the process of understanding (as in a ‘personality cult’ that can grow around a ‘charismatic leader’) ... <SNIP> ... as far as I have been able to ascertain there is nobody else living an actual freedom from the human condition ... RESPONDENT: How did you ascertain that? RICHARD: The same way that I ascertain anything about anybody and everybody ... I ask and I listen. Plus I read about other people’s experiences in books, journals, magazines, newspapers and on the internet. I watch TV, videos, films ... whatever media is available. I have been scouring the books and talking with many and varied peoples from all walks of life for nineteen years now for information on an actual freedom from the human condition ... but to no avail. RESPONDENT: So you are the only one? You need more than one case to prove your claims. RICHARD: Not so ... when I go to bed at night I have had a perfect day ... and I know that I will wake up to yet another day of perfection. This has been going on, day-after-day, for years now ... it is so ‘normal’ that I take it for granted that there is only perfection. Such a remarkable consistency of pristine purity is the only proof I need. RESPONDENT: By the way, it wasn’t a request of proof for you. RICHARD: Okay ... who was it ‘a request of proof’ for, then, and why? If it was ‘a request of proof’ by you for you ... can you not recall your own PCE’s, your own direct experiencing of actuality at various stages throughout your life? Everybody that I have spoken to at length over the last nineteen years – everybody – has had at least one PCE ... although most people cannot initially remember a PCE and may need a lot of prompting to retrieve it from their memory. An example by a man from Australia: • ‘I remember walking in the shallow water marvelling at my magical fairy-tale-like surroundings. A vast blue sky overhead with an ever-changing array of wispy white clouds. The sun glistens on the tiny ripples of water washing gently over my feet. The sensual feel of the mud oozing between my toes as they sink into the muddy beach. Huge pelicans glide overhead and I liken them to the jumbo jets of the bird world as they come in to land on the water some distance out. The sun on my skin is warming me through and through, the breeze is ruffling my hair and tingling my forearms, and the water is cooling on my feet. It is so good to be alive, senses bristling as if on stalks and everything is perfect. Absolutely no objections to being here – pure delight! After a while I turn to my partner who is sitting in the shade beneath a wonderfully gnarled and ancient tree on the lake’s edge. There sits a fellow human being to whom I have no ‘relationship’. Any past or future disappears; she and I are simply here together, experiencing these perfect moments. The past five years that I have known her, with all the memories of good and bad times, simply do not exist. It is just delightful that she is here with me, and I do not even have any thoughts of ‘our’ future. In short, everything is perfect, always has been, and always will be. It is an experience of actual freedom where I, as this flesh and blood body only, am able to experience with my physical senses the perfection and purity of the universe, totally free of any psychological or psychic entity within. I am also free of the delusion that this is all the work of some mythical maker to whom I owe gratitude for ‘my’ being here, and there are no heartfelt delusions of grandeur or Oneness. So totally involving is this sensate experience that the feelings and emotions of a ‘self’ or ‘Self’ have no place in the magical paradise of this actual world that is abundantly apparent. I am actually here, in the physical universe and enjoying a direct and unfettered involvement, every moment’. [endquote]. (Actualism, Peter, Selected Writings, PCE). An example from a woman from The Netherlands: • ‘One of my peak experiences happened on the fore-shore. All of a sudden, unpremeditated, ‘I’ and ‘my’ world-view had disappeared and an immediate intimacy became apparent. Although I had lived in this village before and had grown very fond of it and its residents, there had always been a distance between me and other people, which had to be bridged by temporary feelings of love and affection which were never satisfying for long. Now a shift in seeing had occurred, and looking at the people around me, I noticed that the distance between me and others had miraculously vanished. Not only between me and other people but equally between me and the trees, me and the houses on the boulevard, even between me and the ocean. Nowhere was there a boundary. Another dimension had taken its place, which I initially experienced as a closeness closer than my own heartbeat, yet it was certainly not love for all or oneness with everything. It was another paradigm than the one in which the opposites play their major role ... and to depict it I needed another vocabulary than words like distant and close, separation and oneness. Opposites can only be used when there is a stationary benchmark