# Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

Richard’s Selected Correspondence ## On Fear RICHARD: Fear – existential angst at finding oneself to be the contingent ‘being’ one always suspected oneself to be – is both the barrier and the way to freedom. Always included in fear is a thrilling aspect, and by focussing upon this and not fear itself, an energy gathers momentum which does the trick for one (thrilling as in an exciting sensation through the body, stirring, stimulating, electrifying, rousing, moving, gripping, hair-raising, riveting, joyful, pleasing, throbbing, trembling, tremulous, quivering, shivering, fluttering, shuddering and vibrating). ‘I’ cannot set ‘myself’ free ... but ‘I’ can set in motion a process that will lead to ‘my’ eventual demise. JAMES: There is a feeling of dread now. I feel stuck and unable to proceed. There is nothing thrilling about it. RICHARD: A deep feeling of dread, the abject intuition of impending doom, is fraught with foreboding, be it a grim, dire, or awful presage, and this intensely apprehensive trepidation is symptomatic of the existential angst (the anguish of the essential insecurity of being a contingent ‘being’) which underpins all suffering. As such an occasion of profound dread is an opportune moment to plumb the depths of ‘being’ itself (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being) ... rather than avoidance through realisation of the portentous event as all manner of phantasmagoria can be manifested by such evasion. With pure intent one can enable a movement into the existential angst, rather than despairingly grasping at doomsday straws, which movement facilitates the bright light of awareness being shone into the innermost recesses of ‘my’ presence ... which is ‘presence’ itself. Such an active perspicacity in ‘my’ moment of reckoning will reveal that ‘presence’ itself feeds off ‘my’ fear – it is its very life-blood as it were – and this functional acuity brings an abrupt end to its nourishment. Whereupon all-of-a-sudden one finds oneself on the other side of the wall (to keep with the ‘cornered’ analogy for now) with the hitherto unseeable doorway to freedom closing behind one ... and one is walking freely in this actual world where one has already always been living anyway. All what happened was that upon ‘my’ exposure dissolution occurred and the Land of Lament sank without a trace. * RESPONDENT: I have desired oblivion but not now. Fear has taken over and ‘I’ want to hide from this inquiry. ‘I’ feel cornered and want to back out. ‘I’ am looking for a way out so I can stick to the known and keep surviving. ‘I’ am afraid of losing the known. RICHARD: Other than retreating back into suffering there is no way out but oblivion ... and going into oblivion is not only a blessed release from the known it is ‘my’ moment of accomplishment as well. It is ‘my’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘my’ life worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... ‘I’ go out in a blaze of glory. RESPONDENT: ‘I’ am stuck with ‘me’ (suffering) now. ‘I’ can’t see how to get past that. RICHARD: As there has been a, perhaps predictable, retreat back into suffering (predictable as foreshadowed in ‘‘I’ want to hide from this inquiry’ and ‘‘I’ want to back out’ for example), then one starts with where one is presently at (where one is not yet at will emerge of its own accord as one proceeds): as you say ‘‘I’ am stuck with ‘me’ (suffering) now’ then for ‘me’ that is where ‘I’ am currently at. Therefore, do ‘I’ feel the feeling of being stuck with ‘me’ (suffering) or not? If yes, then through staying with the feeling, by being the feeling (instead of trying to see how to get past that), one will find out, experientially, what it is really like to not have a path and/or not have a plan ... other than the one of ‘looking for a way out’ so that one can stick with the known that is. It sure beats armchair philosophising any day of the week. RICHARD: Now, obviously I am not going to go into details as my reports are circumscribed by the fact that the persons concerned are both both readily identifiable and still alive (I have no such constraints when talking about just myself) but as the subject is of primary importance – man-woman sexuality and intimacy is the genesis of family and thus the very core of civilisation itself – there is too much at stake for me to take my unique insight to the grave/ pyre/ whatever. RESPONDENT: Thank you. RICHARD: As I finally received a long-expected phone call yesterday advising me of the death of my second wife (de jure), from a terminal illness first diagnosed in February this year, my reports will no longer have to be quite so circumscribed in regards her interactions with me. The underlying cause of her packing her bags and moving out of her marital home forever, some thirteen years ago now, is none other than the same utter imminence, of what is ever-immanent, invoking a fear so vast as to best be called dread. In her case it took the form of what she called ‘stage fright’ at the time, upon seeing her readily identifiable words in print in ‘Richard’s Journal’ (which was then titled ‘The Actualism Journal’) and her name in pixels on ‘The Third Alternative’ website, which in turn led to her choosing to fall in love, with a man she could never have, only six weeks later. (To fall in love is not something which just happens involuntarily; the feelings of love are aroused by the presence of the potential lover and it is a choice made deep-down, at the core of one’s being, to either go with the powerful passions engendered, and thus become and be that very passion, or not). As the love she was remained unrequited it transmogrified itself into Love Agapé – only she called it Matriarchal Love (as in superior to Patriarchal Love in her eyes) – via sublimation and transcendence and she thus became That/ was That ... to wit: The Goddess all humankind had been expecting. * I have written about what can happen, regarding that fear so vast as to best be called dread, some years ago. Viz.: • [Richard]: A deep feeling of dread, the abject intuition of impending doom, is fraught with foreboding, be it a grim, dire, or awful presage, and this intensely apprehensive trepidation is symptomatic of the existential angst (the anguish of the essential insecurity of being a contingent ‘being’) which underpins all suffering. As such an occasion of profound dread is an opportune moment to plumb the depths of ‘being’ itself (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being) rather than avoidance through realisation of the portentous event as all manner of phantasmagoria can be manifested by such evasion. With pure intent one can enable a movement into the existential angst, rather than despairingly grasping at doomsday straws, which movement facilitates the bright light of awareness being shone into the innermost recesses of ‘my’ presence ... which is ‘presence’ itself. Such an active perspicacity in ‘my’ moment of reckoning will reveal that ‘presence’ itself feeds off ‘my’ fear – it is its very life-blood as it were – and this functional acuity brings an abrupt end to its nourishment. Whereupon all-of-a-sudden one finds oneself on the other side of the wall (to keep with the ‘cornered’ analogy for now) with the hitherto unseeable doorway to freedom closing behind one and one is walking freely in this actual world where one has already always been living anyway. All what happened was that upon ‘my’ exposure dissolution occurred and the Land of Lament sank without a trace. (Richard, List B, James3, 21 Nov 2002 In short: what happened was that the existential angst of discovering how one is nothing but a contingent ‘being’, and how one will cease to ‘be’ unless one of several doomsday straws be grasped, resulted in the redemptive straw being grasped so firmly as to bring about an ASC (which waxed and waned in intensity) which endured for more than just a few weeks. (Hence her abrupt about-face, as made into public knowledge in both ‘Richard’s Journal’ and on The Actual Freedom Trust website, and her out-of-character blackguarding of actualism and bad-mouthing of me). * RICHARD: <snip> Curiously enough, in the end it was her very own fear (of female sexuality) which set the limits. RESPONDENT: Interesting. I am curious about the use of the expression ‘fear (of female sexuality)’ – because being with a man without any limits – as in limiting fear as you put it above, is liberating from the fear that female sexual identity suffers videlicet body image, self-esteem, social/ cultural/ moral conditioning induced guilt and shame of being wild etc. RICHARD: My third wife was already liberated from the social/ cultural moral conditionings (such as induced guilt and shame and so on) when she set out to explore her ‘wild side’ ... she was most uninhibited in that respect. What emerged, of course, was her ‘dark side’ (hence my ‘fear of female sexuality’ phrasing when characterising what eventually set the limits). Yet behind or beyond even that lay a much greater fear (giving rise to even greater weird and bizarre behaviour). As it is of such importance I obtained her permission to speak about it (she is currently out of the country for an indefinite period). One fine weekend some time ago we went on a boat-trip upriver; we were at anchor in a semi-remote spot and something happened to her, whilst having sex, which she unknowingly locked-away for nearly two years. And it was during those two years that the pulling-back, turning- away, closing-off, shutting-down, and so on, began to occur more and more (much to her mystification as her sexuality had been rampant). What first came out, during an intense conversation some twenty or so months later, was how she had seen that were she to further explore sexuality and intimacy via sexual congress with me she would surely go insane ... literally (as in a lock-up psychiatric ward). Yet underneath or behind that very real fear lay a fear so vast it can best be called dread (the remembrance of the ‘going insane’ fear gave access to what it was concealing or covering-up). Some three months or so later the final truth emerged: the sex was so wonderful, on that occasion upriver, it was frightening ... and frightening to the nth degree. For here all is immaculate perfection. RESPONDENT: I have been rendered wordless since I read this. It is utterly and completely incomprehensible to me that such a turning away and shutting down can happen, having tasted the immaculate perfection. RICHARD: It is the very imminence, of immaculate perfection being the irrevocable actuality, which occasions the pulling-back, turning- away, closing-off, shutting-down, and so on, as only extinction lies ahead. (The way in which a PCE comes about is quite different to how