# Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

Richard’s Selected Correspondence ## On Pure Consciousness Experiences RICHARD: Have you never been deep in a rain-forest ... or any wilderness, for that matter? Have you ever, as you have travelled deeper and deeper into this other world of natural delight, ever experienced 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 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. This ambience delivers the goods so longed for through aeons. (Richard, List B, No. 23, 10 Mach 1998). Re: Different Way Of Being RICHARD: (...) The virtual freedom being referred to in ‘Richard’s Journal’ is, of course, the full-blown experiencing of it: an out-from-being-under-control and, thus, different way of being nowadays known as an ongoing excellence experience. (This ongoing excellence experience is what the methodological aspect of a virtual freedom – a persistent and diligent application of the actualism method – can morph into whenever that current-time awareness method has been applied to a sufficiency for that to occur/ have happen). This penultimate out-from-under-control/ different-way-of-being is barely distinguishable from a pure consciousness experience. (It was from this ongoing excellence experiencing that pure consciousness experiences occurred on a near-daily basis – sometimes two-three times a day – for the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago). RESPONDENT: If I had read about this at age 19, I would have been in, boots and all. Although at the time I didn’t carefully distinguish between PCEs, ‘excellence experiences’ and various other different-ways-of-being, I did take risks and go to considerable lengths to seek out these experiences. I knew (and of course am still convinced of it) this world could be experienced as a magical place, if only the state of mind-body (as I saw it then) were receptive to it. (That for me was always the prime motivation for drug use – as opposed to merely ‘getting out of it’ – hence the interest in psychedelics). Now with the approach of early middle-age I realise how relatively timid I’ve become ... clinging to human sorrow and its soothing / beautiful compensatory feelings, instead of trying all-out for something better. I’m inspired to give this another try. If I can approach it with the same intensity and optimism that I had back then, this time armed with the information/ knowledge/ sensibility that makes it actually viable, who knows? I’m willing to find out. RICHARD: For what it is worth, then, somebody of late middle-age, known to me personally, added another aspect to virtual freedom last year via an ongoing pure consciousness experience of 4 months and 28 days duration. (Prior to that the longest known so far had been one of 3 weeks duration). * RESPONDENT: Wow! That’s great news for the rest of us too: the more these things happen, the less likely it is that the sustained PCE / AF has anything to do with genetic predisposition. That’s excellent. Even if the final mutation doesn’t happen, it’d be a pretty incredible life alternating between excellence and purity. (‘Way ahead of ordinary human expectation’ is a fair assessment). If you can speak on this person’s behalf, did that PCE end of its own accord, or was there a known trigger event that caused the instinctual passions to reassert themselves? Cheers, ... RICHARD: G’day No. 4, I have permission to speak on this person’s behalf – she features in the DVD video-shoot entitled ‘A Pure Consciousness Experience’ – on the understanding that no name or any other such details are divulged. Yes, there was a known trigger event: she was in a Japanese restaurant watching the waiter whilst he was cooking, quite taken by the fact he was so much in his own world, when a comment was made to her, which was incorrect, but she noticed that there seemed to be ‘something’ (as in slight reaction) in her response. It was from that moment she knew that something had changed, as it was the first sign of any emotion, and later in the day whilst watching a very violent movie she experienced fear. I am pleased you experience this sustained PCE as great news (for it certainly is that in itself in regards what is humanly possible) as that ‘genetic predisposition’ issue would probably be quite something to be well rid of, eh? Re: Different Way Of Being RICHARD: For what it is worth, then, somebody of late middle-age, known to me personally, added another aspect to virtual freedom last year via an ongoing pure consciousness experience of 4 months and 28 days duration. (Prior to that the longest known so far had been one of 3 weeks duration). RESPONDENT: Wow! After contemplating this for a bit I have a few questions. 1) After having this giganto PCE for months on end, did the person at some point think something to the effect of ‘this is it, I’m actually free.’? RICHARD: G’day No. 12, Yes ... within the first 7-10 days, actually. The way she put it at the time – first to her spouse and then to me shortly after – was that she thought it was ‘all over bar the shouting’ (a popular expression meaning, according to the Oxford Dictionary, ‘bar none with no exceptions’). She also informed me that the difference between this sustained PCE and other, short-lived ones was that she was ‘at peace’ as opposed to having a sense of peace. RESPONDENT: 2) How long had the person been practicing actualism? RICHARD: She had first read ‘Richard’s Journal’ about twelve years ago, and had agreed with it without understanding the fundamental difference between spiritual and actual; around six years ago it was pointed out to her that she did not, in fact, understand what an actual freedom from the human condition was ... whereupon she read it again and started to put it into practice. RESPONDENT: On the one hand this is an amazing event and could be quite motivational. RICHARD: It is indeed an amazing event ... to say I was chuffed is to put it mildly as it is to everyone’s benefit to have somebody advance what is humanly possible. RESPONDENT: On the other, it could be kind of a downer to consider having been apparently actually free (PCE) for nearly 5 months and then back to virtually free (I assume VF). RICHARD: Oh no, not a downer at all – quite the obverse – and her exact words to me at the time were that she was excellent. Viz.: [quote] ‘I am emailing to say that a feeling has arisen in the solar plexus. Apart from that I am excellent and have had a truly wonderful four months and 28 days living in absolute pristine perfection’. (Monday, 31 March 2008). In subsequent face-to-face conversations she has reported being even more keen than ever before ... which is quite understandable when you think about it. RESPONDENT: The closest I can relate to with this is that I considered myself to be living in a virtual freedom for 3-4 months and then due to certain events and ‘my’ reaction to them I lost it and my-self started strutting the stage to a larger extent again. This cycle has repeated itself a few times actually. Luckily no one in my real/actual life has suffered over this ... ‘I’ and ‘I’ alone have reaped the disadvantages of letting a VF slip through ‘my’ fingers once again. It does come down to intent, pure intent that is in the end. RICHARD: Exactly. RESPONDENT: I know I used to ask all kinds of questions about ‘methods’ and ‘techniques’ to you in the past and I always found you, P and V ‘stubborn’ to not be willing to add more ‘techniques’ to the AF method. I’ve learned the hard way that intent is the key and that intent is to be backed up by becoming obsessed enough with attentiveness to have it up and running near constantly and to investigate whatever issue that is keeping me from feeling excellent. RICHARD: Indeed so. RESPONDENT: Ha, so simple ... but quite a challenge. The challenge of a lifetime in fact. I’ve been off the wide and wondrous path and in so doing have come to a firm confidence that the only path I wish to traverse for the rest of my lifetime is the wide and wondrous one ... until ‘I’ am no more. I mention this because I think in the past ‘I’ was sometimes fabricating a somewhat ‘forced’ conviction that I wanted this thing called actual freedom. Kinda like how I would ‘convince myself’ that I believed in my former religions dogmas (albeit in far more subtle ways). RICHARD: Unless it is the number one priority in one’s life any results will, of course, faithfully reflect just what the degree of interest is. RESPONDENT: I used to think you were being a bit harsh to call the human condition ‘rotten to the core’, but alas as for myself I have no doubts about that statement whatsoever. Of course the human condition has its ‘endearing side’, nonetheless ... as a whole it is rotten. :) RICHARD: Precisely. * RESPONDENT: 1. After having this giganto PCE for months on end, did the person at some point think something to the effect of ‘this is it, I’m actually free.’? RICHARD: Yes ... within the first 7-10 days, actually. The way she put it at the time – first to her spouse and then to me shortly after – was that she thought it was ‘all over bar the shouting’ (a popular expression meaning, according to the Oxford Dictionary, ‘bar none with no exceptions’). She also informed me that the difference between this sustained PCE and other, short-lived ones was that she was ‘at peace’ as opposed to having a sense of peace. RESPONDENT: Hmm. ‘Having a sense of peace’ sounds more like a EE than a PCE. RICHARD: As you might readily comprehend the exact nature of the experiencing was of vital interest to me. (Were a second human being to genuinely have become actually free from the human condition – and of the female gender as an added bonus – it would have me duly impressed and thus dancing down the hallway, so to speak, as promised to another more than a decade ago). Meeting up with her again eight days after the face-to-face interaction in which the event had been precipitated – plus a telephonic conversation six days after – enabled me to ascertain beyond all reasonable doubt, just as she already intimately knew from prior experiencing, that it was not an ongoing excellence experience (EE). The question as to whether it was indeed an actual freedom from the human condition, and not a sustained pure consciousness experience (PCE), quite obviously exercised both of our minds – plus those of others in the know – and a rigorous watching brief then became the modus operandi in the weeks then months which followed. Incidentally, the person concerned has all the necessary integrity to be outright scrupulous in regards qualitative assessment. RESPONDENT: Nonetheless, I take it the main difference was that the small element of knowing the PCE is coming to a end was not present. RICHARD: Indeed so ... plus an unprompted report, six weeks later during another face-to-face meeting, that it was qualitatively different, although of a similar character, to previous and shorter-term PCE’s such as what she had experienced with me during the DVD video – shoot, for instance, a couple of years earlier – added considerably to the confidence required to make a provisional assessment that this was something to most certainly sit up take notice of. Here is a (slightly edited) extract from an email, sent to others in the know shortly after that meeting, which conveys the rigorous caution being exercised at the time: • [Richard]: ‘As the latest meeting to date – Sunday, the 9th of December, 2007 – has satisfactorily cleared away any previous question marks, has had quite a few sundry queries validated, and has verified both the definitive event and its actual date, then if it were to be still (cautiously) considered as a sustained PCE then it must be stressed that one of nigh on six weeks duration, and still counting, is quite extraordinary’. (Tuesday 11 December 2007). * RESPONDENT: 2. How long had the person been practicing actualism? RICHARD: She had first read ‘Richard’s Journal’ about twelve years ago, and had agreed with it without understanding the fundamental difference between spiritual and actual; around six years ago it was pointed out to her that she did not, in fact, understand what an actual freedom from the human condition was ... whereupon she read it again and started to put it into practice. RESPONDENT: Ah, that’s delightful to hear! It would appear there is still ‘hope’ for those of us still plugging away at this endeavour (especially for those of us who have commingled spirituality with actualism). RICHARD: For what it is worth, then, the person concerned not only totally abandoned spiritualism but also tapered off all association with erstwhile compatriots, of that ilk, until the final ‘heart-string’ connection was severed a few months previously. As her spiritual search had endured for many a long year, and encompassed nearly all her relationships, this left her virtually friendless as earlier materialist friends had, by and large, gone by the wayside many, many years prior to that. Indeed, the dearth of intimacy was both the content of conversation and the precipitative feature at the interactive occasion which elicited (what turned out to be) the sustained PCE. An actual intimacy (no separate identity) requires no reciprocation. * RESPONDENT: On the one hand this is an amazing event and could be quite motivational. RICHARD: It is indeed an amazing event ... to say I was chuffed is to put it mildly as it is to everyone’s benefit to have somebody advance what is