# Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

Richard’s Selected Correspondence ## On Religions RESPONDENT: Was it uninvited (which is what I meant by ‘grace’)? RICHARD: Then why not say ‘uninvited’ ... because the word ‘grace’ means unmerited divine assistance given to a human being for their regeneration or sanctification ... it is a virtue coming from God resulting in a state of sanctification. It is the spontaneous gift of the divine favour in the salvation of sinners, and the divine influence operating in humans for their regeneration. The English word ‘grace’ is the usual translation for the Greek ‘charis’ which occurs in the New Testament about 150 times. Although the word must sometimes be translated in other ways, the fundamental meaning in the New Testament and in subsequent theological usage is that contained in the Letter of Paul to Titus: ‘For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men’ (2:11). From the time of the early church, Christian theologians have developed and clarified the biblical concept of grace. The word grace is the central subject of three great theological controversies: (1) that of the nature of human depravity and regeneration, (2) that of the relation between grace and free will and, (3) that of the ‘means of grace’ ... whether the efficacy of the sacraments as channels of the divine grace is dependent on good works performed or dependent on the faith of the recipient. Christian orthodoxy has taught that the initiative in the relationship of grace between God and man is always on the side of God. Once God has granted this ‘first grace’, however, man does have a response to give and a responsibility for the continuance of the relationship. Although the ideas of grace and of merit are mutually exclusive, neither Augustine nor the Protestant defenders of the principle of justification by ‘grace alone’ could avoid the question of reward of merit in the relationship of grace. In fact, some passages of the New Testament seem to use charis for ‘reward’. The Roman Catholic theology of grace stresses the habitual character of the life created by the gift of grace and therefore ascribes merit to obedience to the law of God; classical Protestantism spoke of a cooperating grace after conversion as a way of including man’s activity in the life of grace, but it avoided language that would suggest that man earns something by his obedience in grace. Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and some Protestants agree that grace is conferred through the sacraments, ‘the means of grace’. Reformed and Free Church Protestantism, however, has not bound grace as closely to the sacraments as have Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, and Lutherans. Baptists speak of ordinances rather than of sacraments and – as do evangelical Christians and those in the Reformed and Free Church traditions generally – insist that participation in grace occurs on the occasion of personal faith and not at all by sacramental observance. Therefore ‘grace’ requires belief in an imaginary god. An actual freedom is all one’s own doing ... nobody can set you free but yourself. (Richard, List B, No. 25, 8 November 1998) * RESPONDENT: Often, the gist of a ‘religious’ belief is true, but it gets ‘organised’ into folly. RICHARD: Oh? Could you give an example? The gist of the Christian religion is that a mythical saviour hero came from an imaginary god – and in some unexplained way was that imaginary god even though all the while talking to him – and preached re-hashes of scriptural injunctions plus some folk-lore homilies for three years. He performed some trite miracles – for those that believe such things – which were puny things like turning water into wine at a family wedding (anyone outside the family has to buy wine) and giving a crowd one meal (never mind the starving millions) and curing a few local people’s blindness (not every blind person in the world) ... instead of eradicating sorrow and malice from a single person. (Malice and sorrow is the real issue confronting human beings. Hundreds of millions of people have been killed in wars ... and this hero walks across a lake to help his pals out on a fishing boat. Big deal, eh?) He died a fake death on a stake, spent three days in a mythical underworld, came back to ‘life’ and maybe forty days later bodily rose through the clouds into a mythical heaven. In some obscure way, if one believes and has faith that this fable figure ‘died’ for our sins, we would be redeemed from what two other fable figures set in practice for all humankind in the mythical beginning of what is eternal time and infinite space. Have I conveyed the gist accurately? Because the miracles and the death and resurrection are central to Christianity ... take them out and it all amounts to nothing. Would you like to give me the gist of Islam in a like manner? Judaism? Buddhism? Hinduism? Taoism? You will find that nothing of religion was ‘organised into folly’ ... it was already sick. RESPONDENT: Your original experience might suffer the same fate (has it?). RICHARD: But there is no religiosity or spirituality or mysticism or metaphysicality in me whatsoever. I am down-to-earth and matter-of-fact. How could facts and actuality ever be misconstrued? (Richard, List B, No. 25, 13 November 1998) RESPONDENT: As a person who ended all beliefs and look at the world clearly ... RICHARD: If I may interject? It was the believer, so to speak, who came to an end (hence the ability/ capacity to believe is null and void) and thus there is the direct experience of the world ... a clean, clear, and pure experiencing. RESPONDENT: ... you don’t see any possibility of some God running the show? RICHARD: When the believer – ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself) – ended so too did any and all supreme beings become similarly extinct ... thus it has nothing to do with ending all beliefs that no possibility is seen of some god/ goddess running the show. There is no god/ goddess in this actual world: here all is pristine, pure ... nothing ‘dirty’, as it were, can get in. RESPONDENT: Since you don’t claim to be omniscient, and haven’t searched through the galaxies, how can you rule out superior intelligence somewhere? RICHARD: Are you are now asking about extra-terrestrial intelligence (such as the SETI people are looking out for)? If so, I do not rule out some life-form, or life-forms, with a superior faculty of understanding and comprehending (as in intellect and sagacity) to the human faculty – which means with a superior ability to sensibly and thus judiciously think, reflect, appraise, plan, and implement considered activity for beneficial reasons (and to be able to rationally convey reasoned information to other similar life-forms so that coherent knowledge can accumulate throughout that species and to the next generations) – existing somewhere and somewhen other than the life-form on planet earth. RESPONDENT: The Santa Claus example is clearly a belief. RICHARD: If I may point out? I clearly said it has nothing to do with ending all beliefs that no possibility is seen of some god/ goddess running the show ... when the believer – ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself) – ended so too did any and all supreme beings become similarly extinct. RESPONDENT: But even after you grow out of the belief of the God, it still makes sense to ask: Is there something out there? No? RICHARD: I will say it again for emphasis: there is no god/ goddess in this actual world: here all is pristine, pure ... nothing ‘dirty’, as it were, can get in. * RESPONDENT: Or even some greater meaning or a purpose towards which the evolution is moving? RICHARD: Hmm ... some ‘greater meaning or a purpose’ than what? Where one is the flesh and blood body only (sans identity in toto) one is this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe experiencing itself apperceptively ... as such it is stunningly aware of its own infinitude. And this is truly wonderful ... what, just what, could have ‘greater meaning or a purpose’ than that? RESPONDENT: For the species to be able to go out in the space ... RICHARD: If space-travel constitutes a ‘greater meaning or a purpose’ to you than this universe experiencing its own infinitude as an apperceptive sentient being then all I