# Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

Richard’s Selected Correspondence ## On Harmless Re: Near Actual Caring MARTIN: Does harmlessness have nothing to do with ‘others’? RICHARD: The etymology of the word harmless (harm + less) is rather instructive as it comes, via Middle English, from the Anglo-Saxon word hearm, meaning ‘grief’, from the Old Norse harmr, meaning ‘grief, sorrow’ (plus there is the German Harm, also meaning ‘grief’; the Swedish harm, meaning ‘grief, anger’; and the Danish harme, meaning ‘wrath’). Thus, although the word harm nowadays refers to physical injury/ damage as well – the American Heritage Dictionary lists it as meaning “physical or psychological injury or damage” and the Collins English Dictionary has it meaning “physical or mental injury or damage” – its affective-only origins are also attested by the legal term “grievous bodily harm” (rather than just the words ‘grievous harm’). I have touched upon this before ... for instance (in 2004): • [Richard]: “(...) it may be worthwhile bearing in mind that it is impossible to be happy (be happy as in being carefree), as distinct from feeling happy, without being harmless (being harmless as in being innocuous), as distinct from feeling harmless, and to be happy *and* harmless is to be unable to induce suffering – etymologically the word ‘harmless’ (harm + less) comes from the Old Norse ‘harmr’ (meaning grief, sorrow) – either in oneself or another”. [emphasis in original]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 62, 26 March 2004). Thus to be harmless as per actualism lingo (being free of malice) is beneficial both to oneself – plus it feels unpleasant (hedonically) to feel malicious (affectively) anyway – as well to others due to being unable to induce suffering either in oneself or another, via affective vibes and psychic currents, and vice versa. MARTIN: ‘I’ can only think in terms of ‘self’ and ‘other’, where ‘I’ am either selfish or virtuously selfless (which I experience as simply being a re-direction of that narcissistic energy). I don’t think I’ve really understood what harmless means, as I can’t help but either put ‘myself’ or ‘others’ first (as a kind of denial of ‘self’) when I think of being harmless. When I think of “for that body and every body” I can’t help thinking of and instinctually feeling “for that ‘self’ and every ‘self’”! ‘Harmlessness’ feels like something you *do* to another human being – or an effect you have on them – but do you simply mean it as an absence of malice and sorrow? RICHARD: The word harmless, in actualism lingo, refers to the innocuity which ensues in the absence of malice (just as the word happiness refers to the felicity which ensues in the absence of sorrow). And it is only in either a PCE (where the feeling-being is abeyant) or upon an actual freedom (where the feeling-being is extinct) that there is a total absence of malice and sorrow. In the meanwhile, of course, both malice and sorrow (the ‘bad’ feelings) can be deliberately minimised – along with their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion (the ‘good’ feelings) – so as to consciously maximise those happy and harmless feelings (the ‘congenial’ feelings) and with all of that affective energy, which was otherwise frittered away on those wasteful ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings, now freed-up and channelled into felicity and innocuity a potent combination is forged when such untrammelled conviviality operates in conjunction with a naïve sensuosity. * Do you see how almost all of that paragraph you wrote as a lead-up to your query about being harmless – as in “but do you simply mean it as an absence of malice and sorrow?” that is – stems from or revolves around that hoary religio-spiritual practice of putting each and every other ‘self’ before one’s own ‘self’ (a.k.a. being an unselfish ‘self’) so as to counter selfishness? Yet the topic on the web page which Claudiu linked to (Richard, Audio-Taped Dialogues, Putting the other before Oneself). is essentially about being self-centred – with especial attention upon that term referring to each and every ‘self’ being both ego-centric and soul-centric – and not about being selfish. As being harmless does not feature in religio-spiritual practice – peace-on-earth is not on the religio-spiritual agenda – then the sooner that nonsense about being an unselfish ‘self’ is abandoned the better. Here is another reason why: • [Richard]: “(...). Further to the point: what is intelligent about advocating pacifism, for example, which would not only enable the bully boys and feisty femmes to rule the world, with all which inheres in that, but would also propagate/ perpetuate their kind unto future generations per favour the dutiful martyrdom (and thus a willing removal from the human gene-pool) of those seeking instant release into the hereafter of their choice through gullible practise of same? And just in case the latter is not clear enough: if every otherwise intelligent non-dictatorial/ non-bandit/ non-criminal/ non-rapacious/ non-pillaging type of person were to actually put into practice, as a world-wide reality, those unliveable doctrines which bodiless deities prescribe then in a remarkably short period of time all babies will be being born with bully boys and feisty femmes as parents ... and with no alternate care-giver/ role-model anywhere to be found. So much for ‘suffer the little children to come unto me’, eh?” (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25h, 13 May 2005). MARTIN: What is harmlessness in an unconditional sense? Obviously it can’t be dependent on others at all. RICHARD: As to be actually harmless – which is surely what “harmlessness in an unconditional sense” means – is to be actually free of malice (as distinct from being virtually malice-free) then any listing of what it “can’t be dependent on” is irrelevant, as all what being actually harmless is dependent upon is being actually free of malice. Incidentally, as malice can be (and often is) self-directed – feeling-beings are notorious for self-harm – then to focus solely on others for your “Obviously...” conclusion is to be ignoring half the picture. MARTIN: How does intimacy come about without putting the “(potential) affective happiness of [a] feeling-being” to some extent before ‘oneself’? RICHARD: Have you never heard of mutual happiness? MARTIN: ‘I’ am fundamentally selfish and unless I temper this to some extent there’s no chance of being close to someone or liked as ‘my’ resentful urges are unrestrained (and affect my mood / disposition even if I don’t act out on them). Is becoming actually free a combination of becoming unselfish in a normal sense, and being harmless in an unconditional sense? RICHARD: First of all, each and every identity is “fundamentally selfish” by nature – which is why it takes a powerful instinctive impulse (altruism) to overcome a powerful instinctive impulse (selfism) – insofar as blind nature endows each and every human being with the selfish instinct for individual survival and the clannish instinct for group survival (be it the familial group, the tribal group, or the national group). (Hence the religio-spiritual practice of countering selfishness – as per the unliveable ideal of each and every ‘self’ being an unselfish ‘self’ via the nonsensical edict of each and every ‘self’ putting each and every ‘self’ before one’s own ‘self’ – is basically an institutionalised elaboration of the most primal of blind nature’s instinctual drives, urges, and impulses and, as such, is not at all intelligent). Second, as “being harmless in an unconditional sense” is to be actually free it makes no sense to ask if becoming actually free is a combination of being that and becoming an unselfish ‘self’. Third, rather than having to restrain your “resentful urges” forever and a day – so as to have a chance of “being close to someone or liked” as exemplified by intimacy experiences (IE’s) – why not find out why there is resentment in the first place? Speaking personally, the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago first located the root source of all ‘his’ anger – the basic resentment at being alive (as expressed in the “I didn’t ask to be born” type of plaint) – and was thus able to rid ‘himself’ of (full-blown) anger within three weeks. MARTIN: Where is the line between the two? RICHARD: There is no line between the two: being an unselfish ‘self’ is a religio-spiritual practice and becoming actually free is unique to actualism. The former is instinctually-based and the latter is the product of intelligence. MARTIN: If I try to be happy at simply being alive, I feel as though others potentially threaten that ‘unconditional’ happiness and I get a fear response (any happiness I generate is unstable and thus not unconditional). It’s as though I can only enjoy just being alive if I’m undisturbed, or if there’s nothing in the environment that will kick-start the instinctual passions back into action. I can’t see how to separate out the conditional from the unconditional, as events change and have various degrees of good/ bad, pleasant/ unpleasant, peaceful/ potential-to-disturb. The fact that this is the only moment I’m ever alive doesn’t change the fact that events change with varying degrees of good/ bad etc. – I am not immune to this just because it’s the same moment (maybe I’m only seeing this intellectually or not getting what you mean by eternal moment). And yes, this particular moment is the only moment I’m actually alive, but that doesn’t change the fact that there will be a next moment (unless I die of course). RICHARD: First, as nowhere on The Actual Freedom Trust web site is it suggested that you “try to be happy at simply being alive” you would be well-advised to set feeling good (a general feeling of well-being) as a bottom-line of experiencing until it becomes ‘second-nature’ to feel good each moment again come-what-may. Second, as there is no “unconditional” for a feeling-being to separate out the “conditional” from it is no wonder you cannot see how to do so. Third, seeing the fact that this is the only moment you are ever actually alive is not meant to change the fact that events change – here in this actual world events are forever changing (it is the way in which life is always fresh, novel, ever-new, never boring) – as the whole point of the exercise is to realise you are wasting the only moment you are ever actually alive by feeling bad (a general feeling of ill-being) when you can be feeling good instead. Fourth, these ever-changing events are not the issue – the issue is how one (affectively) reacts or responds to them – as one cannot change the weather to ensure a sunny day in the park or on the beach (for instance). Lastly, to blame events for how you feel is to make yourself a victim of your own feelings (as if of forces beyond your control) when it is your choice, and your choice alone, as to how you feel, each moment again, as the events change. MARTIN: What about the issue of self-protection? When someone cuts in front of me in line I feel slightly humiliated / embarrassed / annoyed. RICHARD: Why do you choose to feel “slightly humiliated / embarrassed / annoyed” when someone cuts in front of you in line when you could choose to feel good (a general feeling of well-being) instead? Put differently: why waste this only moment you are ever actually alive by choosing to not feel good? Moreover, and given that certain persons are prone to cutting in front of others in line, why set yourself up to feel “slightly humiliated / embarrassed / annoyed” for the rest of your life each time that happens? Even more to the point: do you have a vested interest in making yourself a victim? RICHARD: However, I will take this opportunity to stress just how vital this matter of affective vibes is, in regards to successful actualism practice, as it is central to the ‘feeling harmless’ aspect of such practice (as in the phrase ‘happy and harmless’ that is) inasmuch the whole point is the minimisation – and the ultimate cessation via extirpation of ‘being’ itself – of any malicious feelings and, thus, their resultant transmission as affective vibes throughout the human psyche. I have, of course, written of this before ... for instance: • [James]: I do understand about minimising both the good and bad feelings as I have been down the road of trying to eliminate the bad while maximising the good. It is clear that I can’t have the good without the bad. • [Richard]: Exactly ... and thus the way is cleared to be launched upon the adventure of a lifetime. (Richard, List B, James3, 28 October 2002a). • [Respondent]: (...). A wise person sits on the shore and watches the ebb and flow of these waves. • [Richard]: Yet, as ‘a wise person’ is a being residing inside the body, irregardless of whether the being persuades the body to physically act or not, the being involuntarily transmits ‘these waves’ – these emotional and passional vibes (to use a 60’s term) – into the human world in particular and the animal world in general: therefore the being is not harmless even when the being refrains from inducing the body into physical action ... which is why pacifism (non-violence) is not a viable solution. There is nothing that can stop other beings picking up these vibes (...). (Richard, List B, No. 33j, 2 Nov 2002a). Here is another instance: • [Respondent]: What was the most harmful action you did to other human beings when being a ‘Richard’? What was the most harmful action you did to other human beings when being a Self? I’m referring to an actual harm and not to a potential for harmful action (be it psychological or physical). • [Richard]: The most harmful action in both cases (both being ‘human’ and being ‘divine’) operated twenty-four hours of the day: involuntarily radiating affective vibes and transmitting psychic currents ... and the divine vibes and currents, being so powerful, are the most insalubrious and reprehensible. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25b., 24 June 2003). Now, if it were to really be the case – as you maintain – that no other ‘being’ can feel your (affective) feelings then why put the actualism method into practice? Why not just fake the requisite facial-expression/ tone-of-voice/ body-language and carry on as you were born? * It has got me beat how anyone can spend years and years reading and writing, to forums such as this, about actualism practice (and its aims or goals) yet all the while be ignorant of or ignoring the central feature of such practice ... to wit: the transmission and the reception of the many and various affective feelings which make-up a feeling-being. And speaking of ‘reception’: all feeling-beings are operating and functioning in a virtual sea of affective vibes (not to mention the far-deeper, longer-ranging and more-powerful ‘psychic currents’/ ‘psychic energies’), swirling around and coming at them from all directions, influencing them affectively/ psychically, pushing and pulling them into involuntarily making all manner of decisions which they might otherwise not make (and later regret). Claudiu recently referred to theses vibes as [quote] ‘completely permeating the space around us’ [endquote], in a post to this forum, and how [quote] ‘each person was like a little dot in that vibespace, somehow picking it up & affecting it’ [endquote]. Viz.: #15648 From: Claudiu Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 23:39:37 Subject: Re: Knack at seeing silliness [Jonathan]: [...snip...]. [Claudiu]: [...] feelings & beliefs don’t affect the actual world at all. I remember sitting at the airport on my way back with Richard & Vineeto. By that point I had been in a vibeless space for so long that I grew very sensitive to perceiving vibes. There were tons of people in the airport, and there were vibes just completely permeating the space around us, everything at all. And each person was like a little dot in that vibespace, somehow picking it up & affecting it. Yet when I looked at Richard he was just sitting, completely at ease, and completely oblivious to the vibes around us. They were just passing right through him as if he wasn’t there. Trippy shit yo. The only effect they have on the actual world is in what they get the feeling-beings inhabiting various actual bodies to do in terms of controlling their bodies to do this or that, which actions then actually happen. But they do affect other feeling-beings directly, obviously. (Actualism, Others, Claudiu’s Report, 24 October 2013) As already referred to further above, in regards to how mob violence can so easily take over in otherwise decent, intelligent human beings, I happened to be in New Delhi in October 1984 when Sikh bodyguards assassinated India’s Hindu Prime Minister Ms. Indira Gandhi after the assault by the Indian army on the Harimandir of Amritsar, the Sikhs’ holiest shrine. This set off a rampage of terror and violence that closed down the city for three days; the normally ubiquitous police were nowhere to be seen for the entire period. I was there – with a nine year old daughter – and saw with my own eyes what happened: it was out-and-out internecine conflict; after three days of unrestricted rioting and slaughter (with at least 3,000 persons massacred) the military came in with helicopters, planes, tanks, armoured vehicles, machine guns, and so on, and eventually law and order was restored by sheer brute force. The affective/ psychic atmosphere – and the wanton destructiveness I personally witnessed – was identical to my experience in a war-torn foreign country in 1966 when I was a serving soldier in a declared war-zone. * Quite frankly, a head-in-the-sand attitude towards the evidential reality of affective vibes (and the far more insidious ‘psychic \ currents’/ ‘psychic energies’ where the real power-play resides) is going to get you nowhere fast. RESPONDENT: Richard, before I hit the road again, I have a question that seems pretty important. Re-reading some of your selected writings, I rediscovered this: [Richard]: ‘The ‘process’ was both prosaic and extraordinary: on the one hand I began undoing all the social conditioning that I had been subject to since birth and on the other hand I generated love for all and sundry. I examined all the social traditions and customs etc., one by one, and released myself from their iron grip. I diminished hate and anger and sadness and loneliness by surrendering to and living in love and oneness ... which is the best that a normal human could do by virtue of the socialisation process. I moved in and out of Sacred States of Heavenly Bliss and Love Agapé and Divine Compassion and immersed myself in the entire ‘process’ with dedication and resolution. I adopted the principle of pacifism (‘turn the other cheek’) and developed Goodness of the highest order. I cleansed and purified myself of all impure thoughts and deeds and worked both hard and industriously in my daily work. I practised honesty and humility in all my interactions with other people and pondered the significance and ramifications of the Divine Order’. (www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/selectedwriting/sw-asc.htm). If the activation of love, compassion, humility, goodness, moral purity, and a passionate faith in the Divine Order etc is not 180 degrees opposite from what you now recommend, it’s pretty damn close, no? RICHARD: What I now recommend is essentially no different to what I have recommended ever since first becoming apparent on the thirtieth of October 1992 and which is basically the same as what the identity in residence recommended, to anyone prepared to listen at the time, when ‘he’ set about imitating the actual – as evidenced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) in late July 1980 – on and after the first of January 1981 ... to wit: being relentlessly attentive to, each moment again, and scrupulously honest about, how that only moment of ever being alive was experienced so as to feel as happy and as harmless (as free of malice and sorrow) as was humanly possible inasmuch any deviation from such felicity/ innocuity was attended to with the utmost dispatch in order to live as peacefully and as harmoniously as ‘he’ could with ‘his’ then wife and children, in particular, and with anyone and everyone who came into ‘his’ presence. And all that came about – albeit nowhere nearly spelled-out so clearly and concisely – more or less spontaneously on that day as during the PCE, where identity in toto was in abeyance, the affections played no part at all and, moreover, there was such an utter intimacy as to render any trace of a separation needing to be affectively bridged simply risible. Furthermore, that way of living was so successful, for the first three months or so of that year, that ‘he’ was wont to exclaim, to all and sundry, that ‘he’ had discovered the secret to life (for that is how far beyond normal human expectations the felicitous/ innocuous state which has nowadays become known as being virtually free truly is) and ‘he’ was perplexed as to why, it being such a simple thing to do, no-one had ever done it before. Then an event occurred of such impact as to be the turning-point, in regards no longer going directly to what numerous PCE’s evidenced (namely that what is now known as an actual freedom from the human condition was possible here on earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body), and relates back to the initial PCE which set in motion the whole process wherein, unbeknownst to the experiencing due to a total lack of any precedent, it had devolved into an altered state of consciousness (ASC) when a new identity had all-of-a-sudden come into existence ... a grand ‘Me’, a glorious ‘Me’, a fulfilled ‘Me’ who was none other than the long-awaited Saviour Of Humankind! That impactive event took place whilst keenly watching the sunrise casting its brilliant rays earthward, one otherwise-experienced-as-perfect morning in mid-autumn, upon seeing an ornamental bush thus lit, in the garden alongside the ex-farmhouse, luminously aglow, fiercely afire from within as it were, wherefrom it was revealed to ‘Me’ that there was to be a death and a rebirth and, consequently, a catatonic state ensued that resulted in ‘Me’ being carted off to