humanly possible. RESPONDENT: Indeed, I was quite ‘jazzed’ to hear of this. RICHARD: Ha ... good one! * RESPONDENT: On the other, it could be kind of a downer to consider having been apparently actually free (PCE) for nearly 5 months and then back to virtually free (I assume VF). RICHARD: Oh no, not a downer at all – quite the obverse – and her exact words to me at the time were that she was excellent. Viz.: [quote] ‘I am emailing to say that a feeling has arisen in the solar plexus. Apart from that I am excellent and have had a truly wonderful four months and 28 days living in absolute pristine perfection’. (Monday 31 March 2008). In subsequent face-to-face conversations she has reported being even more keen than ever before ... which is quite understandable when you think about it. RESPONDENT: Yes I see. She now knows she can live that selflessness for extended periods and she can remain in excellence back on her way to that destination. Ha, human pessimism must run deep for me to have even considered this situation a possible ‘downer’. RICHARD: To have lived ‘a truly wonderful four months and 28 days’ in ‘absolute pristine perfection’ experientially removes absolutely any doubts whatsoever that it be (a) not possible for her personally and (b) not liveable for both practical and interactive purposes and (c) not possible/ not liveable for each and every human being alive today on this planet. Consequently, she now has that oh-so-essential ‘magic elixir’ in munificent abundance ... in a word: destiny. * RICHARD: Unless it is the number one priority in one’s life any results will, of course, faithfully reflect just what the degree of interest is. RESPONDENT: Indeed. For various reasons I wavered in making freedom the number one thing in my life to number two and even number 3 at times. Results have followed (or not followed) accordingly. Since the beginning of this year I’ve been more and more consistent with the ‘boots and all’ approach with increasingly good results. While myself still gets activated, I do almost always immediately notice ‘me’ in action and that really takes the wind out of ‘my’ sails indeed. RICHARD: In which case, then, it apposite to mention that the person being discussed (further above) has her destiny firmly established as being the unqualified number one priority in her life. Indeed, as recently as a few weeks ago she informed me, in no uncertain terms (and with her spouse sitting opposite), that reading my writings/ listening to my words has been and is the most significant thing in her entire life ... over and above family, marriage, children, and all else. RESPONDENT: How would I know whether I had this freedom you speak of? RICHARD: The peerless purity and pristine perfection of this actual world is tangibly obvious. RESPONDENT: How would I know I wasn’t fooling myself? RICHARD: Such peerless purity and pristine perfection cannot be fabricated. RESPONDENT: How have the ‘others’ that claim this freedom not seen they are fooling themselves? I speak of Barry Long, Krishnamurti, Tolle, Jesus and so on and so forth. RICHARD: The freedom that those others claim – a religio-spiritual/ mystico-metaphysical freedom – is not this freedom being discussed (an actual freedom). RESPONDENT: Why does the PCE happen? RICHARD: A pure consciousness experience (PCE) happens because the identity, being an illusion/ delusion, cannot always sustain its dominance over actuality. RESPONDENT: Is it a glitch in the matrix? RICHARD: Presuming you are referring to an in utero defect – ‘matrix: the uterus, the womb; a place or medium in which something is bred ...’ (Oxford Dictionary) – it is handy to bear in mind that virtually everybody, no matter what age, gender or race, has experienced such moments of perfection at some stage in their life ... usually most often in childhood. RICHARD: The fundamental characteristic, or nature, of the universe is its infinitude – specifically having the properties of being spatially infinite and temporally eternal and materially perdurable – or, to put that another way, its absoluteness ... as such it is a veritable perpetuus mobilis (as in being self-existent/ non-dependent and/or self-reliant/ non-contingent and/or self-sufficient/ unconditional and/or self-generating/ unsupported). Having no other/ no opposite this infinitude and/or absoluteness has the property of being without compare/ incomparable, as in peerless/ matchless, and is thus perfect (complete-in-itself, consummate, ultimate). And this is truly wonderful to behold. Being perfect this infinitude and/or absoluteness has the qualities (qualia are intrinsic to properties) of being flawless/ faultless, as in impeccable/ immaculate, and is thus pure/ pristine. And which is indubitably a marvellous state of affairs. Inherent to such perfection, such purity, are the values (properties plus qualities equals values) of benignity – ‘of a thing: favourable, propitious, salutary’ (Oxford Dictionary) – and benevolence (as in being well-disposed, beneficent, bounteous, and so on) ... and which are values in the sense of ‘the quality of a thing considered in respect of its ability to serve a specified purpose or cause an effect’. (Oxford Dictionary). And that, to say the least, is quite amazing. * RICK: Another thing: I am getting somewhat tired of applying your method and not experiencing a pure consciousness experience. RICHARD: The purpose of applying the method, which the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago devised, is two-fold – to be of an immediate benefit (an ongoing affective felicity/ innocuity) and an ultimate benefaction (an enduring actual felicity/ innocuity) – and is thus a win-win situation inasmuch as in the meanwhile, if the ultimate be yet to come about, a virtual freedom is way, way beyond normal human expectations. RICK: It has been about a year now that I’ve been diligently applying the method and have not been able to remember nor experience one yet. RICHARD: Maybe, just maybe, the activation of the amazement, the marvelling, and the wonderment, already mentioned above might be in order? And I only mention this because sensuosity is an integral part of the process of being as happy and as harmless as is humanly possible. RICK: I feel more at ease with life, yes. RICHARD: I have just now re-read our only other exchange (five months ago) wherein, regarding the application of the actualism method, you reported [quote] ‘it’s having some success in that it’s helping me cope’ [endquote] and what immediately springs to mind is that [quote] ‘feeling more at ease with life ’ [endquote] is streets ahead of merely being helped to cope. And I am not just ‘talking you up’ as experience has shown that, while peoples are quite ready to self-criticise and bemoan their fate, they are less likely to as readily self-congratulate and applaud their progression out of same. Try patting yourself on the back for each and every success ... as a boost to confidence a well-deserved accolade is a tonic like no other. RICK: But I’m still feeling lost and I feel a well deserved PCE is what I need to put some focus, clarity and motivation in ridding the ‘parasitical entity inhabiting this flesh and blood body’. What to do? RICHARD: Again, and especially as you mention feeling lost, come to your senses – literally – as much as is possible so as to better enjoy and appreciate being alive on this verdant and azure planet, which is simply floating/ hanging effortlessly in infinite space at this moment in eternal time, by cultivating the awareness that everything and everybody is coming from nowhere and nowhen and is, similarly, going nowhere and nowhen as everything and everybody only ever actually exists right now. Put succinctly: there is nowhere/ nowhen else to be ... this is it! RESPONDENT: I cannot recall a PCE. If this is a barrier to understanding actualism, being actual, then obviously I’d like to do that. I’d like to do it anyway if it might be at all useful or good (whatever those words mean). I’m still not sure what comprises them. I’ve had what you call Aesthetic Experience, Spiritual Revelation, Religious Vision, Intellectual Insight, and Emotional Intuition, but I’m not sure I’ve had this PCE thing. If it is different from the others, and if as you suggest you can somehow remind me, there would, I assume, be an immense actual thrill in the knowing of it. RICHARD: I have located the following text: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘What’s on offer here, is both valuable and sensible in my view and it reflects, explains my personal experiences and observations in a very satisfactory and comprehensive way. But these words (aka thoughts) are derived from PCE’s. They can provide guidance, direction and assistance in the DIY process of dismantling the identity and help one assess which are the facts and which are the beliefs. But they cannot induce/ produce a PCE ... • [Richard]: ‘(...) More than a few persons have had a PCE occur whilst listening to me/ reading my words ... which is why I explained (further above) that my expressive writing is an active catalyst which will catapult the reader, who reads with all their being, into this magical wonder-land that this verdant and azure planet is. ‘Tis the ‘all their being’ which is the key. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25d, 31 January 2004). RESPONDENT: Assuming, as you say, that I must have had a PCE at some time in my life, has, in some sense, my entire life been inauthentic since then? RICHARD: Nothing in the real-world is authentic (as in actually genuine, true, bona fide, valid, the real McCoy, and so on). RESPONDENT: I’m prepared to accept that (am I?), but sometimes it has been right good. Have these lovely long walks on the beach chatting with a friend or admiring the coast been a bit PCE-ish? RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: Is ishness possible PCEly-speaking? RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: Richard, when you were virtually free, you said that you: [quote] ‘I did whatever to induce PCE’s on a daily basis so as to gain maximum benefit from living the nearest approximation to an actual freedom that was possible ... maybe two to three times a day’. [../richard/listbcorrespondence/listb12a.htm#meditated]. So before coming actually free did you have PCE’s a few times a day and then all of a sudden the identity became extinguished? OR did the length of PCE’s get longer and longer until it became permanent? How was it? RICHARD: Oh, it was crystal clear at the outset, from the earliest pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s), that something definitive was to happen, and that it is not a case of PCE’s becoming longer and longer until one of them became permanent (as in not ever ending), as it is intrinsic to the nature of the PCE that whilst this is yours for the asking – for it is both your birthright and destiny – it comes at a price ... that which you hold most dear. Of course, after the (definitive) event it is immediately obvious there never was such a price – that which was held most dear has no existence in actuality – yet until that momentous event is precipitated, by that which is held so dear giving it permission to occur, it is all very real ... as is evidenced by what gets acted-out physically. Incidentally, there is no set date for such an event ... and, moreover, unless permission is given it will never take place. RESPONDENT No. 59: I feel as if I were just learning to walk again. RESPONDENT: That is a wonderful description. That is how I feel now. Regaining the naiveté and common sense is delightful indeed. It surely required a good dose from extensive writings of the actualists – also the objections raised by many (a lot of the objections were in my mind, but something stopped me from sending every objection to the mail without myself going into them at depth) brought out such responses from Richard, Vineeto, Peter and other actualists – showed clear thinking in action – as opposed to emotional outpour of beliefs or mystical word-play that paralyses common sense. I consider it my great luck to have come across the actual freedom website. I am still struggling with some of the stuff, as I don’t clearly recall a PCE; but I am getting the feeling of well-being which is so good – which is a direct result of having freed myself from a lot of insidious emotions – the freeing of which allows me to enjoy this moment; I think I have reached a point of no-reversal in the sense that my doubts are not powerful enough now to negate my progress and experiential as well as intellectual understanding I have made of the actualism. What in the beginning sounded like ‘dogmatism of the actualists’, is sounding more and more a plausible actuality; I am now clear that I wasn’t reading with ‘eyes open’ and ‘beliefs closed’ – but then it is not by will I can change it – there were and are still innumerable obstacles on the way to this. For instance, I recall from one of Peter’s mails, where he pointed out the possibility of a co-respondent disassociating from his feelings, I found out that I was indeed doing that – which in turn helped me to take a giant leap in understanding. I would like to take this moment to thank (or acknowledge that I have immensely profited from) Richard (as well as ‘Richard’ who had the intestinal fortitude to go ahead for the sake of his body as well as all the bodies) for his ongoing clarifications and his prolific writings on actuality and actual freedom; Peter for having the intestinal fortitude to give it a try (if not for him, I wonder if I would be writing this mail – as his decision to go ahead and try makes virtual freedom a demonstrable actuality – also for having Richard go live in the internet) and Vineeto – for all their expertise and readiness to share on the virtual freedom and actualising of it. And all the participants in this mailing list who are showing interest in this most important business. RICHARD: Feedback such as this (all of the above) is much appreciated ... especially in view of the following (the very last words we exchanged 16 months ago): • [Respondent]: ‘Where I am coming from is a ‘PCE’ less investigation – till I have a or/or know that I have one/ or understand what it is ... still working on the ‘prima facie’ case :) • [Richard]: ‘Okay ... I am interested to see how much you can comprehend of what is on offer on The Actual Freedom Web Page without recalling and/or having a PCE as an actual freedom from the human condition is unimaginable, inconceivable and unbelievable. It has to be lived to be known as an actuality. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 30, 17 June 2002). I have always maintained that a pure consciousness experience (PCE) – or the recollection of such a moment of perfection – is essential in comprehending and putting into practice what is on offer on The Actual Freedom Trust web site ... and I am so pleased to see that this may not necessarily be the case. Ain’t life grand! ALAN: No idea [who else is on the list] other than those who have posted recently – and that does not include Richard – maybe he has unsubscribed from his own list? RICHARD: I can easily take hint as broad as this, Alan ... perhaps we can further our discussion on the difference between a pure consciousness experience and an altered state of consciousness? Thus far we had looked at the change in description in your own written experience of some time ago – as posted on your Web page – wherein the PCE (‘no worries about the past, no worries about the future ... it is seeing the absolute perfection of the universe’ ) devolved into an ASC (‘it is feeling an overwhelming LOVE, or rather, BEING an overwhelming LOVE ... each time you breath in feel the Life Force rushing in ... when you breathe out – send it back to Him’ ). Viz.: • [Alan]: ‘In 1988 I had my third major experience of actual freedom, this time lasting about ten days ... same as last time, life was ridiculously simple and easy and absolutely perfect. All the energy, previously being used in keeping my ‘self’ together, was released. With my altered terms of reference, I imagined this state to be ‘enlightenment’. Perhaps not the eastern type of enlightenment, of which I had read a little, but something akin to it, which was still enlightenment. This is what I wrote at the time: ‘Enlightenment is a state of mind, or rather, the lack of a state of mind. It is living completely in the now, no worries about the past, no worries about the future. It is seeing the absolute perfection of the Universe. It is feeling an overwhelming LOVE, or rather, BEING an overwhelming LOVE. It is feeling the fantastic joy (and the terrible pain) of the world and humanity. It is being able to feel someone else’s feelings. It is having unlimited energy. It is giving without measure. It is having no hang ups, no preconceptions. It is being absolutely happy. It is a perfect peace and quiet. This description can only give a flavour of what enlightenment is. It is like trying to explain the proverbial colours of a rainbow to a blind man. And each time you breath in feel the Life Force rushing in. Focus on the area between your brows and imagine light and love coming in through your nostrils and brows, so it is physical and mental. When you breathe out – send it back to Him. And each time you breathe in feel your heart and stomach expand with LOVE a little more each time, getting bigger and stronger, until you feel that with the next breath you are going to burst. Usually ‘I’ get frightened at this point and back off, but if you can take the next small step, you will find YOU’. From what I now know, this altered state of consciousness was very similar to what many of the West’s so called gurus aspire to, with its sense of ‘oneness’, ‘universal consciousness’ etc. and especially ‘LOVE’ – definitely with capital letters! There was a definite sense of ‘connected-ness’ in the solar plexus region and I wanted to ‘spread the message to the world’. Unlike eastern ‘enlightenment’, I retained my enjoyment of physical pleasure, in fact physical sensations became an absolutely exquisite pleasure. Had my ‘terms of reference’ at the time included more on ‘enlightenment’, I suspect I could all too easily have spent the next x number of years (or the rest of my life), either being or seeking enlightenment’. In order for a PCE to happen one’s identity (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) go into abeyance and perception becomes apperception (which is the mind’s awareness of itself being conscious as distinct from ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious). Apperception is an unmediated awareness ... a pure and clean consciousness unpolluted and uncorrupted by any identity whatsoever. However, it is very common for the feeling of ‘being’ (identity as ‘me’ as soul) to re-establish itself whilst the sense of ‘doing’ (identity as ‘I’ as ego) permits an interregnum. This is where the PCE devolves into an ASC. This happened to me in 1980 (as described in the second paragraph of ‘Appendix One’ in my ‘A Brief personal History’) and – Lo! and Behold! – a year later I was to become enlightened for the next eleven years. It is the instinctual feelings coming rushing in to take over the experience that does the damage ... and self-aggrandisement reigns supreme. * ALAN: You consider that the PCE devolves into the ASC when ‘me’ re-establishes itself as ‘Being’, thus leading to Divine Love and Compassion. RICHARD: Yes, and one of the contributing factors is gratitude – instead of appreciation – with which comes ‘beholden’, ‘indebted’ and ‘obliged’. First there is relief – for no longer being deprived – and the ensuing thankfulness re-establishes ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’ ... a humble ‘me’. It has all to do with ‘not deserving’ such splendour and this uncalled-for perfection – which is, of course, one’s birthright – is felt to be a gratuity bestowed upon one who is specially chosen. As humility is but pride standing upon its head ... away races self-importance and one eventually realises that one is really the ‘Self’. It is all self-aggrandisement; a vainglorious deification of one’s inadequate earthly state of ‘being’. All of a sudden one is someone special and people will finally pay homage to one’s true worth ... for which one has long yearned due recognition. After all, one has been incessantly mortified and forced to be unassuming – ‘don’t get uppity’ or ‘who do you think you are?’ or ‘know your place in life’ – and one has always secretly felt in one’s heart of hearts that one is foreordained for greatness. Narcissism reigns supreme! ALAN: From memory (and my own description, which you posted), I certainly radiated this love and compassion and felt (took on) all the pain of humanity at large. What I had no sense of was that this was ‘me’ re-establishing ‘myself’, but perhaps this is unavoidable, if you are correct, as there is no way for ‘me’ to see ‘myself’ ‘being’ – such can only be ‘seen’ (or, rather, realised) in a PCE. RICHARD: Such is the Glamour and Glory and Glitz – plus being ‘chosen’ – there is no way ‘me’ wishes to see ‘myself’ as ‘being’ ... one is ‘Pure Being’. Speaking personally, I did see this but I chose to ignore it or overlook it ... as I wrote in ‘Appendix One’. • ‘An Absolute had been revealed to me that was Love Agapé‚ and Divine Compassion and I had been chosen to bring this self-same Love and Compassion to earth. I was to go through a process, when I returned to ‘normal’, that would result in my being well-prepared to usher in this new age of peace and prosperity to all humankind. As this revelation continued, I saw a new ‘me’ coming into existence ... a grand ‘Me’, a glorious ‘Me’ and a spiritually fulfilling ‘Me’. I was the Saviour Of Humankind! As all this was happening, a passing thought occurred to me, which was briefly contemplated ... then banished: Who or what was it that was observing these two ‘me’s ... the ego ‘me’ and the grand ‘Me’? This trifling question was to be of immense benefit years later when I realised that I was living in a delusion and that there was an actual freedom lying beyond’. (Richard, Articles, A Brief Personal History, #1). ALAN: Certainly in my recent PCE’s I have had no sense of Divine Love and Compassion ‘coming rushing in’ (though their seductive nature has been obvious on occasion), but whether this was because of ‘me’ not being, or not, I am not sure. There is obviously a difference in degree of an ASC – as you know, my suggestion is that it is dependant on one’s ‘terms of reference’ at the time – as is demonstrated by the accounts you sent and others I have read. Mr Franklin Jones being one of the current more extreme examples. RICHARD: Yes, the ‘terms of reference’ are of utmost importance ... which is why I write so profusely about this matter. I would wish no one to have to travel the route I travelled ... there was too much anguish and angst. Plus there is no need once the allure of the almighty is exposed as being nothing but the introversion it is. * ALAN: Writing this, I am having more and more difficulty in differentiating between the two – if I am in an ASC (assuming it to be ‘me’ as ‘being’) how do I know – as stated above, there is no way for ‘me’ to see myself ‘being’. The only yardstick, for me, appears to be whether I am experiencing Divine Love and Compassion – is that the only difference? RICHARD: Not only Love Agapé‚ and Divine Compassion – they are the obvious yardsticks – but, more importantly: identity. This is why I sent you that description by the young Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti some time ago. Viz.: • ‘I felt acute pain at the nape of my neck. There was a man mending the road; that man was myself; the pickaxe he held was myself; the very stone which he was breaking up was a part of me; the tender blade of grass was my very being, and the tree beside the man was myself. Just then there was a car passing by at some distance; I was the driver, the engine, and the tyres. I was in everything, or rather everything was in me, inanimate and animate, the mountain, the worm, and all breathing things’. (‘Krishnamurti: The Years Of Awakening’ Mary Lutyens; Avon Books, New York, 1991). I had numerous experiences of a similar nature myself ... and spent eleven years in an altered state of consciousness. I also had other experiences that I overlooked in favour of these ‘I am everything and Everything is Me’ experiences. If I had not been taken in by delusions of grandeur I would have paid particular notice of experiences like this one: • [Richard]: I remember the first time I experienced being the senses only during a PCE. There was no identity as ‘I’ thinking or ‘me’ feeling ... simply this body ambling across a grassy field in the early-morning light. A million dew-drenched spider-webs danced a sparkling delight over the verdant vista and a question that had been running for some weeks became experientially answered: without the senses I would not know that I exist as this flesh and blood body. And further to this: I was the senses and the senses were me. With this came an awareness of being conscious – apperception – rather than ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious. (Richard, General Correspondence, Alan2, 1 August 1998a). Without any identity (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) the distance or separation between ‘me’ and ‘my’ senses – and thus the external world – disappears. To be the senses as a bare awareness is apperception, a pure consciousness experience of the world as-it-is. Because there is no ‘I’ as an observer – a little person inside one’s head – to have sensations, I am the sensations. There is nothing except the series of sensations which happen ... not to ‘me’ but just happening ... moment by moment ... one after another. To be these sensations, as distinct from having them, engenders the most astonishing sense of freedom and release. Consequently, I am living in peace and tranquillity; a meaningful peace and tranquillity. Life is intrinsically purposeful, the reason for existence lies openly all around. Being this very air I live in, I am constantly aware of it as I breathe it in and out; I see it, I hear it, I taste it, I smell it, I touch it, all of the time. It never goes away ... nor has it ever been away. ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ was standing in the way of meaning. When narcissism packs its bags and slinks out of the door ... then I am this physical universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being. As me, this universe can be intelligent ... there is no ‘Intelligence’ behind this universe creating and running the whole show. * ALAN: By reading your words, the necessary paradigm is in place and one is prepared for the pitfalls, so maybe that is all one can say, but the question still lingers – what is prepared? It is obviously not ‘me’ and even using the expression ‘common-sense’ conveys a sense of something ‘being’. After writing the above, I got a bit stuck on where to go next, so was attempting to recall what happened at the times I ‘saw’ the attraction of the ASC and decided not to pursue it. And perhaps there lies the answer, because there was no ‘decision’ – it was more like a recognition, an observation. RICHARD: An observation ... then recognition ... then action. It is quite simple: the human brain likes to think – just as the eyes like to see and the ears like to hear and so on – and problem-solving is what it is very good at. (When ‘I’ am no longer ‘in there’ with ‘my’ needs and shoulds and wants and desires and morals and ethics and values and principles it all happens of its own accord with remarkable sagacity). Thus in a PCE, when the ASC becomes attractive, a clouding of sensible reason can be observed and this dimming of intelligence will trigger alarm bells. ALAN: Perhaps it is simply memory which does the job – something like (without forming the words) ‘Oh yes, this is the enlightenment one has read about and been warned about, how interesting’. This also ties in with the next point: [Richard]: ‘I also had other experiences that I overlooked in favour of these ‘I am everything and Everything is Me’ experiences. If I had not been taken in by delusions of grandeur I would have paid particular notice of experiences like the first time I experienced being the senses only during a PCE’. [endquote]. Yes, while identity is operating it is not possible to be ‘here’. But what is it that can take ‘particular notice of experiences like this’, when ‘me’ or ‘Me’ is going to do all it can to ignore or forget them? RICHARD: What it is that takes ‘particular notice’ is the native intelligence which is me as-this-body. There are three I’s altogether ... but only one is actual. I have been here for 51 years (behind the scenes for 34 plus 11 years) and have my own memory. The ‘walk-in’ that dominated for the 34 plus 11 years – complete with ‘his’ affective memory has vanished entirely – leaving me here where I have always been ... ‘he’ had no chance whatsoever to be here. Thus when ‘he’ realised that ‘he’ was an alien entity ‘he’ self-immolated so that I would become evident ... and in order for the already existing peace-on-earth to be apparent. * ALAN: In that case, perhaps I have not had a PCE for, as I said above, I cannot recall it being ‘immediately seen that ‘I’ do not actually exist’, only the fact that I was then fully participating in whatever was occurring and that there was no separation between me and the physical world around me. And I do not mean any metaphysical ‘I am that rock or I am that person and that person is me’. I did experience that once, which can be restated ‘I am God and you are God and we are God’. RICHARD: Going by what you have written in the past I have no doubts whatsoever that your experiences are full-blown PCE’s. Perhaps you did not ‘immediately see that ‘I’ do not actually exist’ but to be able to write what you do it is patently obvious that at those moments ‘Alan’ is not extant. My favourite description of this phenomenon comes from Grace where, in one outstanding PCE (and as soon at it became apparent) I was quick to ask her: ‘what happened to that concerned woman sitting on the couch that I was just talking to a minute ago?’ ‘Oh, her’, said Grace, without batting an eyelid, ‘she’s full of problems!’ The day proceeded famously from then on. ALAN: This, to me, is one of the most startling things in a PCE. The troubles, problems and hang-ups one had a brief moment before, vanish completely. RICHARD: Which is why I maintain that all that I write and say can be summed-up in one phrase: • Step out of the ‘real world’ into this actual world and leave your ‘self’ behind ... where ‘you’ belong. ALAN: And just as, when returning to ‘normal’ after a PCE, one can only recollect the experience (as discussed below), when experiencing a PCE one can only remember that one used to have problems. It is no longer possible to experience the ‘problems’ and one wonders how one could possibly have ever been like that. RICHARD: I do not call this actual world ‘magical’ without reason! * RICHARD: I have generally found that, when the direct experience (actual intimacy) of being here now (pure consciousness experiencing) diminishes and one reverts to normal, the immediacy of being this flesh and blood body only in infinite space and eternal time as the universe’s experience of itself, vanishes completely ... and one (strangely) starts to settle for second-best. Why? ALAN: Good question. You are correct in saying that ‘it’ vanishes completely. The only reason can be that ‘I’ resume the controls. At this moment I have only a recollection of what a PCE is. ‘I’ do not believe that it actually exists – because ‘I’ cannot experience it. So for ‘me’ it is not ‘second best’ – it is the best there is. RICHARD: Yes, a virtual freedom is not to be sneezed at ... the wide and wondrous path to actual freedom is a win/ win situation. Just like the spiritual path there is a glittering prize at the end ... yet here the similarity ends. With actualism one gains measurably along the way ... if actual freedom remains ever-elusive one winds up way ahead of normal human expectations. VINEETO: Then came another temptation to divert – a journey into the psychic world, with all its deep and meaningful understandings, insights and ‘enlightenments’. But I had explored that enough, I wanted to see what there is without fear and psychic world. And what there is magic, stillness, unemotional, no excitement and strangely enough no form. The best description I could come up with is the definition for an idiot: All the stubbies are there for the six-pack, but the plastic is missing that would keep them together! RICHARD: I cannot help but prick up my hears where you say ‘strangely enough no form’. I am presuming that physical objects were still extant as you say that you were seeing without fear and the psychic world ... and thus by ‘no form’ you do not mean the metaphysical ‘formlessness’. Do you mean that there was no form to an ‘I’ as in an on-going identity ... like you write about in your next paragraph? Are the ‘stubbies’ the days gone by since birth – all events and occurrences – and the ‘plastic that would keep them together’ is this ‘me’ that is the ‘form’ that was missing in this experience? VINEETO: With the stubbies I meant in this incident my actual senses including the brain, fully functioning, better than with the ‘plastic’, but they had no definition or identifiable form, hence the description ‘formlessness’. It is more an idea of a form that was missing. I seemed to be made out of the pieces of information that the senses gave me, the seeing, hearing, thinking, but it had no continuity, no person as such, no identity. RICHARD: Ah ... now I am with you. I remember the first time I experienced being the senses only during a peak experience. There was no identity as ‘I’ thinking or ‘me’ feeling ... simply this body ambling across a grassy field in the early-morning light. A million dew-drenched spider-webs danced a sparkling delight over the verdant vista and a question that had been running for some weeks became experientially answered: without the senses I would not know that I exist. And further to this: I was the senses and the senses were me. With this comes an awareness of being conscious ... apperception. Is it not staggering to realise that the identity is felt to be so very real that when it goes into abeyance one initially experiences oneself as having no form ... ‘formless’? VINEETO: Your term ‘outline’ is a very good description of this fictitious entity. It seem to come on so silently, that if I not turn my attention to it I hardly notice it has slipped in yet again, pretending to be someone, while only the experience of the particular bit of the universe is happening. Right now it takes a lot of remembering and awareness to discrete it or better to focus on the actual experiencing of coffee, food, sound, or whatever I am doing. RICHARD: I would say to myself: ‘This is my only moment of being alive ... I am actually here doing this reading of these words now’. The past – although it was actual whilst it was happening – is not happening now ... and never will again. A past peak experience can never be repeated ... it is useful inasmuch as it bestows the requisite confidence that it is possible to experience the purity of the perfection of life here and now ... but that is it, finish. One slips into this moment in time and this place in space by being aware that all this that is happening is happening for the very first time and that I have never been here before doing this. In fact: I have never been here before. In everyday terminology this moment in time is the ‘cutting-edge of reality’. Who knows what will happen next as ‘the future’ does not exist until this moment happens. If this realisation is not thrilling I would like to know what is! * RICHARD: Vineeto, firstly, further to our conversation on the balcony – and just to reiterate in writing – to get out of the ‘ditch’ one gets off one’s backside and does whatever one knows best to activate delight. Delight is what is humanly possible, given sufficient pure intent obtained from the felicity/ innocuity born of the pure consciousness experience, and from the position of delight, one can vitalise one’s joie de vivre by the amazement at the fun of it all ... and then one can – with sufficient abandon – become over-joyed and move into marvelling at being here and doing this business called being alive now. Then one is no longer intuitively making sense of life ... the delicious wonder of it all drives any such instinctive meaning away. Such luscious wonder fosters the innate condition of naiveté – the nourishing of which is essential if fascination in it all is to occur – and the charm of life itself easily engages dedication to peace-on-earth. Then, as one gazes intently at the world about by glancing lightly with sensuously caressing eyes, out of the corner of one’s eye comes – sweetly – the magical fairy-tale-like paradise that this verdant earth actually is ... and one is the experiencing of what is happening. But try not to possess it and make it your own ... or else ‘twill vanish as softly as it appeared. Secondly, you said you had run out of reasons for talking or writing to others of the magic of the actual world as evidenced by your peak experiences. In particular, I would remind you of what you related to me during your ‘Mad Scientist’ exploratory phase: ‘I stood on the verge and looked at what I would call ‘Actual Freedom’. It was a perfection of such enormity that it was a ‘1500 Number’ and that all of my improving and perfecting of myself could never match that. That I would willingly die for’. Well, here is an E-mail exchange that caught my attention a little while ago. Person One is definitely male and it seems that Person Two is female (going by the names). If the dismal quality of their pathetic ‘exploration’ does not stir you into bouncing around the Internet with your vivacious E-Mails, then nothing will. <...> IRENE to Vineeto: I am ... out to demolish ... [the] belief in the old spiritual man-made ‘ideal’ of getting rid of your self. RICHARD: If engaging in the thrilling activity of getting rid of your ‘self’ being nothing but a belief in an ‘old spiritual man-made ideal’ I would have to ask what is ‘man-made’ about a pure consciousness experience? Everybody that I have spoken to at length has experienced moments of perfection and purity in what is known as ‘PCE’. In such a peak experience everything is seen, with unparalleled clarity, to be already always perfect ... that humans are all living in purity ... if only one would act upon one’s seeing. With seeing that everything is already perfect – it always has been and always will be – it is seen that ‘I’, the self, have been standing in the way of this perfection being apparent. Normally the mind perceives through the senses and sorts the data received according to its predilection; but the mind itself remains unperceived ... it is taken to be unknowable. In a PCE there is apperception operating. Apperception happens when the ‘who’ inside abdicates its throne and a pure awareness occurs. The PCE is as if one has eyes in the back of one’s head; there is a three hundred and sixty degree awareness and all is self-evidently clear. This is knowing by direct experience, unmediated by any ‘who’ whatsoever. One is able to see that the ‘who’ of one has been standing in the way of the perfection and purity that is the essential nature of this moment of being here becoming apparent. Here a solid and irrefutable native intelligence can operate freely because the ‘thinker’ and the ‘feeler’ are extirpated. Then what one is (‘what’ not ‘who’) is these sense organs in operation: this seeing is me, this hearing is me, this tasting is me, this touching is me, this smelling is me, and this thinking is me. Whereas ‘I’, the identity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain. Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the world as-it-is (the actual world) by ‘my’ very presence. In these moments, good and bad, love and hate, fear and trust, generosity and parsimony ... all these and more, are simply irrelevant. Gods and Goddesses, Devils and Demons, all the battles that have raged throughout the ages are but a nightmare of passionate ‘human’ fantasy. There is a marked absence of hierarchy; no Religious figure can match the matter-of-fact equality that pervades everything. A quality of kindly understanding prevails, dispensing forever with the need for Authority and Love and Truth and Power. And ... of course man and woman live together in peace and harmony. I must ask again: What is ‘man-made’ about a PCE? Why does ridding oneself of the ‘self’ have to be a ‘belief in the old spiritual ‘ideal’ of getting rid of your self’ and not something spontaneously seen and understood without any prior spiritual knowledge whatsoever? Speaking personally, I had never heard the words ‘Enlightenment’ or ‘Nirvana’ and so on until 1982 when talking to a man about my breakthrough into freedom via the death of ‘myself’ in September 1981. He listened – he questioned me rigorously until well after midnight – and then declared me to be ‘Enlightened’. I had to ask him what that was, such was my ignorance of all things spiritual. He – being a nine-year spiritual seeker fresh from his latest trip to India – gave me a book to read by someone called Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti. That was to be the beginning of what was to become a long learning curve of all things religious, spiritual, mystical and metaphysical for me. I studied all this because I sought to understand what other peoples had made of such spontaneous experiences and to find out where human endeavour had been going wrong. I found out where I had been going wrong for eleven years ... self-aggrandisement is so seductive. It has been – and still is – a great trip. VINEETO: Richard gave a wonderful description on how to induce a peak-experience: [Richard]: ‘To get out of ‘stuckness’ one gets off one’s backside and does whatever one knows best to activate delight. Delight is what is humanly possible, given sufficient pure intent obtained from the felicity/ innocuity born of the pure consciousness experience, and from the position of delight, one can vitalise one’s joie de vivre by the amazement at the fun of it all ... and then one can – with sufficient abandon – become over-joyed and move into marvelling at being here and doing this business called being alive now. Then one is no longer intuitively making sense of life ... the delicious wonder of it all drives any such instinctive meaning away. Such luscious wonder fosters the innate condition of naiveté – the nourishing of which is essential if fascination in it all is to occur – and the charm of life itself easily engages dedication to peace-on-earth. Then, as one gazes intently at the world about by glancing lightly with sensuously caressing eyes, out of the corner of one’s eye comes – sweetly – the magical fairy-tale-like paradise that this verdant earth actually is ... and one is the experiencing of what is happening. But refrain from possessing it and making it your own ... or else ‘twill vanish as softly as it appeared. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Alan, 13 December 1998). RESPONDENT: I have a bit of trouble summoning up delight (as Richard suggests), as it seems imaginary, as opposed to the release that comes with facing issues. That is still under consideration though. RICHARD: The first sentence of above paragraph is specifically designed to get one out of ‘stuckness’ ... it is not intended as an on-going way of living life. It is a short, sharp shock of attention – a ‘kick-start’ in the jargon – to counteract the ‘I didn’t ask to be born’ resentment that caused the stuckness in the first place. Another ‘wake-up jab’ (which makes use of any remnant of pride) is to ask oneself: ‘I have two choices right now: being happy and harmless or being dull and degenerate ... which way do I sensibly choose to spend this never-to-be-repeated precious moment of living so that I can honestly call myself a mature adult?’ A happy and harmless person has a much better chance of precipitating a PCE ... which is the essential pre-requisite for an actual freedom (otherwise this is all theory). It goes without saying, surely, that a grumpy person locks themselves out of being here ... now. For a full and comprehensive explication of what this succinct paragraph conveys you may care to access the article: ‘Attentiveness and Sensuousness and Apperceptiveness’ on my Web Page. RESPONDENT: I seem to agree to some extent with No. 5, but not to the extent of being mad with Vineeto. I also do not find anything radical in Richard’s teachings. I already am aware of most of this stuff thanks mainly to Osho and other eastern philosophies. RICHARD: I am well aware that many people initially get the impression that I am saying the same thing as do those people who are living in an altered state of consciousness known as spiritual enlightenment ... as detailed in Eastern spiritual philosophy. However, an actual freedom from the Human Condition is not an altered state of consciousness (ASC) wherein the identity transmogrifies ... it is an on-going pure consciousness experience (PCE) wherein the identity is annihilated in its totality. With the clarity and purity of apperception, one is aware that this physical universe is actual – not an illusion – and its space is infinite and its time is eternal (this boundless expanse and an unlimited time is known as ‘infinitude’). Thus the infinitude of this very material universe has no beginning and no ending ... and therefore no middle. There are no edges to this universe, which means that there is no centre, either. We are all coming from nowhere and are not going anywhere for there is nowhere to come from nor anywhere to go to. We are nowhere in particular ... which means we are anywhere at all. In the infinitude of the universe one finds oneself to be already here, and as it is always now, one can not get away from this place in space and this moment in time. By being here as-this-body one finds that this moment in time has no duration as in now and then – because the immediate is the ultimate – and that this place in space has no distance as in here and there – for the relative is the absolute. Thus one is always here and it is already now ... what one is as this body is this material universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being. I am mortal. * RESPONDENT: If you say ‘we need to be clear what it is that you want to experience’ then this is a problem. I really do not know what I am up to. What I can see is that perhaps (again doubt) there is something beyond where I am at present. I see scriptures and enlightened persons saying something about this ‘beyond’ and I doubt/ believe (interestingly doubt and believe mean the same thing here) that they may be true. When I read you saying something, I again get a doubt, that may be you are right. Now for me both what you say ‘living in a magical, fairy tale-like world of perfection’ and what scriptures say about ‘Sat Chit Ananda’ are vague and alien. And perhaps that’s why I see not much difference between the two. I am just wondering, however, is it a pre-condition to know what you are going to get. I am an adventurist and enjoy jumping into the unknown. What I understand from both you and the scriptures is that ‘I’ is the problem and it has to die/ self-immolate. RICHARD: Yes, the sense of identity (‘I’ and ‘me’ or ‘self’ and ‘Self’ or ‘ego’ and ‘soul’ or ‘aham’ and ‘atman’ and so on) is the spanner in the works. I fail to see how anybody could even contemplate ridding this body of its alien entity without a clear and distinct knowledge of the ultimate goal. This is why I stress the importance of remembering one of your PCE’s (that all people have had at least once in their lives) and avoiding the cultural interpretations of the experience based upon the narcissistic tendency for the instinctual survival of ‘self’ in some (metaphysical) shape or form. Hence my exposé of the altered state of consciousness known as enlightenment. * RESPONDENT: Secondly what about a person who has no memory of PCE. Is he/ she in danger of getting trapped in virtual freedom itself as the ultimate? RICHARD: If one cannot remember a PCE then one is not in virtual freedom ... it simply cannot work that way. The PCE is vital ... otherwise one is left no alternative to believing the words and writings of actualism. And if one does so believe, then the best one can do is live in some dream-world fantasy conjured up out of imagination ... and fondly believe it to be the ultimate, yes. RESPONDENT: Then would you suggest that such a person should not try for virtual freedom before having a PCE? RICHARD: Indeed, I can only suggest ... what another does with my suggestions is, of course, entirely up to them. It is they who either reap the rewards or pay the consequences for any action or inaction that they may or may not do. I can but offer tips, hints, pointers, clues – inside information – and in my experience I discovered that in order to shift from the self-centred licentiousness to a self-less sensuousness one must have confidence in the ultimate beneficence of the universe. This confidence – this surety – is gained from the PCE wherein life is seen and experienced to be already perfect and innocent ... one is physically experiencing first-hand, albeit temporarily, this actual world – a spontaneously benevolent world – that the normal world (the real world or reality) is pasted over. RESPONDENT: Or is it that virtual freedom may help in having a PCE? RICHARD: When one remembers a PCE – or precipitates another – then one is well on the way to freedom ... this is what actualism is all about. Scattered along the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom are as many PCE’s as one may need ... repeated peak experiences may very well be brought about on maybe a daily basis with constant application of reflective and fascinated contemplation. In such pure contemplation, ‘I’ cease seeing and seeing takes place of its own accord. ‘I’ can never be here now in this actual world for ‘I’ am an interloper, an alien in psychic possession of the body. ‘I’ do not belong here. All this is impossible to imagine which is why it is essential to be confident that the actual world does exist. This confidence is born out of knowing, which is derived from the PCE, and is an essential ingredient to ensure success. One does not have to generate confidence oneself – as the religions require of one with regard to their blind faith – the purity of the actual world bestows this confidence upon one. The experience of purity is a benefaction. Out of this blessing comes pure intent, which will consistently guide one through daily life, gently ushering in an increasing ease and generosity of character. With this growing magnanimity, one becomes more and more anonymous, more and more self-less. With this expanding altruism one becomes less and less self-centred, less and less egocentric. Eventually the moment comes wherein something definitive happens, physically, inside the brain and ‘I’ am nevermore. ‘Being’ ceases – it was only a psychic apparition anyway – and war is over, forever, in one human being. RESPONDENT: I also had a thought. If everybody has at least one PCE in one’s life and if the law of averages holds in these matters, on an average, large part of population should have more than one PCE and a very small population should have much more than the average number of PCE’s. Since you said you have been searching through books for anybody talking about anything like Actual Freedom, what about people experiencing PCE’s? What did they do about their experiences, i.e. PCE’s, if they had them? RICHARD: Mostly peoples interpreted them according to the prevailing norms of their culture, as mostly the PCE devolves into an ASC, anyway. For example (if you really wish to get confused) in a paper called ‘What does Mysticism have to Teach us About Consciousness?’ Mr. Robert Forman says: • ‘PCE’s, encounters with consciousness devoid of intentional content, may be just the least complex encounter with awareness per se that we students of consciousness seek. (...) This experience, which has been called the pure consciousness event, or PCE, has been identified in virtually every tradition. Though PCE’s typically happen to any single individual only occasionally, they are quite regular for some practitioners. The pure consciousness event may be defined as a wakeful but content-less (non-intentional) consciousness. (...) Now, as I understand them, advanced mystical experiences result from the combination of regular PCE’s plus a minimization of the relative intensity of emotions and thoughts. That is, over time one decreases the compulsive or intense cathexis of all of one’s desires. The de-intensifying of emotional attachments means that, over the years, one’s attention is progressively available to sense its own quiet interior character more and more fully, until eventually one is able to effortlessly maintain a subtle cognisance of one’s own awareness simultaneously with thinking about and responding to the world: a reduction in the relative intensity of all of one’s thoughts and desires. (...) What do we mean by mysticism? What is generally known as mysticism is often said to have two strands, which are traditionally distinguished as apophatic and kataphatic mysticism, oriented respectively towards emptying or the imagistically filling. These two are generally described in terms that are without or with sensory language. The psychologist Roland Fischer has distinguished a similar pairing as trophotropic and ergotropic, experiences that phenomenologically involve inactivity or activity. Kataphatic or imagistic mysticism involves hallucinations, visions, auditions or even a sensory-like smell or taste; it thus involves activity and is ergotropic. Apophatic mystical experiences are devoid of such sensory-like content, and are thus trophotropic. When they use non-sensory, non imagistic language, authors like Eckhart, Dogen, al-Hallaj, Bernadette Roberts and Shankara are all thus apophatic mystics. Because visions and other ergotropic experiences are not the simple experiences of consciousness that we require, I will focus my attentions exclusively on the quieter apophatic forms’. www.imprint.co.uk/Forman.html. Goodness me ... ‘trophotropic’ and ‘ergotropic’ and ‘kataphatic’ and ‘apophatic’ ... because of the confusion, I merely took the academically accepted phrase (Pure Consciousness Event) and substituted ‘Pure Consciousness Experience’ for it, a couple of years ago, so as to regain the actual purity of the PCE back from those who ascribe ASC properties (mystical purity) to it. Before that I had been using the expression ‘Peak Experience’, as popularised by Mr. Abraham Maslow, for about eleven years. In the beginning I used hippie terminology (from my ‘alternate’ background after the sixties) but PCE (Pure Consciousness Experience) seems most suitable. I also favoured the word ‘experience’ over ‘event’ because Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti makes such a thing about his ASC not being an experience. An actual freedom is very earthy and, living this experience twenty four hours a day is all new in human history ... thus I get to invent names (like ‘Actual Freedom’) and describe qualities and properties, like any explorer ... it is all good fun. You sent me a description some time back that reads to me as if you have enough direct experience to proceed. Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘In a PCE there is the direct sensate experience of being here – at this place in infinite space – right now at this moment of eternal time ... there is no affective qualities like ‘Euphoria’ or ‘Bliss’ or ‘Ecstasy’ or ‘Rapture’ leading one to the transcendent ‘Goodness’ (‘Love’ and ‘Compassion’) and to the supramundane ‘Truth’ (‘Beauty’ and ‘Wholeness’) where the awesome ‘Sacred and Holy’ reigns in all its miraculous ‘Ineffability’. In a PCE one is now living – as I do – in the infinitude of this fairy-tale-like actual world with its sensuous quality of magical perfection and purity where everything and everyone has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, wondrous, scintillating vitality that makes everything alive and sparkling ... even the very earth beneath one’s feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper ... literally everything is as if it were alive (a rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are). This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence ... the actualness of everything and everyone’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 5, 29 April 1999). • [Respondent]: To this description of PCE, I would say I have had very much the same experiences. I could hear engines of all the different cars and the buses passing by. I could hear them clearly and distinctly. And my capacity to do that increased from pretty much zero to hundreds. The leaves on the trees were lot more colourful than usual, the bricks on the old hospital building were brighter and distinct from the grout in between them. I was observing all of these things but did not care for a particular item under observation. And many of these things happened pretty much at the same time, actually in a continuous stream one after another. Oh, the clay pots which held the plants were lustrous and so were the moss growth on the outside of those pots. In addition, I could see each of those tiny ‘blades’ on the moss clearly. There were lots of people on the street but I was not looking at them individually but instead collectively. In fact, I did not want to focus at them, I kind of looked towards the horizon but not really. On a normal day, I like to watch all the young nubile women, at their beautiful faces, at their round breasts, but not that day. I just wanted to sort of look towards the horizon. In addition, there was plain wholesome happiness, not the feeling of happiness which I get after a ‘pat on the back’ from a fellow scientist, but simple wholesome happiness without any worries and everything was just great. There was no Euphoria, Bliss, Ecstasy or Rapture. There was no Love, Compassion, Beauty or Wholeness. I do appreciate your description and, just by the by, seek to establish an ever-expanding data-base of such descriptions so that other people can read them and relate to them and thus remember their own PCE’s. May I add your description to the collection? If so, could you expand and/or clarify? That is: will you clearly define – via your personal experience as partly detailed above – the marked difference betwixt a PCE and an ASC? RESPONDENT: I am writing because I wanted to say that I feel your experiences mirror my own, so I would like confirmation. Although I was only ‘there’ for I think a few minutes (quite difficult to gauge given that time is somehow compressed), I would describe it as complete immersion in the prime substance and mind. I must say here that the experience came after a swift coming to terms with life as something filled with hopelessness, suffering and samsaric purposelessness, something that rather than be ruled by, I felt compelled to remove myself from with, once decided, the suddenness of a knife thrust. RICHARD: Yes, this is exactly the case. People can spend a life-time cleansing themself, purifying themself, abstaining from all kinds of things ... to no avail. The way to freedom is by removing oneself from the ‘real world’ and stepping swiftly into the actual world ... and leaving your ‘self’ behind where it belongs. Life is a grim business in the ‘real world’ with only scant moments of reprieve ... and it is ‘I’ who creates the ‘real world’ reality over the top of the actual world. In a valiant, but ultimately futile attempt to stay in existence, ‘I’ can realise ‘myself’ as being the ‘Transcendent Self’ existing for all ‘Eternity’ ... ‘Deathless’, ‘Unborn’, Undying’, ‘Timeless’, ‘Spaceless’, ‘Immortal’ ... and so on. This has been the way of humans for millennia: to escape from ‘reality’ by creating a ‘Greater Reality’ ... this is the wisdom of the Sages and the Saints, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours – and is but a delusion created out of an illusion. It is all predicated upon the persistence of an identity existing through into an ‘After-Life’. RESPONDENT: I could hear the moving of the ripples, the glorious blue constantly wavering was somehow closer to my face than had I been an inch away from it. The light reflecting off the water was everywhere and I could see it was travelling, see its speed. The insects were audible in the minutest detail – as if I had acquired the hearing of a bat. RICHARD: This is a very accurate description of what I call the actual world – the world of the sense organs unmediated by a ‘who’ within the body. For the sake of clarity, I call this apperception. Apperception – which the Oxford Dictionary defines as: ‘The mind’s perception of itself’ – is when ‘I’ temporarily vacate the scene and I experience myself as being these eyes seeing, these ears hearing ... and so on. All the senses are heightened and all is vivid, intense, vital and dynamic. Everywhere and everything is already perfect as-it-is and nothing more needs to be done other than to live this experience, every moment again, for the term of one’s natural life. There is no need for a sense of identity, a sense of self, a sense of ‘I’ ... in fact, ‘I’ have been standing in the way, all these years, of this actual world being apparent. It is actually as simple as this to be free. And with the ending of ‘I’, which was only an illusion, and by not falling prey to becoming the second ‘I’, which is a delusion (‘I am God’, ‘I am The Supreme’, I am That’, I am The Absolute’ – or even just ‘I am’), one has eliminated both sorrow and malice forever. There is no evil in the actual world; evil exists only in the human psyche ... and in the ‘real world’ which ‘I’ create. Likewise there is no sorrow in the actual world; suffering exists only in the human psyche also. The actual world is a world of benignity and benevolence. RESPONDENT: The realisation that the ‘I’ that I employed to go about in the world was absent, a mere illusion, was quite a shock for obvious reasons. In a way I think I tried to invite it in as there was a fear about moving in the world without a distinct ‘I’. RICHARD: It is usually fear which prevents one from entering into actuality, for after all, it means the end of ‘you’ ... which is everything that you think and feel yourself to be ... every single bit of ‘you’. It means extinction, the end of being anyone at all; it is the end of ‘being’ itself. ‘I’ do not exist in any way, shape or form. Fear can become terror – and terror can become dread. It requires nerves of steel to go all the way ... but the rewards for doing so are beyond price. RESPONDENT: I remember looking at that ‘I’ just before I left this garden of Eden as something so alien to the real me, something with absolutely no connection to what I am, a completely lost, forsaken, deluded, ignorant false entity that had taken over my life for 22 years at that point and was about to conquer me again. RICHARD: I have written elsewhere: ‘The way of becoming actually free is both simple and practical. One starts by dismantling the sense of identity that has been overlaid, from birth onward, over the innate self until one is virtually free from all the social mores and psittacisms. Virtually free from all the beliefs, ideas, values, theories, truths, customs, traditions, ideals, superstitions ... and all the other schemes and dreams. One can become aware of all the socialisation, of all the conditioning, of all the programming, of all the methods and techniques that were used to produce what one thinks and feels oneself to be – a wayward identity careering around in confusion and illusion. A ‘mature adult’ is actually a lost, lonely, frightened and very cunning entity. However, it is never too late to start in on uncovering and discovering what one actually is. One can become virtually free from all the insidious feelings – the emotions and passions – that fuel the mind and give credence to all the illusions and delusions and fantasies and hallucinations that masquerade as visions of The Truth. One can become virtually free of all that which has encumbered humans with misery and despair and live in a state of virtual freedom ... which is beyond normal human expectations anyway. Then, and only then, can the day of destiny dawn wherein one becomes actually free. One will have obtained release from one’s fate and achieved one’s birthright ... and the world will be all the better for it’. (Richard, List B, No. 34b, 25 June 1999). RESPONDENT: Just before I took the final leap into this Realm (fully thinking I would find only death, once my inner world of samsara was extinguished) I actually heard within a rush of many what seemed to be spirits spurring me on to go for it, as if it was the only thing truly worth doing, which indeed it is. RICHARD: This was my experience also, seventeen years ago. I have since ascertained that, of course, these spirits are born out of the Human Condition ... coming from what is coined ‘The Collective Unconscious’. It matters not, the main thing is that you were spurred on, because it is indeed the only thing worth doing. Just so long as you do not believe in the ‘spirits’ as actually existing you will be safe from the delusions that have beset other human beings in similar situations. If you make the mistake of believing in them you may very well fall into surrendering to some ‘Higher Power’, some ‘Ultimate Authority’ and miss out on the magnificence of living as a free and autonomous human being in this actual world of people, things and events. RESPONDENT: People should not innately have to suffer the constant cyclic pain of attachments that forever bear no solid fruit, and thoughts that merely lead one in meaningless perpetual circles. I felt that me as a person was not deserving of that fate either now, before, or any longer, and I was prepared to sacrifice all I had if that’s what was required, even if it meant death, I wasn’t content to lead a dishonest life of subservience to unfulfilling desires. RICHARD: I echo your sentiments: ‘I was prepared to sacrifice all I had if that is what is required – even if it meant death’. Back in 1981 the ‘I’ that I was then was prepared to do whatever it took (provided it broke no legal law of society). I fondly call it the ‘boots and all’ approach; it was a task that ‘I’ dedicated ‘my’ life to. I would like to finish of with something I wrote some time ago: ‘The peak experience provides an objective standpoint to view ‘I’ from. It is easily seen from here that ‘I’ stand in the way of ultimate fulfilment ... of ‘my’ destiny. Pure contemplation is the means to provide one with repeated opportunities to