# Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

Richard’s Selected Correspondence ## On Morals RESPONDENT: It is sensible not to be wasteful, you suggest otherwise Richard? RICHARD: As to not be wasteful is to be frugal, and as to suggest otherwise is to not advocate frugality, your query might be better addressed to a moralist, an ethicist, or a principlist. RESPONDENT: You are going to have to reword your response and actually address what was being said by me in order for me to understand your reply. RICHARD: You first made a statement – ‘it is sensible not to be wasteful’ – then asked me if I suggested otherwise ... essentially any respondent, to such an assertion-prefaced query, has two choices were they to make an alternate proposal: 1. It is sensible to be wasteful ... and: 2. It is silly to be frugal (or thrifty, parsimonious, and so forth). Or to phrase it the way you did:. 1. It is sensible not to be frugal (or thrifty, parsimonious, and so forth) ... and: 2. It is silly not to be wasteful. RESPONDENT: Your reply makes no sense at all in its current grammatical organisation ... RICHARD: As I am not a grammarian all I can say is that (a) the split infinitive ‘as to not be’ came about as a result of staying with your ‘not to be’ phrasing so as to not put words in your mouth and (b) because this is correspondence, and not an essay, a thesis, or a treatise, I often split infinitives ... just as I do verbally. RESPONDENT: ... [Your reply makes no sense at all in its current grammatical organisation], and I see no relevance to any morals or ethics anywhere in my query. RICHARD: What about to principles, then? Before you respond it may be helpful to know that, having been a parent myself many years ago (when there was a full suite of feelings/ an identity in situ in this flesh and blood body), I would oft-times importune my then children not to be wasteful ... and, as presumably your progenitors were no different in this respect, it would also be to your advantage to bear in mind that the socialisation process (aka cultural conditioning) starts at an early age. A society’s values – its cultural mores – are imbibed with the mother’s milk, so to speak, and are constantly reinforced, and added to thereupon up to the present day, with insistent regularity until one can barely think for oneself. RESPONDENT No. 78: It is sensible not to be wasteful, you suggest otherwise Richard? RICHARD: As to not be wasteful is to be frugal, and as to suggest otherwise is to not advocate frugality, your query might be better addressed to a moralist, an ethicist, or a principlist. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 78b, 12 February 2005). RESPONDENT: I think the question was clear enough. RICHARD: Aye ... and it can also be put another way, can it not? For an obvious example: • [example only]: ‘It is silly to be wasteful, you suggest otherwise Richard?’ [end example]. Also: • [example only]: ‘It is silly not to be frugal (or thrifty, parsimonious, or any other word of that ilk), you suggest otherwise Richard?’ [end example]. And: • [example only]: ‘It is sensible to be frugal (or thrifty, parsimonious, and so forth), you suggest otherwise Richard?’ [end example]. Not that it makes any difference as the end result, no matter which way it is phrased, is that I am being asked to either agree or disagree with an all-embracing/ all-encompassing statement/ assertion. RESPONDENT: The reply is evasive. RICHARD: My response is direct and to the point ... if (note ‘if’) I were to be drawn into turning the silly/ sensible appraisal, of each and every situation or circumstance, each and every moment again, into an all-inclusive/ across-the-board value-laden approach to life – as a matter of principle (or an ethic/ a moral) to live life by – I would be doing my fellow human being no favour. In other words: I clearly and unambiguously decline to be sucked into participating in the corruption of a remarkably simple and effective moment-to moment way of appraising the vagaries of life. RESPONDENT: I had to read it twice to actually get the grammar straight. RICHARD: I was given a blanket statement/ assertion and invited to either agree or disagree ... perhaps if I were to use the word ‘since’ and ‘because’ instead of ‘as’ it might be straight for you at first read: • Since ‘not to be wasteful’ is to be frugal, and because to ‘suggest otherwise’ is to advocate frugality, your query might be better addressed to a moralist, an ethicist, or a principalist. RESPONDENT: The question, as I understand it, was whether being wasteful is a sensible attitude, given the limitations of natural resources etc. RICHARD: My co-respondent had prefaced their query with two evaluations I was in no position to assess for myself – that they know many [quote] ‘sensible human beings’ [endquote] who would consider themselves environmentalists and whom are [quote] ‘just acting sensibly’ [endquote] about environmental sustainability – and a sweeping statement/ assertion (as in the ‘it is sensible not to be wasteful’ phrasing further above) so I responded to the only reference to sensibility I could meaningfully comment upon. As for your ‘given the limitations of natural resources’ comment: that is another subject entirely ... and one I was not asked about. RESPONDENT: He did not ask whether it is ‘ethical’ or ‘good’, etc., just whether it was sensible. RICHARD: The whole point of the silly/ sensible appraisal of one’s thoughts/ actions is to not fall into the trap of living each moment with pre-digested beliefs/ factoids as values – to be open (to put it into the jargon) each moment again to what is actually the case (to what is factual) in each and every situation – yet I was being asked to do just that. The problem with values – be they morals, ethics, principles (or cultural standards/ mores in general) – is that they can, and do on occasion, make one myopic and if one cannot determine fact from fancy in the ‘outer world’ what then of determining same in the ‘inner world’ whilst on the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition? What I have found, again and again, is that when one starts sincerely investigating something one soon finds that facts are remarkably thin on the ground. RESPONDENT: I wonder if I could go back there [move back in with my parents] and practice the AF method so that by changing myself and myself only that would automatically lead to alleviating my parents’ emotional issues. RICHARD: Given that your original plan, prior to coming across The Actual Freedom Trust web site a couple of days before posting your initial e-mail at 2:20 PM on Wednesday 2/02/2005 AEDST – which is six days before posting this e-mail – was to move back in with your parents and ‘help’ them free themselves of their interpersonal obstructions by serving as an example of spiritualist practice (via having had meditation practices/ buddhistic beliefs and having lived in a monastery/ sat four hours day) there is a distinct possibility that your current plan is an accommodation to your original motivation (filial/ tribal duty), non? RESPONDENT: That’s one of the issues I’ve been mulling over. I don’t feel attached to my parents in any filial sense, but I suppose the socially conditioned ‘ethic’ of keeping my promise to move back is what I need to examine more closely. RICHARD: As your promise was to move back in with your parents as an example of spiritualist practice (via having had meditation practices/ buddhistic beliefs and having lived in a monastery/ sat four hours day) – and not as a practitioner of the actualism method – is it not more a case of no longer subscribing to their beliefs and practices that is the issue ... rather than anything else? RESPONDENT: When I originally told my mom, she was ecstatic, and if I were to tell her that I changed my mind, I fear that I would cause harm, which goes against being ‘harmless.’ RICHARD: What the word ‘harmless’ refers to, on both The Actual Freedom Trust web site and mailing list, is being sans malice – just as being happy refers to being without sorrow – thus provided there be no malice generating/ driving/ motivating one’s thoughts, words, or actions, being no longer capable of fulfilling a previously made pledge can in no way be going against being harmless. None of this is to deny that another’s feelings may, and can be, self-induced to feel hurt as a result ... the simple fact of the matter is that if they choose to harbour such feelings that is their business. Put simply: one does not become either actually or virtually free of the human condition just to be guided by and/or run by other people’s feelings ... here is a classic example: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Fallacy are you man. Go to fuck with a duck and don’t bother me, idiot. My feelings are not extinct, as yours, and listening you is bringing to my ego a strong sense of repugnance. Is it clear, big sod? (...) You are a malicious sod, a repulsive cyber guru that gets me nausea because my feelings are not extinct and listening your shit is too much for my ego. Was not clear that you are a pure fallacy, was not clear my meaning? • [Richard]: ‘Am I to take it that, because you feel nausea (and, previously, repugnance) when reading my words, these feelings then prove that I am ‘a pure fallacy’? In other words, your feelings are to be taken as being the arbiter of what I am? Are you really telling me that I am to be guided by your feelings? I did not spend eleven years, delving deep into the depths of ‘my’ psyche (which is the ‘human’ psyche) exposing, and thus eliminating through the exposure, anything whatsoever that was insalubrious ... only to be run by your feelings when I came onto the internet to share my discoveries with my fellow human being. Look, it is this simple: for as long as you continue to be as you currently are then I am sure you will find, as a consequence, that other people’s responses will have the self-induced effect on you of you feeling nausea, repugnance or whatever other feeling that you may thus activate in that entire repertoire of feelings you nurse to your bosom’. (Richard, List B, No. 53, 17 May 2001). RESPONDENT: Is this fear part of the social conditioning package? RICHARD: Aye ... many years ago the identity inhabiting this body was conversing with ‘his’ then mother-in-law, painstakingly explaining why’ he’ was no longer able to do something – something which eludes memory nowadays – and was both surprised and pleased to hear the following words ‘he’ spoke in response to her reproachful ‘oh, you have hurt my feelings’ (manipulative) reply to ‘his’ carefully explicated account: • ‘Then why carry [harbour/ nurse] such feelings ... surely you leave yourself open to all manner of hurt by doing so?’ Needless is it to add that ‘he’ was to ask himself that very question on many an occasion from that day forwards? * RICHARD: Incidentally, and also given you said you are now not sure what your agenda is, does living with your parents whilst pursuing just the masters in physics (instead of the previously intended PhD) have anything to do with the convenience of ready-made board and lodging – aka the basic necessities of life – just as currently living in a monastery does? RESPONDENT: I won’t move back until I’m done with the masters, and living in the monastery right now isn’t really like how most people live in monasteries. I’m in my office at university all day (besides for surfing) and then I just go back to the monastery to sleep. So, moving back to my parents’ would be more convenient, but this wasn’t ever a big issue for me, because I’ve been on my own (necessities-wise) for 5 years and I do enjoy the independence. So this is minor compared to the aforementioned issue of benefiting my parents. RICHARD: In which case, then, that brings it all back to the issue of filial/ tribal duty ... because otherwise it would matter not whom you move in with (along with the intention of automatically leading to an alleviation of their emotional issues by practicing the actualism method in order to change yourself and yourself only). In other words, why not move in with Mr./Ms. Smith, of High Street, Any-Town with that intention? RESPONDENT: I don’t know how you wove religion, sages and an afterlife into E-Mail, as they have nothing to do with my views. RICHARD: I beg to differ. You wrote to me about guilt and morals regarding meat eating and non-meat eating. Morals – with their attendant feelings of guilt, condemnation, blame, opprobrium, censure, reproach, reproof, reprehension, shame, disgrace, mortification, humiliation, contrition, ignominy, dishonour, regret, remorse, mortification, embarrassment, abasement, self-consciousness, repentance and so on – have every thing to do with your views. I ‘wove’ (as you so cutely put it) ‘religion, sages and after-life into my reply’ because it is religion – and the Saviour or Messiah, the Avatar or Prophet, the Saint or the Sage – who invented this entire insidious edifice of negative feelings (and if you think that I am making this up or exaggerating, just reflect upon Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene who went about declaiming: ‘Repent ye, for the Kingdom of God is at hand’. As repentance requires that one goes through guilt, regret, remorse and then repentance ... and on to forgiveness and remission of sins, thus enabling one to enter into his After-Life, then I consider that what I wrote was not ‘woven’ in but fundamental to a clear understanding as to why a person would feel guilty about anything at all (eating meat for example). These ‘God-intoxicated’ people invented morals ... and they are all dead and buried ... if they lived at all. The peoples alive today are living – and feeling – the dictates of dead deities. It is utter nonsense, upon sober reflection, to be ruled by the morals of deluded persons who may, or may not have lived, two, three or four thousand years ago! RESPONDENT: When I was seven years old I asked my mother where meat came from. The answer was: animals. I felt guilty after I knew the facts. It was a choice I made, a moral choice. Just as I try not to harm or kill humans so too with animals. So I guess that means you’d kill 5 year old children by the dozen, without guilt, for any reason at all. Of course if you would not eat homemade human hamburgers you’d show a BELIEF that humans are ‘superior’ animals, as I remember the Christians saying for centuries. RICHARD: Where you say: ‘I try not to harm ...’ you give the game away. In actual freedom I do not harm anything or anyone whatsoever. I do not have to ‘try’ not to ... harmlessness is my basic nature. It is all so effortlessly easy. With actual freedom, I am pure innocence personified, for I am literally free from sin and guilt. I am untouched by evil; no malice exists anywhere in this body. I am utterly innocent. Innocence, that much abused word, has come to its full flowering in me. I am unequivocally able to be freely ingenuous – noble in character – without any striving at all. The pure intent, born out of coupling one’s intrinsic naiveté with the perfection of the infinity of the universe as unveiled in a peak experience, is so unlike the strictures of morality – whereupon ‘I’ the entity struggles in vain to resemble the purity of the actual – inasmuch as probity is bestowed gratuitously. I can live unequivocally, endowed with an actual grace and dignity, in a magical wonderland. To thus live candidly, in arrant innocence, is a remarkable condition of excellence. So why do you ‘guess’ that I would kill children and eat them ... and by the dozen, too? I have written about this utter freedom before ... have you forgotten? What are you trying to prove? That it is impossible to rid oneself of sorrow and malice and that one must forever be controlled by the self-whipping feelings of guilt that are intrinsic to that application of the morals laid down by these long-dead deities? Do you, or do you not, wish to live your life happily and harmlessly? In perfect purity and freedom? To live in the purity and perfection of the infinitude of this physical universe at this moment in time means not feeling the slightest urge to be eating children by the dozen – or any other bizarre scenario you might feel inspired to invent. Please, put some thought into your responses before firing off an ill-considered broadside like: ‘Homemade human hamburgers’. RESPONDENT: So you BELIEVE living for you is GOOD, death for you is BAD ... anarchy is BAD, invasions are BAD. Fighting invasions is GOOD. Most belief systems are BAD. My belief system is GOOD. But since I have no I, I have no belief system. I shit on my carpet because I see nothing BAD about the smell, or the work involved in cleaning it up. I cannot make any choices, so when I go to get food, I flip a coin to decide which food I will buy. But first I flip a coin to decide which shop to go too, as no shops are GOOD or BAD, if I made a choice between the two shops, that means I would BELIEVE one was GOOD and one was BAD ... Explain some more, or admit some more. RICHARD: Of course I can only go by the tone of your writing and the liberal use of emphasis ... but you do sound rather angry for a person who hopes to succeed in their avowed aim not to harm ‘fellow sentient beings’. Anger leads to hatred; hatred leads to aggression; aggression leads to violence; violence leads to killing. The answer is simple – and I do not have to ‘admit some more’. It is silly and uncomfortable to defecate on carpets ... and all those other things that you are so fired up about. Please, calm down so that you can consider cleanly and clearly the facts I am writing about ... and look at what your ‘self’ is making you think and feel and write. Please contemplate the matters raised attentively before you click ‘send’. RESPONDENT: While we’re on this topic – I recently read where you (Richard) regard having an ‘I’ as socially reprehensible – as in blameworthy. I’m curious as to just what constitutes being ‘socially reprehensible’ for you ... a mere thought or ‘temptation’ – or more concrete action. You have even gone to the point of using the term ‘guilty at conception’. I wonder what guilt could possibly consist of if not in action? To take this to the extreme – would an aborted foetus be ‘guilty’? Or possibly ‘socially reprehensible’? Is one guilty just because they have the potential to do harm? RICHARD: First of all a normal person does not have an ‘I’ (or have a ‘me’) as they are an ‘I’ (or are a ‘me’) ... and ‘I’ exist inside the body only because all human beings are genetically endowed at conception with a package of instinctual survival passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) which gives rise to emotions (such as malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion) and this emotional and passional package is ‘me’ (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’). And irregardless of whether ‘I’, who am the emotional and passional impulses, persuade the body to physically act or not ‘I’ involuntarily transmit emotional and passional vibes (to use a 60’s term) into the human world in particular and the animal world in general: therefore ‘I’ am not harmless even when ‘I’ refrain from inducing the body into physical action ... which is why pacifism (non-violence) is not a viable solution. Children also involuntarily transmit emotional and passional vibes (thus they are not born innocent as certain peoples maintain) ... and a foetus would too (albeit in a very rudimentary form). There is nothing that can stop other sentient beings picking up these vibes and/or picking up what are sometimes called psychic currents. This is because there is an interconnectedness between all the emotional and passional entities – all emotional and passional entities are connected via a psychic web – a network of invisible vibes and currents. This interconnectedness in action is a powerful force – colloquially called ‘energy’ or ‘energies’ – wherein one entity can either seek power over another entity or seek communion with another entity by affective and/or psychic influence. For example, these interconnecting ‘energies’ can be experienced in a group high, a community spirit, a mass hysteria, a communion meeting, a mob riot, a political rally and so on ... it is well known that charismatic leaders ride to power on such ‘energies’. Put simply: it is not violence per se (as in physical force/ restraint) or the potential for violence which is the problem: it is ‘me’ as the emotions and passions fuelling the violence, or fuelling the potential for violence, who begets all the misery and mayhem. Violence itself (as in physical force/ restraint) is essential lest the bully-boys and feisty-femmes would rule the world. And if all 6.0 billion peoples were to become happy and harmless overnight (via altruistic ‘self’-immolation) it would still be essential lest the predator animals should have the human animal for its next meal. Yet even if all the predator animals were to cease being predatory (à la the ‘lion shall lay down with child’ ancient wisdom) it would still be essential if the crops in the field be not stripped bare by the insect world. And so on and so on: taking medication – even traditional medicine – does violence to the whole host of bacterial life; so too does drinking water as one drop contains at least 1,000-10,000 tiny shrimp-like and crab-like creatures; even breathing does violence as a breath of air contains untold numbers of microscopic life-forms. RESPONDENT: For example, I don’t think I’ve done anything that would be considered ‘socially reprehensible’ by most people. Sure, I’ve stolen small amounts of money from my parents when I was a kid – not always told the whole truth – not always been the ‘stellar’ person I’ve wanted to be – but I have never hurt someone in a ‘reprehensible’ way. When I think ‘reprehensible’, I think murder, rape, abuse – all the atrocities in the human world. Now it’s possible that I’ve done something in my past that is ‘reprehensible’ and that it’s not currently coming to mind, but I’m curious just how you intend your usage of ‘socially reprehensible’? RICHARD: I do not necessarily mean it only in the way you describe – there are already enough people censuring behaviour without me joining in the chorus as well – as I am more interested in pointing the finger at the root cause of all the misery and mayhem: the identity parasitically inhabiting the flesh and blood body (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) ... and this entity is not only socially reprehensible by its very existence but individually insalubrious as well. No matter how well-behaved and well-adjusted a normal person is – urbane, polite, civilised, educated – they cannot help but generate malicious and sorrowful feelings from time-to-time ... and neither malicious feelings towards another nor sorrowful feelings towards oneself, or vice versa, are conducive to a happy and harmless life (be it the communal life or an individual life). And to then become loving and compassionate, either towards another or towards oneself, is to but gild over the negative with the positive ... with less than satisfactory results. And such has been the case for at least 3,000 to 5,000 years of recorded history ... the ‘tried and true’ is demonstrably the tried and failed. RESPONDENT: I’m not out murdering, raping, abusing people and that sort of thing – as many people are not. Is one ‘guilty’ just by having a ‘human nature’? RICHARD: Not by having a human nature ... by being human nature (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’): ‘I’ am guilty by virtue of ‘my’ very presence: it is ‘me’ as a psychological/ psychic ‘being’ (at root an instinctual ‘being’) who is guilty of being harmful just by existing ... but it is not ‘my’ fault as ‘I’ am not to blame for ‘my’ existence (if anything it is blind nature which is at fault or to blame). In the normal human world one is considered guilty where one does nothing about one’s human nature. Traditionally people try to avoid this ‘doing nothing’ guilt by living in accord with culturally-determined morals and ethics and values and principles and mores and so on. However, when push comes to shove, this thin veneer of civilised life can vanish in an instant and the instinctual survival passions can come surging out in full force (such as in peoples being trampled to death in the stampede for the exit in a theatre or cinema when there is a fire). I have had personal experience of the veneer of civilised life vanishing: I happened to be in New Delhi in October 1984 when Sikh bodyguards assassinated India’s Hindu Prime Minister Ms. Indira Gandhi after the assault by the Indian army on the Harimandir of Amritsar, the Sikhs’ holiest shrine. This set off a rampage of terror and violence that closed down the city for three days ... the normally ubiquitous police were nowhere to be seen for the entire period. I was there – with a nine year old daughter – and saw with my own eyes what happened: it was out-and-out internecine conflict ... after three days of unrestricted rioting the military came in with helicopters, planes, tanks, armoured vehicles, machine guns and so on and eventually law and order was restored by sheer brute force. The atmosphere – and the destructiveness I personally witnessed – was identical to my experience in a war-torn foreign country in 1966 when I was a serving soldier in a declared war-zone. The solution to all this is to be found in the actual world: in a pure consciousness experience (PCE), where ‘I’ as ‘my’ feelings am temporarily absent, it will be experienced that one is innocent for the very first time ... in a PCE there is not the slightest trace of guilt whatsoever to be found. ‘Tis a remarkably easy way to live. RESPONDENT: If the reason is that one is guilty by one’s ‘potential’ – wouldn’t it be smart to throw people in jail who fit the demographic for criminal behaviour – regardless their actions? RICHARD: Ha ... if people were to be gaoled for their potential then all 6.0 billion peoples on this planet would find themselves behind bars: anyone and everyone who nurses malice and sorrow, and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion, to their bosom has the potential to act, not only in socially reprehensible ways, but in ways which are personally insalubrious as well. RESPONDENT: Guilt by ‘potential’ is a strange concept – and I’m not sure it would fit any common usage of the word ‘guilt’ or ‘reprehensible’. RICHARD: Well ... as I said, the potential to act in socially reprehensible (and individually insalubrious) ways is traditionally held in check by morals and ethics and values and principles and mores and so on – all backed-up either by public censure and/or ostracism or by legal laws enforceable at the point of a gun – so it would appear that there is at least a tacit agreement that ‘guilt by potential’ is in common usage ... if only by implication. RESPONDENT: I realize this must be balanced with your view that nobody is to blame for having a self – though I’d like to read just how you balance the two, if you don’t mind. RICHARD: Perhaps this e-mail will show that there is nothing to balance after all as nobody is at fault or to blame for the human condition (and it is pointless to fault or blame blind nature for continuing to provide the instinctual survival passions which were necessary all those thousands of years ago). Now that intelligence, which is the ability to think, reflect, compare, evaluate and implement considered action for beneficial reasons, has developed in the human animal those blind survival passions are no longer necessary – in fact they have become a hindrance in today’s world – and it is only by virtue of this intelligence that blind nature’s default software package can be safely deleted (altruistic ‘self’-immolation). No other animal can do this. RESPONDENT: I also don’t intend these comments as an attempt to pin you down under self-contradiction – I know there are ‘ways out’ of these quandaries – I’m just curious about your view of these issues. Thanks. RICHARD: Sure ... I have always sought for that which is non-contradictory and would always look askance at any attempt to gloss over something contradictory by someone saying that it was a paradox one just had to live with. I have been unable to find anything paradoxical here in this actual world. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• P.S.: I am aware that words like guilty, reprehensible and culpable carry the implication that some person or persons (or peoples collectively) decide or have decided what is right and what is wrong or what is good and what is bad or what is correct and what is incorrect and so on ... a standard to be judged by, in other words. The following exchange should be helpful in this regards (especially so as you say in this e-mail that you have wanted to be a ‘stellar’ person): • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Who decides what is ‘personally insalubrious’ and ‘socially reprehensible’? • [Richard]: ‘Not ‘who’ ... peace-on-earth decides, each moment again, and relentlessly brings the wayward ego and compliant soul face-to-face with its own culpability, each moment again, for being the progenitor of all the ills of humankind. (...) The pristine nature of peace-on-earth is impeccable ... nothing dirty can get in. (Richard, List C, No. 1, 9 March 2000) Ain’t life grand! RESPONDENT: It surprises me to see morality thrown into a debate about truth. Morality (...) will stand in the way to honesty and truth. A lover of truth (...) is neither ‘moral’, nor ‘immoral’, but unconcerned about it; ‘amoral’, if you want. RICHARD: Indeed, yet a person is amoral only when they can totally and reliably be capable of spontaneously interacting in the world of people, things and events, in a way that is neither personally insalubrious nor socially reprehensible, at all times and under any circumstance without exception. The $64,000 question then appears to be this: Does the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) bestow such a remarkable freedom? RESPONDENT: Why? RICHARD: So that there will be peace-on-earth. RESPONDENT: Are you serious? RICHARD: I mean what I say and I say what I mean. How can one live in peace-on-earth if one is not capable, at all times and under any circumstance without exception, of totally and reliably and spontaneously interacting in the world of people, things and events in a way that is neither personally insalubrious nor socially reprehensible? * RESPONDENT: I mean, who decides what is ‘personally insalubrious’ and ‘socially reprehensible’ ... RICHARD: Not ‘who’ ... peace-on-earth decides, each moment again, and relentlessly brings the wayward ego and compliant soul face-to-face with its own culpability, each moment again, for being the progenitor of all the ills of humankind. RESPONDENT: What is the connection of this with ‘social reprehensibility’? RICHARD: If one nurses malice to one’s bosom, for example, one is incapable of interacting in the world of people, things and events with impunity. The same applies to ‘personal insalubrity’: if one nurses sorrow to one’s bosom, for instance, one is forever locked out of peace-on-earth. The pristine nature of peace-on-earth is impeccable ... nothing dirty can get in. * RESPONDENT: ... and why give such incredible weight to social conventions? RICHARD: If I may point out? The phrasing ‘neither personally insalubrious nor socially reprehensible’ is entirely equitable and contains no ‘such incredible weight’ being given to ‘social conventions’ at all. RESPONDENT: After all, ‘awakened ones’ have always been rebels. In some cases, such as ‘Jesus’, when they were alive they were criticized, and even killed, for being ‘socially reprehensible’. RICHARD: Indeed. Hence the $64,000 question: does the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) bestow such a remarkable freedom [that amorality indubitably is]? You would appear to be demonstrating, with your example, that it does not, eh? RESPONDENT No. 1: It surprises me to see morality thrown into a debate about truth. Morality (...) will stand in the way to honesty and truth. A lover of truth (...) is neither ‘moral’, nor ‘immoral’, but unconcerned about it; ‘amoral’, if you want. RICHARD: Indeed, yet a person is amoral only when they can totally and reliably be capable of spontaneously interacting in the world of people, things and events, in a way that is neither personally insalubrious nor socially reprehensible, at all times and under any circumstance without exception. The $64,000 question then appears to be this: Does the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) bestow such a remarkable freedom? (Richard, List C, No. 1, 7 March 2000). RESPONDENT: Interesting question. What is Morality? RICHARD: If I may point out? The question is about amorality ... not morality. RESPONDENT: It is just a standard given by society. Ultimately it is subjective and therefore not fixed. Some examples: I kill a fly ... is that moral? I kill another human being ... is that moral? I kill someone in self-defence ... is that moral? I kill someone who is going to kill lots of others (a potential Hitler type figure) ... is that moral? I kill someone who has killed my brother (revenge) ... is that moral? A judge sentences a killer to the electric chair ... is that moral? A professional killer kills for money ... is that moral? Before we can address the question we have to establish a standard of what is good and what is bad. There is no such standard. We can never know the whole story. Once you get the whole story, that which seemed to be good is then known to be bad. I could give an example (but I am not going to). In the Indian epic – Mahabharat – there is a scene where a king goes to a holy man to ask for a son who will kill his enemy, but the holy man refuses (on moral grounds). Instead he sends him to his brother, saying, he does not discriminate. When the kings goes to the brother the brother says ‘My brother thinks I do not discriminate between good and bad; that in not the case ... it is just that I have realised that we cannot discriminate between what is good and bad’. This is interesting because ultimately it is true ... sometimes we something bad, but the ultimate result is good. Good and bad in itself is made up by our own mind. That which helps me attain what I seek I call it good. Suppose I realise that there is nothing to attain ... there is just living. In the end I have nothing to attain. My body will die; all I attain will be left behind ... then what is there to seek? And how do I call something good or bad? Good and bad only exist within a context of desires and goals. RICHARD: You have my full agreement that morality sucks (as does immorality) ... this is not under question. RESPONDENT: If there is just living there cannot be good and bad. RICHARD: Does your phrase ‘just living’ represent amorality for you (neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’)? If so, what are the qualities that epitomise ‘just living’? Does ‘neither personally insalubrious nor socially reprehensible’ constitute equitable qualities worthy of the name ‘amoral’? RESPONDENT: Awakening is the beginning ... the goal of total enlightenment only happens (I believe) when we lose all desires. RICHARD: Okay ... but does the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) bestow such a remarkable freedom that amorality indubitably is? Is the ‘loss of all desires’ (including the desire for peace-on-earth) the factor that precludes amorality from happening in ‘total enlightenment’? RESPONDENT: Perhaps only when we leave the body. RICHARD: Are you saying that peace-on-earth is not possible? RESPONDENT: Until then we still desire to keep the body alive ... and to experience life. RICHARD: Yet is not this flesh and blood body entirely capable of keeping itself alive, via the autonomic nervous system, without ‘your’ desire (‘you’ who would ‘leave the body’ at physical death)? And whilst this flesh and blood body is alive (not dead), awake (not asleep) and conscious (not unconscious), does not experiencing happen of its own accord anyway ... without ‘your’ desire for experience (‘you’ who would ‘leave the body’ at physical death)? RESPONDENT: Awakening allows us to grow from day to day ... more awareness ... find out what we are really doing here. RICHARD: Hokey-dokey, but in the meanwhile, ‘what we are really doing here’ is causing wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and the such-like ... with periods of armed truce masquerading as peace and moments of happiness, snatches of gladness, glimpses of actual peace. For 3,000 to 5,000 years of recorded history, various ‘Enlightened Beings’ have been claiming to have discovered that which will right the wrongs of the human condition ... and for 3,000 to 5,000 years they have been abjectly failing to live up to their own standards (let alone bringing about their promised Peace On Earth). How on earth is one going to ‘find out what we are really doing here’ by following their failed example? * RESPONDENT: Let’s get to the heart of the matter. What I call ‘just living’ is beyond all morals. There are no morals. That is how a child inherently lives. A child may poke his mother in the eye. There is nothing evil in that – he is just experimenting – just playing. Now when we grow older we know that such an action causes pain so we would not do it. A child just lives. When he wants milk he cries. He doesn’t care if it is convenient for the mother. Now what happens when we grow older and realise that sometimes what we want may be inconvenient to others. This is the whole point of morals. Let’s say I decide I need £10,000. So I go and rob some bank, because I don’t care about others. Now that is not an acceptable form of behaviour. And if that is enlightenment then people will say ‘Well you can just keep your enlightenment. It’s not for me’. We live in a society – not in isolation. Society needs rules, and they need to be enforced because otherwise some people will take advantage. So we end up with the type of society we have. Enforcing the rules may cause reactions when some feel it is not fair. Lots of things are not fair. Reactions are the central issue. Reactions happen from hurt feelings and from resentment, when we take things personally. When we react we may perform actions that will deliberately hurt or harm others ... because we feel justified. This is also done on a larger scale – wars are started because a country may feel it is justified in taking a certain position to defend another country, or the rights of certain people. It is all about ‘I am right’ and ‘you are wrong’, which are all opinions. I am merely observing here – not taking a position. So now let’s compare this to an enlightened person – or an enlightened society. Ideally there will be no reactions. Each person does whatever they choose without deliberately hurting another. Sometimes another will be inadvertently hurt. That person does not react but just accepts it as part of life and learns from it – asks himself ‘What is life teaching me’ instead of ‘I’ll get that person back’. It is not a matter of forgiveness. It is much deeper – it is recognising there is no ‘wrong’ and therefore nothing to forgive. It is ultimately realising that whatever happens it is all for a reason – the advaita view – that we are not the doers. Whatever happens just happens – there is a higher purpose. This concept is a central part of many religions. Guru Nanak (Sikhism) talks of this a lot – that God is the Doer – and further says that once we live this way the ego disappears. We are not the doer and there in no more reaction. We want life to happen our way – but it doesn’t. Once we learn to take life as it comes there is no more reaction – we just accept. No more blaming – we live in acceptance of what is. We can still have goals – but we don’t get too concerned with the results. This is the central teaching of the Gita – Krishna explains this to Arjuna. True Morality then becomes a matter of being ourself – doing whatever we choose – just so long as we do not consciously harm another. It is having respect for the freedom of others too. Live and let live. Not the mechanical obedience of fixed rules – but living from the heart. Mechanical obedience of fixed rules creates a ‘good and bad’ standard and we then condemn those who fit into the ‘bad’ category, and this becomes the trap: we now condemn others – blame – this causes resentment. There is no way out. Reactions cause further reactions and before you know it you have WW3 on your hands. RICHARD: There are several key points that come to light in this exploration: 1. Where you say ‘a child just lives’ you are clearly stating that a child meets your criterion for ‘just living’ ... and that this is because what a child does is not ‘evil’. As the definition of innocence is the absence of evil, then you have to be indicating that a child is inherently guiltless (born innocent) ... which they are not. 2. Where you correctly observe that the child ‘doesn’t care’, it shows that a child is inherently inconsiderate towards others ... which means that the (supposed) innocence of the child has inconsiderateness as one of its qualities. 