need to point to is the result that space-travel has so far produced ... to wit: astronauts on the earth’s moon extolling the virtues of the Judaic/ Christian god. RESPONDENT: ... evolve more faculties that are superior to one’s we have. RICHARD: What kind of faculties do you have in mind ... and in what way would they be able to operate and function cleanly, clearly, and purely (given that whilst the affective faculty, and its epiphenomenal imaginative/ psychic facility, are still in situ those faculties would also be crippled)? RESPONDENT: I don’t know. Can we not ask whether such possibilities exist? RICHARD: Sure you can ... when you ask them of me, however, you will be asked in return to think them through. RESPONDENT: Very quickly after reading your site God died for me. What a shock, I had been a devotee, a spiritual person, and God just fell away like the curtain in front of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I did go through a rather hollow, lost period. I waited to see if this Godless state would just blow over, but it didn’t. I’m here in the real world now looking into the activities of the parasite and marvelling at its tenacity and wiliness. It took me a while to have the courage to admit to my Christian mate that I did not believe in God, and found no purpose, other than ego salvation, for the old ‘pie in the sky when we die’. RICHARD: Would I be correct in assuming you are referring to a monotheistic god here (theism)? RESPONDENT: I think that part of what many consider as God is what I consider as the universe. It’s the imaginary, anthropomorphic trappings of God that I can do without and the existence itself that I appreciate, regardless of whether ego suffers or enjoys. RICHARD: Surely you would be cognisant of pantheism and/or panentheism (acosmic mysticism)? For a pantheist their god/ goddess is immanent (maybe expressed as ‘god/ goddess is the infinitude of the universe’ or ‘god/ goddess, as truth, pervades everything that is’) ... as compared with a theist whose god/ goddess is transcendent (as in ‘not the infinitude of the universe’ or ‘not all-pervading’). Broadly speaking theism refers to a creator god/ goddess who is beyond the universe whereas in panentheism god/ goddess is not only all-pervading (immanent) but beyond the universe as well (transcendent). Viz.: http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/religion/blfaq_theism_pan.htm RICHARD: No. 5 has written: [quote]: ‘I experience what little I have read of the Great Dead Guys™ not with the picayune eye of a practiced philosopher, but with the same sensorium you describe with reference to the ‘ambrosial’ nature of what most see as ordinary, ‘beans & wieners’ existence’. [endquote]. As ‘sensorium’ means the parts of the brain concerned with the reception and interpretation of sensory stimuli – or more broadly the entire sensory apparatus – then he would be proclaiming himself to be a Hindu Pantheist. That is, ‘God is everything and everything is God’. Just watch him back-peddle out of this lot. RESPONDENT: There are people who are rather gifted in understanding to others to the point that they can pick up what is not clearly visible in the text. Are you claiming these abilities? For no where do I see the connection from what No. 5 said to being a Hindu pantheist. I take No. 5 to mean by ‘I experience what little I have read’ to be that he approaches these Great Ones not as a thinker but as a simple sensor, feeling it all. And this simple sensor is akin to what you are talking about in regards to yourself. Now where is the problem? Perhaps that ‘I experience’ is taken to mean a claim that he lives the teachings of these Great Ones. I do not agree with this attribution. RICHARD: No, I go by text alone ... he did make that claim to start off with, but has since back-pedalled to quite a remarkable degree. It only took a little bit of questioning after all. As for your comment ‘not as a thinker but as a simple sensor, feeling it all’ , do you mean sensing as in the faculty of perceiving by means of sense organs (as sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch) basically involving a stimulus and a sense organ ... that is, the sensory mechanisms constituting a unit distinct from other functions as movement of thought or feelings? Quite often, I find, people meaning ‘intuiting’ when they say ‘sensing’ ... and intuition is of the affective faculty, not the sensate. As No. 5 was referring to experiencing – deeply and passionately – what the words of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti, Mr. Shankara and Mr. Gotama the Sakyan were pointing to, then he had to mean intuition ... which is why I defined ‘sensorium’ as being sensate. And as Hindus and Buddhists are either Cosmic Pantheists (‘God is everything and everything is God’) or Acosmic Pantheists (‘God is beyond everything and everything comes from God’), then it is a simple matter to ascertain that No. 5 was either dissembling or somewhat confused about what he was saying. That is why I asked if he was a Hindu Pantheist ... to clarify his situation. He says he is not, and through the dialogue with him it is becoming more clear to him where he is coming from. My guess – and I am incapable of being gnostic – is that he is, basically, a decent, laissez-faire citizen toying with and trifling in matters ambiguous, cryptic and esoteric ... like so many others do. Such a person is to be found expressing an interest in peoples like Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti, Mr. Shankara and Mr. Gotama the Sakyan, but without the objective of changing oneself radically, fundamentally and completely ... which is what all three teachers constantly urged their listeners to do. Just a guess, though. RESPONDENT: So our interpretations differ as to whether No. 5 is claiming that he lives the core of the Hindu-Buddhist wisdom, and whether the core is understood by No. 5 to be a matter of Hindu-Buddhist origins, or a universal core that can also fit the wisdom literature of the west. The latter if correct, would negate the identification of No. 5’s position with the Hindu-Buddhist orientation (if indeed there was one orientation – that is my view if you are interested: that there is not one orientation). RICHARD: I am very interested indeed. I am well aware that there are many variations on one universal theme, but surely you do not see a variation being a discrete ‘Truth’ in itself, do you? How many ‘Truths’ are there? RESPONDENT: Each fact is a ‘truth’, but I would not call a perspective ‘true’. Perhaps we can use the metaphor of the elephant and the blind men. A perspective is always in some sense partial, and in that there is both insight and distortion. What counts for being true must be verifiable given the evidence gathered from all perspectives. RICHARD: I am suggesting that there is only one Universal Theme ... and it is a delusion born out of the illusion of self. RESPONDENT: You will have to be more specific here for me to comment. Please explain ‘Universal theme’. RICHARD: The ‘Universal Theme’ is a term used to describe the metaphysical aspect of human thought that runs through all cultures and all ages ... it has a global incidence. By metaphysical, I mean: ‘of or relating to the transcendent or to a reality beyond what is perceptible to the senses’. The similarity of all metaphysicality in all religions and all spirituality points to the fact that there is essentially only one ‘Inner Way’, the experience of which is expressed differently in the respective cultural and religious environments. Mr. Lao-Tzu’s notion, for example, of ‘The One’, which is not only ‘Primordial Unity’ but ‘The Oneness’ underlying all phenomena – the point in which all contraries are reconciled – was spoken of by such Western mystics as Mr. Plotinus, (a third century AD Greek philosopher) and Mr. Nicholas of Cusa, (a fifteenth century French philosopher). Eastern mysticism, distinguishes itself from Western mysticism by its conscious techniques of mind and body designed to induce trance and to give access to mystical experience. But these disciplines of learning to ‘sit in forgetfulness’ are akin to Mr. Plotinus’ concern to ‘be deaf to the sounds of the senses and keep the soul’s faculty of apprehension one-pointed’ and to the sixteenth century