# Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

Richard’s Selected Correspondence ## On How To Become Free of the Human Condition RESPONDENT: It’s strange that I can’t remember the times that I had fun. Can’t remember as in feel the same feeling now. I had a lot of fun tonight with friends. All we did was sit, talk, and joke around. It was fun. But once I got back home or started driving the less festive atmosphere started to set in. It feels as if I lost a part of my life because as much as I try to think back on tonight it’s like I just wasn’t there. It feels like life is passing me by and it is always a bit disconcerting to me. This particular sequence of events has happened to me before, but I usually find that the crash back into my less festive world is hard and heavy. I get lost in my cynical or glum thoughts that life isn’t always fun. But not so this time as when I realize this is happening I remember and pay attention to how I am experiencing this moment of being alive. And just the fact that this is the only moment of being alive is enough to dispel all of those thoughts as I realized at one point that to go anywhere else is to go into the world of imagination. Still I’m maintaining persistence in getting this thing running so that the momentum can build because there’s really nothing else that I want as much as this. I’m having incremental success in my application of the method. I find that the guide that Peter put on the website matches my experience so far. When I get lost in thoughts or feeling reality then I immediately pay attention to how I am experiencing this moment of being alive. I do find that the initial layer is the layer of ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’. I eventually get to a point where everything seems empty. I stick with it and try not to ‘move’ anywhere and eventually the fascination that it is this moment sets in and I am once more enjoying life. Still there is more work to be done though. There was something else I wanted to write but I can’t remember. Specifics....hmmm .. will have to come back to it. That’s all for now. (Subject: Re: Log, 30 Dec 2013) ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• RESPONDENT: Yesterday I had some results that showed me that I was applying the method correctly. It was undoubtedly an experience of apperception. But it was brief. I was in the kitchen and my grandma told me to clean some stuff since she was too tired to do anything. So I reluctantly agreed (I do not like cleaning the kitchen). As I was wiping down the counter tops I remembered ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’. And I was then again struck by the fact that it was this moment. Then as I stuck with that seeing that it was this moment of being alive I was pulled towards it. The pull itself was exhilarating and thrilling. Suddenly I saw my kitchen counter top for the first time. In great detail I saw everything but I wasn’t focused on anything at all. I experienced the very curvature of my eyeballs and everything became alive and three dimensional. This was in contrast to the ‘flatness’ of the real world. I found that I was delighting in cleaning the kitchen because to simply be alive was delightful. ‘I’ couldn’t stay back for long though as all ‘I’ could feel and think was ‘WOW! this is amazing!’. To think that all these ordinary things could be so extraordinary is wonderful. What have I been doing my whole life? (Subject: Re: Log, 31 Dec 2013) RICHARD: G’day No. 44, Your initial email – reproduced here as #161xx further above – almost prompted me to write a comment, when you posted it, as it clearly pinpoints the difference between a caused/ conditional enjoyment (‘I had a lot of fun tonight with friends’/ ‘all we did was sit, talk, and joke around’) and an uncaused/ unconditional enjoyment (‘the fascination that it is this moment sets in’/ ‘I am once more enjoying life’). (A caused, or conditional, enjoyment and appreciation has a beginning and an end – it is dependent upon situations and circumstances – whereas an uncaused, or unconditional, enjoyment and appreciation is perpetual, aeonian (beginingless and endless) and occurs solely by virtue of being vitally alive – being dynamically here at this particular place in infinite space at this very moment in eternal time as a sensuous, reflective flesh-and-blood body only – and thus dependent upon no one, no thing, and no event). Your follow-up email – reproduced here as #161xx above – unambiguously indicates you are indeed [quote] ‘applying the method correctly’ [endquote] and it quite remarkably reminded me of certain everyday experiences which occasioned the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago to both devise and (successfully) implement what has become known as the actualism method. What the question ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ – which ‘he’ formulated back in early 1981 – meant to ‘him’ was ‘Why is that experience not happening at this very moment?’ or ‘What is preventing that way of being here occurring right now?’ or ‘How come that wondrous world is not currently apparent?’ (and so on and so forth). By thus being vitally interested – with that degree of fascinated attentiveness – in this moment being the only moment ‘he’ was ever alive it soon became a wordless approach, a non-verbal attitude towards life, each moment again, and ‘he’ readily developed the knack of allowing apperception to happen as it is never not this moment (as in ‘time has no duration’/ ‘time does not move’) in actuality. (The experiential knowledge that this moment is eternal – that it is never not this moment in actuality – is the key to more instances of apperceptive awareness taking place). Now that you indubitably know what apperception is – as per your ‘It was undoubtedly an experience of apperception’ sentence – and how to evoke it (as in your ‘Then as I stuck with that seeing that it was this moment of being alive I was pulled towards it. The pull itself was exhilarating and thrilling’ sentences) you may very well come to look back upon this day as being the turning-point of your life, eh? Ain’t life grand! Regards, Richard. RESPONDENT: No, on second thought, I think I just don’t get the question. That is, it doesn’t make sense to me. Quote: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ The how has got me stumped. RICHARD: Affectively, of course ... that is how you are experiencing this moment. Look, let us not unnecessarily complicate things here. The ‘how’ simply means ‘what feeling am I experiencing right now with’ ... which is: ‘Am I bored?’, ‘Am I resentful?’, ‘Am I at ease?’, ‘Am I glad?’, ‘Am I sad?’ and so on. You see, peace-on-earth is here right now – the perfection of the infinitude of this universe is happening at this moment – and you are missing out on it because you are feeling what it is like to be here instead of actually being here. Hence: ‘How am I experiencing this moment’ means ‘What feeling is preventing the on-going experiencing of peace-on-earth?’ It is essential for success to grasp the fact that this is your only moment of being alive. The past, although it did happen, is not actual now. The future, though it will happen, is not actual now. Only now is actual. Yesterday’s happiness and harmlessness does not mean a thing if one is miserable and malicious now ... and a hoped-for happiness and harmlessness tomorrow is to but waste this moment of being alive in waiting. All you get by waiting is more waiting. Thus any ‘change’ can only happen now. The jumping in point is always here ... it is at this moment in time and this place in space. Thus, if you miss it this time around, hey presto ... you have another chance immediately. Life is excellent at providing opportunities like this. RESPONDENT: How briefly can your way be taught? RICHARD: The physical cause necessitates a physical solution (the extinction of the instinctual ‘being’ itself) and will not eventuate unless the temporary absence or abeyance of the physically inherited cause (a genetically inherited instinctual animal ‘self’) which created the problem of the human condition is intimately experienced, remembered and activated. This peak experience is known as a pure consciousness experience (PCE) and is essential to the process of freeing oneself from one’s fate and attaining to one’s destiny. The first and most important step is to remember a PCE (everybody that I have spoken to at length over the last nineteen years – everybody – has had at least one PCE) and thus start thinking for oneself (although most people cannot initially remember a PCE and may need a lot of prompting to retrieve it from their memory). Then each next step becomes obvious of its own accord in one’s daily life as one goes about one’s normal business in the market place. The pure intent born out of the PCE actively works on eliminating the animal ‘self’ bestowed by blind nature each moment again. It is essential for success to grasp the fact that this is one’s only moment of being alive. The past, although it did happen, is not actual now. The future, though it will happen, is not actual now. Only now is actual. Yesterday’s happiness and harmlessness does not mean a thing if one is miserable and malicious now ... and a hoped-for happiness and harmlessness tomorrow is to but waste this moment of being alive in waiting. All one gets by waiting is more waiting. Thus any ‘change’ can only happen now. The jumping in point is always here ... it is at this moment in time and this place in space. Thus, if one misses it this time around, hey presto ... one has another chance immediately. Life is excellent at providing opportunities like this. There is a wide and wondrous path to actual freedom: One asks oneself, each moment again, ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’? This can give rise to apperception. Apperception is the outcome of the exclusive attention paid to being alive right here just now. Apperception is to be the senses as a bare awareness, a pure consciousness experience (PCE) of the world as-it-is, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. Apperception is an awareness of consciousness. It is not ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious; it is the mind’s awareness of itself. Which means that attentiveness and sensuousness will facilitate what the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom is on about: a virtual freedom wherein the ‘good’ feelings – the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) are minimised along with the ‘bad’ feelings – the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful) – so that one is free to be feeling good, feeling happy and harmless and feeling excellent/ perfect for 99% of the time. If one deactivates the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activates the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (happiness, delight, joie de vivre/ bonhomie, friendliness, amiability and so on) with this freed-up affective energy, in conjunction with sensuousness (delectation, enjoyment, appreciation, relish, zest, gusto and so on), then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception). Thus, delight is what is humanly possible, given sufficient pure intent obtained from the felicity/ innocuity born of the PCE, and from the position of delight, one can vitalise one’s joie de vivre by the amazement at the fun of it all ... and then one can – with sufficient abandon – become over-joyed and move into marvelling at being here and doing this business called being alive. Then one is no longer just intellectually making sense of life ... the wonder of it all drives all intellectual sensing away. Such delicious wonder fosters the innate condition of naiveté the nourishing of which is essential if the charm of it all is to occur. Then, as one gazes intently at the world about by glancing lightly with sensuously caressing eyes, out of the corner of one’s eye comes – sweetly – the magical fairy-tale-like paradise that this verdant earth actually is ... and I am the experiencing of what is happening. But try not to possess it and make it your own ... or else ‘twill vanish as softly as it appeared. RESPONDENT: How many have you taught successfully? RICHARD: First, I do not teach anyone ... the PCE does that. I am not required for the process of understanding (as in a ‘personality cult’ that can grow around a ‘charismatic leader’). As facts and actuality can be commonsensically conveyed by the written word, this means that the third alternative to being either ‘human’ or ‘divine’ can be accessed by anyone discriminating enough long after I am physically dead. All I have ever wished for is for the words and writings of an actual freedom from the human condition to exist in the world so that they are available for anyone who comes across it, in any indeterminate future, to draw affirmation and confirmation from ... for anyone to avail themselves of if it be in accord with their own experience and/or aspirations. That is, it is an affirmation that their experience is not only valid but a confirmation in that a fellow human being has traversed this territory in an eminently satisfactory way. I just happened to discover the already always existing peace-on-earth, the purity of which is so perfect that I am reporting my experience to my fellow human beings. As far as I have been able to ascertain there is nobody else living an actual freedom from the human condition ... for nineteen years I have