an actual freedom happens: the former occurring via abeyance, of identity in toto/ the entire affective faculty, and the latter via extinction of same). Indeed, on many an occasion all those years ago (1981) the identity then inhabiting this flesh and blood body pulled-back in alarum, upon the intensity of pleasure reaching such an ever-spiralling momentum as to be mounting exponentially, only to later on chide himself (when back to normal) for not having the intestinal fortitude to have proceeded whilst the vital opportunity was presenting itself. Put succinctly: this which has been my everyday experiencing for all of seventeen years now – so easily experienceable in a blithe and carefree manner – was discerned back then as being of such a magnitude of intensity that nobody could possibly live that, as an on-going and irrevocable permanency, for more than five-ten minutes at the most ... whereupon physical death must surely happen. (Please remember that abeyance is not extinction; then it might become more clear and less incomprehensible). RESPONDENT: ‘Going insane’ is something I understand and very well applies to, let’s say, someone like me (for I am still working on my female identity, even when I have stripped moral/ cultural conditioning). However, turning away at the brink of such freedom means much more lies ahead. RICHARD: As what the much more which lies ahead, at that moment of imminence, is extinction, then all an identity can do, in the end, is procrastinate. RESPONDENT: When I feel fear, fear seems to reinforce itself and stays put. RICHARD: It is not all that uncommon to feel fear feeding off itself, as it were, and mounting in intensity almost exponentially – as in a panic attack for instance – yet closer inspection reveals that it is none other than ‘me’, a fearful ‘me’, who is fuelling/ refuelling the fear (‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’) with ‘my’ own affective energy. RESPONDENT: When I think of any belief about the fear trigger, the fear seems to reinforce the belief. RICHARD: Oh, indeed so ... that is a phenomenon well-known by many a draconian. RESPONDENT: Each fear is a self perpetuating. RICHARD: The key to success lies in realising that fear does not go anywhere (meaning that nothing ever happens except more fear). * RESPONDENT: When a feeling changes within a person, something supplants the feeling/ belief. Feelings and beliefs don’t just disappear. What is the thought, memory, or whatever that is able to permanently eliminate a feeling/ belief? RICHARD: Seeing the fact will set you free of the belief. RESPONDENT: In any case – before this ego death finally happened, I literally went through hell that got increasingly worse during the course of about 4 years. Before that, you could say I was more or less high for several years (not on any drugs, but on altered states, so to speak). But then I went through the metaphysical dread and horror and anxiety and the anguish of feeling your inner ‘self’ dying. I could really relate to your description of the ‘feeling of being a traitor to humanity’ when being on this road at the same time, even if it’s really the other way around. Anyway – the point is – to be honest, the thought of my ‘soul’, i.e. what I’m identifying with at the moment after the ‘ego death’, having to go too, scares the hell out of me. I can imagine it being even worse, maybe a lot worse than what I’ve already gone through, and that was, to say the least, no fun. But I believe it’s going to happen whether I want it to or not – since I did push the button, and the process is running it’s course – I can feel it. And, as you describe too, another part of me or feeling about it all is rather ecstatic. But there’s horror as well. RICHARD: In the feeling of fear itself there is both a thrilling aspect (the source of valour) and a frightening aspect (the source of pusillanimity) and deep fear – horror/ terror/ dread – is no exception ... the main thing to watch out for, as fear itself is existential, is the temptation to surrender to the unknown/ unknowable force, or energy, which beguilingly offers relief from anguish through salvation. I have gone into this in some detail before ... the following is the essence of it: • [Richard]: ‘A deep feeling of dread, the abject intuition of impending doom, is fraught with foreboding, be it a grim, dire, or awful presage, and this intensely apprehensive trepidation is symptomatic of the existential angst (the anguish of the essential insecurity of being a contingent ‘being’) which underpins all suffering. As such an occasion of profound dread is an opportune moment to plumb the depths of ‘being’ itself (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being) ... rather than avoidance through realisation of the portentous event as all manner of phantasmagoria can be manifested by such evasion. With pure intent one can enable a movement into the existential angst, rather than despairingly grasping at doomsday straws, which movement facilitates the bright light of awareness being shone into the innermost recesses of ‘my’ presence ... which is ‘presence’ itself. Such an active perspicacity in ‘my’ moment of reckoning will reveal that ‘presence’ itself feeds off ‘my’ fear – it is its very life-blood as it were – and this functional acuity brings an abrupt end to its nourishment. Whereupon all-of-a-sudden one finds oneself on the other side of the wall (to keep with the ‘cornered’ analogy for now) with the hitherto unseeable doorway to freedom closing behind one ... and one is walking freely in this actual world where one has already always been living anyway. All what happened was that upon ‘my’ exposure dissolution occurred and the Land of Lament sank without a trace. (Richard, List B, James3, 21 November 2002a). RESPONDENT: So my question is mainly what I might expect with this ‘soul death’ ... RICHARD: In short: a blessed release into oblivion. RESPONDENT: ... if you could expand on what it entails, or share more about how you experienced it, and what if anything I can do to prepare for it and make it easier or to facilitate it. RICHARD: The key to easiness and facilitation – indeed to success itself – is pure intent. RESPONDENT: Or maybe I should just let it go and let it run it’s own course and happen when and if and however it does? RICHARD: To put it as simply as is possible: all you can do is procrastinate. RESPONDENT: There are certain instincts that we are born with. RICHARD: Would you care to name and describe these ‘instincts that we are born with’ so that we have a common ground for discussion? RESPONDENT: Fear, aggression, reproduction, preserving one’s life, to name a few. RICHARD: Okay ... the study of the ‘instincts that we are born with’ is largely over-looked and any information on the subject is surprisingly scant. The ‘Tabula Rasa’ doctrine still holds sway in many circles and other schools of thought cannot agree among themselves as to what is instinctual and what is not ... as epitomised in the ‘nature versus nurture’ debate. However, in all of my ad hoc reading on the subject over many years, there is some basic agreement as in regards the ‘freeze or flight or fight’ impulses (what I call ‘fear and aggression’), the ‘propagation of the species’ instincts as epitomised by the sexual urges and cravings (what I call ‘desire’) and the ‘protecting and preserving’ drives as epitomised by bonding alliances (what I call ‘nurture). There are others like ‘territoriality’, ‘gregariousness’, ‘homing’ and so on, but for purposes of focussing on the nub of the issue (human suffering) I consistently keep to the four basic passions: fear and aggression (savage) and nurture and desire (tender). If we were to take the first instinctual passion you mentioned (above) – fear – so as to investigate an area that is of mutual agreement, I would propose, that as it is a genetically encoded passion humans are born with, psychotherapy or psychoanalysis and so on can only go so far in investigating fear; even if carried out successfully such therapeutic introspection could only ever uncover the various and many conditioned fearful responses and the conditioned fearful causes thereof ... and never the source of fear itself as emotional memory precedes cognitive memory. Thus, as the source of fear – fear itself – is not a product of ‘conditioning’ it therefore cannot fit into Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s category of ‘content of consciousness’ (whilst fully acknowledging and allowing that many of the fearful responses are indeed conditioned responses put into the child by the peoples already here before the child was born as is ascertained by psychology and psychiatry). Whilst the gender, racial and era beliefs, truths, morals, ethics, principles, values, ideals, theories, customs, traditions, superstitions and all the other schemes and dreams are obviously conditioning – and therefore the ‘content of consciousness’ – these societal imprints would not be able to have the tenacious hold that they have if the human brain was indeed the ‘Tabular Rasa’ brain that so many peoples believe they are born with. All the many and varied ‘contents of consciousness’ have such a persistent grip only because of the powerful affective energy of the genetically inherited instinctual passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) that the ‘contents’ are glued in place with ... and the instinctual passions stretch back to the dawn of the human species. In light of this biological fact, it is obvious that all the animosity and anguish that has beset humankind throughout millennia comes from that which is a lot deeper than ‘the thinker is the thought’ because all the misery and mayhem stems from an animal affective energy which is much, much more powerful than thought, thoughts and thinking. Indeed, it has been demonstrated that some animals – chimpanzees for just one example – have a distinct sense of ‘self’ and ‘other’ and therefore ‘self’ is not, at root, caused by thought, thoughts and thinking. That ‘the thinker is the thought’ (‘I’ as ego) is but the tip of the iceberg ... to put it in the same lingo, ‘the feeler is the feeling’ (‘me’ as soul at the core of ‘being’) and ‘being’ is instinctual ‘being’. * JAMES: Once these instinctual survival passions are eliminated what then is the response to danger such as overwhelming physical attack? Without the fight or flight response how does one deal with this type of situation? RICHARD: Fearlessly. The instinctual passion of fear triggers any one of three reactions: freeze, flight or fight ... none of which are necessarily appropriate when dealing with the most common aggressor (human beings) in today’s world. In this day and age negotiation is by far the most efficacious response to a threatening situation. And