Spanish mystic Ms. Teresa of Avila’s state where ‘the soul is fully awake as regards God, but wholly asleep as regards things of this world’ ... and oblivious in respect of herself. Mr. Lao-Tzu’s strangely sober and abstract descriptions of ecstatic union with ‘The Tao’ have been compared to the medieval German mystic Mr. Meister Eckharts’ ‘Still Desert of the Godhead’ ... and his pupil Mr. Heinrich Suso’s union of the essence of the soul with ‘the Essence of Nothingness’. One instance of Western physiological techniques is the Hesychasts, a sect of Greek Orthodox mystics on Mt. Athos in the fourteenth century who used respiratory practices and concentration on internal organs to prepare for the mental ‘Jesus Prayer’. Is this not what you meant by a ‘universal core that would fit the wisdom literature of the West’? * RESPONDENT: The Weltanschauung may simply be that they are all saying essentially the same thing. RICHARD: Do you mean by this the same as what I wrote above: One Universal Theme? RESPONDENT: Maybe, I do not know what you meant. If it is then you and No. 5 are in agreement with each other. I, however, find that we see unity because we read into these diverse texts the same thing, that is we select and reinterpret the terminology to make it all fit into the same package. RICHARD: You will see, by now, that No. 5 and myself are not in agreement, for I talk of the sensate experience of the actuality of this world of people, things and events. No. 5 misused the term ‘sensorium’ rather badly, for people like Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti, Mr. Shankara and Mr. Gotama the Sakyan are concerned with the ‘Inner Way’ ... the metaphysical cannot be accessed via the senses. It is not a case of reading into ‘these diverse texts the same thing’ or ‘selecting and reinterpreting the terminology to make it all fit into the same package’ ... it is indeed the very self-same package. There is only one ‘The Truth’. And I am saying that it is a delusion born out of the illusion of self. * RICHARD: First of all, that colloquialism (‘get out of your head and into your heart’) is something I have both heard and read time and again – and rarely, if ever, coming from materialists – which is what leads me to say ‘well-nigh ubiquitous among spiritualists and their ilk’ as, of course, I have not done a door-to-door survey of 6.0 billion people. RESPONDENT: haha. Has the number of spiritualists and materialists reached six billion? RICHARD: For what it is worth the latest world population estimate is 6,268,056,999 people with 86% classified as being ‘Religious’ and 14% classified as being ‘Non-Religious’. The Encyclopaedia Britannica puts the world-wide percentage of atheists at 3.8%. RESPONDENT: In general, materialists pride themselves on accurate numbers, but the claims of spiritualists should be taken with more than one pinch of salt. : ). RICHARD: Just as a matter of interest it was a spiritualist, Mr. David Barrett, who sought to count each human being in each religion and religious subcategory in each country, as of 1900, 1970, 1990, 1995 and 2000, with projections to 2025. He doggedly visited most of the lands in person, collecting raw material, including national census figures and United Nations data, and recruiting the 444 specialists who feed him material. The 2001 edition of his ‘World Christian Encyclopaedia’, successor to his 1983 first edition, took a decade to compile and identifies 10,000 distinct religions, of which 150 have 1 million or more followers … within Christianity alone he counts 33,830 denominations. He also calculates religious populations for the Encyclopaedia Britannica ‘Book of the Year’, standard estimates that are used, in turn, by the World Almanac and innumerable journalists. RESPONDENT: In any case, my survey results differ on this question. I have found quite a number of romantic materialists, as well as hard headed spiritualists who believed they were predominantly rational. It is interesting though how the way survey questions are constructed will tend to influence the data. RICHARD: This question is not about being ‘predominantly rational’ ... it is about where ‘the other’ is to be accessed and/or contacted and/or received and/or discovered and/or recognised and/or realised and so on. RICHARD: I am also aware that Mr. Nanak had his first vision of God at Sultanpur where he proclaimed: ‘There is no Hindu, there is no Mussulman’. Yet I happened to be in New Delhi in October 1984 when Sikh extremists 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. RESPONDENT: Here I find little difficulty with what you are writing. First, I do not understand you using the word ‘Yet’ in: ‘Yet I happened to be ...’ Yes, Guru Nanak said: ‘There is no Hindu, there is no Mussulman’. But what does that have to do with those two Sikhs pulling the trigger on Ms. Indira Gandhi. Are you trying to emphasise the fact that Guru Nanak was trying to bring peace between Hindus and Moslems at the time and these Sikhs went against that message. RICHARD: Do you not find it somewhat ironic – to say the least – that Mr. Nanak, being well-meaning as he presumably was, has added to the problem he sought to resolve? In his time there were these two religious/ spiritual groups fighting and killing each other and he said: ‘There is no Hindu, there is no Mussulman’ ... and now there are three religious/ spiritual groups fighting and killing each other. Well done Mr. Nanak, eh! RESPONDENT: By the way, the assassins were not Sikh extremists as you have written but they were Ms. Gandhi’s bodyguards. RICHARD: Yes, I was in New Delhi when it happened ... the bodyguards had unlimited access. Even so, the orthodox Sikh community distanced itself from their actions, calling them extremists. I was reading the newspapers at the time. RICHARD (to No. 27): The trouble with people who discard the god of Christianity is that they do not realise that by turning to the Eastern spirituality they have effectively jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. Eastern spirituality is religion ... merely in a different form to what people in the West have been raised to believe in. Eastern philosophy sounds so convincing to the Western mind that is desperately looking for answers. The Christian conditioning actually sets up the situation for a thinking person to be susceptible to the esoteric doctrines of the East. It is sobering to realise that the intelligentsia of the West are eagerly following the East down the slippery slope of striving to attain to a self-seeking Divine Immortality ... to the detriment of life on earth. ‘That which is sacred, holy’, for example, is simply the Eastern term for ‘God’; thus any order designated [quote] ‘absolute order’ [end quote] translates easily as ‘The Kingdom of God on earth as it is in Heaven’ ... in Western terminology. At the end of the line there is always a god of some description, lurking in disguise, wreaking its havoc with its ‘Teachings’. Have you ever been to India to see for yourself the results of what they claim are tens of thousands of years of devotional spiritual living? I have, and it is hideous. If it were not for the appalling suffering engendered it would all be highly amusing. (Richard, List B, No. 27, 11 March 1998). RESPONDENT: Your observation in this paragraph is rather presumptuous. RICHARD: May I ask this question? Just in what way have I overstepped the bounds of proprietary? Is it because my words are heretical and iconoclastic? If so, then it is your belief system that is being offended ... and it is your personal boundaries that are being overstepped. The nature of democratic rights allows for uncensored freedom of speech ... why do you set yourself up as the arbiter of good taste? RESPONDENT: Your experience is not necessarily indicative of the experience of the devout and faithful amongst India’s population. RICHARD: It is indeed indicative ... and it was hideous. I was in Delhi in 1984 when Ms. Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her own bodyguards ... which was a religious and spiritually inspired killing. This set off a rampage of terror and violence that closed down the city for three days. I was there – with a nine year old daughter – and saw with my own eyes what the devout and faithful amongst India’s population did. It was out-and-out war ... the army had to be called in. The atmosphere – and the carnage 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. RESPONDENT: One might make the same observation of Tibet and its people, but all indications are that the Tibetans, even those forced out of their homeland, remain happy and satisfied with their way of life. RICHARD: I also spent three months in the Himalayas about one hundred kilometres from the Tibetan/ Nepalese border. I had ample time to interact with and converse deeply with many, many Tibetan refugees. I can assure you that they were far from being happy and satisfied with their way of life. RESPONDENT: It sounds as if your trying to understand all religions from a one size fits all framework. RICHARD: Yes, indeed. Apart from cultural variations in style, all religions clearly state one thing ... and one thing alone: That this earthly existence is not the be all and end all of life ... there is something else (metaphysical) to realise. RESPONDENT: How can you purify what has never been defiled? RICHARD: That is a metaphysical concept and not an established fact. You are operating from a faulty premise and working backwards based on the assumption that it is a true statement. All of your posts reflect this fatal flaw in your reasoning ... none of your arguments are valid unless this concept is demonstrated to be worthy of being a basic premise. All the evidence clearly shows that no human has ‘never been defiled’ as we are all born with instinctual fear and aggression and nurture and desire. RESPONDENT: Why do you think that this ... [‘Original face’] ... has anything to do with the survival of a self? RICHARD: This is because their ‘Original Face’ is their very own sublimated self ... much like ‘The Self’ of Indian Mysticism. It is narcissism in yet another cultural disguise. RESPONDENT: Admittedly it is easy to see them in the same way, but it doesn’t seem that way to me. RICHARD: Why not? Zen Buddhism is not all that different to Indian Buddhism ... and Indian Buddhism grew out of Hinduism. And Hinduism – in the form of Advaita Vedanta brought aspects of Indian Buddhism back into Hinduism. Thus, whilst Buddhists maintain that there ultimately is no personal self to be ‘The Self’ like some Hinduism does (‘Atman is Brahman’) they do have re-incarnation. Thus there is something apparently enduring of a personal nature (Skandhas) until one realises one’s ‘Buddha Nature’ and comes home, as it were. Sunyata, ‘The Void’ of Nirvana, equates – more or less – with the Brahman which has no attributes. Although both Brahman and Sunyata are seen not as a negation of existence but rather as the undifferentiation out of which all apparent entities, distinctions, and dualities arise. Thus, essentially, one realises that one is god (by whatever clever name) and that god is all that exists and everything is a manifestation of god. It is much the same with Taoism. Essentially the three main religions of the East are all about realising that you are ‘That’ by whatever name ... and ‘That’ is the ‘essential nature’ of all things and appearances ... of existence itself. The same applies to Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti, who initially declaring himself to be god-realised in the twenties, merely substituted the word ‘life’ for the word ‘god’ and never changed fundamentally from his original position. RESPONDENT: Again is seems the definitions above seem like an effort to fit into a preconceived pattern instead of accurately reflecting the teaching. The teaching of rebirth is not associated with a real enduring thing, but with the dependent nature of things. Sunyata teachings do negate any concept of an ongoing god or thing or one who realises as having any real independent existence. RICHARD: No religion has ever been able to successfully explain why, if nothing really exists, then how come we are sitting here talking about this very thing. All religions – even the Sunyata of Buddhism – tacitly admit to earthly reality, whilst denying its existence, by this very talking/ listening/ answering. The fact that I am writing this and that you are reading this and replying back to me is your tacit acknowledgment that this is actually happening ... no matter how eloquently you may deny it. RESPONDENT: This [what someone else wrote] is a good point. I support this: ‘What you have given has nothing to do with the bible. I am not defending the veracity or accuracy of the bible. The fact is that it says practically nothing at all on the subject of whether the earth was round or flat. You are creating something out of your own conjecture that is not there. What ‘Christians’ have said or believed is irrelevant to the subject. They most likely believed whatever their ‘scientists’ told them as we do now’. RICHARD: Why is it a good point? To take just one example where Christians did not believe the scientists one does not have to look further than what happened when Mr. Galileo Galilei asked them to look through his telescope and see for themselves. They refused to look ... much like you are refusing to acknowledge the satellite photographs. He was tried by the Inquisition in Rome, found guilty of heresy, ordered to recant, and forced to spend the last eight years of his life under house arrest. Hardly the stuff of Christians believing ‘whatever scientists told them’ , eh? RESPONDENT: You are trying to browbeat with a load of crap. RICHARD: Since when has pointing out a fact been ‘browbeating’ ? Oh, I know ... right throughout human history! RESPONDENT: You affirm that you are an atheist, and the Bible is book of crap to an atheist. RICHARD: I cannot speak for atheists in general of course, but I for one value ‘The Bible’ very highly indeed ... I would not be where I am today without its most able assistance. This is because ‘The Bible’ is a priceless example of the power that belief holds on the minds of the believers ... who staunchly continue to believe despite the presentation of facts. ‘The Bible’ is so shot full of blatant discrepancies and outright untruths that it staggered the imagination ... and thus freed me from the action of belief in itself. RESPONDENT: Why would an atheist use a book of God to argue from? Does that make sense? RICHARD: Of course it does ... what on earth are you getting at? Are you saying that when someone quotes from a particular source the other cannot use that source? This is just silliness. * RICHARD: And I do not have a ‘theology’. Your nomenclature reveals a paucity of expression ... ‘Theo’ is Greek for ‘God’ and ‘ology’ is from the Greek ‘Logos’ meaning – as used here with the connecting ‘o’ – ‘discourse’. Thus ‘theology’ means ‘God’s discourse’ or ‘discourse about God’ ... neither of which applies. RESPONDENT: You are an eager beaver teacher who is too clever by half. Theology, meaning literally the study of God, is a discipline of religious thought that is restricted in its narrower sense, because of origination and format, to Christianity, but in its broader sense, because of its themes, to other atheistic religions as well. RICHARD: Etymologically, ‘theos’ meaning: ‘god’ comes from ‘the-’ meaning: ‘divine’ (‘divine’ as opposed to ‘human’). And ‘divine’ means ‘heavenly’ (‘heavenly’ as opposed to ‘earthly’). And ‘religion’ means a worship of ‘divine power’. Thus there is no such thing as an ‘atheistic religion’ ... it is simply a contradiction in terms. Those religions called ‘atheistic religions’ simply refer to a religion without a creator god in it ... but divinity (as opposed to earthly) is there with bells on! RESPONDENT: The themes of theology are God, man, the world, salvation, and eschatology. The Greek philosopher Plato, with whom the concept emerges for the first time, associated with the term theology a polemical intention – as did his pupil Aristotle. For Plato theology described the mythical. This identification of theology and mythology also remained customary in the later Greek thought. In distinction to philosophers, ‘theologians’ testified to and proclaimed that which they viewed as divine or, as in your case, actual. RICHARD: Actual means ‘things’ ascertained sensately ... divinity (being heavenly as opposed to earthly) can never be apprehended by the senses. Thus the divine is not actual. But you are right about identification