scoured the books to no avail. Now the information exists – and has taken on a life of its own – and I am well content and having so much fun. As I measure success by quality and not quantity it has exceeded my expectations already ... since going public but three years or so ago a handful of pioneers, with the requisite daring to abandon the ‘Tried and True’ in favour of a sensible, down-to-earth, non-spiritual path to an actual freedom, have had the audacity to achieve varying degrees of incrementally freeing themselves from malice and sorrow. If one minimises the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings (as explained above) and activates the felicitous feelings in conjunction with sensuousness then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness. If it does not ... then one is way ahead of normal human expectations anyway as the aim is to enjoy and appreciate being just here right now for as much as is possible. It is a win/ win situation. RESPONDENT: By the way, your method of asking how I am I experiencing this moment, and if its not good (i.e. happy and harmless), tracking the chain of events that lead you to this point (if I have understood the Actual freedom site correctly) makes 100% sense to me. RICHARD: You do realise, I presume, that feeling good (a general sense of well-being), then feeling happy and harmless, then feeling perfect (an excellence experience), are all preliminary steps towards the penultimate experiencing of this moment of being alive ... the direct experiencing (non-affective experiencing) of a pure consciousness experience (PCE)? The ultimate experiencing, if course, is where there is an actual freedom from the human condition. RESPONDENT: It’s the only method that interests me ... RICHARD: ‘Tis just as well as it is the only method on offer on The Actual Freedom Trust web site. RESPONDENT: ... and I’m not even sure that its always necessary anyway, as long as you are attentive. RICHARD: Hmm ... to say that being attentive to how one is experiencing this moment of being alive (the only moment one is ever alive) is not always necessary anyway as long as one is attentive is somewhat tautologous, non? RESPONDENT: Only if you act ‘unconsciously’ do you need to go back to clarify things a bit. RICHARD: Au contraire ... only if there is no pure consciousness experiencing (as in a PCE or when actually free from the human condition) is it necessary to be aware of / attentive to how one is experiencing this moment of being alive. RESPONDENT: Some other paths ... RICHARD: If I may interject? There are no ‘other paths’ to an actual freedom from the human condition ... there may be others yet to be discovered, but the actualism method on offer on The Actual Freedom Trust web site, being the only method in human history to deliver the goods, is the only one with a proven track-record. What I would suggest, at this stage, is to look once more at what is on offer on The Actual Freedom Trust web site ... paying particular attention to the very first words on The Actual Freedom Trust home page (immediately below the logo) before doing so. It would save a lot of needless repetition. RESPONDENT: Could you please, in detail, explain how that phrase is supposed to free the entity who is asking it from ‘being’? RICHARD: Certainly ... so as to save space I will refer you to the following link: (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive). Suffice is it to say for now, to enable the process to work its magic, is that it is vital to remember a pure consciousness experience (PCE) where one finds oneself walking through a world of veritable delight – the actual world of the senses – whereupon this ambrosial paradise called planet earth, with its sensuous quality of magical perfection and purity, comes alive in a truly wondrous way. Everything and everybody has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, scintillating vitality that makes everything vivid and sparkling ... even the very earth beneath one’s feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper ... literally everything is as if it were alive (a rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are). This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence ... the actualness of everything and everybody. We do not live in an inert universe. RESPONDENT: How long are you supposed to ask it? RICHARD: Until it becomes an automatic approach to life or a wordless attitude to living. Initially it will be seen that how one is experiencing this moment of being alive is usually via a feeling or a belief (sometimes cunningly disguised as a ‘truth’) – and a belief is an emotion-backed thought anyway – thus effectively blocking the direct sense experience. And for as long as one is experiencing this moment through a feeling – no matter how deep or profound the feeling may be – one is cutting oneself off from the splendour of the actual. There is an unimaginable and inconceivable purity right here at this place in infinite space just now at this moment in eternal time which far exceeds the most deepest, the most profound feeling of beauty or love – the actual is magnificent beyond ‘my’ wildest dreams and schemes – and this moment and this place is an ever-present ‘jumping-in’ point, as it were ... however it does mean the end of ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself). This is because ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings’ are ‘me’. RESPONDENT: Do you ever get an answer? RICHARD: You get an experiential answer (the PCE) ... which is the only answer worth getting. RESPONDENT: When you tire of asking that question do you die? RICHARD: No ... altruistic ‘self’-immolation happens when a rather curious decision is made – a once-in-a-lifetime decision – to psychologically and psychically die for the benefit of this body and that body and every body. All your childhood hurts and fears – in fact all your hurts and fears – die forever right along with the death of ‘I’/ ‘me’. RESPONDENT: Do you still have to ask yourself that question? RICHARD: No, only the entity asked that question ... it may help in your understanding to mention that I did nothing at all in order to be just here right now as it was the identity inhabiting this body that did the necessary work all those years ago. I have been here all along, for 55 years, having a ball. RESPONDENT: Do both the asker and the askee die? RICHARD: Both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul become extinct – as dead as the dodo but with no skeletal remains – which means that reality also vanishes ... and the actual world becomes apparent. It too has been here all along. * RESPONDENT: So, I am supposed to remember something (a PCE) from the past ... RICHARD: Unless a