hospital, and kept under intensive care for four hours, until coming out of it in a state of Radiant Bliss (which quite overwhelmed the duty-nurse by the way). ‘He’ was never to be the same again, as Divinity had been working on ‘him’ whilst catatonic, and from that date forward ‘he’ was permanently in a state of human bliss and love ... ‘he’ could do no wrong. As ‘he’ had surrendered to, and thus lived in, love and oneness ‘he’ moved in and out of sacred states of Heavenly Bliss, Love Agapé and Divine Compassion; ‘he’ immersed ‘himself’ in the entire process with dedication and resolution; ‘he’ adopted the principle of pacifism (‘turn the other cheek’) and developed a goodness of the highest order; ‘he’ cleansed and purified ‘himself’ of all impure thoughts and deeds; ‘he’ worked both hard and industriously in ‘his’ daily work; ‘he’ practised honesty and humility in all ‘his’ interactions; ‘he’ pondered the significance and ramifications of the Divine Order; ‘he’ totally believed in and had supreme faith in The Absolute – ‘he’ never doubted the ability of That to bring about the Peace On Earth so long promised – and that ‘he’ was to play the central role in that Divine Plan no longer came as a surprise to ‘him’ as ‘he’ realised that ‘he’ had long yearned to be part of the Salvation Process. The following more or less sums it up: • [Richard]: ‘... back in 1981 I had umpteen number of peak experiences – sometimes two-three times a day varying from minutes to hours – and they were wild and woolly times. Somewhere along the line I had lost sight of the four hour pure consciousness experience [PCE] that had triggered my whole incursion into becoming free of the human condition and there was certainly a ‘difference in degree’ of the affective element in each experience ... ranging from virtually non-existent to full-blown grandiosity for the ‘me’ that was inhabiting this body. The PCE stayed pristine in its own domain, however, and stood me in good stead some eleven years later ... as I have recorded in ‘A Brief Personal History’: (Richard, Articles, A Brief Personal History). • ‘It troubled me deeply that I was in such a situation because I seem to be driven by some force to ‘Spread the Word’ and that was never my intention all those years ago when I first had what is known as a ‘Peak Experience’ which initiated my incursion into all matters Spiritual, culminating in the ‘death’ of my ego and catapulting me into this Absolute State. My intent back then had been to cleanse myself of all that is detrimental to personal happiness and interpersonal harmony ... in other words: peace on earth in my life-time. Instead of that rather simple ambition, I found that I was impelled on an odyssey to be the latest Saviour of Humankind in a long list of Enlightened Beings ... and this imposition did not sit well with me’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Alan-b, 25 July 2000). RESPONDENT: The method you now recommend (minimising ‘good’/ ’bad’ feelings, activating felicity/ sensuousness) is what you used only after the ego had already dissolved. RICHARD: The method I now recommend is essentially no different to the course of action I have recommended ever since first becoming apparent and which is basically the same as the way the identity in residence recommended a normal life be lived, when ‘he’ first devised and put into practice what has now become known as the actualism method, on and after the first of January 1981. Incidentally, that way of living/ that course of action did not ... um ... officially become a method until early 1998. And it only came about because of being told to either send more information or draw a clearer map to paradise, on a mailing list set-up under the auspices of the teachings Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti brought into the world, for no other reason than (despite the fact that they are rife throughout most, if not all, of those teachings) any and all methods, ways, paths, and so on, were anathema to his readers/ listeners. Viz.: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘You’re going to have to send more information or draw a clearer map to paradise. • [Richard]: ‘(...) What ‘I’ did, eighteen years ago, was to devise a remarkably effective method of ridding this body of ‘me’. (Now I know that methods are to be actively discouraged, in some people’s eyes, but this one worked). ‘I’ asked myself, each moment again: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ (...)’. (Richard, List B, No. 19, 17 March 1998a). RESPONDENT: It worked, but *only when you were in an Altered State Of Being*, having permanently dissolved your sense of personal identity in an oceanic feeling of oneness with all creation. RICHARD: Just so that there is no misunderstanding: what really worked, when the identity was that ‘Altered State Of Being’, was (1) a continuation of the totally dedicated and/or devoted pure intent to evince what the PCE’s evidenced ... and (2) a furtherance of the irreversible momentum, or inevitability, already set in place on day one as the process is, essentially, that of escaping from one’s fate and attaining to one’s destiny ... and (3) a prolongation of the attentiveness as to how the only moment of being alive was experienced ... and (4) an utter lack of dignity in being so far up oneself (narcissistic) as to render the term ‘egotistical’ a mere bagatelle in comparison ... and (5) a sense of humour which, if nothing else, made possible (6) a delightful resurgence of the earlier felicity/ innocuity which again brought about, in combination with sensuousness, an outstandingly ingenuous sense of amazement, marvel and wonder. And it was that last-named – the wide-eyed wonder of naiveté – which resulted in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception). RESPONDENT: To put it mildly, that [an altered state of being] is not my starting point ... RICHARD: Neither was it ‘my’ starting point ... for instance: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘… but I have a lot of taxes to pay to the society, family, etc., which give me no time to sit and watch the rising sun ... • [Richard]: ‘Speaking personally, the ‘I’ that was made freedom the number one priority in ‘his’ life. ‘He’ was a married man, with four children, running ‘his’ own business, with a house mortgage to pay off and a car on hire purchase ... working twelve-fourteen hour days, six-seven days a week. In other words: normal. And all the while the enabling of freedom took absolute precedence over all other matters and dominated ‘his’ every moment’. (Richard, List B, No. 49, 23 June 2000). And for another instance: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘I find myself in a situation where I am raising two children and I am married. • [Richard]: ‘So? I found myself in a situation where I was married and raising four children. • [Co-Respondent]: ‘I am doing my best to raise the kids – but how could I possibly be pleased with raising them only to be in ‘abysmal’ situation – only to live in a ‘grim and glum’ reality where the best they can do is live on the better side of misery? • [Richard]: ‘Indeed ... being married and raising four children was one of the many incentives for the ‘me’ who was to get off ‘his’ backside and do something about the whole sorry mess. And now, as a direct result of that altruistic action, the possibility exists for those five fellow human beings to also live fully (as is anybody else) if they so choose’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27e, 5 April 2003). RESPONDENT: ... and neither is it the starting point of anyone else around here. RICHARD: I have had on-line discussions with quite a few self-realised beings (albeit mostly of the just-add-water-and-stir-thoroughly variety) ... plus several face-to-face discussions over the years. Quite simply: one starts wherever one is at. RESPONDENT: I well understand that you reject enlightenment as a tried and failed solution to the ills of humankind, and I understand why. BUT, my question concerns the method, not the goal. In one of our early conversations, you said to me that when your ego ‘died’ you were only seconds away from an actual freedom, if only you had known at the time that such a thing was possible: • [Richard]: ‘... if I had known, back in 1981 at the moment of ego-dissolution, what I now know I would not have let the process stop halfway through its happening (...) by my reckoning it would have all been over in a matter of maybe 6-10 seconds (rather than 6 seconds plus eleven years)’. • [Respondent]: ‘So electro-chemical ‘self-immolation’ is not just metaphorical, eh?’ • [Richard]: ‘Indeed not: it is all very, very real ... more real than anything has ever been’. • [Respondent]: ‘You were really that close? • [Richard]: ‘Yes ... I have written before about how I unwittingly discovered yet another way to become enlightened ...’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No 60, 3 December 2003). So ... you activated the process of self-immolation by activating powerful passions. RICHARD: The identity inhabiting this body activated the process of *partial* ‘self’-immolation – the ego-dissolution, or death of the ego, referred to in the above exchange – by activating love and compassion (and rapture and euphoria and ecstasy and bliss and so on) ... whereas the process of ‘self’-immolation *in toto* involved the deactivation of those antidotal pacifiers for malice and sorrow (and all those others). RESPONDENT: Not innocuous felicitous feelings but powerful, red-hot passions. RICHARD: The felicitous/ innocuous feelings are in no way docile, lack-lustre affections ... in conjunction with sensuosity they make for an extremely forceful/ potent combination as, with all of the affective energy channelled into being as happy and harmless as is humanly possible (and no longer being frittered away on love and compassion/ malice and sorrow), the full effect of ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being – which is ‘being’ itself – is dynamically enabled for one purpose and one purpose alone. RESPONDENT: No wonder you were able to engage the whole of your being in this process. RICHARD: So as to inject a modicum of commonsense into your train of thought: the identity inhabiting this body was able to engage the whole of ‘his’ being in the process which led to ‘self’-immolation in toto, via first undergoing an ego-death/ ego-dissolution, primarily and ultimately because of pure intent. And the key to unlocking such naiveté is sincerity, pure and simple. RESPONDENT: And from where I stand, there’s little wonder that no-one else has. RICHARD: Where one stands does, of course, determine what one sees. RESPONDENT: (9 months of intense ‘self’-immolation vs. 10 years of mere reconditioning is what it comes down to as I see it). RICHARD: Ha ... there is much more to an entirely-new model than just ripping the engine of the ole hog apart and giving it a reco so that it will be good for another few hundred thou or so. Much, much more ... do you realise that what you are saying, in effect, is that all what is required for any realised/ enlightened/ awakened being, to become actually free from the human condition, is but a re-working what remains of identity (the deeper and most fundament part) after partial ‘self’-immolation? RESPONDENT: So why, if you were mere seconds away from ‘self’-immolation using the original method, do you now recommend an altogether different one (almost 180 degrees opposite) that only worked after your ego had dissolved? RICHARD: Hmm ... if what you really want is to become realised/ enlightened/ awakened then it is not all that difficult. Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘There is a sure-fire way to become enlightened ... if that is what one really wants. It is important to realise, deeply, that not only can ‘you’ not find Love Agapé ... Love Agapé does not come to ‘you’, either. The way it works is that when ‘you’ become ‘love’ then Love becomes You ... Love Agapé is You As You Really Are. Here is how to be Love Agapé: 1. First, get out of your head and feel deep within yourself, past the emotions, into the deeper feelings – the core of your ‘being’ – for there you will feel intense human love (the nurturing/ desiring instinctual passion). 2. Identify totally with this love as pure feeling – live it as being it fully every moment of your day – and surrender your will to existence itself. 3. Your identity as ‘me’ as soul (‘me’ at the core of ‘being’) will transmogrify itself into the Absolute in an edifying moment of awakening as ‘The Truth’. 4. You will then realise that this is your ‘True Self’ ... the ‘Me’ that exists Timelessly and Spacelessly and Formlessly. 5. You will then be Love Agapé ... You will have come to bring Your message of ‘Truth and Love’ to a suffering humanity. 6. You will be utterly convinced that You will succeed because all the others who came before You were not as Enlightened As You Are. 7. The whole world has been waiting for You. It is quite easy, really’. (Richard, List C, No. 9, 4 July 2000). And if that intense human love cannot immediately be felt (as in step No. 1 above) then the quickest way to activate it is to go deeply into personal sorrow (which can readily be done just by feeling sad about the whole sorry mess which is the human condition and empathy will take over) until it becomes universal sorrow – the essential pathos of all sentient creatures – whereupon it flips over and turns into compassion ... which passion, upon fully flowering in all its goodness and charity, becomes a radiant love for all suffering beings. Then move on to step No. 2. RESPONDENT: It seems to me that using the first method would be *heaps* more potent than second because it engages the passions instead of (trying to) systematically undermine them – which, in my personal experience, only takes the wind out of one’s sails. RICHARD: The actualism method is not about undermining the passions ... on the contrary, it is about directing all of that affective energy into being the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (that is, ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being, which is ‘being’ itself) in order to effect a deliberate imitation of the actual, as evidenced in a PCE, so as to feel as happy and as harmless (as free of malice and sorrow) as is humanly possible whilst remaining a ‘self’. Such imitative felicity/ innocuity, in conjunction with sensuosity, readily evokes amazement, marvel, and delight – a state of wide-eyed wonder best expressed by the word naiveté (the nearest a ‘self’ can come to innocence whilst being a ‘self’) – and which allows the overarching benignity and benevolence inherent to the infinitude, which this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe actually is, to operate more and more freely. This intrinsic benignity and benevolence, which has nothing to do with the imitative affective happiness and harmlessness, will do the rest. All that was required was ‘my’ cheerful, and thus willing, concurrence. RESPONDENT: 5) Related to this (the link between ‘the inner’ and ‘the outer’), is it possible for someone who is actually free, happy and harmless, to freely, happily and harmlessly punch someone in the face? RICHARD: First and foremost, as there is no ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ in actuality there is nothing here in this actual world to have any such linkage. Second, to be actually free from the human condition is to be sans the affective faculty/ identity in toto. Third, the happiness and harmlessness referred to on The Actual Freedom Trust web site is the total absence of malice and sorrow. Fourth, to freely punch a fellow human being in the face is to utilise physical force non-prejudiciously. Fifth, to happily punch a fellow human being in the face is to utilise physical force without sorrow. Sixth, to harmlessly punch a fellow human being in the face is to utilise physical force without malice. Thus your query can look something like this when spelled-out in full: • [example only]: ‘With no ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ to have any linkage, is it possible for somebody sans the affective faculty/ identity in toto, with no malice and sorrow extant whatsoever, to non-prejudiciously, non-maliciously and non-sorrowfully, use physical force on a fellow human being? [end example]. In a word ... yes. RESPONDENT: I mean I’m talking ‘in context’ here – not just through malice, but to protect someone, or something like that. RICHARD: Perhaps if I were to put it this way? One does not become actually free from the human condition in order to be beaten to a pulp by someone – anyone – who chooses to let themselves continue being run by blind nature’s instinctual survival passions. RESPONDENT: Richard, have you encountered a situation where people want to test your ‘harmlessness’ by poking, trying to be mean etc. in real lives? RICHARD: Aye, on many an occasion ... both in face-face situations and on this mailing list (where it happens more often due to lack of physical restraint). By the very nature of the human condition human beings, through no fault of their own, are self-centred and some are more so than others – some to the point of feeling, and thus thinking, that the world revolves around them – and it never occurs to those, who do just that, that they are simply wasting both their time and a vital opportunity by manifesting the same-same behaviour (and using the same-same techniques) as the many who have done so before them have done ... being so self-centred as to be fondly imagining that their own fundamental sphincter-muscle, which they are wearing around their neck, is a dainty little necklet they are unable to realise that they, and therefore their behaviour and techniques, are in no way unique. In short: trying to get me riled is as futile as shaking a fist at the firmament, and fulminating against the universe, is ... it has no effect whatsoever. Furthermore, those who do it frequently on this discussion list are, by mistaking freedom from moderation as a licence for anarchy, openly demonstrating to all and sundry (other than to themselves, though, or they would cease forthwith) why the very rules, regulations, protocols, etiquettes, and so on, they are rebelling against in general have been needed, are needed, and will remain needed. ‘Tis a weird way to try to convince those, in a position of governance, to cease governing as the only effect is to emphasise why the need is there in the first place, eh? Oh, well ... c’est la vie, I guess. RESPONDENT: I don’t feel attached to my parents in any filial sense, but I suppose the socially conditioned ‘ethic’ of keeping my promise to move back is what I need to examine more closely. When I originally told my mom, she was ecstatic, and if I were to tell her that I changed my mind, I fear that I would cause harm, which goes against being ‘harmless.’ RICHARD: What the word ‘harmless’ refers to, on both The Actual Freedom Trust web site and mailing list, is being sans malice – just as being happy refers to being without sorrow – thus provided there be no malice generating/ driving/ motivating one’s thoughts, words, or actions, being no longer capable of fulfilling a previously made pledge can in no way be going against being harmless. None of this is to deny that another’s feelings may, and can be, self-induced to feel hurt as a result ... the simple fact of the matter is that if they choose to harbour such feelings that is their business. Put simply: one does not become either actually or virtually free of the human condition just to be guided by and/or run by other people’s feelings ... here is a classic example: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Fallacy are you man. Go to fuck with a duck and don’t bother me, idiot. My feelings are not extinct, as yours, and listening you is bringing to my ego a strong sense of repugnance. Is it clear, big sod? (...) You are a malicious sod, a repulsive cyber guru that gets me nausea because my feelings are not extinct and listening your shit is too much for my ego. Was not clear that you are a pure fallacy, was not clear my meaning? • [Richard]: ‘Am I to take it that, because you feel nausea (and, previously, repugnance) when reading my words, these feelings then prove that I am ‘a pure fallacy’? In other words, your feelings are to be taken as being the arbiter of what I am? Are you really telling me that I am to be guided by your feelings? I did not spend eleven years, delving deep into the depths of ‘my’ psyche (which is the ‘human’ psyche) exposing, and thus eliminating through the exposure, anything whatsoever that was insalubrious ... only to be run by your feelings when I came onto the internet to share my discoveries with my fellow human being. Look, it is this simple: for as long as you continue to be as you currently are then I am sure you will find, as a consequence, that other people’s responses will have the self-induced effect on you of you feeling nausea, repugnance or whatever other feeling that you may thus activate in that entire repertoire of feelings you nurse to your bosom’. (Richard, List B, No. 53, 17 May 2001). RESPONDENT: You are ineffectual to things out there, that is, to things other than you when you lose identity. RICHARD: Aye, it is such a relief – and a delight – to no longer have power over one’s fellow human beings. RESPONDENT: You are ineffectual and you are unknown when you follow through with the AF dream to be happy and harmless. RICHARD: It is also a relief/ delight to be anonymous and, by the way, happiness and harmlessness – freedom from malice and sorrow – is not a ‘dream’ but an actuality ... also the implications of what you have to say above (being effectual and known only through remaining malicious and sorrowful) are a cutting indictment on the human condition. RESPONDENT: Anyway, can I suggest to pick-up just the key words of your front-page? They are: ‘fully free and autonomous individual, living in utter peace and tranquillity’; ‘totally free from sorrow and malice’; ‘being happy and harmless’. For the sake of simplicity, may we shorten this list and concentrate on only two words: ‘free’ and ‘happy’? RICHARD: Is there some