make this examination thorough; all doubt is removed and only surety remains. This is the only way one will be convinced that ‘I’ must vanish altogether. This is why I can say, confidently, that the ‘death of the ego’ is not sufficient, for it only means substituting an impersonal ‘I’ – now called ‘Being’ – for the personal ‘I’. ‘Being’, whether it goes with a capital to denote Divinity or not, means an ‘I’ is still in existence. Therefore the ‘death of the ego’ people’s ‘discoveries’ about the fate of humanity are questionable, to say the least, and their ‘solutions’ to life’s problems are equally suspect. Unless there is an end to ‘being’, which is what death is, one can not say one has penetrated into the ‘Mystery of Life’, one has not found ultimate fulfilment, one has not achieved peace-on-earth. One is only fooling oneself – and some other gullible people – if one is so easily satisfied. ‘This ‘death of the ego’ is only for the orthodox-minded people; it is for those who are easily seduced by the Glamour and the Glory and the Glitz of the much-touted Altered State. This is why pure intent is an essential prerequisite to ensure a guaranteed passage through the psychic maze. With pure intent one will not rest until one has gone all the way. One will not be bewitched by the psychic Power and Authority, either. All these allurements are but welcome food for the cunning ego, which wanting only its own survival, readily sublimates itself into the Spirit. With the clarity born of pure intent one can see this play for what it is and move on freely and willingly to what lies at the end of the wide and wondrous path ... the end of ‘being’. With pure intent one will not settle for second best, for it has been seen in the peak experiences that the very best is possible, here on earth. One sees that ‘I’ must disappear entirely. There will be no transcendence, no transmutation, no metamorphosis ... not any of these. For one who goes all the way, no phoenix will exist to arise from the ashes – nothing Metaphysical will remain. There will be no ‘being’ at all. ‘I’ will become extinct. ‘I use the word extinct deliberately for it carries a definitive meaning. Physically, death is the end of an individual member of the species, whilst extinction is the ending of the species itself. The psychological annihilation of ‘I’ – in its entirety – is the psychological ending of the species known as ‘humanity’. It is the end of ‘being’ and the end of an illusion. It is also the end of ‘Being’ and the end of delusion. The Human Condition, with all its appalling sorrow and malice, has come to an end in me. All those would-be wise people who state smugly: ‘You can’t change human nature’ are, fortunately, wrong. Because it is possible for ‘me’ to become extinct, thereby releasing the body from the ‘being’ within, I can walk freely in the world as-it-is – this actual world. I, as this body only, am living in that perfect purity twenty-four-hours-a-day. I live in a state of benignity, which means a kindly and harmless disposition. Life is a playful game and I am free to enjoy it all, every moment again. ‘‘Humanity’, which gave birth to ‘me’, was being sustained by ‘me’ remaining as a ‘being’. ‘I’ am forever fettered by the Human Condition. The species known as ‘humanity’ has searched for an Ultimate Fulfilment within the arena of the Human Condition for all of history. Such a search is endless and futile, for it is a search within an illusion. Only further illusions – further states of ‘being’ – can be found there ... or delusions. Becoming Divine is a delusion – a state of ‘Being’ that is an insult to intelligence. ‘I’ will never find the ultimate fulfilment for ‘I’ am standing in the way of the ‘Mystery of Life’ being revealed. There is no way out, ‘I’ am doomed. ‘I’ must, inevitably, cease to ‘be’. Instead of bemoaning ‘my’ fate and vainly searching for an escape, ‘I’ can see ‘myself’ for what ‘I’ am. This seeing is the beginning of the ending of ‘me’. The extinction of ‘me’ is the ultimate sacrifice ‘I’ can make to ensure the possibility of peace-on-earth for not only me but for all humankind. ‘I find myself here, in the world as-it-is. A vast stillness lies all around, abounding with purity. Beneficence, an active kindness, overflows in all directions, imbuing everything with unimaginable fairytale-like quality. For me to be able to be here at all was a blessing that only ‘I’ could grant, because nobody else could do it for me. I am full of admiration for the ‘me’ that dared to do such a thing. I owe all that I experience now to ‘me’. I salute ‘my’ audacity. And what an adventure it was ... and still is. These are the wondrous workings of the exquisite nature of life – who would have it any other way?’ RICHARD: We find sadness, loneliness, sorrow, grief, depression and suicide to be a global incidence – we gather that it is also inherent to the human condition – and we want to know why. In spite of the fact that every single human being has had at least one pure consciousness experience (PCE). RESPONDENT: How do you know? RICHARD: The same way that I know 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. Most people cannot initially remember a PCE and may need a lot of prompting to retrieve it from their memory ... I had the first PCE that I could consciously remember in 1980, thus triggering off memories of similar incidents in my child-hood. For example: I had one when I was eight years old and had locked it away, out of sight, for the next twenty six years. The 1980 PCE proved to be the turning point of my life ... and it can be for others as well. Everybody that I have spoken to at length over the last nineteen years – everybody – has had at least one PCE. It is a human experience common to all humans from all walks of life. Therefore it is impartially authentic, unlike religion and spirituality which require belief and faith, and is the genuine peace-on-earth that human beings say they have been looking for. It is what gives rise to such expressions as: ‘There must be more to life than this’. Nevertheless, as I said before, people do not usually remember them easily. This is because, in a PCE, there is no ‘me’ to record the memory on the affective ‘tape-recorder’, for the PCE is not a matter for the emotions and passions and calentures. All other (normal) memories have an affective component ... which is why there is nostalgia and sentimentality in people’s reveries. RESPONDENT: Richard, do you have the transcript of a dialogue in which you probed someone for a recollection of a PCE? RICHARD: No ... literally millions of words have disappeared into thin air. RESPONDENT: I am interested in probing myself for this. Do you have any suggestions? RICHARD: Just for starters the following may be of assistance (a written-at-a-later-date section of my version of a discussion with another many years ago): • [Richard]: ‘... by ‘blue-print’ I mean conditioning into society at large. What I am particularly concerned about is the effect this socialisation has had upon him specifically. Can he see that he has been constructed, from birth onward, to fit into a mould, a pattern? Can he see that this has been so effective that he has taken this construct to be what he actually is? He is shifting uncomfortably in his chair and looking a trifle shamefaced. He takes a slow sip from his wine to buy time. Dinner is simmering gently on the stove and it is high time to give it a stir ... and bring some rice to the boil before turning it down. The lights are low and the sweet scent of night-flowering jessamine wafts powerfully in through the screened windows, complementing the aroma of the spices that are cooking slowly. Overhead the slow-moving ceiling fan creaks slightly as it stirs the air. Altogether it is a very pleasant evening and I am happy to be here. Having attended to the culinary deeds I settle back into my seat, as he seeks to assimilate what I am talking of into his already existing mind-set. He explains that I have a way of confronting people with new concepts and can I please slow down as I nearly have him spinning in confusion. But he has indeed become aware of the automatic clichés he has been using – and believing in – and admits that I am right in that he is not as unique as he would like to think. Can he remember any pure consciousness experiences? Can he remember experiencing a moment – or moments – wherein everything falls into place correctly and perfectly? Wherein everybody, oneself included, and everything, is utterly pure? There is an ambience of total peace and harmony. Kindliness and spontaneous generosity of character come spontaneously and easily. One knows, with an absolute certainty, that it is possible to be free of all the ills of humankind ... to become free of the ‘Human Condition’ is the only solution to life’s troubles worth pursuing. In the PCE, ‘I’ temporarily abdicated the throne and I knew, by direct experience, that freedom was already actual. It was ‘me’ that was the problem, not the absence of perfection. When ‘I’ ceased to be, perfection became, as always, apparent. One sees that there is only one person who can actually manifest your own freedom from failure in human relationship. Me, myself ... yours truly. It is very important to have confidence in one’s own ability to discriminate between current ‘human’ knowledge and what one personally knows from the PCE’s. This will give one that essential optimism and assurance ... it is the ability to plough on regardless of whatever stands in one’s way until one evokes one’s destiny. It is all to do with a certainty ... the solid knowing, born out of the PCE, that it is here for oneself and anyone ... if only one will act upon this sureness. Can he relate to this? He can. He starts hesitantly, but gaining assurance goes on. He has never told this to anyone before, not even to his wife, because it was a very precious experience to him ... afraid to be made fun of. It happened back before he was married, when he was single and living out in the bush in an old shack. He had hitch-hiked back from town and was dropped off at the nearest intersection. He was walking the last two kilometres ... minding his own business and not thinking of anything in particular ... he remembers seeing some cows in a paddock on the right-hand side of the track ... they were black and white ... and they were especially vivid that day. As he went around the curve in the track ... past a big old tree ... the valley opened up before him. He knew all this as he had walked this track many times before ... but on this occasion he and the trees and the cows and the valley ... were ... sort of ... transformed. It was all as I had just described to him: everything and everybody is in its place, utterly correct and simply perfect. There is this total contentment with life as-it-is inside of him ... and outside, too. And all this has nothing to do with anything ... meaning that it is not precipitated by something. It just happens. Everything is absolutely wonderful exactly as-it-is. It is an amazing experience. I can see, by the look on his face, that he is again having the flavour of this experience. What can he say, now, about faith and trust? Does he feel the need for them? Or is there only confidence and certainty? It is important that one remembers this. Right now he is experiencing it as an actuality, whereas five minutes ago he was struggling to understand it intellectually ...’