3. You observe that as the child grows older it realises the inconvenience caused to others by its unawareness of inconsiderateness ... thus what looks like innocence in a child is actually ignorance (not knowing). This awakening of awareness of others being the same as oneself is what is called ‘theory of mind’ ... and is what sets the human animal apart from other animals. 4. Where you state ‘we live in a society – not in isolation’ the ‘theory of mind’ undeniably signifies that, because one lives among one’s fellow human beings, one is as considerate towards others as one is towards oneself. 5. Where you say ‘reactions are the central issue ... reactions happen from hurt feelings’ I am in full agreement with your observations (which are essentially about the affective feelings): when a person’s precious feelings get hurt (either justified or not) the faecal matter hits the rapidly turning blades and sensibility is nowhere to be found. Nations (which are nothing more and nothing less than peoples collectively) have feelings just the same ... hurt is inevitable to anyone nursing feelings to their bosom. However, unlike individual emotional hurts (resulting in fisticuffs or whatever), nations these days hurl million dollar missiles at each other ... a nation’s ‘fisticuffs’ do far more damage and cause far more destruction. Yet it is precipitated by the self-same affective feelings that each and every person holds so dear. 6. Where you hypothesis that in ‘an enlightened person – or an enlightened society – ideally there will be no reactions’ you have to be referring to either (a) feelings not getting hurt (a coping method), or (b) no feelings to get hurt (the elimination of feelings). 7. You then propose that ‘another will be inadvertently hurt ... that person does not react but just accepts it’ which indicates you have opted for option (a) by proposing either: (1) fatalism, or (2) tolerance ... by your advice to ‘just accept it’. 8. You then propose a religious and/or spiritual and/or mystical or some form of metaphysical explanation (a ‘higher purpose’) for all the ills of humankind ... to the point of putting forward the notion (quoting an ‘Enlightened Being’s dictum that ‘God is the Doer’), that the Sikh’s God really did the killing of the 160,000,000 people ordinarily thought of as being killed by their fellow human beings in wars in the last 100 years. Likewise this ‘higher purpose’ accounts for 40,000,000 people ordinarily thought of as having killed themselves in the depths of despair in the same 100 year period (what mere mortals call suicide). 9. Then you introduce your ‘True Morality’ which says that ‘we do not consciously harm another’ as one of its qualities ... which is the same-same as virtually any society’s morality (which prompts me to half-facetiously ask whether if one does ‘consciously harm another’ then is this act called a ‘True Immorality’!). 10. Next, ‘respect for the freedom of others’ is another one of the qualities of ‘just living’ ... also just the same as virtually any society’s morality. 11. So as to distinguish ‘True Morality’ from virtually any society’s morality you insist upon ‘living from the heart’ as being the criterion that promises success. I sincerely question the advisability of placing absolute reliability on an affective feeling (or feelings) as being the ultimate guide/ authority on how to interact in the world of people, things and events as feelings are notoriously fickle. Maybe this is why ‘living from the heart’ has to be backed-up with a ‘True Morality’ ... presumably backed-up by God’s Authority? What I was curious about was whether your phrase ‘just living’ represented amorality for you (neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’) and that, if so, what the qualities were that epitomised ‘just living’? What I gathered, from your response, is that ‘just living’ is not amorality at all ... and is, in fact, predicated on a ‘True Morality’ that is based on (so far unnamed) heart-felt feelings and at least two clearly stated dictums regarding how other people are treated (with no stated qualities on how you treat yourself). Is this a fair appraisal? * RICHARD: Indeed, yet a person is amoral only when they can totally and reliably be capable of spontaneously interacting in the world of people, things and events, in a way that is neither personally insalubrious nor socially reprehensible, at all times and under any circumstance without exception. The $64,000 question then appears to be this: Does the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) bestow such a remarkable freedom that amorality indubitably is? RESPONDENT: If there is just living there cannot be good and bad. RICHARD: Does your phrase ‘just living’ represent amorality for you (neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’)? If so, what are the qualities that epitomise ‘just living’? <SNIP> Where you say ‘a child just lives’ you are clearly stating that a child meets your criterion for ‘just living’ ... and that this is because what a child does is not ‘evil’. As the definition of innocence is the absence of evil, then you have to be indicating that a child is inherently guiltless (born innocent) ... which they are not. RESPONDENT: Are you saying that a child is NOT born Innocent? Are you saying a child has evilness built in? I maintain that a child is born innocent. Please explain what you mean here. RICHARD: The hoary belief that all children are born innocent (the ‘Tabula Rasa’ theory) is dying a lingering death ... but dying it is. The genetic mapping project and brain imaging studies of recent times have conclusively shown empirically that instinctual passions (the survival instincts) are physically encoded in the DNA and/or RNA of every foetus at conception. These genetically-inherited passions include fear and aggression and nurture and desire ... and all sentient beings, to some degree or another, come biologically equipped with this rudimentary ‘software package’ of basic animal passions per favour blind nature as a rough and ready start to life. And the potential for malice with all of its derivations (including evil) lie latent in that ‘software package’. * RICHARD: You observe that as the child grows older it realises the inconvenience caused to others by its unawareness of inconsiderateness ... thus what looks like innocence in a child is actually ignorance (not knowing). This awakening of awareness of others being the same as oneself is what is called ‘theory of mind’ ... and is what sets the human animal apart from other animals. RESPONDENT: Yes – the child is innocent – but the innocence is from ignorance. This does not take the innocence away – it simply means it is a different type of innocence. The child is still innocent. RICHARD: I notice that you used the word ‘innocent/ innocence’ five times in this short response ... just repeating a hoary belief again and again like a mantra does not miraculously turn it into a fact. The fabled ‘innocence’ of child-hood (the ‘Tabula Rasa’ theory) turns out to be nothing more than a lack of knowledge, regarding the function that the instinctual passions play, on the part of those who invented that theory. Modern empirical scientific research has shone more than a little light on factors that the ancients simply did not yet know (satellite photographs and astronaut’s/ cosmonaut’s reports, for example, finally set the ‘flat earth’ theory conclusively to rest once and for all). A child is instinctively driven just as adults are ... only on a more rudimentary scale. * RICHARD: Where you correctly observe that the child ‘doesn’t care’, it shows that a child is inherently inconsiderate towards others ... which means that the (supposed) innocence of the child has inconsiderateness as one of its qualities. RESPONDENT: You miss the point here. The point is that the child is not aware of the qualities called ‘considerate’ or ‘inconsiderate’. RICHARD: Indeed not ... yet the child is inconsiderate (what you call ‘selfish’). RESPONDENT: The child is selfish – but there is nothing wrong with that – because the child is not yet aware that there are others to consider. So the child’s quality of ‘being selfish’ is not ‘evil’ or ‘bad’. It is innocent. There is no evil intent. RICHARD: I am not talking of the legal definition for culpability here (wherein the offender has to know that they are doing wrong in order to be guilty). This is not a court of law ... this is biology. RESPONDENT: So ‘Inconsiderateness’ is NOT a quality of the child. The child is beyond all concepts of ‘considerate or inconsiderate’. RICHARD: Of course, no child has the slightest notion of any concepts at all ... let alone ‘concepts of considerate or inconsiderate’. It is their instinctively driven action (behaviour) that I am referring to as ‘inconsiderateness’. Apart from many, many painstaking studies done by biologists in this area, I have personally seen children less than 12 months old spitefully pinching their sibling, for example. I am not suggesting for a moment that this child knows that they are being spiteful, yet spite (which is malice in action) is what is driving them at that moment ... and impelling them into anti-social behaviour (which behaviour, of course, they do not know is socially reprehensible). * RICHARD: Then you introduce your ‘True Morality’ which says that ‘we do not consciously harm another’ as one of its qualities ... which is the same-same as virtually any society’s morality (which prompts me to half-facetiously ask whether if one does ‘consciously harm another’ then is this act called a ‘True Immorality’!). Next, ‘respect for the freedom of others’ is another one of the qualities of ‘just living’ ... also just the same as virtually any society’s morality. So as to distinguish ‘True Morality’ from virtually any society’s morality you insist upon ‘living from the heart’ as being the criterion that promises success. I sincerely question the advisability of placing absolute reliability on an affective feeling (or feelings) as being the ultimate guide/ authority on how to interact in the world of people, things and events as feelings are notoriously fickle. Maybe this is why ‘living from the heart’ has to be backed-up with a ‘True Morality’ ... presumably backed-up by God’s Authority? RESPONDENT: I am not talking about a ‘fixed set of rules’ like a society may create. Such rules become the cause of the problem. Whenever someone breaks one of the rules, we brand them ‘bad’ or ‘evil’ or ‘criminal’. That is what we want to get away from, because it creates double standards. When I do something wrong, I justify it – but when others do the same thing I condemn them. Where is the forgiveness? Or even the tolerance? We end up with a society where lots of us are doing things wrong – but we don’t get caught. Those who get caught are condemned. Jesus said ‘let him who is without sin cast the first stone’. That means we are not to judge – because we ourselves are not perfect. I am just giving some bible quotes to illustrate that what I am talking about is not different from what major religions are really teaching. It is just that we cannot live up to what Jesus taught because we are not awakened. He is talking from an awakened viewpoint. We did not even tolerate him – we crucified him. Fixed rules do not work for this reason. Especially the rule that ‘ignorance of the law is not excuse’. How can one be guilty of a crime that one is not even aware that he has committed? Our society laws are so ridiculous. When I am talking about living from the heart; I am talking about being truly human – caring, loving. The opposite of how we tend to live in our society. No more blame, no struggle – just acceptance of life as it happens. The problem here is that I am trying to put into words something I find hard to describe – it is just a way of living. You have to experience it to know what I am talking about. RICHARD: I have experienced it – for eleven years – thus I do ‘know what [you are] talking about’ ... and it sucks. * RICHARD: What I was curious about was whether your phrase ‘just living’ represented amorality for you (neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’) and that, if so, what the qualities were that epitomised ‘just living’? What I gathered, from your response, is that ‘just living’ is not amorality at all ... and is, in fact, predicated on a ‘True Morality’ that is based on (so far unnamed) heart-felt feelings and at least two clearly stated dictums regarding how other people are treated (with no stated qualities on how you treat yourself). Is this a fair appraisal? RESPONDENT: No – totally unfair – just living epitomises being amoral. Beyond all morals. It is just I like talking about morality too. RICHARD: Perhaps you have missed the point that amoral means neither moral nor immoral? Because you talk of a ‘True Morality’ in your ‘just living’ and at least two clearly stated qualities regarding how other people are treated: (1) ‘we do not consciously harm another’ (2) ‘respect for the freedom of others’ which