PCE is occurring at the moment where else would such an experience of pure perfection come from? RESPONDENT: ... and keep remembering it while I keep asking a certain memorized phrase over and over ... RICHARD: No ... I specifically said that it was a question to be asked, each moment again, until it becomes [quote] an automatic approach to life or a wordless attitude to living [endquote]. RESPONDENT: ...in order to rid myself of the past. RICHARD: No ... in order to rid the flesh and blood body of the parasitical entity who has taken up residence within (the instinctual passionate ‘self’). I have no problem with the past – or the future – whatsoever. RESPONDENT: And, this routine is supposed to render me as dead as the dodo. RICHARD: It will render both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul as dead as the dodo ... but with no skeletal remains (no childhood hurts or fears and so on). RESPONDENT: Sounds likely to me. RICHARD: Aye ... very, very likely indeed (this is not theory or conjecture but a report born from practical experience). RESPONDENT: I am growing weary of the research involved to continue U.G. discussion – so I would just like to summarize my conclusions. I don’t think U.G. can be easily assumed to be ‘spiritual.’ On the issue of the existence of a ‘thought sphere’ and ‘space,’ ‘time,’ and ‘matter,’ he is either contradictory, ambiguous, nonsensical, or plain wrong. Richard’s experience seems to contradict U.G.’s central thesis that ‘direct sense experience’ is impossible. This stipulation by U.G. that all ‘experience’ involves thought and knowledge seems untenable. There are many other indicators that other than the disappearance of the psyche, Richard’s and U.G.’s state may be worlds apart. RICHARD: Yes, 180 degrees in the opposite direction in fact ... Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti has it that nothing exists outside of his mind (consciousness gives rise to the universe) whereas the on-going experiencing for this flesh and blood body is that the mind does not exist outside of time and space and matter (the universe gives rise to consciousness). The actualism method (‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’) is a method specifically designed to bring about a direct experience of the actual ... the question is asked, each moment again, until it becomes an automatic approach to life or a wordless attitude to living. Initially it will be seen that how one is experiencing this moment is usually via a feeling or a belief (sometimes cunningly disguised as a ‘truth’) – and a belief is an emotion-backed thought anyway – thus effectively blocking the ‘direct sense experience’. And for as long as one is experiencing this moment through a feeling – no matter how deep or profound the feeling may be – one is cutting oneself off from the splendour of the actual. There is an unimaginable and inconceivable purity right here at this place in infinite space just now at this moment in eternal time which far exceeds the most deepest, the most profound feeling of beauty (or love) – the actual is magnificent beyond ‘my’ wildest dreams and schemes – and this moment and this place is an ever-present ‘jumping-in’ point, as it were ... however it does mean the end of ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself). This is because ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings’ are ‘me’. RICHARD: An open question is a seminal question: ‘I’ ask the question (what am I here for) in such a way that ‘I’ do not just get a carefully thought-out and reasoned answer and be satisfied with that. ‘I’ want an experiential result ... and ‘I’ keep the question burning in the depths of ‘my’ psyche, discarding any intellectual answers (no matter how accurate) that inevitably pop-up in the course of time. And then it happens as a direct result of keeping the question open. RESPONDENT: So there must be seriousness and a fatigue of seeking escape? RICHARD: As the goal is peace and harmony – what I describe as being ‘happy and harmless’ – then in no way will seriousness do the trick. Be sincere, yes – utterly sincere – but seriousness ...?? No way ... life is too much fun! RESPONDENT: Sincerity is my favourite cup of tea. Great! (it makes sense too). RICHARD: Good ... sincerity is sourced in naiveté. * RESPONDENT: Fortunately there is something else that may qualify if and when the thinker gets out of the way and there is that proactive fullness of the universe. RICHARD: Yes ... what you call the ‘proactive fullness of the universe’ is what I mean where I say that the essential character of the perfection of the infinitude of this universe which born me, is living me and will die me in due course, is enabled by ‘my’ concurrence. ‘I’ give ‘myself’ permission to allow this moment to live me (rather than ‘me’ trying to live in the present) ... and let go the controls. This ‘proactive fullness of the universe’ is enabled only by ‘my’ concurrence ... if ‘I’ procrastinate it will never operate. All one gets by waiting is yet more waiting. What am ‘I’ waiting for? RESPONDENT: It is as if one is holding one’s breath. I guess we’ll eventually pass out and then breathing will happen. Then the false idea that letting go of the breath is horrible will be revealed. RICHARD: Yes ... so when ‘I’ see that all one gets by waiting is yet more waiting ‘I’ ask the question (what am ‘I’ waiting for) in such a way that ‘I’ do not just get a carefully thought-out and reasoned answer and be satisfied with that. ‘I’ want an experiential result ... and ‘I’ keep the question burning in the depths of ‘my’ psyche, discarding any intellectual answers (no matter how accurate) that inevitably pop-up in the course of time. And then it happens as a direct result of keeping the question open. RESPONDENT: But I do not know if you really regard amorality as a freedom or a nightmare. RICHARD: Amorality is freedom ... a remarkable freedom from the human condition. To put it succinctly and specifically: peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body, living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are. RESPONDENT: How will it come about? Do you have a method? The idea is admirable and commendable. RICHARD: Good ... yes I do have a method: altruism. Who you think and feel and instinctively ‘know’ yourself to be has a job to do: When ‘I’ willingly ‘self’-immolate – psychologically and psychically – then ‘I’ am making the most noble sacrifice that ‘I’ can make for this body and every body ... for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is ‘my’ moment of glory. It is ‘my’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘my’ petty life all worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... to physically die without