# Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

Richard’s Selected Correspondence ## On Identity RESPONDENT: Would you clarify something for me in this arena? On Aug. 14, 2001 Richard responds to Correspondent 19, ‘and away you went on a nonsensical discussion about the word uttered as ‘Richard’’. When you call something nonsensical ‘who’ is assessing whether something makes sense or not. Doesn’t that imply some identity whether you want to label it as one or not? RICHARD: Where there is an actual freedom from the human condition there is neither a ‘who’ to assess whether something makes sense or not nor is there a ‘who’ that wants to label or not ... it is the flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware that makes assessments and applies labels. RESPONDENT: When you say life is ‘perfect’ that also is an assessment of a situation. ‘Who’ is assessing that life is perfect? RICHARD: When I say that life is perfect it is a question of what is assessing rather than ‘who’ is assessing ... specifically the apperceptive brain is doing the assessing. RESPONDENT: This is not meant in an argumentative fashion. From my level of understanding for someone to do this it means some identity is in place whether the party chooses to acknowledge it or not! RICHARD: That is the normal state of affairs for maybe 6.0 billion peoples, yes. However, where there is an actual freedom from the human condition it is not a case of lack of acknowledgement of some identity in place – of being in a state of denial about it – as it is simply an experiential fact that there is no identity in any way, shape or form. Put simply: there is no director whatsoever in charge of this body. RESPONDENT: I wonder what it means to be the first to find something when there is no identity to do the finding. RICHARD: I have been asked a similar query before: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘You have qualities. In the main page of the actualfreedom website, is written: ‘in this area are miscellaneous corespondents with the DISCOVERER of the method’ so you are something. • [Richard]: ‘You can only be referring to the following (copy-pasted from the main page): ‘This website [‘The Third Alternative’] encompasses selections from the writings of the ‘discoverer’ of actual freedom and includes a substantial, wide-ranging correspondence. The journey into the institutionalised insanity of Spiritual Enlightenment and the emergence of actual freedom is clearly described in unambiguous terms’. [endquote].. (Richard, Homepage). • [Co-Respondent]: ‘You are a discoverer ... • [Richard]: ‘The word ‘discoverer’ is put in scare-quotes because I never discovered anything – it was the identity within that did all the work – as well you already know. Viz.: [Co-Respondent]: ‘Richard, one sentence attracted my attention in your email. [quote]: ‘I never discovered anything ... the ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul discovered both the actualism method and the wide and wondrous path’. [endquote]. So it follows logically that ...’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44e, 11 October 2003). Apart from that ... are you really suggesting that discovering something – anything – proves that a flesh and blood body is not ‘self’-less (aka sans ‘self’ in toto)?’ (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44g, 8 July 2004a). RESPONDENT: And if you have no identity what replaces it? RICHARD: Nothing ... all that is inside this flesh and blood body is heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, and so on, and so forth. RESPONDENT: After all you still have memories of what your flesh and blood body has done, do you not? RICHARD: No, it is this flesh and blood body which has memories of what this flesh and blood body has done. RESPONDENT: Is this not in itself a form of identity? RICHARD: No, this is simply what this flesh and blood body has memories of. RESPONDENT: Is this newness not simply the newness of experiencing life as-it-is? RICHARD: No, the newness being referred to is that an actual freedom from the human condition is now available for the first time in human history/ human experience. RICHARD: Mostly peoples are rightly suspicious of another’s hidden agenda for there is indeed something ‘underneath the surface’ ... even in those who have purportedly gone deep and have attained to a superior virtue that transcends normal morality. I would guess that what is motivating you to ‘chip away’ is in order to see – and thus expose – this ‘being’ that is underneath the surface in 6.0 billion human beings ... plus the 0.0000001 of the population who are ‘Self-Realised’ and have identified as ‘Pure Being’. You will find no ‘being’ here – or ‘Being’ – only a flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. This body called Richard hosts no identity whatsoever ... I use the first person pronoun for convenience. RESPONDENT: You claim that ‘this body called Richard hosts no identity whatsoever’. I would like to understand more deeply what it is that the body called Richard does not host. What do you mean by ‘identity’? RICHARD: I was born in Australia, of an English/ Scottish Hong Kong-born father and an English/ English Australia-born mother. With this British background, I was enculturated into believing that I was, literally, an Australian citizen ... but with British blood. Now, blood is blood ... there is no such ‘thing’ as an ‘Australian’, an ‘American’, a ‘German’, a ‘Japanese’ and so on. Thus the wars and the suicides – the blood shed and the tears shed – are precipitated because of the absurdity of identification ... is not all this acculturation ridiculous! However, as an infant, a child, a youth and then a man, I was so programmed as to be unable to discriminate fact from fiction. I had no terms of reference that I could use as a standard to determine which was which, as every single human being on this planet was not simply a flesh and blood body ... but similarly conditioned into being an ‘ethnic’ human being. Thus I bought the whole package. Hook, line and sinker. As I slowly started to unravel the mess that humankind was deeply mired in by unravelling it in me, I discovered a second layer under ‘my’ acculturated ethnicity ... ‘I’ was brainwashed into being a ‘man’ and not simply a flesh and blood male body. Under the enculturated layers lies a further identity ... the genetically-inherited animal ‘self’. It took me years and years of exploration and discovery to find out that ‘I’ was a ‘me’ – a ‘being’ – and not simply a flesh and blood body. By identification as ‘me’, a psychological/ psychic entity was able to ‘possess’ this body. It is not unlike those Christians who are said to be possessed by an evil entity and require exorcism. Only this ‘possession’ was called being normal. Therefore, every human being is thus possessed by an ‘alien entity’ ... I discovered that a ‘walk-in’ was in control of this body and that this ‘walk-in’ was ‘me’. So, superficially there is a composite conditioned social identity that encompasses: 1. A vocational identity as ‘employee’/ ‘employer’, ‘worker’/ ‘pensioner’, ‘junior/ ‘senior’ and so on. 2. A national identity as ‘English’, ‘American’, ‘Australian’ and etcetera. 3. A racial identity as ‘white’, ‘black’, ‘brown’ or whatever. 4. A religious/ spiritual identity as a ‘Hindu’, a ‘Muslim’, a ‘Christian’, a ‘Buddhist’ ad infinitum. 5. A ideological identity as a ‘Capitalist’, a ‘Communist’, a ‘Monarchist’, a ‘Fascist’ and etcetera. 6. A political identity as a ‘Democrat’, a ‘Tory’, a ‘Republican’, a ‘Liberal’ and all the rest. 7. A family identity as ‘son’/ ‘daughter’, ‘brother’/ ‘sister’, ‘father’/ ‘mother’ and the whole raft of relatives. 8. A gender identity as ‘boy’/ ‘girl’, ‘man’/ ‘woman’. These are related to roles, rank, positions, station, status, class, age, gender ... the whole organisation of hierarchical control. But behind all that – underlying all socialised classifications – is the persistent feeling of being an identity inhabiting the body: an affective ‘entity’ as in a deep, abiding and profound feeling of being an occupant, a tenant, a squatter or a phantom hiding behind a façade, a mask, a persona; as a subjective emotional psychological ‘self’ and/or a passionate psychic ‘being’ (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) inhabiting the psyche; a deep feeling of being a ‘spirit’; a consciousness of the immanence of ‘presence’ (which exists immortally); an awareness of being an autological ‘being’ ... the realisation of ‘Being’ itself. In other words: everything you think, feel and instinctually know yourself to be. Your feeling of being – the real ‘me’ – is evidenced when one says: ‘But what about me, nobody loves me for me’. For a woman it may be: ‘You only want me for my body ... and not for me’. For a man it may be: ‘You only want me for my money ... and not for me’. For a child it may be: ‘You only want to be my friend because of my toys (or sweets or whatever)’. That deep feeling of ‘me’ – that ‘being’ itself – is at the core of identity. It arises out of the basic instincts that blind nature endowed all human beings with as a rough and ready ‘soft-ware’ package to make a start in life. These instincts – mainly fear and aggression and nurture and desire – appear as a rudimentary self common to all sentient beings. This is why it is felt to be one’s ‘Original Face’ – to use the Zen terminology – when one accesses it in religious/ spiritual/ mystical meditation practices and disciplines. This is the source of ‘we are all one’, because ‘we’ are all the same-same blind instinctual self that stretches back beyond the dawn of human memory. It is a very, very ancient genetic memory. Hoariness does not make it automatically wise, however, despite desperate belief to the contrary. RESPONDENT: You also claim that there is ‘a flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware’. Is not that bodily apperceptive awareness, your identity? RICHARD: No. This brain is these sense organs being conscious: these eyes seeing is this brain ‘on stalks’, as it were, being aware. Thus these ears hearing, this tongue tasting, this skin touching, this nose smelling and these thoughts thinking are all the brain being directly aware of being alive and being awake and being here ... now. Whereas ‘I’, the entity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain. Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the actual world ... the world as-it-is. RESPONDENT: Identity is ‘the state or fact of remaining the same one, as under varying aspects or conditions’, ‘the condition of being oneself or itself, and not another’ (Macquarie, 2nd. ed.). Are you claiming that there is nothing that remains the same (in you) as (your) sense and reflective experience changes? RICHARD: Indeed, I am stating that unequivocally ... there is no subjective psychological ‘entity’ existing in this flesh and blood body to either remain the same or change. There are many words to describe ‘I’ and/ or ‘me’ ... shall I just present them here for clarity? I do not have the Macquarie Dictionary but I presume it is somewhat similar as I have the Webster’s Merriam Dictionary to check the Oxford Dictionary against. I also use the Britannica Encyclopaedia as being a generally recognised and acceptable academic standard. Viz.: • Identity: ‘The condition or fact of a person or thing being that specified unique person or thing, especially as a continuous unchanging property throughout existence; individuality, personality’. • Personality: ‘The quality or fact of being a person as distinct from a thing or animal; the quality which makes a being a person’. • Person: ‘The self or being of an individual’. • Individual: ‘Existing as a separate indivisible identity; one’s individual person, self. • Individuality: ‘An individual thing or personality’. • Self: ‘True or intrinsic identity; personal identity, ego; a person as the object of introspection or reflexive action’. • Ego: ‘Oneself, the conscious thinking subject. That part of the mind which has a sense of individuality and is most conscious of self’. • Soul: ‘The principle of thought and action in a person, regarded as an entity distinct from the body; a person’s spiritual as opposed to corporeal nature regarded as immortal and as being capable of redemption or damnation in a future state. The disembodied spirit of a dead person, regarded as invested with some degree of personality and form. The seat of the emotions or sentiments; the emotional part of human nature. Intellectual or spiritual power; high development of the mental faculties. Also, deep feeling, sensitivity, zest, spirit. The vital, sensitive, or rational principle in plants, animals, or human beings. A person, an individual’. • Entity: ‘Existence, being, as opposed to non-existence; the existence of a thing as opposed to its qualities or relations. Essence, essential nature’. • Identity Crisis: ‘A period of emotional disturbance in which a person has difficulty in determining his or her identity and role in relation to society’. (All definitions from Oxford Dictionary). And it is so good to be rid of that lot! RESPONDENT: Surely there are patterns associated with your reflectivity. You tend to reflect on things in a certain way, and I have a different tendency. Does not that tendency define your identity? Or do you have no such tendency? RICHARD: I certainly have that tendency ... and I revel in it. These are attributes, traits, quirks, idiosyncrasies, features, peculiarities, flavours, mannerisms, gestures and so on. They are not the ‘thing-in-itself’. * [...] RESPONDENT: It seems to me that your identity is still maintained. You are a body sensing and reflecting, and a mind being aware of itself, even when there is no thinking. That awareness, the experience of sensing particular people, things and events, and the reflection on all that – does not all of it define you as a distinct entity to me, where there is also awareness happening of its own accord, and where there is a different set of sense experiences and reflections? RICHARD: This flesh and blood body called Richard is a distinct physical organism to the flesh and blood body called No. 12. Each flesh and blood body is its own consciousness (there is no universal consciousness) hence each flesh and blood body is its own awareness, its own sensing, its own reflecting and its own ‘making sense’ of its own experience. None of this needs an identity in order for it to happen ... nor need it produce one. It is the affective faculty – born of the instinctual passions situated in what is popularly known as the ‘Lizard brain’ – that is the genesis of ‘being’ ... and this identity as a rudimentary animal ‘self’, in human beings, produces ‘me’ as ‘soul’ and ‘I’ as ‘ego’. RESPONDENT: Are we not discrete identities Richard? RICHARD: We are discrete physical flesh and blood bodies. The feeling of identity has its origins in the common ancestry of the animal instincts and takes on the appearance of being separate because of being manifest in individual flesh and blood bodies ... hence to desire to regain ‘oneness’ with all sentient beings. ‘I’ am alone and lonely and long for the ‘connection’ that is evidenced in a relationship. When ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ become extinct there is no need – and no capacity – for a relationship. Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti was hopelessly wrong in his oft-repeated ‘Teaching’: ‘Life is a movement in relationship’. Only a psychological and/or psychic entity needs the connection of relationship in order to create a synthetic intimacy – usually via the bridge of love and compassion – and manifest the delusion that separation has ended. And if human relationship does not produce the desired result, then ‘I’ will project a god or a goddess – a ‘super-friend’ not dissimilar to the imaginary playmates of childhood – to love and be loved by. RESPONDENT: Your awareness remains associated with your body whilst mine remains associated with mine. As the circumstances change around you surely there is something that remains the same, that defines you as you, and as separate to me. It is that claim of yours to have no identity I was wanting to chip away at, and am wanting to again. RICHARD: It is the flesh and blood body that remains the same (with due allowance for the aging process) and defines Richard as Richard and you as you. The flesh and blood body’s characteristics (attributes, traits, quirks, idiosyncrasies, features, peculiarities, flavours, mannerisms, gestures and so on) tend to stay the same ... but characteristics do not necessarily have to define an identity as being a ‘thing-in-itself’. RICHARD: When this flesh and blood body is rid of the psychological and psychic entities that live a parasitical existence in their unwitting host, one is able to appreciate that what I am (‘what’ not ‘who’) is this body. Then I am automatically benevolent and carefree ... and happy and harmless, for one has eradicated malice and sorrow with the demise of the ego and the soul. RESPONDENT: Parasitical nature of psychic and psychological ‘entities’ hasn’t been carefully considered from this (my) point of view; but then, little credence has been given ‘them’. Would you say more about the nature of such entities? Do you mean just the ego and the ‘soul’? RICHARD: The ego and the soul, yes. In my experience I have found that ‘I’, as an identity, a ‘being’ called the self, am made up of two parts: the ego and the soul. As a generalisation only, the ego is located mostly as being in the head and the soul as being in the heart. As it is commonly agreed that to be egotistical is to be selfish (and thus acting in a way that is not conducive to social harmony) it is the current wisdom that ‘I’, the self as ego, must psychologically self-immolate. In a valiant effort to right the wrongs that beset oneself and all of humankind, one can dissolve the (mortal) ego and realise oneself as the (immortal) soul, for the good of society in general and the individual in particular. One is then in unity – a state of oneness – with that which is sacred and holy. The resultant Altered State Of Consciousness is called Enlightenment, which has been held to be the Summum Bonum of human existence for at least three thousand years ... if not more. Yet there is still as much suffering now as there was back then. Therefore, something is not working to produce the desired result ... peace on earth. Why is this so? Upon closer inspection one finds that one has jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. When the self dissolves – as ego – one’s sense of identity remains intact. Instead of identifying as the self (ego), one now – as an Enlightened Being – identifies as the Self (soul). ‘I’ am no longer existing, now, as an ego, but ‘I’ am still in existence, forever, as a soul. ‘I’ am disguised as a timeless and eternal ‘Being’ (always written with a capital ‘B’) – and continue to wreak ‘my’ havoc upon an unsuspecting public. One is still ‘being’, now a blissful enlightened ‘Being’ – emanating Love Agapé and Divine Compassion to all and sundry. It is being any presence at all, as a ‘being’ or a ‘Being’, that is the problem. RESPONDENT: There seems to be something very wrong in my approach to our conversation. <SNIP> But bliss would be basic. This state can be experienced and I have and can. It is called actuality by you. RICHARD: It is not called actuality by me at all ... this physical world of people, things and events is actuality. What you wrote above is just your attempt to make out that you know what I am talking about. And you do not, for you are talking of the inner world of the psyche ... which is where the identity lives. (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul). RESPONDENT: If you look closely at the argument of the sensate reflecting mirrors you will see that I do not talk of identity, but of an opposite. RICHARD: You do indicate an identity, however. You say ‘the sensation of perfect reflection would again be dominant in their lives with only one body remaining’ which is another way of saying ‘oneness’ ... which is still an identity identifying with the outer. For you do go on to say ‘It would leave room for reflection onto the outside world’ ... and in actuality there is no ‘inner’ and ‘outer’. It is the identity – the ‘self’ – which creates the illusion of an ‘inner’ and an ‘outer’ world. Faced with this dichotomy, the ‘self’ merges with everything ... which is indicated by you where you say ‘this rippling state would be preferable because movement can withstand intervention much better than hardness’. This is what is known in the jargon as ‘going with the flow’ ... which is a direct take from Taoism (‘wu wei’). And the clincher is you saying ‘but bliss would be basic’ ... bliss is indicative of the altered state of consciousness known as enlightenment. There is no bliss in actuality because bliss is an affective state of being ... and ‘being’ is identity. RESPONDENT: There is nothing in this world other than the actual in which our body is one of the structures and so is the mind. RICHARD: Why do you separate the body and the mind? Is it not because the mind is this abstract realm wherein ‘you’ as identity reside? And ‘you’ as identity – a non-material psychological entity – desire oneness with the outer. This is what you are saying – using different words – where you write ‘they would momentarily need a process of interaction but could always just move closer and closer to each other until the ripple on the one plain would interact with the other plain and both ripples thus would change until they would coincide exactly with each other’ . Do you see it? RICHARD: If only ‘I’ in the head cease, then the sense of identity – as pure feeling – attains an imitation of freedom through unification with the observed ... a ‘wholeness’. As the woman says: ‘The concept of bonding, belonging and relationship could simply not be applied, not even with my partner, as there was nobody inside to do the relating’ . This is because apperceptive awareness can only happen when there is ‘me as-this-body’ only. RESPONDENT: Identification with body drops away just as identification with thought and feeling. There is no separate body to be found. There is boundless awareness that encompasses all that is. RICHARD: When you say: ‘there is no separate body to be found’, do you actually mean that flesh and blood bodies merge together? Physical form is distinct in being one here and one there and another over there. There is physical distance betwixt this body typing and the monitor screen and the person sitting on the couch behind me. You say: ‘identification with (...) drops away ...’. Identification with something may indeed drop away, but identity itself remains, however. This is the delusion that ‘wholeness’ or ‘oneness’ or ‘centre-less life’ can produce. One has expanded one’s boundaries and has merged with the all of everything, becoming more than the sum of the parts. This something that is more than the parts is something non-physical. * RESPONDENT: The problem is not with knowledge but with identification with the known ... RICHARD: Ahh ... good. I take it then that you are withdrawing your ‘Pay for View Special – $25.00; Richard knowledge vs. Konrad knowledge. Tonight at 9 P.M’. cynicism as being an unfounded and ill-thought out exercise that only appealed to the peanut gallery? RESPONDENT: ... and the aggressiveness, pride and ambition that go with it. RICHARD: Yet it is not ‘identification with’ (anything at all) that is the root cause of all the misery and mayhem ... it is identity itself. To merely cease ‘identifying with ...’ is to keep the identity intact (only a ‘detached identity’ now). Sounds like Neo-Buddhism to me. RICHARD: I am indeed talking of the already always existing physical before-death peace-on-earth which becomes apparent when ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul become extinct. Yet it is the universe that is ‘deathless’ ... not me. I was born, I live for a number of years, then I die ... and death is the end. Finish. RESPONDENT: Okay. Let me see what the above sounds like when I translate it into language which makes sense to me (please correct any mistranslations and provide me with the benefit of your feedback): when the entity made up of past thoughts ... RICHARD: It matters not whether thoughts are about the past, the present or the future ... thoughts are not problematic unless they be emotion-backed thoughts protecting the instinct-born entity with beliefs, truths, values, principles and so on. Thus (if I am to be precise) it would read: ‘when the entity made up of emotion-backed past thoughts and emotion-backed present thoughts and emotion-backed future thoughts ...’ RESPONDENT: ... and feelings ... RICHARD: Feelings (emotions and passions and calentures), although they can be cultivated and refined by thought and triggered off by thought are not created by thought; feelings are born of the genetically encoded instincts. Thus (if I am to be precise) it would read: ‘... and instinctually-based feelings ...’ RESPONDENT: ... is not dragged into the present ... RICHARD: The entity has no existence in the past (nor in the future); the entity is generated by/ as the instinctual passions which, of course, only exist now (the body is only alive now). Thus (if I am to be precise) it would read: ‘... is not present ...’ RESPONDENT: ... one is connected with the immeasurable ‘peace’ that is the living universe. RICHARD: When the entity is not present (either in abeyance if a PCE or extinct if an actual freedom) then one is this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. And as this flesh and blood body is the very stuff of this actual universe there is no separation at all (just as a hill or a mountain – although distinct – is the very earth it sits upon). And as this actual universe is infinite and eternal it is perfection (it has no opposite) and perfection is peace. Thus (if I am to be precise) it would read: ‘... one is this actual universe experiencing itself, as the immeasurable peace that it is, as a flesh and blood human being’. Thus: ‘when the entity made up of emotion-backed thoughts and instinctually-based feelings is not present one is this actual universe experiencing itself, as the immeasurable peace that it is, as a flesh and blood human being’. RESPONDENT: When the organism dies physically, the particular body and its associated thoughts and feelings ends there, fini. But the universe continues. RICHARD: Yes. RICHARD: Apperception is something that brings a facticity born out of a direct experience of the actual RESPONDENT: If you would, Richard, please demonstrate the evidence that supports the implication that there is difference between ‘the actual’ and the ‘direct experience of the actual’. RICHARD: Sure ... ‘I’, the identity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain. Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the actual world – the world as-it-is – by ‘my’ very presence. Whereas, sans identity, what one is (‘what’ not ‘who’) is these sense organs in operation: this seeing is me, this hearing is me, this tasting is me, this touching is me, this smelling is me, and this thinking is me. This is called ‘apperceptive awareness’ (not to be confused with ‘choiceless awareness’). Apperception is consciousness being aware of being consciousness ... and this is a ‘direct experience of the actual’. I am not a Pantheist: I do not identify with the objects of perception in an all-embracing oneness. KONRAD: The problem with a serious discussion of such a chain of statements leading to a particular statement is simply, that it is too much work to unravel every step. Especially so, because you never give in to anything. You never admit that you make a mistake, not even on the plain of thought and thinking. And that, while even in your actualism position this is no ‘sin’ (pardon me the expression), because you have distantiate your identity from your thinking. And thinking can always make mistakes, even in you, without it discrediting your position in any way. RICHARD: I do not ‘distantiate my identity from my thinking’ for there is no identity anywhere at all either inside this body or outside. Thinking happens freely here. It is entirely possible, throughout the vast majority of one’s time, for there to be no thoughts running at all ... none whatsoever. If thought is needed for a particular situation, it swings smoothly into action of its own accord and effortlessly does its thing. All the while there is an apperceptive awareness of being here ... of being alive at this moment in time and this place in space. No words occur in the brain – other than when necessary – for it is a wordless appreciation of being able to be here now. Consequently, one is always blithe and carefree, even if one is doing nothing. Doing something – and that includes thinking – is a bonus of happiness and pleasure on top of this on-going ambrosial experience of being alive and awake and here on this verdant planet now. RICHARD: The question is: Why would someone misconstrue an otherwise innocuous social protocol? Why would someone attempt to read into an ingenuous service an ulterior motive, a hidden agenda? That is what matters. RESPONDENT: I do not want to make of your comment more than it is. As far as I am concerned it was completely in order to ask for the correction. My point has to do with some of the funny consequences of the perspective that there is no actual difference between one person and the next. For if this is so, then what does it matter? To be concerned with getting the author right on a posting is a very simple thing. It is also a good indicator that these things do matter. It is unfair to you to believe that you said things that you do not agree with. But in this view of respect towards the person involves a number of values that we must give attention to. We cannot say on the one hand that these values have significance and on the other that the existence of the person is nonsense. Does this make sense to you? RICHARD: I am happy to agree with your suggestion not to make more of my comment than it is, for I see that you wish to explore something else instead. By all means let us go into the ramifications of this perspective that there is no actual difference between one person and the next. First we would need to ascertain if this is a fact ... and then we could look at what values inhere – if any do – and what significance they have where there is no person for them to apply to. Is this what you are referring to when you ask: ‘does this make sense to you?’ So, let me rearrange your paragraph to take out all reference to the other issue: You wrote: ‘What are some of the funny consequences of the perspective that there is no actual difference between one person and the next? In this view, respect towards the person involves a number of values that we must give attention to. We cannot say on the one hand that these values have significance and on the other that the existence of the person is nonsense’. Firstly: Is there no actual difference betwixt one person and the next? There is that truism that states: ‘We are all unique’. I say ‘truism’ deliberately, for I am immediately reminded of that scene in ‘The Life Of Brian’ where Brian addresses the crowd saying: ‘You are all individuals’. The crowd roars back in unison: ‘We are all individuals’. Down the back a lone voice cries out: ‘I’m not!’ Of course, the Monty Python crew were making a social comment, when they wrote that scene, about the conditioned identity of the average citizen when it comes to following a spiritual leader, but one can consider whether it holds well for humankind at large. Human beings are all born with the same basic instincts and, no matter which culture one was socialised into being a member of, all peoples throughout the world have the same emotions and passions. Anger and forbearance, for instance, is anger and forbearance wherever it lives. There is no difference between English anger and forbearance and American anger and forbearance and African anger and forbearance and so on. Or love and hatred, enmity and alliance, jealousy and tolerance ... whatever the emotion or passion may be, they all have a global incidence. The same applies to cerebral energisation like imagination, conceptualisation, hypothesising, believing and so forth. Once again, ubiquitous in its occurrence. As for psychic phenomena like prescience, clairvoyance, telepathy, divination ... a world-wide correspondence that is almost uncanny in its similitude. So, apart from cosmetic cultural variations upon the theme, where in all this is one’s cherished uniqueness? It would appear that there is indeed no actual difference between one person and the next. The Human Condition is universal in its spread. So one can conclude that the perspective that there is no actual difference – other than superficialities – between one person and another is correct. RESPONDENT: Has it occurred to you that you are not a man of truth but a lonely person in search of attention? You see, only a lonely person would go around hawking the truth. RICHARD: Where has the word ‘truth’ appeared in any of my posts? I tend to make a big thing about facts and actuality ... to the point of bagging truth entirely. May I suggest a touch of research before propounding your latest theory? RESPONDENT: You have an obvious hunger to close the deal with any passer-by who stops to listen to your fancy sales pitch. RICHARD: Well, you see, it works ... after all, you have stopped to listen have you not? And you seem to be interested ... but are you interested enough? In fact, are you vitally interested? And ‘vitally interested’ means that peace-on-earth is the number one priority in your life inasmuch that it amounts to a fascinated obsession with your very being. Is your intention to become free of the Human Condition, in this life-time and as this body, the over-riding factor in all of your day-to-day dealings? If this is not the case, then what are you doing with your life? Why settle for second best when all this while the perfect purity of being alive at this moment in time and this place in space is just sitting here – right under your nose – freely available for anyone with the gumption to proceed on into their destiny. RESPONDENT: Denial is the refusal to see the reality of one’s situation. RICHARD: But you can take heart from the fact that you cannot keep on denying forever ... you do seem to be relenting a little on your previously hostile stance. It is encouraging, is it not, to see progress? No matter how little, some progress is better than none. Keep up the good work! RESPONDENT: A lonely person assumes a fictitious identity and takes on a role of the anointed one, like the Bowing Buddha, who has a coveted attainment – something that everyone shouldn’t be without – and he would graciously give of it to all if only they would gather around him. RICHARD: Okay, you seem to have blown my cover so I will come clean: my name is really Rachel and I am a twenty-year old student at the Australian National University. I have concocted this whole story just to see how many people I could con into writing back to me. I plan to do a Doctoral Thesis on the psychology of social misfits and I bet my girl-friends that I could find at least one sucker on this Mailing List who would be willing to bare their prejudices in public. RICHARD: As an identity is the inevitable result of being born, any blame is pointless – and worse – it creates resentment. Being an identity is because the only way into this world of people, things and events is via the human spermatozoa fertilising the human ova ... thus every human being is endowed, by blind nature, with the basic instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. These passions are the very energy source of the rudimentary animal self ... the base consciousness of ‘self’ and ‘other’ that all sentient beings have. The human animal – with its unique ability to think and reflect upon its own death – transforms this ‘reptilian brain’ rudimentary ‘self’ into being a feeling ‘me’ (as soul in the heart) and from this core of ‘being’ the ‘feeler’ then infiltrates into thought to become the ‘thinker’ ... a thinking ‘I’ (as ego in the head). No other animal can do this. This process is aided and abetted by the human beings who were already on this planet when one was born ... which is conditioning and programming. It is part and parcel of the socialising process. Thus seeing the ego is invalid and being ‘attentive to the ways of the ego’ is not sufficient ... there is a ‘me’ lurking in the heart to take over the wheel. RESPONDENT: Sorry, I can’t see that this process can be bypassed. If one cannot ‘see’ – if one is dependent on the authority of words – then that is the fact from which he must act. RICHARD: Sure, keep on doing the process that you are doing as that is what you see to be correct ... and what you see to be correct is what is important. I can only suggest ... what you do with my suggestions is entirely up to you. It is your life that you are living and as long as you comply with the legal laws and observe the social protocol, you are left alone to live your life as wisely or as foolishly as you choose. Only you reap the rewards or pay the consequences for any action or inaction you may or may not do. RESPONDENT: What keeps the ‘me’ lurking at the heart that is what maintains it as real even when the illusion is seen. RICHARD: Yes ... ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’ supplies the fuel that drives ‘I’ as ego. It is ‘being’ that is the energy source that creates and maintains the illusion that the real-world exists. RESPONDENT: I must say here that the nature of existence does change with the attention to the ways ‘ego’. RICHARD: What is the nature of this change? RESPONDENT: I am not defending that way as THE WAY, but I feel more must be seen to act as you say. RICHARD: Indeed ... that is why there is communication. RESPONDENT: One attempts to see things clearly by firstly removing what is blocking the vision. RICHARD: One can whittle away at all the social mores and psittacisms ... those mechanical repetitions of previously received ideas or images, reflecting neither apperception nor autonomous reasoning. One can examine all the beliefs, ideas, values, theories, truths, customs, traditions, ideals, superstitions ... and all the other schemes and dreams. One can become aware of all the socialisation, of all the conditioning, of all the programming, of all the methods and techniques that were used to control what one finds oneself to be ... a wayward ego and compliant soul careering around in confusion and illusion. A ‘mature adult’ is actually a lost, lonely, frightened and cunning psychological entity overlaying a psychic ‘being’. RESPONDENT No. 19: When we go against what we know in our heart and stomach is the wrong thing to do; when we choose to do it anyway, we will suffer the guilt (some may not). It is certainly not a ‘belief’, as you suggest, that I am the initiator of a wrong or right action. It is a fact. How do I know I know it is a fact? I can only know that by listening to the feelings I get when I do it. It is wrong because it ‘feels’ wrong. It is not just something that I have to be told. This is the essence of right and wrong. Are you suggesting that there is no right and wrong, that right and wrong exist only by judgement brought on by conditioning? Surely not! RICHARD: After all your years of sincere self-investigation are you really going to go on record as saying that feelings are to be relied upon as the final arbiter for living a salubrious and sociable life? Feelings are notoriously unreliable ... people have been living according to their feelings for millennia ... just look at the mess the world is in. Calenture is no better than the conditioned judgement you rightly put aside. ‘Right and Wrong’ is nothing but a socially-conditioned affective and cognitive conscience instilled by well-meaning adults through reward and punishment (love and hate) in a fatally-flawed attempt to control the wayward self that all sentient beings are born with. (Richard, List B, No. 19a, 18 July 1998). RESPONDENT: So is there a suggestion about the ‘absence’ of feelings for a ‘peaceful’ life? What about the Unabomber? I presume the Unabomber had no ‘guilt’. Is the world a mess because of ‘feelings’? Or the non understanding of these ‘feelings’? RICHARD: A partial absence of feelings – guilt, for example – leads to socially reprehensible acts ... like the Unabomber example you give. A sociopath (psychopath) has no feelings of shame or guilt ... and look what they get up to. It is the feelings that lie under the socially-imposed controls that need to be eliminated ... the deep feelings. These are the passions that all sentient beings are born with. It is the ‘being’ – the rudimentary self that arises out of the instinctual passions of fear and aggression and desire and nurture – that is the root-cause of all the ills of humankind. It is through the ending of ‘being’ that one can live freely without either the animosity or anguish that epitomises the sense of identity that infiltrates from the affective faculties into the cognitive ... and needing to be controlled. A conscience is a social identity ... a psychological creation manufactured by society to act as a guardian over the wayward self one was born with. Everyone is born with a biologically coded instinctive drive for personal physical survival which, when one is operating and functioning with a group of people, is potentially a danger to the survival of other group members. Hence the need for moral rules and ethical laws to regulate the conduct of each person ... with appropriate rewards and punishments to ensure compliance. In a well-meant but ultimately short-sighted effort to prevent gaols from being filled to over-flowing, the social identity – a psychological guardian – is fabricated in an earnest endeavour to prevent the offences from happening in the first place. This ‘guardian’ is programmed with a set of values and charged with the role of acting as a conscience over the wayward self. A conscience is made up of a sure knowledge of what is Right or Wrong and Good or Bad ... as determined by each society. By and large this enterprise has proved to be effective – only a small minority of citizens fail to behave in a socially acceptable manner – but the price for this effectiveness is the lack of the ability to be unique. The lack of uniqueness results in a generalised suffering for all of ‘humanity’. ‘Humanity’ is faced with the invidious choice between curbing aggression and ensuring suffering, or curbing suffering and ensuring aggression ... or so it has been up until now. Something can definitely be achieved in regards to this culturally-imposed social identity ... one can readily do something about it if one is suitably motivated to do so. One can bring about a benediction from that perfection and purity which is the essential character of the universe by contacting and cultivating one’s original state of naiveté. Naiveté is that intimate aspect of oneself that is the nearest approximation that one can have of actual innocence – there is no innocence so long as there is a rudimentary self – and constant awareness of naive intimacy results in a continuing benediction. This blessing allows a connection to be made between oneself and the perfection and purity as is evidenced in a PCE. This connection I call pure intent. Pure intent endows one with the ability to operate and function safely in society without the incumbent social identity with its ever-vigilant conscience. Thus reliably rendered virtually innocent and relatively harmless by the benefaction of the perfection and purity, one can begin to dismantle the now-redundant social identity. The virtual magnanimity endowed by pure intent obviates the necessity for a social identity, born out of society’s values, to be extant and controlling the wayward self with a societal conscience. Societal values are a psychological method of control. RESPONDENT: Would you tell the victims of Hitler or the Ku Klux Klan to inquire into themselves? RICHARD: Yes ... if they asked me. Identifying with by relating and belonging to a group – and espousing group ideals – invites attack from the bully-boys of another group who deem themselves superior. Why identify? Why relate? Why belong? The pertinent question to ask oneself now is: ‘Why do I have the need to identify by relating to anyone or belonging to any group at all’? This is inquiring. RESPONDENT: It seems to me that by relating to a group I am relating less, not more, because a group excludes those who ‘don’t belong’. RICHARD: Everybody I speak with – every one of them – tells the same story: ‘I just do not fit in; I do not belong; I am not like them; they exclude me; they all belong but I don’t’ ... and so on and so on. Is it not significant that everyone experiences life like this? (And I have talked with literally thousands of people over the last eighteen years about this). Loneliness is pandemic. In fact it has a global incidence and spares no one. RESPONDENT: If I do not relate to others then I can relate only to myself, a group of one, then none. A lonely life. RICHARD: Perhaps if I include something written by someone whom I have had an association with for some time may throw some light onto this subject. Viz.: • [quote]: ‘Each social identity thrives on attention; it needs to be needed; it needs to belong, it needs to be accepted, it needs to be lovable ... and it loves to be able to fight for its maintenance. If these needs are not being met, one feels desolate, lonely and forlorn; one risks falling into a melancholy, into a depression. What inevitably follows is the unvarying advice to ‘come back to reality’ and to turn to the group for support. This imperative to belong is bred into the human being from birth onwards. Yet curiously enough, when two or more persons have spent sufficient time together, niggles, arguments and fights all prove to be inescapable. Too many needs to be met and too little attention to go around leaves all concerned disappointed and in despair. ‘The only hope, it seems, is to try one’s luck with either someone else or with some Metaphysical Group ... only to be disappointed once more. One is advised by others to lower one’s expectations about any happiness on earth, as it is seen to be foolish and unrealistic to count on perfection in ‘this imperfect world’. Although the same warnings, the same words of advice and the same hopes and despairs have been running their course, to no avail ever, for all of human history, this orthodox understanding of human life is still religiously adhered to and is never to be questioned. Despite all their passionate attempts to make the conventional way work, people are still living dismally unhappy lives; lives in which very little time is spent in undisturbed peace and harmony with oneself or another ... let alone month after month and year after year. Is it possible that everybody has been hoodwinked into believing that this was ordained to be the fate of humankind forever? ‘Like everybody else I too was hoodwinked for many years. I remained swindled until, together with Richard, I started to question the ‘human’ archetype with its relentless beliefs and needs, hopes and despairs. Nothing sanctioned by ‘humanity’ ever seemed to lead to the sweet destiny that I had seen in a PCE and known as being possible for all of humankind. And now, after an extensive odyssey, I know without a shadow of a doubt that personal peace-on-earth is my birthright, as it were, and is always available to be achieved. Nevermore do I feel a need to belong, because I do not feel alone and lonely by myself. As I do not have a precarious social identity to protect, a battle of wills with another is no longer an attractive option; no ego-victory is sweet enough to want to relinquish one’s personal peace for. I experience anger, for example, to be a thoroughly rotten emotion; an emotion which has no redeeming features whatsoever and which, in my view, only perpetuates me as a social identity, thus assuring continued potential for aggression. Nor do I need to be needed, loved, or appreciated’. (Devika in Richard’s Journal, Article Twenty-Nine, pg. 210). The last sentence is particularly relevant to your question: ‘Nor do I need to be needed, loved, or appreciated’ . RESPONDENT: Can I instead relate to the largest possible group, to all? RICHARD: A sheer impossibility ... 