are the same as virtually any society’s morals ... yet here you say ‘just living epitomises being amoral ... beyond all morals’. Can you satisfactorily explain these conflicting statements ... without recourse to that mystical nonsense about paradox? * RESPONDENT: Awakening is the beginning ... the goal of total enlightenment only happens (I believe) when we lose all desires. RICHARD: Okay ... but does the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) bestow such a remarkable freedom that amorality indubitably is? Is the ‘loss of all desires’ (including the desire for peace-on-earth) the factor that precludes amorality from happening in ‘total enlightenment’? RESPONDENT: You talk about amorality as being a remarkable freedom. Yet you appear to want peace on earth. RICHARD: Morality is only ever needed as an antidote to immorality; where there is no immorality, there is no morality. Whilst one is busy being moral (desperately covering-up one’s immorality) peace-on-earth is nowhere to be seen. For example, when one ceases to nurse malice and sorrow to one’s bosom one is no longer immoral and the need for morality vanishes and peace-on-earth is enabled via amorality ... a remarkable freedom. However, you say ‘yet you appear to want peace on earth’ as if peace-on-earth is something opposed to a remarkable freedom ... whereas peace-on-earth is the most remarkable freedom. It is perfection personified. * RICHARD: What I was curious about was whether your phrase ‘just living’ represented amorality for you (neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’) and that, if so, what the qualities were that epitomised ‘just living’? What I gathered, from your response, is that ‘just living’ is not amorality at all ... and is, in fact, predicated on a ‘True Morality’ that is based on (so far unnamed) heart-felt feelings and at least two clearly stated dictums regarding how other people are treated (with no stated qualities on how you treat yourself). Is this a fair appraisal? RESPONDENT: No – totally unfair – just living epitomises being amoral. Beyond all morals. It is just I like talking about morality too. RICHARD: Perhaps you have missed the point that amoral means neither moral nor immoral? Because you talk of a ‘True Morality’ in your ‘just living’ and at least two clearly stated qualities regarding how other people are treated: (1) ‘we do not consciously harm another’ and (2) ‘respect for the freedom of others’ which are the same as virtually any society’s morals ... yet here you say ‘just living epitomises being amoral ... beyond all morals’. Can you satisfactorily explain these conflicting statements ... without recourse to that mystical nonsense about paradox? RESPONDENT: (1) not consciously harming another. I am not talking about morality here. I am talking about living in a way that recognises that we are all one. So one sign of this is that I would not consciously harm another. RICHARD: Yet when one does consciously harm another (when push comes to shove the animal instincts come to the fore) is this then called ‘True Immorality’ (virtually any society’s immorality writ large)? Because even the ‘Enlightened Beings’ demonstrate ‘True Immorality’ ... there are more than a few recorded incidences of ‘Enlightened Beings’ displaying both anguish and anger, which clearly indicates that the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) does not bestow such a remarkable freedom that amorality indubitably is. RESPONDENT: (2) Respect for the freedom of others – again I would allow others the freedom to find their own truth – so I respect their freedom. RICHARD: Yet when one does not ‘respect for the freedom of others’ (when ‘feelings get hurt and reactions happen from hurt feelings’ whilst busily ‘just living’) ... then what happens? Where is the amorality then? RESPONDENT: A society’s morals are different – they are a fixed set of rules, laws. RICHARD: Am I to take it that (1) ‘we do not consciously harm another’ and (2) ‘respect for the freedom of others’ are not ‘a fixed set of rules, laws’ then? This means, therefore, that an ‘Enlightened Being’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) can indeed ‘consciously harm another’ and ‘disrespect the freedom of others’ ... provided they are ‘being truly human – caring, loving’? Which means they can lovingly kill a fellow human being? RESPONDENT: People who break them are called criminals and they are ‘bad’. This creates the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ category – which is the root cause of conflict. The ‘bad’ are condemned so it is okay to ‘punish them’ – or in the case of countries to wage war against them. So the morals serve to create further conflict. In the ‘amoral’ case I do not enforce my way of living on others – I never call anyone ‘bad’. There is no more condemning. RICHARD: Put it this way (about that ‘no more condemning’ principle of yours) do you personally: 1. Condone rape and child abuse? 2. Approve of rape and child abuse? 3. Have no opinion about rape and child abuse? 4. Disapprove of rape and child abuse? 5. Proscribe rape and child abuse? Do you see what I mean about ‘unliveable edicts handed down by bodiless entities’? It is simply a fact that one makes appraisals of situations and circumstances each moment again in one’s daily life ... this is called making a decision. And all those wannabe ‘Enlightened Beings’ castigate anyone who thinks for themselves ... whilst secretly doing the very self-same thing (judging others). * RESPONDENT: You talk about amorality as being a remarkable freedom. Yet you appear to want peace on earth. RICHARD: Morality is only ever needed as an antidote to immorality; where there is no immorality, there is no morality. Whilst one is busy being moral (desperately covering-up one’s immorality) peace-on-earth is nowhere to be seen. For example, when one ceases to nurse malice and sorrow to one’s bosom one is no longer immoral and the need for morality vanishes and peace-on-earth is enabled via amorality ... a remarkable freedom. However, you say ‘yet you appear to want peace on earth’ as if peace-on-earth is something opposed to a remarkable freedom ... whereas peace-on-earth is the most remarkable freedom. It is perfection personified. RESPONDENT: I agree with you – no more malice and sorrow. When we all live that way then yes – we have peace. You can do that yourself – remove malice and sorrow – but how do you get others to do the same? RICHARD: By example and not just precept. Which means: putting one’s money where one’s mouth is (practice what one preaches). No more ‘inconsistencies; no more contradictions; no more hypocrisies; no more justifications; no more lame-duck excuses ... and so on. RESPONDENT: What you are seeking is impossible in a dualistic world. You want ‘good’ without ‘bad’. RICHARD: Not so ... when both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ disappear (which is the end of ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety) peace-on-earth becomes apparent. There is no ‘good’ and ‘bad’ here in actuality; and because there is no ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in the actual world of sensuous delight – where one lives as this flesh and blood body – one then lives freely in the magical paradise that this verdant earth floating in the infinitude of the universe actually is. Being here at this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space is to be living in a fairy-tale-like ambience that is never-ending. RESPONDENT: You want just ‘day’ and no ‘night’. This is the nature of this world of form. There will always be both sides. RICHARD: This is sloppy analogising. Both ‘day’ and ‘night’ are physical events which exist independent of human thought and feeling ... whereas ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are emotionally-backed mental constructs based on extinguishable instinctual passions. That is, ‘day’ and ‘night’ endure for as long as the planet earth revolves and the sun glows hot ... whereas ‘good’ and ‘bad’ exist only whilst one nurses malice and sorrow to one’s bosom so as to antidotally generate the compensatory love and compassion. RESPONDENT: Ideas like amoral or moral depend on the interpreter for their true meaning. RICHARD: Yet ‘ideas’ can never have a ‘true meaning’ – irregardless of interpretation – for the very nature of ideas is that they can mean whatever anyone wants them too. RESPONDENT: Yes, true if you live in a separated awareness ... RICHARD: It is also true when one lives in a non-separated awareness (a whole awareness; an holistic awareness; an integrated awareness; a non-fragmented awareness; an expanded awareness and so on). The very nature of ideas is that they can mean whatever anyone wants them to irregardless of one’s state of awareness ... unless you are positing infallibility in regard to a non-separated person’s ideas? RESPONDENT: ...it ‘seems’ that way, but if you really try to sense the feeling-tone of a thought, you can find out whether it has any energy to it or not. RICHARD: By ‘feeling-tone’ are you referring to the affective feelings? If so, then the ‘energy’ you are talking of is an emotional energy, a passionate energy, a calentural energy ... or any derivation thereof arising from the genetically-inherited instinctual passions (the survival instincts) physically encoded, by blind nature, in the DNA and/or RNA of every foetus at conception. As feelings are notoriously fickle, I sincerely question the advisability of placing absolute reliability on the affective ‘feeling-tones’ as being the ultimate guide/ authority on something so important as being totally and reliably capable of spontaneously interacting in the world of people, things and events without recourse to any morals whatsoever ... and without being immoral. Because this is what ‘amoral’ means. RESPONDENT: If not then toss it. This is how I try to navigate, or ‘be moral’ if you must. I don’t think in that way normally, I just go by sense of feel, if it feels strange, then it’s probably not something I want to pursue. RICHARD: Where you say ‘sense of feel’ and ‘if it feels strange’ you seem to be indicating an intuitive and/or instinctive ‘feeling-fed knowing’ to back-up the ‘ideas like amoral’ so as to legitimise them into having ‘true meaning’ ... which indicates that ‘true meaning’ translates as ‘it feels right’. And as is the case with any ‘it feels right’ feeling-tone or ‘it feels wrong’ feeling-tone ... one is back in the land of morality and immorality once again. * RICHARD: If so, is it ‘ideas like amoral’ that get ‘realised’ and not the actuality? RESPONDENT: It is your awareness that is affected by your thoughts, most people have a continual stream of deluded ideas which pollute the awareness and there are so many thoughts for the awareness to deal with that there’s hardly any room for the awareness to pay attention to anything else, such as the way life feels. RICHARD: As you say ‘the way life feels’ in your response to the question ‘is it ideas like amoral that get realised and not the actuality’ I would now re-phrase the question this way: Is it not so that it is the ‘feeling-fed ideas like amoral’ which get ‘realised’ ... and not the actuality? As morality/ immorality lies in the affective realm (the feeling faculty), how can the actuality of amorality (neither moral nor immoral) be found via feeling around for it in the self-same realm (among ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings)? Is it not so that actuality lies outside of the world of feelings? RESPONDENT: And Lord help us. All this verbal brute bullying is but unconstructive criticism. I communicate with my dog better than this, argumentative, accusing, pontificating, insulting, belittling, sarcastic, judgemental, condescending, snide, hammering repetitious bullying. This is not relating to your fellow human being without malice and sorrow at all. Rather you perpetuate it, monstrously! I used to think you had something important to share. I realise now I am no longer deluded. I can learn nothing in dialog with you, except how to perpetuate repulsion, that is what your whole manner evokes. Your ‘belief’ in your harmlessness is just that a ‘belief’, for it reflects in none of your words. RICHARD: I am somewhat bemused at your moral indignation, as expressed in this post, because you are the same person who felt it worthwhile to inform this Mailing List of what Mr. Ken Wilber had to say on the subject by posting his entire treatise. Some excerpts are as follows: • [quote]: ‘The great yogis, saints and sages accomplished so much precisely because they were not timid little toadies (...) one of the many reasons we have trouble with the notion of ‘ego-less’ is that people want their ego-less sages to fulfil all their fantasies of ‘saintly’ or ‘spiritual’, which usually means dead from the neck down ... gently smiling all the time (...) think of the great yogis, saints and sages – from Moses to Christ to Padmasambhava. They were not feeble-mannered milquetoasts [a person who is timid and unforthcoming], but fierce movers and shakers – from bullwhips in the Temple to subduing entire countries. They rattled the world on its own terms, not in some pie-in-the-sky piety; many of them instigated massive social revolutions that have continued for thousands of years (...) the sage who lives life offends us. We want out, we want to ascend, we want to escape, and the sage who engages life with gusto, lives it to the hilt, grabs each wave of life and surfs it to the end – this deeply, profoundly disturbs us, frightens us, because it