# Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

Richard’s Selected Correspondence ## On Sense and Sensible RICHARD: Then one day, as a result of my deep questioning of my state of being, I was able to experience that without these senses I would not know that I exist. I was the sense organs and these sense organs were me. I was mortal. Immortality was nothing but a self-centred escape from the actual. It was all a case of the persistence of identity. (Richard, List B, No. 31, 7 March 2000) RESPONDENT: I keep day-dreaming/ thinking and get into fears and anxieties ... my mind slips away from a simple state (awareness of the moment) to some complex state (memories, feelings, thoughts, recollections) and I get confused. RICHARD: It is really very, very simple (which is possibly why it has never been discovered before this): one felt good previously; one is not feeling good now; something happened to one to end that felicitous/ innocuous feeling; one finds out what happened; one sees how silly that is (no matter what it was); one is once more feeling good. JAMES: What about when I find out what happened to end feeling good and I see that it is silly to keep worrying about it yet that doesn’t stop the worrying and I am not back to feeling good? RICHARD: Two things immediately leap to mind ... (1) you value feeling worry (a feeling of anxious concern) over feeling good (a general sense of well-being) ... and (2) you have not really seen it is silly to feel bad (a general sense of ill-being). What I would suggest, at this point, is to feel the silliness of feeling bad (in this case feeling anxiety) ... then the seeing (as in a realisation) might very well have the desired effect (as in an actualisation) of once more feeling good. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, James, 13 July 2004a). RESPONDENT: a) I am not able to see the silliness of feeling bad ... RICHARD: Do you comprehend that, although the past was actual when it was happening, it is not actual now and that, although the future will be actual when it does happen, it is not actual now ... that only this moment is actual? If so, do you further comprehend that anytime you felt good/ will feel good does not mean a thing if you are not feeling good now ... that a remembered occasion/ an anticipated occasion pales into insignificance if you are feeling bad now? Furthermore, do you understand that to be living this moment – the only moment you are ever alive – by feeling bad is to be frittering away a vital opportunity to be fully alive ... to totally enjoy and appreciate being what you indubitably are (a sensate creature) whilst you are here on this planet? If so, is it not silly to waste this only moment you are ever alive by feeling bad ... when you could be feeling good? RESPONDENT: ... feeling bad seems to be the driving force for doing various things like laundry, which I am not interested in – and the only way feeling bad goes away is by doing it ... not by seeing the silliness of it ... am I missing something here? RICHARD: Maybe an example will provide the clue: back in 1981, in the early days of starting on the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition, I was standing in the kitchen of my ex-farmhouse, situated on a couple of acres of land in a remote countryside location, washing the breakfast dishes; I was not interested in washing the dishes/ I had never been interested in washing the dishes; I did not like washing the dishes/ I had never liked washing the dishes; washing the dishes was an uninteresting chore, an unlikeable task, that just had to be done (otherwise I would not be doing it/ would never had done it/ would never do it) ... and all the while the early-morning sun was streaming in through the large glass windows, in the eastern wall to my front, beckoning me, enticing me to hurry-up and get the uninteresting and unlikeable job over and done with so that I could scamper outside and get stuck into doing the interesting things I really liked doing/ wanted to do. Howsoever, the tool for facilitating the actualism method – asking oneself, each moment again, how one is experiencing this moment of being alive (the only moment one is ever alive) – had by now become a non-verbal approach to life, a wordless attitude towards being alive, and all-of-a-sudden, whilst standing there with my hands in the sink being anywhere but here, at anytime but now, it was a delight and a joy to be doing exactly what it was I was already doing anyway ... standing in the golden sunlight with hands immersed in delicious, tingling-to-the-touch, hot soapy water. I find myself looking at what the hands are feeling (the hot soapy water) and become aware I have never seen hot soapy water before – have never really seen hot soapy water before – and become fascinated with the actuality of what is happening: it is as if the hands know what to do without any input from me; they are reaching for a plate, they are applying the scourer appropriately, they are turning the plate over, they are applying the scourer appropriately, they are lifting the cleaned plate out of the washing sink; they are dipping it into the rinsing sink; they are placing it in the rack to drip ... and all this while they are feeling the delicious tingling sensation of hot soapy water as it strips-away the grease and other detritus. I am not required at all; I am a supernumerary; I am redundant; I can retire, fold in my hand, pack in the game, depart, disappear, dissolve, disintegrate, vamoose, vanish, die – whatever – and life would manage quite well, thank you, without me ... a whole lot better, in fact, as I am holding up the works from functioning smoothly. ‘I’ was not needed ... ‘my’ services were no longer required. RESPONDENT: Sometimes I find myself in a conflicting situation where I don’t want to do things yet I don’t want to face the consequences. b) So is the method very much ‘nipping in the bud’? RICHARD: At this stage the method is held-up by not being able to see the silliness of feeling bad. Viz.: • [Respondent]: ‘I am not able to see the silliness of feeling bad ...’. RESPONDENT: c) Is there any analysis involved? RICHARD: At this stage any analysis is held-up by not being able to see the silliness of feeling bad. Viz.: • [Respondent]: ‘I am not able to see the silliness of feeling bad ...’. RESPONDENT: d) Due to associative memory, when I feel bad (maybe I didn’t catch it early on), what I see inside me is a complex web of images. I have not been able to look at it clearly, let alone understand it. Can you provide any insight? RICHARD: Yes ... you are unable, at this stage, to see the silliness of feeling bad. Viz.: • [Respondent]: ‘I am not able to see the silliness of feeling bad ...’. RESPONDENT: e) The ‘feeling bad’ with its images from the past seems to paralyse any investigation; any help? RICHARD: Yes ... you are unable, at this stage, to see the silliness of feeling bad. Viz.: • [Respondent]: ‘I am not able to see the silliness of feeling bad ...’. RICHARD: In short: this ambrosial paradise I refer to as ‘this actual world’ has been no further away, all the while, than coming to your senses. JAMES: Just what I needed to hear Richard. ‘In short’ is right. This pretty much says it all. RICHARD: Aye ... this is my favoured way of saying it all: • [Richard]: ‘Step Out Of The Real World Into This Actual World And Leave ‘Yourself’ Behind Where ‘You’ Belong. JAMES: The key part of the first sentence to me is ‘coming to your senses’. That seems like the gateway into the actual world. RICHARD: It is indeed – just as it is also the gateway out of the real world – and ‘tis only the price of admission/ the cost of exit that hinders ingress/ egress. JAMES: The ‘price of admission/ the cost of exit’ must be ‘me’ which hinders exiting the real world and also hinders the direct contact of the senses to the actual world. Seeing exactly how the ‘me’ hinders this ‘ingress/ egress’ diminishes the ‘me’. Can I leave ‘me’ at the gate? RICHARD: This is what I would suggest: • [Richard]: ‘The other aspect of the actualism method – other than felicity/ innocuity – is sensuosity: feeling felicitous/ innocuous, each moment again, brings one closer to one’s senses and the resultant wonder at the brilliance of the sensate world can enable apperception ... the direct experience of the world as-it-is. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, James, 27 March 2004). Such a felicitous/ sensuous state of wonder can do wonders (pun intended). RESPONDENT: And who or what invented the marvellous sense organs? RICHARD: There never is an ‘inventor’ of these things that you mention. RESPONDENT: How was it decided how these senses would be perceived? RICHARD: The circumstances dictated ... organisms responding to the environment. RESPONDENT: Such differences of kind in perception! The amazing distinction between blue and b-minor. Can you even imagine another kind of sense? RICHARD: No ... and I do not wish for more. Somewhere I read that there is something like 150,000 impulses travelling into the brain each second ... enough is enough, eh? RESPONDENT: I cannot – when I try, what I imagine is in terms of the existing senses. RICHARD: Yes, many, many years ago when I made a living as a practising artist I tried to imagine a colour that is not yet another derivation of the three primary colours ... I could not. I pondered it for months, if I recall. RESPONDENT: Yet whatever amazing creative force fashioned sight, I have no doubt, can fashion a dozen more ways of perceiving, each as different from my present five senses as my touch is different from my sight. RICHARD: I have no need for the hypothesis of any ‘creator’ ... this universe has always been here and always will be. RESPONDENT: Is there anything real beyond the 5 senses? I wish there to be but I can’t prove it with the 5 senses. RICHARD: Why would one ‘wish there to be’ anything beyond the five senses? This actual world – as ascertained sensately – is