5.8 billion people are far to many to meet personally. Therefore, such relating would be only imaginary ... and amounts to becoming lost by being submerged in the crowd, anyway. RESPONDENT: Relate with the maximum possible effort, with all my heart? Is this another way to lose the psychological self? RICHARD: What makes one want to relate with ‘all my heart’ ? Is not that where the psychological self lives? Is this not ‘me’ at the core of one’s ‘being’? Would this action not affirm, endorse and perpetuate the very psychological self one is proposing to lose? One may be a loving self now ... but one is still a self, nevertheless. The pertinent question to ask is this: What is the nature of loneliness? RESPONDENT: The list has too much activity and I do not wish to bring such disorder to my mailbox. I noticed a post here recently that suggested the list be used to post topics and people could interact directly. This would reduce the traffic for whom ever that may be relevant. I am presently keen to explore the topic of ethnic orientation and violence but would correspond on other aspects of life as well. RICHARD: ‘Ethnic orientation and violence’ ... the two would seem to go hand-in-hand, would you not say? And has it not got a lot to do with beliefs and the action of believing itself? And does it not all believing stem from separation? I see, first of all, that there is a separation of male and female from each other by gender identification as ‘man’ and ‘woman’ – two distinct social identities – leading to a localised discontent and resentment, causing the battle between the sexes. Then there is the separation of oneself – by being a ‘me’, a psychological identity – from one’s body and therefore from the world about, leading to a generalised discontent and resentment, causing wars between tribal groups. To end the separation is to end the violence. To end the separation, can one not whittle away at all the social mores and psittacisms: all the beliefs, ideas, values, theories, truths, customs, traditions, ideals, superstitions ... and all the other schemes and dreams? One can surely become aware of all the socialisation, of all the conditioning, of all the programming, of all the methods and techniques that were used to produce what one finds oneself to be ... a wayward ego and soul careering around in confusion and illusion. I see that a ‘mature adult’ is actually a lost, lonely, frightened and cunning ‘entity’ inside the body. However, it is never too late to start in on uncovering and discovering what one actually is under all the beliefs ... do you not think so? Do not beliefs come in from another person, or persons, starting from day one as a new-born baby? Mother and Father – or a substitute parent – require the child to conform to the already existing world of fact and fiction. Through actions and words, carrots and sticks, the child is taught to believe until it is sufficiently indoctrinated, having made these beliefs their own ‘truths’. The child can not compare these beliefs with anything outside of their environment, because they do not know there is an outside ... so they have no reason not to swallow the entire package, this whole reality. This process is called socialisation and results in forming the social identity; a process which may take, perhaps, up to twelve years to complete. All this while the child has learned, by trial and error, reward and punishment, precept and example – with endless repetition – how to feel afraid, secure, loved, disliked, greedy, proud, lonely, etcetera ... no matter what culture one is born into. Humankind is now sufficiently programmed into believing that this what human beings are is ‘human nature and it cannot be changed ... we are all stuck with it’. Such is the extent of believing. What one can do, however, is ask oneself whether one wants to continue to live an illusory life? Following blindly in the footsteps of ancestors is to perpetuate fiction over fact, as being the only way to live. One has taken on their beliefs and made them one’s own ... their beliefs are who one is. One’s image of oneself is a totally borrowed picture ... which one believes to be one’s very identity. It is what one thinks – and feels – one is as ‘me’. Does one wish to continue to defend an illusion? Family ties, tribal customs and national mores all contribute in the making of one’s identity. Religious beliefs, ideological creeds and cultural values all go to cement the psychological make-up of one’s very real self. One’s identity is what one has adopted as being ‘me’. How much longer does one wish to go on defending ‘someone’ that is not me? How much longer does one want to go on living in pathos as a group member ... which is what a social entity is. If one thinks – and feels – that this identity is me as I actually am, then ‘I’ must belong to a group. Out of loneliness ‘I’ must have a sense of belonging. This culturally created psychological entity that ‘I’ identify as is always lonely for it is an alien, a fictional creation of the group, who can not exist outside of the group mentality. But what about me as-I-am? Stripped of the identity, I can be never lonely, for I am complete, sufficient unto myself. Loneliness is as fictional as the identity that has been created as ‘me’ by all those other lonely entities which were here before one arrived as a baby. One has made it one’s own and called it ‘me’. Whereas, by being me, me as I actually am, I can never be a belief. * RICHARD: ‘Ethnic orientation and violence’ ... the two would seem to go hand-in-hand, would you not say? RESPONDENT: Are you suggesting that ethnic orientation would not exist without identification and any form of identification, not seeing what you are actually, free from identification, is violence? RICHARD: Yes, this is my experience. I was born in Australia, of a British-born father and a first-generation Australian mother from an English background. Thus I was raised to believe that I was, literally, an Australian-born citizen ... but with British blood! (Blood is blood ... is this not all ridiculous!). However, as an infant, a child, a youth and then a man, I was unable to discriminate fact from fiction. I had no terms of reference that I could use a standard to judge by as every single human being on this planet was not simply a flesh and blood body ... but an ‘ethnic’ human being. Thus, as I wrote in my previous post, I bought the whole package. Hook, line and sinker. As I slowly started to unravel the mess that humankind was in by unravelling it in me, I discovered a second layer under ‘my’ ethnicity ... ‘I’ was a ‘man’, and not simply a flesh and blood body. Under that lay a further layer. It took me years and years of exploration and discovery to find out that ‘I’ was a ‘me’ – a ‘being’ – and not simply a flesh and blood body. There, and only there, was the root cause of violence. By identifying as a ‘me’, a psychological entity was able to ‘possess’ this body. It is not unlike those Christians who are said to be possessed by an evil entity and require exorcism. Only this ‘possession’ was called being normal. Therefore, (if I may be a touch melodramatic) every human being is thus possessed by an ‘alien entity’; for me ... a ‘walk-in’ was in control of this body! RESPONDENT: If there were no need to identify, ethnic orientation would merely fall away? RICHARD: Yes. There is no such ‘thing’ as an ‘Australian’, an ‘American’, a ‘German’, a ‘Japanese’ and so on. All the wars; all the blood-shed; all the appalling misery is because of the absurdity of identification. But not just ethnic orientation, as I have already said above. RICHARD: There is much more to one’s background than conditioning ... one begins to comprehend that all the different types of socialisation (peer-group conditioning, parental conditioning and societal conditioning in general) are well-meant endeavours by countless peoples over innumerable aeons to seek to curb the instinctual animal passions. Now, while most people paddle around on the surface and re-arrange the conditioning to ease their lot somewhat, some people – seeking to be free of all human conditioning – fondly imagine that by putting on a face-mask and snorkel that they have gone deep-sea diving with a scuba outfit ... deep into the human condition. They have not ... they have gone deep only into the human conditioning. When they tip upon the instinctual passions – which are both savage (fear and aggression) and tender (nurture and desire) – they grab for the tender (the ‘good’ side) and blow them up all out of proportion as an antidote, as compensating pacifiers ... and the investigation ceases. It takes nerves of steel to don such an aqua-lung and plunge deep in the stygian depths of the human psyche ... it is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee. This is because below or behind the conditioning is the human condition itself ... that which necessitated the controls (conditioning) in the first place. Thus the conditioning can prevent the investigation of the human condition itself. GARY: I seem to remember the statement ‘instincts on rampage balk at investigation’. For the most part, then, we are content to, as you say, paddle around on the surface, avoiding deep investigation into ourselves. We want to have an image of ourselves as reasonable, respectable people rather than the bloodthirsty killers that we are. Pardon the hyperbole; perhaps that is putting it too starkly. RICHARD: Is it really true that ‘we want to have an image of ourselves as reasonable, respectable people’ which makes one ‘avoid deep investigation into ourselves’ ... or is such societal conditioning a necessity in order to curb the savage beast that lurks deep within the human breast? In other words: what if one has been inadvertently blaming conditioning all along for something that is not its fault? If one realises this is so ... then what happens? GARY: We may never have actually snuffed out a life, directly, but the potential for actual violence is there in the instinctual drives, the ‘human condition’ that you refer to. Yet the instinctual animal passions are there for a reason, are they not? RICHARD: Yes, to give one a (rough and ready) basic ‘software package’ operating system ... so as to give one a start to life. GARY: What is their basic function or raison d’être? RICHARD: To ensure the survival of the species ... and any species will do as far as blind nature is concerned. Survival of the fittest means the most fitted to survive live to pass on their genes ... the species which is most fitted to the environment succeeds in the perpetuation of their species. Those that cannot adapt to the ever-changing environment are automatically weeded-out. The (supposed) ‘resurgence’ of viruses immune to the vast array of antibiotics (for instance) empirically demonstrates this ‘survival of the most fitted to the environment theory’ to be an actual occurrence. Thus ‘The Evolutionary Theory’ is now ‘The Evolutionary Fact’. GARY: Once necessary for survival, why have they continued on? RICHARD: Is this not because peoples have been conditioned by various sages and seers to blame the conditioning for causing what is actually caused by the human condition itself ... the very instinctual passions which necessitated the controls (conditioning) in the first place. Thus the fixation on the conditioning can and does prevent the investigation of the human condition itself. If one realises this is so ... then what happens? RICHARD: This universe can experience itself as a sensate and reflective human being: as such the universe can know itself apperceptively. What one does is acquiesce to life by embracing death ... one wholeheartedly dedicates oneself to being here as the universe’s experience of itself right now: it is the unreserved !YES! to being alive as this flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: Yes, I had that understanding some time ago. At that time I phrased it, ‘We are how god knows itself’. I was not implying some