to judge them by. When ‘I’, the standard from which everything was measured, ceased to be, a pure appraisal of the situation could take place. I saw everybody, including me as-this-body, and everything else, in its own proper place and nothing was wrong in any way. The concept of bonding, belonging and relationship could simply not be applied, not even with my partner, as there was nobody inside to do the relating. This perfect intimacy was everywhere at once, not generated somewhere specific and then diffused to other locations as is the case with love’. [endquote]. (Devika in Richard’s Journal, Article 30, ©1997). Sometimes a PCE is also known as ‘a nature experience’ ... wherein one’s own personal experiencing is likewise the only proof worthy of the name. Being deep in a rain-forest goes some way towards making it all clearer ... or any wilderness, for that matter. As one travels deeper and deeper into this – initially ‘other’ – world of natural delight, one experiences an intensely hushed stillness that is vast and immense ... yet so simply here. I am not referring to a feeling of awe or reverence or great beauty – to have any emotion or passion at all is to miss the actuality of this moment – nor am I referring to any blissful or euphoric state of ‘being’. It is a sensate experience, not an affective state. I am talking about the factual and simple actualness of earthy existence being experienced whilst ambling along or sitting quietly without any particular thought in mind ... yet not being mindless either. And then, when a sparkling intimacy occurs, do not the woods take on a fairy-tale-like quality? Is one not in a paradisiacal environment that envelops yet leaves one free? This is the ambience that I speak of. At this magical moment there is no ‘I’ in the head or ‘me’ in the heart ... there is this apperceptive awareness wherein thought can operate freely without the encumbrance of any feelings whatsoever. It is not my ambience nor yours ... yet it is here for everyone and anyone for the asking ... for the daring to be here as this body only. One does this by stepping out of the real world into this actual world, as this flesh and blood body, leaving your ‘self’ behind where ‘you’ belong ... because the reality of the real world is an illusion ‘I’ create by ‘my’ very ‘presence’. This ambience delivers the goods so longed for through aeons. RICHARD: ... hundreds of people have been poking away at what is on offer, especially since coming onto the internet, trying to find the flaws they are convinced must be there – which is one of the reasons why all correspondence is archived – and this only goes to show how badly people have been sucked in for millennia by the many and varied snake-oil salespersons. I am not at all surprised that people be suspicious. RESPONDENT: Richard, this is well said. It’s why I am unsatisfied with your claims of being historically unique in being actually free from the human condition. RICHARD: First and foremost: somebody has to be the first to discover something new in any field of human endeavour ... is there any particular reason you prefer it to be somebody other than the person you are currently conversing with (and, perhaps, of some other gender, race, age, or era) that was the first to enable the already always existing peace-on-earth and thus make apparent the actual meaning of life? Second, I provided a description of how I know that an actual freedom from the human condition is entirely new to human experience – and an extraordinary way of knowing at that (in accord with what you asked for) – yet, after dismissing the way I know as believing that I know, you reverted to the ordinary way of knowing to make your case that I cannot know as I had already affirmed it cannot be known the ordinary way of knowing. Third, I made it quite clear that 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 ... that I am simply providing a report of how I know it is and what another does with my report is their business. Fourth, when you said my extraordinary way of knowing was an inflated way of knowing (as a follow-up to previously saying it was ‘aggrandised nonsense’ which was ‘very deluded’ and ‘overblown’), I suggested two ways of finding out for yourself what is ‘inflated’ and ‘aggrandised nonsense’ which is ‘very deluded’ and ‘overblown’ and what is not – experientially in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) and by accessing a list of over 1250 people and reading their descriptions of what they know – which you took to mean I was saying that it could be known definitively, by either way of finding out for yourself, that I was indeed the first to become actually free from the human condition ... when what I was saying was those ways of finding out for yourself would not only show it was not an inflated (‘aggrandised nonsense’ which was ‘very deluded’ and ‘overblown’) way of knowing but also show that what was discovered is, in fact, entirely different to what all the sages, seers, god-men/god-women, gurus, masters, messiahs, saviours, saints, and