# Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

Richard’s Selected Correspondence ## On Pure Intent RICHARD: As altruism is an instinctive impulse (and not a matter of will), and as it is a situation (and not wishfulness) which evokes that powerful instinct for group survival, then unless the fact that any action within the human condition is bound to fail is grasped with both hands, and taken on board to such an extent that it hits home deeply, the predominant impulse for individual survival, even though less powerful, will prevail. RICK: Could you expand on that ‘the fact that any action within the human condition is bound to fail’ part, please? I’m not sure I understand. RICHARD: Throughout history, and stretching back into prehistory, many and various peoples have sought to bring about peace and harmony by many and various means ... all of which have failed, and will continue to fail, because they are actions brought about within the human condition. I have written about this before ... for example: [Richard]: ‘Any system brought about by political change, social reform, economic reconstruction, cultural revisionism, and so on, is bound to fail, no matter how well thought out, because blind nature’s genetically endowed survival passions, and the ‘being’ or ‘presence’ they automatically form themselves into, will stuff it up again and again. I have seen this repeatedly on the familial level, on the local community level, on the national level, and on an international level ... plus, more pertinently, on the partnership (marriage/ relationship) level. Unless one can live with just one other person, in peace and harmony twenty four hours of the day, nothing is ever going to work on any other scale’. [endquote]. RICK: Yeah, so far nothing has worked. RICHARD: And that realisation (that despite the best attempts of many and various peoples over many and various millenniums, to bring about peace and harmony by many and various means, so far nothing has worked) is of vital importance as it efficaciously clears the work-bench of all accumulated detritus in one fell-swoop so that one can start afresh ... I distinctly recall the identity in residence all those years ago informing ‘his’ wife at the time that ‘he’ had been doing it the following-the-herd way for 30+ years, but to no avail, and that it was high-time ‘he’ set about doing it ‘his’ way (and when she asked what way that was ‘he’ said ‘he’ did not know but it would become progressively apparent, provided ‘he’ took the first step, with each successive step ‘he’ took). So ‘he’ set about imitating the actual – as evidenced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) in late July 1980 – on the first of January 1981 simply by each moment again being relentlessly attentive to, and scrupulously honest about, how that only moment of ever being alive was experienced so as to feel as happy and as harmless (as free of malice and sorrow) as was humanly possible inasmuch any deviation from such felicity/ innocuity was attended to with the utmost dispatch in order to live as peacefully and as harmoniously as ‘he’ could with ‘his’ wife and children, in particular, and with anyone and everyone, in general, who came into ‘his’ presence. And that way of living was so successful, compared to the norm, that in a very short time ‘he’ was wont to exclaim to all and sundry that ‘he’ had discovered the secret to life (for that is how far beyond normal human expectations the felicitous/ innocuous state which has nowadays become known as a virtual freedom truly is) and ‘he’ was perplexed as to why, it being such a simple thing to do, no-one had ever done it before. * RICK: So the fact has to be grasped that there is no solution, no answer, no action, or changes that will work so long as one is still an identity? RICHARD: Aye, the very act of searching for and/or applying solutions, answers, actions, or changes, that would (supposedly) work within the human condition will, of necessity, ensure that the powerful instinctive impulse known as selfism (the selfish instinct for individual survival) remains predominant for no other reason than that of the identity itself being the human condition. Put succinctly: where there is no identity there is no human condition. RICK: Then what of applying the actualism method? RICHARD: The application of the actualism method (which is, in essence, to effect an imitation of the actual) is a means to an end which is not within the human condition: as such it will, of necessity, ensure that the selfish instinct for individual survival (selfism) loses its dominance. RICK: Wouldn’t that be an action done within the human condition ... RICHARD: Of course it is ... after all one must start from where one is at. RICK: ... only to fail like any other action done within the human condition? RICHARD: If there is no vital interest in peace-on-earth, or were that vital interest to fade away such that the pure intent to attain to one’s destiny dissipates, then the actualism method would fail, or begin to fail, like any other action done within the human condition as it is the end which energises the means (and which is why the means needs not to be dissimilar from the end). I kid you not ... even a virtual freedom does not provide an absolute immunity from recidivation. RICK: Obviously not since it worked for you. RICHARD: Ahh ... the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago had that magic elixir (so to speak) by the bucket-load for the meaning of life had become stunningly apparent in that 1980 PCE which set the entire process in motion ... peace-on-earth is a fringe-benefit, a side-effect, of living in this actual world. * RICK: What works most effectively? RICHARD: The situation of course ... despite all of humanity’s hard-won civilisation (socialisation, humanisation, edification, education, refinement, sophistication) both those people on the news you wrote about earlier, and yourself, are still suffering because of this or that. RICK: So I can make this situation occur (the instinctive impulse of group survival, aka altruism, aka what causes one to ‘self’-immolate) in me by grasping ‘the fact that any action within the human condition is bound to fail’. Is that right? That is what works? Among other things, I suppose. RICHARD: I will first draw your attention to the following (from further above): • [Rick]: ‘I suppose my problem is that I can’t or don’t know how to utilise this powerful instinctive impulse of altruism ... My predominant impulse seems to be selfism (a concentration of my own interests). • [Richard]: ‘Of course your predominant impulse is selfism (the selfish instinct for individual survival) for that is the way blind nature functions – *until/ unless some situation evokes altruism* (the clannish instinct for group survival) that is – inasmuch there is the biological imperative to stay alive long enough to reproduce’. [emphasis added]. Now, what works most effectively, to bring out and utilise the clannish instinct of group survival in yourself to overcome the predominant but less powerful impulse of selfism, is none other the very situation you find both yourself and others already in ... to wit: suffering because of [quote] ‘this or that’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Rick, 16 January 2006). RICK: Right. So why hasn’t it occurred in me (the instinctual impulse of altruism)? The reason, I think, is because maybe I see myself on a different boat than others ... better off than some people and worse off than others. (For example) I think I am better off than someone who is extremely disturbed by voices in their heads telling them to kill people. And I think I am worse off than someone who is virtually free of the human condition. RICHARD: Yet no one is better off than another, at the core of their being (which is ‘being’ itself), or worse off than someone else. * RICHARD: It is as straightforward as this: blind nature does not care two-hoots about you and me personally – essentially blind nature is only concerned with the survival of the species (and any species will do as far as blind nature is concerned) – but I do ... the question is: do you? RICK: Yeah, neither blind nature nor the cosmos care whether I am happy or not. But I certainly care about myself and am concerned about my well-being ... sure. RICHARD: Perhaps if I were to put it this way (with emphasis on the plural): blind nature does not care two-hoots about *individuals* – essentially blind nature is only concerned with the survival of the species (and any species will do as far as blind nature is concerned) – but an individual does ... the question is: do you? RICK: You are asking if I care about particular individuals like family, friends, pets? RICHARD: No, I am asking if you care about individuals, period ... because all human beings are in the same boat in regards the human condition (no one is better off than another, at the core of their being, or worse off than someone else). RICK: Yes, every once in a while I am concerned about other peoples’ situation. RICHARD: That is not what I asked ... I am asking if you care about individuals, period. RICK: For the most part, though, I seemingly care only about me and the rest of the world come in a distant second place. RICHARD: Why do you separate yourself out from all your fellow human beings/ all your fellow human beings out from yourself as if the one should take precedence over the other/ the other should take precedence over the one? It is altruism in the virtuous sense, as in being an unselfish/ selfless self, to put the other before oneself (as an antidote to being selfish). * RICHARD: By and large the instinct for survival of the group is the more powerful – as is epitomised in the honey-bee (when it stings to protect/ defend the hive it dies) – and it is the utilisation of this once-in-a-lifetime gregarian action which is referred to when I speak of an altruistic ‘self’-immolation or ‘self’-sacrifice, in toto, for the benefit of this body and that body and every body. RICK: The key it seems is figure out how I can utilise this once-in-a-lifetime gregarian action that you refer to. It sounds like something I would definitely want to do ... and as soon as possible. RICHARD: Okay ... you wrote earlier about people on the news suffering because of this or that: do you too suffer because of this or that? RICK: Well as far as heartache, anxiety, depression, emotional pains, and general feelings of malice and sorrow ... yes. RICHARD: That is precisely what I am enquiring about (the suffering which ‘this or that’ can bring to the surface): is that not your own suffering there – on the news each time you tune in – reflected back at you as if looking into a mirror? RICK: Hmm ... yeah, pretty much the same. RICHARD: In what way is your heartache, anxiety, depression, emotional pains, and general feelings of malice and sorrow (for instance) at all different from the heartache, anxiety, depression, emotional pains, and general feelings of malice and sorrow you see in people on the news suffering from because of [quote] ‘this or that’ [endquote]? RICK: I see a difference in frequency and intensity from person to person. Like, for instance, someone who is extremely disturbed by voices in their heads telling them to kill people all the time and someone who is virtually free of the human condition who rarely experiences any disturbances at all. RICHARD: Sure, but is your suffering essentially any different to the suffering you see in people on the news? * RICK: There are things that people go through that I can’t relate to though (like how they react towards a certain situation is quite different then how I would react). RICHARD: If, for example, you were to react towards a certain situation with frustration (or with anger or fear or sorrow) in what way is that frustration (or that anger or fear or sorrow) quite different to the frustration (or the anger or fear or sorrow) of those people you are referring to? RICK: I think the main difference I see is that some people might experience frustration (or anger or fear or sorrow) all the time and very intensely while others might experience frustration (or anger or fear or sorrow) very rarely and in much weaker doses. RICHARD: Yet a difference in degree is not a difference in kind ... let alone [quote] ‘quite different’ [endquote]. * RICK: People’s frustrations, anger, fear, and sorrow happen for different reasons and I suppose it is the fact that they are feeling frustration, anger, fear or sorrow is what I have in common with them. RICHARD: Exactly ... and as the end of all the suffering, which ‘this or that’ can bring to the surface, is the end of the root cause of all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides, and so on, is not the very situation you find both yourself and others already in a situation of such a magnitude as to evoke the clannish instinct of group survival? RICK: Yes, there are times (every so often) that I do want to do something for humanity as a whole. Humanity and myself are in a rotten disposition. RICHARD: As you are not separate from humanity/ as humanity is not separate from (you are humanity/ humanity is you) do you now see why I have kept on asking if you care about individuals, period? Simply because blind nature does not care about individuals – essentially blind nature is only concerned with the survival of the species (and any species will do as far as blind nature is concerned) – and simply because only an individual can care about individuals then, unless/ until an individual does dare to care, all the misery and mayhem will go on forever and a day ... just as it has done over the millennia which stretch back into the mists of prehistory. And to dare to care is to care to dare. * RICHARD: Do you not find yourself, when you see your own suffering there on the news each time you tune in reflected back at you as if looking into a mirror, wanting with all of your being, to bring to an end once and for all, the inherent suffering which epitomises human nature? RICK: Yeah, I have experienced that before. RICHARD: Good ... as you have experienced it before you can experience it again; and when you experience it again you can experience it again and again ... and again and again and again until it is continuous. RICK: Realistically though, I can’t do anything to end the suffering of 6 billion people. RICHARD: Indeed not ... each and every person’s freedom, or lack thereof, is right where it ought to be (in their hands and their hands alone). RICK: It’s impossible. I can’t even accomplish ending suffering in myself as yet. RICHARD: And even when suffering has ended, forever, in yourself you still cannot end it in others (which is just as it ought to be anyway). RICK: ‘Self’-immolation though would help in that there is one less person perpetuating suffering on itself and others. RICHARD: Aye, but there is more to it than that: there is no suffering whatsoever here in this actual world (I only get to meet flesh and blood bodies). RICK: That is more realistic but not as good as ending, forever, the suffering of all of humanity. RICHARD: What one does is one sets the pace for others ... nothing inspires quite like success does. RICK: That would be amazing, though, that if it could be done (the end of all suffering) in one person (Richard) and then another person (myself or anyone else) that it can be done for the other 6 billion peoples. RICHARD: There is no reason why it (the end of suffering) cannot spread exponentially ... like a chain-letter. * RICHARD: Do you comprehend that oblivion is the end of suffering forever? RICK: Indeed ... That is my understanding. RICHARD: The key to being free, then, is not altruism per se but wanting, with all of one’s being, to bring to an end, once and for all, the inherent suffering which epitomises human nature. Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘... one has to want it like one has never wanted anything else before ... so much so that all the instinctual passionate energy of desire, normally frittered away on petty desires, is fuelling and impelling/ propelling one into this thing and this thing only (‘impelling’ as in a pulling from the front and ‘propelling’ as in being pushed from behind). There is a ‘must’ to it (one must do it/ it must happen) and a ‘will’ to it (one will do it/ it will happen) and one is both driven and drawn until there is an inevitability that sets in. Now it is unstoppable and all the above ceases of its own accord ... one is unable to distinguish between ‘me’ doing it and it happening to ‘me’. One has escaped one’s fate and achieved one’s destiny’. (Richard, List B, No. 19d, 3 April 2000). RICK: Yeah, I want that – I want the end to pain and suffering. And if I presently don’t want it bad enough (although I think I have sufficient motivation and desire) ... I want to want it bad enough. Basically, what is keeping me motivated is the memory of the last time I suffered greatly ... And that situation reminded me of the time before that I suffered greatly. So, what is pushing me is my memory of so many of my personal unpleasant experiences and the fear that another bout of suffering is on the horizon (which I know there will always be to a greater or lesser extent until ‘I’ am no more). I just do not want my particular suffering to go on any longer (and people’s sufferings in general because I know how much it sucks to experience emotional pains). So that is my current motivation for oblivion. RICHARD: Okay ... when you see your own suffering there on the news, each time you tune in, reflected back at you as if looking into a mirror such as to drive it home deeply to you that there is no solution whatsoever to the human condition anywhere within the human condition, do you not then find yourself wanting oblivion so much that all your instinctual passionate energy of desire, normally frittered away on petty desires, is fuelling and impelling (‘impelling’ as in a pulling from the front) you ineluctably into that, and that alone, like a moth to a candle? RICK: Yes ... But I think not often enough. RICHARD: I do not mean wanting it as in wishful thinking: when I say one has to want it like one has never wanted anything else before I mean it just like that ... like nothing else one has ever wanted before. The ‘moth to a candle’ analogy means that one cannot help but be pulled towards that ... and towards that alone. RICK: Actually, most of my day seems to be frittered away on petty desires. RICHARD: Why? Have you not just said you have suffered [quote] ‘greatly’ [endquote] ... and more than once at that? Do you really need to go through that again before you will cease frittering your day away on petty desires? RICK: But every so often I get inspired and a focus comes in (but not often enough I’m afraid). RICHARD: What is it that inspires you? Where does that inspiration come from? Why does that inspiration go away? Incidentally, there is no need to reply to these type of questions as they are more to encourage a curiosity about yourself, about what makes you tick, than anything else ... besides which this e-mail is getting far too long any way. * RICHARD: All I was ascertaining was whether you had ever desired oblivion before coming across the actualism words and writings ... for then there is a deep urge just sitting there waiting, as it were, to come to the surface given the right opportunity. RICK: If by oblivion you the end of pain and suffering? RICHARD: Aye ... as expressed in the classic example of seeking oblivion in alcohol, or some other drug, so as to blot out all the cares and worries for a while. RICK: Well, then yes. RICHARD: In which case there is a deep urge just sitting there waiting, as it were, to come to the surface given the right opportunity. RICK: When I was eight years old I had a traumatic experience which opened me up to new kinds of emotional pains and experiences. Ever since then I have become increasingly aware of any emotional disturbances in myself and wanted freedom from pain. About four years ago I basically decided to dedicate my time towards ‘fixing’ myself