already always perfect. Here is a purity that can only be lived to be ‘proved’ ... personal experience is the only ‘proof’ worth having. Actuality is so vastly superior to the most exotic paradise and/or heaven and/or samadhi and/or nirvana and/or whatever that anyone ever believed in that it simply cannot be imagined. The impeccable quality of the on-going experience of actually being here is beyond any of ‘my’ wildest dreams. RESPONDENT: Of course, there are many unknown things within the reach of the 5 senses that appear to be difficult to prove . RICHARD: Yea verily ... but only ‘appear to be difficult’ to an identity. Nothing is unknown, when the psychological and psychic entities – ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul – having a parasitical existence within this flesh and blood body, willingly take their leave. Now those, previously, ‘unknown things’ can be known ... apperceptively. RICHARD: Pure consciousness is where this flesh and blood body can be apperceptively aware of this actual world ... the world as-it-is. And what-it-is is a rather magical play-ground full of pleasure and delight ... and nary a feeling to be found anywhere. Sorrow and malice cease to exist ... one is happy and harmless in character without any effort. Needless to say, the word ‘integration’ is not at all applicable, here. RESPONDENT: Richard, aren’t your feelings of pleasure and delight integrated into your flesh and blood body? RICHARD: Nope, not at all. Integral, yes indeed (as in: essential, necessary, indispensable, requisite, basic, fundamental, inherent, intrinsic, innate). But integrated, no way (as in: unite the various parts, join, combine, amalgamate, consolidate, blend, incorporate, coalesce, fuse, merge, intermix, mingle, commingle, assimilate, homogenise, harmonise, mesh, concatenate). RESPONDENT: Are you saying that pleasure and delight are essential, necessary, and indispensable but not part of the body as in fused, joined, homogenised? RICHARD: That is right ... pleasure and delight are the senses in operation. And the senses are as innate, inherent and intrinsic as the heart, lungs and liver. RESPONDENT: I would say it that would be the other way around if one used only these meanings. RICHARD: I really do not see how. RESPONDENT: I was not suggesting an integrated self, but an integration as in ‘wholeness’, not fragmented and especially not deluded. RICHARD: But ‘wholeness’ means the theory or principle of a tendency in nature to form or produce organised wholes which are more than the mere sum of the component units. This is to go beyond the actual into the metaphysical ... and to be metaphysical is to be deluded. When I say: ‘I am the senses’ I mean just that ... not something more than the sum of the parts. Also, the senses are never fragmented and require no fixing up ... no ‘defragmentation’ is required. It is simply a matter of one coming to one’s senses – both literally and figuratively – and then one is this body being apperceptively aware. ‘Wholeness’ is nothing but a futile attempt to make something out of nothing. IRENE to Vineeto: I cannot subscribe to Richard’s statement that right and wrong are of no concern. They are of importance in the capacity to distinguish and make our choices. We do share a plot of earth together and therefore we must come to some sort of basic agreement in order to be able to live in peace and harmony and not kill each other. For this to be possible, all involved must be able to count on some basic rules: this is what we consider right and this is wrong. It’s not only impossible to live with other human beings without knowing the difference, but it is putting your head in the sand if you deny it altogether as being of concern. RICHARD: Goodness me ... ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are not merely a matter of ‘no concern’ to me. I am vitally concerned about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and seek to see them banished forever from the face of this otherwise fair earth of ours. I long ago abandoned ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ because far too many of my fellow human beings have been killed because of what is ‘right’ ... or savagely punished because they were ‘wrong’. To say that ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are of importance because we will then be able to ‘live in peace and harmony and not kill each other’ rather belies the evidence of history, does it not? I would say that failing to learn the lessons of history is what qualifies for the phrase ‘putting your head in the sand’ ... rather than what I have done to simplify the issue. It is far better – and much more understandable – to appraise one’s actions being either ‘silly’ or ‘sensible’. It is simply silly to drive on the wrong side of the road, for example, because of the obvious danger to one’s own life and limb and others ... not ‘wrong’ with all its judgemental condemnations of one’s implicit wickedness and badness. It is sensible to find out why one is driven to perform socially unacceptable acts, for instance, rather than to refrain from committing these deeds because such restraint is the ‘right’ thing to do. Because ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are emotive words loaded with reward and punishment connotations ... which is poor motivation for salubrious action anyway. Then one has dignity for the first time in one’s life. ALAN: I appreciate that words are all we have, however it is unlikely that words alone will be enough to dissuade one from the ASC. This is where it gets fascinating because the question then arises, what do words appeal to? Having set out in 1997 to discover the meaning of my experiences, I could all too easily have become enlightened. However, with your story as a ‘warning’, I think I have managed to avoid this and have turned aside on at least two occasions from their attractions (and examined them once). So, are we back to common sense? I shy away a bit from using ‘native intelligence’ as it tends to convey something like ‘Cosmic Intelligence’ to me. RICHARD: I use the phrase ‘native intelligence’ in the meaning of ‘autochthonous acumen’ or ‘indigenous prudence’ or ‘congenital judicity’. I am meaning a down-to-earth and matter-of-fact practicality ... an innate sensibility. The term ‘Cosmic Intelligence’ is anthropomorphic and reveals a dearth of sensible reason ... intelligence exists only in the human brain. 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. RESPONDENT: If there is no psychic entity in your body than you don’t know and don’t care what will happen next moment. RICHARD: There is no next moment ... there is only this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space. I can intellectually know that there possibly will be a now that is presumably going to happen (and that there was a series of past now-moments that did happen) and can plan according to the probability that certain events are likely to occur (that the banks will be open tomorrow at 9.30 AM, for example) based upon those past experiences. But there actually is no future (or past) whatsoever as I sit here now. Living here, there is only now ... and it is always now. I care for the next moment inasmuch as sensible planning can ensure the optimum creature comforts and ease of life-style ... I purchased a carton of cream yesterday afternoon so that I can have some in this cup of coffee I am sipping now (3.36 AM) when all the shops are closed. Other than sensible planning it is simply silly to ‘care what will happen in the next moment’ (substitute ‘worry’ for ‘care’) as it is unknown in that it does not exist. The future is not ‘out there’ somewhere already formed and just waiting to happen ... it has no existence whatsoever until it happens. When the future happens it is called now ... hence there is no future at all. MARK: Interestingly, this time around, fear has taken a back seat and no energy is being wasted on ‘why, how, what if, if only’ – there is simply the fact that this disease is back and certain steps are to be taken to support the body in taking care of itself. RICHARD: To be able to live without fear is such a blessed condition ... and it enables sensible decisions to be made. In this day and age and living in the heterogeneous culture that you do, a full array of alternatives are at your command. Obviously I personally favour modern medical treatment but the alternatives do have something to offer and everything is a matter of personal choice ... the absence of fear will enable not only judicious decisions to be made but ensures a quality of life. In the final analysis I plunk for quality over quantity any day. All discussion about fear eventually turns around death. This is a fact that needs be faced squarely. To not ‘be’ is inconceivable; it is impossible to imagine not ‘being’ because all one has ever known is ‘being’. What does it mean to not ‘be’? One has always been busy with ‘being’; being alive, being in the world, being a ‘human’, being ‘me’. What is it to not exist? There seems to be a general consensus among human beings that death is a mystery that one cannot penetrate, and that the ‘Mystery of Life’ will be revealed only after death. There, they say, lies peace and Ultimate Fulfilment. It all appears to be an exercise in futility to think about what is entailed in death, which is the end of ‘being’ ... and it is. The end of ‘being’, at physical death, can only ever be a speculation; it has to be experienced to know it. Just like one cannot know the taste of something until one eats it ... so too is it with death as the end of ‘being’. Yet to wait for death will be leaving it too late to find out what it is to not ‘be’ ... as death is oblivion of consciousness there will be no awareness of not ‘being’. The question is: can one experience the end of ‘being’ before this body dies and therefore penetrate into the ‘Mystery of Life’, in full awareness, and find that Ultimate Fulfilment ... here