fear – adrenaline coursing through the veins; the heart pumping furiously; the palms sweaty; the face blanched white; knuckles gripped; body tensed and so on and so on – cripples effective negotiation and is hardly conducive to a healthy outcome. Of course one still has the option to freeze or flee or fight if that is what the situation calls for ... with the added advantage of such action not being fear-driven (or courage-driven). Foolish courage – an impulse sourced in fear – can cause one to take needless risks. (Richard, List B, James, 13 November 2000). RESPONDENT: What you write appears reasonable to me. However, there is another side to fear that is quite unrelated to an external entity. This internal fear I think is different from the situation that you describe. Sitting by myself, I imagine many a thing. And that causes fear to arise in me. There is no real threat to my being, but my mind builds some fearful scenarios and I feel fear that is quite real. I don’t think I can run or fight this fear because there is nothing out there that I can reasonably run from or charge towards. Human mind has a very good capacity to take the imaginary for real. That has been the secret of success of the film/ theater/ fiction industry. Through simulation, real emotions can be generated in the fertile human mind. How can one deal with such imagined fears? I don’t have a 100% formula. But this is what I try to do: when my mind starts imagining the worst kinds of things and starts generating fears, I tell myself: OK, this is but a story. The reality is different. A lot of the time I am able to check my runaway imagination and minimize fear. I don’t know how much of this makes sense to you and others. But it does work for me. RICHARD: And yet is it not possible to be totally rid of fear – for those who dare to care and care to dare – for then one has complete dignity, as only a freed human being has, for the remainder of their life? And is this not a blessing? * RICHARD: You have written a well considered evaluation of the usefulness of fear in one’s life: 1. you say you have your fair share of fears, trepidations, and anxieties. 2. you point out that the world has its fair share of fears, trepidations, and anxieties as well. 3. you respond that you don’t know if it is possible to be free of fears and anxieties. 4. you muse that you don’t know if it is even desirable to be totally rid of fear. 5. you speculate that some amount of fear and anxiety may even be necessary for efficient performance. 6. you report that anxiety provides you with energy to improve your performance in respect to good teaching. 7. you report that anxiety provides you with energy to improve your performance in respect to doing quality research. 8. you report that anxiety provides you with energy to improve your performance in respect to contributing positively to your school by way of service. 9. you conjecture that if you were to become complacent you might let things slip by. 10. you state that there are two types of fears: (a) positive anxiety and (b) negative anxiety. 11. you avow that positive anxiety helps humans to focus on the job at hand. 12. you assert that positive anxiety provides energy to solve problems. 13. you indicate that negative anxiety is distracting and wasteful. 14. you proclaim that negative anxiety – merely worrying – leads to a diminished performance. 15. you declare that a diminished performance leads to more anxiety which is a downward spiral leading to a further diminished performance ... and so on. 16. you give details about another person you were talking to – whom you thought to be free of anxieties – who told you he uses his anxiety creatively. 17. you testify that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti gave a lot of attention to details regarding seating and being visible and audible before his public meetings. 18. you surmise that without some amount of positive anxiety then excellence may not be achieved. 19. you ask whether what nature has programmed in humans – the surge of adrenalin on occasions – has a purpose even in the modern times where people are not faced with fight-or-flight situations. 20. you enquire whether these points make sense ... or at least a little sense. Indeed it does make sense – and more than just a little – inasmuch as you have convinced me that I need to have fear in my life. Do you have any suggestions as to how I should go about this? * RESPONDENT: Interesting that I ended up convincing you of the need to have fear, despite all my tentativeness that you so correctly picked out. May I ask, why did you get convinced that one ought to have some fear (anxiety) from time to time? RICHARD: We have had numerous discussions, you and I, going back a year or so on various aspects of the human condition ... fear being an aspect that featured prominently for a few posts. I have consistently proposed the utter necessity of a total and complete absence of fear (and all of the instinctual passions) if there is to be peace-on-earth. During that exchange you posted an account of your experiential situation in a then-recent car crash (‘in that fraction of a second when the other car hit mine, there was no thought, no fear, no anything’) to which I responded in full ... yet here you are writing a well considered evaluation of the usefulness of fear in one’s life as if that event had either never happened or had not shown you anything of value. So I ran the question: what if you are correct and I am in error? I arranged your exposition sequentially and sat back with it on the screen: I listened. * RICHARD: Do you have any suggestions as to how I should go about this [getting fear into my life]? RESPONDENT: Well, some of it is easy. You travelled to India. I am sure you must have experienced some anxiety while crossing roads there. RICHARD: No ... I was a living exemplar of fatalism during my six months there (which is what I advise anyone contemplating the full experience of India). RESPONDENT: When you write these posts, don’t you make an effort to write correctly and creatively? RICHARD: No, it happens effortlessly ... when I start a sentence I have no means of knowing in advance what will transpire, let alone how it will end. All I need to know is the theme and the subject matter unfolds of its own accord. I do have a reliable and repeatable format and style, which has developed over the years, so it is not an ad hoc or chaotic meandering. It is all very easy. RESPONDENT: That effort, I would surmise, comes from a sense of anxiety – do I make sense? Have I chosen appropriate words? Can I improve my post? RICHARD: Writing is such a delight – even though I am a two-finger typist – and the fingers ripple across the keyboard: given the theme the words always make sense. When I read-through the draft it is a cinch to choose the right words – I have upwards of 650,000 words at my command – and correct the typos. I never send it straight away ... and when I come back to it a read-through, as with another’s eyes, makes obvious how it can be improved (if it needs improving). RESPONDENT: I don’t know about your personal life. Do you date? Cook? RICHARD: Neither ... I am a fifty three year old male, the progenitor of four adult children and eight grandchildren from my first marriage ... all now scattered far and wide and living their own lives. My companion and I are, by choice, childless and will stay so ... enough is enough. I currently live on the most easterly point of the Australian seaboard in a small village called Byron Bay. I rent a suburban three-bedroom brick duplex one kilometre from the beach – the ocean is an almost constant back-drop in Byron Bay – and the wee small hours are my favourite time for writing ... I most often wake up at two or three o’clock in the morning and write until the first kookaburras start their laughing-like call from some trees over the back fence. Then I like to sit and sip an early morning coffee, with my feet up on the computer desk, and be with the first blue-grey light coming into the room ... through to the first glow of pre-dawn ... and then the sunrise itself. I have a colour TV and VCR in the lounge room and two computers in what was the dining area: I stroll into the village centre for a bite to eat at the local restaurants and sup the froth off a cappuccino at one of the numerous sidewalk cafés several times a week ... and generally lead what could be called a quiet domestic life-style. I have an affinity for the small-town life as I was born and raised on a dairy farm in the south-west of Australia. I had a normal birth and upbringing. I went to a standard state school and took a regular job at fifteen and then volunteered for a six-year stint in the Military at seventeen. I went into a commonplace marriage at nineteen and had an average family and although I worked at many jobs throughout my life, my main career was as a practicing artist ... although I am also a qualified art teacher. I am retired and living on a hard-won pension and instead of pottering around in the garden I am currently pottering around the internet. RESPONDENT: In both of these activities, some anxiety, in my opinion, is inevitable: am I conducting myself correctly in her presence? RICHARD: I simply am what I am as this flesh and blood body – I am unable to pretend to be otherwise – and anyone who spends time with me is attracted to that ... else they go away (there are those who have). RESPONDENT: Will the love making be glorious? etc. RICHARD: Love does not feature in my life ... thus sexual congress is always excellent. RESPONDENT: Similarly, cooking: I would bet that without some anxiety about the outcome of what we cook, results would be rather bland. RICHARD: I either eat out or order in. RESPONDENT: I would suggest that without some positive anxiety, life would be too insipid. RICHARD: When I go to bed at night I have had a perfect day ... and I know that I will wake up to yet another day of perfection. This has been going on, day-after-day, for years now ... it is so ‘normal’ that I take it for granted that there is only perfection. RESPONDENT: And you too, whatever extirpations and such that you have gone through in your life, must be enjoying the occasional flutter in your heart that creative anxiety produces. Isn’t it so? RICHARD: No ... there is no fear here in this actual world where I live – there is no fear in a flower, a tree, an ashtray, an armchair, a rock – not even disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension, let alone anxiety, angst, fear, terror, horror or dread. What am I to do? * RESPONDENT: I don’t know about your personal life. Do you date? Cook? In both of these activities, some anxiety, in my opinion, is inevitable: am I conducting myself correctly in her presence? Will the love