and all my issues. For some reason, things only got worse and reached a climax about a year and a half ago until I got so fed up with the method I was using to fix myself (because it wasn’t working and things were only getting worse and friends and family had been in emotional stress because of worrying about me) ... that I immediately abandoned my method (hours of meditation, spiritual/ philosophical thoughts, retreat into my ‘inner-world’ where I thought the answer lied) and sought something new. That is when I happened across the actualism writings and it hit deep and was a breath of fresh air. Mainly, the idea that psychological/ psychic ‘self’-immolation is possible and that no more pain is possible under any circumstance. RICHARD: Okay ... and has that [quote] ‘idea’ [endquote] brought to the surface the deep urge for oblivion first felt at eight years of age? RICK: Yes. It seems the more I’ve experienced hardship the more I’ve wanted out of it. To the point, where about four years ago, I dedicated myself to permanently getting myself out of it. RICHARD: Oh? That deep urge for oblivion came to the surface four years ago? * RICHARD: A cautionary note: one has to be absolutely certain that this course of action is what one really wants to do – for once unleashed it is impossible to stuff it back in the bottle – as there were several occasions along the way where the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago wished ‘he’ had never taken the cap off. RICK: To me, I don’t care what pains or disturbances are ahead as long as they are not in vain and I ultimately ‘die’. RICHARD: It was more the ending of ‘me’ being starkly imminent which occasioned the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago to wish, on several occasions along the way, ‘he’ had never taken the cap off ... emotional/ passional pains and disturbances are par for the course in everyday life in the real-world. RICK: Why did the ending of ‘him’ being starkly imminent occasion ‘him’ to wish that ‘he’ had never taken the cap off? RICHARD: Because of the sheer totality, and the utter finality, of extinction ... everything goes, forever; nothing remains, whatever. RICK: What feelings arose? RICHARD: None of any account that I can recall – the wishful thinking for ‘good old-fashioned’ normality was more a musing wistfulness than a yearning or longing – and, although there was a sense of desperacy (as in gravity, direness, extremity), there was no feeling of despair. * RICK: For a year and a half I’ve wanted ‘die’. RICHARD: Why? RICK: Because I want to permanently do away with my personal suffering and the suffering I cause towards others by simply being alive. There was and is way too much suffering that I have caused/ am causing towards myself and those around me. Dying seems to be the only thing to do to end the pain. It is nice to hear that such a thing is possible without actually killing the body. Psychological and psychic ‘self’-immolation, death of everything ‘I’ am and ever have been for the sake of peace-on-earth for this body, in this lifetime, is extremely appealing. RICHARD: You say it is nice to hear that such a thing is possible without actually killing the body ... have you ever desired that (physical death)? RICK: Yes, on several occasions. Not so much now though (probably because I am not as depressed and/or that I’ve found out there is an alternative to ending suffering by suicide). But in the past I have fantasized about the end of all the pain physical death would bring. Never to the point of attempting suicide though because I always had a hope that things would get better/ I would figure the mess out. RICHARD: Okay ... and again all I was ascertaining was whether you had ever desired oblivion – as in the oblivion of physical death – before coming across the actualism words and writings (and again for the reason that there is, then, a deep urge just sitting there waiting, as it were, to come to the surface given the right opportunity). * RICK: And I’ve had no success so I am looking for reasons as to why it hasn’t happened yet. RICHARD: Your answer to the previous question may very well provide a vital clue ... it does entail finding out about the workings of yourself (what makes you tick) of course. RICK: My answer to the previous question didn’t offer any apparent clue as to why I am failing to ‘die’. I would not expect it to though because my reason for wanting to ‘die’ has been pretty clear to me for quite some time (about a year and a half). Do you see any clue to why it hasn’t happened yet based on my answer to the previous question you asked me or any other of my responses? RICHARD: Yes (although it could just be the way you put sentences together) ... for instance what the words ‘it is nice to hear ...’ conveys is poles apart from what something like this does: [example only]: ‘As physical death had seemed to be the only way to end all the hurt and hurting, permanently, I cannot even begin to tell you what a relief it is to hear that psychological/ psychic suicide is possible’. [end example]. RICK: Yeah, that is a much more accurate description of how I felt than the one I gave. RICHARD: This may be an apt place to copy-paste the following from further above: • [Respondent]: ‘I suppose I am not ‘curious’ as to what makes me tick. I am ‘interested’ as to what makes me tick for the main reason that that is part of the means to my end (oblivion). Actually *being* ‘curious’ is a distant second’. [endquote]. RICK: I don’t follow. Could you explain what you’re getting at? RICHARD: Only you can know your every thought, your every feeling, your every instinctual impulse – nor can I know the nuances of your ethnic background, the intimate details of your familial upbringing, the subtleties of your peer-group aspirations and so on – so it is only you who can effectively become curious about what makes you tick. To say that my description of how you felt was more accurate than the one you gave surely indicates, does it not, that it is high time you became interested enough in yourself so as to finally become curious about what makes you tick? And, as the same applies to the three other instances which followed, I will leave them out for reasons of space. (...) RICHARD: It is this simple: unless one is vitally interested in peace on earth, in this lifetime as a flesh and blood body only, one will never even begin to free the crippled intelligence from the debilitating passions bestowed by blind nature. Yet becoming vitally interested is but the preliminary stage, because until one becomes curious as to whether what is being written here about biological inheritance can be applied to themselves, only then does the first step begin. Then curiosity becomes fascination ... and thus the fun begins to gain a momentum of its own. One is drawn inexorably further and further towards one’s destiny. RICK: Yeah, it sucks to accept this but I still might be at that ‘preliminary stage’ which is to be vitally interested in peace on earth/ end of suffering but not curious enough to find out what makes me tick for the sake of curiosity and definitely not fascinated. I’ll get there though. A PCE should clear a lot up. By the way, I’m changing my focus now. Instead of focusing on trying to utilise this altruistic impulse and ‘self’-immolate (it’ll happen when it happens) ... I’m going to try and induce a PCE. I am going to be patient but will try to make my lot in life as happy and charming as can be so as to bring about a peak experience (and just to generally make life nicer on myself and others). A PCE will clear a lot up for me and, according to actualism writings, will produce a pure intent which will take one safely all the way to the end (altruistic ‘self’-immolation). Presently, I think my outlook on life is too glum for a PCE to occur. When I compare how I experience my moments of being alive to how Richard was experiencing his moments of being alive while he was still an identity (the first half of ‘Richard’s Journal’), I see a stark difference. My outlook/ experience of the moment isn’t as appreciative and delighted as Richard’s was. Nor as felicitous or happy. RICHARD: Okay ... and, just as a matter of interest, it was somewhere in that first few months of being as happy and as harmless (as free of malice and sorrow) as was humanly possible, in 1981, that the altruistic impulse kicked in irrevocably. I will leave you with something Peter had to say: • ‘Unless one is willing to contemplate being happy and being harmless, virtually free of malice and sorrow, 99% of the time – then forget the whole business. (...) If someone is not willing to make *that level of ‘self’-sacrifice* then any interest in Actual Freedom would remain a purely cerebral exercise – a useless ‘self’-deception ...’. [emphasis added]. (Library, Glossary, Glossary-t, #Virtual). * Subject: In Lieu of a PCE RICK: Greetings Richard, in #16170, you referenced an instance written in 2000 wherein you wrote: • [Richard]: (...) the essential character of the perfection of the infinitude of this universe which born me, is living me and will die me in due course, is enabled by ‘my’ concurrence. ‘I’ give ‘myself’ permission to allow this moment to live me (rather than ‘me’ trying to live in the present) ... and let go the controls. (Richard, List D, Srinath, 5 January 2014). If you have the time and inclination to respond, I would like to ask you whether you would reckon or agree that a sincere awareness (in lieu of a PCE) that this moment is already living me and that it is in fact an illusion that ‘I’ am in control could be consistently applied successfully in enabling ‘me’ to give ‘myself’ that permission to allow this moment to live me … and let go the controls? Regards, Rick (Subject: Re: Log, 10 Jan 2014) RICHARD: G’day Rick, Your above query has been efficaciously engaging itself at the back of my mind, for these past three weeks or so, as any immediate reply of mine would have been, of course, that for me to publicly sanction anyone giving themself permission to allow this moment to live them – to let their life live itself (rather than ‘me’ trying in vain to live ‘my’ life perfectly) that is – without having first tapped into pure intent (via not only being naïve, which sincerity is the key to unlocking, but by then being able to naïvely ‘be’ the near-innocence of naïveté itself) would be starkly at odds with my oft-repeated caution to not proceed without that oh-so-essential ‘golden thread’ (aka ‘clew’) connection having first been established. I had also re-read your referenced message (#15720) – which had already caught my attention when you first posted it – of which the essential section is as follows. Viz.: #15720 Date: 30 Oct 2013 From: Rick Subject: Any Sense of Control is an Illusion • [Rick]: [...]. For a brief instant, some of those heavy shackles fell off and I felt a relative release. The realization’s strength wasn’t sufficient however as I still was unable to break completely free, and those shackles that had fallen off temporarily, came right back on later on. [...]. (Rick from 30 October 2013) As a [quote] ‘relative release’ [endquote] is self-evidently insufficient for the purpose thereof (no matter how sincere an awareness may be, that ‘this moment is already living me’/ ‘that it is in fact an illusion that ‘I’ am in control’) the main reason why your in-lieu-of-a-PCE query has been at the back of my mind, for these past three weeks or so, is because there may very well be a way for you to proceed ... provided, that is, there be a *freely-acquiescent willingness* on your part to experiment (as in, literally being a pioneer insofar no guarantees whatsoever are either being made or implied). If so, I will first refer you to the first four paragraphs (plus Footnotes No. 1 & No. 2) of my response in Message No. 13604 as they are vital in regards a fully-informed comprehension of the very nature of this pioneering experiment. Viz.: http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/actualfreedom/conversations/messages/13604 (Richard, List D, Rick, 28 May 2013). Now, having read, comprehended, and fully grasped the import of those four paragraphs/ those two footnotes, then what I am about to say next should make sense (if it does not then it would pay to re-read those paragraphs/ footnotes again). The reason why that ‘golden thread/ clew’ is oh-so-essential is because of agency inasmuch as, whilst identity is in the driver’s seat (i.e., is the agent), any such giving of permission to have the controls be let go of without same will result in said identity being an out of control agent in some ASC or another (bearing in mind the three primary psychoses – schizophrenia, mania, and depression – are also altered states) rather than in an out-from-control and/or different-way-of-being virtual freedom. The first two paragraphs of the second part of my response in the above Message No. 13604 explains that the feeling-being inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body, circa January/ February 1981, realised how only that which was outside of ‘himself’ (i.e., outside of the human condition) could do the trick and it is in this context that my last paragraph should make sense in regards the essential factor of this pioneering experiment. Viz.: #13604 Date: Tue, 28 May 2013 From: Richard Subject: Re: Is Actualism Safe? • [Rick]: [...]. Incidentally, I cannot recall what you told me in-person about how and why or wherefrom you came to choose the words ‘pure intent’ when you coined that very term. Would you mind sharing that again here? • [Richard]: ‘Twas the feeling-being in residence who named it thataway, circa January/ February 1981, upon realising how only that which was outside of ‘himself’ (i.e., outside of the human condition) could do the trick. The choice of the word ‘pure’ should be self-explanatory by now, from all the above, and the word ‘intent’ is because of the agency-association it had, in ‘his’ mind, with the word ‘destiny’ ... as in, ‘escape one’s fate and achieve one’s destiny’. [...snip ‘fate/ destiny’ quote...]. Speaking of [quote] ‘what you told me in-person’ [endquote]: you were hovering on the edges of experiencing that immanent purity (‘purity personified’) early one afternoon in the ‘Cafe 29 Restaurant’, after returning to the luncheon-table from the hotel’s restroom, where you explained (somewhat urgently) how the softness you were experiencing as stopping at my shirt needed to extend further out into the world at large as you had just then experienced, by stark contrast, the harshness of the real-world environment whilst weaving your way back betwixt the various tables at which the lunch-hour patrons were seated. (Richard, List D, Rick, 28 May 2013). At this point I will refer you to the closing portion – especially the line beginning with the word ‘Enclosed’ – of your private email to Vineeto four days later (Sent: Saturday, 1 June 2013 8:52 PM) from a gmail account of yours. Whilst re-reading it in conjunction with my last paragraph above – allowing the details and atmosphere of that moment exactly as *you* remember it to occupy your consciousness fully – try reaching down inside of yourself intuitively (aka feeling it out) and go past the rather superficial emotions/ feelings (generally in the chest area) into the deeper, more profound passions/ feelings (generally in the solar plexus area) until you come to a place (generally about four-finger widths below the navel) where you intuitively feel you elementarily have existence as a feeling being (as in ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself). Having located ‘being’ itself, gently and tenderly sense out the area immediately below that (just above/ just before and almost touching on the sex centre). Here you will find yourself both likeable (very important) and liking ... for here lies naïveté. Here is where you can, finally, be naïveté itself (the nearest a ‘self’ can get to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’). Now, whilst being naïveté itself – along with the details and atmosphere of that moment exactly as *you* remember it fully occupying your consciousness – you may very well be experiencing the softness enclosed in that shirt again (that immanent ‘purity personified’). For here lies tenderness/ sweetness and togetherness/ closeness. Here is where it is possible for that oh-so-essential ‘golden thread/ clew’ connection to establish itself. Regards, Richard. RESPONDENT: You say it’s all fun now but on the way it took ‘nerves of steel’ so there was a considerable amount of work involved. What are the nerves of steel needed for? Dread? Or taking the chance of alienating your friends and family due to a turn in behaviour, like no longer being able to empathize or sympathize or share beliefs? RICHARD: Oh, it was a lot of fun along the way too ... the ‘nerves of steel’ phrase is a common expression, along with ‘not for the faint of heart or weak of knee’, which I co-opted to describe what is involved in the deep-sea diving that is an inevitable part of exploring the stygian depths of the human condition (where an aqua-lung is essential in contrast to using a snorkel in order to explore the human conditioning which was inculcated from birth onwards so to somewhat ameliorate the effects of the human condition). The aqua-lung is, of course, analogous to pure intent. Dread is a common occurrence in the real-world (else the word would not exist) so ‘nerves of steel’ does not specifically refer to that ... nor does it specifically refer to alienating loved one’s as that too is a common occurrence in the real-world (as evidenced by de-programming for example). I mainly used the expression so as to make it clear that the going can get a bit rocky at times – that the process of becoming actually free is not something one is going to breeze through without mishap – as I have no interest whatsoever in misleading my fellow human being. To be forewarned is to be forearmed, in other words. * RESPONDENT: Now regarding ‘a feeling is not a fact’. This is so tricky. The amygdale identifies various sense data with the need for certain chemicals: for a tiger you need this chemical, for a baby you need that chemical. But no, that would mean identification (thought) comes first. So that means that prior to identification happening, we get chemicals, based on unidentified sense data? RICHARD: Yes (if by ‘unidentified’ you mean cognitive identification): the raison d’être for the instinctual passions, such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire, genetically endowed by blind nature is that a split-second reaction occurs in situations where survival depends upon instant action. In addition to this basic programming, from birth onwards (thus prior to thought developing), an affective memory forms as the baby experiences itself and its world ... and even when cognition develops the circuitry is such that sense impressions go first to the affective memory (which colours the cognitive memory). Thus when there a tiger is pouncing (to use your example), and there is no time for any leisurely appraisal of the situation before taking appropriate action, there is what has been called a ‘quick and dirty’ emotional/ passional scanning of danger, and a near-instantaneous affective-based response. In a blind rage, for instance, where one instinctually lashes out it is common to later on reflect and say ‘I don’t know what came over me’ (or words to that effect). RESPONDENT: So that means I am anger waiting to happen, that the sense data that triggers it is not even really relevant. RICHARD: Well, not always relevant but, at the very least, sometimes so ... it is only a rough and ready software package, which blind nature endows, when all is said and done. RESPONDENT: I am love waiting to happen, etc. This looks too random. RICHARD: Whilst nature may be blind it is not necessarily haphazard, arbitrary ... it, being cause-and-effect based, is pragmatic (as opposed to principled) in an adventitious way. The phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ means those best fitted to the environment