of theology and the mythical ... it fits in well with the etymological origins of those words as I outlined at the beginning of this post. RESPONDENT: Theology thus became significant as the means of proclaiming myths. RICHARD: Agreed. (Is this not an achievement? You and I are in agreement, for once). GARY: As I understand these things, in the PCE there is the danger of an incipient ‘I’ stepping in and claiming the credit for the experience. ‘I’ want the experience to last, ‘I’ am sad to see it dimmer and fade away, hence, ‘I’ take centre stage and send the experience packing. RICHARD: Yes and no ... the PCE is a temporary experience, when all is said and done, and it is unavoidable ‘I’ will reappear. There is more danger in ‘me’ stepping in as ‘Me’ (aggrandising the experience) with predictable results ... and then one will indeed be following in Richard’s footsteps (I always chuckle when certain people claim that anyone interested in actualism are followers of Richard). GARY: Then this is the danger of the PCE turning into the Altered State of Consciousness? This ‘aggrandizing the experience’ must be extremely subtle then? RICHARD: No, it is not subtle at all ... one is glorified by virtue of being specially chosen and the simple perfection of the PCE is humbly overlooked/ discarded/ scorned/ dismissed. This is indicated in both my own experience and the experience of some other people whom I have spoken with over many years ... ‘Article 36’ in ‘Richard’s Journal’ describes a particularly salutary example of this propensity. Not for nothing do I describe the only danger on the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition as being that one may become enlightened (or seduced into wanting to become enlightened). I kid you not. GARY: What I understand to happen when this occurs is something like the following: the PCE is such a dramatic change from ‘normal’, everyday reality, that when it occurs, one loses all anchorage to the familiar, the cherished, with the resultant fear that one is ‘losing one’s marbles’, going insane. While it is a highly peaceful, pleasurable state, there also lurks the fear of the incipient ‘me’ that is on the verge of destruction, extinction. RICHARD: Yes, at root fear is the most basic of all the instinctual survival passions. GARY: This ‘me’ steps in and becomes ‘Me’, with his or her divine mission to carry the message, and this occurs because this is how all the gurus and God-men/ women down through history have interpreted the experience. RICHARD: Yes, fear is atavistic. GARY: I am reminded of the experiences of Jacob Boehme, a 17th century Christian mystic, whose writings I formerly had an interest in, chiefly because he represented the Western stream of mysticism and I could relate to that more than the teachings of the East. It appears that what happened to him is an illustration of this process whereby the ‘me’ becomes the ‘Me’. I include it as an example of the process ...<snip>... ‘The mystery of Boehme is found elsewhere: in his experiences of ‘illumination’. At the age of twenty-five, he had a revelation that was the basis for all his subsequent work: while gazing at the brightness of a pewter vase, he felt himself suddenly engulfed by an extraordinary flow of information about the hidden nature of things. This data was incomprehensible to him at first, and he waited twelve years to understand what had been ‘given’ to him in that unforgettable moment. In our day, a person undergoing such an experience would immediately found a group of disciples and start giving lectures and writing best sellers. But Boehme waited twelve years, in almost total silence, in order to analyse, decipher, and explain what he had ‘seen’ in that moment of grace. Out of this gestation came the magnificent and unique work, The Aurora’. (from Science, Meaning, & Evolution: The Cosmology of Jacob Boehme by Basarab Nicolescu, 1991). It is interesting how automatically such experiences of exceptional clarity and flow of information are treated as ‘revelations’, in the theological sense of the word. This seems to be what happened to Boehme, whether it started out as a PCE or as an ASC, is not entirely clear. RICHARD: In this particular instance from history I would question that it ever was a PCE ... perhaps the following quote from ‘Behmenist’ and/or ‘Quaker’ sources will make it clear: • [quote]: ‘From childhood, Jacob Boehme was concerned about ‘the salvation of his soul’. Although daily occupied, first as a shepherd, and afterwards as a shoemaker, he was always an earnest student of the Holy Scriptures; but he could not understand ‘the ways of God’, and he became ‘perplexed, even to melancholy – pressed out of measure’. He said: ‘I knew the Bible from beginning to end, but could find no consolation in Holy Writ ... I had always thought much of how I might inherit the kingdom of heaven ... I sought the heart of Jesus Christ, the centre of all truth; and I resolved to regard myself as dead in my inherited form, until the Spirit of God would take form in me ... I stood in this resolution, fighting a battle with myself, until the light of the Spirit, a light entirely foreign to my unruly nature, began to break through the clouds. Then, after some farther hard fights with the powers of darkness, my spirit broke through the doors of hell, and penetrated even unto the innermost essence of its newly born divinity where it was received with great love, as a bridegroom welcomes his beloved bride. No word can express the great joy and triumph I experienced, as of a life out of death, as of a resurrection from the dead! ... While in this state, as I was walking through a field of flowers, in fifteen minutes, I saw through the mystery of creation, the original of this world and of all creatures ... Then for seven days I was in a continual state of ecstasy, surrounded by the light of the Spirit, which immersed me in contemplation and happiness. I learned what God is, and what is his will ... I knew not how this happened to me, but my heart admired and praised the Lord for it!’ At the age of twenty-five, Boehme was given another great illumination, in which the Lord let him see farther into ‘the heart of things ... the true nature of God and man, and the relationship existing between them’. Ten years later ‘the divine order of nature’ was opened up to him, and he was inspired to write what the Lord had revealed to him. From 1612 to 1624, he wrote thirty books’ (Treasures from the writings of Jacob Boehme; Introduction to Boehme; www.passtheword.org/DIALOGS-FROM-THE-PAST/jbimage.htm). Thus the occasion at age twenty five quoted by Mr. Basarab Nicolescu (‘while gazing at the brightness of a pewter vase, he felt himself suddenly engulfed by an extraordinary flow of information about the hidden nature of things’) occurred some time after the ‘field of flowers’ vision with its subsequent seven days of ‘a continual state of ecstasy, surrounded by the light of the Spirit’ euphoric experience ... which vision/ experience was unequivocally sought with all his being and which came after years of intense study of Christian scriptures and yearning. Furthermore, the ‘Behmenist’ and/or ‘Quaker’ sourced introduction quoted above explains that it was at the age of thirty five the ‘the divine order of nature’ was opened up to him ... all of which makes Mr. Basarab Nicolescu’s statement (‘at the age of twenty-five, he had a revelation that was the basis for all his subsequent work’) somewhat mistaken if not downright misleading ... even though Mr. Basarab Nicolescu is said to be a ‘Boehme scholar’ on his web page. GARY: And it really doesn’t matter much for all that. But when the ‘me’ steps in and claims a Godly ‘grace’ or singles oneself out as being the special recipient of favour by a benevolent God or Goddess, then the process of ‘me’ becoming ‘Me’ is ensured. This seems to be what has happened to people throughout the ages. RICHARD: Yes ... again it is atavism – mainly atavistic fear – whereupon dread flips to its opposite (awe) and which perpetuates the ‘Tried and True’ despite all the evidence that shows it to be the ‘tried and failed’. At root, fear – specifically terror (usually externally sourced) and dread (usually internally sourced) – runs the particular human being and thus rules the human world. GARY: The question at this point is, since this process must be so subtle, so insidious, and probably universal, what is one to watch out for? RICHARD: Any thought or feeling that stems from a ‘deep’ knowing that one is specially chosen to bring the ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’ to earth (a ‘deep’ or ‘profound’ or ‘intuitive’ knowing translates as ‘instinctive knowing’). Whereas earthy, organic peace (peace-on-earth) is already and easily just here – and patently always here right now – as is evidenced by the PCE. GARY: In other words, how does one keep from being seduced by the lure of Self, the lure of ‘Enlightenment’? RICHARD: The purity and perfection of the PCE rekindles one’s naiveté and gives rise to a pure intent, whereupon sincerity, honesty (being scrupulously honest with oneself), prudence, judiciousness, probity, providence and so on easily enable integrity ... whereupon one’s native intelligence – what is called commonsense in the real-world – shows it to be obvious that we fellow human beings are all in this business called being alive together. Thus showing it to be obvious that worshipping one’s fellow human being – or being worshipped – is ridiculous. RICHARD: It is only the psychological and psyche identity – ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul – that is a ‘walk-in’ that ‘has a human body’. There is a vast difference betwixt ‘is a flesh and blood body’ and ‘has a body’. Only a ‘walk-in’ can ‘have’ a body ... as a possession. RESPONDENT: One can be free of the illusion of a centred known observer. RICHARD: Indeed ... if one actualises the fact that one is this flesh and blood body then the ‘centred known observer’ (the psychological and psychic identity – ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul – which is a ‘walk-in’) that has a flesh and blood body will have become extinct. Usually, though, it is popularly thought that ‘I’ as ego is the ‘centred known observer’ and that by ‘realising who ‘I’ really am’ (‘me’ as soul) one’s feeling-sense of identity shifts from the head (where ‘I’ as ego am most prominently experienced) to the heart (where ‘me’ as soul am most prominently experienced) whereupon one ceases ‘becoming’ and starts ‘being’. This ‘being’ (quite often capitalised as ‘Being’) goes under many names ... but the most profound seekers call it ‘The Nameless’. And the ‘Nameless One’ is ‘Timeless’ and ‘Spaceless’ and ‘Formless’. This is why the ‘Nameless One’s’ wisdom actively perpetuates all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides. This is because malice and sorrow (which is the personal ‘self’) is not extinguished but has become sublimated and transcended along with a transformation of the antidotally generated love and compassion into Love Agapé and Divine Compassion (which is the impersonal ‘Self’). Thus malice and sorrow constitute the hidden under-belly of divinity ... which is why the battle between ‘Good’ (God) and ‘Evil’ (Devil) has continued unabated down through the ages. Hence religious wars (the diabolical under-pins divinity). RESPONDENT: But this is religion in its common sense ... we are past that, aren’t we? RICHARD: Yet ‘religion in its common sense’ never ever says what I wrote (above): • [Richard]: ‘If one actualises the fact that one is this flesh and blood body then the ‘centred known observer’ (the psychological and psychic identity – ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul – which is a ‘walk-in’) that has a flesh and blood body will have become extinct’. Any ‘religion in its common sense’ promises salvation in an after-life ... any ‘religion in it’s common sense’ never ever promotes extinction. RESPONDENT: I think you are having a strong religious hangover (after reading your post to No. 19) ... which is quite normal ... and sane, but not equilibriated yet, sorry ... (I’m almost regretting). RICHARD: I have no religiosity, spirituality, mysticality or any metaphysicality in me whatsoever ... let alone a ‘strong religious hangover’. As for ‘normal’ being ‘sane’ – be it an equilibriated sanity or not – 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century by normal sane people. RICHARD: You then propose a religious and/or spiritual and/or mystical or some form of metaphysical explanation (a ‘higher purpose’) for all the ills of humankind ... to the point of putting forward the notion (quoting an ‘Enlightened Being’s dictum that ‘God is the Doer’), that the Sikh’s God really did the killing of the 160,000,000 people ordinarily thought of as being killed by their fellow human beings in wars in the last 100 years. Likewise this ‘higher purpose’ accounts for 40,000,000 people ordinarily thought of as having killed themselves in the depths of despair in the same 100 year period (what mere mortals call suicide). RESPONDENT: Not the Sikh’s God. You are surmising there is more than one God. RICHARD: I am not surmising at all ... the last time I looked-up the subject there were nigh on 1200 gods (living and dead) and that is not counting all the Hindu demi-gods. RESPONDENT: Krishna, in the Gita shows Arjuna that He (Krishna) is the creator, sustainer and destroyer of all. RICHARD: Aye ... and Islam has it that their god is the one and only god (it is to no avail to appeal to scriptures to prove your case). RESPONDENT: God is the creator, sustainer and destroyer. So the answer to your question is yes – God did it. But then WHO is God? GOD is who YOU really are. There is only ONE being alive – that is God. What we see here is illusion or maya.Maya is defined as that which appears to be real – but is not – like a dream. A dream appears to be real while it is happening – but it is not. When you awaken you say it was just a dream – it was not real. So we first have to get at the heart of the matter – what is real? That which changes – does not last – is not real. That which remains is real. RICHARD: This infinite and eternal physical universe certainly lasts ... which fits your criterion for being ‘not a dream’. Therefore, all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and such-like are actually happening. A useful working definition of ‘actual’ is: that which remains when one stops believing in it. RESPONDENT: Guru Nanak describes God as ‘that which was, is, and always will be’. God is beyond time and space. On that level – which is the only truth – this is just a dream. Does it matter what happens in a dream? To a truly enlightened being – it makes no difference what happens here. Jesus appears to be such a person. There are others too. You see, there are two levels of reality – and from this level the other one is not easy to understand. From this level we are too concerned with what happens here. RICHARD: May I suggest? Peoples are not concerned enough ‘with what happens here’ ... peace-on-earth becomes apparent only to the one who is totally concerned. * RESPONDENT: OKAY – here goes. FULL ENLIGHTENMENT means KNOWING that there is ONLY ME HERE. It is SEEING beyond the illusion of many. Once you EXPERIENCE this – there is no more blame. RICHARD: As I have experienced this (that there is only ‘Me’) I intimately know what you speak of ... it is a sickness. RESPONDENT: It is not that blame is suppressed – it just doesn’t arise. It is cut at the roots. This is what enabled Jesus to say ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do’ when he was being crucified. Now – did Jesus react? You tell me – do you call that a reaction? RICHARD: Surely you must realise that he would hardly react negatively in what was his finest hour? And he knew perfectly well why they were doing that anyway: he was to live-out what the scriptures ordained (to die, to spend three days in the underworld, to rise again) thus demonstrating that he was ‘God On Earth’ by being exempt from death ... so why would he blame them for being ‘God’s Instrument’? Yet when it comes to out-of-season fig trees not bearing fruit and money-changers at a temple going about their officially-sanctioned business ... he reacts, he gets angry, he blames. RESPONDENT: There are other examples. The fifth Sikh guru, Guru Arjan Dev suffered death too – and totally accepted it. One of his disciples said ‘I have the power to totally destroy this city – if you just give the word’. The Guru said he was happy in the will of the