. (pages 50-51, Article 6: ‘Confidence And Certainty Renders Trust And Faith Irrelevant’ from ‘Richard’s Journal’; Second Edition ©2004 The Actual Freedom Trust). RESPONDENT: A request for an estimated guess not related to the above ... when was the human animal first capable to experience a PCE? RICHARD: The current human animal is known as homo sapiens (tool-making fire-using symbol-writing hominids) dating back to perhaps 100 thousand BCE; prior to that was homo erectus (tool-making fire-using hominids) dating back to perhaps 1.6 million BCE; prior to that was homo-habilis (tool-making hominids) dating back to perhaps 2.0 million BCE; prior to that was the genus australopithecus (small-brained hominids) dating back to perhaps 5.0 million BCE: prior to that were the hominoids strepsherinni/ haplorini (from which hominids arose) dating back to perhaps 70 million BCE. Thus my estimated guess would be to place it at maybe 70,002,004 years ago ... give or take a year or two. RESPONDENT: It is not necessary when you write of millions to say BCE as you’ll give or take a few thousand years at max. RICHARD: I was not giving or taking ‘a few thousand years at max’ ... my ‘give or take a year or two’ was only in deference to the (proposed) birth date of a saviour of humanity, from whence the arbitrary number 2004 CE (Common Era) is derived, being at least as early as 4 BCE (Before Common Era) – and thus corresponding to the (historical) death date of a contemporary ruler – plus an allowance for the fact there is no designated year zero in that particular calendar ... even though planet earth continued to orbit its radiant star all the while. And the point of such precision about such imprecise dating? Simply this: whatever date it is that archaeologists/ palaeontologists/ scholars may come up with, as being the earliest emergence of hominids/ hominoids, then that is the date I would estimate the human animal being first capable of having a pure consciousness experience (PCE). RESPONDENT: What’s the differentiating factor than, if not intelligence, between the early hominids and let’s say a wolf or a giraffe in terms of actualizing a PCE? RICHARD: I am none too sure there is any differentiating factor – the primary factor for pure consciousness experiencing (direct sensate experiencing) is sentience – and as they are feeling beings I see no reason why a wolf or a giraffe cannot have a PCE. * RESPONDENT: I was thinking that such an event (PCE) is possible precisely because of the intelligence developing in the human animal. RICHARD: No, it is an actual freedom from the human condition which is possible because of the development of intelligence ... only an animal with that cognitive faculty of understanding and comprehending (as in intellect and sagacity) – which means the cerebral ability to sensibly and thus judiciously think, reflect, appraise, plan, and implement considered activity for beneficial reasons (and to be able to rationally convey reasoned information to others of its species so that coherent knowledge can accumulate around the world and to the next generations) – can afford to dispense with the instinctual survival passions. RESPONDENT: As a PCE makes the instinctual self redundant, there should be no wonder as to why it has not happened to other animals ... including the different ‘less human than animal’ sub-species that lived < 70 million years ago. RICHARD: It is an actual freedom from the human condition which renders the instinctual ‘self’ redundant ... in a PCE the ‘self’ is merely in abeyance (which means ‘a state of suspension or temporary disuse; a dormant condition liable to revival’ according to the Oxford Dictionary). RESPONDENT: Given the fact that >100.000.000.000 homo sapiens lived on this earth, it is a real mystery as to why none of these tool making, condom using, symbol writing hominids (who presumably all had a temporary PCE and usually more – the best thing since sliced bear) haven’t managed (accidentally or purposely) to live a freedom from the ‘homo sapiens condition’, both tribal and instinctual. Don’t you find this a bit strange? RICHARD: Not nowadays ... no; some years ago ... yes (and exceedingly odd at that). RESPONDENT: I mean ... 1 in 100 billion, close to the number of stars in the milky way. Now, taking the enlightenment ratio, which is close to 1 in a million, and using some mathematical symbols, the afore-mentioned conditioned condition delivers somewhere close to 100.000 enlightened sapiens and only one big delightus ... you’re the man, eh? RICHARD: For as far as I have been able to ascertain ... yes. As a point of related interest: the human species has been doing its thing for at least 50,000 years or so – no essential difference has been discerned between the Cro-Magnon human and Modern-Day human – and may very well continue to do its thing for, say, another 50,000 years or so ... it matters not, in what has been described as ‘the vast scheme of things’ or ‘the big picture’, and so on, whether none, one or many peoples become actually free from the human condition (this planet, indeed the entire solar system, is going to cease to exist in its current form about 4.5 billion years from now). All these words – yours, mine, and others (all the dictionaries, encyclopaedias, scholarly tomes and so on) – will perish and all the monuments, all the statues, all the tombstones, all the sacred sites, all the carefully conserved/ carefully restored memorabilia, will vanish as if they had never existed ... nothing will remain of any human endeavour (including yours truly). Nothing at all ... nil, zero, zilch. Which means that nothing really matters in the long run and, as nothing really does matter (in this ultimate sense) it is simply not possible to take life seriously ... sincerely, yes, but seriously? No way ... life is much too much fun to be serious! RESPONDENT: Yes, I see your point as I remember instances of original comedy in my life, although in the real-world where I currently reside, it’s a serious and sometimes deadly business, mainly because people take themselves so seriously (survival takes precedent over enjoying). RICHARD: And therein lies the nub of the issue (in the real-world life is indeed a serious and sometimes deadly business). RESPONDENT: When the potential for freedom is actualized, there’s no need to build another freedom site or to write a book dedicated to the same subject as it is extensively covered, all the while considering myself a factualist instead of an actualist with all the branding and neo- prefixes. I can simply disappear over the horizon if I so wish when ‘The Game’ is over. RICHARD: As an actual freedom from the human condition requires an all-inclusive altruism to effect – and altruism wipes away selfism completely – it would be a contradiction, not only in terms, but in effect to not pass on a report, by whatever means, of the discovery of the already always existing peace-on-earth to one’s fellow human beings. In other words, if for no other reason than simply because of the inherent character of fellowship regard, here in this actual world, were you not to share your experiencing of what life is in actuality – that is, kept it to yourself, for yourself, whilst all about misery and mayhem rages unabated (plus all the branding and neo-prefixing for that matter) – then it would not be an actual freedom from the human condition. Feeling beings do not have a corner on caring. RESPONDENT: I wonder how all these astronauts, who have seen the Earth from space, haven’t seen the folly of the humans below or if they have seen it why didn’t they say loud and clear what stupidity is played down here everyday. RICHARD: Presuming that you are assuming some of them have a PCE – because of the sheer impact of seeing this azure and verdant planet from such a privileged vantage point perchance – then basically you are asking why anyone who is having a PCE is not saying, loud and clear, why all the misery and mayhem being played-out all around the globe is unnecessary. Speaking personally, that is the very thing I would say, all those years ago whenever the ‘I’ who was inhabiting this body went into abeyance, and anybody I have been with since then, whilst they were having a PCE, has expressed variations on the same theme. RESPONDENT: How can they re-become so easily ‘normal’ with only a whisper about their experience? RICHARD: For the same reason why an actual freedom from the human condition is new to human history ... the persistence, and thus dominance, of identity. * RESPONDENT: Richard, in what way is the ‘sagacity’ of a PCE different than the ‘wisdom’ of God (ASC) or to the ordinary, intermediated ‘understanding’ of the Normal CE? RICHARD: Discernment is unmediated (and therefore perspicuous). RESPONDENT: I’ve read somewhere on your portion of the site that the PCE has some sort of in-built ... umm ... ‘ wisdom’ for lack of a better term. RICHARD: The better term would be perspicacity. RESPONDENT: Do you derive understanding/ comprehension in a different way than a scientist/ enlightened/ self-realized person does? RICHARD: Yes ... perspicaciously. RESPONDENT: That seems obvious to me from your writing. You seem to come as from another league on this mailing list in regard to discerning the facts of the matter. I guess that when the ‘inside’ clears, the ‘outside’ clarifies as well ... I can only speculate about what happens when both of these categories vanish and intelligence works directly, unmediated by any ‘thinker’/ ’feeler’. Does that mean that what you write is always and naturally factual/ actual (as it comes directly from the experience of experiencing)? RICHARD: In regards the direct experiencing itself ... yes (bar oversights that is); in regards other matters, such as historical review, current affairs, prospective evaluation, and so forth, being matters of opinion (mostly ill-informed) ... no. RESPONDENT: Let me pose a couple possible PCE’s to see if you could tell me whether either of them seem to be right on. 1. I’m sitting on the steps of the library on my university campus. It’s the last half hour of daylight, with the rays of the sun and the shadows from trees and buildings creating a special light for the stage that I observe. In front of me, my fellow students cross the stage that is my field of vision, coming from left and right, moving on. As I watch I have no concerns that they might observe me or evaluate me or have any judgments in mind. As I look from person to person, it occurs to me that they are all very pleasant-looking. If one’s nose would normally seem ‘too big,’ for instance, now it seems to go perfectly with the rest of their features, even their gait. No one is inferior or superior – these thoughts don’t even come to mind. We are who we are and we are there, for the moment. 2. I’ve just left a little store in Bern, Switzerland. Having travelled an hour by train from Lausanne, I have finally gotten into my hands the marijuana that I have so badly wanted. My days are normally long drug-induced journeys into the subconscious, into the strange world of language and culture as I learn and speak French, and I regularly marvel at the beauty of lake Geneva and the mountains on the other side. But today, with this marijuana in my satchel, headed toward the central park where hippies and the like normally sit on the grass smoking their weed, I decide to wait. I will not drug myself, but enjoy the beautiful city that I am in, for I will not always be able to be here. Nearly as soon as I decide to wander and explore, I am struck with a sense of awe about everything. It’s like my brain is so prepped up to get stoned and to battle losing consciousness that I’m skyrocketed into a very intense consciousness. As I walk, gravity is barely an issue. Everywhere I turn my eyes there is intense beauty, but not because I say so, just because it is strange and wonderful. I look at two young women passing by on the street and wonder if they realize how wonderful everything is. They look back at me and it doesn’t seem to matter if they realize it or not because I’ll never know anyway. Nevertheless, there seems to be a brightness there in their eyes that I don’t usually notice in my fellow man. I don’t know what it would be like to live in #2. It seems it would be overwhelming. As for #1, well it was nice to be out of the usual judging/ critical/ worrisome mode ... well, actually, #2 might have been especially nice because of the sort of exotic environment I was in. RICHARD: The key-words in description No. 1 would seem to be ‘no one is inferior or superior’ (hence the lack of concern over others observing, evaluating, or judging you) and what stands out in description No. 2 is ‘how wonderful everything is’ … however the references to ‘a sense of awe’ and the lightness of being (as expressed in your ‘gravity is barely an issue’ phrasing) and ‘there is intense beauty’ may be an indication of an altered state of consciousness (ASC) rather than a pure consciousness experience (PCE). Needless is it to add the qualifier that there actually is insufficient information for me to comment meaningfully? Besides which I am somewhat reluctant to appraise another’s description anyway (unless it be strikingly obvious just what it was) as experience has shown that when another asks whether such-and-such is a PCE or not it is, generally speaking, not … in a PCE it is startlingly apparent to the experient that is indeed a PCE. For just one example: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Yesterday I had the first really clear and unequivocal PCE since starting with this ... previously, I had had what I call ‘mini-PCE’s’. They lasted only very brief periods of time, say an hour or so, and I wasn’t really sure it was a PCE. Yesterday, however, I had *no doubt at all* about the experience, as it accorded in all details with what I have read about PCE’s (...) [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Gary, 14 August 2000). RESPONDENT: Thanks for your consideration. RICHARD: You are very welcome … and it is at this stage I usually append a stock-standard disclaimer such as this: I am simply reporting my experience and it is entirely up to the other to do with it what they will ... and I stress that it is the PCE that is one’s guiding light – one’s authority or one’s teacher – and not me or my description of a PCE. The evidence of human history demonstrates that there is a distinct possibility that things can go awry wherever the human psyche is being subjectively investigated. Yet there are some notable people (or notorious people) in this field of endeavour who have rashly promised that they will take care of everything if only the person investigating will believe them and/or have faith in them and/or trust them and/or surrender to them and/or obey them ... and so on. And there are more than a few of these gullible persons currently occupying places in psychiatric wards as a direct result ... and the person who promised to ‘take care of everything’ is remarkably unforthcoming (it is counsellors and therapists and psychologists and psychiatrists who have to pick up the pieces). I cannot save anybody at all. Seel also PCE descriptions (Actualism, Others, Various Descriptions of PCEs). SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE ON PURE CONSCIOUSNESS EXPERIENCES (Part Two) 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. Disclaimer and Use Restrictions and Guarantee of Authenticity