# Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

Richard’s Selected Correspondence ## On Living Together RICHARD: I owe a lot to my companion at the time for her persistence in endeavouring to ‘unmask the guru’ (this is her verbatim – and very apt – terminology at the time). ALAN: So perhaps this was a large contributing factor, without which you would have continued to swan along, ignoring the evidence of your senses? RICHARD: Without a doubt ... I could not be where I am today without her invaluable assistance. I could not have done it on my own ... the task was too great to ‘crack the code’ alone and unaided. For far too long has a benighted ‘humanity’ imposed its values and beliefs upon its children – the newest recruits to the human race – to easily shake them off single-handed. It required an enterprising partnership to break free of the centuries of conditioning that overlaid the Human Condition ... and her tenacity of purpose left no room for further deception and continued procrastination. ANDREW: ...[the actualism method itself...] which when you separate it out, has many parallels with the types of naive optimism that spawned such phrases as “if it feels good, do it”, “make love, not war”, “give peace a chance”. RICHARD: And therein lies the rub: more than a few otherwise intelligent peoples do indeed “separate it out” (from an actual freedom itself) such as to instead practice some already extant method or modification thereof – being either too stupid to realise that doing what untold millions upon millions of practitioners have already done, without even a single success, is a totally unproductive enterprise, or being so arrogant as to think they can succeed despite untold millions upon millions of practitioners, without exception, having abjectly failed thereby – despite the way, manner or means of having such an unprecedented condition come about indubitably needing to be as unprecedented as it is. Is it just a case of that apocryphal ‘definition’ of insanity (i.e., doing the same thing over and again, ad infinitum, yet expecting a different result) or is it something else entirely? A primary reason to “separate it out” (from an actual freedom itself) is, of course, the arrant failure to appreciate how ground-breaking the millions of actualism/ actual freedom words actually are – as evidenced, for instance, by that egotistically-fuelled you-cannot-know-you’re-the-first fixation (Sundry, CRO, You are not the First), which afflicted more than a few peoples upon coming across the website or, for another example, the inordinate lengths the ‘Pragmatic Dumber’ participants went to/ go to in order to incorporate gross distortions of them into their massively watered-down and westernised version of the already watered-down traditional buddhistic mispractice – as well as likewise failing to appreciate how truly epoch-changing a female replication of the ground-breaking male break-through into Terra Actualis actually is inasmuch that, for the first time in human history/ human experience, it is now possible, and demonstrably so, for man and woman to live together in peace and harmony with gladness and delight. And here is why that replication is truly epoch-changing: • [Richard]: “(...) man-woman sexuality and intimacy is the genesis of family and thus *the very core of civilisation itself* ...”. [emphasis added]. ~ (15 July 2015 & 23 June 2013 & 28 February 2012 & 05 January 2010 & 11 December 2009 & 13 November 2009). As the implications and ramifications of this epoch-changing replication not only directly relate back to your “make love, not war” and “give peace a chance” allusions to the idealistic 1960’s generational shake-up of the prevailing cultural ethos, of the post-World War II era, but directly impinge upon your failure to “share the opinion that there was anything special about that era” then this is an apt moment to spell-out just what the “naïve optimism” of the sixties generation (disparagingly referred to as ‘the boomers’ and the suchlike, by succeeding generations, when not latterly being called ‘old farts’) has managed to spawn. (In case it has escaped your notice: the first settlers to take up residence in Terra Actualis are all a product of that naïvely optimistic sixties generation, as contrasted to the cynically pessimistic generations who disenchantedly succeeded them, and it remains to be seen whether the latter can successfully retrieve their long-lost naïveté or not). To spell-it-out then: All through the ages, and throughout all cultures, one basic predicament exemplified the problem of human relationship and, thus, civilisation itself: man and woman had never been able to live together in peace and harmony – let alone with mutual gladness and delight – for the twenty-four hours of every day for the duration of their respective lives. Each and every person currently alive, and ever alive, on this otherwise verdant and azure paradise has or had entered this world of minera, flora and fauna via the only possible way – any and all peoples both alive and now dead are or were the progeny of man and woman – and the quality of the start of life is, to a considerable degree, dependent upon the quality of the relationship between each and every person’s progenitor and progenitrix. Any and all children can and could but blindly follow the examples – and the precepts – bequeathed, at best, with the all-too-human love and compassion of their parental providers and carers (not to mention their extended families). Obviously, what was required was an in-depth investigation and exploration, an existential uncovering and discovering, a salutary seeking and finding, of the pitfalls and problems which have beset and tormented both genders – difficulties which were, so had it been ordained, set in concrete and indisputable – as per the hoary “you can’t change human nature” maxim. That appalling status-quo was simply not acceptable to a handful of persons of a sufficiently naïve sensitivity. Thus the basic premise was, and is, as simplistic as this: if man and woman cannot or could not live together with nary a bicker or a squabble – let alone a quarrel or a wrangle – then forget about street-marches, assorted ‘love-ins’ and other public-demonstrations calling for world peace because man-woman sexuality and intimacy is the genesis of family and thus the very core of civilisation itself. * Is it not high time ‘grown-ups’ began living-up to the title “mature adults” else the next generation, and those thereafter ever anon, also settle for a best which is less than the superlative best? RESPONDENT: Richard, when talking with a female friend about your Journal she asked the following questions: 1) Were all three people in the three-way relationship with Irene, yourself and Grace engaging in sexual relations ... RICHARD: Yes, although the ménage à trois – ‘an arrangement or relationship in which three people live together’ (Oxford Dictionary) – started out as a platonic association for my current companion. RESPONDENT: ... (i.e. were Irene and Grace sexually active together, etc.)? RICHARD: As I do not have permission from my previous companion to publicly disclose personal information I will not be responding, be it either in the negative or the affirmative, to queries such as that. RESPONDENT: 2) Was there any hint that Irene may have been jealous of your sexual relationship with Grace? RICHARD: No, the fundamental, or pivotal, reason for what ensued is as detailed in ‘Richard’s Journal’ (of which my previous companion has had a copy ever since it was first published) and in various places throughout my correspondence ... to wit: having fallen in love with a person who loved another she energetically transformed that unrequited love into being Love Agapé ... and the rest is history. RESPONDENT: 3) Why, if you had a ‘perfect’ relationship with Irene, would you want to add a third party? RICHARD: This is the way I described how it all began: • [Richard]: ‘... my current companion shared a house in a large coastal city with my previous companion before either of them ... (1) ever met me ... and (2) moved to the seaside village where I reside. My previous companion and I, whilst living together, happened to meet the woman who was to become my current companion when strolling along a village street one day and stopped to chat (as peoples everywhere are wont to do): in the midst of the conversation the woman who was to become my current companion experienced what she described, as it was occurring, as an intimacy closer than she had ever had with herself ... which closeness prompted her to move in with me and my then companion (her previous house-mate). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 74b, 5 November 2004). My previous companion was, of course, well aware of such an intimacy. Viz.: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘As to [an actual intimacy with every body and every thing and every event] I wonder if you could give any description as to this hmm experience of ‘intimacy with every body and every thing and every event’. • [Richard]: ‘Perhaps the words my current companion used, when experiencing an actual intimacy upon serendipitously meeting me in the street one day in 1996 (which experience prompted her to move in with me and my then companion), would convey it in a way you may be able to relate to ... she described it as a closeness which was more intimate than she had ever experienced with her own self. Or, for another description, my previous companion likened it to being closer than her own heartbeat was to her’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 18e, 20 April 2004). In short: the ménage à trois was initiated by, and primarily based upon, an actual intimacy ... and not sex and sexuality. RESPONDENT: I don’t remember this being covered thoroughly in past correspondence and now that I think about it, that is rather surprising to me. RICHARD: Oh? Are you not aware then, that were your female friend’s question to be asked in a world-wide context, rather than from a parochial point of view, it would look somewhat odd ... as in rather unusual or out of place? Mr. George Murdock, an anthropologist by profession, catalogued 853 societies globally: 83.5% of them permitted or preferred polygyny, with but 16% (mainly western) imposing monogamy by law (yet which, by allowing divorce, permit successive polygamy) and only four societies, out of the 853 catalogued, permitted polyandry. In other words a ménage à deux is not the norm. Re: Third ‘wife’ RESPONDENT: At some point someone started talking about Richard being single, which was news to me as I never remember reading anything about Richard dissolving his relationship with his third ‘wife’. RICHARD: There is nothing amiss with your memory about what you have read as I never wrote anything at all about my third wife purchasing her own residence, so as to have a place to live in by herself, about eighteen months ago (the 5th of May 2008 to be precise). Just so there be no misunderstanding: we still maintain our association (albeit platonic) and have regular contact on a weekly basis, at the very least, plus telephonic communication in between. RESPONDENT: Richard later confirmed that, but I’m wondering where did I miss that initial information in the first place? RICHARD: Your wondering would be best answered by the person who first raised the topic, in Message No. 7286, as I have no idea where he read about it/ heard of it. RESPONDENT: Which leads me to my question to Richard: Did your third wife discontinue the actualism process? RICHARD: She informs me that she is just as interested in an actual freedom as before and cannot conceive ever not being so. The primary reason why we are both residing in our own abodes is because to have remained living under the same roof – with all of what is implied in that – would have been detrimental to her continued progress. RESPONDENT: As she was someone who sounded like they had achieved remarkable results with the actualism process, it could be informative if she discontinued it and why. RICHARD: In view of the publicised fact of my second wife’s abrupt about-face I can readily comprehend just why your question came about. Incidentally, the two of them meet up once a fortnight (they both rent-shared a house way back before either of them ever knew me). * RESPONDENT: Did your third wife discontinue the actualism process? RICHARD: She informs me that she is just as interested in an actual freedom as before and cannot conceive ever not being so. The primary reason why we are both residing in our own abodes is because to have remained living under the same roof – with all of what is implied in that – would have been detrimental to her continued progress. RESPONDENT: Hmmm ... another case of the bird needing to leave the nest, eh? RICHARD: No, on the contrary (‘needing to leave the nest’ was an analogy for my second wife going her own way) there is no flying away at all as she informs me that she is just as interested in an actual freedom as before and cannot conceive ever not being so. Residing in our own abodes, whilst still maintaining our association (albeit platonic) by having regular weekly contact, at the very least, plus telephonic communication in between, is primarily to do with breaking an impasse brought about by the very intimacy implied by living under the same roof/ eating at a communal table/ sharing the marital bed. All what is required to be living communally with me is to have an out-from-control/ different-way-of-being virtual freedom as a status quo (rather than a still-in-control/ same-way-of-being modus operandi). She is totally in accord with this determination (she came up with that ‘same way of being’ phrase herself) as she has had umpteen experiences which demonstrate how the issue is all about being still-in-control/ the same-way-of-being (aka the known, the habitual, the familiar and, thus, safe way of being). My favourite description of this comes from her where, very early on in our association in one outstanding PCE (and as soon at it became apparent) I was quick to ask her: ‘what happened to that concerned woman sitting on the couch who I was talking to just a minute ago?’ ‘Oh, her’, quoth she, without batting an eyelid, ‘she’s full of problems!’ The day proceeded famously from then on. * RICHARD: [...] [...] she has had umpteen experiences which demonstrate how the issue is all about being still-in-control/ the same- way-of-being (aka the known, the habitual, the familiar and, thus, safe way of being). My favourite description of this comes from her where, very early on in our association in one outstanding PCE (and as soon at it became apparent) I was quick to ask her: ‘what happened to that concerned woman sitting on the couch who I was talking to just a minute ago?’ ‘Oh, her’, quoth she, without batting an eyelid, ‘she’s full of problems!’ The day proceeded famously from then on. (Richard, List D, No. 12, 21 November 2009). RESPONDENT: I appreciate the fascinating glimpse into the interaction between you and your third wife. I can relate to her last line ‘she’s full of problems!’ as I have said/ wrote similar things about ‘[Respondent]’ to my ex-wife and a friend when having a very pure peak experience. I said ‘While ‘[Respondent]’ could talk about your present lover with you, it would be painful to ‘him’ where for me it is experienced as two individuals just talking about life without the felt sense of all the past history between ‘us’.’ Even to this day, my capacity of talking to her about her lover (the man she left me for) is an excellent marking stick for whether or not I’m on the wide and wondrous path. RICHARD: Ahh ... that is quite familiar. Over the years I have oft-times discussed my third wife’s marriage (de facto) with her husband as two individuals just talking about whatever issue she was currently engaged by as there is no other person – psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, counsellor, whatever – she could have a useful discussion with. (As I have discussed domestic issues on many an occasion with peoples from various walks of life it is essentially no different for me to be like that). ‘Twas the same with my second wife: she would sometimes say there was no one she could turn to in order to facilitate an understanding of how a marriage (de jure) with a man like no other person living or dead (as far as can be ascertained) could be lived in an optimum manner. (The optimum manner when still in the human condition is an out-from-control/ different-way-of-being virtual freedom, of course, but there was no counsellor of any description who could advise her of that). RESPONDENT: 2. My female partner said after some months of practice: ‘Your libido are too much to me!’. But we still married and happy together. So, if you permit one correlated impertinence: Why are you single now? RICHARD: As libido is null and void for me then being sexually active or not is purely a matter of preference. What this means in effect is that sexual congress, because of its utter proximity, has more to do with intimacy than anything else. Now, here is where it becomes quite an intriguing matter because, and as a generalisation only, women tend to place more emphasis on intimacy than men. Indeed, many a woman has bewailed the dearth of men prepared to make the big commitment required for such connubial accord. Yet they are deathly afraid of intimacy – the fear of intimacy is a subject most women have talked to me about – for it means loss of self. And therein lies the rub: the survival instincts can kick in big-time, especially during sexual congress, and the very opposite of the longed-for intimacy takes place (as in pulling-back, turning-away, closing-off, shutting-down, and so on). As peculiar as it may sound, on a purely intellectual level, the very thing peoples most want is the very thing they most fear. When their very survival (as an identity) is at stake all manner of weird behaviour can take place – to the point of utter bizarrerie – as is readily evidenced in the archived correspondence on The Actual Freedom Trust website. I have said before, and will say it again, how actualism is not for the faint of heart or the weak at knee as it requires nerves of steel to delve the stygian depths of the human psyche. Put briefly: unless or until such a woman comes into my purview being single, in this respect, will remain my ongoing status. RICHARD (to No. 14): As libido is null and void for me then being sexually active or not is purely a matter of preference. What this means in effect is that sexual congress, because of its utter proximity, has more to do with intimacy than anything else. Now, here is where it becomes quite an intriguing matter because, and as a generalisation only, women tend to place more emphasis on intimacy than men. Indeed, many a woman has bewailed the dearth of men prepared to make the big commitment required for such connubial accord. Yet they are deathly afraid of intimacy – the fear of intimacy is a subject most women have talked to me about – for it means loss of self. And therein lies the rub: the survival instincts can kick in big-time, especially during sexual congress, and the very opposite of the longed-for intimacy takes place (as in pulling-back, turning-away, closing-off, shutting-down, and so on). (Richard, List D, No. 14a, 9 November 2009) RESPONDENT: Very apt observations and understanding. Further more, the survival instincts, can kick in also because of the predator/ prey tendencies that men, inadvertently, display and their aloofness for intimacy. RICHARD: In normal men (and as a generalisation) ... yes, of course. Had I been born a female my response would have been couched in terms of how it is for a man/ for men, in regards to sexuality and intimacy, during sexual congress with a woman actually free from the human condition. RESPONDENT: If you will indulge my question: is it possible still to have actual intimacy, even if the partner (man/ woman) is evidently inhibited by self and survival instincts? RICHARD: Actual intimacy – no separation (no separative self whatsoever) cannot wax and wane/ come and go/ switch on and off here in this actual world (the world of the senses). Upon an actual freedom from the human condition an actual intimacy is the norm with every body and every thing regardless of whatever their or its current situation and circumstances might be. (Some peoples have looked at me blankly upon being informed there is an actual intimacy with, say, an ashtray or a polystyrene cup or a pebble or whatever). In terms of human sexuality, and due to its utter proximity, sexual congress sans identity/ affections is the exquisite experience of two flesh and blood bodies sensuously delighting in being sensually and sexually aroused. (As there are no identities in actuality I actually interact only with flesh and blood bodies; at times this can be quite disconcerting, to say the least, for any identity feeling itself to be other than illusory). Because it can take an incredible amount of willpower for a pulled-back or turned-away or closed-off or shut-down identity to override (psychosomatically) its bodily arousal, its body’s natural sexuality, the body’s sensual delight, that exquisite experience can continue until such over-riding succeeds in its quite perverse anti-intimacy aim and arousal diminishes, sexuality declines and sensual delight falls away to nought. In short: although reciprocity is never needed there is, of course, a preference for sexual enjoyment and appreciation be mutual. * RICHARD: Put briefly: unless or until such a woman comes into my purview being single, in this respect, will remain my ongoing status. (Richard, List D, No. 14a, 9 November 2009) RESPONDENT: You do not prescribe to fellow humans, but do you recommend the above sensible approach rather than ‘experimenting’ with fellow human beings to explore sexuality or actual intimacy? RICHARD: Oh, no ... not at all (that above approach is only in regards to an actual freedom from the human condition). No, on the contrary, exploring sex and sexuality is enormously beneficial: there is no better way, in my experience, for a man and a woman to approach such intimacy than sexual congress. For instance, back when I was a normal man I came close to the loss of self already mentioned on several occasions (in my first marriage) only to instinctively pull-back, out of instantaneous fear at such imminence, as it intuitively seemed she would thus take over my mind and make me her slave for ever and a day. It was not until after the four-hour PCE, which initiated the process resulting in an actual freedom, that it became obvious to me what such loss of self actually meant. Accordingly, I deliberately set out to induce a PCE via giving myself completely to her – totally and utterly – whilst hovering indefinitely on that orgastic plateau which precedes an orgasm (something which I had discovered whilst pubescent). And then ... !Hey Presto! ... no separation whatsoever. (Incidentally, rather than that intuitive fear of thus being her slave coming true it was quite instructive to have her then relate how she had been fantasising about a current heart-throb pop singer all the while I was giving myself to her totally). RESPONDENT: I am aware that PCE and EE are much more possible during sexual intimacy and congress hence the urge to experiment. RICHARD: Yes, indeed so. Both my third wife (de facto) and my second wife (de jure) were very keen to experiment. For instance, my third wife initially set out to explore her ‘wild side’ (to use the jargon) as she was most appreciative of being with a man with no limits – no limiting fear in regards the vast extent, and a near-insatiability at times, of female sexuality. Curiously enough, in the end it was her very own fear (of female sexuality) which set the limits. But, until then rampant sexuality took place morning, noon and night – all throughout the period of writing those millions of words to my fellow human beings – and much was uncovered/ discovered about female sexuality. She has a scale of quality in regards sexual experience: good, very good, great, excellent and magical. Good sex relates to togetherness. Very good sex relates to closeness. Great sex relates to sweetness. Excellent sex relates to richness. Magical sex relates to actuality. To explain: togetherness is the companionship of doing things together – be it shopping, cooking, having sex, whatever – and pertains to the willingness to be and act in concert with another. A closeness is where the personal boundaries are expanded to include the other into one’s own space; this is a normal type of intimacy. A sweetness is when closeness entrées a lovely delight at the proximity of the other (although it can veer off into affection, ardency, love, oneness). A richness (aka an excellence experience) is where sweetness segues into a near-absence of agency via letting-go of control and one is the sex and sexuality (the beer and not the doer). Magical sex is where sex and sexuality are happening of their own accord – neither beer nor doer extant – and pristine purity abounds (an immaculate perfection). Ain’t life grand! * RESPONDENT: I am aware that PCE and EE are much more possible during sexual intimacy and congress hence the urge to experiment. RICHARD: Yes, indeed so. Both my third wife (de facto) and my second wife (de jure) were very keen to experiment. For instance, my third wife initially set out to explore her ‘wild side’ (to use the jargon) as she was most appreciative of being with a man with no limits – no limiting fear – in regards the vast extent, and a near-insatiability at times, of female sexuality. RESPONDENT: Yes. That is what most women will look forward to. RICHARD: Aye, yet when that opportunity is freely accessible – as an ever-available living actuality – all manner of weird behaviour can take place (to the point of utter bizarrerie). Now, obviously