lord. RICHARD: Hmm ... someone who (as a matter of ethics) expressly forbids his followers to pay a fine which was imposed on him for refusing (as a matter of principle) to alter his scriptures, and was thus painfully tortured for his stance, is hardly a shining example for you to quote to prove your case that ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) bestows such a remarkable freedom that amorality indubitably is (it is to no avail to quote scriptures to prove your case). RESPONDENT: Again what I am talking about is there are many cases of ‘no reaction’. Of course there are also examples of reactions – but were those beings enlightened? Bearing in mind there is ‘awakening’ and then there is total enlightenment. RICHARD: It would appear then, that according to your definition, there have only been ‘awakenings’ during 3,000 to 5,000 years of recorded history ... and no cases of ‘total enlightenment’. * RESPONDENT: I am talking about taking responsibility for our own feelings – not blaming others. Which effectively means that I allow them to be themselves – to say what they choose. And even deeper than that – total acceptance of what happens. Recognising that things happen – that there is not necessarily an evil intent. Of course this leaves the matter of when there clearly appears to be an evil intent (e.g. when someone is instigating violence ... or stealing etc.). If we accept a higher purpose here – even then there will be no reaction (like when Jesus was taken before Pilate – he did not even protest his innocence ... but simply said to Pilate ‘You have no power unless it has been given to you by my father’ This is clearly the view of an enlightened being – who sees his father (God) as the doer. RICHARD: Hmm ... someone who gets angry, at out-of-season fig trees for not bearing fruit and at money-changers in a temple going about their officially-sanctioned business, is hardly a shining example for you to quote to prove your case. Anyone who quotes scriptures to prove their case is on a hiding to nowhere as they are shot-full of inconsistencies and blatant hypocrisies ... to say nothing of wrath and vengeance and jealousy and bloodshed and so on. Modern scholarly research has thoroughly scotched the ‘wisdom’ myth of the revered fables and legends of yore. RESPONDENT: You are making an assumption here that is not true. So he cursed the fig tree – what is that? RICHARD: In this case I am going by that saying ‘if it looks like a duck; if it waddles like a duck; if it quacks like a duck: it is a duck’. Therefore, it looks like ... um ... anger to me. RESPONDENT: Crime of the century? RICHARD: Yes ... for a (supposed) amoral embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name, it is indeed. RESPONDENT: Maybe you have been reading too much of Rajneesh – who talks of that example. RICHARD: Nope ... I can recall asking that question (and others) when I was six-seven years old. RESPONDENT: A church or temple is a place of worship. What are money-changers doing there? Did they run out of market stalls? RICHARD: No, they were doing ‘God’s Business’: changing the temple-goer’s Roman money (the hated conqueror’s filthy lucre was the official currency by edict) into an acceptable coinage for the temple-goer’s temple donation (their religion required tithing in an appropriate currency) ... and the merchants were appropriately situated in the temple fore-court, as per sanctity requirements, and not the temple proper. A fresco by Mr. Giotto di Bondone (born 1267 CE, Vespignano, died 1337 CE, Firenze) shows that the event as occurring in front of the temple was understood at least as early as 1304-06 CE, for example: (www.kfki.hu/~arthp/html/g/giotto/padova/3christ/scenes_2/chris11.html). As I remarked: the money-changers were going about their officially-sanctioned business ... ‘twas the rates of exchange that angered him. RESPONDENT: I mean – give the guy a break. RICHARD: Why? So that you can get ‘a break’ too, perchance? This (and many, many other examples) is why there is still wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and the such-like unto the present day. RESPONDENT: Maybe what he did was pretty justified. I don’t know – but maybe. RICHARD: Are you saying that anger is ‘good’ if it is justified? Like ... um ... righteous anger, perhaps? RESPONDENT: The second point here is – maybe he was just at the beginning of his awakening at the time. RICHARD: This was five days before his crucifixion (it is to no avail to quote scriptures to prove your case). RESPONDENT: The actions of someone who is awakened are very different from someone who is fully enlightened. RICHARD: May I ask? Why are you so ready to exonerate anyone, and anything that does not support your case, with lame-duck excuses? RESPONDENT: By the way, inconsistencies and apparent hypocrisy are the hallmark of awakening and enlightenment. RICHARD: I am well aware of the ‘inconsistencies’ ... any irrational ‘from the heart’ system must needs be inconsistent (which is why the ‘Tried and True’ is the ‘tried and failed’). And there is nothing ‘apparent’ about the hypocrisies ... they are indisputable hypocrisies. RESPONDENT: It cannot be any other way. RICHARD: I beg to differ ... it can. The genuine article (peace-on-earth) is entirely consistent and contains no hypocrisies whatsoever. RESPONDENT: Okay, I think I see where you are at, Richard: I wonder why anyone would ‘want’ to feel they have exceeded the understanding of such a one as Buddha or Christ? RICHARD: Why would anyone want to merely ‘feel’ that have done anything correctly or incorrectly ... let alone exceeding Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s or Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene’ ‘understanding’? Feelings are notoriously unreliable ... why feelings should be given the honour of being the final arbiter in any issue speaks volumes about the human condition and indicates why people are unable to directly address the issue under question, which is: why do human beings suffer? As feelings lie all around the root cause of suffering (thus protecting and concealing it) then to give feelings the power to be the ultimate adjudicator means never finding the root cause. RESPONDENT: Few feel they can even begin to fathom the depths of realizations of those two towering figures. RICHARD: Speaking personally, I always let the facts speak for themselves ... and the facts are very simple in regards to the ‘realisations’ of Mr. Gotama the Sakyan and Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene: neither offered peace-on-earth and both proposed non-earthly salvation (‘Deathless’ and ‘Heaven’) after physical death. It does not take a genius to suss out that they were both anti-life to the core. The paramount ‘realisation’ of Mr. Gotama the Sakyan was that everything material (physical) – which includes the entire universe – being transitory, impermanent, was dukkha: therefore cease craving physical existence (do not even bother looking for peace-on-earth). Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene’ major ‘realisation’ was essentially the same: everything material (the heavens and the earth) shall pass away – therefore resist the temptations of the flesh – as his kingdom, which was before the heavens and the earth were, endures (do not even bother looking for peace-on-earth). Both men eschewed actual time and space and form and urged everybody to seek the non-actual timeless and spaceless and formless. I did not just ‘begin to fathom the depths’: I have experientially fathomed ‘the depths of realizations of those two’ to the very core of ‘being’ itself ... I lived it night and day for eleven years. Their ‘realisations’ and ‘understandings’ (and those of all God-Men and Gurus) does not include peace-on-earth. Therefore, their ‘wisdom’ means that all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and the such-like will go on forever and a day. And yet you say that it is me who is deluded? RESPONDENT: I fear you are suffering from delusion here Richard. RICHARD: Okay ... what is the nature, the characteristics of the delusion, according to you? Bearing in mind that I invite anyone to make a critical examination of all the words I advance so as to ascertain if they be intrinsically self-explanatory ... and if they are all seen to