survive to propagate the species (and not necessarily survival of the most muscular as it is sometimes taken to mean). RESPONDENT: Am ‘I’ a constant chemical (emotional) combination waiting to focus as one or the other at the sight, smell, touch, of just about anything? RICHARD: At root, or at ‘my’ most basic ... yes: a hair-trigger entity genetically programmed to thoughtlessly (aka passionately) spring into action at the slightest hint of danger ... as is evidenced in trampling one’s fellow human beings to death at the exits in the blind panic for survival in a fire at a theatre or cinema, for example. RESPONDENT: How does this chemical saturation so instantly abate and allow a PCE to happen? RICHARD: You do seem to be disregarding the fact that, not only am ‘I’ anger waiting to happen (or any other of the ‘bad’ feelings) or love waiting to happen (or any other of the ‘good’ feelings), ‘I’ am also the felicitous/ innocuous feelings waiting to happen ... feelings such as happiness and harmlessness, for example. Put simply: neither a grim and glum person nor a loving and compassionate person has much chance of allowing the PCE to happen. RESPONDENT: Does this take nerves of steel? RICHARD: No, apart from spontaneous PCE’s (most common in childhood) it takes happiness and harmlessness: where one is happy and harmless a benevolence and benignity that is not of ‘my’ doing operates of its own accord ... and it is this beneficence and magnanimity which occasions the PCE. The largesse of the universe (as in the largesse of life itself), in other words. RESPONDENT: If it does, then it is a different way of using them than I am used to. Maybe this is what you meant when you said your method of inducing PCE’s on an almost daily basis all those years ago was just by ‘allowing them to happen’? RICHARD: What I meant by ‘allowing them to happen’ is just that ... allowing them to happen (ceasing to prevent them from occurring might be another way of putting it). I say this because it became patently obvious to ‘me’, via previous PCE’s, that there was this whole other world – what I now call this actual world – just sitting ‘there’ waiting to be apparent, as it were, and all ‘I’ had to do was allow it to happen ... or, to put that differently, all ‘I’ had to do was get out of the way. Of course when it did happen ‘there’ was here, where it has been all along, but I put it in those terms because that is how it was experienced at the time ... and it is only an ‘other world’ to ‘me’ as there is, in fact, only this one world. Also, pure intent is essential in the process of allowing the PCE to happen – else it may be an ASC that ensues – but I wanted to keep the answer as brief as possible for the impact it rightfully deserves. Because it is actually that simple. * RESPONDENT: Does the psyche identify itself or is it identified by ... common sense? RICHARD: The psyche, being affectively-based, identifies itself intuitively – hence intuition is often held in high esteem – inasmuch as intuitively knowing means instinctively knowing (and not insightfully knowing as it is sometimes used to mean) ... and as one’s native intelligence can barely get a foot in the door to where the instinctual passions hold sway the psyche usually eludes being identified commonsensically. RESPONDENT: You say it doesn’t end itself, but pushes a button to make it happen. What is that button? RICHARD: You must be referring to something like this: • [Richard]: ‘‘I’ do not do the deed itself for an ‘I’ cannot end itself. What ‘I’ can do to bring about this ‘death’ is that ‘I’ deliberately and consciously – and with knowledge aforethought (from the PCE) – set in motion a ‘process’ that will ensure ‘my’ demise. What ‘I’ do, voluntarily and intentionally, is to press the button which precipitates a momentum – oft-times alarming but always thrilling – that will result in ‘my’ inevitable self-immolation. What one does is that one dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here as the universe’s experience of itself. When ‘I’ freely and cheerfully sacrifice ‘myself’ – the psychological and psychic entities residing inside this body – ‘I’ am gladly making ‘my’ most supreme donation, for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is the greatest gift one can bestow upon this body and that body and every body. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Alan, 27 June 1998). The button is, of course, dedication (‘what one does is that one dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here as the universe’s experience of itself’) and/or devotion. Here is how I put in my previous e-mail: • [Richard]: ‘... when ‘I’ looked into myself and at all the people around and saw the sorrow of humankind ‘I’ could not stop. ‘I’ knew that ‘I’ had just devoted myself to the task of setting ‘myself’ and ‘humanity’ free ... ‘I’ willingly dedicated my life to this most worthy cause. It is so exquisite to devote oneself to something whole-heartedly ... the ‘boots and all’ approach ‘I’ called it then! (from page 261 in ‘Richard’s Journal’, Second Edition; ©2004 The Actual Freedom Trust). And one of the best ways of ascertaining when one’s commitment has reached 100% is when the peoples one knows start calling one obsessed and slip the word ‘insanity’ into their well-meant advice every now and again. Despite all the rhetoric 100% commitment is avoided like the plague in the real-world. RICHARD: ... the way to an actual freedom from the human condition is the same as an actual freedom from the human condition – the means to the end are not different from the end – inasmuch that where one is happy and harmless as an on-going modus operandi benevolence operates of its own accord ... you partly indicated this (above) where you commented that people are generally helpful toward each other when feeling happy. Where benevolence is flourishing morals and ethics, as a matter of course, fall redundant by the wayside ... unused, unneeded and unnecessary. RESPONDENT: This is clearer to me now. RICHARD: Good ... life is truly this simple: the pure intent to have the already always existing peace-on-earth become apparent, as evidenced in the pure consciousness experience (PCE), is activated with the nourishment of one’s innate naiveté via wonder ... whereupon an intimate connection, a golden thread or clew as it were, is thus established whereby one is sensitive to and receptive of the over-arching benignity and benevolence of the world of the PCE – which is already always just here right now anyway – and one is not on one’s own, in this, the adventure of a lifetime. And sincerity works to awaken one’s dormant naiveté. RESPONDENT: Such is the state of the world we are living in. RICHARD: You would be better off speaking for yourself ... ‘such’ is not the state of the world I live in. RESPONDENT: I stand corrected. I was just speaking of the majority. RICHARD: What I found beneficial, many years ago, was to speak for myself – and not just for ‘the majority’ – as it made it quite clear where the problem was intimately applicable. For example: ‘Such is the state of the world ‘I’ am living in’. RESPONDENT: Yes, I can do that. The state of the world that I and all others (with the exception of Richard, who lives in another world entirely) live in a world rampant with opinions, conditioning, and thinking. RICHARD: You are still talking for ‘the majority’ ... only you have now made it ‘all others’ (with one exception). Here is a shortened comparison: • [Example]: ‘Such is the state of the world ‘I’ am living in’. • [Respondent]: ‘The state of the world that I and all others (...) live in is rampant with ...’. What others do with their world is their own business ... only you can change your world. * RICHARD: Then ‘I’ can do something substantive about ‘my’ world ... what others (be they ‘the majority’ or not) do with their world is their business. RESPONDENT: Yes. I can do some things for and by myself, but when I reach my limits, can I surrender into the unknown? That is the beauty. RICHARD: When your time comes you will find that you can do all things for yourself (not just ‘some things’) – nobody else can do it for you anyway – and you will find that the line drawn in the sand called ‘limits’ keeps shifting of its own accord. But your time will not come until you comprehend, deeply, fundamentally, that only you can do it and that only you will do it. By the way ... I would not advise ‘surrender’ as that smacks of giving up. RESPONDENT: I found I just really wanted to be HERE. So, there is something new for me, a new slant about this physical primitive reptilian self you speak of. RICHARD: Great stuff, is it not? Personally, I am so glad to be able to be alive and living in this era wherein all kinds of discoveries have been made which threw off the stranglehold religion had upon the Western mind for centuries (people used to be burnt at the stake for much less heretical writing than what I do). This emerging clarity of Western thought has been swamped recently by the insidious doctrines of the Eastern mind creeping into scientific research ... it is sobering to realise that the intelligentsia of the West are eagerly following the pundits of the East down the slippery slope of ‘spiritual science’ and ‘mystical philosophy’ ... thinking that it has nothing to do with religiosity. But I am confident that this is but a passing phase. RESPONDENT: However, I do care about the wars, the domestic violence, the child abuse, the misery of the world. RICHARD: By watching/ reading the news bulletins with whatever media one has access to, and utilising one’s affective feelings to really, deeply, primally feel all the anguish and animosity inherent in all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides that parades across billions of TV screens daily, one can become vitally interested in ridding oneself of that which the human animal shares in common ancestry with all sentient beings: the instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Because unless one deeply, primally cares about peace on earth one will never even begin to free the crippled intelligence from the debilitating passions bestowed by blind nature. Yet becoming vitally interested is but the preliminary stage, because until one becomes curious as to whether what is being written on an actual freedom can be applied to themselves, only then does the first step begin. For it is only when one becomes curious about the workings of oneself – what makes one tick – is that person participating in their search for freedom for the first time in their life. This is because people mostly look to rearranging their beliefs and truths as being sufficient effort ... ‘I’ am willing to be free as long as ‘I’ can remain ‘me’. In other words: their notion of freedom is a ‘clip-on’. Then curiosity becomes fascination ... and then the fun begins to gain a momentum of its own. One is drawn inexorably further and further towards one’s destiny ... fascination leads to commitment and one can know when one’s commitment is approaching a 100% commitment because others around one will classify one as ‘obsessed’ (in spite of all their rhetoric a 100% commitment to evoking peace-on-earth is actively discouraged by one’s peers). Eventually one realises that one is on one’s own in this, the adventure of a life-time, and a peculiar tenacity that enables one to proceed against all odds ensues. Then one takes the penultimate step ... one abandons ‘humanity’. Freedom then unfolds its inevitable destiny. * RESPONDENT: I have some questions and comments based on some of your remarks I found on that forum: [Richard]: ‘What one does is that one dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here as the universe’s experience of itself ... now.’ [endquote]. That is my experience almost exactly except I don’t think I ‘dedicate’ myself to this. It is just clearly obvious to me that this body that I refer to as me is simply the universe experiencing itself from this particular viewpoint. No particular method to the madness, other than attention or the willingness to be attentive. RICHARD: The dedication depends upon how far one wishes to go ... I tapped into the purity and perfection of the infinitude of this physical universe during a pure consciousness experience (PCE) in 1980. It gave rise to a ‘pure intent’ which I experienced as a palpable life-force; as an actually occurring stream of benevolence and benignity that originates in the vast and utter stillness that is the essential character of the universe itself. Once set in motion, it was no longer a matter of choice: it was an irresistible pull. Thus nineteen years ago ‘I’, the persona that I was, looked at the physical world and just knew that this enormous construct called the universe was not ‘set up’ for us humans to be forever forlorn in with only scant moments of reprieve. ‘I’ the persona realised there and then that it was not and could not ever be some ‘sick cosmic joke’ that humans all had to endure and ‘make the best of’. ‘I’ the persona felt foolish that ‘I’ had believed for thirty two years that the wisdom of the ‘real-world’ that ‘I’ had inherited – the world that ‘I’ was born into – was set in stone. This foolish feeling allowed ‘me’ to get in touch with ‘my’ dormant naiveté, which is the closest thing one has that resembles actual innocence, and activate it with a naive enthusiasm to undo all the conditioning and brainwashing that ‘I’ had been subject to. Then when ‘I’ looked into ‘myself’ and at all the people around and saw the sorrow and malice in every one of us, ‘I’ could not stop. ‘I’ knew that ‘I’ had just devoted myself to the task of setting ‘myself’ and ‘humanity’ free ... ‘I’ willingly dedicated ‘my’ life to this most worthy cause. ‘I’ became obsessed with changing ‘myself’ fundamentally, radically, completely and utterly. It is the adventure of a lifetime to embark upon a voyage of exploration and discovery; to not only seek but to find. And once found, it is here for the term of one’s natural life – it is an irreversible mutation in consciousness. Once launched it is impossible to turn back and resume one’s normal life ... one has to be absolutely sure that this is what one truly wants. It is so delicious to devote oneself to something whole-heartedly – the ‘boots and all’ approach ‘I’ called it then! JAMES: Yes, two things stand out: pure intent and don’t possess it. I am looking at pure intent to see if I have it and I am on guard to not pursue it or possess it. RICHARD: You say that ‘two things stand out’ ... yet you slip in a third thing as if I had said it (‘to not pursue it’) when it is really ‘ancient wisdom’ that promotes that view. Speaking personally, the ‘I’ that was pursued it like ‘he’ had never pursued anything before ... ‘he’ made it the number one priority in ‘his’ life. ‘He’ was a married man, with four children, running ‘his’ own business, with a house mortgage to pay off and a car on hire purchase ... in other words: normal. And all the while that ‘he’ pursued it, ‘he’ was working twelve-fourteen hour days, six-seven days a week ... yet ‘his’ pursuit of peace-on-earth took absolute precedence over all other matters and dominated ‘his’ every moment (‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’). I do not see how someone can become free of the human condition without becoming what one’s peers would call ‘obsessed’ (for that is how a 100% commitment is actively discouraged by others) and adopting instead a duplicitous ‘I will not pursue that which I desire’ attitude. It is unbelievably delicious to devote oneself wholeheartedly to such a valuable goal as peace-on-earth ... one starts to feel ‘alive’ for the very first time. Such dedication (‘he’ called it the ‘boots and all’ approach at the time) makes one’s petty life worthwhile after all ... ‘he’ went out in a blaze of glory. However, you are not the only person adopting this stance of not pursuing it ... there are others on this Mailing List that like to think that by feigning a non-pursuit that they will achieve something. Just how this sleight-of-hand (or should I say sleight-of-mind) is going to be efficacious in bringing about the desired result remains to be seen. Nevertheless, such dissimulation is not unknown ... some Buddhists too, indulge in a similar craftiness. They pretend that they do not desire Nirvana ... in the hope that they will thus achieve it. Some Christians, maintaining that to be alive is to remain a sinner, manifest a spurious humility in order to be worthy of God’s Grace and admission into Heaven whilst all the while saying that they are not worthy. Some Hindus maintain that by not enjoying the fruits of their labour they will gain the ultimate fruit of such labour ... called Moksha. The same sort of sanctimony holds true for many other religions and disciplines. 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. JAMES: I don’t have pure intent. Possessing and pursuing looks the same I’m living with the question ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ and it is making a difference. I want to live as my senses. RICHARD: Put it this way: do you have the intent to spend the remainder of your life on this verdant planet having malice and sorrow as a backdrop to your every waking moment? Which means that, although you may have shorter or longer periods of being carefree and considerate, greater or lesser moments of gaiety and benevolence, bigger or smaller interludes of being blithesome and benign and so on, do you have the intent to retain and maintain the current base-line of your day-to-day life (which is the fall-back position of animosity and anguish that requires the time-honoured coping methods to keep your head above water) until the day that you die? If your answer is ‘YES’ then you do not have pure intent, you are not pursuing happiness and harmlessness and you will not have a problem with ‘possessiveness’ about peace-on-earth. If your answer is ‘NO’ then you are already somewhat pursuing peace-on-earth, with at least a trace of pure intent, and the ‘problem’ of automatically trying to ‘possess’ freedom when it occurs will inevitably arise as you have success after success at inducing pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s). The name of the game is to be able to ‘live as your senses’ more and more and for longer and longer periods (and to want this is to pursue it) and to the degree you do not make the instinctual ‘grab’ for ownership of these moments is the degree to which these moments will be prolonged ... and these moments are where you learn what it is to be free by direct experience instead of reading about it. Honesty with oneself is paramount – a dishonest approach will produce a dishonest result – and unless one is scrupulously candid one is in danger of being swept up in the Glamour and Glory and Glitz of the ‘Enlightened State’ and suffer the delusion that one is god on earth (an embodiment of the ‘supreme intelligence’ that is beyond time and space and form) ... replete with that spurious ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’. It is possible. * JAMES: Yes, two things stand out: pure intent and don’t possess it. I am looking at pure intent to see if I have it and I am on guard to not pursue it or possess it. RICHARD: You say that ‘two things stand out’ ... yet you slip in a third thing as if I had said it (‘to not pursue it’) when it is really ‘ancient wisdom’ that promotes that view. Speaking personally, the ‘I’ that was pursued it like ‘he’ had never pursued anything before ... ‘he’ made it the number one priority in ‘his’ life. ‘He’ was a married man, with four children, running ‘his’ own business, with a house mortgage to pay off and a car on hire purchase ... in other words: normal. And all the while that ‘he’ pursued it, ‘he’ was working twelve-fourteen hour days, six-seven days a week ... yet ‘his’ pursuit of peace-on-earth took absolute precedence over all other matters and dominated ‘his’ every moment (‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’). RESPONDENT No. 3: Eido Rochi of Dai Bosatsu Zendo once said to us (mid 80s) that if we want