having experienced what it is like to become dead is such a waste of a life. There is an intrinsic trait common to all sentient beings: self-sacrifice. This trait can be observed in almost all animals – it is especially easy to see in the ‘higher-order’ animals – mainly with the parental defending of the young to the point of fatal injury leading to death. Defending the group against another group is also simple to observe ... it manifests in humans in the way that one will passionately defend oneself and one’s group to the death if it is deemed necessary. Speaking personally, as a callow youth this self-sacrificing trait impelled me to go to war for ‘my’ country ... to ‘willingly lay down my life for kith and kin’. It is a very powerful passion indeed ... Christianity, to give just one example, values it very highly: ‘No greater love hath he that lay down his life for another’. However, all of ‘my’ instincts – the instinctive drive for biological survival – come to the fore when psychologically and psychically threatened, for ‘I’ am confused about ‘my’ presence, confounding ‘my’ survival and the body’s survival. Nevertheless, ‘my’ survival being paramount could not be further from the truth, for ‘I’ need play no part any more in perpetuating physical existence (which is the primal purpose of the instinctual animal ‘self’). ‘I’ am no longer necessary at all. In fact, ‘I’ am nowadays a hindrance. With all of ‘my’ beliefs, values, creeds, ethics and other doctrinaire disabilities, ‘I’ am a menace to the body. ‘I’ am ready to die (to allow the body to be killed) for a cause and ‘I’ will willingly sacrifice physical existence for a ‘Noble Ideal’ ... and reap ‘my’ post-mortem reward: immortality. This trait is called altruism ... albeit misplaced. Thus it is ‘I’ who is responsible for an action that results in ‘my’ own demise ... without really doing the expunging itself (and I am not being tricky here). It is ‘I’ who is the cause of bringing about this ‘self’-sacrifice in that ‘I’ deliberately and consciously and with knowledge aforethought set in motion a ‘process’ that will ensure ‘my’ demise (‘I’ do not really end ‘myself’ in that ‘I’ do not do the deed itself for an ‘I’ cannot end itself). What ‘I’ do, voluntarily and willingly, is to press the button which precipitates an oft-times alarming but always thrilling momentum that will result in ‘my’ inevitable ‘self’-immolation. What one does is that one dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here as the universe’s experience of itself ... now. And peace-on-earth is the inevitable result because it is already here ... it is always now. ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ was merely standing in the way of this already always existing peace-on-earth from becoming apparent. The act of initiating this ‘process’ is altruism, pure and simple. RESPONDENT: My question is: how, or through what, or in which way, or what method should be used by a human being to be permanently free from the self, you mention above. RICHARD: Through psychological and psychic self-immolation for the benefit of both this body and everybody. To explain: there is an intrinsic trait common to all sentient beings: self-sacrifice. This trait can be observed in almost all animals – it is especially easy to see in the ‘higher-order’ animals – mainly with the parental defending of the young to the point of fatal injury leading to death. Defending the group against another group is also simple to observe ... it manifests in humans in the way that one will passionately defend oneself and one’s group to the death if it is deemed necessary. Speaking personally, as a youth this self-sacrificing trait impelled me to go to war for ‘my’ country ... to ‘willingly lay down my life for kith and kin’. It is a very powerful passion indeed ... Christianity, to give just one example, values it very highly: ‘No greater love hath he that lay down his life for another’. Also, all of ‘my’ instincts – the instinctive drive for biological survival – come to the fore when psychologically and psychically threatened, for ‘I’ am confused about ‘my’ presence, linking ‘my’ survival with the body’s physical continuation. Nothing could be further from the truth for ‘I’ need play no part any more in perpetuating physical existence. ‘I’ am no longer necessary at all. In fact, ‘I’ am a hindrance. With all of ‘my’ beliefs, values, creeds, ethics and other doctrinaire disabilities, ‘I’ am a menace to the body. ‘I’ am ready to die for a cause – and ‘I’ will willingly sacrifice physical existence for a ‘Noble Ideal’ ... and reap ‘my’ post-mortem reward: immortality This trait is called altruism ... albeit misplaced. To put it bluntly: ‘you’ in ‘your’ totality, who are but a passionate illusion, must die a dramatic illusory death commensurate to ‘your’ pernicious existence. The drama must be played out to the end ... there are no short-cuts here. The doorway to an actual freedom has the word ‘extinction’ written on it. This extinction is an irrevocable event, which eliminates the psyche itself. When this is all over there will be no ‘being’ at all. Thus when ‘I’ willingly self-immolate – psychologically and psychically – then ‘I’ am making the most noble sacrifice that ‘I’ can make for oneself and all humankind ... for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is ‘my’ moment of glory. It is ‘my’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘my’ petty life all worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... to physically die without having experienced what it is like to become dead is such a waste of a life. Now, it is ‘I’ that is responsible for an action that results in ‘my’ own demise ... without really doing the expunging itself (and I am not being tricky here). It is ‘I’ that is the cause of bringing about this sacrifice in that ‘I’ deliberately and consciously and with knowledge aforethought set in motion a ‘process’ that will ensure ‘my’ demise. (‘I’ do not really end ‘myself’ in that ‘I’ do not do the deed itself for an ‘I’ cannot end itself). What ‘I’ do, voluntarily and willingly, is to press the button which precipitates an oft-times alarming but always thrilling momentum that will result in ‘my’ inevitable self-immolation. What one does is that one dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here as the universe’s experience of itself ... now. Peace-on-earth is the inevitable result because it is already here ... it is always now. ‘I’ was merely standing in the way of this already always existing peace-on-earth from becoming apparent. The act of initiating this ‘process’ is altruism, pure and simple. RESPONDENT: Why did you succeed in self-immolate – in a permanent way – and some of us have succeeded only