means that we, too, might have to engage life, with gusto, on all levels, and not merely escape it in a cloud of luminous ether ... we do not want to surf the waves of life, we want the waves to go away. We want vapour-ware spirituality. The integral sage, the non-dual sage, is here to show us otherwise’. (Message 01795 of Archive 99/05) Now I am no saint nor sage – I have no religiosity, spirituality, mysticality or metaphysicality in me whatsoever – and in no way am I comparing myself to any of them by saying that I do find it odd that you take offence to the way I write ... to the point of telling me that I am ‘argumentative, accusing, insulting, belittling, sarcastic, judgemental, condescending and snide’ and that my writing is ‘hammering repetitious bullying’. But let us not take Mr. Ken Wilber’s approach as the final word on the subject ... as this Mailing List is set-up under the auspices of the ‘Teachings’ that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti brought into the world, it would be more pertinent to what is being examined to see how he wrote and spoke. In August 1998; Hans and Radhika Herzberger of the Rishi Valley Study Centre wrote: • [quote]: ‘Like an Old Testament prophet, Krishnamurti warned of abominations and appalling calamities; he pointed out ignominious, inhuman, nauseating, outrageous and pernicious conditions; he admonished cancerous, crooked, cruel, childish, false and irresponsible actions; he censured bestial, brutal, monstrous, treacherous and unnatural practices; he rejected barbarous, corrupt, oppressive, rotten, ruthless, stupid and immoral institutions; he rebuked disgraceful, disgusting, evil, foul and savage enormities; and he deplored filthy, ignoble, infantile, phoney, tragic, warped and wretched knavery that he observed in daily life. [These] words are taken from Krishnamurti’s working vocabulary. He regularly applied these epithets, and hundreds more like them, to the actions, practices, character traits, and social institutions that came under his moral criticism’. I will not copy and paste here as their Web Page specifically warns that ‘these materials have been edited in ways that suit the special purposes of this series and may not be copied or quoted in their present form in any other publications’. Therefore I will provide the URL so that anyone can read for themselves: www.kfa.org /RV-wp-9moralpassion.html Needless to say, it does not take long to send the search function of the computer through the officially accredited words and writings of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti to find that he repeatedly used words such as follows: • degenerate, self-gratification, petty, self-serving, rubbish, parasitical, scoundrel, childish, loony, gaga, psychopathic, silly, tommyrot, shoddy, bilge, self-righteous, mess, blasted, wicked, debased, charlatan, shabby, dismal, arrogant, dull-witted, warmonger, self-conceited, nauseating, quack, deluded, lunatic, puerile, stupid, worthless, self-seeking, immature, garbage, bigoted, avaricious, self-righteous, absurd, decrepit, lazy, rigid, self-centred, putrid, rotten, monstrous, bizarre, nasty, nonsense, self-absorbed, licentious, knavery, venomous, self-indulgence, vicious, self-justification, tawdry, self-aggrandisement, psychotic, self-worship, monotonous, self-interest, grotesque, self-glorification, shallow, subservient, pernicious, perverted, self-concerned, narrow, phoney, withered, self-assertive, impoverished, irresponsible, lies, deplorable, egocentric, treacherous, travesty, hollow, infantile, hideous, foul, fanatic, farce, crippled, cruelty, cynical, abomination, selfish, egotistic. slothful, self-important, bankrupt, appalling, trivial, sloppy, cunning, demented, mediocre, senile, irrational, sham, callous, wretched, useless, sterile, trash, superficial, ugly, aberration, deformed, disgust, sordid, decayed, warped, stupor, slavish, barren, barbarous, stinks, atrophied and sluggish. At this point I might ask: which ‘Lord’ are you beseeching to help you? RESPONDENT: But how far should I push morality in my pursuit of my self-centred ends? My ex- didn’t care about anything: law, values, her own daughter, in her ego-drive. Should I also throw everything to the winds and become as shamelessly dishonest as her? RICHARD: I can only suggest, it is your life you are living. In the final analysis, only you get to reap the rewards or pay the consequences for any action or inaction you may or may not do. Provided you comply with the legal laws and observe the social protocol you will be left alone to live your life as wisely or as foolishly as you please. Have the injunctions of the ‘Deathless Ones’ (the bodiless entities) really had that much influence on your thinking? You have just had a direct experience of the actual ... yet away you go into interpreting it according to the ‘Tried and True’. Speaking personally, I have pleasure by the bucket load – and take for granted that there is an endless supply – and thus enjoy and appreciate the world of people, things and events each moment again. RESPONDENT: You focus on one extreme of duality. You are in a prison called hell. RICHARD: If I may point out? It is you who focuses upon ‘one extreme of duality’ and not me ... you sit quaking in a gilded prison called heaven out of abject fear of an opposite (hell). Both exist only in your intuitive/ imaginative faculty born of the instinctual animal passions. There is a third alternative. RESPONDENT: The tiger eats a man. It just is. The tiger is not bad. RICHARD: This is a classic ‘straw man’ argument ... nowhere have I ever said that a ‘tiger is bad’ (just as nowhere have I ever said the human animal is ‘bad’). I long ago abandoned ‘good’ and ‘bad’ because far too many of my fellow human beings have been killed because of what is ‘good’... or savagely punished because they were ‘bad’. Look, when a human kills another human it is doing what comes natural (what you call ‘it just is’) and, like the tiger, is not ‘bad’ for doing so. However, unlike tigers, the human animal can think, reflect and plan for an orderly society wherein one can live safely with one’s fellow human beings ... hence the entirely sensible agreements called ‘laws’. Under these agreements, if you continue to do what comes natural like the tiger does, you will languish behind bars for 25 years to life. If you use your human intelligence (instead of your animal passions like the tiger does) you will find that doing what comes natural is silly. It is far better – and much more understandable – to appraise one’s actions being either ‘silly’ or ‘sensible’. It is simply silly to drive on the wrong side of the road, for example, because of the obvious danger to one’s own life and limb and others ... not ‘bad’ with all its judgmental condemnations of one’s implicit wickedness and wrongness. It is sensible to find out why one is driven to perform socially unacceptable acts, for instance, rather than to refrain from committing these deeds because such restraint is the ‘good’ thing to do. Because ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are emotive words loaded with reward and punishment connotations ... which is poor motivation for salubrious action anyway. Then one has dignity for the first time in one’s life. RESPONDENT: Do you live a moral life? If so, why? RICHARD: Being free from malice and sorrow, I am automatically happy and harmless. Thus I have no need for morals whatsoever. Morals are designed to control the wayward self. RESPONDENT: Would you lie, cheat and steal? RICHARD: If the situation calls for it, yes indeed. Whilst some semblance of social order prevails, such actions as stealing are not necessary. The government bureaucracy however, being adversarial by nature, occasionally calls for some creative massaging of the truth regarding my life-style. RESPONDENT: Which morals are your own and which are seen to exist already? RICHARD: Whilst not having any morals of my own, living in this particular country and benefiting from human ingenuity and inventiveness as I do, I am more than happy to comply with the legal laws and follow the established social protocols ... except for those that are too trifling to conform to and that I cannot be bothered observing anyway. For example: I do not vote ... even though voting is compulsory in this country. The unelected public servants actually run the country, so I could not care less which political party struts the stage. Mostly, their policies are knee-jerk reactions to public opinion polls anyway ... so when some earnest scribe knocks on my door to ask my opinion I invite them in for a cup of coffee. I then hold forth with my views on everything and anything until they stagger out the door with a glazed look on their face. It does not change anything at all, though. * RICHARD: It is impossible to imagine, not only the complete and utter cessation of ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety, but the end of any ‘Ultimate Being’ or ‘Absolute Presence’ in any way, shape or form. It means that no one or no thing is in charge of the universe ... that there is no ‘Ultimate Authority’. It means that all values are but human values, with no absolute values at all to fall back upon. It is impossible for one to conceive that without a wayward ‘I’ there is no need for either a compliant ‘me’ or any values whatsoever ... or an ‘Ultimate Authority’. This is what freedom from the Human Condition is. RESPONDENT: Regardless of what you consider to be no need for values, do you live your life as one with values or do you not? RICHARD: It is not a case of me considering there to be no need for values ... here there is actually no need for values. There is no wayward ‘self’ left that has to be controlled by what is only a socially implanted conscience anyway. As I am free of the Human Condition – which is epitomised by malice and sorrow – there is neither ‘Good’ nor ‘Evil’ extant ... therefore no necessity for a ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’. It is a truly remarkable freedom. RESPONDENT: Do you drink, smoke, hunt for women, lie, cheat, or steal? Do you overeat, over-sex, or over intellectualise? RICHARD: I must acknowledge that I sat and stared nonplussed at this sentence for some time. As I see no mention of all the genuinely terrible things that afflict human beings – like wars, rapes, murders, tortures, domestic violence, child abuse, sadness, loneliness, grief, depression and suicide – I find it difficult to take this question sincerely. Basically, you seem to have paraded your prejudices in public and are asking me if I believe in them too. RESPONDENT: If you do none of these things, there is no reason for you to have any conflict over your values. RICHARD: I am very pleased that you are not in any substantial position to stand judgement on the human race ... there are far, far worse things than smoking, drinking, womanising, lying, cheating, stealing, overeating and intellectualising, you know. Would it not be more important to attend to the sorrow and malice nestled firmly in your and every other human breast? What about the 160,000,000 people killed in wars this century alone? Do you think that they would thank you for going on a one-man crusade against all the drinkers, smokers, womanisers, liars, cheats, thieves, gluttons and intellectuals? RESPONDENT: Because you would already be in compliance with the higher values you say do not exist, if I understand you. RICHARD: I guess it would be clear by now that you do not understand me ... for if that lot (above) is an example of your god’s ‘higher values’ then no wonder the human world remains in the mess it is in. RESPONDENT: You have stated you have no anger, which is good if it is true. RICHARD: Not just no anger ... no sadness as well (not to mention all the other malicious and sorrowful feelings, passions, impulses and urges). And it is not ‘good’ ... it is salubrious. It means peace-on-earth, as this body, in this life-time. This is an actual freedom I am living and writing about ... not some self-righteous preening. RESPONDENT: Again, do you live in ways that would be considered to fall into the immoral category as they are commonly known? RICHARD: What do you mean by ‘considered to fall into the immoral category as they are commonly known’ ... are you not the person who has absolute values handed down from high? Because the ‘commonly known’ values vary from culture to culture ... are you asking if I have any relative values, then? That is, are you asking if I observe the social protocol of whatever culture is currently dominant? Are you asking me if I comply with the legal laws of whatever country I am living in at the time? Seeing that each particular country lubricates its social interactions with its own cultural proprieties – and enforces its legal laws at the point of a gun – if I wish to have a trouble-free social life I would be a fool if I did not. One of the benefits of being free of the human condition is that no restrictions are irksome ... which means no incipient rebellion to have to deal with. This is a truly remarkable freedom. * RESPONDENT: Again, do you live in ways that would be considered to fall into the immoral category as they are commonly known? RICHARD: What do you mean by ‘considered to fall into the immoral category as they are commonly known’ ... are you not the person who has absolute values handed down from high? Because the ‘commonly known’ values vary from culture to culture ... are you asking if I have any relative values, then? That is, are you asking if I observe the social protocol