enlightenment, we must want it as a drowning man wants air; that the closer we come to it, the more compelling it will be, of itself. JAMES: I experienced the actual today and it is so clear that it is always right here right now because it is what actually is. The closest description I can give is that it was a direct experience of everything as it was happening. Everything was perfect as it is and I was where I should be. There was perfect clarity. RICHARD: Excellent ... I take particular note of where you say ‘everything was perfect as it is and I was where I should be’ because it indicates that perfection is already always here at this place in space at this moment in time ... it is, as it always has been, already consummate. Which means, peace-on-earth already is here – here in this actual world – and no one needs to invent it. It is all a matter of entering into it; enabling it to become apparent; allowing it to emerge; watching it unfold; giving oneself permission to have it happen ... or whatever description. Everyone is either rushing about trying to make an imitation peace (either the secular ‘peace-time’ truce between warring parties or the spurious supernatural after-death ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’) ... or sitting back moaning and groaning about the inequity of it all. Nobody has devised, concocted or contrived this peace-on-earth ... it was already here as it always has been and always will be. * RICHARD: The physical solution (extinction of instinctual ‘being’ itself) will not eventuate unless the physically inherited cause (a genetically inherited instinctual animal ‘self’) that created the problem of the human condition is intimately experienced. (...) Is it not obvious that all the animosity and anguish that has beset humankind throughout millennia comes from that which is a lot deeper than ‘the thinker is the thought’ ... all the misery and mayhem stems from an animal energy which is much, much more powerful than thought, thoughts and thinking. (...) One has to want to be free from the human condition like one has never wanted anything before. Because unless one is vitally interested in peace on earth one will never even begin to free the crippled intelligence from the debilitating passions bestowed by blind nature. Yet becoming vitally interested is but the preliminary stage, because until one becomes curious as to whether what is being written here about genetic inheritance can be applied to themselves, only then does the first step begin. For it is only when one becomes curious about the workings of oneself – what makes one tick – is that person participating in their search for freedom for the first time in their life. This is because people mostly look to rearranging their beliefs and truths as being sufficient effort ... ‘I’ am willing to be free as long as ‘I’ can remain ‘me’. In other words: their notion of freedom is a ‘clip-on’. Then curiosity becomes fascination ... and then the fun begins to gain a momentum of its own. One is drawn inexorably further and further towards one’s destiny ... fascination leads to commitment and one can know when one’s commitment is approaching a 100% commitment because others around one will classify one as ‘obsessed’ (in spite of all their rhetoric a 100% commitment to evoking peace-on-earth is actively discouraged by one’s peers). Eventually one realises that one is on one’s own in this, the adventure of a life-time, and a peculiar tenacity that enables one to proceed against all odds ensues. Then one takes the penultimate step ... one abandons ‘humanity’. An actual freedom from the human condition then unfolds its inevitable destiny. JAMES: I’m not clear as to how one eliminates the instincts after one has become intimate with them and then has a 100% commitment. Does this happen on its own or is there something that I need to do? RICHARD: It happens on its own in that, as ‘I’ am the instinctual passions and the instinctual passions are ‘me’, there is no way that ‘I’ can end ‘me’. What ‘I’ do is that ‘I’ deliberately and consciously and with knowledge aforethought set in motion a ‘process’ that will ensure ‘my’ demise. What ‘I’ do, voluntarily and willingly, is to press the button – which is to acquiesce – which precipitates an oft-times alarming but always thrilling momentum that will result in ‘my’ inevitable self-immolation. The acquiescing is that one thus dedicates oneself to being here as the universe’s experience of itself now ... it is the unreserved !YES! to being alive as this flesh and blood body. Peace-on-earth is the inevitable result of such devotion because it is already here ... it is always here now. ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ was merely standing in the way of the already always existing perfect purity from becoming apparent by sitting back and moaning and groaning about the inequity of it all (as epitomised in ‘I didn’t ask to be born’). How can one be forever sticking one’s toe in and testing out the waters and yet expect to be able to look at oneself in the mirror each morning with dignity. The act of initiating this ‘process’ – acquiescence – is to embrace death. The 100% commitment happens of its own accord too; unlike the commitment one normally makes as a vow or a resolution (which can be broken after a lot of ‘soul-searching’ and heart-ache) the 100% commitment cannot be undone. This means one is already committed to finding out and there is no pulling back – which is why most people do not want to start – because once one has started, one cannot stop ... it is a one-way trip. The 100% commitment is primarily born out of the pure consciousness experience (PCE) as once one has experienced perfection one simply cannot settle for second-best (or worse). As a PCE is a short-term direct seeing, unmediated by ‘I’ and/or ‘me’, then when the PCE is over the fun begins. Because one must start from where one is at and move towards enabling what the PCE demonstrates ... that ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ is standing in the way of the already always existing peace-on-earth from being apparent. This ‘starting from where one is’ is where intimately experiencing the physically inherited cause (a genetically inherited instinctual animal ‘self’) that created the problem of the human condition comes into play ... one needs to know experientially what it is that one is made up off (‘I’ need to experientially know what makes ‘me’ tick). This experiential knowing – in conjunction with the experiential knowing of the PCE – relieves one from trusting, believing, hoping and having faith as there is now a confidence, born out of the certainty of direct experience, that enables one to activate naiveté (sans gullibility) in one’s daily life. It is this naïve confidence (which is the nearest one can approximate innocence whilst still being an identity) that produces moment-to-moment successes, for there is the impelling movement of actualising perfection – being pulled from ahead – which is what comes from the pure intent that ensues with being activated by the consummate purity as evidenced in the PCE. This is qualitatively different from a propelling movement – being pushed from behind – which is what comes from the disciplined action that eventuates with being motivated by certitude (derived second-hand via trusting, believing, hoping and having faith). This impelling momentum – being drawn ineluctably to one’s destiny – is the thrilling part of it. JAMES: Are you saying that when the time is right I simply abandon the instincts? RICHARD: One abandons ‘humanity’. And one knows ‘when the time is ripe’ because one finds out these things as they are happening or after they have happened and the realisation that this abandon is actually happening is stimulating, to say the least (there are weird feelings such as ‘a rat deserting a sinking ship’ to feel for example). One will no longer belong anymore to the largest group there is ... ‘humanity’ (which is way, way past all gender groups, racial groups, age groups and other social groups). One realises that one is on one’s own in this, the adventure of a life-time, as an actuality. RESPONDENT: But I have also read on the web-site that the essential ingredient for success (on this path of actualism) is a burning discontent with your life as it is. (May be these are Peter’s words and not yours). RICHARD: Indeed, if one is not dissatisfied with life in the real world and wanting to be free then one would not be reading these web-pages ... would they? That is, one would surely have to be discontented in order to have the desire to be free ... do you not agree? Freedom is something that one wants like one has never wanted anything before – this entire process of digging into one’s psyche (which is the human psyche) is the most mammoth challenge one could ever take on – and is not something that would appeal to the desultory dabbler. RESPONDENT: In writing this and the other things I wrote this weekend somehow there is no effort involved (perhaps that shows!). My experience is just deep, round, soft, full, still, pleasure of moments of being here, and of understandings building on each other. RICHARD: Good ... yet one has to reach out – extend oneself – like one has never done before. One has to want peace-on-earth as the number one priority in one’s life. One has to desire freedom from the Human Condition to the point of obsession and beyond ... it is that urgent and essential. And one does it for a two-fold purpose: for the good of oneself in particular and for one’s fellow humans in general. RESPONDENT: What do you now mean by introducing the concept of reaching out? Extending myself? I do not recall you using these terms before. Reach out to people? RICHARD: Not to people, no. I am not talking about other people doing anything at all ... I am talking about you. I am talking about your unilateral action irregardless of what anyone else does or does not do. This actual freedom does not require the cooperation of a single person ... let alone 6.0 billion people. This is for you. This is your peace-on-earth. Of course, it is entirely possible that a chain-letter effect may ripple through the denizens of the ‘Land Of Lament’ ... but what they do is their business. As long as they comply with the legal laws and observe the social protocol, they are free to live their lives as wisely or as foolishly as they choose. You do not have to concern yourself about any other person’s modus operandi at all. The best way you can help another is by being free of the Human Condition yourself ... otherwise any help is but the blind leading the blind. The words ‘reach out’ and ‘extend oneself’ are figures of expression indicating the intensity of purpose requisite for consummation. It is possible to not only seek but to find ... thereby enabling one to live life in full meaning twenty-four-hours-a-day. The problem with the people who embark upon the search for meaning is that they approach it in the incorrect way. One cannot think one’s way into meaning ... nor can one feel one’s way, either. Thinking and feeling – through logical imagination and irrational intuition – are the two tools that everyone has been taught to use to conduct the affairs of their everyday life: they are not at all appropriate for uncovering the perfection that they are searching for. There is an unimaginable purity that is born out of the stillness of the infinitude as manifest at this moment in time and this place in space ... but one will not come upon it by thinking about or feeling out its character. It is most definitely not a matter to be pursued in the rarefied atmosphere of the most refined mind or the evocative milieu of the most impassioned heart. To proceed thus is to become involved in a fruitless endeavour to make life fit into one’s own petty demands and desires. Life is not like that ... one has only to look into the marvels of nature to see that life-forms have arranged themselves in a myriad of exquisitely delicate shapes, colours, textures, qualities and character. So too has the universe gracefully arranged itself in regards to providing intrinsic meaning. The universe is innately perfect and pure. It is already always immaculate and consummate. Nothing ‘dirty’ can breach the blameless bastions of this unimpeachable purity and perfection ... even the most profound thoughts and the most sublime feelings are self-centred. The self – ‘I’ – is not only defiled, it is corrupt through and through. ‘I’ am perversity itself. No matter how earnestly one tries to purify oneself, one can never succeed completely. The last little bit always eludes perfecting. ‘I’ am rotten at the very core. There is one thing that ‘I’ can do, however, to remedy the situation. ‘I’ can disappear. Psychological and psychic self-immolation is the only sensible sacrifice that ‘I’ can make in order to reveal perfection. Life is bursting with meaning when ‘I’ am no longer present to mess things up. ‘I’ stand in the way of that purity being apparent. ‘My’ presence prohibits perfection being evident. ‘I’ prevent the very meaning to life, which ‘I’ am searching for, from coming into plain view. The main trouble is that ‘I’ wish to remain in existence to savour the meaning; ‘I’ mistakenly think that meaning is the product of the mind and the heart. Nothing could be further from the truth. * RESPONDENT: I hope that you have enjoyed the last week or so when I have been corresponding fairly regularly with you on the actual freedom list. RICHARD: I am having so much fun here at the keyboard. RESPONDENT: I consider my role to be more of journalistic than as a seeker after actual truth ... RICHARD: The measure of one’s success is, of course, proportional to one’s intent. Generally speaking, commitment is avoided like the plague lest one’s friends call one ‘obsessed’ and start issuing atavistic warnings of dire consequences ... and slip the word ‘insanity’ into their conversations every now and then. ALAN: I do not think I was trying to think (or feel) my way. In contemplating what was standing in the way of actual freedom, there was the realisation that it could only be ‘me’ though, as you say, in ‘normality’ there is no experience of being ‘sans identity’. I even find it difficult to recall that, during a PCE, the experience was that ‘‘I’ have been standing in the way of the already always existing peace-on-earth all along’. My memory is of purity and perfection and that nothing was separating me, or standing in the way of, that purity and perfection. Which may be saying the same thing. 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? RESPONDENT: Richard, I don’t get this bit above of yours. Could you possibly reword it? RICHARD: During the PCE it is directly evident (with an immediacy) that it is both one’s birthright and destiny to be perfection personified ... this is why one is here doing this business called being alive. Yet when one reverts to normal it only makes intellectual sense that ‘I’ am standing in the way ... and one sets one’s sights lower than being the best. Does one tamely settle for second-best (dutiful self-deprecation)? Why? * RICHARD: ... Thus one is reliably rendered relatively innocent (and virtually happy and harmless) by the benefaction of the perfection and purity of this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe and therefore one is no longer alone in this monumental endeavour ... one has all the energy of infinitude at one’s disposal. RESPONDENT: Could you please explain the last part a bit more [‘one has all the energy of infinitude at one’s disposal’] as it does sound somewhat metaphysical. RICHARD: Not metaphysical, no. I am talking of the physical infinitude of this physical universe (‘this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe’) thus the energy of infinitude referred to is a physical energy ... specifically the calorific energy of an apperceptive consciousness. I can explain it this way: the apperceptive brain in action in the human skull is a ‘self’-less consciousness (a consciousness not fettered by any identity whatsoever) and as such is an unlimited consciousness automatically conscious of the perfection and purity of the infinitude of the universe as an on-going awareness. For a person in the ‘real world’ such a consciousness exists in another dimension – in the infinite and eternal and perpetual actual world in fact – yet is mostly mistaken by peoples to be a god-like consciousness (a non-calorific energy in some timeless and spaceless and formless dimension). Yet it is nothing more mysterious than the flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. One needs to contact, or have a connection with, this apperceptive awareness so as to no longer be alone in the monumental endeavour to end all the misery and mayhem which epitomises the human condition. Hence the activation of one’s innate naiveté – the closest approximation to innocence one can have whilst being a ‘self’ – ensures that such a connection is sustained. This connection I call pure intent. ALAN: Was this not enough? Was it not better to enjoy this life as ‘Alan’, the personality, than risk all on an unknown future? RICHARD: I can recall the ‘Richard’ that was considering this very question ... yet ‘he’ just knew that ‘he’ would not be able to look in the mirror of a morning if ‘he’ did not proceed. Is it an admixture of pride and dignity, perhaps? ALAN: Yet, the knowledge of what is possible – even if only a recollection of the PCE – is sufficient to make ‘me’ continue reading, writing and exploring. RICHARD: Not to mention 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 ... if peoples were not harming themselves and each other in the most grisly ways possible then this would all be but a game. Peoples play ‘for keeps’ in the real world ... it is not fun. ALAN: It is, indeed, a strange state of affairs. RICHARD: It is ‘strange’ to the point of being bizarre ... weird, uncanny, eerie. ALAN: Am ‘I’ going to continue, in the knowledge that the end result is ‘my’ demise. Or, am ‘I’ going to give up and settle for ‘second best’. Perhaps this is where ‘pure intent’ comes in. It is not a phrase I have been entirely comfortable with or, rather, completely understood. RICHARD: Pure intent is derived from the purity of the PCE (which is when ‘I’ spontaneously cease to ‘be’) and everything is experienced to be perfect as-it-is at this moment and place ... here and now. Diligent attention paid to the peak experience gives rise to pure intent and with pure intent running as a ‘golden thread’ through one’s life, reflective contemplation about being here doing this business called being alive rapidly becomes more and more fascinating. When one is totally fascinated, reflective contemplation becomes pure awareness ... and then apperception happens of itself. It is the quality of pure intent which pulls one forward with impunity ... pure intent transforms into action one’s determination to live a life full of gladness, peace and harmony with oneself, with a person of the other gender, and with all peoples. Pure intent produces total dedication – it is experienced as an irresistible enticement – and it makes it impossible not to do what is required (or to sweep an issue under the carpet and to let sleeping dogs lie) and to continue to conform to the long-failed dictates of the status-quo. Pure intent is not to be confused with being a ‘do-gooder’, or being full of ‘righteousness’, or being ‘moralistic’ or being ‘principled’. Pure intent is the quality that encompasses what morals and ethics aspire to but never reach. Pure intent is a manifest life-force; a genuinely occurring stream of benevolence and benignity that originates in the perfect and vast stillness that is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe. Freed by pure intent from the very necessary social constraints – designed to control a wayward ego and a compliant soul – one can have generosity of character without striving. Pure intent guides one in each and every situation and circumstance – it is an essential prerequisite to ensure a guaranteed passage through the