temporarily? What, or where is the basic difference? RICHARD: Why Richard? It stems from wanting to know, once and for all, just what was going on ... wanting to find out just what this entire business called living was. This mutation, which eliminated the entire psyche, was triggered by an intense urge to evince and demonstrate what the universe was evidently capable of manifesting: the utter best in purity and perfection which all humans could have ever longed for as evidenced in a PCE. There was also a congenital integrity – not being susceptible to blandishment and flattery – and dignity which became apparent with a certain quandary in ‘My’ dealings with others when it came time to reveal ‘My’ divine status so as to effect the desired result ... self-deception did not sit too well when it came to the nitty-gritty of interaction. Somehow ‘He’ knew that ‘He’ had intentionally chosen for apotheosis – cunningly disguised as being chosen – over the actual back in 1981. In hindsight, I would say that I was living out the fantasy of greatness partly out of curiosity. By doing so I discovered that it was humanity’s fantasy ... and I have always had a strong sense of individualism and the drive for autonomy. One other reason lies in my personal history where, being in a war, my life became a living nightmare ... literally. I was trapped in an horrific world of revulsion, dread and foreboding and in order to escape from the savage barbarity of the situation my mind somehow created a new ‘reality’ built out of the extremities of animalistic fear, which hallucination I would nowadays call ‘unreality’. Thus, back then, I escaped into a place where all is calm and peaceful that was not unlike being in the centre of a cyclone – all about rages fear and hatred, anger and aggression – but in ‘there’ all was apparently calm and peaceful. Thus I knew from experience that it is possible to create an ‘unreality’ in order to escape the grim and glum ‘real-world’ reality. 26 years later I came to realise that the ‘Greater Reality’ was nothing but another escape – the mystical realm is a culturally revered hallucination – and that completion was already actually here ... and had always been actually here now. There are three world’s altogether ... the natural ‘reality’ that 6.0 billion people live in and the super-natural ‘Reality’ that .000001 of the population live in ... and this actual world. I call it actual because it is the world of this body and these sense organs only ... and nary a god or goddess to be found. Both the grim and glum ‘real world’ and the Glamorous and Glorious ‘Greater Reality’ vanished when ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul became extinct. I would not – and could not – live a lie. RESPONDENT: You sound like a remarkable man and I would like to ask a question. I have been reading your posts with considerable interest, most of it I had already seen and I was trying to do somewhat the same but I found this gap. The gap between knowing that all sense of identity is a construct, knowing that all joy/ pain and happy/ sad is ego driven and knowing the internal-I can and should be rid from and actual dissolve-ment. I know that information is having effect but surely not as drastically as described by you so let me ask if something can be done, is it a question of time or simply more reasoning or more information. Also, could you affirm that all this is one happening in the now and that it is possible to experience it like that. RICHARD: Where you say ‘you sound like a remarkable man’, if you mean it sincerely I would like to congratulate you for your perspicacity, because I must emphasise that it is vital that you aspire to being a remarkable person yourself ... or else you will not succeed in ridding yourself of your sense of identity. This is very important, because people can put themselves down only too easily as being not good enough, not intelligent enough or not capable enough. I am not gifted or special ... I was born of ordinary parents, was sent to an ordinary state school – receiving an average education until I was fifteen years of age – took an ordinary job and worked for a living. I eventually got married and had four children and bought a house and ... in short, I was relatively normal and did all the expected things. Thus did I live my life for thirty two years according to the ‘tried and true’ methods as laid down by the countless millions of other humans that had lived before me. I tried my best to make their system work to produce the optimum result ... but to no avail. Only then did I make the first and most important movement of my own volition ... I discarded the ‘tried and true’ as being the ‘tried and failed’. (I did say ‘I was relatively normal’ because one thing, and one thing alone, stood out that distinguished me from whomsoever else I met: I wanted to know – as an actuality – just what it was to be a human being here on this planet, as this body, in this life-time.) Eighteen years ago I looked – actually looked for the first time – at the trees and the mountains and the rivers and the oceans and the sky and the clouds ... and the stars at night ... and just knew that this enormous construct called the universe was not ‘set up’ for us humans to be forever forlorn in with only scant moments of reprieve. It was all too big, too enormous, too magnificent and too marvellous to be forever a ‘vale of tears’. I realised there and then that it was not and could not ever be some ‘sick cosmic joke’ that we all had to endure and ‘make the best of’. I felt foolish that I had believed for thirty two years that the wisdom of the world I had inherited – the human world that I was born into – was set in stone. This foolish feeling allowed me to get in touch with my dormant naiveté, which is the closest thing one has that resembles actual innocence, and activate it with a naive enthusiasm to undo all the conditioning and brainwashing that I had been subject to. Then when I looked into myself and at all the people around and saw the sorrow and malice of humankind I could not stop. I knew that I had just devoted myself to the task of setting myself and thus humankind free of impurity and imperfection ... I willingly dedicated my life to this most exemplary cause. It is so delicious to devote oneself whole-heartedly – the ‘boots and all’ approach I called it then – to something so eminently worthwhile as invoking and actualising purity and perfection here on earth. Purity is an actual condition, intrinsic to the perfection of the infinitude of this universe ... the only one we have. A human being can tap into this purity by pure intent. Pure intent can be activated with sincere attention paid to the state of naiveté. To be naive is to be