making be glorious? etc. RICHARD: Love does not feature in my life ... thus sexual congress is always excellent. RESPONDENT: Well, that sounds strange, if not contradictory, to me. RICHARD: I can comprehend your ‘sounds strange’ response given that the conventional wisdom is to cover-up the base carnal passions with a gloss of love ... but why ‘contradictory’? The total absence of the instinctual passions – and their compensatory love – enables an actual intimacy, a direct experience of the pristine actuality of another, unspoiled by any ‘me’ and ‘my’ neediness and greediness whatsoever. An actual intimacy surpasses the highest or deepest feeling of love possible. Hence ‘always excellent’. RESPONDENT: Sex without love is like pizza without cheese – edible, but not a pizza really. RICHARD: Pizza – even with cheese – is hardly haute cuisine. Sex without carnal desire enables a purity that far exceeds the greatest or most profound feeling of love. RESPONDENT: Sorry about being Starr-like, but don’t you go through the pounding of heart, some tingling in and around various body parts, a surge of various emotions and excitements before, during, and after coitus with your, eh, companion? If yes, then I would say that you experience that creative anxiety that I mentioned. RICHARD: Ahh ... I think I get it, now. You seem to be indicating that if I were to add love into sex then I will have creative anxiety in my life? RESPONDENT: Also, what, if any, emotions pass through your heart when you see your children and grandchildren? RICHARD: None at all. I experience all people equally with the same actual intimacy ... no separation whatsoever. RESPONDENT: A flower, a tree, an ashtray, an armchair, a rock, would probably not feel much upon seeing their children and grandchildren ... RICHARD: They feel nothing ... feelings exist only in sentient beings. RESPONDENT: ... but human beings, I think, are different. RICHARD: Indeed. RESPONDENT: They hug and kiss and buy gifts and celebrate Christmas and birthdays and weddings and graduations with their children and grandchildren. Such hugging and kissing and celebrating in my opinion is the part of being human. RICHARD: Indeed ... as are 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. * RICHARD: There is no fear here in this actual world where I live – there is no fear in a flower, a tree, an ashtray, an armchair, a rock – not even disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension, let alone anxiety, angst, fear, terror, horror or dread. What am I to do? RESPONDENT: I don’t know, brother. RICHARD: Oh? You can write a well considered evaluation of the usefulness of fear in one’s life; you can convince another that they need to have creative anxiety in their lives ... yet when asked ‘what to do’ you say: ‘I don’t know’? You have given me the words of fear ... but where is the essence? RESPONDENT: I guess you enjoy your life as it is. RICHARD: I am indeed having a wonderful time ... that is not the point (you knew that already from past posts): the point is that you saw the need for creative anxiety and wrote a well considered evaluation of the usefulness of fear: I listened. Now what? RESPONDENT: That is, enjoy it as much as a flower, a tree, an ashtray, an armchair, a rock does. RICHARD: Only a human has the capacity for apperceptive awareness: a flower, a tree, an ashtray, an armchair, a rock are incapable of perception ... let alone apperception. RESPONDENT: But, in my humble opinion, part of being human is to feel the emotions that I mentioned above. Makes sense? RICHARD: Indeed it does make sense – and more than just a little – inasmuch as you have convinced me that I need to have fear in my life ... and I am listening. How are we to proceed? * RESPONDENT: Do you date? Cook? In both of these activities, some anxiety, in my opinion, is inevitable: am I conducting myself correctly in her presence? Will the love making be glorious? etc. RICHARD: Love does not feature in my life ... thus sexual congress is always excellent. RESPONDENT: Well, that sounds strange, if not contradictory, to me. RICHARD: I can comprehend your ‘sounds strange’ response given that the conventional wisdom is to cover-up the base carnal passions with a gloss of love ... but why ‘contradictory’? The total absence of the instinctual passions – and their compensatory love – enables an actual intimacy, a direct experience of the pristine actuality of another, unspoiled by any ‘me’ and ‘my’ neediness and greediness whatsoever. An actual intimacy surpasses the highest or deepest feeling of love possible. Hence ‘always excellent’. RESPONDENT: I don’t agree that love is all but ‘compensatory to instinctual passions’. To love another person is to feel for him/ her with the same intensity as we feel for ourselves. RICHARD: Ahh ... projected narcissism, you mean? RESPONDENT: Some of this feeling, I agree, is instinctual – for example, parents feel the pain of their children as their own. But, human beings also have the capacity to love others that they are not instinctively programmed to love. I can cite my love for my dear wife as an example. Her joys and pains and trials and tribulations are mine too with the same intensity. That is love. Without love we do not relate to another. So, I don’t understand the concept of actual intimacy sans love. Without love – which is feeling for another with the same intensity as for ourselves – there is no intimacy, in my humble opinion. RICHARD: Yet love, no matter how intense, is seeing (feeling) the other through rose-coloured glasses (feelings). The total absence malice and sorrow – and their compensatory love and compassion – enables an actual intimacy, a direct experience of the pristine actuality of another, unspoiled by any ‘me’ and ‘my’ neediness and greediness whatsoever. An actual intimacy surpasses the highest or deepest feeling of love possible. * RESPONDENT: Sorry about being Starr-like, but don’t you go through the pounding of heart, some tingling in and around various body parts, a surge of various emotions and excitements before, during, and after coitus with your, eh, companion? If yes, then I would say that you experience that creative anxiety that I mentioned. RICHARD: Ahh ... I think I get it, now. You seem to be indicating that if I were to add love into sex then I will have creative anxiety in my life? RESPONDENT: Well, what I am getting at is this: love makes the heart go fonder. The tingling sensation that being in love with one’s wife, girlfriend, even one’s companion, is what I referred to as creative anxiety. How do you relate with your companion? RICHARD: As there is no separation it is impossible – and unnecessary – to ‘relate’. RESPONDENT: Do you buy her flowers? RICHARD: No ... I provide all of me twenty-four hours a day (no substitute giving is needed). RESPONDENT: Does anticipation of a romantic evening with her sets your heart aflutter? RICHARD: There is no room for ‘romantic evenings’ – or the necessity – in a twenty-four hour a day intimacy. RESPONDENT: When you hold her hands and look into her eyes does the cosmos come to a standstill? RICHARD: No ... the infinitude of this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe is already always still. RESPONDENT: If yes, then you experience creative anxiety that I have in mind. RICHARD: Oh. You have given me the words of ‘creative anxiety’ ... but where is the essence? * RESPONDENT: Also, what, if any, emotions pass through your heart when you see your children and grandchildren? RICHARD: None at all. I experience all people equally with the same actual intimacy ... no separation whatsoever. RESPONDENT: Describe that intimacy to me, if you don’t mind. RICHARD: Sure ... pristine perfection twenty-four hours a day. RESPONDENT: What goes through your heart when you see your grandchildren? RICHARD: Blood. RESPONDENT: Do you embrace them, baby-talk with them? RICHARD: No ... I treat them as fellow human beings (plus I very rarely see them anyway as they live physically far away). RESPONDENT: Buy them toys? RICHARD: No ... I provide all of me twenty-four hours a day (no substitute giving is needed) when and if I ever see them. RESPONDENT: Does the cosmos come to a standstill when they shriek with joy in your ears? RICHARD: No ... the infinitude of this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe is already always still. * RESPONDENT: But, in my humble opinion, part of being human is to feel the emotions that I mentioned above. Makes sense? RICHARD: Indeed it does make sense – and more than just a little – inasmuch as you have convinced me that I need to have fear in my life ... and I am listening. How are we to proceed? RESPONDENT: By answering the above questions. RICHARD: You have given me the words of fear ... but where is the essence? RESPONDENT: I regret not being able to read Richard because of the typographical characters which do not pass with my navigator and make the reading of its letters almost impossible. RESPONDENT No. 33: Sorry to hear that. If Richard is reading this, he should do something to fix this problem. RICHARD: I am only too happy to send a text-only copy of this post to (xxx.xxx@xxx.com) in this instance if that will be of assistance. This is the essence of what I am reporting: In normal human beings sensate perception is primary; affective perception is secondary; cognitive perception is tertiary. That is, when the finger tip touches the glass which is a few millimetres to the front of these pixels you are reading there is the immediate perception of the actuality of the physical (skin-on-glass/ glass-on-skin). Mr. Joseph LeDoux has been able to demonstrate, again and again under strict laboratory conditions, that 12-14 milliseconds after the sensory impact/ contact there is the affective perception (he has specifically addressed fear) ... and that 12-14 milliseconds after that there is the cognitive perception. As the affective perception generates what is genetically programmed to be the appropriate response (initially the inherited as ‘freeze-flee-fight’ instinctual response) the brain is flooded with a veritable cocktail of chemicals ... which means that the cognitive perception is clouded by the affective perception’s automatic response (that is, it cannot think clearly). Now comes the contentious part: by and large ‘K-Readers’ have no difficulty with and/or objection to thought stopping (no cognitive perception/ response) ... but, by and large, object strenuously to my report that the affective faculty can likewise cease (no affective perception/ response). I will re-post a paragraph I posted only a few days ago that may have been overlooked in all the furore about the ‘reality can never be known’ issue. Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘I am speaking of the immediate perception, of this body and that body and every body and of the mountains and the streams and of the trees and the flowers and of the clouds in the sky by day and the stars in the firmament by night and so on and so on ad infinitum, without the affective faculty operating ... which reveals actuality in all its purity and perfection. This applies not only to ocular perception but also to cutaneous perception, to gustatory perception, to olfactory perception, to aural perception ... and even to proprioceptive perception, for that matter. There is no mystery where there is such direct perception of actuality as described ... all is laid open, as it already always has been open just here right now all along, because nothing is ever hidden. One walks through the world in wide-eyed wonder simply marvelling at being here doing this business called being alive on this verdant and azure paradise called planet earth. This is what innocence looks like’. (Richard, List B, No. 4f, 13 July 2001). As immediate, direct perception (sensuous perception) does not involve either the affective faculty or the cognitive function the thinker (‘I’ as ego) and the feeler (‘me’ as soul) do not get a look-in ... hence I call this direct perception ‘apperception’ (perception unmediated by either ‘self’ or ‘Self’). Thus what I am is this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware (sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) ... which means that the actuality of the physical can indeed be known, each moment again, day after day. I do not know if I can put it more briefly or succinctly than this. * RESPONDENT: Thank you for your post. I think as you and Mr. Joseph LeDoux that the sensate perception is immediate then comes emotional faculty (an emotion like the fear for example) and then cognitive perception. You call apperception sensuous, immediate perception without the emotional faculty nor the cognitive function. But do you believe that one can dissociate the sensory vision (sight of the snake for example) of the emotional answer (fear) which seems ineluctable? RICHARD: I do not have to ‘believe’ anything as apperception has been my on-going experiencing, night and day, since 1992 ... the challenge for me has been how to present this discovery to my fellow human beings (for whom the affective faculty is inviolable if not sacrosanct). Hence I need to refer to scientific (repeatable on demand) experiments so as to pre-empt responses that capriciously dismiss my experiential report as being an idea, a posit, an imagining, a belief, an opinion, a perspective, a standpoint, a view, a viewpoint, a point of view, a world-view, a concept, a theory, a conjecture, a speculation, an assumption, a presumption, a supposition, a surmise, a thought, an inference, a precept, a judgement, a position, a mind-set, a state-of-mind, a frame-of-mind, a stance, an image, an intellectualising, an intellectual understanding, an analysis, a doctrine, a policy, a canon, a dogma, a code, a tenet, a creed, a credo, a rule, a principle, an ideology, a faith, an act of faith, an article of faith, a philosophy, a religion, a metaphysics, a psychology, a cult ... the entire 101 stock-standard denials of the possibility of being happy and harmless, here on earth in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. There is no fear here in this actual world ... there is no fear in a flower, a rock or in this computer monitor, for example. Only sentient beings have fear (plus the other instinctual passions such as aggression and nurture and desire). There is a way to ascertain the validity of my report for oneself: when one first becomes aware of something there is a fleeting instant of pure perception of sensum, just before one affectively identifies with all the feeling memories associated with its qualia (the qualities pertaining to the properties of the form) and also before one cognitively recognises the percept (the mental product or result of perception), and this ‘raw sense-datum’ stage of sensational perception is a direct experience of the actual. Pure perception is at that instant where one converges one’s eyes or ears or nose or tongue or skin on the thing. It is that moment just before one focuses one’s feeling-memory on the object. It is the split-second just as one hedonically subjectifies it ... which is just prior to clamping down on it viscerally and segregating it from pure, conscious existence. Pure perception takes place sensitively just before one starts feeling the percept – and thus thinking about it affectively – which takes place just before one’s feeling-fed mind says: ‘It’s a man’ or: ‘It’s a woman’ or: ‘It’s a steak-burger’ or: ‘It’s a tofu-burger’ ... with all that is implied in this identification and the ramifications that stem from that. This fluid, soft-focused moment of bare awareness, which is not learned, has never been learned, and never will be learned, could be called an aesthetically sensual regardfulness or a consummate sensorial discernibleness or an exquisitely sensuous distinguishment ... in a word: apperceptiveness. Then there is no need to ‘dissociate’ ... ‘I’/ ‘me’ has never existed (in this actual world). * RESPONDENT: Thank you, Richard. To clarify the problem I propose an example to you. I see a frightening face. I am afraid. Where is located in this sequence ‘this fluid, soft-focused moment of bare awareness’ which you call ‘apperceptiveness’? RICHARD: In the sequence you propose apperceptiveness is located, where it already always is, at the pure ocular perception (substitute ‘seeing’ for ‘I see’ and it may become more obvious what I am reporting). Thence comes the affective identification 12-14 milliseconds later (‘frightening’) which is followed by the cognitive recognition another 12-14 milliseconds after that (‘face’) ... thence to the identification, with all the emotion-backed memories associated with the resultant conceptualisation, of self-distress (‘I am afraid’). RESPONDENT: Would you say that you do not know the fear? RICHARD: Correct ... there is no fear here in this actual world. RESPONDENT No. 33: And you too, whatever extirpations and such that you have gone through in your life, must be enjoying the occasional flutter in your heart that creative anxiety produces. Isn’t it so? RICHARD: No ... there is no fear here in this actual world where I live – there is no fear in a flower, a tree, an ashtray, an armchair, a rock – not even disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension, let alone anxiety, angst, fear, terror, horror or dread. (Richard, List B, No. 33c, 17 November 2000). RESPONDENT: If someone breaks into your house at night, if someone kidnaps your wife, if a sudden economical change takes your pension from you ... I hope none of these actually ever happens to you, but if they did how would you feel? How would you re-act? RICHARD: The burglary question I can answer from direct experience ... someone broke into my house at 3.00 AM about six months ago. How did I feel? I did not feel anything. How did I re-act? There was no need of reaction ... I did the obvious in this day and age: I first rang the police and then rang the 24 hour credit-card hotline. The police arrived at the door just as a neighbour was calling to report a similar break-in ... all-in-all there were nine houses broken into that night. The felon has been apprehended. I have been robbed before ... about six years ago (given the human condition this is all par for the course): that time I was in a position to give chase and recover my possessions from the offender. How did I feel? I did not feel anything. How did I re-act? There was no need of reaction ... there was only action: I had all the energy to hand as was appropriate for the situation. The kidnapping question I can answer from indirect experience ... my wife, my constant companion night and day for eleven years, was ‘kidnapped’ by love some four years ago and packed her bags and moved out of my life. How did I feel? I did not feel anything. How did I re-act? There was no reaction ... I do not ‘own’ anyone: she is her own person and lives her life as she sees fit. Also, there are no guarantees in life regarding another person: everybody is but a missed heart-beat or two away from death; any fellow human being can disappear out of one’s life at any given moment ... and does. The economic question I can answer from personal experience ... I lived an alternative life-style in the latter half of the ‘seventies: growing my own food and so on ... being as self-sufficient as possible. Then, for nearly five years, in a time I call my ‘puritan period’, I was – more or less as time went by – homeless, itinerant, celibate, vegan ... I eventually whittled my worldly possessions down to three sarongs, three shirts, a cooking pot and bowl, a knife and a spoon, a hair brush and a pair of nail scissors. Thus I know I can live simply in a physical sense as well. It may be useful for me to explain that not only do I have no feelings about these scenarios you mention, but I have none about any more you might propose. I do not experience affective feelings per se because I do not have any anywhere in this body at all ... this body lost that faculty entirely when ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul became extinct. Thus, to use the jargon, no one can ‘press my buttons’ as I do not have any buttons – nor any feelings under them – to be activated. Literally I feel nothing at all. Even when, say, watching a magnificent sunrise where some lofty clouds are shot through with splendid rays of golden light, transforming the morning sky into a blaze of glory ... I feel nothing at all. These eyes seeing it delight in the array of colour, and this brain contemplating its visual splendour can revel in the wonder of it all ... but I cannot feel the beauty of it in the emotional and passionate sense of the word feel. Just as when a person becomes physically blind all their other senses are heightened, so too is it when all affective feelings vanish entirely. This body is simply brimming with sense organs which celebrate in their own sensuous and sensual delight. Visually everything is intense, vivid and brilliant ... sensuously everything is dynamic, vital and scintillating with actuality ... sensuality is a matter-of-fact actualness. Everything is endowed with a purity that far exceeds the greatest or most profound feeling of beauty ... and an intimacy that surpasses the highest or deepest feeling of love possible. An actual intimacy is the direct experience of the pristine actuality of people, things and events, unmediated by any ‘I’/ ‘me’ whatsoever. Fear is the barrier to being intimate ... yet fear is the doorway into intimacy. RESPONDENT: What daring does it need to exist as the body only? RICHARD: It