on earth? What I did was face the fact of my mortality. ‘Life’ and ‘Death’ are not an opposite ... there is only birth and death. Life is what happens in between. Before I was born, I was not here. Now that I am alive, I am here. After death I will not be here ... just like before birth. Where is the problem? RESPONDENT: If your answer is the memory of peak experience, then I would say that even in virtual freedom one is discontent with the life as it is, maybe at more subtle level, and then this is no virtual freedom and hence the logical flaw. RICHARD: Yet ‘virtual’ means ‘almost as good as’ or ‘nearly the same as’ or ‘in effect comparable to’ and so on. Therefore, in regards to what is or is not a virtual freedom, watch out that you do not make it indistinguishable from an actual freedom or else it will result in the ‘all or nothing’ dilemma of spiritual achievement ... and lead to that flagitious ‘cutting the other down to size’ syndrome so prevalent in that loving and compassionate world. I leave it up to the person involved to decide for themselves where they are at along their path – the ‘twenty three hours fifty nine minutes (99%)’ is an arbitrary figure, by the way, and I decline to be a probity policeman for anyone – and if one is not scrupulously honest with oneself then just who is one fooling? Nevertheless, I cannot recall any discontent whatsoever in 1981 ... yet I wished to go all the way. I would not settle for second-best – having experienced the best on numerous occasions – and there was also the pressing matter of all the suffering of my fellow human beings. All the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides had impinged themselves indelibly upon my consciousness and provided the necessary ‘back pressure’ to encourage me to proceed poste-haste. Also, logic has its uses in mathematical and mechanical areas of life – human’s creature comforts are dependent upon it – but I have yet to meet a logician who enjoys and appreciates virtually each moment again and essentially lives in peace and harmony with a person of the other gender, day after day after day, through the application of logic to the problem of the human condition. Sensible reason and naiveté‚ coupled with commonsense – practical, down-to-earth, sensitive rationality – triumphs over logic any day. For example: 1. The cat has fleas. 2. Immersing fleas in boiling water kills them. 3. Put the cat in boiling water. Now, this is simplistic logic, I know ... but it illustrates that even scientists have to use commonsense when it comes time to move from pure science to applied science. RESPONDENT: I have a cousin who is a schizophrenic. He is 15 and at the moment is almost at the limit of what drugs can do without having uncontrollable shakes etc. Last weekend he was staying with my mum and dad who live close and was in a really bad state. Are you aware of anyone managing this condition with a method like, ‘How am I experiencing this moment’. It seems sensible to tackle this problem when the attacks are at a low ebb, but as far as I know, no method has been employed in this case to even attempt to change the status quo of the conditioning which is undoubtedly contributing to the problem. RICHARD: No one that I have ever spoken with, who is classified as having schizophrenia (and I spent considerable time with some as it was a condition I was vitally interested in at the time), ever indicated any willingness to join with me in a personal exploration – an experiential investigation – into the depths of their condition ... not one. In fact, as they backed-off, one and all, with marked degrees of alarm and distress, I desisted. I also had this happen with several peoples classified as having bi-polar disorder (manic depression) and my experience with peoples being clinically depressed was similar. There was one person, officially classified as having ‘episodes of paranoid schizophrenia’ (arguably the worst), who became so disturbed as I ‘walked with him’ into his world, that he became markedly wild. Another person in the room went outside and later said to me that the person had ‘become black’ and that there was ‘dark forces’. Thus, from these experiences and through discussions with relatives and friends of those mentally disturbed – and from my reading on the subject of mental disorders and discussions with psychologists and psychiatrists – I have adopted a sensible policy of making it clear that the person reading or listening to actualism words is a sensible human being who understands what a word means, has learned to function in society with all its the legal laws and the social protocols, and is a reasonably ‘well-adjusted’ personality seeking to find ultimate fulfilment and complete satisfaction. Actualism is of no use to one who is harbouring a neurotic or psychotic condition or who is an uneducated social misfit with a chip on their shoulder. Such a person is well-advised to see a psychologist or a psychiatrist or an educator or attend classes on citizenship and cultural etiquette before even bothering to try to unravel the mess that is the Human Condition. I say and do this because when a ‘normal’ person becomes ‘psychotic’ it is because they have found the pressures of life too much to handle and have chosen for psychosis as their way out. As strange as it may sound to normal people, they are comfortable with their modus operandi and have no interest in budging one iota from their position ... despite their pleas for help (a part of their strategy). It may initially sound like ‘hard nails’ on my account ... but counsellors and therapists and psychologists and psychiatrists are the best people for the job of managing their condition. Let us first get sensible peoples free of the human condition ... then normal people may become interested. When normal people are free of the human condition then peoples genetically prone to mental disorders will not be subject to the ‘status quo of the conditioning which is undoubtedly contributing to the problem’ that makes them choose for psychosis as a way out. RESPONDENT: Reading Alan’s post got me thinking. [quote]: ‘At one stage, I suddenly thought that this is the primitive self in operation and, just as in a PCE the ‘strong link’ from the amygdala to the neo-cortex is ‘stunned’ into temporary in-operation, what happens in ‘clinical depression’ is that the ‘weak link’ is temporarily (and possibly, in severe cases, permanently) put out of action. There is therefore no ‘feedback loop’ to control the instinctive reactions (and chemical releases) of the primitive self and the basic instincts of fear and aggression are free to run riot without the ‘normal’ controls of morals and injunctions. This would also explain what happens when people ‘run amok’, out of control, in wars and occasions of heightened tension’ [endquote]. It may be actually possible to, by practice, strengthen the feedback link and reduce the chance of psychotic breakdowns. RICHARD: Hmm ... I have been examined by two accredited psychiatrists and am officially classified as having a severe psychotic condition, according to the DSM-IV (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders – fourth edition) which is the analytical criteria used by all psychiatrists and psychologists around the world for establishing mental disorders. Thus the door to an actual freedom has ‘do not enter: insanity lies ahead’ written on it. It would seem that an increase, rather than a reduction, of ‘the chance of psychotic breakdowns’ are in order, no? PETER: No bleatings of ‘you’re being judgemental’ will work with me – it’s a furphy that’s been bandied around since morals and ethics were first chiselled in stone and devised to silence the sensible. ‘Judge ye not’ is a platitude invented by God-men and other charlatans in order that no one would question the rest of their inane platitudes. It is one of many dimwitacisms, passed off as Guru-wisdom, that have no other meaning or purpose than to keep their followers and disciples under control, humble, grateful, loyal and above all non-thinking. RICHARD: Ha ... ‘dimwitacisms’ , eh? Where will this all end ... the English language may never be the same again! Also, I am reminded of something that you wrote on another Mailing List some time ago. Viz.: • [Peter]: On the spiritual path you will be admonished to leave your mind at the door, surrender your will, and trust your feelings. I was sitting at the caff the other day, with a woman whom I have never met before, discussing life, the universe and what it is to be a human being living in the world as it is with people as they are. She listened intently and with interest to my story – she was not adversarial – and was seeking to comprehend what I was experiencing (she ran through a short list of the usual spiritual attributes to no avail) until she sat eyeing me reflectively. ‘I see’, she finally pronounced, ‘you don’t judge people’. ‘Goodness me’, quoth Richard, ‘I am as judgemental as all get-out ... surely you are not neutral on all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides are you? Do you not appraise people, things and events and come to a considered opinion as to what is a sensible course of action ... and what is silly?’ She sat a while longer, considering. ‘I feel there is no charge in you’, she said, ‘that is why it is okay to assess’ ‘What do you mean by ‘no charge’ ?’ ‘No emotions’. ‘Aye ... but more importantly, no identity that needs constant protection by those highly respected feelings.’ ‘Then this is indeed Enlightenment’, she concluded, somewhat triumphantly. ‘When I say I have no identity whatsoever I mean it ... I am not God on Earth’. Puzzled silence. ‘I am a fellow human being ... with no instinctual passions nor the ‘self’ engendered thereby’. Bewildered silence. ‘I am talking of the elimination of the instinctual animal ‘self’ that gives rise to the ‘we are all one’ psittacism’. Astounded silence. We may or may not meet again ... she works as a spiritual-group facilitator. RICHARD: This is a truly remarkable freedom. RESPONDENT: Only if it is the right kind of freedom. RICHARD: Goodness me ... I long ago abandoned ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ because far too many of my fellow human beings have been killed because of what is ‘right’ ... or savagely punished because they were ‘wrong’. It is far better – and much more understandable – to appraise one’s feelings, thoughts and actions as being either ‘silly’ or ‘sensible’. It is simply silly to drive on the wrong side of the road, for example, because of the obvious danger to one’s own life and limb and to others ... not ‘wrong’ with all its judgemental condemnations of one’s implicit wickedness and badness. It is sensible to find out why one is driven to perform socially unacceptable acts, for instance, rather than to refrain from committing these deeds because such restraint is the ‘right’ thing to do. Because ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are emotive words loaded with reward and punishment connotations – which is poor motivation for salubrious action anyway – then one has dignity for the first time in one’s life. So, the question is: Is an actual freedom a silly freedom ... or a sensible freedom? It is a freedom well worth living indeed, for in actual freedom lies not only an actual peace but an actual innocence. One is pure innocence personified, for one is literally free from sin and guilt. One is untouched by evil; no malice or sorrow exists anywhere in this body. One is utterly innocent ... innocence, that much abused word, can come to its full flowering and one is easily able to be freely ingenuous – noble in character – without any effort at all. The integrity of an actual freedom is so unlike the strictures of morality – whereupon the psychological and psychic identity within the body struggles in vain to resemble the purity of the actual – inasmuch as probity is bestowed gratuitously. One can live unequivocally, endowed with an actual gracefulness and dignity, in a magical wonderland. To thus live candidly, in arrant innocence, is a remarkable condition of excellence. This alternate freedom has never before been discovered anywhere in the history of humankind ... the most one could aspire to in order to transcend the ‘human realm’ was the much-touted ‘Divine Realm’, which has always brought bloodshed and suffering in its wake. This is because an imitation innocence was produced by the transformed identity now being humble ... it never was and never will be the genuine article. However, the way is now clear for that most longed for global peace-on-earth to happen. Because it is possible in one human being, the possibility exists for it to be replicated in another ... and another ... and another ... and so on. And the crux of its success is innocence. It is yours for the choosing. * RESPONDENT: If there is no good or evil, right or wrong, why would you want to get rid of human sorrow?? That in itself is a value inferring that those things exist, are to be avoided, and should be eliminated. RICHARD: It is not a value ... it is simply sensible. Do you want to suffer? Do you really enjoy it all that much? Is this not silly? We are talking of peace-on-earth ... and peace-on-earth is freedom from the Human Condition. The Human Condition is a term that refers to the situation that all human beings find themselves in when they emerge here as babies. The term refers to the contrary and perverse nature of all peoples of all races and all cultures. There is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in everyone ... all humans have a ‘dark side’ to their nature and a ‘light side’. The battle betwixt ‘Good and Evil’ has raged down through the centuries and it requires constant vigilance lest evil gets the upper hand. Morals and ethics seek to control the wayward self that lurks deep within the human breast ... and some semblance of so-called ‘peace’ prevails for the main. Where morality and ethicality fails to curb the ‘savage beast’, law and order is maintained ... at the point of a gun. Freedom from the Human Condition is the ending of the ‘self’. The elimination of the ‘self’ is the demise of both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ within oneself. Then ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ vanish forever along with the dissolution of the psyche itself ... which is the only place they can live in. Because there is no good or evil in the actual world of sensual delight – where I live as this flesh and blood body – one then lives freely in the magical paradise that this verdant earth floating in the infinitude of the universe actually is. Being here at this moment in time and this place in space is to be living in a fairy-tale-like ambience that is never-ending. I can heartily recommend committing both psychological and psychic suicide. * RESPONDENT: You claim to be free from malice. Why be free from malice?? RICHARD: I became free from malice because it is an unpleasant feeling to have coursing through the body, for starters. Secondly, because of what it made me do in my interaction with my fellow humans. Are you for real with this question? RESPONDENT: Where did that moral value come from? RICHARD: It is not a moral value ... it is just plain sensible to be free of malice. * RICHARD: I long ago abandoned ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ because far too many of my fellow human beings have been killed because of what is ‘right’ ... or savagely punished because they were ‘wrong’. It is far better – and much more understandable – to appraise one’s feelings, thoughts and actions as being either ‘silly’ or ‘sensible’. It is simply silly to drive on the wrong side of the road, for example, because of the obvious danger to one’s own life and limb and to others ... not ‘wrong’ with all its judgemental condemnations of one’s implicit wickedness and badness. It is sensible to find out why one is driven to perform socially unacceptable acts, for instance, rather than to refrain from committing these deeds because such restraint is the ‘right’ thing to do. Because ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are emotive words loaded with reward and punishment connotations – which is poor motivation for salubrious action anyway – then one has dignity for the first time in one’s life. RESPONDENT: You were criticising the seemingly mild areas of morality I was asking about in comparison to the more serious ones that exist in the world. Now, speaking in a generality, you advise that we look upon our feelings, thoughts and actions simply being ‘silly’ or ‘sensible’. I was looking back on an action of rape performed yesterday, would I consider it to be ‘silly’?? RICHARD: Well, I consider it silly, of course ... but then again I wanted to be free form the Human Condition with all of my being. Therefore, I did not come up with silly intellectual objections. So, tell me: do you consider rape sensible then? RESPONDENT: Wouldn’t you say that there are some things you might be able to call ‘silly’ and other things that you would not because they do not fit in that category no matter how much you try to fit them in. RICHARD: Well, I would not, of course ... but then again I saw the utter necessity of becoming free of malice and sorrow. So, tell me: what things would you want to exclude from this category? Wars? Rapes? Murders? Tortures? Domestic violence? Child abuse? Sadness? Loneliness Grief? Depression? Suicide? Am I to gather that, according to you, these things are not silly? So tell me: do you consider wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide to be sensible then? RESPONDENT: If I were to kill someone in a fit of anger, should I say to myself ‘darn! ... what a silly thing I just did’? ‘Should I clean up now or later?’ RICHARD: Well, only if you wish to remain a sorrowful and malicious psychological and psychic identity living a parasitical existence inside this flesh and blood body ... busily perpetuating all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide. So, tell me: do you consider murder sensible then? RESPONDENT: I do agree with you that self condemnation is another way of playing god with ourselves. RICHARD: Who are you agreeing with? I never said anything like that ... all gods are figments of a fertile imagination – an imagination fuelled by dread and awe – and it is therefore a meaningless statement. Is this an example of you being sensible? RESPONDENT: And self-condemnation will not accomplish anything, but your statement is a little on the enabling side, don’t you think? RICHARD: No, not at all ... it is particularly effective if your number one priority is to dig into the depths of your psyche and root out everything that is standing in the way of peace-on-earth, as this body, in this life-time. May I ask you a question? Do you consider yourself to be a rational and mature adult? * RESPONDENT: You were criticising the seemingly mild areas of morality I was asking about in comparison to the more serious ones that exist in the world. Now, speaking in a generality, you advise that we look upon our feelings, thoughts and actions simply being ‘silly’ or ‘sensible’. I was looking back on an action of rape performed yesterday, would I consider it to be ‘silly’?? RICHARD: Well, I consider it silly, of course ... but then again I wanted to be free from the Human Condition with all of my being. Therefore, I did not come up with silly intellectual objections. So, tell me: do you consider rape sensible then? RESPONDENT: You are the one that decided to establish the categories as ‘silly’ or ‘sensible’, not me. RICHARD: Aye ... and you felt such an approach to be enabling, remember? So I give you a demonstration of it’s effectiveness ... and you will not answer. I will ask you again: do you consider rape sensible? RESPONDENT: I consider the categories to be right or wrong, good or evil. RICHARD: So, for you, is rape