virginal, unaffected, unselfconsciously artless – in short: ingenuous. Naiveté is a much-maligned word, having the common assumption that it implies gullibility. Nevertheless, to be naive means to be simple and unsophisticated. Pride is derived from an intellect inured to naive innocence; to such an intellect, to be guileless appears to be gullible, stupid. In actuality, one has to be gullible to be sophisticated, to be wise in the ways of the real world. The ‘worldly-wise’ realists are not in touch with the purity of innocence; they readily obey the peremptory decrees of the cultured sophisticates. A sample of such decrees are: ‘I didn’t come down in the last shower’, or ‘I wasn’t born yesterday’, or ‘You’ve got to be tough to survive in the real world’, or ‘It’s dog eat dog out there’ ... and so on. Such people are said to have ‘lost their innocence’. Human beings have not ‘lost their innocence’ – they never had it in the first place. Innocence is something entirely new; it has never existed in human beings before. It is an evolutionary break-through to come upon innocence. It is a mutation of the human mind. Naiveté is a necessary precursor to invoke the condition of innocence. One surely has to be naive to contemplate the profound notion that this universe is benign, friendly. One needs to be naive to think that this universe has an inherent imperative for well-being to flourish; that it has a built-in benevolence available to one who is artless, without guile. To the realist – the ‘worldly-wise’ – this appears like utter foolishness. After all, life is a ‘vale of tears’ and one must ‘make the best of a bad situation’ because one ‘can’t change human nature’; and therefore ‘you have to fight for your rights’. This derogatory advice is endlessly forthcoming; the put-down of the universe goes on ad nauseam, wherever one travels throughout the world. This universe is so enormous in size – infinity being as enormous as it can get – and so magnificent in its scope, how on earth could anyone believe for a minute that it is all here for humans to be forever miserable in? It is foolishness of the highest order to believe it to be so. Surely, one can have confidence in a universe so grandly complex, so marvellously intricate, so wonderfully excellent. How could all this be some ‘ghastly mistake’? To believe it all to be some ‘sick joke’ is preposterous, for such an attitude cuts one off from the perfection of this pure moment of being alive here in this fantastic and actual universe. You write: ‘Let me ask if something can be done’ about ridding oneself of the ‘internal-I’. Something can definitely be achieved in regards to the socially-imposed identity ... one can readily do something about it if one is suitably motivated to do so. You write: ‘Is it a question of time or simply more reasoning or more information?’ ... to which I say yes to all three, but also something far more important than that. If you have followed what I have written so far, you will see it is a question of attitude, predilection, disposition and intent, because one can bring about a benediction from that perfection and purity which is the essential character of the universe by contacting and cultivating one’s original state of naiveté. Naiveté, as I have said, is that intimate aspect of oneself that is the nearest approximation that one can have of actual innocence – there is no innocence so long as there is a self – and constant awareness of naive intimacy results in a continuing benediction. This blessing allows a connection to be made between oneself and the perfection and purity of the infinitude of this physical universe. To reiterate: this connection I call pure intent. Pure intent endows one with the ability to operate and function safely in society without the incumbent social identity with its ever-vigilant conscience. Thus reliably rendered virtually innocent and relatively harmless by the benefaction of the perfection and purity, one can begin to dismantle the now-redundant social identity. To unilaterally relinquish one’s esteemed identity is to go in the face of all received wisdom. Any psychiatrist would readily advise against such a foolish move – they will state that one would fall into a condition of mental and emotional ill-health. They would diagnose that one is likely to suffer from a severe mental disorder – probably ‘Depersonalisation’ and ‘Derealisation’ – with its accompanying anxiety and panic attacks, resulting in the prescribing of anti-psychotropic medication and prolonged psychological counselling. To ‘lose one’s identity’ and to ‘lose contact with reality’ is considered a very serious psychiatric illness indeed. So one must proceed carefully – with the indispensable aid of pure intent – in order to dismantle, step by step, one’s accrued identity and reality. It is important to examine all the beliefs – masquerading as ‘truths’ – that one has accumulated since birth. These beliefs support and encourage the emergence of the much-prized psychological entity inhabiting the psyche of all human beings. This apparent disembowelment is initially resisted, for not only has it never been contemplated before, it also goes against the egocentric, ethnocentric and anthropocentric mind-sets that all humans have been endowed with since time immemorial. It is a radical break with the past ... something akin to an evolutionary mutation, so personally seditious is its revolutionary opening gambit. In order to mutate from the self-centred licentiousness to a self-less sensualism, one must have confidence in the ultimate beneficence of the universe. This confidence – this surety – can be gained from a peak experience, wherein ‘I’, the psychological entity, temporarily ceases to exist and reality becomes actuality. This is called a pure consciousness experience (PCE). Life is briefly seen to be already perfect and innocent ... it is a life-changing experience. One is physically experiencing first-hand, albeit momentarily, this actual world – a spontaneously benevolent world – that antedates the ‘normal’ world. The ‘normal’ world is commonly known as ‘the real world’ or ‘reality’. Repeated peak experiences can be brought about on virtually a daily basis with constant application of pure contemplation of the actual. In pure contemplation, ‘I’, the identity, cease seeing and seeing takes place of its own accord ... this is called apperception, which is defined as ‘the mind’s perception of itself’. Then this actual world – this benign world – that the ‘real world’ was superimposed over, becomes apparent ... except that ‘I’ am not here to experience it. ‘I’ can never be here in this actual world for ‘I’ am an interloper, an alien in psychic possession of the body. ‘I’ do not belong here. All this is