I am not going to go into details as my reports are circumscribed by the fact that the persons concerned are both readily identifiable and still alive (I have no such constraints when talking about just myself) but as the subject is of primary importance – man-woman sexuality and intimacy is the genesis of family and thus the very core of civilisation itself – there is too much at stake for me to take my unique insight to the grave/ pyre/ whatever. To explain: I have had three wives – with each marriage spanning more than a decade – as three different persons (a normal person, a mystical person and a freed person). In my first marriage I was both a normal person (at first masculinist then later feministic) and a spiritually enlightened/ mystically awakened person. In my second marriage I was first an enlightened/ awakened person then later an actually freed person. My third marriage was solely as a person actually free from the human condition. Hence me being well-placed to know what nobody else can know. Plus, in the five celibate years between my first and second marriages, I was the single parent of young daughters (at first two girls then later one girl) and gained much understanding at that grass-roots level. Also many women during that period – at least a score if not more – most insistently proposed, via blatant sexuality, either a ménage a deux or a ménage a trois. (Love Agapé is the most potent aphrodisiac ever to be invented). Lastly, as a boy I only had girls as playmates (all the children in the near neighbourhood, in the remote farming community where I was born and raised, were female) and all through my life I have always preferred female company ... to the point of much mocking and ridicule for being thus considered effeminate (to use a more polite word). Most importantly: I like women – they are simply marvellous creatures when at their best – and, being such victims of their own emotions and passions, are both ripe for and deserving of liberation. Especially so as, where the women go, there go men too (eventually). RESPONDENT: And social conditioning pulls tight strings on this ‘wild side’ and mankind finds it most threatening – to social institutions of family, religion, marriage etc. RICHARD: Indeed ... and womankind, having internalised what mankind finds most threatening, can be the most fierce advocates of those ‘tight strings’ (both to themselves and to their kind). However, there more to it than what mankind finds most threatening ... much, much more. RESPONDENT No. 6: If you will indulge my question: is it possible still to have actual intimacy, even if the partner (man/ woman) is evidently inhibited by self and survival instincts? RICHARD: Actual intimacy – no separation (no separative self whatsoever) cannot wax and wane/ come and go/ switch on and off here in this actual world (the world of the senses). Upon an actual freedom from the human condition an actual intimacy is the norm with every body and every thing regardless of whatever their or its current situation and circumstances might be. (Some peoples have looked at me blankly upon being informed there is an actual intimacy with, say, an ashtray or a polystyrene cup or a pebble or whatever). In terms of human sexuality, and due to its utter proximity, sexual congress sans identity/ affections is the exquisite experience of two flesh and blood bodies sensuously delighting in being sensually and sexually aroused. (As there are no identities in actuality I actually interact only with flesh and blood bodies; at times this can be quite disconcerting, to say the least, for any identity feeling itself to be other than illusory). (Richard, List D, No. 6, 10 November 2009). RESPONDENT: Your comment about ‘As there are no identities in actuality I actually interact only with flesh and blood bodies’ – was extremely useful in detecting some slippery and subtle identification in my interactions with others. RICHARD: Good ... (as I am never annoyed there is never any need for giving vent). Another poster offered their experience on it recently (Message X) when observing how an intuitive resistance to non-recognition as ‘me’ is even more powerful than the fear of engulfment. My second wife would oft-times say to others how it was not always easy to live with me as ‘she’ was totally ignored (in ‘her’ view) by me. (Please note it is an impossibility to ignore anything at all which has no existence in actuality and how I do pay lip-service, just as I am now, to the apparent existence of any identity feeling itself to be real). What my second wife was really referring to is the total absence of any supportive identity rapport/ affective connection. As this was amply corroborated by my third wife, it is a primary consideration when contemplating any potential man-woman type of association which comes into my purview (in my experience the ménage a trois provided what a ménage a deux cannot). PETER: And the senses being free of churning feelings and emotions such as fear, guilt, comparison, love, duty, etc., are on full alert if you like. Fully here, firing on all cylinders, absolutely no limits to the amount of pleasure shared. To have found an equally sexual other-sex human is indeed remarkable. RICHARD: To have as a companion someone who shares the identical goal in life to oneself is occasion enough in itself for celebration. Then to have the success after success that you have had throughout your time together, is proof indeed of the benevolence and wisdom of a life being well-lived. And as success after success multiplies exponentially, one experiences that the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom delivers the goods right here and now ... not off into some indeterminate future. Plus the successes are repeatable – almost on demand – and thus satisfy the ‘scientific method’. I am just amazed that this has never been discovered before. Because of the utter proximity of the other in the sensate sexual embrace, a direct experience of the actuality of the other is almost inevitable. The ensuing actual intimacy can cause one to ‘slip through’ into this actual world – initially seen as another dimension from the real world – leaving one’s ‘self’ behind ... where it belongs. Then I am here, where I have always been, and it is always now. Here, I and my partner are perfection personified. Yet there is more ... everything appears to be magically transformed into a fairy tale-like paradise. However, I have always been here and it has always been like this ... nothing has been transformed at all. It was that ‘I’ was standing in the way of this clean and clear purity being apparent. This experiencing is ambrosial to say the least. PETER: That there exists a state that is beyond Enlightenment and includes the free delightful enjoyment of sex is indeed proof of the perfection of the universe – as I experience it actually, here now, right this moment ... and again and again. RICHARD: Speaking personally, I have an active sex-life ... equalled only by gustatory delight. Yet there is no sex-drive whatsoever. There is no instinctual sexual desire operating here in this actual world ... thus the other gender are never viewed as sexual objects. With no aberrant urges to control one walks freely in the world of people, things and events ... a world wherein all people are fellow human beings. It is impossible to stray; to be tempted by an affair or to have a fling simply just does not happen. Without sexual stirrings, both the female and the male body are appreciated for aesthetic reasons alone ... without the natural seduction or abhorrence as felt in the real world. Perfection is indeed already always here ... now. IRENE to Vineeto: I don’t subscribe any more to Richard’s goal of getting rid of ‘me’, my identity, my emotions. This is what I meant when I said that I had seen through Richard’s method and his view that this is what freedom means. RICHARD: First off, if you no longer subscribe to your previously-held goal of ridding yourself of the ‘I’, that you saw standing in the way of peace-on-earth in one of the many outstanding peak experiences that you had years before you met me, then that is your own choice. Please, you give the impression that it was ‘Richard’s goal’ that you were subscribed to. Secondly, it was not ‘Richard’s view’ that this absence of ‘I’ was what freedom means at all ... you held this view long before you met me. It was the fact that I was living your goal and view that made you attracted to me in the first place ... for you told me that you could not – or would not – do it on your own. Thus was the basis for us living together as man and woman established from the beginning ... and that was your own choice too. Eleven years later you decided that you no longer wished to either pursue that goal or hold that view any more and you ceased living with me ... and that is your own choice as well. Honesty with oneself is important, otherwise there is a duck-shoving of amenability onto another for one’s own decisions at the time. As for your use of ‘I had seen through Richard’s method’ ... you have to be referring to the question: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ ... as that is the only method I advance. In what way, may I ask, have you ‘seen through it’? In what way is it either personally unhealthy or socially reprehensible ... for how else can it be deemed faulty? RICHARD: To illustrate what I am getting at, I would make the analogy to the man/ woman ‘battle of the sexes’. That is, logical thought versus intuitive thought. RESPONDENT: Notice you have brought in intuition here. The third part of the intellect-instinct categorisation. RICHARD: Actually, I was being polite ... I was referring to the ‘you’re just being logical’ and the ‘you’re just being illogical’ accusations that men and women throw at each other! (Men like to think that they are being rational when in fact they are being logical. Women like to think they are being intuitive when they are actually being irrational). * RICHARD: Neither man nor woman has got it right. Male logic is as useless as female intuition. Reflection needs to be neither logical nor intuitive in order to be reflective. RESPONDENT: But does it need to be affective in someway? Is there pure rationality outside of some mechanical calculus? RICHARD: Neither affective nor rational ... if by ‘pure rationality’ you mean logic. I take ‘rational’ to mean ‘matter-of-fact’ or ‘common-sense’. Neither logic nor intuition fit this category. (Just because something is logical, it does not make it sensible. The same applies to intuition). RESPONDENT: Let me ask you this, Richard. Suppose one day that you visit your wife in the expectation of a little mutual pleasure. You arrive there, but instead of your wife assenting to some harmless hanky-panky, she instead tells you that she doesn’t want to see you any more because she has finally worked out that you are a fraud. She says that she had been blindly following you all these years, but now realises the error of her ways and doesn’t want to participate any longer in the sham. What do you think, Richard? RICHARD: For a start I would not visit my wife ‘in the expectation of a little mutual pleasure’ for I have no expectations at all ... to have expectations of other people is to set yourself up for disappointment again and again. It is the same with trust: to trust someone – anyone at all – is to invite betrayal (or what is perceived to be betrayal by the one who is doing the trusting) from the one who is trusted. Also, to trust someone is to impose a demand upon them that they may not be able to live up to (or want to) ... and I never do that. Secondly, she has gone through stages wherein she ‘has finally worked out that [I am] a fraud ... that she has been blindly following [me] all these years ... and doesn’t want to participate any longer in the sham’ (or words to that effect) so I can speak from personal experience. As I am not at all affected by other people’s opinion of me, I treat the occasions where she has praised me to the skies in the same way as when she criticises me for fraud. Her praise or blame impresses me not at all. What would impress me – and I would be delighted to be ‘affected’ then if I could be – would be her attainment of an actual freedom. I would be dancing down the hall with joy and delight! Until that day happens, I remain unperturbed by anything that anyone says about me ... be it complimentary or condemning. RESPONDENT: Furthermore, she also tells you that she is about to go off on an overseas holiday with her new boyfriend and won’t be back in the country for a month. Would you feel no emotions at all in this scenario? RICHARD: No. And to forestall any further queries about feelings – emotions and passions – it would be useful for me to explain that not only do I have no feelings about this scenario, but I have none about any other you might like to propose. I do not experience feelings per se because I do not have any anywhere in this