of whatever culture is currently dominant? Are you asking me if I comply with the legal laws of whatever country I am living in at the time? Seeing that each particular country lubricates its social interactions with its own cultural proprieties – and enforces its legal laws at the point of a gun – if I wish to have a trouble-free social life I would be a fool if I did not. One of the benefits of being free of the human condition is that no restrictions are irksome ... which means no incipient rebellion to have to deal with. RESPONDENT: You have avoided the question. RICHARD: I beg to differ ... you asked me if I ‘live in ways that would be considered to fall into the immoral category as they are commonly known’ and I gave a precise answer. I clearly stated how I conduct myself socially in whatever cultural environment I happen to be living at the time. May I suggest that you re-read what I wrote above? It is clear and unequivocal. RESPONDENT: You seem to be advancing the same position as the homosexual who contends that he is free of the blind dictates of morality. RICHARD: No ... nothing like that at all. Morality – and ethicality – seeks to control the animal ‘self’ that is formed out of those basic instincts of fear and aggression and nurture and desire ... a ‘self’ who is epitomised by malice and sorrow. It is the instincts that are blind ... blind in the sense that they serve only one purpose: the survival of the species ... and any species will do, as far as blind nature is concerned. RESPONDENT: Obviously one ought not to nurse malice and sorrow in one’s bosom. RICHARD: If I might make a suggestion? One is well-advised to not fall into that oh-so-conditioned trap of ‘ought not’s and ‘should not’s and so on ... it smacks of rules and regulations replete with the promised rewards and dire punishments so prevalent in both the normal world (the materialist world) and the supranormal world (the spiritualist world). These promises of rewards and threats of punishment have been tried and tried again and again for 3,000 to 5,000 years of recorded history and have failed and failed again and again for 3,000 to 5,000 years of recorded history ... there is as much misery and mayhem now as there was then. Put simply: peace-on-earth will not be enabled through ‘ought not’s and ‘should not’s and other forms of suppression or repression. It takes the sincerity of naively asking yourself why, for example, you get frustrated ... because with such naiveté the entire Pandora’s Box of feelings will open up for examination. RESPONDENT: About two years ago, maybe a little bit more or less, I wrote one email to Richard and I was discussing something about anhedonia. RICHARD: This is the e-mail you are referring to (complete with my response): • [Respondent]: ‘Dear friends, usually you are answering to emails by using dictionary and scientific definitions. Why shall then we must not accept the scientific definition that Richard is suffering from many mental deceases like unhidonia etc? When is convenient to you, you are using scientific definitions then why you are not accept the scientific definitions that Richard is seek? • [Richard]: ‘I copy-pasted the word ‘unhidonia’ into a search engine and nowhere on the internet did it score a hit ... as you have entitled this e-mail ‘One Question From Greece’ (and have previously said you live on the Greek island of Corfu) it is reasonable to assume that Greek is your native language. Therefore, if you could provide the ‘scientific definition’ of the word ‘unhidonia’ from the Greek medical texts then maybe the nature of your question will become clear’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44, 13 May 2003). As you never replied to my response that was the end of the matter (until now). RESPONDENT: This is a Greek word which means incapacity for pleasure. RICHARD: If I may ask? Is that the [quote] ‘scientific definition’ [endquote] of the word, then, from the Greek medical texts? RESPONDENT: But this is not important. RICHARD: Au contraire ... the [quote] ‘scientific definition’ [endquote] of the word is central to your question. RESPONDENT: The important thing is this: I spelled it wrong, because we still use this word in everyday vocabulary and I spelled it with the Greek sound, the Greek pronunciation. RICHARD: As I am only literate in the English language I had, and still have, no way of knowing how Greek words are spelt (hence, of course, my search for ‘unhidonia’ on the internet). RESPONDENT: I think I wrote anidonia. This is the original pronunciation, that made me sideslip. With both ‘i’ in the word pronounced like the ‘i’ in ‘inbox’. I think, that because of the subject I was discussing, about doctors that said to him, (as he wrote for himself in his journal), that he suffers from anhedonia, it should be easy for him to understand what I was meaning. He must have understood it from the direction of the discussion, from the line of the discussion. From the frame of what was told. RICHARD: Indeed I did understand that you were referring to the psychiatric diagnosis of anhedonia that features often on my portion of The Actual Freedom Trust web site ... which is why I asked for the [quote] ‘scientific definition’ [endquote], from the Greek medical texts, so that the nature of your question might become clear. You may find the following reply of mine to be food for thought: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Isn’t ‘self’ really (and literally) an after-thought? For example, humans instinctively respond to certain situations and then the after-thought actually creates the self? For example, an instinctive response to avert a danger, and then after-thought: ‘I could have died’. The latter, I think, is what constitutes the self. Similarly with pleasurable activities: it is the desire to have more that creates the self. • [Richard]: ‘Speaking personally, I have pleasure by the bucket load – and take for granted that there is an endless supply – and no ‘self’ gets created’. (Richard, List B, No. 33, 21 September 1999). You see, to just say that anhedonia means the incapacity for pleasure (as you did further above) is not at all scientific ... in the above exchange I am referring to sensate pleasure – such as the warming rays of the sun on the skin on a cold day, for instance, or the cooling currents of a breeze on the skin on a hot day, for another – and not to affective pleasure (as in the pleasure/ pain principle which spiritualism makes quite an issue out of yet never does eliminate). Here is my first question: does the [quote] ‘scientific definition’ [endquote] of the mental disorder, which you were asking your friends to accept and use, specify that it pertains to the absence of affective pleasure ... and not to an absence of sensate pleasure? Further to this point .... the following passage is how I have described the (affectless) experience of sensate pleasure: • [Richard]: ‘To feel pleasure affectively (hedonistically) is a far cry from the direct experiencing of the actual where the retinas revel in the profusion of colour, texture and form; the eardrums carouse with the cavalcade of sound, resonance and timbre; the nostrils rejoice in the abundance of aromas, fragrances and scents; the tastebuds savour the plethora of tastes, flavours and zests; the epidermis delights to touch, caress and fondle ... a veritable cornucopia of luscious, sumptuous sensuosity. All the while is the apperceptive wonder that this marvellous paradise actually exists in all its vast array’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27, 8 January 2002). Moreover, coupled with the inability to affectively feel pleasure is, of course, the inability to affectively feel pain (as in childhood hurts, for example, or as in grief, for another) – even though most, if not all, definitions of anhedonia only say ‘the inability to feel pleasure’ – which means that life is fun ... not at all serious. Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘Life here in this actual world, the world of the senses, is much too much fun to be serious – sincere, yes, but in no way serious – irregardless of what occurs in the course of daily life (...). Ain’t life grand! • [Co-Respondent]: ‘So would life continue to be grand if you lost someone close to you? • [Richard]: ‘As I have lost somebody, who could be classified in real-world terms as ‘close to me’ (there is no separation here in this actual world), I can answer from experience and not supposition: yes, life did indeed continue to be grand. • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Would you mourn for a second or longer? • [Richard]: ‘I did not ‘mourn’ at all – let alone for a second – as grief has no existence in actuality. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 56c, 14 January 2005). Here is my second question: does the [quote] ‘scientific definition’ [endquote] of the mental disorder, which you were asking your friends to accept and use, specify that it pertains to the absence of affective pain, as distinct from sensate pain, as well ... and not just to the absence of (affective) pleasure? * RESPONDENT: His answer was like this. ‘I searched all over the internet and I could not find any word like this. I suppose you as a Greek, you know your language. Spell it well and then your question might be answered’. (The words might be slightly different, but the meaning is 100% exact). RICHARD: You may have gathered, by now, that my response was not at all like that ... let alone 100% exact. Here it is again (so that you need not scroll up to re-read what I actually wrote): • [Richard]: ‘I copy-pasted the word ‘unhidonia’ into a search engine and nowhere on the internet did it score a hit ... as you have entitled this e-mail ‘One Question From Greece’ (and have previously said you live on the Greek island of Corfu) it is reasonable to assume that Greek is your native language. Therefore, if you could provide the ‘scientific definition’ of the word ‘unhidonia’ from the Greek medical texts then maybe the nature of your question will become clear’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44, 13 May 2003). RESPONDENT: Now there is something subtly hidden in what he said. RICHARD: As a suggestion only ... try taking my words at face value, rather than looking for hidden subtleties, as I always say what I mean and mean what I say. RESPONDENT: I am asking him, in the moment he was dealing with one unknown word that does not even exist in the internet, so unknown word that he tried to find out by searching the internet, how he knew that this unknown word, is a Greek one? RICHARD: As I was not dealing with an unknown medical term I knew, of course, that it was derived from the Greek language per favour a dictionary. Viz.: • ‘anhedonia [French ‘anhedonie’, from Greek, an- (without, lacking, not) + hëdonë (pleasure) + -ia (denoting state or disorder)]: psychiatry inability to feel pleasure’. (Oxford Dictionary). Also, the pronunciation guide has the ‘an-’ pronounced as an unstressed ‘un-’ (with the ‘u’ as in success) and has the ‘ë’ pronounced as the ‘i’ in the word sit ... or, in other words, precisely the the way you spelt it. Here is another instance (showing that it came from the Greek language): • ‘hedonic [Greek ‘hëdonikos’, from Greek, hëdonë]: of or pertaining to pleasure’. (Oxford Dictionary). RESPONDENT: And he referred in my native language? RICHARD: Given that you had entitled your e-mail ‘One Question From Greece’ – and had previously said you live on the Greek island of Corfu – it was reasonable to assume that Greek was your native language ... and that, therefore, you could provide the [quote] ‘scientific definition’ [endquote] of the word, from the Greek medical texts, which you were asking your friends to accept and use. This is, after all, a discussion list ... and clarity in communication is vital to meaningful dialogue, is it not? RESPONDENT: ‘I suppose you as a Greek, you know your language’. RICHARD: I had no way of knowing that you [quote] ‘still use this word in everyday vocabulary’ [endquote] in Greece ... I assumed, because you specifically referred to the scientific definition of the word (four times in only three sentences), that you were making reference to the medical usage of the term. For your information, it is not a word in everyday use in the country where I currently reside. RESPONDENT: Conclusion: when he said that he did not understood the word, he was LYING. RICHARD: If you could point me to the text where I said I did not understand the word it would be most appreciated. Here it is again: • [Richard]: ‘I copy-pasted the word ‘unhidonia’ into a search engine and nowhere on the internet did it score a hit ... as you have entitled this e-mail ‘One Question From Greece’ (and have previously said you live on the Greek island of Corfu) it is reasonable to assume that Greek is your native language. Therefore, if you could provide the ‘scientific definition’ of the word ‘unhidonia’ from the Greek medical texts then maybe the nature of your question will become clear’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44, 13 May 2003). It is a telling indictment on the human condition, is it not, that a simple request for the [quote] ‘scientific definition’ [endquote] from the Greek medical texts is taken to be turpitudinous? RESPONDENT: Is obvious and brighter than the sun. RICHARD: On the contrary ... your conclusion is inevident and darker than pitchstone. * RESPONDENT: Many people also on the list understood the word, and that became a subject. RICHARD: I am only too happy to copy-paste