particular reason why you do not want to be harmless? RESPONDENT: Aren’t they the main points, isn’t that what everybody wants? RICHARD: It is quite surprising, actually, just how many people there are who only want to be happy ... and to have freedom as a clip-on to their existing modus vivendi. RESPONDENT: If you are free, you are happy and the inverse is also true. But do we know what freedom and happiness really is? RICHARD: Well I do, of course, but I cannot speak for you, obviously. RESPONDENT: Could we try to make this as clear as possible? RICHARD: I do not know about you, at this stage, but I know that I can. RESPONDENT: Are you interested in this? RICHARD: Let me see if I comprehend what it is that you are asking: I am one of the founding directors of The Actual Freedom Trust which has one role and one role only ... to wit: to promulgate and promote the words and writings explicating the workings of an actual freedom from the human condition and a virtual freedom in practice. To this end I play my part in providing, maintaining, and contributing to The Actual Freedom Trust web site – which offers somewhere in the vicinity of 4.0 million words free of charge to anyone who has access to a computer – and also play my part in providing, maintaining, and contributing to The Actual Freedom Trust mailing list so as to facilitate a sharing of experience and understanding and to assist in elucidating just what is entailed in becoming free of the human condition. The mailing list, being a public forum for discussion about an end to malice and sorrow forever and an actual freedom for all peoples, is where anyone interested in what is on offer on The Actual Freedom Trust web site can communicate with other people similarly interested. Now, after writing on this mailing list since it inception, you only recently come along and ask me if I am interested in trying to make known what the two words in your short-list really are ... and as clearly as possible. Have I correctly comprehended what you are asking? RESPONDENT: Richard, if a happy & harmless person were to decide whether or not to produce something that as a side consequence pollutes &/or damages the environment, how would they objectively do it so that all happy & harmless people would come to the same decision? RICHARD: I would appreciate it if you could describe how an unhappy and harmful person objectively decides, so that all unhappy and harmful people come to the same decision, whether or not to produce something which, as a side effect, pollutes and/or damages the environment. Then the nature of your query will become clear. RESPONDENT: Do you appreciate what technology does for us, such as a computer, which is made with toxic chemicals? RICHARD: What I would appreciate, before moving on to your second question, is your description of how an unhappy and harmful person objectively decides, so that all unhappy and harmful people come to the same decision, whether or not to produce something which, as a side effect, pollutes and/or damages the environment. Then the nature of your initial query will become clear. RESPONDENT: If you decided to produce something, how would you decide whether or not to produce it if it has a noticeable polluting effect on the environment from manufacturing it & perhaps its permanent existence? RICHARD: This is but a variation on your initial query ... so if you could describe how you would decide whether or not to produce something which has a noticeable polluting effect on the environment from manufacturing it, and perhaps its permanent existence, the nature of this query will become clear as well. RESPONDENT: If we continue to produce things that pollute (no matter how much benefit it provides), eventually the planet will be unhealthy to live on. RICHARD: As this is but a latter-day version of the doomsday syndrome which has afflicted many otherwise intelligent peoples all throughout human history I will pass without further comment. RESPONDENT: Are you harmless Richard? RICHARD: Indeed I am ... where there is no identity extant there is no malicious ‘I’ or sorrowful ‘me’ to be harmful ... and one is harmless only when one has eliminated malice – what is commonly called evil – from oneself in its entirety. That is, the ‘dark side’ of human nature which requires the maintenance of a ‘good side’ to eternally combat it. By doing the ‘impossible’ – everybody tells me that you can’t change human nature – then one is innocent (free from sin and sinning) and thus automatically harmless ... which means one does not have to be a pacifist (which is but an imitation of the actual). It means that no act is malicious, spiteful, hateful, revengeful and so on. It is a most estimable condition to be in. One is then free to act or not act in response to something or someone, as the circumstances require. Thus, when there is no ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul there is no need for pre-conceived truths or beliefs ... then one clearly sees the fact of the situation. The fact will tell one what is the most appropriate course of action. For example: If I were to be silly enough to be a pacifist, then all of the pre-conceived truths – the beliefs which come with being a pacifist – dictate my course of action and not the facts of the situation themselves. Thus one never meets each situation fresh – which is pretty silly seeing that each situation is novel – and you would be getting nothing but the platitudes and pap that you get from others. RESPONDENT: Your responses seem to be more confronting than harmless. RICHARD: Oh? What did you expect when you first wrote to me? Platitudes? That is ... re-hashes of the ‘Tried and True’? RESPONDENT: My poor ego has taken a beating especially from this post. RICHARD: I am unable to offer any support or any solace to any ego or any soul ... I do not have that ability or capacity. RESPONDENT: No, I don’t want any. I was just giving you my responses in the light of your proclaimed harmlessness. You are saying that no intent to harm a person. RICHARD: No ... I am not talking of having to suppress the intent to harm – being a pacifist practising non-violence – I am talking of not even having the intent at all ... ever. The reason why I am not harmful is that in an actual freedom I have no furious urges, no instinctive anger, no impulsive rages, no inveterate hostilities, no evil disposition ... no malicious or sorrowful tendencies whatsoever. The blind animal instinctual passions, which some neuro-scientists have tentatively located toward the top of the brain-stem in what is popularly called the ‘reptilian brain’, have under-gone a radical mutation. I am free to be me as-I-am; benign and benevolent and beneficial in character. I am able to be a model citizen, fulfilling all the intentions of the idealistic and unattainable moral strictures of ‘The Good’: being humane, being philanthropic, being altruistic, being magnanimous, being considerate and so on. All this is achieved in a manner ‘I’ could never foresee, for it comes effortlessly and spontaneously, doing away with the necessity for virtue completely. RESPONDENT: But it is a fact that your confronting manner can be harmful to another emotionally. So I think harmless in that sense is insupportable. I am not disputing that some habits must be confronted which is unpleasant. RICHARD: If you see that a ‘confronting manner can be harmful to another emotionally’ and is a factor to take into consideration in one’s dealings with others ... then why can you not see that feelings are the root cause of all the ills of humankind? Other people’s precious feelings do not rule me. Respect for another’s feelings ultimately means respect for physical force, for if one upsets another’s feelings sufficiently, they will become violent. Thus, through violence, people’s precious feelings rule the world ... and look at the mess it is in. Shall we examine the implications? For starters, I propose that it is the beliefs, truths, values, principles, ideals, traditions, customs, mores, ethics, morals and so on that are being ‘confronted’ ... and relentlessly so. It is only to the degree that the person identifies with these ever-failing coping-methods that they feel personally attacked. I calmly yet trenchantly explicate just what has been going wrong and what can be freely and happily done to correct all the ills of humankind. What I say and write is both heretical and iconoclastic ... a fact that I make no apology for. The wars and rapes and murders and tortures and corruptions and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides that afflict this globe are far too serious a matter to deal with for me to spend time in mincing words. I am no ‘Gentle Jesus meek and mild’ – or whatever inanity it is that the myth says – and there is no ‘turning the other cheek’ here. There have been 160,000,000 people killed in wars this century alone ... now that is where the phrase ‘confronting manner’ actually means something. RESPONDENT: I have a question for anyone kind enough to answer. How do I relate to someone who has physically harmed me? Who wishes to harm me again? RICHARD: Unless it is a sociopathic stranger prowling the streets taking any victim at random, the physical harm one receives is invoked by the way one feels about one’s assailant ... whether one’s feelings are acted upon in behaviour or not. And controlling one’s attitude towards them does nothing to stop the other picking up on one’s vibes (to use a 60’s term). If one has the slightest trace of malice or sorrow toward the other, the prevailing wisdom is to be loving or compassionate ... yet it does not work in practice. This is because there is a psychic connection between humans who have feelings. Modifying one’s negative feelings toward the other by coating them with positive feelings may fool some people for some of the time. Usually, however, one is only fooling oneself, because the positive is born out of the negative. Without the negative feelings there are no positive feelings. No feelings at all means one is happy and harmless and the other leaves one alone ... which does away with the need for that dubious remedy of pacifism (non-violence). Until one is interested enough with the workings of one’s psyche to dig deep into one’s feelings – into the core of one’s being – and uncover the root of all malice and sorrow, one has no choice but to apply the ‘Tried and True’ remedies again and again ... and fail and fail, again and again. The pertinent question to ask oneself is: ‘Why do I have the need to relate to anyone at all?’ * RESPONDENT: Thanks for responding, so many answers to my little question, I am overwhelmed. I relate to others because I am human. Why ask why? RICHARD: Because some one has caused you physical harm and wishes to do so again ... that is why. RESPONDENT No. 12: Or is it rather that ‘you’ exist only in relationship and clear seeing of that relationship is right action? Are you relating so as to cause resentment or to invite attack? Are you attacked at random so that you need only step aside? What is actually happening? RESPONDENT: These are good questions. But the recipient of violence does not cause the violence. RICHARD: If, as you say, the recipient of violence does not cause the violence ... then why say that these are ‘good questions’? If you do not understand ... say so. And it is indeed all about ‘blaming the victim’ (to use the current jargon) ... you have been physically harmed already and have been offered physical harm again! What more has to happen before you will inquire into yourself? * RESPONDENT: Would you tell the victims of Hitler or the Ku Klux Klan to inquire into themselves? RICHARD: Yes ... if they asked me. Identifying with by relating and belonging to a group – and espousing group ideals – invites attack from the bully-boys of another group who deem themselves superior. Why identify? Why relate? Why belong? The pertinent question to ask oneself now is: ‘Why do I have the need to identify by relating to anyone or belonging to any group at all’? This is inquiring. RICHARD: After my experience in a war-torn foreign country I wished to do something constructive with my life; I wished to rid myself, personally, of the ‘human nature’ which all people say can not be changed ... which I did successfully eliminate ... and facilitate the self-same removal in anyone else dedicated to a genuine peace on earth. To become happy and harmless one must extirpate both malice and sorrow, which stem from the entity within ... sense of identity and self that has a parasitical life inside the flesh and blood body. Beliefs, and the act of believing itself, sustains and feeds this monstrous psychic entity within that seeks the ‘something’ that is metaphysical. And those people who somehow accomplish the attainment of ‘that which is sacred, holy’ then go around propagating a specious belief system that can only perpetuate all the abominable suffering that humankind has had to endure up until now. RICHARD: How on earth can I live happily and harmlessly in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are whilst I nurse malice and sorrow in my bosom? RESPONDENT: Hum, Richard, you can’t. RICHARD: Indeed not ... such a simple statement, non? RESPONDENT: And what need is there for ‘happily and harmlessly’. RICHARD: What need is there for me to be living happily in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are? The need to put an end to all the sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides ... that is what need is there for me to be living happily. What need is there for me to be living harmlessly in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are? The need to put an end to all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse ... that is what need is there for me to be living harmlessly. RESPONDENT: If there is ‘malice and sorrow’, the malice and sorrow will overcome the ‘happy and harmless’ in an instant or less! RICHARD: Yet you have already agreed (above) that whilst I nurse malice and sorrow in my bosom I cannot live happily and harmlessly in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are ... did you not? Therefore there is no ‘happy and harmless’ to be ‘overcome in an instant or less’ with ‘malice and sorrow’ ... this sentence of yours is nothing but an entirely pointless observation. Was it not such a simple statement after all? * RESPONDENT: Perhaps with your constant need to look smart? RICHARD: No ... I simply wish for my fellow human being to be happy and harmless; to be freed of the malice and sorrow that they nurse in their bosom because all of the Saints and the Sages, the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours have all instructed them to revere love and compassion ... and without malice and sorrow to sublimate and transcend (transcend not eliminate) Love Agapé and Divine Compassion are stillborn. If you consider that I am being smart just because I actually care about peace-on-earth, then no wonder there are so many wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides. RESPONDENT: Yet all egoistic feelings don’t disappear once and for all. There is an on-going process. Can you comment on this apparent contradiction? RICHARD: If what I have written above is conducive to understanding, you will begin to see why ‘egoistic feelings don’t disappear once and for all’. You are not obedient and humble enough! If you still wish to become enlightened, you will need to sublimate your passions – surrender your wilful self – and move into accord with some metaphysical Absolute, like Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti did in 1922 under a pepper tree, as detailed by Ms. Mary Lutyens. Abject subjugation of the will should produce the essential servitude – great cunning is required – and the rest is up to the ‘Grace of God’. If, however, you are starting to see through all this hocus-pocus, you will be beginning to understand that it is possible to live in this modern era, freed even from out-dated philosophy and psychiatry. You will be challenging every religious, spiritual, mystical and metaphysical tenet and be surpassing any of the Altered States Of Consciousness. By discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, you will find that 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 and no-thing. For it is now possible for any human being to be totally free from sorrow and malice; the two fundamental elements that prevent one from being happy and harmless. Gone now are the days of having to assiduously practice humility and pacifism in an ultimately futile attempt to become free by transcending the opposites ... the traditional and narrow path of denial and fantasy, negation and hallucination. A wide and wondrous path of blitheness and gaiety is now available for one who wishes to live in the freedom of the actual world. Actualism is a tried and tested way of being here in the world as it actually is ... stripped of the veneer of reality that is super-imposed by the psychological entity within the body. This entity is that sense of identity that inhibits any freedom and sabotages every well-meant endeavour. Thus far one has had only two choices: being normal or being spiritual. Now there is a third alternative ... and it supersedes any Mystical Reality. It is possible to be actually free, in this life-time, as this body, here on earth. KONRAD: There are four basic areas every human being is confronted with. The first is EXISTENCE. The second is the fact that he not just exists as an existent like rocks, but that he exists in the form of a living being. The third is the fact that he lives as a member of some group of people, as a society. And the fourth is that he has a consciousness. So every person has to deal with existence, life, society, and his own consciousness. In all of these domains there is a duality. In the existence domain it is the duality between factuality and potentiality. In the ethical domain it is the duality between reality and the imaginary. In the social domain it is the duality between civilisation and barbarism. And in the consciousness domain it is the duality between happiness and pain, the domain we are, in essence, have our ‘dialogue’ about. RICHARD: Not so ... it is amazing the number of people who jump only on the ‘happy’ part of my ‘happy and harmless’ phrase. The subject of what you called ‘barbarism’ is paramount in what I write. You may have noticed that I once or twice referred to the fact that 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone? One cannot be happy unless one is first harmless and one cannot be harmless unless one is first happy. RICHARD (to No. 31): Small children are not innocent ... they are born with aggression and fear. Understanding human nature is as simple as understanding this fact. Life is not complicated. (Richard, List B, No. 31a, 26 May 1999). RESPONDENT: Again here, Richard, you authoritatively make a statement that has no basis in fact. A child is NOT born with aggression and fear. RICHARD: This borrowed ‘Tabula Rasa’ (‘clean slate’) philosophy of yours has had a long innings in human history ... and is currently making a come-back in NDA circles as: ‘We are all born Little Buddhas’. The continued belief in this theory – in the face of the empirical evidence of the past 30 odd years demonstrating genetic inheritance – requires avoiding the biological fact. Just by putting the word ‘NOT’ in capitals does not miraculously turn a creed into a fact. RESPONDENT: You just don’t understand about conditioning, do you Richard? How long does it take an infant to be conditioned?? Maybe a minute? Maybe a year? Maybe a second? RICHARD: Why are you asking me? It is your theory – you say that I am wrong and that you are right – yet you do not know what to say to back your statement. And as for ‘maybe a second’ ... ye gods, your theory becomes fantasy. RESPONDENT: Krishnamurti talked 60 plus years about freeing oneself from the entanglement of conditioning. Krishnamurti said that he was never conditioned, and that he did not know why that was the case. His mind remained ‘vacant’. RICHARD: And you believe him? Despite all the documentation to the contrary? Ah, well ... such is faith, I guess. RESPONDENT: I have been observing my 10 month granddaughter closely since the day she was born. I have as yet to observe any fear, aggression, malice, and/or especially sorrow. It is just not there. Will she ever come to know hatred, anger, sorrow, fear, aggression, etc.? It will be a sad day to see conditioning take a hold on her. You talk about your simplicity, and that is a laugh. My granddaughter is simple; that is beauty, love, and a joy to behold. She will have to first become conditioned in order to ‘achieve a truly ‘clean’ slate’, for as of right now, she is a ‘truly clean slate’. RICHARD: Am I reading this correctly? Are you really saying, that in order to become ‘clean’, one has to become ‘unclean’ first ... even though one is already born ‘clean’? RESPONDENT: Obviously, you were not a very observant parent or grandparent. RICHARD: I not only ‘observed’ my biological children from birth onward, I actively participated in finding out about myself, life, the universe and what it is to be a human being through intimate interaction at the grass-roots level of association ... bonding, nurturing and protecting. Indeed, I was a single parent for a formative period of my biological daughters’ upbringing ... and one cannot get closer than that. Infants and children are not as happy and harmless and benevolent and carefree as is so often made out to be the case ... and have never been so. They have malice and sorrow firmly embedded in them, for one is born with instinctual fear and aggression. Just watch a one month old baby bellowing its distress at being alone; just watch a one year old pinching its sibling in spite for taking its toy; just watch a two year old stamping its foot in a temper tantrum; just watch a three year old child fighting with its peers for supremacy. In the interests of having a sincere dialogue, I must ask: where in all this is the fabulous ‘Tabula Rasa’? The imposition of social mores – moral virtues, ethical values, honourable principles, decent scruples and the like – are essential to