needs the most startling daring and audacity possible, coupled with nerves of steel ... it is most definitely for the faint of heart or the weak of knee. You see, ‘you’, as an identity – any identity whatsoever – will be become extirpated, extinguished, eliminated, annihilated ... in other words: extinct. Speaking personally, there is no ‘being’ ... no ‘presence’ at all. There is simply this flesh and blood body bereft of any identity whatsoever. RESPONDENT: The frightening thing is existence itself when there is no respite from pain for the body from its birth to its death. It is this fear that possesses the body. RICHARD: But there is a respite ... I have written about nothing else but that since I came onto this List. Obviously you are not listening. And not only a respite, but a total and utter dissolution of fear itself. There is no fear here, in this actual world where I live. Not even disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension, let alone anxiety, angst, fear, terror, horror or dread. RICHARD: Yet all sentient beings are a product of nature. Nature endows all sentient beings with the instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire, right? You are suggesting that this nature might be better of scrapping human beings for some other ‘less aggressive’ being. Yet it was nature that made human beings aggressive in the first place. Do you see the circular nature of what you are saying? RESPONDENT: I am not so sure. Fright is the intelligent response to danger. RICHARD: Not so ... fright is the instinctual reaction to danger. You are still believing that instincts are intelligent. Instincts are killing people. RESPONDENT: Fright is what keeps one alive in very dangerous places. RICHARD: Aye ... that is why all sentient beings – and not plants – are endowed by blind nature with fear and aggression and nurture and desire ... it is called the survival instinct. However, the very thing that ensures survival of the species – and any species will do as far as blind nature is concerned – is killing people. Now, blind nature does not care about that ... but we humans do. The question is: shall we improve on blind nature, in this respect, just as we have already improved on nature so much in the areas of technology, animal breeding and plant cultivation, for instance. There is no reason why we can not continue this fine work of overcoming the limitations imposed by blind nature and eliminate sorrow and malice from ourselves. Then – and only then – will we have global peace-on-earth. RESPONDENT: It is resistance to fright that paralyses one with fear through conceptual separation. RICHARD: Not so ... what paralyses is that fear produces a ‘fight or flight’ instinct and the muscles are charged with adrenaline ready for either action. However, it is up to you to make the decision whether to advance or flee ... and it is indecision that causes the muscles to lock tight. It is a classic example of panic ... two conflicting choices cancelling each other out creates freezing up. You will find this in any psychiatric text-book. RESPONDENT: Fear is seen here as the result of thought projecting a future occurrence through an image. Fear is only experienced by a divided consciousness. I do not see that plants or animals experience fear in the way we do. (In this sense I don’t think that ‘consider the lilies’ fits your ‘the tried and true’ refrain.) RICHARD: Plants do not experience fear ... only sentient beings do. Animals are sentient beings and are run by fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Comparing flora to fauna – that humans should live the way lilies live – is a good example of the silliness of the ‘Tried and True’ wisdom. RESPONDENT: Plants are sentient beings. The fact is self-evident. RICHARD: So it is self-evident that plants are capable of perception by the senses, eh? They have that which has sensation or feeling, do they? They are that what feels or is capable of feeling, you say? That they are having the power or function of sensation and are characterised by the exercise of the senses. (The word ‘sentient’ comes from the Latin ‘sentire’ which means ‘feel’ from the Latin ‘sensus’ meaning ‘faculty of feeling’, ‘sensibility’, ‘mode of feeling’ and thus ‘perception’). RESPONDENT: Consider: if a man falls in a field, and there is no tree to hear him, does he make a sound? RICHARD: May I ask? Are you on medication? RESPONDENT No. 20: When we look at these fears, we see they are irrational, meaning the causal object is not actually a substantial danger. Having insight into the irrational nature of this sort of fear does dispel it irrevocably. But this has to do with the nature of irrational beliefs. What would happen to a person who says they overcame the fear of heights where the danger was real and present, say in mountain climbing? RICHARD: Where the danger is real and present ... what then of the insight into the nature of irrational fear, eh? You seem to be saying: What use is that insight where rational fear is concerned? No use whatsoever. So, can one have an insight into the nature of a rational fear? RESPONDENT No. 20: When we investigate an insight into the human condition it seems to me that we are bringing up not simply irrational beliefs, but the habits, dispositions, in-built emotional structure. It is the conditioning of perhaps one hundred thousand years. RICHARD: It is more than the ‘conditioning of perhaps one hundred thousand years’, for sincere investigation strikes at the very basis of the ‘self’. The ‘self’ is the product of the instincts that one was born with ... and fear is but one of these basic instinctual passions. (Richard, List B, No. 20, 17 February 1998) RESPONDENT: In that you both seem to be in agreement on this rational versus irrational fear business I would appreciate your defining rational fear. RICHARD: ‘Rational fear’ is a term commonly ascribed to the fear that is the instinctual response to an obvious and actual threat to life and limb ... as contrasted to an imagined danger. This origin of this fear is located in the ‘reptilian brain’ at the top of the brain-stem and hormonally secretes chemicals – mainly adrenaline – into the blood stream. This causes the heart to pump faster, sending the adrenaline coursing through the body, galvanising the muscles in preparation for ‘freeze, fight or flight’. RESPONDENT: To me if there is such a thing as rational fear it would be like crossing a street and seeing a Mack truck bearing down on you. The instinct of preservation would dictate that you would immediately jump out of the way. Then the adrenaline would subside and the whole thing would be over (unless you subsequently developed an ‘irrational fear’ phobia for crossing streets or being near trucks). RICHARD: The instinct of preservation, yes. This is why blind nature endowed all sentient beings with the instinctual fear ... yet not only for self-preservation, but so as to continue the species through the individual surviving long enough to procreate. However, as blind nature does not favour one species over the other, competition is the inevitable outcome as the different species vie with each other for supremacy ... because all sentient beings also come equipped with instinctual aggression. The success of this vying is called the survival of the most fitted to survive. So far so good, one might say ... nevertheless, there is a down-side to all of this. The very life-preserving instincts of fear and aggression cause untold suffering and death. To wit: humanity’s notorious inhumanity. Therefore, the very thing supposedly designed to preserve life, also works to destroy life. The package handed out at birth by blind nature is a very rough and ready programme ... and it is up to human beings to do something about it. Humans have already improved on nature so much in the areas of technology, animal breeding and plant cultivation, for instance, that there is no reason why one cannot continue this fine work of overcoming the limitations imposed by blind nature and eliminate fear and aggression from oneself. Then – and only then – will one have peace-on-earth. RESPONDENT: A fear, say, of foreigners that is learned from your parents may be a pattern handed down through the millenniums by your subgroup and be tied in with your self image, as for example as WASP, an Aryan, a Jew, whatever. I would not see this as a ‘rational’ fear but one with fear based elements just like phobias. Thus, if you used the term irrational to describe such fears, they would both seem to be ‘irrational’. RICHARD: The recently ended civil war in Bosnia would disprove your theory ... for those concerned. In that situation it was considered rational to fear foreigners or those from another sub-group. What is considered rational by some is seen as irrational by others ... and vice-versa. However, the use of the phrase ‘rational fear’ is nothing but the self-centred justification for the continued existence of ‘me’. Because, as long as fear exists, ‘I’ exist. And as long as ‘I’ exist, fear exists. The elimination of self in its entirety is the elimination of those instincts. It is possible to be entirely free from all instinctive impulses ... one has no furious urges, no inherent anger, no impulsive rages, no inveterate hostilities, no evil disposition ... no malicious tendencies whatsoever. Now that a thinking, reflective brain has developed over the top of the primitive ‘lizard brain’, one has the ability to trace back through the emotional-mental line to the rudimentary instinctual self ... and eliminate it along with its instincts. One does not need instincts to function and operate in this world of people, things and events ... they may have been necessary in the wild but with a now civilised world they are detrimental to peaceful and harmonious co-existence. The 160,000,000 people killed in wars this century alone testify to this. Until then, humanity’s inhumanity will continue to flourish. * RESPONDENT: I have overcome the fear of heights – I mean the irrational fear – but I still have a healthy respect for height and if, for example, a particular ladder or structure does not look safe I feel (rational) fear and will not climb the structure. Much can be done with rational fears relative to insight. One can learn techniques and skills that one can automatically plug into when a real crisis develops rather than to panic. However, most all of our automatic, ‘instinctual’ appearing responses as adults are activated by learned conceptual templates (unconsciously) held deep within this structure you mention, are they not? Thus, the whole discussion of rational fears, irrational fears and instincts is a little misleading because these are concepts of linguistic convenience but not separate processes in reality. Is there any