the following: • [Respondent]: ‘Dear friends, usually you are answering to emails by using dictionary and scientific definitions. Why shall then we must not accept the scientific definition that Richard is suffering from many mental deceases like unhidonia etc? When is convenient to you, you are using scientific definitions then why you are not accept the scientific definitions that Richard is seek? • [Richard]: ‘I copy-pasted the word ‘unhidonia’ into a search engine and nowhere on the internet did it score a hit ... as you have entitled this e-mail ‘One Question From Greece’ (and have previously said you live on the Greek island of Corfu) it is reasonable to assume that Greek is your native language. Therefore, if you could provide the ‘scientific definition’ of the word ‘unhidonia’ from the Greek medical texts then maybe the nature of your question will become clear. • [Co-Respondent]: ‘I don’t know why No 44 misspelled it but he obviously meant ‘anhedonia’, a word used often on the website. Richard either could not or would not recognise this. Once this was cleared up, Richard still did not answer No 44’ question. • [Richard]: ‘The way e-mail exchanges operate goes like this: 1. Person ‘A’ writes something; 2. Person ‘B’ responds to what person ‘A’ wrote; 3. Person ‘A’ responds to person ‘B’s reply to person ‘A’ initial e-mail; 4. Person ‘B’ responds to person ‘A’s reply to person ‘B’s reply to person ‘A’s initial e-mail .. and so on, and so on, until one or the other of the parties cease to respond (for whatever reason). If you could provide a copy of reply No. 3 in the above e-mail exchange, just like you provided a copy of reply No. 2, I would be only too happy to continue the exchange. • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Boring, n’est ce pas? • [Richard]: ‘If you could provide the [quote] ‘scientific definition’ [endquote] of the word ‘anhedonia’ from the English medical texts then maybe the nature of your boredom will become clear’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 70, 5 May 2004) As my co-respondent never replied to my response that too was the end of the matter ... discussion, it would appear, is the last thing some peoples want. RESPONDENT: Question: Is a liar FREE from the human condition? RICHARD: As your question is based upon an erroneous conclusion (as in your ‘he was LYING’ deduction) that you drew from a faulty premise – ‘when he said that he did not understood the word’ – which you predicated from a (non-existent) hidden subtlety, in a fabricated reply to your two year-old question you never followed-up on at the time, any query of that nature is a non-sequitur. RESPONDENT: The lie is the biggest human condition. RICHARD: Oh? And do wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides, and so on, pale into insignificance when it comes to mendacity (according to you)? You will take little comfort from the following, then: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Do you drink, smoke, hunt for women, lie, cheat, or steal? Do you overeat, over-sex, or over intellectualise? • [Richard]: ‘I must acknowledge that I sat and stared nonplussed at this for some time. As I see no mention of all the genuinely terrible things that afflict human beings – like wars, rapes, murders, tortures, domestic violence, child abuse, sadness, loneliness, grief, depression and suicide – I find it difficult to take these questions sincerely. Basically, you seem to have paraded your prejudices in public and are asking me if I believe in them too. • [Co-Respondent]: ‘If you do none of these things, there is no reason for you to have any conflict over your values. • [Richard]: ‘I am very pleased that you are not in any substantial position to stand judgement on the human race ... there are far, far worse things than smoking, drinking, womanising, lying, cheating, stealing, overeating and intellectualising, you know. Would it not be more important to attend to the sorrow and malice nestled firmly in your and every other human breast? What about the 160,000,000 people killed in wars this century alone? Do you think that they would thank you for going on a one-man crusade against all the drinkers, smokers, womanisers, liars, cheats, thieves, gluttons and intellectuals? • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Because you would already be in compliance with the higher values you say do not exist, if I understand you. • [Richard]: ‘I guess it would be clear by now that you do not understand me ... for if that lot (above) is an example of your god’s ‘higher values’ then no wonder the human world remains in the mess it is in’. (Richard, List B, No. 31, 15 October 1998 * RESPONDENT: I provoke him to put on the list the whole dialogue of this email. RICHARD: Presuming you meant that you invite me to do so – ‘provoke: invoke; summon, invite’ (Oxford Dictionary) – I have had no hesitation in acceding to your invitation ... two years later is not too late to have the nature of your question become clear, eh? RESPONDENT: He is very good in finding in his archives all the discussions. RICHARD: Of course ... if someone is concerned enough to spend their most precious asset – their time – by writing to me about a lingering issue it behoves me to ascertain just what has been said, by whom and when and how, if I am to respond meaningfully. RESPONDENT: Is a matter of morality and honesty to put it on the list. RICHARD: Whereas for me it is a matter of clarity in communication ... and, perchance, a furtherance of human knowledge. Speaking of which ... you posted the following extract, apropos of nothing, over five months later: • [quote] ‘They give the impression of being different, alien beings, having come from an entirely different world, living in the midst of a society which is dominated by feelings’, is the description given by Dr. Peter Sifneos, the Harvard psychiatrist who in 1972 coined the term alexithymia. ‘It is not that alexithymics never feel, but that they are unable to know – and especially unable to put into words – precisely what their feelings are’. Reading these passages made me feel strong empathy for the people that suffer from alexithymia. It is as though these people live in an alien world. I can imagine that they feel completely isolated and alone. Not being able to express your feelings has got to be very frustrating. I can’t imagine not being in touch with my emotions. I think it is important in life to be able to understand your emotions and feelings. I believe this makes us well-rounded individuals and helps to keep our lives in perspective. I know emotions can be very strong and influential, and if you are not capable of knowing or analysing these emotions it can be tormenting. I feel for people that suffer from alexithymia. I know I do not always enjoy certain emotions I experience, but I am grateful that I am capable of understanding what they are and why I am feeling them’. [Mendie Childers; ‘The Nature of Emotional Intelligence’ – X164]. (Friday 10/10/2003 AEST) ]. Given that you were asking your friends to accept and use not only the [quote] ‘scientific definition’ [endquote] of the mental disorder anhedonia but of alexithymia as well (as indicated by your etcetera) did the penny not drop, when you read through the above before posting it, that the way it is defined there – by the very psychiatrist who coined the term – is not the same as what Richard has to report in regards feelings, emotions, and passions? I had even spelled it out for you only nine days prior ... with an abbreviated official definition, in parenthesis, preceding the manner in which I define my condition: • [Respondent]: ‘Feelings have a location in the human brain. You have altered your brain for some reason. You know that mental diseases are not detected by magnetic topographies etc., unless a severe trauma happened to the brain. I mean one schizophrenia for example, not that you are schizophrenic, can not be detected with instruments. The diagnosis can only be made by observation of the symptoms. • [Richard]: ‘Just for the record, then, here are the symptoms I have been diagnosed as having by two accredited psychiatrists: 1. Depersonalisation (no sense of identity) as in no ‘self’ by whatever name. 2. Derealisation (lost touch with reality) as in reality has vanished completely. 3. Alexithymia (inability to feel the affections) as in no affective feelings whatsoever. 4. Anhedonia (inability to feel pleasure/ pain) as in no affective pleasure/ pain facility. Does this throw any light upon whatever it is you are getting at? (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44d, 1 October 2003). As you never replied to my response that was the end of the matter ... nevertheless do you now comprehend why your friends do not accept and use the [quote] ‘scientific definition’ [endquote] of the mental disorders Richard has been diagnosed as suffering from? * RESPONDENT: So I repeat because human thought by nature flies and forgets, I repeat, IS A LIAR FREE FROM THE HUMAN CONDITION? RICHARD: So I also repeat, for similar reasons, that as your question is based upon an erroneous conclusion which you drew from a faulty premise, that you predicated from a (non-existent) hidden subtlety in a fabricated reply to your two year-old question you never followed-up on at the time, then any query of that nature is a non-sequitur. At this point in writing this response of mine to your current e-mail I took a short break so as to type <logic> into a search engine and send it through all of your 372 e-mails to this mailing list ... and it returned 478 hits (which includes ‘logically’ and ‘logical’): as this indicates that you might have more than a passing regard for logic, that you rate it quite highly, is it impertinent of me to ask if you have ever received formal training in that field? Just curious. RESPONDENT: CAN SOMEBODY TRUST A LIAR? RICHARD: I always advise to throw trust out the window (along with faith, hope, belief, and certitude) and ascertain experientially that what is being reported/ described/ explained is actual and, thus, factual. RESPONDENT: He claims that he is the first FREE person from the human condition for 12 years and still he is lying. RICHARD: If you could point out, in the text, where I lied it would be most appreciated. Here it is once more: • [Richard]: ‘I copy-pasted the word ‘unhidonia’ into a search engine and nowhere on the internet did it score a hit ... as you have entitled this e-mail ‘One Question From Greece’ (and have previously said you live on the Greek island of Corfu) it is reasonable to assume that Greek is your native language. Therefore, if you could provide the ‘scientific definition’ of the word ‘unhidonia’ from the Greek medical texts then maybe the nature of your question will become clear’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44, 13 May 2003). RESPONDENT: Has this AF any value? RICHARD: Not to you, obviously ... so much so that I wonder why you keep on subscribing to The Actual Freedom Trust mailing list (this is the third time now) RESPONDENT: Is up to anybody to think for himself about the above. RICHARD: Let me see if I comprehend just what it is you advise anybody to think for themselves about: 1. You write an e-mail ... and do not reply to my response. 2. Two years later you write another e-mail ... and fabricate my answer. 3. You draw a (erroneous) conclusion from your fabrication ... and say that it (lying) is the biggest human condition. 4. You ask whether an actual freedom from the human condition, if lying were to occur, has any value ... and then do the thinking for them in a postscript (below) by saying ‘bye-bye AF’. Have I understood you correctly? RESPONDENT: P.S.: The above is something very big and serious, not something to be bypassed. RICHARD: Not so ... the above of yours is, being but a flight of fancy from beginning to end, of no consequence at all. RESPONDENT: If one person claiming to be free for the first time in humanity from the human condition is lying, then bye-bye AF. RICHARD: As this person could cheerfully, and thus convincingly, lie through his back teeth – if the situation and circumstances were such as to render it an eminently sensible course of action – then it would appear that a final farewell is in order. So ... bye-bye, No 44, and may the god of your choosing smile upon you. RICHARD: The only way societies will radically alter is by radical change on an individual level as it is individuals collectively who make society what it is. And this is where actualism is pivotal as it must be borne in mind that the way children are raised is in accord with the prevailing wisdom of the time (currently in the form of values/ principles and morals/ ethics per favour the trickle-down effect of spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment). Thus it is the flow-on effect of the words and writings of an actual freedom from the human condition – as in practically anyone now being able to be as happy and as harmless (virtually free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion) as is humanly possible – which is the most probable and realistic prospect, in the foreseeable future, for all of humankind ... and which is why I stress the importance of a virtual freedom. Although that is, of course, according to the current situation; the moment another becomes actually free from the human condition (especially if it be a female) that scenario may very well undergo a profound reappraisal. see also Formation and Persistence of Social Identity 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