body at all ... this body lost that faculty entirely when ‘I’ became extinct. Thus to use the jargon: no one can ‘press my buttons’ as I do not have any buttons – nor any feelings under them – to be activated. Literally I feel nothing at all. Even when, say, watching a magnificent sunrise where some lofty clouds are shot through with splendid rays of golden light, transforming the morning sky into a blaze of glory ... I feel nothing at all. These eyes seeing it delight in the array of colour, and this brain contemplating its visual splendour can revel in the wonder of it all – but I can not feel the beauty of it in the emotional and passionate sense of the word feel. Just as when a person becomes physically blind all their other senses are heightened, so too is it when all feelings vanish entirely. This body is simply brimming with sense organs which wallow in their own sensual delight. Visually, everything is intense, vivid, brilliant ... sensually everything is dynamic and alive with an actuality ... a matter-of-fact actual-ness. Everything is endowed with a purity that far exceeds the now-paltry feeling of beauty ... and an intimacy that surpasses the highest feeling of love. Love is actually a pathetic substitute for the perfection of actual intimacy. Actual intimacy is the direct experience of the pristine actuality of another, unmediated by any ‘I’ whatsoever. RESPONDENT: I think what you wrote there was good. I would be interested to see whether you can live up to what you have written – if indeed that is your intention. And what are your views regarding relationships and what people call ‘love’? Do you think it’s possible for two identity-less beings to fall in love with each other? RICHARD: You make a valid point ... however, it is not a case of ‘living up to what I have written’ ... it is a case of currently and continuously living it now. It is not ‘my intention’, it is my actuality ... I write directly out of my on-going experience. Otherwise it would all be only theory and conjecture, speculation and surmise ... and what follows would amount to nothing but bombast and blather. There is an actual intimacy between me and my companion. Actual intimacy is a direct experiencing of the other. It is an actuality born out of pure intent. Pure intent was activated by paying intense attention – exclusive attention – to one’s peak experiences. A peak experience is where ‘I’, the identity, temporarily abdicate the throne and everything is seen to be already always perfect. A chief characteristic of the peak experience is the clarity of apperception ... the seeing through of the belief in ‘my’ existence. In the months that followed the peak experience, the pure intent – this unwavering attention – amounted to an obsession for ‘me’, the identity, for what a sin it was to be disconsolate and miserable when the world had been experienced as being so glorious. To be here, intimately here in this moment in time, where this actual world is such a marvellous place to be alive in, is a satisfaction and fulfilment unparalleled in the annals of history. Actual intimacy – being here – does not come from love, for love stems from separation. The illusion of intimacy that love produces is but a meagre imitation of this direct experience of the actual. In this, the actual world, ‘I’, the personality, the subjectively experienced identity and self, have ceased to exist; whereas love accentuates, endorses and verifies ‘me’ as being real. And while ‘I’ am real, ‘I’ am relative to other, similarly afflicted, persons; vying for position and status in order to establish ‘my’ credentials ... to verify ‘my’ very existence. To be actually intimate is to be without separation ... and therefore free from the need for love with its ever un-filled promise of Peace On Earth. I am not apart from the universe ... I am the universe experiencing itself as a thinking, reflective human being. Whereas ‘I’ can never be intimate for ‘I’ am distanced from the actual by ‘my’ very ‘being’ ... ‘I’ stand in the way of actual intimacy. The intimacy that ‘I’ as a personality can have, as a feeling – an emotion or a passion – for another in a relationship, pales into insignificance when compared with the actual intimacy of being the universe experiencing itself. There is no need for a relationship here. Relationship requires a separated identity in order to do the relating. By being what I am – ‘what’ not ‘who’ – I am not separate from the universe. This body is literally made of the very stuff of the universe ... there is no difference whatsoever between this stuff and me. I am it. I do not make the mistake, as the people who have dissolved only their ego do, of identifying myself with Existence or Whatever ... as being God On Earth, or any of that deluded nonsense ... I have no identity or self whatsoever. Nothing that ‘I’ – as an ego-less ‘Self’ – experienced many years ago when ‘I’ lived in the Divine Realm (Samadhi, Satori, Nirvana, Sunyata and so on) can equal the magnificence of being here in this actual world. Being here as-I-am far surpasses any Religious Illumination, Spiritual Enlightenment, Mystical Union or any other Altered State Of Consciousness. For example: This moment is perennial, not timeless. I am perpetually here – for the term of my natural life – as this moment is; I am not immortal. It is the universe that is eternal ... not me. I am free to be me; me as I actually am. I am free to be practical, straight-forward and down-to-earth. I am free of any guile, any hypocrisy, any duplicity, any cupidity ... any corruption at all. Innocence prevails only where time has no duration ... and this moment has no measure, it is ever-new. I have no need for such a paltry surrogate as Immortality ... Immortality fades into the oblivion it deserves when compared to the magnitude of experiencing the infinity of the universe as a human being living here, each moment again, fresh and new and pristine. I am free to live in this magical wonderland that is the actual world. RESPONDENT: You don’t make it clear whether ‘my companion’ refers to the Infinity of Nature (God) or an individual human being. I will assume you mean the latter. In that case I will ask you whether your ‘companion’ has exactly the same philosophical realisation and ambition as yourself? And would they mind if you were equally ‘intimate’ with lots of other people at the same time? RICHARD: My companion could not possibly be ‘the Infinity of Nature (God)’, as any God or Goddess is clearly nothing but a psychic projection of the ‘self’. I experience – and therefore acknowledge – the only infinity that there is: the infinity of this physical universe that is what we are all tangibly made up of. This flesh and blood body is the same corporeal stuff, simply in a different formulation, as the stuff of the stars and planets – some people mistakenly think that the universe is only out in space – it is as much this body and this room as anything else or anywhere but here. We are not constructed of some material from ‘outside’ of the universe by some unknowable god and put ‘in here’ for some inscrutable purpose. We are, literally, this infinite universe ... and there is no outside to infinity. RESPONDENT: Agreed. RICHARD: So yes, you assume correctly. My companion is a living, breathing, human being. RESPONDENT: I always thought a ‘companion’ was someone who keeps you company in old age when you have lost all dignity and are on your last legs, and comforts you that you’re not a waste of space when all reason says you are. RICHARD: As my companion and I are legally married I could have written ‘my wife’ ... only to be accused of being chauvinistic or patriarchal or possessive or old-fashioned or whatever. She refers to me as ‘my partner’ ... is that any better? I hereby submit a list of appellations for your consideration and approval ... please advise me as to which you find appropriate: My wife, My spouse, My partner, My colleague, My friend, My associate, My mate, My chum, My buddy, My pal, My supporter, My collaborator, My coadjutor, My peer, My acquaintance, My amigo, My playmate, My familiar, My compeer, My confidant, My crony, My accomplice, My comrade, My ally, My cohort, My confrere, My consort, My counterpart, My sidekick, My bosom buddy, My intimate, My helpmeet, My compatriot, My confederate, My concubine, My mistress, My courtesan, My paramour, My accessory, My woman, My inamorata, My girl friend, My chick, My old lady ... or if we want to degenerate entirely and go ocker: The ball and chain, The trouble and strife, The cheese and kisses, The old dear, The old chook ... and so on. Personally, I prefer ‘my companion’. * RICHARD: And, yes, she has exactly the same realisation and ambition, which is the primary reason that we are living together. RESPONDENT: My word! Then she is either a very exceptional woman or you are a common fraud. Your words concerning Reality have merit, but I have serious reservations about your actual understanding as it manifests in the way you live your life. Your words about ‘living in the moment’ don’t do much for me, as every mindless person I meet is actively promoting the lifestyle of ‘living in the moment’. It is the fashion of the age. RICHARD: She has had several peak experiences, of precisely the same nature that the ‘I’ that used to live in this body all those years ago had, and has no other objective in life but to live these experiences twenty-four-hours-a-day. RESPONDENT: She’s given-up work then? Declared war on femininity? And she is fully aware that she has to reach a state beyond all emotion (fear, desire, love, pity, etc.)? Forgive me, but I always have a good laugh when I hear of men seeking to keep the company of women while giving the reason that they are trying to spiritually advance themselves. But for all I know your female friend may be every bit as noble you think she is. She may indeed be a fully enlightened Buddha. It’s possible. Perhaps we can hear from her on this discussion list? RICHARD: It follows, of course, that not only does she not mind that I have an actual intimacy with everyone and everything ... she wants nothing but that for herself. Actual intimacy is the direct experience of the people, things and events in the world about, unmediated by any ‘who’ within ... that emotional and mental construct known as ‘I’. Actual intimacy has nothing to do with sexual proclivity – which is a matter of individual predilection – but refers to the absence of any psychological distance betwixt one and another. It is ‘I’ who creates this psychological distance; it is ‘I’ who then feels separate; it is ‘I’ who correspondingly longs for Union; it is ‘I’ who creates love to bridge the self-created gap; it is ‘I’ who invents Gods and Goddesses to become One with. It is ‘I’ who, being a fiction, desires Immortality to perpetuate ‘my’ real existence for all of Eternity – thus secretly despising this body and this physical life – and it is ‘I’ who, being a central figure in ‘my’ scheme of things, proposes that there is an outside to this material universe. There is not. This universe has no edges ... which means that there is no centre either. With no centre to existence we are nowhere in particular. Being here, as an actuality, is to be anywhere at all, for infinity is everywhere all at once. Why would she have to be an exceptional woman? The only requirement to wish to solve the ‘Mystery of Life’ is that one be a human being who, having had experiences of the actuality of being here in the world as-it-is, wants nothing other than to live that perfection twenty four hours a day. As to whether I am a common fraud ... that is for you to ascertain one way or the other ... and as you have serious reservations about the way I live my life (based on no more information other than that I live with a human being who happens to be a female) then it seems that you already know the closely kept secret that the only proof that one is a truly free person is that one eschews women and shuns them entirely. Also, I typed the words ‘living in the moment’ into the search function of this computer and sent it back through my posts and it could not find the phrase anywhere. Perhaps you could send me your copy where it does say that? What it did find, using the word ‘moment’ only, to search, was: 1. [Richard]: ‘To be here, intimately here at this moment in time, where this actual world is such a marvellous place to be alive in, is a satisfaction and fulfilment unparalleled in the annals of history. (Richard, Articles, Peace on Earth in this Life-Time). 2. [Richard]: ‘This moment is perennial, not timeless. I am perpetually here – for the term of my natural life – as this moment is; I am not immortal. (Richard, List A, No. 12, No. 01). 3. [Richard]: ‘Innocence prevails only where time has no duration ... and this moment has no measure, it is ever-new. (Richard, List A, No. 3, No. 03). 