psychic maze – until the primacy of ‘me’ as a psychological or psychic entity withers away.. With pure intent one will not rest until one has gone all the way. ALAN: Perhaps it is this ‘pure intent’ which keeps ‘me’ going, which insists that it ‘ain’t over till the fat lady sings’, which is the knowledge that this is not perfection, and perfection is possible. RICHARD: Perfection is an actual condition – intrinsic to this universe – that a human being can tap into by pure intent. Pure intent can be activated again and again with sincere attention paid to the state of naiveté. To be naive is to be virginal, unaffected, unselfconsciously artless, ingenuous, simple and unsophisticated ... and pure intent manifests in the connection between the intimate aspect of oneself (that one usually keeps hidden away for fear of seeming foolish) and the purity of the perfection of the peak experience. The experience of purity is a benefaction and out of this blessing comes the pure intent which consistently guides 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. It is the highway to an utter freedom – to one’s destiny – and it is a wide and wondrous path. Once activated, freedom is no longer a matter of choice – it is an irresistible pull – but pure intent will provide one with the necessary intestinal fortitude. Inevitably the moment comes ... and ‘I’ am nevermore. * ALAN: I continue to seek a reply as to what is preventing me from proceeding and admit I seem to be no nearer an answer than when we last discussed the matter. RICHARD: Has it ever occurred to you to seek instead a reply to the obverse question ... an (experiential) answer as to what is permitting you to not be proceeding? ALAN: The obvious, that ‘I’ wish to remain in existence and have no incentive other than altruism to proceed has probably been ‘done to death’ – if only the latter were fact! RICHARD: If the impact of pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s) be not sufficiently enticing – an altruistic ‘self’-immolation in toto is not, of course, only for the benefit of other bodies – then maybe a goodly dose of back-pressure may provide the requisite incentive. I am, of course, referring to watching the evening news (or even soap-operas for that matter) and seeing – actually seeing – the human condition stripped-naked as it parades itself across the screen for those with the eyes to see ... and thus knowing that, essentially, there too goes oneself, no matter how diminished. I do know that it worked well for the identity inhabiting this body all those years ago when, being only human, the impulsion (being pulled from ahead) would, on occasion, lessen in its intensity and the propulsion (being pushed from behind) was most certainly helpful in vivifying a flagging intent to enable that which the PCE so magically evinced to occur 24/7. So ... what is it that permits one to not proceed? RESPONDENT: I have tried ‘What am I’ and several other meditations. From your mails etc. I read you don’t need to meditate. If I don’t meditate my life gets clogged with intentions. The only ways to relieve myself are to sleep or to relax. Relaxation is a direct result from meditating. Another result is creative thought. RICHARD: Be it far from me to advise you to stop meditating ... Konrad is trying this at this moment with some interesting results. If you do, it is essential that you replace it with something else ... something better. As you say that your life gets ‘clogged with intentions’ then channel this energy into one big intention: what I call pure intent. Pure intent is derived from the pure consciousness experience (PCE) experienced during a peak experience, which all humans have had at some stage in their life. A peak experience is when ‘I’ spontaneously cease to ‘be’, temporarily, and this moment is. Everything is seen to be perfect as-it-is. One can bring about a benediction from that perfection and purity which is the essential character of the universe by contacting and cultivating one’s original state of naiveté. Naiveté is that intimate aspect of oneself that is the nearest approximation that one can have of actual innocence – there is no innocence so long as there is a self – and constant awareness of naive intimacy results in a continuing benediction. This blessing allows a connection to be made between oneself and the perfection and purity. This connection I call pure intent. Pure intent endows one with the ability to operate and function safely in society without the incumbent social identity with its ever-vigilant conscience. Thus reliably rendered virtually innocent and relatively harmless by the benefaction of the perfection and purity, one can begin to dismantle the now-redundant social identity. Diligent attention paid to the peak experience ensures pure intent continuing to operate. With pure intent running as a ‘golden thread’ through one’s life, reflective contemplation – not meditation – rapidly becomes more and more fascinating. It is a matter of coming to one’s senses – both literally and figuratively – and one does this by understanding that only this moment is actual. When one is totally fascinated, reflective contemplation becomes pure awareness ... and then apperception happens of itself. With apperception operating more or less continuously in ‘my’ day-to-day life, ‘I’ find it harder and harder to maintain credibility. ‘I’ am increasingly seen as the usurper, an alien entity inhabiting this body and taking on an identity of its own. Mercilessly exposed in the bright light of awareness – apperception casts no shadows – ‘I’ can no longer find ‘my’ position tenable. ‘I’ can only live in obscuration, where ‘I’ lurk about, creating all sorts of mischief. ‘My’ time is speedily coming to an end, ‘I’ can barely maintain ‘myself’ any longer. RICHARD (to No. 34): Self-centredness is a feeling-fed ‘self’ born of the survival instincts bestowed by blind nature doing what it is charged to do ... staying in existence. Being thus passionate, it is a powerful illusion and must, perforce, have a powerful motivation to betray its very nature and end itself. (Richard, List B, No. 34, 19 May 1999). RESPONDENT: Could you clarify what you mean by the above. It appears that you are saying that ‘it’ (‘self-centredness’) must have a powerful motivation to bring an end to itself. If I do understand this correctly then please explain further this ‘powerful motivation’. Specifically I am referring to what this motivation is (and its goals, if any) and from where does it come? RICHARD: The ‘motivation’? Actually coming face-to-face – as a visceral experiencing – with the reality of 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 that are endemic to the human condition. The ‘goal’ ? To bring to an end 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 that are endemic to the human condition. Where does the ‘motivation’ come from? There is an intrinsic trait common to all sentient beings: self-sacrifice. This trait can be observed in almost all animals – it is especially easy to see in the ‘higher-order’ animals – mainly with the parental defending of the young to the point of fatal injury leading to death. Defending the group against another group is also simple to observe ... it manifests in humans in the way that one will passionately defend oneself and one’s group to the death if it is deemed necessary. Speaking personally, as a youth this self-sacrificing trait impelled me to go to war for ‘my’ country ... to ‘willingly lay down my life for kith and kin’. It is a very powerful passion indeed ... Christianity, to give just one example, values it very highly: ‘No greater love hath he that lay down his life for another’. All of ‘my’ instincts – the instinctive drive for biological survival – come to the fore when psychologically and psychically threatened, for ‘I’ am confused about ‘my’ presence, confounding ‘my’ survival and the body’s survival. However, ‘my’ survival being paramount could not be further from the truth, for ‘I’ need play no part any more in perpetuating physical existence (which is the primal purpose of the instinctual animal ‘self’). ‘I’ am no longer necessary at all. In fact, ‘I’ am nowadays a hindrance. With all of ‘my’ beliefs, values, creeds, ethics and other doctrinaire disabilities, ‘I’ am a menace to the body. ‘I’ am ready to die (to allow the body to be killed) for a cause and ‘I’ will willingly sacrifice physical existence for a ‘Noble Ideal’ ... and reap ‘my’ post-mortem reward: immortality. This trait is called altruism ... albeit misplaced. What is a feeling-fed ‘self’? A ‘self’ is not something ‘you’ have ... being an identity in whatever way, shape or form is what ‘you’ are and is an inevitable result of being born. Thus any blame is pointless – and worse – it creates resentment. Being an identity is because the only way into this world of people, things and events is via the human spermatozoa fertilising the human ova ... thus every human being is endowed, by blind nature, with the basic instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. These passions are the very energy source of the rudimentary animal self ... the base consciousness of ‘self’ and ‘other’ that all sentient beings have. The human animal – with its unique ability to think and reflect upon its own death – transforms this ‘reptilian brain’ rudimentary ‘self’ into being a feeling ‘me’ (as soul in the heart) and from this core of ‘being’ the ‘feeler’ then infiltrates into thought to become the ‘thinker’ ... a thinking ‘I’ (as ego in the head). No other animal can do this. This process is aided and abetted by the human beings who were already on this planet when one was born ... which is conditioning and programming. It is part and parcel of the socialising process. Thus ‘dissolving the ego’ is not sufficient ... there is a ‘me’ lurking in the heart to take over the wheel. What will become of ‘self-centredness’? To put it bluntly: ‘you’ in ‘your’ totality, who are but a passionate illusion, must die a dramatic illusory death commensurate to ‘your’ pernicious existence. The drama must be played out to the end ... there are no short-cuts here. The doorway to an actual freedom has the word ‘extinction’ written on it. This extinction is an irrevocable event, which eliminates the psyche itself. When this is all over there will be no ‘being’ at all. Thus 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 ‘my’ moment of glory. It is ‘my’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘my’ 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. What will ‘I’ do? Now, it is ‘I’ that is responsible for an action that results in ‘my’ own demise ... without really doing the expunging itself (and I am not being tricky here). It is ‘I’ that is the cause of bringing about this sacrifice in that ‘I’ deliberately and consciously and with knowledge aforethought set in motion a ‘process’ that will ensure ‘my’ demise. (‘I’ do not really end ‘myself’ in that ‘I’ do not do the deed itself for an ‘I’ cannot end itself). What ‘I’ do, voluntarily and willingly, is to press the button which precipitates an oft-times alarming but always thrilling momentum that will result in ‘my’ inevitable self-immolation. What one does is that one dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here as the universe’s experience of itself ... now. Peace-on-earth is the inevitable result because it is already here ... it is always now. ‘I’ was merely standing in the way of this already always existing peace-on-earth from becoming apparent. The act of initiating this ‘process’ is altruism, pure and simple. Re: Question ... about pure intent RESPONDENT No. 13: (...) I do know that what I’m doing is not what is propagated by the af-website. I’m not too worried about it, as I’m sure this is just part of the process, which will eventually make me discover pure intent and put me on the path to actual freedom. (...) I’ve been wondering about this statement of Richard: [Richard]: ‘An actualist’s intent is a pure intent and discovering how to blend this pure intent – via attentiveness – into one’s conscious life is the process that places one on the wide and wondrous path to actual freedom’. (Richard, Articles, Attentiveness Sensuousness Apperceptiveness) How did you get the pure intent or how did you keep the intent running? Are there certain events that lead to it’s discovery? Is there are a particular approach you would advise other to get pure intent? RICHARD: G’day No. 13, Just putting in a plug for what is propagated by the website. The ultimate source of an actualist’s pure intent is, of course, the pristine purity of the innocence which prevails in the pure consciousness experience (PCE). For those who are unable to recall/ unable to trigger a PCE there is the near-purity of the sincerity which inheres in naiveté – the nearest a ‘self’ can get to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’ – which naiveté is an aspect of oneself locked away in childhood through ridicule, derision, and so on, that one has dared not to resurrect for fear of appearing foolish, a simpleton in both others’ eyes and, thus, one’s own. (Because ‘naïve’ and ‘gullible’ are so closely linked – via the trusting nature of a child in concert with the lack of knowledge inherent to childhood – in the now-adult mind most peoples initially have difficulty separating the one from another). Now, seeing the fact (as ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’) that it is plainly and simply ‘my’ choice as to how ‘I’ experience this moment (the only moment one is actually alive) is a first step leading to its discovery. And, as the part-sentence you have quoted (further above) has been extracted out from the middle of the first paragraph of the section entitled ‘The Who And How of Attentiveness And Sensuousness And Apperceptiveness’, in the ‘Attentiveness And Sensuousness And Apperceptiveness’ article, then the opening lines provide a clue to an answer for your queries. Viz.: [quote] ‘The intent is you will become happy and harmless. The intent is you will be free of sorrow and malice. The intent is you will become blithesome and benign. The intent is you will be free of fear and aggression. The intent is you will become carefree and considerate. The intent is you will be free from nurture and desire. The intent is you will become gay and benevolent. The intent is you will be free of anguish and animosity. The intent is that, by being free of the Human Condition, you will experience peace-on-earth, in this life-time, as this body ... as is evidenced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) (...)’. [endquote] Spelled-out sequentially that first part of the paragraph, immediately prior to the part-sentence you extracted, can look something like this: 1. The initial intent comes from a vital interest in becoming happy and harmless. That intent thus creates a vested interest in being free of sorrow and malice. 2. The initial intent comes from a vital interest in becoming blithesome and benign. That intent thus creates a vested interest in being free of fear and aggression. 3. The initial intent comes from a vital interest in becoming carefree and considerate. That intent thus creates a vested interest in being free from nurture and desire. 4. The initial intent comes from a vital interest in becoming gay and benevolent. That intent thus creates a vested interest in being free of anguish and animosity. * All of this vital interest/ vested interest enables sincerity – as to be in accord with the fact/ being aligned with factuality staying true to facticity is what being sincere is (as in being authentic/ guileless, genuine/ artless, straightforward/ ingenuous) and to be sincere is to be the key which unlocks naiveté ... then the summing-up sentence can now look something like this: The [sincere/ naïve] intent, then, is that by being free of the human condition you will experience peace-on-earth, in this life-time, as this body ... as is evidenced in the PCE. As that summary sentence leads straight on to the sentence you have part-quoted from then it too can now look something like this: • [quote]: ‘(...) An actualist’s intent is a [sincere/ naïve] intent and discovering how to blend this [sincere/ naïve] intent via attentiveness – into one’s conscious life is the process that places one on the wide and wondrous path to actual freedom ... this path is a virtual freedom’. [end quote] Which in turn is immediately followed by the how-to sentences: • [quote] ‘Uncovering how to prolong the condition of virtual freedom – via attentiveness and sensuousness – is still another process. These are felicitous and innocuous processes, however, and they are well worth the effort for attentiveness and sensuousness are central to virtual freedom and the key to the whole condition. Attentiveness and sensuousness are both the goal of actualism and the means to that end: one reaches apperceptiveness by being ever more sensuous and one activates sensuousness by being ever more attentive ... and one activates attentiveness by no longer ‘feeling good’. [endquote] In other words, it is the experiencing of no longer ‘feeling good’ (or ‘feeling happy/ harmless’ or ‘feeling excellent/ perfect’) which activates attentiveness again (as in it ‘jogs the memory’ to pay attention). It is all a very, very simple method, actually. Then the next paragraph provides more clues: • [quote] ‘Attentiveness reminds one to apply one’s sensuousness to the pertinent situation at the opportune time and to implement surely the appropriate amount of activity needed to do the job. When this vitality is judiciously applied, one stays constantly in a condition of virtual freedom. As long as this condition of virtual freedom is maintained, those feeling-states called ‘moods’ cannot arise for there is no anguish or animosity – virtually no malice or misery – when attentiveness is present.’ [endquote] Those three sentences are immediately followed by an acknowledgement of and an allowance for the obvious: • [quote] ‘Nevertheless, one is still ‘human’ and to be ‘human’ is to err ... and most people are very ‘human’ and err repeatedly. Despite [sincere/ naïve] intent, the actualist lets their attentiveness slip now and then and one finds oneself stuck in some unfortunate – but normal – ‘human’ failure. It is attentiveness that notices that change ... and it is attentiveness that reminds one to apply the [sincere/ naïve] intent required to pull oneself out.’ [endquote] That paragraph then goes on to point out how the process proceeds from there: • [quote] ‘Slipping into ‘normal’ happens over and over, but the frequency decreases with the assimilation of the fact that the absence of anguish and animosity in one’s moment-to-moment experience allows one’s daily life to be peaceful and harmonious way beyond normal ‘human’ expectations. Once attentiveness has exposed those affective set-backs, sensuousness provides a more considerate and carefree condition ... one is happy and harmless for ninety-nine percent of the time.’ [endquote] And it finishes with both a summary and a lead-in to the next paragraph: • [quote] ‘It is attentiveness which notices the change from ‘normal’ into happiness and harmlessness, and which reminds the actualist to maintain the [sincere/ naïve] intent needed to keep one blithe and benign ... and which allows apperception to freely happen. Apperceptiveness makes possible salubrity and sagacity (...).’ (Richard, Articles, Attentiveness Sensuousness Apperceptiveness) As to be apperceptive is to be having a PCE then the ultimate source of pure intent – the pristine purity of the innocence which prevails there – is now freely available. !Open Sesame! Incidentally, just before/ just as the PCE starts to wear off, if one unravels (metaphorically) a ‘golden thread’ or ‘clew’, as one is slipping back into the real-world, an intimate connection is thus established betwixt the pristine-purity of an actual innocence and the near-purity of the sincerity of naiveté. At least, that is the way it worked for the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body, all those years ago, inasmuch ‘his’ recall of PCE’s was a naïve remembrance [i.e., rememoration & presentiation; see Message № 19775 (Richard, List D, No. 32a, 19 June 2015) for context], rather than a cognitive memory, and ‘he’ thus experienced a constant pull, each moment again, into the immaculate perfection of the actual world ... and thus away from the contaminated imperfection of the real-world. Being a ‘fatal attraction’, so to speak, it rendered the entire process virtually effortless. (Richard, List D, No. 13, 21 May 2009). SRID: Hi Richard, As I too cannot recall a PCE (and never had one yet), I printed your email out of interest and spent about an hour thinking over it ... reading each words/ sentences carefully (often re- reading several times). Your meticulousness in explaining the approach did give me some clarity in this matter. These days it is merely a matter of seeing where sincerity lacks (and thus naiveté is missing) ... and this alone tells a lot of about where I am missing attentiveness. For instance, the other day, I noticed how much ‘maneuvering’ (an opposite of naiveté) I subconsciously exhibit in matters related to women... and how that is preventing a carefree/ felicitous experience at these times. RICHARD: G’day Srid, Just popping in briefly as I am going to be far to busy locally, for the next few days, to catch-up on pending posts. Because you are evidently paying so much attention to that previous post of mine (Richard, List D, No. 13, 21 May 2009) I would like to emphasise a couple of important aspects to it regarding sincerity/ naiveté. Given that it is, plainly and simply, always ‘my’ choice as to how ‘I’ experience this moment then the optimum manner in which to do so is, of course, sincerely/ naïvely. Thus the part-sentence in that previous post of mine [quote] ‘and to be sincere is to be the key which unlocks naiveté’ [endquote] is worth expanding upon. The operative words in that part-sentence are [quote] ‘... to be the key ...’ [endquote] and with particular emphasis on the word ‘be’ (rather than ‘have’ for instance). In other words, to be sincerity (not only have sincerity) is to be the key (not merely have the key) to be naiveté (not just have naiveté). (Bear in mind that, at root, ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’ and it will all become clear). As there is something I have oft-times encouraged a fellow human being to try, in face-to-face interactions, which usually has the desired effect it is well worth detailing here: Reach down inside of yourself intuitively (aka feeling it out) and go past the rather superficial emotions/ feelings (generally in the chest area) into the deeper, more profound passions/ feelings (generally in the solar plexus area) until you come to a place (generally about four-finger widths below the navel) where you intuitively feel you elementarily have existence as a feeling being (as in ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself). Now, having located ‘being’ itself, gently and tenderly sense out the area immediately below that (just above/ just before and almost touching on the sex centre). Here you will find yourself both likeable and liking (for here lies sincerity/ naiveté). Here is where you can, finally, like yourself (very important) no matter what. Here is the nearest a ‘self’ can get to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’. Here lies tenderness/ sweetness and togetherness/ closeness. Here is where it is possible to be the key. RESPONDENT: When we investigate an insight into the human condition it seems to me that we are bringing up not simply irrational beliefs, but the habits, dispositions, in-built emotional structure. It is the conditioning of perhaps one hundred thousand years. RICHARD: It is more than the ‘conditioning of perhaps one hundred thousand years’ , for sincere investigation strikes at the very basis of the ‘self’. The ‘self’ is the product of the instincts that one was born with ... and fear is but one of these basic instinctual passions. However, when one first starts rooting around into the make-up of the Human Condition, one comes across social conditioning and begins dismantling, step by step, all that was put into one by the – albeit well-meaning – peoples who were already here on this planet when one arrived as a baby. However, after some time engaged in this endeavour, one has the realisation that one is merely paddling around on the surface and, given the desire to pursue investigation all the way, one decides to go deep-sea diving. Accordingly, one puts on a face-mask and snorkel (fondly imagining it to be an aqua-lung outfit) and goes looking around under the surface. One discovers conditioning going back many thousands of years. One can spend a life-time examining this atavistic conditioning, for it is the product of billions of human minds and hearts. This is where an insight born out of a pure intent is essential in order to realise that, whilst one has gone deeper than before, there are stygian depths to plumb, for one comes across universal malice and sorrow. RESPONDENT: Can an insight, one moment of insight, have an effect here? Does this not call for something that is from moment to moment, ongoing. RICHARD: Yes, indeed it can. One fundamental moment of insight can alter the entire course of one’s life wherein becoming free of the Human Condition is no longer a matter of choice – it is an irresistible pull. And, yes, then there is something that is from moment to moment, ongoing. I choose to call this something: ‘Pure Intent’. Pure intent is a palpable life-force; an actually occurring stream of benevolence and benignity that originates in the perfect and vast stillness that is the essential character of the infinitude of this physical universe. One can bring about a benediction from that perfection and purity, which is the essential character of the universe, by contacting and cultivating one’s original state of naiveté. Naiveté is that intimate aspect of oneself that is the nearest approximation that one can have of actual innocence – there is no innocence so long as there is a self – and constant awareness of naive intimacy results in a continuing benediction. This blessing allows a connection to be made between oneself and the perfection and purity. This connection is what I call pure intent. Pure intent endows one with the ability to operate and function safely in society without the incumbent social identity with its ever-vigilant conscience. Thus reliably rendered virtually innocent and relatively harmless by the benefaction of the perfection and purity, one can begin to dismantle the now-redundant social identity. Pure intent is not to be confused with being a ‘do-gooder’, or being full of ‘righteousness’, or being ‘moralistic’. Pure intent is the quality that encompasses what morals and ethics aspire to but never reach. ‘Good’ fails to reach its desired goal because it opposes ‘Bad’ ... the fight between Good and Evil has raged for centuries. Pure intent enables one to be liberated from both Good and Evil. Pure intent renders morality redundant ... which is good news, as morality – although well-meant – never works successfully. Morality seeks to control; pure intent eliminates the need for control. With pure intent operating twenty-four-hours-a-day in one’s life, one can safely get out from being under control without going off the rails. One is then able to be virtually free from the resentment, the guilt, the remorse, and all the other factors which are the hall-mark of a wayward self under control. Pure intent is the highway to this utter freedom, to one’s destiny ... and it is a wide and wondrous path. RICHARD: When ‘I’ freely and intentionally sacrifice ‘myself’ – the psychological and psychic entities residing inside this body – ‘I’ am gladly making ‘my’ most supreme donation, for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. The extinction of identity – both an ego death and a soul death – is a welcome release into actuality. I am finally here. I discover that I have always been here ... I have never been anywhere else for there is nowhere else ... except illusion and into delusion. The ‘real world’ and the ‘Greater Reality’ had their existence only in ‘my’ fertile imagination. Only this, the actual world, genuinely exists. This exquisite surprise brings with it ecstatic relief at the moment of mutation ... life is perfect after all. But, then again, has one not suspected this to be so all along? At the moment of freedom from the Human Condition there is a clear sense of ‘I have always known this’. Doubt is banished forever ... no more verification is required. All is self-evidently pure and perfect. Everything is indeed well. It is the greatest gift one can bestow upon oneself and others. RESPONDENT: This does not make any sense. How does something that supposedly truly exists cause its own demise? RICHARD: Simply by the earnest and sincere desire to do something constructive about 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 ... instead of indulging in intellectual masturbation. It is called being altruistic. RICHARD: Be it far from me to answer for Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti, but suffice is it for me to point out that he said publicly in 1928: ‘I have only one desire; to set humankind free’ ... whereupon he spent the best part of the next sixty-odd years engaged in sincere and candid conversation with whomsoever was vitally interested in peace-on-earth. May I ask: Are you not so vitally interested? RESPONDENT: Sure, I am interested in peace-on-earth. But how can that be brought about through doing what that old man did? In all those sixty years of earnest conversation, the earth was inundated with two world wars and the situation has consistently gotten worse. I ask again: how does conversation set man free? RICHARD: By learning from his biggest mistake. Also, just having a conversation will never set anyone free ... let alone ‘humanity’. Especially if the other party only expresses what appears to be a casual interest in peace-on-earth. (‘Sure, I am interested ... but how can ... and how will ... but ... and ...’) Yet if the conversation is sincere and candid, and if the other is vitally interested – if it is the number one priority in one’s life inasmuch that it amounts to a fascinated obsession with one’s very being – then something rather magical can happen. ‘Humanity’ disappears out of the one or the other or both, and then there is freedom from the Human Condition. The one or the other or both then has an sincere and candid conversation with another vitally interested person and then another similarly fascinated ... and then they too have an sincere and candid conversation with yet another who is vitally interested ... and so on and so on. It is, of course, a bold step to forsake lofty thoughts, profound feelings and psychic adumbrations and enter into the actuality of life as a sensate experience. It requires a startling audacity to devote oneself to the task of causing a mutation of consciousness to occur. To have the requisite determination to apply oneself, with the diligence and perseverance born out of pure intent, to start off with the patient dismantling of one’s accrued social identity preparatory to evoking the mutation, indicates a strength of purpose unequalled in the annals of history. It is no little thing that one does ... and it has enormous consequences, not only for one’s own well-being, but for humankind as a whole. With freedom from the Human Condition spreading like a chain-letter, in the due course of time, global freedom would revolutionise the concept of ‘humanity’. RESPONDENT: Much of the ills of mankind is from propagated falsehoods of which I have been a recipient. RICHARD: Why would there be ‘propagated false beliefs’ in the first place? That is, why would this conditioning come about? RESPONDENT: So yes I think that a simple observation about the nature of seeing the false is applicable to resolving the ills of humankind. RICHARD: What is ‘the false’? Is it ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety ... or just ‘my’ hurts, ‘my’ ego, ‘my’ self-importance and so on? RESPONDENT: This of course requires the commitment to see it. RICHARD: Aye ... this commitment is of no use if it is confused with a resolve or a vow (a resolve or a vow can be broken). Commitment comes through curiosity. Only when one becomes curious about the workings of oneself – what makes one tick – is that person on the way to becoming committed to their search for freedom for the first time in their life. Then curiosity becomes fascination ... and then the fun begins. One is drawn inexorably further and further towards one’s destiny ... fascination leads to what others around one would classify as ‘obsession’. A 100% commitment to evoking peace-on-earth is thus actively discouraged by one’s peers. Eventually one realises that one is on one’s own in this, the adventure of a life-time ... then one takes the penultimate step ... one abandons ‘humanity’. RESPONDENT: I feel some interest in seeking escape. There is a subtle fear of letting go. RICHARD: There is always a thrilling aspect to fear – though the terrifying part usually grabs most attention – thus if one can focus on the thrill then the energy previously fuelling terror is channelled into the thrill of meeting one’s destiny. It is all a matter of attention – total attention – plus a steadfast pure intent. RESPONDENT: Setting up the demise of the ‘me’ as a state to arrive at seems like a gaining idea that often promotes conflict ... what ‘should be’ versus ‘what is’. RICHARD: Yes ... except that the only alternative is to continue to live with the malice and sorrow engendered by ‘me’. Then one attempts to deal with it by psychological means ... an ultimately futile endeavour. When one has a PCE – and remembers it clearly – one only wants to live that continuously. One could not care less about ‘what is’ versus ‘what should be’ ... all of one’s attention is on ‘what can be’ ... and ‘what will be’ with psychological and psychic self-immolation. Which means: I will do whatever (whilst observing the legal laws and social protocol) to become free of whatever it is that is preventing the living of that pure perfection. * RESPONDENT: Earnest inquiry is to inquire into one’s own bias. As they say in Scotland, the rest is just Crrraap! RICHARD: Do you ever countenance an end to ‘earnest enquiry’ ... or do you intend to procrastinate for ever and a day? RESPONDENT: LOL – what is it that seeks an ending? RICHARD: The ‘earnest enquiry’ does ... else why so busy earnestly enquiring in the first place? RESPONDENT: Just for the love of truth, not to get something for me. RICHARD: Do you ever countenance an end to an earnest enquiry ‘for the love of truth’ ... or do you intend to earnestly enquire for ever and a day? RESPONDENT: Look into a matter directly and there is no tomorrow. RICHARD: There is no tomorrow anyway, whether you ‘look into a matter directly’ or not, as the past is not actual, the future is not actual ... only this moment is actual. Do you ever countenance an end to earnestly enquiring just for the love of truth and busily looking into matters directly so that there will be no tomorrow (when there already is no tomorrow anyway) ... or do you intend to be earnest and enquiring and loving the truth and looking into matters for ever and a day? RESPONDENT: Attention that ‘sees’ is free of concern about coming or going, staying or arriving. RICHARD: Then why is the ‘attention that ‘sees’’ so busy earnestly enquiring instead of getting on with the business of seeing attentively? Do you ever countenance an end to ‘earnest enquiry’ ... or do you intend to procrastinate for ever and a day? •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• P.S.: By my estimate you have about 96 more stock-standard responses to work through before you scrape the bottom of the barrel ... shall we take the next 95 as read and thus cut to the chase sooner? It is the intent that matters ... not this or that looking, seeing, attending and etcetera. JONATHAN: Intent is your own drive and purity is the state of the universe. The two can form an actual connection, which is palpable. thus the energy of infinitude referred to is a physical energy ... specifically the calorific energy of an apperceptive consciousness. • [Richard]: thus the energy of infinitude referred to is a physical energy ... specifically the calorific energy of an apperceptive consciousness. (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Pure Intent). After actual freedom, one’s intent is unchangeable. When a newly free person is distracted by social identity concerns, he is effortlessly brought back to the purity of the universe. • [Richard]: ‘...there needs to be a tidying-up of social mores and habitual patterns ‘after the event’ anyway ... an actual freedom does not miraculously remove every little detail. It does make the fine-tuning a breeze, though.’ (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 12b, 16.2.1999). (in: http://actualfreedom.com.au/directroute/rick.htm) That is because his intent has never wavered. Because there is no agent that can interfere with the physical energy of apperception, it can’t waver. The sweetness has washed away any other agenda leaving only the body and pure intent. Those concerns are just minor considerations which might give pause but aren’t felt as problems. That’s what I think happens, anyway. But when a virtually free person is distracted by an obstacle, he may feel malice or fear and still has a choice to forget the whole thing. • [Richard]: I kid you not ... even a virtual freedom does not provide an absolute immunity from recidivation. (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Pure Intent) Intent is different from desire. This may have been a big misunderstanding for myself. In my online dictionary, the two aren’t even synonyms. Intent is a conscious choice to get a thing done. It produces it’s own energy. This energy is the same energy as what makes rocks, stars and humans. Contrast that energy to a sorrowful yearning energy or the malicious prideful energy of desire: One is affective and the other is actual, calorific energy. Another thing that messed me is that I didn’t notice pure intent in my PCE’s. I expected to see it or something. But without intent, there is only purity/perfection. But that’s just half the equation. It’s only after you get out of the PCE (or perhaps during if one’s mind is up for it) that the intent is formed. That intent to experience that perfection over and over again makes the connection. One can’t just think, ‘Wow, that was awesome! gee, i sure wish i could experience that all the time’ • [Richard Peter]: Pure intent is the unequivocal intention to devote one’s life to being the best one can be – to completely and actually eradicate malice and sorrow from one’s life. (Actualism, Peter, A Précis of the Method of Actualism) • [Richard]: I will do whatever (whilst observing the legal laws and social protocol) to become free of whatever it is that is preventing the living of that pure perfection. (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Pure Intent) A technical question might be: Since the intent part of pure intent requires volition, without human beings is there pure intent? I don’t know what richard would say, but I don’t think there is a universe without humans. Not saying that humans created the universe. I’m saying 1) humans exist in the universe right now and now is the only time there actually is and 2) the nature of infinity makes it impossible to ever have a universe without human beings. And finally, here is a quote that tells you what pure intent feels like. • [Richard]: there is the impelling movement of actualising perfection – being pulled from ahead – which is what comes from the pure intent that ensues with being activated by the consummate purity as evidenced in the PCE. (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Pure Intent) And that is accompanied by sweetness and an altruistic impulse. • [Peter]: Wondering about the nature of his experiencing, I suddenly became aware of a quite extraordinary sweetness – a sweetness that was palpable rather than feeling based. I heard the words ‘This is not only for me, this is for everybody’ as I was literally being bathed in this sweetness. (Peter, In the End) And both Peter and Vineeto write that an intent to experience actual intimacy with another human being is needed to take the final plunge. • [Vineeto]: What it needs is the unwavering and undiminished intent (100%) to bridge the separation that stands in the way of an actual intimacy with another human being – any human being and secondly the awareness and intent that what one is doing is not for oneself but for everybody in order for the self-less purity to unfold its magic. (Vineeto, The Fat Lady Has finally Sung). RICHARD: G’day Jon, Just a quick note to say that, whilst the bulk of this email of yours essentially hits the mark, it is the very first sentence above which addles an otherwise excellent post ... namely, the word ‘drive’ (as in an instinctive, and therefore affective, urge or propulsion). Interestingly enough, further on you provide a quote from my 1999 writings about the ‘impelling’ aspect of pure intent (being drawn ineluctably to one’s destiny) – as contrasted to the ‘propelling’ nature of affective urges/ drives (being driven deeper into one’s fate) – yet leave off the sentence immediately following which explicates that very distinction. Viz.: • [Richard]: (...) there is the impelling movement of actualising perfection – being pulled from ahead – which is what comes from the pure intent that ensues with being activated by the consummate purity as evidenced in the PCE. This is qualitatively different from a propelling movement – being pushed from behind – which is what comes from the disciplined action that eventuates with being motivated by certitude (derived second-hand via trusting, believing, hoping and having faith). This impelling momentum – being drawn ineluctably to one’s destiny – is the thrilling part of it. (Richard, List B, James, 16 November 1999). (Incidentally, that latter reference to it being thrilling – i.e., ‘the thrilling part of it’ wording just above – is a referral back to the ‘an oft-times alarming but always thrilling momentum’ section in the first paragraph of the original November 16th, 1999, email exchange on Mailing List ‘B’ from whence the ‘Selected Correspondence’ part-quote was drawn). Thus if you were to rephrase your [quote] ‘Intent is your own drive ...’ [endquote] wording accordingly your entire email will hang together admirably. * Also, here is a hint for future reading: the word pure, in the phrase pure intent, indicates to a puzzling-it-out-reader that whatever it is which the word intent refers to one thing is for sure: it cannot be affective (else it be not pure). And that is where affers ‘gang agley’ big-time. Subject: Re Yet Another Summary of the Actualism Method RICHARD: (This is a brief note, to the ‘Yahoo Groups’ forum at large, on a matter of general interest). Even though at first glance a cyberspace equivalent of the cubiform Planet Htrae, fittingly located in a comic-book ‘Bizarro World’ cosmos, seemed to be the most likely locale wherein repeated instances of the electronic purveyance of pirated versions of proprietary merchandise would constitute “good deeds” on the part of the purveyor – such as to supposedly then have apperceptive awareness flourish as per the papal-like blessing[†] – it became even more likely with such illicit acts later revealed to be warranting “an expression of gratitude”, from the receiver of stolen goods, couched in the deliberate guise of another word which this recipient assumed to be representing the “politically correct AF phraseology” of such thankfulness due, no doubt, to a lack of experiential familiarity with how appreciation in the actual world has the function of qualitative appraisal, and not that of feeling thankful, and is therefore expressed as such. O what a tangled web ... (&c.). (Richard, List D, No. 49, 15 February 2016) ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• [†]the papal-like blessing: Viz.: • [Respondent]: “May your wordless appreciation, delight and wonder, (of life), flourish as a direct consequence of your good deeds!” ~ (Messages No. 22031 & 220xx). RICHARD: As the above affectation was later revealed to be “humour per favour AF phraseology”, as in being an attempt to expose an earlier joke for what it was, “namely a dig” ... RESPONDENT: Aye, digging (as in uncovering), or exposing to scrutiny, for the purpose of exploring, ‘yet another’ failed elucidation, summary/ explanation of the actualist’s methodology. RICHARD: The sense in which [quote] “a dig” [endquote] is to be understood by the readers of Message № 220xx – and specifically made public knowledge thereat for the explicit reason of it being in “the best public interest” lest anybody “get the wrong impression” from Message № 22031 – is expressly conveyed therein as being non-literal by virtue of it being qualified immediately prior as “the joke” and spelled out as being “[Respondent’s] humour per favour AF phraseology” (twice-over) as well as being a “tongue in cheek” (viz.: “as a joke; ironically” ~ Webster’s College Dictionary) reference to “an expression of gratitude” (i.e., to an expression of felt thankfulness masquerading as an enunciation of qualitative appraisal per favour its transparently deliberate “actualist phraseology” contextual placement). Besides which, the word itself is the well-known figurative form of the common phrase ‘a dig in the ribs’, a.k.a. ‘a poke in the ribs’, and thus synonymous with ‘gibe’ or ‘jibe’ and suchlike words. As for the purposeful intent of this instance of “[Respondent’s] humour” (namely, the reason provided above for “the joke” being “a dig” at a response suggesting a possible alternative to an ascription of the word “lovely” to a video, purloined from the DVD entitled ‘A Pure Consciousness Experience’, which distinctively features a recorded abeyance of blind nature’s instinctual passions/ the feeling-being formed thereof) – and which pre-determined objective is explicitly premised on assuming the responder “considers ‘expressed gratitude’ is technically not politically correct AF phraseology” (a smearing of actualism which is evidentially quite blind to the experientially verifiable inability to ever feel grateful in actuality) – its very wording presupposes that the particular subject it purports to be “exploring” (designated as being “‘yet another’ failed elucidation, summary/ explanation of the actualist’s methodology” above) is a valid topic to thusly investigate without even one scintilla of evidence in support of an emboldened “I think” ruling being advanced to base such a presupposition on. For the sake of clarity in communication here is the ...um... the methinks-it-is-therefore-it-is basis upon which “[Respondent’s] humour” was unleashed (namely, the “dig” which was electronically launched for “the purpose of exploring, ‘yet another’ failed elucidation, summary/ explanation of the actualist’s methodology” no less) in all its tawdry glory. Viz.: • [Respondent]: I think Pamela’s laughing reactions, (to ‘her’ insights), *were* affectively inspired ...so I am happy to call a spade a spade, Alan. [emboldening in original]. (Message № 220xx). Incidentally, given the “best arbiter” quality inhering in that “I think” utterance – per favour its “requiring no third party or authority” supremacy over facts and actuality – it is Mr. Auguste Rodin’s famous “Le Penseur” (‘The Thinker’), in “The Gates of Hell” sculpture at the Musée Rodin in Paris, France, which immediately springs to mind, of course, in conjunction with the ground of ten-thousand worlds quaking as each methinks-it-is-therefore-it-is proclamation wings its way through the cybersphere upon the click of a ‘send’ button. What is of particular bizarrerie, however, is how petty this incident is ... here are the first two sentences, of the footnoted email exchange made public in Message № 220xx, reconstituted to read as sent by the responder, and with certain words highlighted to emphasise this triviality: • [Alan]: “When I switched on my phone this morning there was a message from you saying the Pamela video was lovely. *Indeed it is*, although I would *perhaps* have said wonderful rather than lovely, as lovely *implies* of an affectionate nature – *perhaps* your admitted lack of practice with use of actualist phraseology?” [emphases added]. First, there is a fundamental concurrence (“Indeed it is” = ‘it certainly is’) that a video distinctively featuring a recorded abeyance of blind nature’s instinctual passions/ the feeling-being formed thereof is a “lovely” video. (As the word ‘lovely’ is a polysemous word it can also convey what words such as ‘enjoyable’ or ‘delightful’ refer to). Next, the likelihood of having otherwise depicted it (“perhaps” = ‘maybe’) is canvassed due to the word “lovely” being suggestive of (“implies” = ‘indirectly indicates’) the affectional qualities of the more tender aspects those abeyant instinctual passions. Lastly, even that ridiculous meme – a poster, self-reporting on The Actual Freedom Trust mailing list on the 25th of Nov, 2000, as having been “reading of AF for about one year” (i.e., 1999) cannot possibly have this so-called ‘admitted lack of practice with use of actualist phraseology’ after 16+ years exposure to the millions of actualism/ actual freedom words freely available on the website – is proffered on the chance (“perhaps” = ‘peradventure’) that it be a lack of familiarity with words and terms, which more accurately depict the abeyant nature of blind nature’s instinctual passions/ the feeling-being formed thereof during a PCE, that gave rise to that ascription. How such a response as that, with its fundamental concurrence upfront, can afterwards be depicted as having warranted a [quote] “digging (as in uncovering), or exposing to scrutiny, for the purpose of exploring, ‘yet another’ failed elucidation, summary/ explanation of the actualist’s methodology” [endquote] not only defies rational comprehension but is also suggestive of some incapacity in respect to rationality on the part of the depicter thereof. * RICHARD: ... [was later revealed to be “humour per favour AF phraseology”, as in being an attempt to expose an earlier joke for what it was, “namely a dig”...] at a response vis-à-vis the non-affective quality of laughter during a PCE (which response the above blesser assumed to instead be representing a “literal interpretation of AF phraseology over sensibly acceptable social conduct”) ... RESPONDENT: No, ‘the above blesser’ never attempted, (or assumed) to represent a literal interpretation of AF phraseology, over sensible acceptable social conduct’. RICHARD: As it is clearly specified (and twice-over at that) as being *the response* which “the above blesser” made that assumption about – namely, the assumption that *the response* relating to the word “lovely” represents a “literal interpretation of AF phraseology over sensibly acceptable social conduct” (in the mind of the assumer) – then the above sentence has no rational basis for its existence. RESPONDENT: The ‘tongue in cheek blesser’, attempted to expose Alan’s flawed MO, (of now admitted pretence), in favour of sensible communication. RICHARD: Yet when that “tongue in cheek blesser” wrote [quote] “Ha, can I say that I ‘appreciate’ you (sending it to me)...” [endquote] – directly after automorphically assuming the “laughing reactions” in a video distinctively featuring a recorded abeyance of blind nature’s instinctual passions/ the feeling-being formed thereof were “affectively inspired” (a methinks-it-is-therefore-it-is thought of such emboldened persuasiveness as to render the wannabee exposer “happy to call a spade a spade” in that respect) – as being the substance of that attempt to expose what was thereby further assumed to be a “flawed MO” (a rather turgid term, by the way, for simply preferring words which do not imply affectivity) it was insensible communication which ensued thereafter such as to be defying rational comprehension to the point of paralleling a topsy-turvy comic-book cosmos (where bad deeds, for instance, are “good deeds” of such a quality as to be worthy of the bestowal of grace from ahigh). * An inline reviewing of the full email exchange, made public in Message № 220xx, will enable clarity in communication for what follows on further below. Viz.: • [Alan]: When I switched on my phone this morning there was a message from you saying the Pamela video was lovely. Indeed it is, although I would perhaps have said wonderful rather than lovely, ... • [Respondent]: Oh, I mean her laughing reactions to Richard’s words, were lovely. • [Alan]: ... as lovely implies of an affectionate nature – perhaps your admitted lack of practice with use of actualist phraseology? • [Respondent]: I think Pamela’s laughing reactions, (to ‘her’ insights), *were* affectively inspired ...so I am happy to call a spade a spade, Alan. • [Alan]: I presume you sent it using Skype but the last Communication shown in Skype is my last text to you. I have tried to send you Vineeto’s one a few times without success – I will persevere a bit longer. It is worth the effort! • [Respondent]: Oh, um, maybe it was e-mailed... I will listen to Vineeto’s one ASAP. Ha, can I say that I ‘appreciate’ you (sending it to me) ... given my ‘admitted lack of practice with use of actualist phraseology’ ... anyway thanks again, Alan. May your wordless appreciation, delight and wonder, (of life), flourish as a direct consequence of your good deeds! It is the second-last sentence (beginning with the “Ha, can I say...” phrasing) which is the wannabee exposer’s “tongue in cheek” attempt – elsewhere referred to as “[Respondent’s] humour per favour AF phraseology” (namely, “the joke” as in “a dig” at a response suggesting a possible alternative to an ascription of the word “lovely” to a video distinctively featuring a recorded abeyance of blind nature’s instinctual passions/ the feeling-being formed thereof) – and it is the last sentence (beginning with “May your wordless...” phrasing) which is purportedly the carrier of “an obscure reference to Richard’s recently quoted [sic] wordless appreciation words”) even though Richard’s words reporting/ describing/ explaining the ‘wordless appreciation’ which is intrinsic to apperceptive awareness have not been quoted since the 4th of May, 2010, in Message № 94xx (duplicated in Message № 94xx). RICHARD: ... [as in being an attempt to expose an earlier joke for what it was, “namely a dig” at a response vis-à-vis the non-affective quality of laughter during a PCE (which response the above blesser assumed to instead be representing a “literal interpretation of AF phraseology over sensibly acceptable social conduct”)...] – by it somehow being the carrier of “an obscure reference to Richard’s recently quoted [sic] wordless appreciation words” – it is pertinent to point out that my usage of the term ‘wordless appreciation’, in depicting the appreciational perceptivity of quality and value which is intrinsic to apperceptive awareness, has nowt to do with the eschewing of sensibly acceptable social conduct, in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are. RESPONDENT: Ah, Richard’s, uncertain ...snip... ‘somehow being a carrier of...’ reference (above), to my, ‘... obscure reference to Richard’s recently quoted [sic] wordless appreciation words”, goes some way to explain his, ‘tangled web’ reference, (above). RICHARD: This has to be clutching at straws because here is that “tangled web” reference in full (inclusive of the ‘&c.’ portion): • Oh! what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive! ~ from ‘Marmion’, Canto VI. Stanza 17, by Sir Walter Scott, 1808. And as that reference (to this early 19th century expression) is contextually situated as a follow-up to the immediately preceding paragraph – thus specifically referring to two claimants of ‘pure intent’ nevertheless engaging in purveying and receiving stolen goods (not to mention blindly making such illicit transactions public knowledge) – it has nowt to do with the word ‘somehow’ and everything to do with the (‘self’-) deceit practiced by those two claimants. Purely for the sake of a tangible illustration, then, what follows is an example of pure intent in operation in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are. Viz.: • [Richard]: “Over the years the directors of The Actual Freedom Trust have expended tens of thousands of scarce dollars of their own moneys (plus tens of thousands of unpaid hours) to create, maintain, and provide the millions of words available for free on the internet as a philanthropic contribution to the advancement of human knowledge, experience and thus civilisation itself”. (Richard, List D, To the List at Large). And here is an extract from the top of the ‘Journals and DVDs’ order-form web page: ♦ All of the items for sale on this page are supplementary to the 4+ million freely available words on The Actual Freedom Trust web site. They are optional extras ... luxury items, as it were, and the income generated goes towards defraying the costs associated with maintaining both The Actual Freedom Trust and its publishing operations. (The Actual Freedom Trust Order-Form, now redundant). ’Tis inherent to the very nature of pure intent – and all societal values and principles are but pathetic substitutes for its pristine purity and peerless perfection – that it would never even occur to a feeling-being, of a naïve sensitivity sufficient for its benefaction to have rendered such cultural morals and ethics redundant, to illicitly obtain (let alone purvey) pirated versions of that supplementary merchandise, those unessential items, which only exist in the first place so as to be of assistance in keeping everything currently available to all and sundry for free on the web site freely accessible unto an indeterminable future. * Look, it is this simple: the words [quote] “...it somehow being the carrier of...” [endquote] in that sentence relate to the impossibility of those designated words of Richard’s – those words depicting the appreciational perceptivity of quality and value intrinsic to apperceptive awareness as being a wordless appreciation – ever being referenced by that papal-like blessing, no matter how “obscure” that reference might be, due to the fact those words were not “recently quoted” (hence the square-bracketed “[sic]” insertion the first time around) but, rather, were last quoted a few months shy of six years ago (in Message № 94xx on the 4th of May, 2010, and duplicated in Message № 94xx on the same date). Moreover, that papal-like blessing – by specifically referring to “wordless appreciation, delight and wonder” as it did – is clearly not a reference (no matter how “obscure” it might be) to those ‘wordless appreciation’ words of Richard’s as he has never written of either “delight” or “wonder” as being “wordless” anywhere or anywhen at all (let alone “recently quoted” as such). In fact, the only incidence of “wordless wonder” words in the entire ‘Yahoo Groups’ archives is as follows: • [Respondent]: “(...) freeeeeee to playfully enjoy either intellectual games or the wide-eyed, wordless wonder of anything and everything”. (Message № 219xx). Could it be, perchance, that the “obscure reference” to words about wordlessness as such stems from automorphism (i.e., originating in the referrer and projected onto Richard)? For example: • [Respondent]: “(...) when I was less habitually busy intellectualising and more wordlessly, cognitively relaxed”. (Message № 219xx). Another instance: • [Respondent No. 7]: “I’d be interested to read more about how you experience ‘pure intent’ today?” • [Respondent]: “Ha, wordlessly, effortlessly, automatically, and expertly, in the world as it is, with people as they are”. (Message № 219xx). Incidentally, that last response (relating to how ‘pure intent’ is experienced in the actual world) is a classic ‘fail’ if there ever was. Viz.: • [Public Announcement]: “There really is