God-guy or God entity. God to me was both the universal substance, as well as the cohesive and organizing principle, but not a person or a prior consciousness or even the ground of being. The universe did not somehow emanate from god. If one’s mindset is that there is God and the universe, then if one takes God out of the picture, the universe is dead matter – the materialists’ view. RICHARD: May I ask? What did/ does the word ‘god’ signify to you, then? Did/ does what you call ‘universal substance’ and ‘the cohesive and organising principle’ provide meaning and/or purpose for you? RESPONDENT: On the other hand, as I understand it, from your point of view, God and the universe is the misapplication of the rightful attributes of the universe to an imaginary God. But, if god is subsumed into the universe, because the universe right here, now, exactly as it is accounts for all the attributes that we formerly attributed to some god, who was immanent, but other even if only to an infinitesimal degree, then you have a pretty happy state of affairs. Subsumed might not be the correct word. Maybe God is just dropped when no longer needed! RICHARD: Given that ‘subsumed’ means included into or under another larger or more expansive category, then what I see happening here is but a reversal of roles: previously the universe was subsumed into or under god ... now you are subsuming god into or under the universe. Why? RESPONDENT: Subsumed might not be the correct word. Maybe God is just dropped when no longer needed! RICHARD: Indeed ... in my experience I did not ‘drop’ god myself ... when ‘I’ and ‘me’ became extinct, god vanished. From this I can draw the only obvious conclusion. To wit: god (or goddess) was but an autological projection of ‘my’ own identity ... ‘me’ as animal self. RESPONDENT No. 6: If you will indulge my question: is it possible still to have actual intimacy, even if the partner (man/ woman) is evidently inhibited by self and survival instincts? RICHARD: Actual intimacy – no separation (no separative self whatsoever) cannot wax and wane/ come and go/ switch on and off here in this actual world (the world of the senses). Upon an actual freedom from the human condition an actual intimacy is the norm with every body and every thing regardless of whatever their or its current situation and circumstances might be. (Some peoples have looked at me blankly upon being informed there is an actual intimacy with, say, an ashtray or a polystyrene cup or a pebble or whatever). In terms of human sexuality, and due to its utter proximity, sexual congress sans identity/ affections is the exquisite experience of two flesh and blood bodies sensuously delighting in being sensually and sexually aroused. (As there are no identities in actuality I actually interact only with flesh and blood bodies; at times this can be quite disconcerting, to say the least, for any identity feeling itself to be other than illusory). (Richard, List D, No. 6, 10 November 2009). RESPONDENT: Your comment about ‘As there are no identities in actuality I actually interact only with flesh and blood bodies’ – was extremely useful in detecting some slippery and subtle identification in my interactions with others. RICHARD: Good ... (as I am never annoyed there is never any need for giving vent). Another poster offered their experience on it recently (Message X) when observing how an intuitive resistance to non-recognition as ‘me’ is even more powerful than the fear of engulfment. My second wife would oft-times say to others how it was not always easy to live with me as ‘she’ was totally ignored (in ‘her’ view) by me. (Please note it is an impossibility to ignore anything at all which has no existence in actuality and how I do pay lip-service, just as I am now, to the apparent existence of any identity feeling itself to be real). What my second wife was really referring to is the total absence of any supportive identity rapport/ affective connection. As this was amply corroborated by my third wife, it is a primary consideration when contemplating any potential man-woman type of association which comes into my purview (in my experience the ménage a trois provided what a ménage a deux cannot). RESPONDENT: Practically speaking: How do you see that something needs to be done? RICHARD: The way something is seen to be needing to be done, sans the imaginative/ intuitive facility, is by virtue of the cognitive, ratiocinative/ conceptive and insightful faculty being able to operate freely under an overall apperceptive attentiveness/ awareness. RESPONDENT: Which percepts tell you ‘that thing is different from what it ought/ what I want it to be’? RICHARD: The word ‘percept’ can refer to two things: ‘percept: (1) an object of perception; (2) the mental product or result of perceiving (as distinguished from the action)’. (Oxford Dictionary). If you are asking which object of perception occasions the noticing that something is different from what it ought to be, or from what it is wanted to be, then it can only be that very object of perception which is indeed different from what it ought to be or from what it is wanted to be (such as, for example, an approaching vehicle being on the same side of the road as the vehicle being travelled in is on). If you are asking which mental product, or result of perceiving, is informative about something being different from what it ought to be, or from what it is wanted to be, then it can only be the mental product, or result of perceiving, which the object of perception that is different from what it ought to be, or from what it is wanted to be, readily evokes (by virtue of the cognitive, ratiocinative/ conceptive and insightful faculty being able to operate freely under an overall apperceptive attentiveness/ awareness) by the very fact of it being indeed different from what it ought to be or from what it is wanted to be. (...) RICHARD: ... in what way would a down-to-earth response to a query from an identity asking [quote] ‘Practically speaking: How do you see that something needs to be done? Which percepts tell you ‘that thing is different from what it ought/ what I want it to be’?’ [endquote] be couched? RESPONDENT: In the way you just couched it. RICHARD: Aye ... that down-to-earth response, which has been just sitting there at the top of this page all along, is couched in such a way as to contain, as a matter of course, no reference to an identity at all (for no other reason than no such imaginative/ intuitive ‘being’ whatsoever is in situ) for the mental product, or result of perceiving, which is readily evoked – and which is directly informative about the situation/ circumstances – by the very fact of the object of perception being different from what it ought to be, or from what it is wanted to be, to tell that something is different from what it ought to be/ is wanted to be and, furthermore, by virtue of the mental product/ result of perceiving being directly informative (about the object of perception being different from what it ought to be or from what it is wanted to be) it is that particular situation/ those specific circumstances which calls for something to be done. Any grammatical use of passive voice (typically used in scientific text so as to emphasise objectivity) over active voice is besides the point – as is any grammatical absence of the first person pronoun – as to be a sentient creature is to be an agent anyway (and agency of necessity involves self-reference). In short: a flesh and blood body sans the entire affective faculty/ identity in toto is itself the agency (which is dramatically different to an identity being the agent and who needs to be told information/ who needs to call for something to be done) and, as such, cause and effect are not separated by an intrusive intermediary. With no identity in situ/ no affective faculty extant, to stuff things up, it is all quite straightforward. RESPONDENT: Richard, I think that you will be able to spot the survival tricks of the entity in all its hypocrisy and cunningness in the first glance ... by being free I think you see the identities in their nakedness ... the prize for seeing yourself fully naked! Is my surmise true? RICHARD: As a generalisation ... yes; as a personalisation ... no (I cannot possibly know another person’s every thought, every feeling, every instinctual impulse; nor the nuances of their ethnic background, the intimate details of their familial upbringing, the subtleties of their peer-group coercions, and so on). RESPONDENT: When I realize that you might be reading what I write, I discover some of the ulterior motives and some of the deliberate misrepresentations in my mails (projecting something that I am not) ( the shame and pain and all ... less and less, though). RICHARD: Oh? You do realise, do you not, that when someone fools another they are really only fooling themself (in the final analysis)? * RESPONDENT: I realize that the ‘me’ is still craving for approval from you and others. RICHARD: Just for the record: the only thing that will impress me is another’s actual freedom from the human condition ... for then they cannot change their mind/ have a change of heart (it being irrevocable). RESPONDENT: The list social identity! And that is why I write sometimes? Or maybe always? What is behind this desire to bond with you? RICHARD: As there is no identity extant in this flesh and blood body – meaning that you could only ever bond with your own projection anyway – you might as well desist from what is nothing but an exercise in futility. RESPONDENT: I know you will not entertain any of my survival tricks ... I am not following the user’s manual here: I am expressing and expressing. I may not send this mail. I want to reach your heights ... I want to overtake you ... I cant stand this lower positions in the hierarchy – which is in my mind! RICHARD: For what it is worth: whenever I came across somebody who had already accomplished what I wanted to achieve I unabashedly set out emulate them – avidly reading every word they wrote/ listening intently to what they had to say (colloquially known as ‘picking their brains’) plus being generally appreciative that they be willing to pass on experience and information – inasmuch at the beginning of the path which led to me becoming a practising artist in my own right, for instance, in the area of the fine arts I slavishly copied, imitated meticulously, acquiring the necessary skills along the way, until the moment came where everything pertaining to that aspiration had became second-nature to me. Then I let go of the controls ... and it all happened of its own accord. RESPONDENT: The ‘me’ showing its ugly head. RICHARD: If you say so ... why would you inhibit aspiration, though? RESPONDENT: I am not like this all the time ... this is the dirty stuff that gets in now and then. RICHARD: Apart from the mistaken impression there be heights to reach/ overtake in some fanciful hierarchy the sentiments expressed are laudable, are they not? RESPONDENT: Mostly it is wonderful. Maybe 15 hours out of 24. RICHARD: And if it were not for aspiration would it currently be wonderful 15/24? RESPONDENT: I am riding a mad elephant. RICHARD: Is that a reference to Mr. Gilbert Chesterton’s fictitious nobleman ... or an expression from the Indian Sub-Continent indicating something else? RESPONDENT: I hope to get down soon and enjoy the scenery soon. RICHARD: You might as well enjoy it wherever you are ... you will never have this particular opportunity ever again. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• P.S.: You may find the following useful: • [Richard]: ‘... instead of having Love/ God/ Truth/ IT give you some ‘shattering kicks in the butt’ may I suggest adopting the benevolent, and thus beneficial, approach? Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘It is important not to view ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ as an enemy – blind nature is the culprit – and to be friends with yourself ... only you live with yourself twenty four hours a day. Coopt any aspect of yourself as an ally in this investigation into the human psyche ... eventually ‘I’ come to realise that the very best thing that ‘I’ can do is altruistically ‘self’-immolate for the benefit of this body and all bodies’. [endquote]. • [Richard]: ‘It is important not to turn the thinker into the villain, an enemy: the thinker is thus one’s greatest ally (...) whilst peoples beat themselves up for not being good enough or for being ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ (or whatever description) they have no chance of ever enabling [peace-on-earth]. None of this mess is ‘my’ fault ... ‘I’ was born like this. Now that ‘I’ realise this ‘I’ can willingly, cheerfully be in concordance. (...) ‘I’ can never, ever become perfect or be perfection. The only thing ‘I’ can do – the only thing ‘I’ need to do – is to say !YES! so that the already always existing perfection can become apparent’. [endquote]. • [Richard]: ‘Nothing of substance will happen less ‘I’ be the willing participant ... the 100% committed participant. I always maintain that each and every person holds their freedom in their own hands ... no one else can either grant it or prevent it. I see that I have written of it many times thus: ‘I’ deliberately and consciously – and with knowledge aforethought [from the PCE] – set in motion a ‘process’ that will ensure ‘my’ demise. What ‘I’ do, voluntarily and intentionally, is to press the button which precipitates a momentum – oft-times alarming but always thrilling – that will result in ‘my’ inevitable self-immolation. What one does is that one dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here as the universe’s experience of itself. When ‘I’ freely and cheerfully sacrifice ‘myself’ – the psychological and psychic entities residing inside this body – ‘I’ am gladly making ‘my’ most supreme donation, for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is the greatest gift one can bestow upon this body and that body and every body’. [endquote]. Put succinctly: be kind to yourself ... you are the only friend you have, so to speak’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 41, 4 February 2003). RICHARD: (...) My progenitors were farmers ... pioneer settlers carving a livelihood by hand out of virgin forest (I personally used axes and hand saws to help cut down the trees to make pasture land). (...) RESPONDENT: So it was the f&bb that used axes, not the identity ... RICHARD: Yes (just as no identity in any flesh and blood body uses axes). RESPONDENT: Then the f&bb is responsible for murders using axes and not the identity ... RICHARD: No, it is the identity who, being emotional/ passional in and of its very make-up, is responsible for axe-murders. RESPONDENT: ... which would seem to be contrary to what you are in general saying that it is the identity who is responsible for war, rape, murder, general mayhem RICHARD: Not at all ... an identity, a psychological/ psychic entity, impels/ compels a flesh and blood body to act out all manner of its malicious and sorrowful/ loving and compassionate impulses, urges, drives, cravings, yearnings, and so forth. * RICHARD: (...) the blessed release into oblivion is something only an identity, a psychological/ psychic entity, would desire. RESPONDENT: According to your chosen definition of oblivion below ... RICHARD: That Oxford Dictionary definition of the word blessed – ‘enjoying supreme felicity; fortunate; happily endowed with; pleasurable; bringing happiness; blissful’ – is not this flesh and blood body’s chosen definition of oblivion ... it is a definition chosen to describe the nature of the release into oblivion (which felicitous let-go is indeed a blessed release). RESPONDENT: ... it [the Oxford Dictionary definition of the word blessed] does say ‘blissful’, ‘bringing happiness’ and haven’t you said that bliss and happiness is nowhere to be found in what you refer to as actuality? RICHARD: This flesh and blood body has indeed reported that the affective feelings of bliss and happiness – including experiencing same as (affective) states of being – are nowhere to be found here in this actual world, the world of the senses, where all is pure, pristine and perfect. RESPONDENT: Is there awareness/ perception in what you are calling oblivion? RICHARD: None whatsoever (just as in being anesthetised, knocked unconscious, falling into a faint, during deep sleep, or in any other way being rendered comatose). RESPONDENT: Are you in this state of oblivion? RICHARD: It was the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago that went felicitously into oblivion (in 1992) and not this flesh and blood body ... that blessed let-go into oblivion was something only an identity, a psychological/ psychic entity, could desire. RESPONDENT: Because recently you have said that it is the survivors who experience grief and suffering and not the tsunami victims who are now in oblivion ... RICHARD: You can only be referring to this: • [Richard]: ‘... as it is a question of the measure of (affective) impact such an event [as a seismic se-wave] has, and its resultant quantification in terms of it being a (human) tragedy, the scale of an event of that nature in 18th century Japan exceeds the scale of the recent 21st century event. Or, to put that another way, for the dead it is not a tragedy (death is oblivion) and it is those left alive who have to get on with the business of living – digging out the dead, burying the dead, ministering to water-borne disease, re-establishing the means of production, re-building domiciles and infrastructure, and so forth – and proportionate to the population left alive to carry out such necessities 100,000 deaths in 1703 is far larger than 150,000 deaths in 2004. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 53g, 9 January 2005). RESPONDENT: ... and from this one could infer/ deduce that you are saying that there is a state of oblivion after the death of the f&bb. RICHARD: There is no way the words [quote] ‘death is oblivion’ [endquote] can be inferred as conveying there is such an after-death state – death *is* oblivion – just as it cannot be deduced from those words that there is any after-death state ... death is the end, finish. * RESPONDENT: Are you saying the identity did not swing axes? RICHARD: Yes (just as the psychological/ psychic entity did not eat, drink, urinate, defecate, and so on). The following link will flesh this out somewhat: (snip link). RESPONDENT: But don’t you think that the cause of overeating (over-anything) is the identity and not the f&bb? RICHARD: No, this flesh and blood body *knows*, from direct experience, that it is a psychological/ psychic entity which impels/ compels a body to act out all manner of its malicious and sorrowful/ loving and compassionate impulses, urges, drives, cravings, yearnings, and so forth. RESPONDENT: So it follows that while it is the f&bb that is doing the physical activity of eating (anything), it is the identity that is the cause of the overeating (over-anything). RICHARD: Exactly. * RESPONDENT: Who is answering these emails, the f&bb or some identity? RICHARD: It is not a question of ‘who’ but of ‘what’ ... what is answering these e-mails is this (apperceptively aware) flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: But Richard clearly has established an identity for himself as the first, the only, the method promoter, etc. ... RICHARD: Here is an example of that sentence, when written in accord with what was actually conveyed (further above), might look like: • [example only]: ‘But Richard clearly has established a psychological/ psychic entity for himself as the first, the only, the method promoter, etc. [end example]. Or, to put that another way, it might look like this: • [example only]: ‘But Richard clearly has established an emotional/ passional identity for himself as the first, the only, the method promoter, etc. [end example]. RESPONDENT: ... isn’t it that identity that resides in the f&bb ... RICHARD: There is no psychological/ psychic entity residing in this flesh and blood body ... or, to put that another way, there is no emotional/ passional identity residing in this flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: ... and whose life/ existence/ awareness/ perception is dependent on the f&bb that is answering these emails and not the f&bb which is just the stuff of the physical universe? RICHARD: It is most definitely this (apperceptively aware) flesh and blood body – which is indeed the very stuff of this infinite, eternal, and perpetual, universe – that is answering these e-mails ... no emotional/ passional identity-psychological/ psychic entity could persuade a body to respond in such a congruent way, and with such consistent detail, despite whatever it is that is presented and/or in whatever manner it is presented. * RICHARD: (...) what the actualism method does is occasion the extinction of that which is standing in the way of such inconceivable/ unimaginable, and thus incomprehensible/ unbelievable, perfection being apparent ... to wit: the identity (a psychological/ psychic entity) within the flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: Assuming you are what you claim, until another, using your method, occasions the extinction of that which is standing in the way of such inconceivable/ unimaginable, and thus incomprehensible/ unbelievable, perfection being apparent, then it stands that each and every person will indeed have to find their own way/ method/ whatever. RICHARD: What actually stands is that, until another identity does find their own way/ method/ whatever to enable the already existing peace-on-earth into being apparent 24/7, the method the identity inhabiting this body all those years devised is the only way so far to successfully deliver the goods ... which also means this flesh and blood body cannot, quite obviously, endorse any way/ method/ whatever which is yet to be successful. RESPONDENT: And I, quite frankly, would be quite surprised if your method does this for another F&BB, ever. RICHARD: It is, of course, entirely up to each and every identity to decide what to do with the information that a proven method now exists ... it is their life they are living, when all is said and done, and only they get to reap the rewards or pay the consequences for whatever action they may or may not do. RESPONDENT: While anything is possible, it is my opinion, that borrowing another’s method, can only alter or add to an identity and not extinguish it. RICHARD: As speculation derived from armchair philosophising goes nowhere, and fast, this flesh and blood body will pass without further comment. * RICHARD: There is, of course, no such psychological/ psychic entity [standing in the way of such inconceivable/ unimaginable, and thus incomprehensible/ unbelievable, perfection being apparent] in actuality ... ‘twas all an illusion/ delusion. RESPONDENT: I’ll agree with that ... RICHARD: Just so there is no misunderstanding: an identity, a psychological/ psychic entity, has just agreed with a flesh and blood body (provisionally assumed to be) sans any such emotional/ passional ‘being’ that it is all an illusion/ delusion they (a) have any existence in actuality ... and (b) are, therefore, standing in the way of such inconceivable/ unimaginable, and thus incomprehensible/ unbelievable, perfection as actuality indisputably is being apparent 24/7. RESPONDENT: ... [I’ll agree with that] and that is why I think your method does not make sense. It is dependent on an illusion thinking it is not an illusion. RICHARD: Whereas what the actualism method is really dependent upon is each and every emotional/ passional identity getting off their backside – discarding all armchair philosophising for being the delaying tactic it indubitably is in doing so – and giving their undivided attention to how they are experiencing each and every moment of their emotional/ passional life. Incidentally, any identity who does not do that (give their undivided attention to how they are experiencing each and every moment of being alive) cannot properly assert that the actualism method has not worked/ is not working/ never will work. RESPONDENT: The whole process [of an illusion thinking it is not an illusion] is a fabricated game. RICHARD: Just so there is no misunderstanding: is an illusory/ delusory identity, whilst agreeing it is all an illusion/ delusion that they have any existence in actuality and are, therefore, standing in the way of such inconceivable/ unimaginable, and thus incomprehensible/ unbelievable, perfection being apparent 24/7, now asserting that such an agreement is a fabricated game? RESPONDENT: ... I can’t conceive of a situation where I will exist and no universe will exist. Where else is there to be except in the universe? RICHARD: As a flesh and blood body ... nowhere else (nowhere else but here in space and now in time); as an identity ... anywhere else (anywhere else other than here in space and now in time). RESPONDENT: SO are you saying if the thought arises (I am god, enlightened or any other false belief) that you are somehow ejected out of infinitude? RICHARD: Nope ... I am saying the identity within, being but an illusion/ delusion, can never be here in space and now in time. Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘There is no intrinsic identity, essence, core, or quality ... what is flawed is attempting to find/ locate that phantasm, that ghost in the machine, when all that needs to be done is to altruistically ‘self’-immolate for the benefit of this body and that body and every body. As there is no such ‘being’ (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is ‘being’ itself) or ‘presence’ in actuality there is nothing to lose ... except ‘who’ you instinctively know, feel, and thus think, you are. And therein lies the rub: ‘I’/ ‘me’ am so very real, so very, very real, that ‘I’/ ‘me’ am prepared to do virtually anything – virtually anything at all – than go blessedly into oblivion. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 56, 22 October 2003). In short: as an identity, one is forever locked-out of paradise (this actual world of sensate delight); as a flesh and blood body, one is never out of paradise. RESPONDENT: I hope not, otherwise infinitude would not be infinite. RICHARD: The only ‘infinitude’ there is, for an identity, is a metaphysical infinitude (a timeless and spaceless and formless ‘being’ or ‘presence’). RESPONDENT: I would say that regardless of the thoughts, feelings, beliefs present, it is impossible to not be in the universe. RICHARD: Ha ... it is impossible for an identity (being but an illusion/ delusion) to ever be in actuality. RESPONDENT: But where else is there to be, for you are always here, even if you say I am something/ somewhere else. RICHARD: An identity is never here – let alone ‘always here’ – as to be here is to be at this place in space (now at this moment in time). * RESPONDENT: The something includes anything that can be perceived (e.g. a nice feeling, enlightenment (in the sense you use), any state of mind, a job, a relationship. In other words as soon as I say ‘ahh ... that is what I am’ if that is an identifiable thing, standing out in anyway, then it will be impermanent and therefore I will have the rug pulled from under my feet when it dies. RICHARD: Oh? You plan on surviving the physical death of the flesh and blood body currently going by the name ‘Respondent’ then, eh? RESPONDENT: No, I was saying why bother identifying with the body. RICHARD: Indeed ... that would be silly. RESPONDENT: Why do we need to say I am the body? RICHARD: Maybe because ‘I’ am not the body and never will be? RESPONDENT: But you also say ‘I am this flesh and blood body only’. RICHARD: Why do you say ‘also’ when I have never said anything about ‘identifying with the body’ (and have made this patently clear to you in a prior e-mail)? Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘Where I say I am this living flesh and blood body I am not identifying with this flesh and blood body – identifying with this flesh and blood body as an identity be it intrinsic or not – as what I am describing is what I am (what, not ‘who’) ... only an identity would translate my descriptions as describing a particular core/ a static essence/ an intrinsic identity (or a true identity/ a real identity or whatever). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 56, 22 October 2003). Furthermore, it was made quite clear what the first person pronoun refers to by replacing it with what it refers to (in the first part of the above passage): • [Richard]: ‘Where this flesh and blood body says this flesh and blood body is this living flesh and blood body this flesh and blood body is not identifying with this flesh and blood body – identifying with this flesh and blood body as an identity be it intrinsic or not – as what this flesh and blood body is describing is what this flesh and blood body is (what, not ‘who’). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 56, 22 October 2003). RESPONDENT: So these two statements are contradictory. Please clarify. RICHARD: When an identity says ‘I am the body’ it is identifying with something it is not; where a flesh and blood body says ‘I am this flesh and blood body’ it is stating a fact. RESPONDENT: Reactions of the actual universe :)) to the human condition (both real and spiritual) is something to be watched with great interest. RICHARD: ‘Tis just as well you put a smiley there as I have no notion as to what you are talking about ... this actual universe, not being sentient per se, does not react to anything. And, as the identity within is oblivious to all things actual, it cannot be watched anyway. RESPONDENT: Yet, it manifests through yourself, does it not? RICHARD: No ... what I am, as this flesh and blood body only (sans identity/ affections in toto), is this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe experiencing itself *as* an apperceptive human being (and not *through* a human being). I have written about this as/ through distinction before ... for example: • [Richard]: ‘The whole point of actualism is the direct experience of actuality: as this flesh and blood body only what one is (what not ‘who’) is these eyes seeing, these ears hearing, this tongue tasting, this skin touching and this nose smelling – and no separative identity (no ‘I’/ ‘me’) means no separation – whereas ‘I’/ ‘me’, a psychological/ psychic entity, am inside the body busily creating an inner world and an outer world and looking out through ‘my’ eyes upon ‘my’ outer world as if looking out through a window, listening to ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ tongue, touching ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ skin and smelling ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ nose. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44b, 17 July 2003). Hence my comment in the previous e-mail about the identity within being oblivious to all things actual ... there is no outer world in actuality. RESPONDENT: You react to the posts on this mailing list and you make no secret from the fact that your words come directly from your moment-to-moment experiencing of the actual universe? RICHARD: Oh, I see ... you were referring to my responses to what is written on this mailing list. Okay then ... but while on the subject: the direct experiencing of actuality, as this flesh and blood body only (sans ‘being’ itself), simply means there is no separation whatsoever – the very stuff of this flesh and blood body is the very stuff of the universe – and if you were to reach forward and touch the glass, which is a few scant millimetres to the front of these words you are reading, then the very stuff of the universe, currently in a shape/ form called finger-tip, is directly experiencing the very stuff of the universe, currently in the shape/ form called glass. The universe is not just the outer reaches of what is called ‘deep space’ as it is as much the room you are sitting in reading these words as it is anything else ... the universe is not just nebulae and stars and so on, it is as much the flesh and blood body you actually are, sitting in the room reading these words, as it is the pixels currently forming these words. In short: there is nothing which is not this universe. RESPONDENT: I was commenting in regard to the assumption (for me) that everyone (6.000.000.000 people - Richard) experiences his own universe, that everyone represents a different and unique world, as unique as the identity within. RICHARD: Yes, whereas I was responding to you (seemingly) calling such a universe – an identity’s ‘own universe’ – the actual universe. Viz.: • [Respondent]: ‘Reactions of the actual universe (...) is something to be watched with great interest. • [Richard]: ‘As the identity within is oblivious to all things actual, it [the actual universe] cannot be watched [by an identity]. An identity, being but an illusion, is of course forever locked-out of the actual world by its very nature ... it cannot see what the eyes are seeing. RESPONDENT: I haven’t met two similar persons or similar world-views as there are no two similar bodies. RICHARD: At root everyone is not all that dissimilar – virtually all sentient beings are identical at the core of their being – as one person’s sorrow, for instance, is not all that different to another’s ... and so on through virtually all the emotions/ passions. It (the similarity of the affective feelings and thus the ‘being’ they automatically form themselves into) is what makes for empathy. RESPONDENT: And your universe is the actual universe except from the fact that it’s not yours: it exists on its own accord. RICHARD: Aye, this actual universe existed long before this flesh and blood body was born and will exist long after this flesh and blood body is dead ... only an identity can claim ownership of their own creation (the identity’s ‘own universe’ you referred to further above). RESPONDENT: This is what actually fascinates me. RICHARD: The identity, who used to inhabit this body all those years ago, was so fascinated by the wonder of it all ‘he’ voluntarily (willingly and cheerfully) pressed the button which would ensure ‘his’ demise so that this actual universe could become apparent ... and thus went blessedly into oblivion. * RESPONDENT: As for ‘the identity within is oblivious to all things actual, it cannot be watched anyway’ (it = the actual universe), then how can an identity be sensible to what you’re saying? Is it not the identity who writes on this mailing list? RICHARD: This is the way I usually put it: • [Richard]: ‘What one can do is make a critical examination of all the words I advance so as to ascertain if they be intrinsically self-explanatory ... and only when they are 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. Then it is the PCE that is one’s lodestone or guiding light ... not me or my words. My words then offer confirmation ... and affirmation in that a fellow human being has safely walked this wide and wondrous path. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 12d, 23 November 2000). RESPONDENT: The great number of objections to what you convey is understandable, as for an identity to agree to what you’re saying it would have to contradict its very nature: survival at all costs and if it would be an experiential agreeing, it will disappear. RICHARD: Ahh ... the word ‘altruism’, in the phrase ‘altruistic ‘self’-immolation’, refers to the more powerful survival instinct than the selfism survival instinct and is what ensures success (blind nature ensures that survival of the species takes precedence over survival of the individual by making the for-the-good-of-the-whole instinct the dominant survival instinct). Thus it could be said I am appealing to what is sometimes called one’s ‘better nature’. RESPONDENT: And how can anyone agree with you as there are so few PCE’s one experiences during life compared to the time spent busy being an identity? RICHARD: As a pure consciousness experience (PCE) is a direct experience of the pristine perfection of the peerless purity this actual world is then even a momentary experience (quality) will stand out amongst years of normal experiencing (quantity). SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE ON IDENTITY (Part Two) 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