4. [Richard]: ‘Immortality fades into the oblivion it deserves when compared to the magnitude of experiencing the infinity of the universe as a human being living here, each moment again, fresh and new and pristine. (Richard, List A, No. 12, No. 01). 5. [Richard]: ‘Everything I experience is actual to this moment. And this moment is occurring now. This particular moment of being here has never happened before ... and it will never happen again. This moment is ever-fresh, perennially new. It is consistently so; dependable in its originality and reliable in its uniqueness. For twenty-four-hours-a-day it is like this, day-in-day-out ... therefore it is impossible for it to ever become boring. (Richard, List A, No. 22, No. 01). 6. [Richard]: ‘Simply and magically, I am here as this moment is here ... living in the actual world of people, things and events as this flesh and blood body, bereft of both the ‘thinker’ and the ‘feeler’. (Richard, List A, No. 6, No. 01). 7. [Richard]: ‘Psychological self-immolation is the only sensible sacrifice that ‘I’ can make in order to reveal the fulfilment of the perfection of being here as this body in the world as-it-is at this moment in time. (Richard, List A, No. 10, No. 02). 8. [Richard]: ‘One is able to see that the ‘who’ of one has been standing in the way of the perfection and purity that is the essential nature of this moment of being here becoming apparent. (Richard, List A, No. 12, No. 01). I, too have met people who are ‘actively promoting the lifestyle of ‘living in the moment’’ . They do not seem to understand that as long as they are an ‘I’, a psychological entity living a parasitical existence within the body, then this moment of being alive is forever locked away in some other dimension. Only when ‘I’ am not is this moment apparent. As for ‘giving up work’ : she does not have to work as we are retired and living on a pension ... we are doddering around in our senility being companions to each other, remember? And she has not ‘declared war on femininity’ : she simply prefers to be a human being rather than living the socially prescribed role of ‘woman’ ... be it ‘mainstream’ or ‘feminist’ or anything else. And she is not ‘trying to spiritually advance’ for there is not the slightest trace of spirituality, religiosity or mysticism in what she is doing. And no, she is not the teeniest bit noble – sincere, yes – but noble? No. And she is most definitely not ‘a fully enlightened Buddha’ for she has no interest at all in living in a delusion like he did. And yes she is well aware about being beyond all ‘emotion (fear, desire, love, pity, etc.)’ ... in fact she can tell you about that herself: [quote]: ‘I am immensely happy to simply be alive, to be here in this world. Many years ago I would not have been capable of living a life without any ‘stress’ whatsoever. As I was then – the old me – I would have found the prospect of an existence devoid of any disharmony and nervous tension to be utterly boring and uninteresting; a life surely wasted in apathy and complacency. A ‘goody-two-shoes’, as such a person is derogatorily called in the real world, is something one is fervently warned against by one’s contemporaries. It seems to be of the utmost importance there that each child, as soon as possible, learns to cope and deal with the Human Condition in the way that is accepted as being ‘normal’ in the orthodox mode of life. In other words: how it has always been done. Prolonged naiveté and non-conformity must be eradicated ‘in the best interests of the child’, so the person will not be hurt when they venture out and about in the real world. The newest recruit to humanity has thus not only been persuaded to sell themselves out to the system, but has entered into the society of stress, anxiety and all the other peer group pressures. By the time the child has reached adult-hood, they will never dare to be authentic, genuine, original ... and will be forever afraid to risk entering into an area believed to be boring, dull, unemotional and lethargic . ‘For more than thirty years the old me had become almost convinced by the wisdom of the ways in the real world ... were it not for the subsequent loneliness, anguish, fear, stress and so on. Well-meant advice on the merits of ‘coping’ was endlessly forthcoming, yet never seemed to lead to anywhere pleasant, so as to be a sweet destiny to look forward to. The quality of my life dangerously approached that experienced by my contemporaries ... the same dismal condition endured by all of one’s predecessors, those highly respected ancestors. Some alternative way of living had to be found – and soon – before I too would timidly succumb to the conventional life-style, only to grow old in it. Accordingly, I set out on a voyage of exploration and discovery, a journey of investigating and uncovering. I enquired into – and endeavoured to locate – that something which I surely knew somehow existed in some intimate place and in some familiar time. I sought and I sought ... and I found. What I located is truly impressive for me and was well worth the fascinating search. Nowadays – as the new me – I am living in this wondrous alternative way. ‘My way can best be described as a state wherein I have freed myself from the Human Constitution. It is not to be confused with actual freedom, which only my partner can speak knowledgeably of, where one is freed from the Human Condition – there is no self at all. In my freedom my daily state of being is comparable to the quality of the peak experience. A peak experience, which all people have had at some stage in their life, is that moment wherein literally everything – including oneself – is seen as being already complete and perfect as-it-is. I encountered my first of many such experiences when I was twenty three years old and was then quite mystified, for what was most outstanding was the absolute equality that pervaded everything. Although an utter purity and clarity prevailed, there was a total lack of any Religious Authority whatsoever. This had nothing to do with anything I had ever learned to be true! Instantly I knew without a shadow of a doubt: this is my destiny. Even though I did not know how to yet, I knew that I was going to manifest this state of being in my everyday life, as it was distinctly meant to be achieved here-on-earth. It would be attained by being me as-this-body and would be possible many years before I would die. Although the whole experience lasted for only as long as it took me to pass through an intersection by bicycle, one thing was made magnificently clear: I was standing in the way of my own freedom and my entire purview on life was invalid. Both I and my current understanding had to be eliminated for this destiny to be lived. ‘This proved to be a sheer impossibility until I met the person with whom I have shared my life for the last eleven years. My partner, having lived in an absolute freedom for five years already, recognised immediately that we were to partake in living together. We ventured on an odyssey into my purview on life, into all the beliefs and mores of humanity which were restricting the accomplishment of my destiny. I am now here – as a new me – and my moribund outlook on life has been thoroughly decimated. No longer subservient to the beliefs and mores of humanity, I am pleasantly free to live a genuine life; naturally inclined toward ease, peace and tranquillity and just as naturally oscillated away from stress, anger and unrest. I have clearly seen and understood that the yoke of human principles regarding behaviour and feelings are an artificial and painful acquiescence to a mediocre life ... at best. The Human Constitution does not cater for a dispassionate and yet cheerfully carefree way of living. It does not permit a harmonious and serenely easy way of life ... not for anyone on this planet. It has always been seen as having been never meant to happen. Nowhere in the revered and Sacred scripts, anywhere in history, has there been a suggestion that unambiguously states: we humans are meant to be peaceful and happy here on earth. On the contrary, the only peace and happiness that is mentioned at all, in these highly valued works, lies waiting for each person in the After-Life ... a place where nobody ever arrives, of course, for it exists only in human imagination and nowhere else. ‘Consequently, very few people in history have even attempted to find it here in this actual world ... and the ones who did failed miserably in the actual living of it. This utterly sad fate of humankind – to be deprived from ease, peace and joy for the term of one’s natural life – has been what humanity has decreed for humans for as long as people have roamed the earth. Does this have to mean, though, that peace on earth, goodwill and prosperity for all is forever impossible? My answer is an emphatic no, because I have never accepted that it is to be the lot of human beings to be forever wretched, with only snatches of relative happiness as a temporary reprieve. I have discovered my niche in life, I do not miss being in distress, being frustrated, being under constant pressure and forever running on nervous energy. No kind of adrenaline rushes appeal to me any longer, be they the accompaniment of competition, anger, passion or peril. Against the dire warnings from my peers I dared to live an unorthodox, unconventional life of peace, ease and joy. Fascinated as I am with all things human, I am never bored for there is a never-ending stream of information coming into my field of interest: people I meet, articles I read, the television programmes I watch and so on. I can not help but notice that everybody I see and hear is, in their own words, enduring their life here on earth. They are coping with life as it currently is; content with merely surviving whilst hoping for some better future in some ill-defined way and forever suffering the whole gamut of emotions and passions. ‘Somewhere lost in the mists of time somebody has somehow determined and ordained that we humans are to remain emotional beings forever. Nobody has ever dared to break the sacrosanct seal around this decree, which all humans have learned to believe as The Truth. But exactly what good have emotions done for humankind so far? Do they actually promote an on-going happiness and peace for all concerned? Is a lack of anger and remorse, fear and trust, hatred and love, greed and repentance, sadness and compassion – to name but a few – necessarily going to leave humans bored, insipid and dull? As far as I am concerned, the opposite is the case. Without emotions running my life, I am deliciously free to thoroughly enjoy my stay here. No longer plagued by petty arguments, pathetic one-upmanships, paltry manipulations of others – or feelings of being a victim – I relish being here-on-earth every moment of my life’. [endquote]. (Devika in Richard’s Journal, Article Twenty-Eight). Is this enough? I can send more if you wish, for I have nothing else to do but potter around the house taking up space (seeing that ‘a companion is someone who keeps you company in old age when you have lost all dignity and are on your last legs, and comforts you that you’re not a waste of space when all reason says you are’). But out of regard for others on this list in respect to the length of posts I will stop for now. * RICHARD: Why would she have to be an exceptional woman? The only requirement to wish to solve the ‘Mystery of Life’ is that one be a human being who, having had experiences of the actuality of being here in the world as-it-is, wants nothing other than to live that perfection twenty four hours a day. As to whether I am a common fraud ... that is for you to ascertain one way or the other ... and as you have serious reservations about the way I live my life (based on no more information other than that I live with a human being who happens to be a female) then it seems that you already know the closely kept secret that the only proof that one is a truly free person is that one eschews women and shuns them entirely. RESPONDENT: I wouldn’t say that eschewing women is a proof that one is free, but being attached to women is a sure proof that one is enchained. The Buddha (I know you don’t like him but I do) says: ‘So long as the lustful desire of a man for a woman, however small, is not destroyed, so long is that man in bondage, like a calf that drinks milk is to its mother. (The Dhammapada). RICHARD: Without an ‘I’, there is nothing inside this body to be either attached or detached ... one is free to be living with, or without, a member of the other gender. Living is all so very easy and simple in the actual world ... to be without ‘I’ in ‘my’ entirety is a most estimable condition to be in. To practice detachment merely manifests and strengthens the second ‘I’ (of Mr. Ventkataraman Aiyer (aka Ramana) fame) and can lead to one realising oneself as the ‘Self’. If carried out successfully, one will be in danger of becoming enlightened and live in the massive delusion of existing for all Eternity ... that is: Spaceless, Timeless, Unborn, Undying and so on. ‘I’ thus survive, triumphant, only to wreak ‘my’ havoc once again ... disguised now as some Metaphysical Entity who has manifested for ‘The Good of All Mankind’. ‘I’ conveniently ignore all the hatred and bloodshed that ‘I’ – as my illustrious predecessors have also done – leave in the wake of ‘my’ noble Love Agapé‚ and Divine Compassion. This has been the way of humans for millennia: to escape from ‘reality’ by creating a ‘Greater Reality’ ... this is the wisdom of the Sages and the Saints, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours – and is but a delusion created out of an illusion. It is all predicated upon the persistence of an identity existing through into an ‘After-Life’. RESPONDENT: Buddhism does teach that Nirvana and enlightenment (the extinction of suffering and the delusion of self) are possible in this life – although you would be very lucky to find even a single modern Buddhists who actually wants to attain that condition. And Jesus taught that the Kingdom of Heaven was here and now for those who are able to see it (which would seem to exclude all Christians). RICHARD: It is of no avail to quote Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s revered wisdom, because he knew naught of these matters that I write of ... it is a well known fact that, out of compassion, he would not take the ‘final step’ while a single sentient being was still suffering. Which is why, for Buddhists, their Ultimate State – ‘Parinirvana’ – lies on the other side of physical death. Thus his identity indubitably remained intact ... for compassion rises out of sorrow. In actuality the opposites are eliminated, not merely transcended. The same applies for the cherished teachings of Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene. His god (his father!) had a mansion of many rooms whereto he hastened, out of love, to prepare a place for us mere mortals ... also on the other side of physical death. Unless one is a Jehovah’s Witness, no one calling themselves a Christian believes for a moment that their Ultimate State lies here on earth. Thus he too had an identity ... for love rises out of loneliness or aloneness. When ‘I’ am not, there is no psychological entity extant to need love ... or to generate it. The demonstration of anything factual lies in the practical working out of it physically, here on earth. It is of no use for anyone to propose that complete fulfilment lies only on the other side of physical death, as the venerated Sages do ... there is simply no way to authenticate this, nor can any useful information be garnered from there. I have always been interested purely in our lot on this planet and have only ever been concerned about a practical dissolution of the Human Condition while this body is alive and breathing. It is ‘I’ in ‘my’ entirety that stands in the way of the perfection and purity of this moment in time being apparent. One needs to eliminate not only the ‘ego’ or ‘self’, but the ‘soul’ and ‘Self’ as well. Then, and only then, can any remaining sense of identity whatsoever disappear. With no identity in any way, shape or form whatever, both malice and sorrow are eliminated (not transcended) ... along with their beguiling antidotes: love and compassion. (Just out of curiosity: You are the same person who edits/ edited the Atheist Society newsletter, are you not? The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines an atheist as: ‘A person who denies or disbelieves in the existence of God or gods’. If you are, then why are you quoting long-dead deities? Their wisdom is not worth the paper it was not printed on until so many years after their alleged life/ death that there is serious dispute about the authenticity of anything they purportedly said and did. There is also thoughtful scholarly debate as to whether these archetypical religious/ spiritual teachers historically existed anyway. Humankind has been held in mythical thralldom for far too long ... it is high time humans all came of age and started thinking and discovering for themselves. And, after all is said and done, if that is not what intelligence is – a person with the ability to think and discover for oneself – then what is? The postings on this list are mainly psittacisms.) But I appreciate the comments you wrote regarding what my companion had to say. It is indeed refreshing to find a fellow human being who is prepared to go all the way, whatever it takes ... not to mention the numerous other people I have spoken with over the years. There is the distinct possibility that humankind might excel itself yet. * RESPONDENT: Being in relationships does leave you at the brunt of a lot of jokes I’m afraid! RICHARD: Strange ... nobody around here makes jokes about my relationships ... you have the dubious honour of being the first. Which makes me wonder just what kind of world you have created for yourself. Being in a relationship is one of the most delicious, delightful, fascinating and rewarding things that one can ever do. In case you have not taken it in, given that half of the population being female and the other half being male, it an actuality that we fit together. It is a ‘given’, as they say in scientific circles, like gravity. It is the method by which we all came to be here – there is no other way of becoming a human being other than the union of the ova and the spermatozoa. And strange indeed it is that most religious/ spiritual/ mystical/ metaphysical paths, somewhere along the line, insist that one eschews anyone of the other gender. It amounts to nothing other than being in a state of denial. Apart from that, sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. RESPONDENT: Either the man or the woman is going to have the dominant role in the relationship. I say that if it is the woman, it means serious problems for sure. If in your marriages, you did not see anything about this, I doubt I could convince you otherwise. You could have observed it. If you did not, I wonder why? RICHARD: Oh, but I did much more than merely ‘observe’ it: I lived it out (in my first marriage I was ‘masculine’; in my second marriage I was ‘feminine’). RESPONDENT: What happened was that you started out masculine ... RICHARD: Yes ... in my first marriage I was more or less like virtually any other man I met; I was a normal man, well bought-up and educated, a decent and responsible citizen in that I was a typical western youth, raised to believe in God, Queen and Country. I was what is called ‘happily married’ with four ‘lovely children’ owning my ‘own house’ and running my ‘own business’ successfully. People who were into things like what is discussed on this Mailing List were the ‘lunatic fringe’ and were not worth even listening to. All that ‘Love and Truth’ stuff was just ‘pie-in-the-sky’ idealism ... I knew better than they. Which is: if only other people would stop doing ... [insert whatever complaint here ] ... then all would be well. In short, I was run by both an ego and a soul; I did not want to look at my instinctual passions or my sorrowful and malicious feelings or my corrupted thoughts or identity-controlled actions and behaviour at all. RESPONDENT: ... and wound up feminine ... RICHARD: Yes ... in the fourteenth year of my marriage I had an experience that showed me who ‘I’ was. ‘I’ was nothing but a lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning entity inside this flesh and blood body. So I acted upon this and, as the result of an earnest and intense process, my ‘ego’ disappeared entirely in an edifying moment of awakening to an Absolute Reality. That is, I underwent a monumental transformation into an Altered State Of Consciousness (ASC) which can only be described as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’. I called this ASC an ‘Absolute Freedom’ because there was definitely a metaphysical Absolute in all this – as distinct from the temporal and spatial and material – that was ever-present, and this Divine state of being immediately imbued me with Love Agapé and Universal Compassion for all sentient beings. In short, I became very feminine indeed. RESPONDENT: ... so you found a masculine wife to match the new you. RICHARD: Yes, but that was not for another five years ... in the meanwhile I went through a time I call my ‘puritan period’. I whittled my worldly possessions down to three sarongs, three shirts, a cooking pot and bowl, a knife and a spoon, a bank book and a pair of nail scissors. I possessed nothing else anywhere in the world and cut all family ties. During that period I was homeless, itinerant, celibate, vegan, (no spices; not even salt and pepper), no drugs (no tobacco, no alcohol; not even tea or coffee), no hair cut, no shaving, no washing other than a dip in a river or the ocean ... which means: whatever I could eliminate from my life that was an encumbrance and an attachment, I had let go of. Then, one sunny morn, I met the woman who was to become my second wife on a long, deserted beach. She was determined to ‘unmask the guru’ (her words) and, whilst remarking that while it was certainly something outstanding to ‘love everybody and everything unconditionally’, could I love one person totally, completely and utterly. In short, could man and woman live together in peace and harmony twenty four hours a day. RESPONDENT: Did you live in harmony 24 hours a day? RICHARD: For the first six years of my second marriage I was still endeavouring to extract myself from the Altered State Of Consciousness (ASC) which is known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ ... and as this divine ‘State Of Being’ imbued me with Love Agapé and Universal Compassion for all sentient beings, I was unable to live in total peace and harmony for the twenty four hours of the day. For the latter five years of the marriage, since going beyond enlightenment and breaking through into an actual freedom from the human condition (wherein malice and sorrow is eliminated and not transcended as in spiritual enlightenment), I have consistently lived in total peace and harmony. This has been my condition since 1992, thus I have had eight years to compare it with the enlightened state ... I can find no fault anywhere. In the enlightened state there were occasional ‘bleed-throughs’ from the transcended ‘I’ as ego entity ... brief flashes of fear, irritation, anguish, desire and so on (a close examination of what is written regarding various Enlightened Masters’ day-to-day lived experience will verify this as being typical). I have had nary a hint nor a glimmer or even a whiff of the faintest trace of a ‘bleed-through’ in actual freedom ... and I am relentless in my examination of myself. After all, I am going public with an outrageous and outstanding claim that could – and should – set the squalid complacency of the religious, spiritual, mystical and metaphysical communities on their ears ... and for those eleven years in the ASC I was determined to be ‘squeaky-clean’ before doing so. Five years without a single hitch satisfied me beyond any doubt whatsoever – not only beyond reasonable doubt – that this is that which is the answer to all the ills of humankind ... and I started writing of my experience in public. RESPONDENT: If so why was she your second wife? RICHARD: Because my first wife, being conventionally religious, and upon being faced with her husband’s spiritual enlightenment in the fifteenth year of a normal marriage, chose for the status-quo and, as far as I know, to this very day is still faithfully waiting for the ‘Second Coming’ of her God-Man (he who has a different notion of what a ‘generation’ means than virtually anyone else). RESPONDENT: What I meant was, why did you end your second marriage if you had found such a harmonious state of existence while with your second wife? RICHARD: Because my second wife, being mystically feministic, and upon being faced with her husband’s actual freedom from the human condition in the sixth year of an abnormal marriage, chose for ‘True Love’ (Matrilineal not Patrilineal) and, as far as I know, to this very day is still faithfully waiting for the ‘True Peace’, that only a female can manifest via ‘True Intimacy’, to manifest itself. RESPONDENT: What kind of peace are you talking about? RICHARD: The utter peace of the perfection of the purity welling endlessly as the infinitude this eternal and infinite universe actually is. RESPONDENT: Who made peace with who? RICHARD: There is no ‘who’ – ‘who’ can never, ever be at peace – it is me as-this-body that is peace personified ... and no one else, as far as I can ascertain, is experiencing this. And, as this peace is so perfect, it does not require anybody else’s cooperation ... mutuality and reciprocity in relationship neither adds to perfection nor does their absence detract from perfection. RESPONDENT: Were you both perfect? RICHARD: What is with this ‘were’ business? The identity in toto (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) is extinct ... annihilated, expunged, liquidated, extirpated. As dead as the dodo but