wrong, evil ... and sensible? RESPONDENT: If you consider rape silly, how would you consider an assault on yourself? RICHARD: Just as silly. Because she or he that is assaulting me is going to wind up in gaol. By the way, men get raped too, you know ... especially when they find themselves in gaol for doing something silly. RESPONDENT: Does it become more serious at that point? RICHARD: Nothing is serious ... my life is continuous enjoyment and appreciation. I am sincere, though, with all my fun. RESPONDENT: Wouldn’t you say that there are some things you might be able to call ‘silly’ and other things that you would not because they do not fit in that category no matter how much you try to fit them in. RICHARD: Well, I would not, of course ... but then again I saw the utter necessity of becoming free of malice and sorrow. So, tell me: what things would you want to exclude from this category? Wars? Rapes? Murders? Tortures? Domestic violence? Child abuse? Sadness? Loneliness Grief? Depression? Suicide? Am I to gather that, according to you, these things are not silly? So tell me: do you consider wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide to be sensible then? RESPONDENT: It is you who sees these things as ‘silly’ or ‘sensible’... not me. RICHARD: Aye ... and you felt such an approach to be enabling, remember? So I give you a demonstration of it’s effectiveness ... and you will not answer. I will ask you again: do you consider the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide to be sensible? RESPONDENT: I think you are silly. RICHARD: As you do not know me personally, you can only have come to that conclusion by what you read. As I have spoken repeatedly about having eliminated malice and sorrow totally – thus making me completely happy and harmless – then I can only gather the impression that you think that peace-on-earth is silly. This does fit in with your comment a couple of posts ago. Viz.: • [Respondent]: ‘There will be ‘wars and rumours of wars’ until the end of the world. • [Richard]: ‘More than likely ... judging by the non-existent pace that you are proceeding at in your quest to put an end to war in yourself. • [Respondent]: ‘If you could eliminate all war, rape, killing, and suffering, do you really think man would be in a state of paradise? • [Richard]: ‘Yes ... and woman too. • [Respondent]: ‘No ... he would be as nutty as ever, most likely more nutty, with no war, no suffering, no rape, etc. • [Richard]: ‘Basically you are saying: ‘Why bother trying? I will just stay the way I am’. • [Respondent]: ‘He would just be living in a stupendous funny farm without suffering, and the psychological cruelty would be immeasurable. • [Richard]: ‘You have a strange picture of freedom. RESPONDENT: If I were to kill someone in a fit of anger, should I say to myself ‘darn! ... what a silly thing I just did’? ‘Should I clean up now or later?’ RICHARD: Well, only if you wish to remain a sorrowful and malicious psychological and psychic identity living a parasitical existence inside this flesh and blood body ... busily perpetuating all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide. So, tell me: do you consider murder sensible then? RESPONDENT: There were wars that needed to be fought. RICHARD: Actually, the question was ‘do you consider murder sensible’ ? Do you? RESPONDENT: I consider some wars to be extremely sensible. RICHARD: Goodness me ... you not only think that peace-on-earth is silly but you are now telling me that some wars are sensible! RESPONDENT: Have you ever noticed that is such a thing as a tyrant or dictator? RICHARD: Yes ... when I was but a boy in short pants at state school such people were called ‘bully-boys’. The girls had their own variety called ‘catty-bitches’. RESPONDENT: Do you consider the country fighting in self defence to be equal in causality to the perpetrator that started the whole thing? RICHARD: As a country is nothing but a grouping of peoples complete with the entire software package of fear and aggression and nurture and desire, then they are as covertly ‘guilty’ as the bully-boys and catty-bitches are overtly ‘guilty’. RESPONDENT: It is silly to categorise all wars as the same, not sensible. RICHARD: All wars are silly. RESPONDENT: That stand exudes a self righteous ‘above it all’ stand. RICHARD: Not so ... when one is ‘right’ or ‘good’ one is inevitably self-righteous. It is much better to be a sensible person. RESPONDENT: You may be able to reason with the one defending but you will never get anywhere with the tyrannical aggressor. RICHARD: As no country – which is each and every citizen – has rid itself of sorrow and malice then such speculation can only be that ... speculation. I would rather speak from my personal experience. Dealing sensibly with another is infinitely more effective than any self-righteous anger any day. RESPONDENT: I do agree with you that self condemnation is another way of playing god with ourselves. RICHARD: Who are you agreeing with? I never said anything like that ... all gods are figments of a fertile imagination – an imagination fuelled by dread and awe – and it is therefore a meaningless statement. Is this an example of you being sensible? RESPONDENT: That is strange. I see you playing god like all the rest of mankind. RICHARD: This is just not possible. There are no gods outside of your feverish imagination (apart from other believer’s equally delirious fantasy) so how on earth could I be ‘playing god’ ? I do not live in your world ... only people of your ilk go around ‘playing god’ . I simply cannot ... it is impossible. RESPONDENT: It is revealed in the way you put your words together. RICHARD: Oh? Really? What words? Do you mean words like: ‘I am a thorough-going atheist through and through’? RESPONDENT: You are just trying to nullify your competition ... leaving yourself in charge. RICHARD: I am certainly autonomous ... if that is what you see as me being in charge. I look to no one else ... nor do I have to follow absolute dictates handed down by long-dead deities. Peoples who are now but mouldering bones – or less – are ruling your life. RESPONDENT: And self-condemnation will not accomplish anything, but your statement is a little on the enabling side, don’t you think? RICHARD: No, not at all ... it is particularly effective if your number one priority is to dig into the depths of your psyche and root out everything that is standing in the way of peace-on-earth, as this body, in this life-time. May I ask you a question? Do you consider yourself to be a rational and mature adult? RESPONDENT: I just keep looking at myself without coming to any final conclusions. RICHARD: Do you mean to say that you do not know whether you are mature or not? May I ask? How old are you? RESPONDENT: I will let you know when I see it. RICHARD: Is that likely to be long, do you think? More than a couple of posts away, I mean? RESPONDENT: I do think I am more rational than you are, but I don’t know if that is saying much. RICHARD: So, a person who thinks that peace-on-earth is silly and that some wars are sensible considers himself to be more rational than Richard, eh? No wonder the human world remains in the mess it is in. RESPONDENT: Working on the outer world is delusion. Working on the inner world is also delusion. This doesn’t mean that you do nothing and watch everything that comes and go. RICHARD: I never said that what one does is just watch ... that was someone else’s observation. RESPONDENT: And the body is not rid of anything either because even the body is illusory. RICHARD: Okay – unless you are being disingenuous here or playing a petty little ‘I trapped you!’ game – then I start to understand what you are on about. If the body is illusory then it follows that this planet is illusory ... and even this universe. Right so far? If so, then this is oh-so-familiar ... it is the traditional Hindu/ Buddhist line that all this actual stuff is not it. In other words: only the metaphysical is real. This is why I use the word actual. One has to just try putting a spring clip upon one’s nose and a large piece of sticking plaster over one’s mouth for a few minutes to discover what actuality is. As one rips the plaster from one’s mouth and gulps in that sweet and actual air, one knows that one is certainly here on earth, living this life. Humans live only here, in this physical world ... it is a factual experience, a sensible experience. It is down-to-earth ... objectively verifiable. It is not some airy-fairy, far-removed-from-here affective dream-world conjured up out of abstinence and sublimation. To project a fantasy and then yearn to live in it is simply an insult to clear intelligence. Human beings eat corporeal food, drink tangible water and breathe physical air, in order to be here, to be alive at all. All this living is necessary in order to discuss these very matters. RESPONDENT: Perhaps this ego has nothing to gain. RICHARD: But it has plenty to gain ... it has a job to do and it is being denied its opportunity. RESPONDENT: Please explain. RICHARD: Altruism. When ‘I’ willingly self-immolate – psychologically and psychically – then ‘I’ am making the most noble sacrifice that ‘I’ can make for oneself and all humankind ... for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is ‘your’ moment of glory. It is ‘your’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘your’ petty life all worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... to physically die without having experienced what it is like to become dead is such a waste of a life. RESPONDENT: Or I perhaps I don’t see the sense in it. Perhaps you could explain. RICHARD: An unexamined life is second-rate living. RESPONDENT: No, on second thought, I think I just don’t get the question. That is, it doesn’t make sense to me. Quote: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ The how has got me stumped. RICHARD: Affectively, of course ... that is how you are experiencing this moment. Look, let us not unnecessarily complicate things here. The ‘how’ simply means ‘what feeling am I experiencing right now with’ ... which is: ‘Am I bored?’, ‘Am I resentful?’, ‘Am I at ease?’, ‘Am I glad?’, ‘Am I sad?’ and so on. You see, peace-on-earth is here right now – the perfection of the infinitude of this universe is happening at this moment – and you are missing out on it because you are feeling what it is like to be here instead of actually being here. Hence: ‘How am I experiencing this moment’ means ‘What feeling is preventing the on-going experiencing of peace-on-earth?’ It is essential for success to grasp the fact that this is your only moment of being alive. The past, although it did happen, is not actual now. The future, though it will happen, is not actual now. Only now is actual. Yesterday’s happiness and harmlessness does not mean a thing if one is miserable and malicious now ... and a hoped-for happiness and harmlessness tomorrow is to but waste this moment of being alive in waiting. All you get by waiting is more waiting. Thus any ‘change’ can only happen now. The jumping in point is always here ... it is at this moment in time and this place in space. Thus, if you miss it this time around, hey presto ... you have another chance immediately. Life is excellent at providing opportunities like this. What ‘I’ did, all those years ago, was to devise a remarkably effective way to be able to enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive each moment again (I know that methods are to be actively discouraged, in some people’s eyes, but this one worked). It does take some doing to start off with but, as success after success starts to multiply exponentially, it becomes progressively easier to enjoy and appreciate being here each moment again. One begins by asking, each moment again, ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’? (Note: asking how one is experiencing this moment of being alive is not the actualism method; consistently enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is what the actualism method is. And this is because the actualism method is all about consciously and knowingly imitating life in the actual world. Also, by virtue of proceeding in this manner the means to the end – an ongoing enjoyment and appreciation – are no different to the end itself). As one knows from the pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s), which are moments of perfection everybody has at some stage in their life, that it is possible to experience this moment in time and this place in space as perfection personified, ‘I’ set the minimum standard of experience for myself: feeling good. If ‘I’ am not feeling good then ‘I’ have something to look at to find out why. What has happened, between the last time ‘I’ felt good and now? When did ‘I’ feel good last? Five minutes ago? Five hours ago? What happened to end those felicitous feelings? Ahh ... yes: ‘He said that and I ...’. Or: ‘She didn’t do this and I ...’. Or: ‘What I wanted was ...’. Or: ‘I didn’t do ...’. And so on and so on ... one does not have to trace back into one’s childhood ... usually no more than yesterday afternoon at the most (‘feeling good’ is an unambiguous term – it is a general sense of well-being – and if anyone wants to argue about what feeling good means ... then do not even bother trying to do this at all). Thus, by asking ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ the reward is immediate; by finding out what triggered off the loss of feeling good, one commences another period of enjoying this moment of being alive. It is all about being here at this moment in time and this place in space ... and if you are not feeling good you have no chance whatsoever of being here in this actual world. (A grumpy person locks themselves out of the perfect purity of this moment and place). Of course, once you get the knack of this, one up-levels ‘feeling good’, as a bottom line each moment again, to ‘feeling happy’. And after that: ‘feeling perfect’. These are all feelings, this is not perfection personified yet ... but then again, feeling perfect for twenty three hours and fifty nine minutes a day is way beyond normal human expectations anyway. Also, it is a very tricky way of both getting men fully into their feelings for the first time in their life and getting women to examine their feelings one by one instead of being run by a basketful of them all at once. One starts to feel ‘alive’ for the first time in one’s life. Being ‘alive’ is to be paying attention – exclusive attention – to this moment in time and this place in space. This attention becomes fascination ... and fascination leads to reflective contemplation. Then – and only then – apperception can occur. Apperceptive awareness can be evoked by paying exclusive attention to being fully alive right now. This moment is your only moment of being alive ... one is never alive at any other time than now. And, wherever you are, one is always here ... even if you start walking over to ‘there’, along the way to ‘there’ you are always here ... and when you arrive ‘there’, it too is here. Thus attention becomes a fascination with the fact that one is always here ... and it is already now. Fascination leads to reflective contemplation. As one is already here, and it is always now ... then one has arrived before one starts. The potent combination of attention, fascination, reflection and contemplation produces apperception, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. Apperception is an awareness of consciousness. It is not ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious; it is the mind’s awareness of itself. Apperception – a way of seeing that is arrived at by reflective and fascinating contemplative thought – is when ‘I’ cease thinking and thinking takes place of its own accord ... and ‘me’ disappears along with all the feelings. Such a mind, being free of the thinker and the feeler – ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul – is capable of immense clarity and purity ... as a sensate body only, one is automatically benevolent and benign. Psychological/ psychic self-immolation is the only sensible sacrifice that ‘I’ as ‘me’ being can make in order to reveal that which is actual. And that which is actual is a clear and clean and pure perfection. Life is bursting with meaning when ‘I’/ ‘me’ are no longer present to mess things up. ‘I’/ ‘me’ stand in the way of the clarity and purity of the clean perfection of the actual being apparent. ‘My’ very presence prohibits this ever-present perfection being evident. ‘I’ as ‘me’ being prevents the very purity of life, that ‘I’ am searching for, from coming into plain view. With ‘my’ demise, this ever-fresh perfection is now manifest. Peace-on-earth was here in this actual world all the time. It is all so simple, in the actual world; no effort is needed to meet the requisite morality of society. I have no ‘dark nature’, no unconscious impulses to curb, to control, to restrain. It is all so easy, in the actual world; I can take no credit for my apparently virtuous behaviour because actual freedom automatically provides beneficial thoughts and deeds. It is all so spontaneous, in the actual world; I do not do it – it does itself. Vanity, egoism, selfishness – all self-centred activity has ceased to operate when ‘I’ as ‘me’ being ceased to be. And it is all so peaceful, in the actual world; it is only in actualism that human beings can have peace-on-earth without toiling fruitlessly to be ‘good’. The answer to everything that has puzzled humankind for all of human history is readily elucidated when one is actually free. The ‘Mystery of Life’ has been penetrated and laid open for all those with the eyes to see. Life was meant to be easy. So: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’? It beats any pathetic mantra by a country mile. RESPONDENT: Or is there peace on earth because there is no ‘I’, no ‘soul’ to ‘experience’ the turmoil? RICHARD: No, not quite ... though I see why you would say that. In actual freedom there is no turmoil. ‘I’ create the turmoil by ‘my’ very existence. All suffering is self-inflicted (I am not talking about physical pain). All sorrow and malice – and the love and hatred engendered – exist only in the psyche. There is no good or evil in the actual world. This is not to be taken as being detached or indifferent ... I do not suffer from disassociation. I am well aware of the incredible anguish and animosity that everybody experiences and acts out in their daily life ... I watch the news bulletins on television and interact with people on a daily basis. There has been 160,000,000 people killed in wars this century alone ... and nearly 200 minor wars since 1945. I personally served in a war zone in 1966. Yet it is all self-inflicted. RESPONDENT: Sounds like escapism. RICHARD: Life in the actual world is what is genuine and authentic ... to escape from a grim and glum illusion and not become seduced into the loving and compassionate delusion of mysticism is an eminently sensible thing to do. You may call it ‘like escapism’ and be probably correct ... but it sure beats the masochism and sadism of everyday reality. The only good thing about suffering is when it ends. Yet it can end for anybody ... and when it ends for everybody, there is global peace. This ‘escapism’ sounds pretty good to me! I may be a lot of things ... but I am not silly. RESPONDENT: No. The ‘sensible’ world is the mind of mankind as one. Within this mind, the sensible objects of the senses, and particular thoughts of the brain, are obviously different for each individual. The something that you are calling ‘more’ here, is not sensible ... but actual. RICHARD: Bearing in mind the language difficulty (one of the meanings of the word ‘sensible’ is that it also means being practical) then it will become clear that the actual world, stripped of the veneer of the ‘reality’ of the ‘real world’ imposed by the affectively-blinded perception, is