be inherently consistent with what is being spoken about, then the facts speak for themselves. Then one will have reason to remember a pure conscious experience (PCE), which all peoples I have spoken to at length have had, and thus verify by direct experience the facticity of what is written. The PCE occurs globally ... across cultures and down through the ages irregardless of gender, race or age. However, it is usually interpreted according to cultural beliefs – created and reinforced by the persistence of identity – and devolves into an altered state of consciousness (ASC). Then ‘I’ as ego – sublimated and transcended as ‘me’ as soul – manifest as a god or a goddess (‘The Truth’ by any name) and preach unliveable doctrines based upon their belief that they are ‘not the body’. Doctrines like pacifism, for example. RESPONDENT: To even consider oneself any where near the understanding of those two, let alone beyond them is bordering on the danger zone. RICHARD: Why? 2,500-odd years and 2,000-odd years have gone by and despite millions upon millions – if not billions – of otherwise intelligent and/or pious and/or studious and/or devout peoples throughout these thousands of years faithfully and trustingly applying their ‘Teachings’ ... there is still as much mayhem and misery as way back then. Does this not stretch one’s credulity somewhat? RESPONDENT: I’ve met some towering folks myself in my time and none of those would dare assert their superiority. RICHARD: Yet is it not stunningly clear, to the discerning observer, that the ‘Enlightened Beings’ have squandered their heyday? With this modern era’s rapid and comprehensive publication and communications network, none of their gaffes and improprieties elude notice. Anyone who is at all astute will have perceived that they have fallen short of their own standards ... and have failed to deliver the goods so readily pledged to a credulous humanity. * RICHARD: Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene’ major ‘realisation’ was essentially the same: everything material (the heavens and the earth) shall pass away – therefore resist the temptations of the flesh – as his kingdom, which was before the heavens and the earth were, endures (do not even bother looking for peace-on-earth). RESPONDENT: His realization was the same because there is only reality. The both transcended material plane slavery. Free at last. RICHARD: Again, is this response not just another way of saying the same as what I wrote? What you are saying, in effect, is that Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene’ paramount ‘realisation’ meant do not even bother looking for peace-on-earth ... peace comes at physical death (‘R. I. P’) and not before? RICHARD: ... if what the expression ‘the observer is the observed’ means to you is that the observer and the observed exist in relationship, that is your business ... I was simply responding to the following: [Respondent]: ‘Is the observer really separate from the observed? No’. [endquote]. Your unequivocal ‘no’ to your own question gave me the impression that the phrase ‘the observer is the observed’ meant to you that the observer *is* the observed ... now that you have explained not only what the phrase means to you but why it means what it means to you as well there is probably not much point in pursuing the matter any further. RESPONDENT: In regard to the psyche, the inquiry is, am I different than my qualities? We learn to structure the psyche so there is an observing centre that is isolated so as to control. Society demands that we act a certain way, that we conform to its rules of behaviour. We should do this and we should not do that. We have to ‘behave’ or else. The brain is programmed and we as controller act from that program to direct what we do. So what is wrong with that? A central processing area seems basic to integrating impressions and sensory input. But there is a problem where that which observes is prejudiced or biased. That means it is corrupted, disordered. To ask ‘is the observer separate from the observed’ is to ask whether that which looks is observing from programming, or is it free of all conditioning? If there is looking from knowledge, from a centre built in memory, it seems like certain content ‘in here’ is looking ‘out there’. But if that which looks is free of any particular content, there is no sense of being isolated of localized or bounded. There is a spaciousness of mind that is not invented by thought. Observation from that spaciousness is choiceless, effortless, and does not exclude anything. A quality of that spaciousness is silence where there is no ideation of me or God or Self or soul or of anything else. RICHARD: Whilst I appreciate that you have further explained why the expression ‘the observer is the observed’ means to you that the observer and the observed exist in relationship, and not that the observer *is* the observed, there is not much point in pursuing the matter any further because arguing which delusion is the better delusion is not what interests me. Suffice is it to say that, as a generalisation, in western mysticism oneness with god, or union with god, means a relationship with god (‘I and God’) whereas in eastern mysticism oneness with god, or union with god, means there is nothing other than god (‘I am God’). Which is possibly why Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s teachings can be taken either way. RESPONDENT: Which brings me to the question about how Richard’s evaluation is as to the part of the still invisible Mr Osama Bin Laden is playing in this current Human drama. RICHARD: I usually do not write about current affairs as I can only ever provide a superficial opinion (they are not matters I am fully informed about) ... but as I understand it the basis of the part which Mr. Osama Bin Laden is playing would perhaps be best understood by reading the words of a ‘Fatwa’ which he, and some other people, made public on 23 Feb 1998 at the following URL: http://www.emergency.com/bladen98.htm This is what it reads in part: • ‘The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies – civilians and military – is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, ‘and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together’, and ‘fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God’.’ A newspaper article, written on 15 Feb 1999, which provides what seems to be a reasonable account of the relevant background information at that time, can be found at the following URL: http://past.thenation.com/cgi-bin/framizer.cgi?url=http://past.thenation.com/issue/990215/0215hiro.shtml RESPONDENT: From an Islamic viewpoint the Name of the Game is ‘Jihad’. From a Western point of view it appears that Mr. Bush steadily is pushing for ‘War against Terrorism’. RICHARD: You seem to be mixing and matching two separate issues here ... it could be better put this way: 1. The religious/ spiritual issue: an Islamic perspective (Jihad) and a Christian perspective (Crusade) ... with both sides saying that the other is evil. 2. The political/ ideological issue: a Middle Eastern perspective (fighting Western imperialism) and a Western perspective (fighting Middle Eastern terrorism) ... except that the latter has now expanded to become a war against all terrorism world wide. RESPONDENT: Well I’d say that it’s a spiritual war anyway and it’s very unholy (unholy because I find some dignity implied with the word holy). RICHARD: Speaking personally, I can no longer find any of the dignity implied in the word ‘holy’ with which I was inculcated in my child-hood. RESPONDENT: Currently we have at any place on earth outbreaks of violence and I come to wonder why would not happen outbreaks of enlightenment as we safely can say that participators in these outbreaks are all more or less suffering from psychosis. RICHARD: Oh, there have been outbreaks of enlightenment happening all over the place ... the following URL may be of interest: http://www.angelfire.com/realm/bodhisattva/gurulist.html. And here is another URL: http://www.globalserve.net/~sarlo/Ratings.htm There are over 1100 teachers/ gurus/ masters listed on that page.

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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.

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