curb the instinct-born spiteful anger and vicious hatred that are part and parcel of the essential traits of being ‘human’. To achieve a truly ‘clean slate’, something entirely new must come into existence. All peoples must cease being ‘human’. To change ‘Human Nature’, they must give-up, voluntarily, their cherished identity ... the rudimentary animal self they were born with. RESPONDENT: Humans are born with a central nervous system for responding to the environment. Fear and aggression are learned traits as a result of the environment. RICHARD: By ‘environment’ you can only mean the world about ... the world of what you call ‘Mother Nature’. Thus you are saying that fear and aggression are leaned from a ‘kind and benevolent’ Mother Nature? That is, fear and aggression is learned from ‘she’ who is giving, protective, quiet, wild and beautiful’, eh? But okay ... I will have it your way, then. You are right and Richard is wrong. The question that immediately springs to mind is: how are you going to unlearn these traits that are learned as a result of ‘responding to the environment’? Which means: what is your plan? What success have you had? Have you unlearned all these learned traits yet? Or is all this that you write merely theory? You see, in my ignorance I naively thought that these traits were genetically inherited and so I deleted them like the software they were. Consequently I never get sad or lonely or sorrowful or grief-stricken; I never get angry or hateful or furious or filled with rage. Therefore I never have to become affectionate or compassionate or loving to compensate; I never have to gaze longingly at the stars ... yearning for a bodiless peace. I discovered the already always existing peace-on-earth ... how naïve of me. RESPONDENT: At what expense? Madness? RICHARD: Uh oh ... I gain the distinct impression that you are getting yourself ready to trot out the line that you do not have to look at the instinctual passions (and will instead waste your time endlessly unlearning those traits that you claim are only learned as a result of ‘responding to the environment’) because you have nothing to gain from Richard sharing his experience with you ... because he has what is officially classified as a severe mental disorder. Which means: what can a madman have to say to a normal sane person that is of value, eh? Yet 160,000,000 human beings were killed by normal sane people in wars this century – peoples like yourself – and they do know what they are doing ... do they not? RESPONDENT No. 3: Realize that and be enlightened. RICHARD: If I may ask? What motivates you to advise me to ‘be enlightened’ ... and, in particular, what will be the result of entering into the ‘Enlightened State’? Does doing so mean an end – an absolute end – to anger and anguish forever? Which means: will I be happy and harmless (free of malice and sorrow) for the remainder of my life? (Richard, List C, No. 3d, 2 May 2000). RESPONDENT: Have you redefined harmless? RICHARD: Not at all ... the word ‘harmless’ means ‘lacking intent to injure, devoid of hurtful qualities, marked by freedom from strife or disorder, innocuous free from guilt; innocent, blameless, faultless, irreproachable, lily-white; safe, non-dangerous, gentle, mild, peaceful, peaceable’. Contrary to popular belief a pacifist is not harmless: it is malice and sorrow that is the problem and a coping-mechanism such as pacifism does not work to ensure peace and harmony. This is because pacifism is an ideal; in an idea of peace people are into altering behavioural patterns (rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic) whereas what I speak of is the elimination of that which causes the aberrant behaviour in the first place. As pacifists and their ilk (those who live the doctrine of non-violence) do not eliminate the source of aberrant behaviour then they have to imitate the effortless ease of an actual freedom from the human condition by making a big splash about their ‘goodie-goodie’ behaviour. Where there is no identity extant there is no malicious ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ to be harmful ... and one is harmless only when one has eliminated malice – what is commonly called evil – from oneself in its entirety (the ‘dark side’ of human nature which requires the maintenance of a ‘good side’ to eternally combat it). By doing the ‘impossible’ – everybody tells me that you cannot change human nature – then one is innocent (free from sin and sinning) and thus automatically harmless ... which means that no act is malicious, spiteful, hateful, revengeful and so on. It is a most estimable condition to be in: one is then free to act or not act, in response to something or someone, as the state of affairs require. Thus, when there is no ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul there is no need for pre-conceived truths or beliefs ... then one clearly sees the fact of the situation. The fact will tell one what is the most appropriate course of action. For example: if one were to be devious enough to be a pacifist, then all of the pre-conceived truths – the beliefs which come with being a pacifist – dictate one’s course of action and not the facts of the situation themselves. Thus one never meets each situation fresh – which is pretty silly seeing that each situation is novel – and you would be getting nothing but the platitudes and pap from me that you get from others. As I am harmless (with no malice extant), if someone were to bop me on the nose I am free to bop them back – or not – dependent upon the situation and circumstances. RESPONDENT: Can you guarantee that you would not harm another individual? RICHARD: There is a 100% guarantee of being totally and reliably capable of spontaneously interacting in the world of people, things and events, in a way that is neither personally insalubrious nor socially reprehensible, at all times and under any circumstance without exception. An actual freedom enables the ability to always be harmless (free from malice) at any time, at any place, in any situation. The Christians, for just one example, purport to comprehend this salient point: • ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law ... it was said to the people long ago: ‘do not murder, anyone who murders will be subject to judgment’ ... but I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment ... be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect’. (Matthew 5:17, 21-22, 48). But as even their saviour-hero could not live-up to his own ‘Teachings’ no one has taken much notice of this admonition. But, then again, as their ‘Heavenly Father’ is an angry (yet antidotally loving), vengeful (yet antidotally compassionate) and jealous (yet antidotally forgiving) god, then the ‘Source’ of the ‘Teachings’ is also corrupt ... so who can blame them for being recalcitrant? For it is nobody’s fault ... ‘tis the once-necessary survival instincts that is the root cause. RICHARD: And no, it is not that it is ‘only a belief that any harm is done’ ... because, as I wrote: ‘the very fact that one is alive means consuming nutrients ... and staying alive means that something, somewhere, must die’. It is the elimination of malice and sorrow from oneself that renders one harmless – not refraining from eating meat. RESPONDENT: What does malice and sorrow have to do with eating meat? (You go off on so many tangents.) And you can eliminate malice and sorrow all you want, but it does not change the fact that life is interconnected. And to be aware of that fact might not do anything for a particular steer but it gives one a healthy perspective on the nature of things so one would not be apt to mindlessly decimate other life forms out of false feelings of superiority and/or the false belief that they are expendable without consequence to ourselves. RICHARD: The elimination of malice and sorrow renders one harmless, so it is not a tangent, it is germane to the discussion. The whole thing about not eating meat comes from that ‘non-violence’ trip – ‘ahimsa’ in India – about trying to be harmless by not killing anything ... all the while being malicious and sorrowful in feeling and thus thought. Merely suppressing the deed (being ‘non-violent’) does not exonerate one from being a harmful person ... it merely makes one look that way from the outside. Inside, one may be churning away with barely suppressed anger and rage ... or grief and resentment or whatever. There invariably comes a time when the ‘non-violent’ vegetarian can restrain themselves no longer and they burst out in a paroxysm of raging violence or whatever which they will later regret, of course, and in tearful and heartfelt remorse probably ask their god for forgiveness ... but it is too late, for the damage has already been done. A ‘non-violent’ person is not harmless, for they can not be trusted, if provoked enough, to remain calm and harmless. As for ‘the fact that life is interconnected’ ... well that is the problem, is it not? Humans are all connected via a psychic web – a network of invisible ‘vibes’ – that leads to incredible power-trips between competing members of society. A person may be nice to your face, for example, but the intuitive feeling is that they hate your guts ... this is the interconnectedness in action. It is a powerful force – an ‘energy’ – that seeks to control by psychic manipulation and leads to the most horrific consequences ... as has been the sorry demonstration of history. The elimination of the psychic entity – ‘I’ the self as an ego and a soul – is the ending of interconnectedness. One is then, for the first time, a free individual beholden to no one ... and free from both being controlled and being a controller. In other words, one is happy and harmless ... by having extirpated malice and sorrow completely. The enlightened people merely transcend malice and sorrow – they sit above it in a cocoon of love and compassion – and never eliminate them. And so the wars go on ... and on and on. I do not have a ‘false feeling of superiority’ towards animals: I am superior. And they are indeed expendable without the slightest trace of ‘consequence to ourselves’ (apart from the dependence we have on being a part of a healthy ecological food-chain, which can be easily maintained with a little more research and thought). I have already written about all the killing that we do anyway in self-defence ... mosquitoes, sand-flies, cockroaches, rats, mice, snakes, crocodiles, sharks, lions, germs, bacteria, bacillus, microbes, pathogens, phages, viruses and so on. It is impossible to be harmless by being ‘non-violent’. The belief in ‘non-violence’ is one of the most pernicious and insidious beliefs that one can hold, for it creates the illusion that one is harmless when one is not. RESPONDENT: I’m glad you have a place where you can go off and disappear. I wish I did. Until then I’m stuck with myself and my relation to the rest of the world. RICHARD: I do not have to ‘have a place where I can go off and disappear’ for I am happy to be here all the time ... here and now. It is ‘I’, the parasitical self, that needs to go off and hide from time to time, for it is