nothing other than the same physical world of people, things and events that all 6.0 billion people walk around in. From the ‘reality’ of the ‘real world’ perception, this actual world of the senses is invisible, as it were and can only be seen apperceptively in a PCE. When the direct perception of the PCE reverts to the affectively-blinded perception of the ‘real world’ (when one lapses back to normal after the PCE) there is a confusion of the actual with the ‘real’. In the ‘real world’, when people say ‘there must be more to life than this’, then they are dimly remembering previous spontaneous PCE’s (which all peoples have throughout their life and especially in childhood) wherein everything as-it-is is directly perceived (and thus experienced) as being already always perfect ... always has been perfect; always is perfect and always will be perfect. RESPONDENT: Richard, you have been diagnosed as psychotic. RICHARD: Oh yes, it is official ... I find it so cute that a freedom from the human condition is classified as a severe mental disorder. It would appear that mental order (sanity) is stringently defined as having the ability to successfully keep instinctive drives, furious urges, impulsive rages, inveterate hostilities, evil dispositions – all malicious and sorrowful tendencies – under control with the aid of compensatory nurturing, sympathising, empathising, being compassionate, being loving, keeping hope alive, having faith, being trusting and so on, so as to produce a ‘well-adjusted personality’ ... and never, ever do something so sensible as to eliminate the entire instinctual package. And so, all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides go on for ever and a day. RESPONDENT: You are feeling great, wonderful, you’ve overcome all the human limitations, life is bliss to you. RICHARD: Well ... no. That is more of a description of how it was during my eleven years of delusion when in an Altered State of Consciousness known as ‘Enlightenment’. There is no ‘Good’ or ‘Evil’ here where I live. I live in a veritable paradise ... this very earth I live on is so vastly superior to any fabled ‘Arcadian Utopia’ that it would be impossible to believe if I was not living it twenty four hours a day ... it has been my constant condition since 1992. It is so perfectly pure and crystal-clear here that there is no need for ‘Love’ or ‘Compassion’ or ‘Bliss’ or ‘Euphoria’ or ‘Ecstasy’ or ‘Truth’ or ‘Goodness’ or ‘Beauty’ or ‘Oneness’ or ‘Unity’ or ‘Wholeness’ or ... or any of those baubles. They all pale into pathetic insignificance ... and I know them well because I lived them for that eleven years. RESPONDENT: You may also know that one of the surest signs of severe mental illness is the inability to see and admit the serious symptoms. RICHARD: Indeed ... that everybody else is mad but me is the classic indication of insanity. RESPONDENT: The person who is really mentally disturbed is the last to admit it, because he has a strong sense of being right versus everyone else being wrong or just dim. RICHARD: Hmm ... I long ago abandoned ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ because far too many of my fellow human beings have been killed because of what is ‘right’ ... or savagely punished because they were ‘wrong’. It is far better – and much more understandable – to appraise one’s actions being either ‘silly’ or ‘sensible’. It is simply silly to drive on the wrong side of the road, for example, because of the obvious danger to one’s own life and limb and others ... not ‘wrong’ with all its judgemental condemnations of one’s implicit wickedness and badness. It is sensible to find out why one is driven to perform socially unacceptable acts, for instance, rather than to refrain from committing these deeds because such restraint is the ‘right’ thing to do. Because ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are emotive words loaded with reward and punishment connotations ... which is poor motivation for salubrious action anyway. Then one has dignity for the first time in one’s life. RESPONDENT: What part of you wanted it? RICHARD: The intelligent ‘part’ that wants all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides to stop. RESPONDENT: If I follow what you have said, you are intelligence and the senses. I do not think that the senses have wants, are you saying that intelligence has wants? RICHARD: I am this physical (sensate and reflective flesh and blood body) being apperceptively aware: with no ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul lurking around inside this body stuffing up the works, then this body’s intelligence can operate freely. As it is silly to have to have locks on the doors and bars on the windows and judges and juries and gaols and police forces and military forces and customs officers and so on and so on all maintaining a semblance of law and order at the point of a gun when we could all be living together in peace and harmony then yes, ‘that intelligence has wants’ ... and very sensible, reasonable and practical wants. This kind of thinking and reasoning is what intelligence is very good at when not crippled by ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ and ‘my’ precious feelings. If you are going to object to peace-on-earth just because ‘that intelligence has wants’ ... then you have a long, long way to go before you can even begin to understand what freedom means. * RESPONDENT: You may be using words that us with an ego frame-of-reference can understand but you are talking about an event where some part of you seems to have made a choice. What is it in you that chooses? RICHARD: Perhaps it is the use of the word ‘intelligence’ (and I mean a freed intelligence) that is confusing the issue ... would the word ‘sensibleness’ convey it? As in: it is silly to be malicious and sorrowful and it is sensible to be happy and harmless. This is what a freed intelligence looks like. RESPONDENT: And once again, who is wanting to go beyond? RICHARD: Whosoever reads this and has it strike a chord. RESPONDENT: Side-stepped again. I was asking what part in YOU is wanting to go beyond. RICHARD: It would seem that there is a mix-up as to timing and the sequence of events. Briefly, in 1981, ‘I’ as ego went beyond normal (ego death) resulting in the abnormal state; in 1992 ‘me’ as soul went beyond abnormal (soul death) resulting in the third alternative ... which I choose to call an actual freedom. All I want now is for my fellow human beings to become free of the human condition themselves ... this is my sole reason for writing. You see, peace-on-earth is already always here – here in this actual world – and no one needs to invent it. It is all a matter of entering into it; making it apparent; allowing it to emerge; watching it unfold ... or whatever description. Everyone is either rushing about trying to make an imitation peace ... or sitting back moaning and groaning about the inequity of it all. I did not devise, concoct or contrive this peace-on-earth ... it is already always here – as it already has been and always will be – as we live in a perfect universe. I discovered it, that is all ... and it being so perfect that I wished to inform my fellow human beings of its existence. What they do with this information is their business. Because none of this matters much when one is already living in the actual world. In an actual freedom, life is experienced as being perfect as-it-is. One knows that one is living in a beneficent universe ... and that is what actually counts. The self-imposed iniquities that ail the people, who stubbornly wish to remain denizens of the real world, fail to impinge upon the blitheness and benignity of one who lives in the vast scheme of things. The universe does not force anyone to be happy and harmless, to live in peace and ease, to be free of sorrow and malice. It is a matter of personal choice as to which way one will travel. Humans, being as they are, will probably continue to tread the ‘Tried and True’ paths, little realising that they are the tried and failed ways. There is none so contumacious as a self-righteous soul who is convinced that they know the way to live ... as revealed in their ancient and revered sacred scriptures and cherished secular philosophies. So be it. RESPONDENT: Your answer could be improved with a bit of humour – become a little more human, like? RICHARD: Hokey-dokey ... but why just ‘a little more human, like’ though? Would you like me to include a dash of anger, perhaps? A sprinkling of hate? Toss in a trifling of sadness? A measure of grief? Add a garnish of love? Wrap it in compassion and !Bingo! ... a lot more human, like. RESPONDENT: Less robotic ... RICHARD: Speaking personally, what I find ‘robotic’ is all the oh-so-predictable wars, murders, tortures, rapes and destruction that have eventually followed the emergence of any specially hallowed Messiah or Master, Guru or God-Man, Saint or Sage, Avatar or Saviour. Also, all the sadness, loneliness, grief, depression and suicide that has ensued as a result of following any specifically revered religious or spiritual teaching renders its mute testimony to ‘robotic’ behaviour ... for anyone with the eyes to see. RESPONDENT: ... less staccato. RICHARD: And less fortissimo as well? More pianissimo maybe? RESPONDENT: While you reset the humour dial, the ‘claims’ dial could also do with a little going over. RICHARD: Are you of that school of thought that says ‘you can’t change human nature’? RESPONDENT: I really don’t know much about it – k sounds very sensible to me when he says ‘you’ can’t change even yourself, let alone ‘human nature’, whatever that is. RICHARD: The phrase ‘human nature’ is a well-established philosophical term that refers to the situation that all human beings find themselves in when they emerge here as babies. The term refers to the contrary and perverse nature of all peoples of all races and all cultures. There is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in