no substitute for taking notice of what is freely available on The Actual Freedom Trust website. And, speaking of which, the directors of The Actual Freedom Trust hereby recommend, publicly, that Tarin taps into that palpable life-force, that actually occurring stream of benevolence and benignity, which originates in the vast and utter stillness that is the essential character of the universe itself, because to be actually free from the human condition is *to be that pure intent* ... as in, *to be that benevolence and benignity* as a flesh-and-blood body only. Put succinctly: there is no other way, than *to be that*, because there is no other actual freedom from the human condition (*than being that*)”. [emphases added]. (The Latest Announcement from the Directors of The Actual Freedom Trust). What follows is a clue as to why any and all persons illuding themselves they be actually free from the human condition eventually score a ‘fail’ upon closer examination. Viz.: • [Richard]: “(...) it would not be possible, surely, to consistently fake a total absence of ego-centricity/ self-centricity/ auto-centricity (i.e.: no ego/ no self; no soul/ no spirit; no guardian/ no social identity) – let alone a total absence of affective feelings (no emotions/ passions/ affections at all), a total absence of pathetic temperament (no moods/ humors/ sentiments whatsoever), a total absence of hedonic-tone (no hedonistic pleasure or displeasure) and a total absence of flattened affect even – and yet also present complete contentment/ absolute fulfilment/ total satisfaction along with an utterly intimate disposition showing a generally cheerful character readily displaying a keen sense of humour, about life itself, twenty-four hours a day, day in and day out, for the remainder of one’s life. (No need to mention being purity personified, of course, as all of the aforementioned are already of sufficient impossibility for a feeling-being to fake)”. (Richard, List D, No. 15, 1 June 2013). Ain’t life grand! RESPONDENT: Here, ‘the tongue in cheek blesser’ differentiates Alan’s (now) confessed usage, ‘of Richard’s words to describe what (he) was experiencing – and vice-versa to pretend to experience what Richard describe of Richards words’, from the more sensible everyday usage of words’, to simply communicate. RICHARD: Give that the opening word “Here...” refers to “an expression of gratitude” (i.e., to an expression of felt thankfulness masquerading as an enunciation of qualitative appraisal per favour its transparently deliberate “actualist phraseology” contextual placement) then “the tongue in cheek blesser” does not differentiate any such thing and, instead, displays a lack of experiential familiarity with how appreciation in the actual world has the function of qualitative appraisal, and not that of feeling thankful, and is therefore expressed as such. RESPONDENT: As this clearly demonstrates cult-like behaviour, I seem to have achieved the objectives of the AF Trust, no? RICHARD: The role of The Actual Freedom Trust is, of course, unambiguously spelled-out and freely available for perusal on The Actual Freedom Trust website via left-clicking the link at the very bottom of the Home Page (videlicet: ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-2016). Viz.: • The legal entity, known officially as ‘The Actual Freedom Trust’, has one role and one role only: ‘To promulgate and promote the words and writings explicating the workings of an actual freedom from the human condition and a virtual freedom in practice’. (Sundry, The Actual Freedom Trust). As yet another ‘cult-buster’ has taken it upon themselves to police a forum set-up to discuss what is on offer on The Actual Freedom Trust web site – as if flagellating that expired equine all over again is periodically required to keep aspirants in line – it is surely pertinent to point out the impossibility of the third alternative to either spiritualism or materialism ever becoming a cult due to an actual freedom from the human condition being located in ‘Terra Actualis’ (i.e., outside of the human condition). In other words, it is only those ‘solutions’ to the human condition whose aims or goals lie within the human condition that can ever be either a cult or attract cult-like behaviour. * If nothing else the above rôle-disclosure at least solves the mystery as to what the motivation is for chiding other posters about utilising Richard’s words/ Richard’s phrases (even whilst liberally sprinkling same all throughout their own posts, of course, as such policing is of the ‘do as I say not what I do’ variety) and other similar botherer-type behaviours. Howsoever, it does little to illuminate the motivation for urging others to make the same mistake as them ... to wit: elevating the rotten-to-the-core identity into the position of being the [quote] “highest authority” [endquote]. Here is a recent instance (30 Jan 2016) of such elevation: • [Respondent]: [It should be remembered too, that the AF lingo, or narrative [sic], (however well crafted), serves only to point one in the right direction, until one becomes ‘free’ (out from control) and lives expertly well. It can do no more. It is not a prescriptive ideology or philosophy. Wrongly interpreted as such, it will inevitably confuse and frustrate. If over-laboured, or intellectualised, too, it will quickly degenerate into a purely feel good or escapist academic pursuit]. Definitions and comparisons can then unwittingly tie one in egotistical knots because one actually becomes *ones own highest authority*. • [Respondent No. 00]: This seems to be saying that getting tied into egotistical knots results from becoming “ones own highest authority” is that what you intended to say? • [Respondent]: No, [No. 00]. When one recognises the fact that *all normal people are their own highest authority* then there is nothing to egotistically defend. The “getting tied into egotistical knots” (danger), can result from not seeing that *one is actually the highest authority*, (by virtue of the fact that one has freedom of sensible choice and action). By all means listen to ‘experts’, (especially when they make sense), but definitions and comparisons when used as truths in formulae can degenerate into dogmatic weapons, in some imagined ideological or non-existent psychic battle. [emphases added]. (Message № 218xx). Plus an instance from over 15 years ago (27 Oct 2000) and originally from the ‘ListBot’ archives: From: [Respondent No. 49] To: Actual Freedom <actualfreedom@...> Date: Fri 27/10/2000 9:55 PM Subject: Mindfulness not spiritual [...]. I am *my own highest authority* until I am actually free not enlightened. [...]. [emphasis added]. (Message № 21923, last Footnote)..(Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 3 February 2016). By way of contrast, here are two reports/ descriptions/ explanations pertaining to how that “highest authority” is rotten-to-the-core. Viz.: 22 Aug 1999: • [Richard]: “(...) by ‘my’ very nature ‘I’ am defiled; by ‘my’ very nature ‘I’ am corrupt through and through; by ‘my’ very nature ‘I’ am perversity itself. No matter how sincerely and earnestly one tries to purify oneself, one can never succeed completely. The last little bit always eludes perfecting. By ‘my’ very nature ‘I’ am rotten at the innermost core”. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 7, 22 August 1999). 13 Oct 2002: • [Richard]: “In regards to your ‘rotten to the core’ observation: it is the identity (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) residing parasitically in all human beings who is rotten to the core; and it is this entity who stuffs up any lifestyle practice and/or political system – be it hunter-gather, agrarian, industrial or socialist, communist, capitalist and so on – no matter what ideals are propagated. Arguing one culture’s ideals over another culture’s ideals is a distraction away from the real culprit”. (Richard, List B, James2, 13 October 2002). Lastly, here is a timely reminder, once again, which speaks to the pure consciousness experience (PCE) as being the ‘highest authority’ (to use that phraseology): • [Richard]: “(...) it is the PCE that is one’s lodestone or guiding light [a.k.a. ‘highest authority’] ... not me or my words. My words then offer confirmation ... and affirmation in that a fellow human being has safely walked this wide and wondrous path”. [square-bracketed insert added]. (Richard, Abditorium, Prima Facie Case). And that square-bracketed insert will be added to the original on The Actual Freedom Trust web site so there never be any need for anyone to entertain even the slightest doubt about it ever again. Subject: Re Yet Another Summary of the Actualism Method ANDREW: Maybe, when [No. 49] mentioned that he coined the term “Pure Intent” ... RICHARD: A timely interjection here – to point out how neither the term designating the ‘golden clew’ connection (betwixt naïveté and the purity and perfection of the PCE), in actualism lingo, nor his mother’s term for sorting out all that was “important and sensible” in life, when he was growing up, was “coined” by [No. 49] – will go a long way towards obviating a proliferation of conjectural, speculative and hypothesised ideations and intellections drawn from and pivoting around an invalid premiss. Viz.: • [Respondent No. 49; 14 Aug 2014]: “(...). I also introduced the term ‘pure intent’ with Richard when he was deluded/ enlightened. It was actually *told to me by my mother* as I was growing up and sorting out all that was *important and sensible*”. [emphases added]. ~ (Message № 175xx). Even more to the point, as he specifically designates it, earlier in that post, as being “back in 1990” – when he writes of introducing his mother’s term, for the above sorting out of all that is “important and sensible” in life, to the enlightened/ deluded (as in, a solipsistically vainglorious feeling-being) ‘Richard’ – then the significance of that aforementioned ‘golden clew’ connection having already been feeling-being ‘Richard’s guiding light/ authority/ teacher/ lodestone/ benchmark over the nine years beforehand (since January 1981) has evidently escaped your notice. Moreover, the term ‘pure intent’ itself has been around for a long, long while. For an obvious ecclesiastical example, translated by Rev. James Barmby in 1898, Pope Gregorius I (circa 540-604), commonly known as ‘Saint Gregory the Great’, wrote a letter to ‘Paschasius, Bishop of Neapolis’ (a.k.a. Naples), beginning with the words: “Those who with pure intent desire to bring to the true faith aliens from the Christian religion should study kindness, and not asperity ...”. Also, my second wife, Devika, who first came into my life four years earlier in 1986 – and who was raised by a devout Catholic mother and thus attended a Catholic Boarding School as a young child (and represented by her as being presided over by an archetypically severe Mother Superior) – was conversant with the term ‘pure intent’ and utilised it, for example, quite liberally when regaling me with detailed descriptions of her preparations for the prescribed ‘state of grace’ she was inspired to attain to so as to be worthy of receiving the Catholic Confirmation (which exalted state entailed something like 10 days, if my memory serves me correctly, of pious mental-emotional preparation as well as both ‘outer’ and ‘inner’ physical cleanliness so as to feel sufficiently pure in respect to both body and soul). Plus a quick internet search for <pure intent> returned around 100,000 hits. There is even a ‘Piano Piece’ entitled “Pure Intent” available for online listening (for those whose mood is changeable by differing arrangements of musical notes and variations in pitch and tone). (youtube.com/watch?v=LOVgJV04IQQ) ANDREW: [Maybe ...] it has been forgotten by Richard what influence [No. 49] had on him at that stage of life. RICHARD: Generally speaking, all of the influencing taking place, when an earnest spiritual seeker or even a facsimile thereof is in the presence of a fully-enlightened being – i.e., the almighty ‘presence’ of a massively-deluded/ megalomaniacal feeling-being (for whom human love and compassion has transmogrified itself into Love Agapé and Divine Compassion, presenting as a transcendental unborn-undying state of ‘being’, and manifesting as an embodiment of the atemporal-aspatial-aphenomenal Ground of Being itself) – is of the one-way variety as is epitomised, for instance, by the well-known mystical expression ‘transmission outside of the scriptures’. In regards to your hypothesised “influence” which the egoic feeling-being [No. 49] might or might not have had upon the egoless feeling-being ‘Richard’, at “that stage of life” (circa 1990), and expressly speculated as being a forgettable “influence” at that – specifically some conjectural “influence” which his mother’s precept may or may not have had when it was introduced to that latest and greatest Saviour of Humankind back then – the most likely effect of being apprised of that homily would have been of the type any similar ‘chalk and cheese’ misinterpretation of ‘His’ numinous wisdom would have evoked ... namely: zilch, zero, naught, nil, &c. * Please note that, as I have no recall of [No. 49] ever mentioning either his mother’s precept or her term for it, the above is presented purely in arguendo. ANDREW: It’s an outside runner of a possibility, but until it is addressed, then it is just “hanging there” waiting for a response. RICHARD: It has apparently also escaped your notice that whatever it is that [No. 49] is conveying, via his usage of the ‘pure intent’ term in his posts (bearing in mind the precept his mother impressed upon him, while growing up, and which he may very well be otherwise conveying with his ‘living expertly well’ phrase), it is not what is conveyed by that term on The Actual Freedom Trust web site (viz.: a palpable life-force; an actually occurring stream of benevolence and benignity which originates in the vast and utter stillness that is the essential character of the universe itself). Here is a recent instance of his ‘living expertly well’ theme: • [Respondent No. 49]: “It should be remembered too, that the AF lingo, or narrative, (however well crafted), serves only to point one in the right direction, until one becomes ‘free’ (out from control) *and lives expertly well*. It can do no more. It is not a prescriptive ideology or...”. [emphasis added]. ~ (Message № 218xx). There is a wealth of information packed into that sentence. First, even though being dismissive of [quote] “the AF lingo” [endquote] – via alternatively referring to it as being but “narrative” (along with a parenthetical allusion to ‘style over substance’) – he nevertheless sneaks a version of such lingo into the latter part of his sentence, parenthetically, as a follow-up signifier of what the enclosed-in-scare-quotes word ‘free’ connotes (and which connotation is a referent for that ‘living expertly well’ theme of his). As an aside: it is really counter-productive to dismiss “AF lingo” as being “narrative” – rather than the specialised terms they actually are which specifically refer to the experientially-verifiable factuality/ actuality thusly signified – insofar it then follows that ‘[No. 49]-idiolect’ is therefore equally dismissible as being ‘narrative’ which, in his case, implies that none of it refers to anything in particular due to him “not coming from anywhere particular” and simply responding to “ideas as expressed”. Secondly, because the out-from-control/ different-way-of-being term, in actualism lingo, specifically refers to the actualism process superseding the actualism method – meaning the controlling doer is abeyant (hence: ‘out-from-control’) and a naïve beer is ascendant (hence: ‘different-way-of-being’) – whereby the benignity and benevolence of pure intent increasingly renders the otherwise essential societal moeurs (a.k.a. ‘mores’) redundant, whilst simultaneously precluding anomie, then [No. 49]’s parenthetical signifier sneakily creates the impression that his ‘living expertly well’ theme is synonymous with actualism’s pure intent being operant. Thirdly, as he obviously considered it important that his co-respondent, and thereby all of this forum’s subscribers, should know how it was [No. 49] who [quote] “...introduced the term ‘pure intent’ with Richard when he was deluded/ enlightened” [endquote] – a not-at-all-subtle insinuendo of a sanity-saviour in action – it is thus vital, in comprehending what that term means to him, to take due note of his explanatory [quote] “It was actually told to me by my mother as I was growing up and sorting out all that was important and sensible” [endquote] follow-up because his mother’s usage of the term ‘pure intent’ self-evidently relates to “sorting out all that was important and sensible” and, as such, quite obviously has nowt to do with the pure intent which was feeling-being ‘Richard’s guiding light/ authority/ teacher/ lodestone/ benchmark (just as it had been all along since January 1981). If nothing else, the obvious parallel which “important and sensible” has with the prosaic ‘silly and sensible’ bespeaks of the level at which his mother’s precept operates. Thus his enclosed-in-scare-quotes referent of that particular rendition of his ‘living expertly well’ theme in his further above sentence – as per his [quote] “until one becomes ‘free’ (out from control) and lives expertly well” [endquote] phrasing – is itself reflective of whatever it is his mother’s term has come to mean to him (as in ‘living expertly well’ perhaps) over the ensuing 55+ years since she first impressed it upon him. A one-word variation on this ‘living expertly well’ theme was also a feature of another quoted extract in that recent Message № 22176 (Richard, List D, No. 49, 18 February 2016) of mine as well: • [Respondent No. 7]: “I’d be interested to read more about how you experience ‘pure intent’ today?” • [Respondent No. 49]: “Ha, wordlessly, effortlessly, automatically, and *expertly*, in the world as it is, with people as they are”. [emphasis added]. ~ (Message № 219xx). Quite frankly, the status of your hypothesised “influence” (which you conjecturally had [No. 49]’s personage as somehow capable of impressively extending, circa 1990, despite being an influence of a kind speculatively held as being forgettable by Richard and yet still an impressional influence nonetheless) as being “an outside runner of a possibility” is not only unsupported by any textual evidence as being some-such faraway likelihood in the first place but has instead, upon closer inspection (via the invalid-premiss textual evidence), been revealed as never having had even the remotest of chances of being any such a “runner” to start off with. Furthermore, because of never having even been a “runner” in the first place, and thus with nothing “just ‘hanging there’ waiting for a response” either – despite your insistence to the contrary – there never was any call for “the discussion...between those who were there” to happen, either. Look, as a general rule of thumb, speculative conclusions which are compelling enough to be deemed as awaiting response by third-party on-the-spot participants or witnesses for resolution – yet drawn from and pivoting around an invalid premiss – are (no matter how persuasive) bound to be at least as invalid as what they are based upon and, more often than not, even more so due to the proliferative nature of speculation unrestrained by the anchored-in-fact effect all valid premises have. (Note how no third-party on-the-spot participant or witness is required, in drawing attention to the invalid premiss, as anybody subscribed to this forum has access to the archived post from whence that [quote] “when [No. 49] mentioned that he coined the term “Pure Intent”...” [endquote] basis for unrestrained speculation was obtained). In fact, had you accessed the archives yourself, so as to provide the quote as supportive evidence for basing your “few possibilities” on, you would have seen it for yourself, firsthand, and thus not typed-out and sent this email. 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