with no skeletal remains. There is no phoenix to arise from the ashes ... there are no ashes. This is final, complete and total. * RESPONDENT: The fact that you had two wives proves that there was a problem ... most likely a power struggle involved. RICHARD: Indeed there was ... that is why I am discussing this overt/ covert power-battle between the genders. As I have explained, in my first marriage I was masculine; in my second marriage I was feminine ... thus I now know, experientially and not just theoretically, both sides of the overt/ covert power-battle between the genders. Neither one can ever win, as I was saying in my initial post, as it is a ‘balance of power’ scenario. RESPONDENT: First admit you were a failure and learn from it. RICHARD: But I did ‘admit I was a failure and learn from it’ ... twice. The first time was after fifteen years of normal masculine marriage (‘The Male Is The Head Of The House’); the second time was after six years of abnormal feminine marriage (‘Love Agapé and Divine Compassion and The Truth’). Not only did ‘I’/ ‘me’ ‘learn from it’ ... ‘I’/ ‘me’ activated that learning and ceased being. I am neither masculine nor feminine. There is a third alternative. RESPONDENT: Okay ... I understand (I think). I agree with you that the role of ‘male’ or ‘female’ is not an identity based in the highest truth. RICHARD: It is ‘identity’ itself which is the problem ... whether it is based in ‘the highest truth’ or not. I do wonder how you can even begin to imagine that you are agreeing with me ... I have carefully explained how my second marriage was indeed firmly ‘based in the highest truth’ (by any name) and yet here you trot out the hoary line that ‘if only marriage was based in the highest truth ... all would be well’ etc. etc. Shall I put it simply? Any power-based relationship is dysfunctional ... because power sucks. RESPONDENT: Nevertheless we have it when we start our marriage and working this problem out is what I believe marriage is really about. There is pre-existing battle raging between the sexes for power in the family. It is not a conscious battle but one that is coming down through the ages, down to our parents and into us. The man seeks ego support and sex from his wife ... in turn she seeks to take something out of his hide ... life substance ... his power. The lower role is the most powerful ... as in the old phrase ‘she stoops to conquer’. The vast majority of women hate and have contempt their fathers, either for being cruel to them and/or for being weak and contemptible. They will re create their failure of a father in their husbands to fulfil their need to continue holding men in contempt, and unless their husband gets some understanding of where they are coming from along with some guts, he will be destroyed. RICHARD: Indeed ... as I said: any power-based relationship is dysfunctional ... and it is the need for power that is the problem. * RESPONDENT: If you will not do that what chance is there that you are going to tell us something of value about the man-woman relationship? RICHARD: Yet as you now know, for a second time, that I did ‘do all that’, then how am I going so far in providing ‘something of value about the man-woman relationship’ according to you? (This means that the ball is back in your court now, for you to throw back your next objection to living in peace and harmony). RESPONDENT: We have not discussed what peace and harmony is yet so I could not have objected to it. RICHARD: Are you having me on? You objected right from the beginning of this thread ... allow me to refresh your memory: • [Richard]: ‘Whilst it is true that men overtly ‘rule the roost’ and/or ‘hold the reins of power’ ... yet all the while women covertly ‘define the parameters’ and/or ‘dictate the rules’. • [Respondent]: ‘You’ve got it right. Covert leads to overt, and overt get into trouble while covert looks like an angel. Empower women over men and chaos is the result’. • [Richard]: ‘Hmm ... the last time I looked chaos already reigned supreme. As for ‘empowering women over men’ (or empowering men over women): as neither women nor men can ever have the upper hand (it is only the overt/ covert balance of power interaction that can ever change) you need not be concerned about your scenario coming to fruition (for men would covertly ‘define the parameters’ as women now do to keep excesses in check through holding the high moral ground if or when women ever overtly ‘hold the reins of power’). If you fondly imagine that you are currently ‘empowered’ over women then it is time to go back to your drawing board and redraft your thesis in accord with the facts (I take it that you either did not access the URL provided or did not find it informative if you did). Besides all this: is the need for power itself that is the problem – not who currently overtly or covertly holds it – which is why I suggested coming out of the ‘sixties and here into the ‘noughties, where equity and parity is the key to success. The cathartic ‘airing one’s dirty linen in public’ of the ‘sixties is over for those who actually looked at the dirt displayed’. • [Respondent]: ‘There is always a legitimate need for power in any family’. • [Richard]: ‘Why? And where has outwardly dominating one’s partner (overt power) ever lead to peace and harmony? And where has outward subservience (covert power) towards one’s partner ever lead to peace and harmony?’ • [Respondent]: ‘There is no such thing as parity’. • [Richard]: ‘Why not? Do you have a problem with being on a par, in having equivalence, with your partner? If so, why do you need to outwardly dominate her (overt power)? Similarly, does your partner have a problem with being on a par, in having equivalence, with you? If so, why does she need to be outwardly subservient (covert power)?’ • [Respondent]: ‘In every family one parent has more power than the other and it will always be that way’. • [Richard]: ‘Hmm ... as you have already stated (further above) that to ‘empower women over men and chaos is the result’ then this politically correct sentence of yours now reads: ‘in every family [the man] has more power than [the woman] and it will always be that way’. Other than because it says so in the Christian scriptures ... why do you consider this to be the way that ‘it will always be’ ? Where is the evidence of history to demonstrate that the man outwardly dominating the woman, and the woman outwardly submitting to the man, has evinced any peace and harmony ... let alone an enduring peace and harmony? Why do you want to insist on preserving the ‘tried and failed’ overt/ covert power battle between the sexes? Is this not all sick?’ • [Respondent]: ‘The idea that there is a 50-50 situation exists only in someone’s imagination’. • [Richard]: ‘Yet the idea that ‘the man has more power than the woman’ only exists in someone’s imagination ... and presumably some patriarch’s imagination at that. Similarly, the idea that ‘the woman has more power than the man’ only exists in someone’s imagination ... and presumably some matriarch’s imagination. Why persist in a blind sickness?’ • [Respondent]: ‘Of course there is also an illegitimate need for power. That is obvious’. • [Richard]: ‘Why is it obvious? I do not see any basis for a ‘legitimate need for power’ ... let alone a basis for an ‘illegitimate need for power’ : any and all power is a sickness, whether one be dominant (overt power) or subservient (covert power)’. (Richard, List B, No. 21b, 16 March 2000). Do you see that you are arguing for power all the way through? Do you see where I wrote ‘peace and harmony’ four times that exchange? And do you see where I wrote ‘any and all power is a sickness’ in the last line? Because it was at this point that you went rushing to the bottom asking asinine questions about wives and winning. Twice I endeavoured to persuade you to get back onto the topic (vis a vis your ‘empower women and chaos would result’ philosophy) ... yet you insisted on trying to prove your thesis that one – or both – of my wives won that weird ‘winning the battle’ scenario which only exists in your fertilised imagination. So I obliged you ... yet now you blandly state that ‘we have not discussed what peace and harmony is yet so I could not have objected to it’. When I did eventually elicit a receive a response to my reply (above) your answer to the paragraphs where I asked about ‘peace and harmony’ were: (1) ‘Power means more than overt action or subservience. It has to do with who guides who and there is always one who does more of that’ ... and (2) ‘The laws of the culture empower either the woman or the man if they favour one over the other’. What I see when I read all this – and other things that you have written – is a power fixation in operation ... almost a fetish, as it were. So, shall I put it this way? Peace and harmony (as in ‘equity and parity’) is when there is no power or powers whatsoever extant in this flesh and blood body ... especially ‘the highest truth’ (the supreme power-tripper if there ever was). RESPONDENT: I’m also curious about your former partner, Devika, the one who got away with an enlightened man (after spending approx. 10 years in your company) ... RICHARD: Golly ... this is the information I supplied to you: • [Richard]: ‘... my previous companion eventually became so disappointed by the lack of personal touch (as in ‘no-one to make a connection with’ so as to have a relationship) that upon making a deeply passionate connection with another person she packed her bags and moved out’. I neither said ‘enlightened’ nor ‘man’ ... or even said she ‘got away’ with this other person. RESPONDENT: ... what happened to her after leaving you? RICHARD: She set up a home for herself, by herself, so as to experience the nature of love, and its power, free of my influence ... and, as far as I know (as of March 2000), she is still waiting for what she called ‘the true peace of true love’ (a love which she further informed me is ‘matrilineal love and not patrilineal love’ that she said ‘only a female can manifest via true intimacy’) to manifest itself. She already had a leaning towards mystical feminism long before we met. RESPONDENT: Was the virtual freedom she experienced (for how long?) not satisfactory enough for her? RICHARD: Oh yes, and she wrote extensively about it in ‘Richard’s Journal’ (in the italicised paragraphs of Articles 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and 33) ... what happened after that is detailed in Article 36 of ‘Richard’s Journal’ (presumably you have not read that far yet): • [Richard]: ‘... my companion of the last eleven years is moving out because she can no longer live up to all that she has said and written about life, the universe and what it is to be a human being living in a virtual freedom. (...) After all these delicious years of living together and exploring together, a rather salient and curiously unforeseen event has taken place. She has fallen in love ... and has spent the last six weeks endeavouring to come to terms with the shifting kaleidoscope of passions that swing her from one point of view to another. All the experiential understanding of a virtual freedom gets tossed aside in the twinkling of an eye ... only to come back solidly when she is able to come to her senses once again. We recorded one of our conversations only two weeks ago in order to have something factual – other than one’s notoriously unreliable memory – to fall back upon in the times of love’s stress (snip transcription of taped conversation)’. (pages 235-236, Article 36, ‘Richard’s Journal’; ©1997The Actual Freedom Trust). The transcription of the taped conversation mentioned above can also be found at the following link: (Richard, Audio-taped Dialogues, Intimacy is Vastly Superior to Love). My explanation of the event follows on immediately after the transcription of the taped conversation: • [Richard]: ‘But it has all been to no avail, the power of love surging through the bloodstream is too strong to deny ... the body can be persuaded to produce quite an array of chemicals; a veritable cocktail is available to the insidious entity that has a psychological and psychic residence within. Already the only danger that awaits one on the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom is beginning to emerge ... the seduction of Enlightenment has been starting to rear its ‘Tried and True’ head. As I have observed before: it is impossible to combat the wisdom of the real world ... and when the Greater Reality slips beguilingly into view, one can no longer appeal to sensible reason or sensitive rationality. All the atavistic affective inheritance is sweeping away the salubrity of our eleven years together and is making her insist that I allow Love into actual freedom ... to ‘make it complete’. As if I would – if I could which I cannot anyway – for calenture has caused such appalling misery and mayhem for century upon century’. (page 239, Article 36, ‘Richard’s Journal’; ©1997The Actual Freedom Trust). ‘Tis