everyone ... all humans have a ‘dark side’ to their nature and a ‘light side’. The battle betwixt ‘Good and Evil’ has raged down through the centuries and it requires constant vigilance lest evil gets the upper hand. Morals and ethics seek to control the wayward self that lurks deep within the human breast ... and some semblance of what is called ‘peace’ prevails for the main. Where morality and ethicality fails to curb the ‘savage beast’, law and order is maintained ... at the point of a gun. Otherwise known as ‘the human condition’. As you find Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti to be ‘very sensible’ when he says ‘‘you’ can’t change even yourself, let alone ‘human nature’’ then it is no wonder that you consider that my ‘‘claims’ dial could also do with a little going over’. Hence also your need for me to ‘reset the humour dial’. And as you say ‘I really don’t know much about it’ I must ask: do you make a habit of telling other people what to do when you do not really know yourself or was it a special exception in my case? RICHARD (to No. 20): 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. (Richard, List B, No. 20b, 15 July 1998). RESPONDENT: Hello again, Richard, Nobody seems to want to talk about reality on this list, but maybe you will. OK ... take the nose. Your olfactory mucosa contains nerve endings that bind molecules in the air (odorants), which cause depolarisation of sensory neurones, producing electrical impulses that release neuro-transmitters onto inter-neurones, which project axons to other neurones in the brain which receive these electrical impulses. At the brain level, electrically excitable cells are stimulated by these inputs, which can, by various complex mechanisms, read the encoding of different odours so that the brain cells respond differentially to different odorant molecules. So far, there is no consciousness involved. There are reflexes linked to odour that can lead to behaviour without any consciousness. Pure non-conscious neurophysiology. At some level, in human beings, the electrical signals from the olfactory receptors interact with or become part of a mental process called consciousness, and we recognise the familiar perfume of Magnolia trees on a summer evening. Forget that it is a Magnolia tree or even that it is familiar, we are still consciously aware of the odour (it may or may not be pure biology that makes it pleasant as opposed to a stink). If you are aware of the odour, what does that mean? If there is no awareness, then you are like a plant, turning your leaves to the sun ... a purely non-conscious physiological process. You claim ‘awareness’. You called it ‘bare’ awareness. ‘To be the senses as a bare awareness’ you said. What does that mean? RICHARD: The term ‘bare awareness’ is used by those who study such things as this to refer to raw sensory data that is unmediated. Mr. Bertrand Russell coined the phrase ‘sensedatum’ but it never really took off. RESPONDENT: At what point do those electrical impulses travelling up your olfactory nerves turn into ‘bare awareness’? RICHARD: Scientists are unsure ... it depends upon which school one ascribes to. Some tests have shown electrical activity at the source of interchange itself. For example, with the eye, at the back of the eyeball itself. It is further enhanced upon reaching the brain. RESPONDENT: What precisely does awareness mean in this sense? Are you conscious ? RICHARD: This body is conscious – as distinct from unconscious – yes. RESPONDENT: Do you recognise the odour as being a particular odour? Do you sense it as coming from near or far? RICHARD: There is the ability to distinguish one odour from another and near from far if that is necessary. Mostly it does not matter as curiosity does not feature largely in my life. RESPONDENT: If you are conscious and you do recognise the odour (not name, just recognise), then what is the mental process going on? Whose mental process is it? Is the mental process going on a quality of your brain? RICHARD: There is no ‘who’ to have a mental process ... the body is eminently capable of conducting all requisite sensory operations of its own accord. The mental process going on is indeed a ‘quality of the brain’ ... and it does it a whole lot better without an ‘I’ in there interfering with all its petty needs, shoulds, wants and demands. The mental process is integral to the body ... it is an intrinsic operation just like the heart beating, the lungs breathing, the kidneys secreting and so on. RESPONDENT: Does the odour cause behaviour? Does your awareness of the odour cause intentional behaviour (eg., like going to find out the source of that wonderful perfume)? If so, whose intentionality is it? RICHARD: It looks as though you are asking if there are agreeable or disagreeable odours ... or likes and dislikes. Yes, this body has certain substances that it experiences as pleasant and unpleasant. Like the taste-buds, for example, which are grouped in a certain configuration which makes some foods ‘delicious’ and others not so pleasant to the point of downright repellent. In normal people, ‘I’ step in and say that ‘I’ like this and ‘I’ hate that ... but it is only the arrangement of the taste-buds themselves. There are four basic receptors – sweet, sour, bitter and salt – which give gustatory quality to the food eaten and are clearly an hereditary trait as taste-blindness is quite widespread. It all has nothing to do with an ‘I’ at all. RESPONDENT: What do you call the mental process underlying this perception? RICHARD: Apperception. I take the Oxford Dictionary definition as a starting point: ‘The mind’s perception of itself’. Not an ‘I’ in there perceiving itself operating, but the mind perceiving itself. Unmediated consciousness, in other words. RESPONDENT: What does it mean to ‘be’ these sensations? Do you ‘be’ a toothache? RICHARD: Yes, it is a way of describing to those who wish to move from normal everyday reality to the actuality that underlies all apparent phenomenon. Sensations are inherent, and instead of ‘I’ having the sensations, one is the experience of these sensations. Awareness, in other words. RESPONDENT: If I say I have a toothache, my use of the word ‘have’ is just folk jargon. RICHARD: If you say so, but I sincerely doubt it. Intellectually you may see the nonsense of there being someone inside the body to ‘have’ these sensations, but such a seeing does nothing to actually dislodge this remarkably persistent identity. That is because it is not just a cognitive entity (psychological) but it basically has an affective (psychic) ontology ... born out of the instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire that blind nature endows all sentient beings with at birth. RESPONDENT: Of course, the ‘pain’, the perception of pain, is in the brain. There is no actual pain in the tooth, only the inflammatory physiological processes that lead to the neural process that generates electrical impulses in my brain, which manifest in a mental process that we, in English, label as pain. So, leaving trivial semantics aside, what do you mean when you say ‘to be’ these sensations. RICHARD: When one is asleep – in deep sleep anyway – one is virtually unconscious and there is no awareness of sensation ... which is why there is relief from the pain of an illness by sleeping. So, literally, what one is, is waking consciousness; that is, being conscious of the world of people, things and events. When one is the experience of being conscious – bereft of any identity whatsoever – then this is apperceptive awareness. RESPONDENT: Most normal people do have an awareness of their own body ... this is a natural consequence of our natural physiology (proprioception and such). But ... this is getting to be to much. RICHARD: Internal bodily impulses stream from all parts of the body to the brain in something to the order of 160,000 nerve pulses per second. Added to all the sensory data, there is a lot going on in being alive. One can examine all this stuff under a microscope until the cows come home ... yet still the ‘I’ persists. ‘My’ source lies in the brain-stem. RESPONDENT: OK ... so you got rid of your little inner dialoguing ‘I’. What does that mean? RICHARD: Peace and harmony due to the absence of animosity and anguish; happiness and harmlessness due to the absence of malice and sorrow; benevolence and benignity due to the absence of fear and aggression; blitheness and gaiety due to the absence of love and compassion ... and so on. It means quite a lot ... in a phrase: peace-on-earth. RESPONDENT: What does it mean, then, to be aware without the ‘I’? Are you aware of your body? RICHARD: No, I am this flesh and blood body ... there is no ‘me’ to have an awareness of ‘my’ body. There is no ownership because the owner is dead ... extinct. RESPONDENT: Are you aware of your physical separation from the chair you’re sitting on? RICHARD: This body has a physical distinction from this chair just as this body is distinct from that body ... but there is no psychological distance betwixt an ‘I’ inside this body and the chair – or the ‘I’ inside that body – to cause separation. Here is a direct experience of the actuality of people, things and events. RESPONDENT: You speak of ‘the most astonishing sense of freedom and release’. That sounds like consciousness. You clearly perceive the ‘sense of freedom’. This is certainly awareness. It is not just generic awareness, it is your awareness. RICHARD: Actually it is the vast and utterly immeasurable awareness of this very material universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being. It is the most amazing and wondrous experience possible. I tend to use words like ‘ambrosial’ and ‘magical’ to convey the flavour of it. It is beyond anyone’s wildest dreams and fantasies ... it is impossible to conceive, believe or imagine. SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE ON SENSE AND SENSIBLE (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