so on, over the centuries have been touting as the answer to all the ills of humankind (and thus, by default, entirely new to human history as an ongoing experiencing). Fifth, it was your claim that my extraordinary way of knowing was inflated (as in ‘aggrandised nonsense’ which is ‘very deluded’ and ‘overblown’) which I said needed to be either substantiated – rather than just capriciously stated – or ceased being made in the first place ... and not that you were to demonstrate I cannot know. Sixth, given that you dismiss the extraordinary way of knowing as believing that I know it may be pertinent to point out that I am well aware of the proposition made by Mr. Karl Popper that, logically, nothing can ever be known exhaustively by the ordinary way of knowing (in an infinite and eternal and perpetual universe there just might be a one-eyed one-horned flying purple people-eater somewhere and somewhen) yet to have to personally verify every single person, thing or event in order to satisfy the demands of such a logical conclusion only serves to show the limiting strait-jacket that such an abstract logic is as it is entirely reasonable to acknowledge that there is a limit to the rarefied demands of such theoretical thinking (an academic theorist says ‘is it a logical proposition’ whereas a field engineer says ‘does it work in practice’). Seventh, in practice then, if the extraordinary way of knowing is held to be believing that something be known, any (apparently) previously unknown discovery is a new discovery by default until evidence to the contrary shows otherwise. Which is why I keep on asking the simple question where the person/persons already actually free from the human condition prior to 1992 is/are to be found. If somebody – anybody at all – could provide names and addresses or book titles or web site addresses or refer me to the relevant magazine articles, newspaper reports, manuscripts, pamphlets, brochures or whatever I would be most pleased ... as I could compare notes, as it were, and thus advance human knowledge. Thus far, especially since coming onto the internet, nobody has been able to produce such a person or persons. Last, but not least, the following exchange may be of assistance as the question is particularly perspicacious: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Do I understand correctly from your mail, that your being unique in this is not what is important: that you merely wanted to stress with it that you bring something that is entirely new? • [Richard]: ‘Yes. 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’. And thus all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides have gone on forever and a day. Now the opportunity exists for an eventual global peace-on-earth: with 6.0 billion outbreaks of individual peace-on-earth no police force would be needed anywhere on earth; no locks on the doors, no bars on the windows. Gaols, judges and juries would become a thing of the dreadful past ... terror would stalk its prey no more. People would live together in peace and harmony, happiness and delight. But do not hold your breath waiting. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 15, 22 December 2000). VINEETO: But don’t expect anyone else to do it for you, only you can – by direct experience – determine the veracity of what is on offer on The Actual Freedom Trust website and only you can determine whether actualism is indeed brand new in human history. RESPONDENT: Very true. Have no problem with that – just Richard’s claims of uniqueness. VINEETO: If you had no problem with actualism being brand new in human history you would not object to Richard being the pioneer of this brand new discovery. What you really are saying is that you think actualism is not brand new because you compare it to the Tried and Failed spiritual methods of Byron Katie and Zen teachers, therefore to you Richard’s discovery is not unique. It is interesting that thus far only those who are well and truly disenchanted with all religious and spiritual teachings – and that includes Buddhism and Zen – have been able to discover the transparently palpable difference between practicing dissociation and the elimination of both one’s social identity and one’s instinctual ‘being’ that allows the actual world to become apparent. RESPONDENT: I am currently investigating Actualism and using the methods. VINEETO: There is only one method in actualism. If you think that actualism has any similarity to Byron Katie’s four questions or to Zen Buddhist teachings then you need to further investigate in order to discover the genuine actualism method. To give you a hint, the actualism method has an inherent non-spiritual and down-to-earth intent – to become happy and harmless in the world as-it-is, with people as-they-are. There is nothing other-worldly, nothing self-aggrandizing, nothing nihilistic, nothing negative, nothing dissociative and nothing self-centred about that intent. Actual Freedom Homepage This Topic Continued
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