only my explanation of course ... if, as you say, you are curious as to how it was for her she wrote to The Actual Freedom Trust mailing list in October, November and December 1998 (under her given name ‘Irene’) which correspondence you can find in the archives if you are so inclined: www.actualfreedom.com.au/archives/1998/afarchives10-1998.htm www.actualfreedom.com.au/archives/1998/afarchives11-1998.htm www.actualfreedom.com.au/archives/1998/afarchives12-1998.htm I had loaned her one of my computers so as to get at least some of the things she was then saying about me, and actualism, on the public record ... it does help to get both persons’ explanation of what happened. * RESPONDENT: First reply – [Richard]: ‘Second, the ‘lack of personal ‘touch’ in our email exchange’ which you were quite irritated by is easily explained: if you were to knock-knock at this brain there would be no-one there to answer ... my previous companion eventually became so disappointed by the lack of personal touch (as in ‘no-one to make a connection with’ so as to have a relationship) that upon making a deeply passionate connection with another person she packed her bags and moved out. You may find this exchange helpful: [Co-Respondent]: ‘As you were mentioning that the real world has exceeded Monty Python and that nonetheless you are having a ball all the way, I fail yet to get a clear picture of you being also a person or is this perhaps a very subtle touch of black humour that you have introduced into our conversation? [Richard]: ‘It is this simple: as there is no alien identity in this flesh and blood body you cannot recognise me (it is only in a PCE that another person can relate to me). [endquote]. In all fairness to my previous companion it must be remembered that the person she met, and initially formed an (undying) relationship with, was an *enlightened* being – she was showered with, drenched in, and subordinated by, Love Agapé and Divine Compassion – and not this actual Richard ... whereas my current companion only knows me as-I-am (thus there is no-one to miss)’. [emphasis added]. Second reply – [Respondent]: ‘I’m also curious about your former partner, Devika, the one who got away with an enlightened man (after spending approx. 10 years in your company) ... [Richard]: ‘Golly ... this is the information I supplied to you: [Richard]: ‘... my previous companion eventually became so disappointed by the lack of personal touch (as in ‘no-one to make a connection with’ so as to have a relationship) that upon making a deeply passionate connection with another person she packed her bags and moved out’. I neither said ‘enlightened’ nor ‘man’ ... or even said she ‘got away’ with this other person. [endquote]. I understood from your first reply that her new boyfriend was an enlightened person, that is a man, or is she a lesbian (‘matrilineal love’)? (‘got away’ was a more ‘humanly conditioned’ way to say it). RICHARD: I see ... whereas the enlightened being my first reply refers to, whom she initially met and formed an (undying) relationship with, was the one parasitically inhabiting this flesh and blood body at the time of that meeting (in 1986). I only became apparent when that grandiose identity died (in 1992) ... and, although she valiantly accommodated herself to the startling change in her relationship for the next five years, it can be said, but only in retrospect (which is why the word ‘undying’ is parenthesised), that all the while she longed for the affective connection of the preceding six years (after all she had been showered with, drenched in, and subordinated by, Love Agapé and Divine Compassion for the first two of those six years). Which is why I said ‘in all fairness to my previous companion ...’. In fact, both of my ex-wives had a difficult time with their husband: my first wife, being conventionally religious, and upon being faced with her husband’s spiritual enlightenment in the fifteenth year of a normal marriage, chose for the status-quo and, as far as I know, to this very day is still faithfully waiting for the ‘Second Coming’ of her God-Man (he who has a different notion of what a ‘generation’ means than virtually anyone else). She stills speaks nostalgically about the person she married. And my second wife, as I have already mentioned, upon being faced with her husband’s actual freedom from the human condition in the sixth year of an abnormal marriage – and being of a feministic mystical persuasion long before we met – chose for what she says is ‘True Love’ (‘Matrilineal not Patrilineal’) and, as far as I know (as of March 2000), is still faithfully waiting for the ‘True Peace’, which she further said only a female can manifest via ‘True Intimacy’, to manifest itself. Whereas my current companion only knows me as-I-am (thus there is no-one to miss and/or long for). * RESPONDENT: Richard, I’m interested to know how knowing and experiencing your partner changed over the years, as it probably closely mirrors the changes in your condition. I know that love allows one to enter into direct contact with the other’s being and thus experience him/ her. RICHARD: As I have been here all along my experiencing/ knowing has been essentially the same all the while (I only get to meet flesh and blood bodies here in this actual world) ... to wit: an actual intimacy/ an apperceptive awareness. However, as you are obviously enquiring about how the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago experienced/ knew ‘his’ first wife (for 15 years as a normal ‘being’ and for 2 years as an abnormal ‘Being’) and ‘his’ second wife (for 6 years as an abnormal ‘Being’) then the experiencing/ knowing took two main forms ... egoistically (for 15 years) and holistically (for 2 + 6 years). RESPONDENT: I don’t know how to put it more to the point ... do you now know/ experience your partner’s character (the third I so-to-speak), the actual person? RICHARD: Aye ... just as I have all along. RESPONDENT: Is someone’s actual character original (in the sense that it’s an unique combination of elements)? RICHARD: Yes ... both hereditarily and environmentally. RESPONDENT: Are your preferences in regards to choosing/ living with a partner mainly influenced by this ... RICHARD: Indeed so ... my current companion has no equal. RESPONDENT: ... or simply by your heterosexual orientation (any partner will do, as you experience intimacy with any body)? RICHARD: This flesh and blood body’s sexual orientation simply determines what gender a potential companion will be; as an actual intimacy is with every body (and every thing/ every event) it is that person’s character/ disposition/ constitution/ temperament which appeals. As does their vital interest in an actual intimacy for themselves, of course. RICHARD: ... my previous companion eventually became so disappointed by the lack of personal touch (as in ‘no-one to make a connection with’ so as to have a relationship) that upon making a deeply passionate connection with another person she packed her bags and moved out. RESPONDENT: Funny! :-) That’ll teach ya, eh Richard? :-) RICHARD: Ha ... you know how a deeply passionate connection operates, I see. RESPONDENT: Ha! :-) I forgot. :-) Maybe you could hum a few bars? :-) RICHARD: What did you mean by ‘that’ll teach ya’ then if not more than a passing familiarity with the perverse nature of love (which can become obvious upon falling in love with someone ostensibly more loving than the person one is with)? * RESPONDENT: Thanks for the laugh, hope all is well. RICHARD: As love never makes anyone well then it would seem that hope is about all you do have to offer to her. RESPONDENT: I think not! :-) RICHARD: What do you have to offer, then, other than the hope you so readily proffered at the first opportunity ... and your amusement at the contrary way a deeply passionate connection operates (nine smilies in ten sentences)? * RESPONDENT: I got to tell you, same thing recently happened to my buddy, and as she was standing at her car she says, ‘well aren’t you gonna say anything?’, and he says, ‘yes, drive safely’. :-) RICHARD: What I had to say was, of course, not at all platitudinous ... and at least one pertinent thing emerged out of the whole ‘no-one to make a connection with’ issue as two or so years later, after spending 13 months being a proxy maiden aunt, on a daily basis, to the newly born baby girl of a single young mother – which means she is being raised only by females – my previous companion came up to me in a café one day to let me know that she now understands, via this first-hand experience, that the instinctual passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) are indeed innate. Has your buddy’s ex-partner discovered anything of note yet regarding deeply passionate connections? RESPONDENT: I don’t know Richard, I doubt it, he suggested to her that she come out here with me, and I said, very funny, what the hell am I gonna do with her? :-) Just what I need. :-) RICHARD: What would be the point of coming out there with you, according to your buddy, and why would interacting with his ex-partner be something for you to not need? Or are platitudes (such as hoping the other is well/ advising them to drive safely) sufficient unto the day in your neck of the woods? RESPONDENT: I have two parrots in a cage home, and I see them flirting and playing. You said that you are not able for flirting but able for sex. RICHARD: You must be referring to this: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Do you joke, laugh, flirt (...)? • [Richard]: ‘I like to joke, yes and I laugh a lot ... there is so much that is irrepressibly funny about life itself. I have no ability to flirt, however, as my libido is nil and void ... yet I have an active sexual life (...). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 7, 24 January 1999). RESPONDENT: I can’t understand that. I really can’t. RICHARD: The word ‘libido’ (Latin meaning ‘desire’, ‘lust’) is the psychiatric/ psychoanalytic term for the instinctual sex drive, urge, or impulse, and the word ‘flirt’ refers to behaving in a superficially amorous manner, to dally sexually with another ... what is so difficult about understanding that, sans the instinctual passion to procreate (and nurture) the species, the ability to be sexually amorous (either superficially or deeply) ceases to exist? With no passions driving behaviour one is able to treat the other as a fellow human being ... and not a sex-object. RESPONDENT: Why you have a companion and you don’t change one every day? RICHARD: Primarily because of fellowship regard ... and specifically because of how my current companion is. RESPONDENT: You don’t have any feelings for her, so what a difference makes? RICHARD: A whole lot of difference ... just for starters I actually care, rather than merely feel that one cares, and thus have genuine consideration for her integrity. Plus I have no interest whatsoever in toying with my fellow human being, anyway, no matter who they are. RESPONDENT: Also could you make sex with a 80 years old and 150 kilos? RICHARD: Pardon, your prejudices are showing. RESPONDENT: Please don’t even let pass for a moment from your brain that there is any trace of irony in my email. RICHARD: I will bear that in mind. Re: Relationship ‘Infidelity’ and Actualism RESPONDENT: Hello All, I’ve been reading much about ‘Living Together’ and ‘Love’ on the AF site, but I haven’t come across much about relationship infidelity. Can anyone point me in the right direction, and/or add their thoughts? RICHARD: G’day No. 21, First, some essential background info: • [Respondent]: I’m a 27 year old white male ... (8011, 7.12.09). And: • [Respondent]: ... in regards to my girlfriend ... (7979, 6.12.09). Unless you are either currently being unfaithful or intending to/ being tempted to, or your girlfriend currently is or is intending to/ being tempted to, then your query, being academic, will lack the impetus so essential to uncovering and discovering whatever it is which motivates such infidelity. For instance, in the early years of my first marriage – about three years after the wedding and with two young children – my first wife was unfaithful big-time (I only found out about it from one of her many men informing me, in an alcoholic state which made him spill the beans, that I was being cuckolded by about thirteen different men who lived in the same apartment block). Now, this is where it gets very interesting (hence my ‘impetus’ observation above): upon asking her about it, citing that particular man’s drunken confession as evidence and getting her confirmation, I found that I could only admire her for having the courage to do the very same as I had often so wanted to do but did not dare to like she was doing. In other words, all I had to do was look into myself – rather than quiz her endlessly to get at the roots of her infidelity – to see why being unfaithful is such a common occurrence. ‘Tis as simple as that. 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