reason this state of freedom from all instincts could not be achieved through expanded awareness which would tap our already present potential to be loving, blissful, and enthusiastically aware of ‘what is’? Correct me if I am wrong but your words sound a little like biological human engineering. Even Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, believed that ‘insight therapy’ could only do a limited amount of good. I doubt it that instincts will be eliminated in their entirety. Those neurological instincts for conceptually identifying something to be protected or achieved will continue to be hard wired into the brain. They are activated anew whenever the individual finds him/ herself in a threatening situation. Unless, of course, you plan to perform lobotomies on the whole human race. Perhaps through awareness the individual can learn to deal with these impulses. There are still many dangers out there for which I need my instincts (danger alert programs). I don’t know where you live but I can use my instincts on the roadways around Washington, DC, every day. But humanity’s inhumanity does not need to flourish in us as individuals in the meanwhile. Stay carefree. We need more of you in this adrenaline-saturated world! RICHARD: Basically, the points you raise are either psychological attempts to cope with the Human Condition through techniques of management of the problem, or spiritual endeavours to deal with the same Human Condition through awareness of transcendence of the situation itself. These are the ‘Tried and True’ methods that have kept the human race in the appalling subjugation of integrity ... because the human subjection to the supposedly ‘hard-wired’ instincts is taken to be a true and accurate understanding. It gave rise to that hoary psittacism that everyone everywhere repeats like a mantra: ‘you can’t change Human Nature’. When one categorically states that something or another is impossible, it is all over before they even start. They close off from exploring and uncovering; they shut the door on investigation and discovery; they stop seeking and finding. My attitude, all those years ago was this: ‘I’ am not interested in stress management skills; ‘I’ am not interested in having to ‘cope with life’; ‘I’ am not interested in lobotomies; ‘I’ am not interested in eugenics; ‘I’ am not interested in medications; ‘I’ am not interested in genetic engineering; ‘I’ am not interested in Freud’s theories; ‘I’ am not interested in loving, blissful states of being; ‘I’ am not interested in social planning; ‘I’ am not interested in changing the world. ‘I’ was only interested in changing ‘myself’ fundamentally, radically, completely and utterly. This entailed finding the source of ‘myself’ ... and one discovers that ‘I’ am born out of the instincts that blind nature endows all sentient beings with at birth. This rudimentary self is the root cause of all the malice and sorrow that besets humankind, and to eliminate malice and sorrow ‘I’ will have to eliminate the fear and aggression that this self is made up of ... the instincts. But as this self is the instincts – there is no differentiation betwixt the two – then the elimination of one is the elimination of the other. One is the other and the other is one. In fact, with the elimination of the instincts, ‘I’ will cease to exist, period. Psychological self-immolation is the only sensible sacrifice that ‘I’ could make in order to reveal whatever is actual. And what is actual is perfection. Life is bursting with meaning when ‘I’ am no longer present to mess things up. ‘I’ stand in the way of the purity of the perfection of the actual being apparent. ‘My’ presence prohibits this ever-present perfection being evident. ‘I’ prevent the very purity of life, that ‘I’ am searching for, from coming into plain view. With ‘my’ demise, this ever-fresh perfection is manifest. RESPONDENT: I just wanted to jump in and let you all know that I’m still around. I’ve been processing AF almost constantly and realizing just how upside down it looks from a ‘real world’ point of view. Reflecting on the many instances I’ve seen where Richard says that only a handful of the hundreds of visitors to the site actually ‘get it’ – I’m beginning to understand why. It takes persistence and stubborn will not to give up – no matter what. In other words, the 180 degree metaphor is no understatement – and it’s a bit like standing on one’s head until it ‘clicks in’. RICHARD: Whenever the going gets tough it may be well to remember this what you say here ... many years ago, during my five years of an itinerant lifestyle, I would jot down various things in pencil in a notebook: some time later (maybe six weeks or six months) when looking back through the jottings I would quite often be taken by some of them and would wonder why I was not living them ... why they were not an actuality in my life. In short: sometimes (or even quite often) it takes a while before a realisation becomes an actualisation. RESPONDENT: Anyway, I’m currently working especially with fear. Here’s a question for Richard ... you have often stated that fear ‘rules the world’. RICHARD: Yes ... for example: • [Richard]: ‘... at root fear is the most basic of all the instinctual survival passions ... hence fear rules the world of sentient beings’. (Richard, List B, James2, 15 December 2001). Only a week or so ago I wrote it thus: • [Richard]: ‘... the human world, at root, runs on fear and is ruled by physical force/ restraint’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 18b, 21 March 2003). RESPONDENT: You have also stated that is true of not only the ‘human’ world, but of the animal world as well. Could you explain that in a little more detail? RICHARD: Sure ... fear is the most basic of all the instinctual survival passions: hence, at root, all sentient beings run on, or are ruled by, fear (as evidenced in the freeze-flee-fight reaction). Thus, as a bottom line, physical force/ restraint underpins the rule of law and the control of order (as expressed by ‘law and order is established and maintained at the point of a gun’). RESPONDENT: One thing I’m not sure about is the fact that there are many ‘animals’ (non-mammalian) that I’m not sure experience ‘fear’ as we (humans) know it – though the survival instinct is pervasive. RICHARD: As I not a biologist or zoologist I have no more interest in being drawn into quibbles over whether non-mammalian animals experience the feeling of fear ‘as we (humans) know it’ when they display the freeze-flee-fight reaction than I have about whether they experience the feeling of desire, for example, ‘as we (humans) know it’ when they are eating or mating. For the sake of simplicity I just call the instinctual passions fear and aggression and nurture and desire and be done with it. Furthermore, as it is estimated that there is between 2 and 4.5 million species on planet earth, with more being discovered every day, to wait until all the different species have been individually examined to determine the exact nature of their drives, impulses and urges, before committing oneself to the action which will bring about peace-on-earth, in this lifetime as this flesh and blood body, will only bring about more waiting ... until one finds oneself on one’s death-bed surrounded by family and friends, raising oneself up on an elbow and croaking out the words (one’s last words), ‘I’m not sure if ...’ and/or ‘I’m not sure about ...’ and so on. There were no sureties about these matters for the identity within this flesh and blood body all those years ago: apart from a general or encyclopaedic knowledge, personal observations, and intimate investigation, all ‘he’ knew and needed to know, from numerous PCE’s, was that ‘he’ was standing in the way of the already always existing peace-on-earth being apparent ... and accordingly went blessedly into oblivion. Here is one example of how I have described my modus operandi: • [Richard]: ‘Speaking personally, I did not know of any research on this subject when I started to actively investigate the human condition in myself 20 or more years ago: as I intimately explored the depths of ‘being’ it became increasingly and transparently obvious that the instinctual passions – the source of ‘self’ – were the root cause of all the ills of humankind. It was the journey of a lifetime! (...) I make no pretensions whatsoever of being a biologist – I am a lay-person dabbling in an ad hoc general reading of the subject – and I have no personal need for an interest in biology at all (since I began reporting my experience to my fellow human beings I have had to find out about all manner of things). (Richard, List B, No. 54, 15 May 2001). I know I have written this to you before ... its import may be even more obvious if repeated in this context: • [Richard]: ‘Life is truly this simple: the pure intent to have the already always existing peace-on-earth become apparent, as evidenced in the pure consciousness experience (PCE), is activated with the nourishment of one’s innate naiveté via wonder ... whereupon an intimate connection, a golden thread or clew as it were, is thus established whereby one is sensitive to and receptive of the over-arching benignity and benevolence of the world of the PCE – which is already always just here right now anyway – and one is not on one’s own, in this, the adventure of a lifetime. And sincerity works to awaken one’s dormant naiveté. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27d, 23 January 2003). RESPONDENT: I’ve come up with a few possibilities for what you might mean by ‘fear rules the world ...’. 1) What humans and animals ‘feel’ themselves to be is rooted in fear. RICHARD: I have often put it that ‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’ (just as I have also put it that ‘I’ am aggression and aggression is ‘me’ or ‘I’ am nurture and nurture is ‘me’ or ‘I’ am desire and desire is ‘me’). Mostly I have put it that ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’. RESPONDENT: 2) Humans and animals feel ‘fearful’ virtually all of the time (though to what degree could be up for grabs). RICHARD: As the human animal ‘self’, like any other animal ‘self’, is fear (and is aggression and is nurture and is desire and so on) ‘I’ am that feeling all the time. At root, ‘I’ am nothing other than ‘my’ feelings ... ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’ (thus ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being, which is ‘being’ itself, is affective in nature). The degree to which ‘I’ feel ‘my’ affective nature, and which aspect of it, varies each moment again of course. RESPONDENT: 3) When the faecal matter contacts the whirling metal blades, then fear takes over. RICHARD: Well, that is when it is most obvious that ‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’ ... if, in the freeze-flee-fight reaction, the instinct to fight takes over then aggression is what ‘I’ most obviously am at that moment (as in ‘I’ am aggression and aggression is ‘me’). RESPONDENT: 4) All of the above. RICHARD: In essence what I am saying is that, at root, fear is the most basic of all the instinctual survival passions ... hence fear runs/ rules the world of sentient beings. RESPONDENT: My perplexity lies in the fact that (as far as I can tell) most people don’t feel ‘fearful’ virtually all of the time in any overt way. RICHARD: Indeed not ... after all, there is the entire range of feelings to be, each moment again. RESPONDENT: Yet, there does seem to be underlying fears that may not be extremely bothersome that are present virtually all of the time. RICHARD: Indeed so ... fear, being the most basic of all the instinctual survival passions, underlies all the other passions (and their cultivated derivations). RESPONDENT: If fear were constantly experienced – it’s hard to see how ‘feeling good’ would even be possible. RICHARD: True ... most of the time fear is a background noise, as it were, as there is an entire suite of feelings to be, each moment again. RESPONDENT: Many animals seem to spend much of their lives virtually free from feeling fearful ... RICHARD: By being born and raised on a farm being carved out of virgin forest I interacted with other animals – both domesticated and in the wild – from a very early age and have been able to observe again and again that, by and large, animals are not ‘virtually free from feeling fearful’ for ‘much of their lives’ ... they are mostly on the alert, vigilant, scanning for attack, and particularly prone to the freeze-flee-fight reaction all sentient beings genetically inherit (obviously I am not speaking of a pampered and cosseted chihuahua dog, for instance, in some swanky city apartment). RESPONDENT: ... yet I admit that fear is inherent in the instinct for survival which is always present, though not always operative. RICHARD: I would rather say ‘not always fully operative’ ... it is only in a PCE that it becomes stunningly apparent how fear (and the other passions of course) has been ever-present, no matter how subtle, crippling one’s every step. After all, at root, ‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’ – and in a PCE ‘I’ am in abeyance – thus ‘I’ can never be, or know, fearlessness. RESPONDENT: Anyway, could you go into a little more detail as to exactly what you mean when you say ‘fear rules the world’. RICHARD: Sure ... as, at root, fear is the most basic of all the instinctual survival passions then, at root, ‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’: thus what ‘I’ am, at root, is what rules the world (I am talking of the real world, of course, the world of sentient beings which the animal ‘self’ within pastes as a veneer, a reality, over this actual world). There is no such reality in actuality ... and ‘I’ can never experience actuality (‘I’ am forever locked-out of paradise). RESPONDENT: Also, you say that fear has both a terrifying aspect and a thrilling aspect. Was that the lower LEFT-hand corner? :) RICHARD: You must be referring to the following exchange: • [James]: ‘A feeling of fear has emerged now. ‘I’ feel cornered. I don’t want to do it for ‘me’ because ‘me’ is in control now and ‘me’ is not having any of ending ‘me’. • [Richard]: ‘As the feeling of being cornered is where one is at now then that is where one starts from: as you say that ‘a feeling of fear’ has emerged this is a vital opportunity to look closely at the fear itself (while it is happening) and it will be seen that there are two aspects to fear ... the frightening aspect and the thrilling aspect. Usually the frightening aspect dominates and obscures the thrilling aspect: shifting one’s attention to the thrilling aspect (I often said jokingly that it is down at the bottom left-hand side) will increase the thrill and decrease the fright as the energy of fear shifts its focus and changes into a higher gear ... and, as courage is sourced in the thrilling part of fear, the daring to proceed will intensify of its own accord. But stay with the thrill, by being the thrill, else the fright takes over, daring dissipates, and back out of the corner you come. (Richard, List B, James3, 7 November 2002). RESPONDENT: Could you say a little more about the distinction between the two and exactly how to locate the ‘thrilling’ aspect? RICHARD: First of all, the reason why I often jokingly say that the thrilling aspect is down at ‘the lower LEFT-hand corner’ (or wherever) is because so many people ask me, just as you do here, how to locate the thrilling aspect of fear (as if they had never, ever, felt a thrill in all their life). Now, I ask you, how can anyone locate the thrilling feeling other than by feeling it for themselves? As for the distinction between the frightening aspect of fear and the thrilling aspect of fear: generally speaking one is paralysing and the other is galvanising; one is animating and the other is immobilising; one is incapacitating and the other is stimulating; one is vitalising and the other is debilitating; one is disabling and the other is enabling; one is energising and the other is crippling; one is discouraging and the other is encouraging ... and so on. I will leave it up to you to feel which one is which ... and which one to choose to be. RICHARD: It is really very, very simple (which is possibly why it has never been discovered before this): one felt good previously; one is not feeling good now; something happened to one to end that felicitous/ innocuous feeling; one finds out what happened; one sees how silly that is (no matter what it was); one is once more feeling good. RESPONDENT: Just as an example, Richard? I was feeling good till today morning. When I came to office today at 9.30am, I came to know that I have been dismissed due to a false complaint of a co-worker. I am not feeling good, in fact I am feeling shaken and insecure and thinking hard as to how to take care of my family. I am not vengeful or spiteful towards the complainant. For the life of me I can’t see how this sudden state of insecurity or of worry about my financial future is ‘silly’. I am considering it a justifiable reaction to a crisis. Hence, I am feeling as-is (worried, insecure and nervous). Any comments? RICHARD: Just for starters: 1. In what way is feeling shaken going to take care of your family? 2. In what way is feeling insecure going to take care of your family? 3. In what way is feeling worried going to take care of your financial future? 4. In what way is feeling nervous going to take care of your financial future? Now, you also report [quote] ‘thinking hard’ [endquote] ... in what way is feeling shaken/ feeling insecure/ feeling worried/ feeling nervous going to enable you to sensibly and thus judiciously think, reflect, appraise, plan, and implement the considered activity which such a situation, as being dismissed in such circumstances as being falsely complained about, quite obviously requires? In other words would not feeling good, as you were prior to today morning, be much more conducive to intelligence operating in such an optimum manner? If so, then what is standing in the way of feeling good again, as you were prior to today morning, is nothing else other than your shaken/ insecure/ worried/ nervous consideration that feeling shaken/ feeling insecure/ feeling worried/ feeling nervous is a justifiable reaction to a crisis. Surely there is nothing, but nothing, which can ever sensibly justify having one’s intelligence being run by feelings? RESPONDENT: Thanks. Just for information, the situation I described is a hypothetical one (not an actual one) ... RICHARD: Your prefatory [quote] ‘just as an example’ [endquote] does make that clear ... my in-kind response to what was presented is essentially no different to how I have responded, when conversing with another in-person, on more than a few occasions (most of which were about anger being justifiable, some about feeling worried, a few about feeling sorrowful). For example, one fine afternoon some time ago someone whose son had come of age, and who had just left the family home to take up a job in a city situated many an hours drive way, came to see me: she was visibly agitated, fretful, and soon advised me she was apprehensive, anxious, worried about him driving all that way, so I asked her to explain to me in just what way those feelings of hers could possibly work as a preventative for any potential vehicular crash. And so the discussion moved on, through the many and various aspects of the human condition such feelings bring to the surface, but to no avail until she happened to mention, en passant, that she would not be able to feel at ease until he had arrived safely (she had extracted a promise from him to call her as soon as he arrived) whereupon, after launching into a graphic description of the frenetic pace of around-the-clock city traffic, as contrasted to the laid-back village tempo, I suggested that her worrying days were far from over, that she had better ready herself for the long haul, maybe even get in a supply of anxiety supplements from the local snake-oil emporiums in case her apprehension were ever to wane over the years to come. That did the trick. RESPONDENT: ... but your comments are as valid. I agree with you on all counts. Being bounced around / being overwhelmed with / being guided by feelings is a hindrance to an intelligent appraisal of the situation and of working towards a solution to a crisis. RICHARD: Indeed ... and it is the very circularity, the self-perpetuating nature, of worriedly deciding that feeling worried is justifiable which demonstrates how recycled worriment actively cripples intelligence. RESPONDENT: I’ll just assume that you were swimming with sharks and had a wonderful time. RICHARD: Ha ... although I have indeed been in the water a lot lately (it is summer on this part of the planet) I am not inclined towards risk-taking. RESPONDENT: I’m a chicken-shit too. RICHARD: Here is what that colloquial expression can mean: • ‘chicken-shit (slang, chiefly N. Amer.): n. a coward; nonsense, lies; adj. cowardly; dishonest’. (Oxford Dictionary). I will draw your attention to the following: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘In amazement of your huge cohones ... • [Richard]: ‘Presuming that you are referring to a Mexican colloquialism for bravado – cojones – it may be apposite to point out that, as there is no fear whatsoever here in this actual world there is, consequently, neither cowardice nor its antidotal courage. It is all so easy here’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 28a, 27 May 2004). 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