an alien ... and it knows that it should not be here inside the body, wreaking its mischief in disguise. You say it well: ‘I am stuck with myself and my relation to the rest of the world’. RESPONDENT: I was just reading Richards reasons for thinking that eating meat is harmless. RICHARD: Or, more accurately, you were just selectively reading one part of an explanation of mine as to why vegetarians, vegans, and fruitarians are essentially no different to pacifists ... to be superficially altering behavioural patterns is to be merely rearranging the deck-chairs on the ‘Titanic’. RESPONDENT: So. RICHARD: So you have missed the central point of that explanation ... to wit: to be superficially altering behavioural patterns – just as in pacifism (aka non-violence/ ahimsa) – is but a bandaid solution ... to be treating the symptoms and not the disease itself. RESPONDENT: They feel empathy (a dirty little emotion) for harmless animals that have not done anything to anyone and they do something about it. RICHARD: As those animals, just like the human animal, are born with instinctual passions – such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire – per favour blind nature they are not harmless … as you acknowledge (albeit en passant) further below. Viz.: • [Respondent]: ‘… if an *angry* marsupial comes after you than I suppose it is only fair to pull out an oozy and get to it’. [emphasis added]. Incidentally, empathy is usually considered to be a positive (aka a ‘good’) emotion and not a negative (aka a ‘bad’) one. RESPONDENT: I think it is you who are rearranging deck-chairs on the ‘Titanic’ with these lame defences (something you don’t do) of your version of peace on earth and good will toward ... well man. RICHARD: It is not my version of the hymnic ‘peace on earth/ good will to all mankind’ which is on offer on The Actual Freedom Trust web site at all: it is, rather, the already always existing peace-on-earth of this actual world – as evidenced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) – where it is startling obvious that it be something which no amount of behavioural pattern alteration will ever bring about. * RESPONDENT: Bottom line for him I suppose is that it is not done out of malice. RICHARD: Put simply: it is not violence per se (as in physical force/ restraint) or the potential for violence which is the problem: it is ‘me’, as the emotions and passions, fuelling the violence, or fuelling the potential for violence, who begets all the misery and mayhem. Violence itself (as in physical force/ restraint) is essential lest the bully-boys and feisty-femmes would rule the world. And if all 6.0 billion peoples were to become happy and harmless overnight (via altruistic ‘self’-immolation) it would still be essential lest the predator animals should have the human animal for its next meal. Yet even if all the predator animals were to cease being predatory (à la the ‘lion shall lay down with lamb’ ancient wisdom) it would still be essential if the crops in the field be not stripped bare by the insect world. And so on and so on: taking medication – even traditional medicine – does violence to a whole host of bacterial life; so too does drinking water as one drop contains many miniscule creatures; even breathing does violence as a breath of air contains untold numbers of microscopic life-forms. RESPONDENT: The animals will be so happy to know. RICHARD: This is just a waste of a sentence. RESPONDENT: Also he goes on a big rant about how you are bound to kill things, and even vegetable must undergo distress when pulled from the earth. I have never heard a more obvious evasion of a question in my life. You don’t have to eat meat. No one is forcing you to. You don’t just walk down the street and accidentally kill animals, you choose to eat them or not. RICHARD: Every time you breathe air, drink water, eat food, take a step, sneeze, and so on, something, somewhere (if only on the microscopic level) is being killed by you. Being alive as a creature means other creatures inevitably die ... I watched a fascinating video, some time back, of fantastic camera work on the microscopic level: a drop of dew from an early morning rose had at least 1,000-10,000 tiny shrimp-like and crab-like creatures in it all swimming around and multiplying and eating each other. A dew drop, mind you. * RESPONDENT: What did a kangaroo kick your ass or something. RICHARD: As kangaroos are not predator animals your query is doubly-irrelevant (it being also non-germane whether or not one particular human animal has been subject to predation). RESPONDENT: When is the last time an animal stalked you for it’s prey. RICHARD: Again, whether such predation has happened to one human animal in particular, or not, is beside the point. RESPONDENT: No one has said anything about self defence, this is entirely novel to the discussion thus far. RICHARD: If I may point out? In that explanation of mine (as to why vegetarians, vegans, and fruitarians are essentially no different to pacifists), which you were just selectively reading, there are at least three paragraphs regarding the question of self-defence. Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘(...) What will one do – as a fruitarian causing no pain or the taking of life of anyone or anything – about those pesky things like mosquitoes, sand-flies, cockroaches, rats, mice and other ‘vermin’ that invade my house? Put up screens? What about outside? Will I slap them dead ... or just shoo them away? What will one do if attacked by a snake, a crocodile, a shark, a lion and so on? Do as the revered scriptures say and turn the other cheek? Will I humbly submit to my fate and be mauled severely myself – or even killed – simply because of a religious injunction, a moral scruple, a noble ideal, a virtuous belief, a passionate opinion, a deeply held ethical theory? In other words, have animals and insects been given the right, by some inscrutable god, to do with me whatsoever they wish? Is my survival dependent upon the non-existent benevolence of all those sentient beings that I am not going to cause distress to? What then about germs, bacteria, bacillus, microbes, pathogens, phages, viruses and so on? Are they not entitled to remain alive and pain free? If one takes medication for disease, one is – possibly painfully – killing off the microscopic creatures that one’s body is the host too. Some religions – the Jain religion in India, for example – has its devout members wearing gauze over their nose and mouths to prevent insects from flying in and they even carry small brooms to sweep the path as they walk so that they will not accidentally step on some creature. It can really get out of hand. For instance, small-pox has been eradicated from the world by scientists as a means of saving countless human lives ... is this somehow ‘Wrong’? What is ‘Right’ in regards to what I do in order to stay alive? If I do none of these things then I will be causing pain and suffering to myself ... and I am a sentient being too. It is an impossible scenario, when pursued to its ultimate conclusion. And then there is the matter of one’s fellow human beings. Some of them – in fact at times a lot of them – are desirous of invading the country that one is living peacefully in, with the avowed intent of killing, torturing, raping, pillaging and subjugating oneself and one’s fellow citizens. If one holds a strong and passionate belief in not causing any pain and suffering to other sentient beings then one must be more than a fruitarian ... one must be a pacifist as well. This amounts to hanging out a sign – if everybody else in the country one lives in adopts this specific belief – which says, in effect: ‘Please feel free to invade us, we will not fight back, for we hold firmly to the principle of not causing pain and suffering to any sentient being whatsoever’ (the Tibetan situation is a particular case in point). (...)’. (Richard, List A, No.16, No. 02). RESPONDENT: But if an angry marsupial comes after you than I suppose it is only fair to pull out an oozy and get to it. RICHARD: I will draw your attention to what you say (further below in this e-mail of yours): • [Respondent]: ‘This is not about death per se, rather the manner of death and the capacity of the animal to experience pain’. As you suppose it is only fair to kill a predating animal, in self-defence, with a submachine gun then the very basis of what you have to say, in your vegetarians versus omnivores diatribe, is rendered null and void. RESPONDENT No. 60 (to Richard): ... you seem for all money to be a prick that everyone bends over backwards to make allowances for on account of you having something to offer. PETER to No. 60: It appears to have well and truly escaped your attention that by far the majority of correspondence that Richard has answered on this mailing list since he last had a break from writing has been from correspondents who are bending over backwards to personally attack him for the sole reason that not only has he something to offer and does freely offer it but also because he will not back down from having something to offer and from freely offering it. (Actualism, Peter, Actual Freedom List, No. 60e, 16.2.2006). RESPONDENT: What I find curious is that Richard is so compelled to respond to all these ^attacks^. RICHARD: As Richard is not at all [quote] ‘compelled’ [endquote] to respond to any e-mail whatsoever then what you are not only finding curious but have even been motivated into taking extra steps about (of using both the time to type out and the bandwidth with which to send same) has no existence outside of your imaginative/ intuitive facility. Now, why someone – anyone – would do all that is surely something to be curious about, non? RESPONDENT: If I was in his place I would deal with the flurry of gnats the same way I deal with Richard’s posts now – with the delete button. Presto! RICHARD: As you are not in Richard’s place, but are kinda stuck in a solipsistic cul-de-sac, then the difference betwixt you and Richard is that he actually cares about his fellow human and thus would prefer that their self-imposed suffering come to an end, forever, sooner rather than later. Put succinctly: here in this actual world they are not experienced as if gnats, flurrying or otherwise, to be dealt with by deletion. RESPONDENT: My momma always told me it takes two to argue. RICHARD: Is there any other advice your mother gave you which you are not taking heed of? RESPONDENT: The only conclusion I can draw is that Richard enjoys the battle. RICHARD: Hmm ... and would that conclusion be inspired by what you felt as you reached for the keyboard to type all this out prior to clicking ‘send’, perchance? RESPONDENT: And enjoying battle (as opposed to engagement in stimulating dialog) is hardly harmless. RICHARD: And here is the $64,000 dollar question ... how would you classify this e-mail of yours: does it fall into the category of (a) an engagement in stimulating dialogue or (b) an engagement in an enjoyable battle? SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE ON HAPPY 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