impossible to imagine which is why it is essential to be confident that the actual world does exist. This confidence is born out of knowing, which is derived from the PCE in the peak experience, and is an essential ingredient to ensure success. One does not have to generate confidence oneself – as the religions require of one with regard to their blind faith – the purity of the actual world bestows this confidence upon one. The experience of purity is a benefaction. Out of this blessing comes that pure intent, which will consistently guide one through the travails of daily life, gently ushering in an increasing ease and generosity of character. With this growing magnanimity, one becomes more and more anonymous, more and more self-less. With this expanding altruism one becomes less and less self-centred, less and less egocentric and soul-oriented. Eventually the moment comes wherein something definitive happens, physically, inside the brain and ‘I’ am nevermore. ‘Being’ ceases – it was only a psychic apparition anyway – and malice and sorrow are gone, forever, in one human being. So yes, you are correct where you say: ‘All this is one happening in the now’, for only this moment in time and this place in space are actual here and now. This time and place is the arena wherein the infinitude – the eternity and infinity of time and space – of this physical universe becomes apparent. Thus I am the universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being. This on-going experience is ambrosial, to say the least. And yes, it is possible to ‘experience it like that’ ... everyday, for the rest of your life. Does all this go some way to explicating just what the ‘gap’ is where you wrote: ‘The gap between knowing that all sense of identity is a construct ... and actual dissolve-ment.’? RICHARD: The Oxford dictionary defines apperception as being ‘the mind’s perception of itself’. It is where ‘I’, the self, cease to function as a perceiver and perception happens of itself. This is known as a ‘pure consciousness experience’ (or PCE for short) and is remarkably obvious during a peak experience. A peak experience is when everything is seen to be already perfect – it always has been and always will be – and that ‘I’, the self, have been standing in the way of the perfection being apparent. RESPONDENT: Very interesting. Okay, so much for the theory. Give me some nuts and bolts. How do I do this while eating a hamburger? RICHARD: By appreciating the fact that, at this moment of biting into this hamburger, this is the only moment that I am actually alive. All past ‘me’s and all future ‘me’s have no actuality at all. I am only ever here, now. Likewise, all past hamburgers and all future hamburgers do not exist at this moment ... they are either memory or expectation and have no substantial existence. Of all the hamburgers I have ever eaten or will ever eat, only this one actually exists. This hamburger and I – and all that is around and about me at this moment – are it what we are living for. To experience this moment in time and this place in space fully is the whole point of existence. I am the universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being ... and I am biting into a hamburger. The taste buds on the tongue are relishing the explosion of sensation; the nasal receptors are satisfying their ability to smell the delicious aromas that waft endlessly past; the eyes are delighting in the colours and the form of whatever is in view; the ears are pleasing themselves in being able to hear the sounds of this moment’s happenings; the fingertips are enjoying the touch of the texture of this hamburger; the skin is gratifying itself with the feel of the air all about ... all this and more – the awareness of all this happening – is me at-this-moment. I do not exist over time or from place to place. I am only ever here now. Any ‘I’ that appears to have a duration is a psychological entity – a cognitive and affective construct – which in no way is substantive. This construct is that intuition of ‘being’ – a ‘presence’ – that one mistakenly thinks and feels oneself to be. One has ‘been’ in the past, one is ‘being’ in the present, and one will ‘be’ in the future. That ‘being’ is what one calls ‘I’, taking it to be me; me as-I-am. ‘I’ was, ‘I’ am, ‘I’ will ‘be’ ... this sense of continuity, a psychological entity called ‘me’ existing over time, is not me as-I-am. I do not exist over time; I exist only as this moment exists, and now has no duration. Everything is immediate and direct. This is apperception. Apperception is when the immediate is experienced as the ultimate. Time has no duration when the immediate is the ultimate and the relative is the absolute. This moment takes no interval at all to be here now. Thus it appears that it is as if nothing has occurred, for not only is the future not here, but the past does not exist either. If there is no beginning and no end, is there a middle? There are things happening, but nothing has happened or will happen ... or so it seems. Only this moment exists. This moment has no term, it takes no time at all to occur ... which gives rise to the inaccurate notion that it is timeless. This is an institutionalised delusion, for it stems from the egocentric feeling that ‘I’ am Immortal, that ‘I’ am Eternal. Apperception – which is the mind’s perception of itself – reveals that this moment is hanging in eternal time ... just as this planet is hanging in infinite space. This moment and this place are in the realm of the infinitude of this actual physical universe. This physical universe is infinite and eternal. It has no beginning and no ending ... and therefore no middle. There are no edges to this universe, which means that there is no centre, either. We are all coming from nowhere and are not going anywhere for there is nowhere to come from nor anywhere to go to. We are nowhere in particular ... which means we are anywhere at all. In the infinitude of the universe one finds oneself to be already here, and as it is always now, one can not get away from this place in space and this moment in time. By being here as-this-body one finds that this moment in time has no duration as in now and then – because the immediate is the ultimate – and that this place in space has no distance as in here and there – for the relative is the absolute. I am always here and it is already now. This moment is perennial, not timeless. I am perpetually here – for the term of my natural life – as this moment is; I am not Eternally Present. It is the universe that is eternal ... not me. As one is the universe experiencing itself as a sensate human being, any ‘I’ – always on the look-out for self-aggrandisement – grabs the universe’s eternity for itself. Also, what helps to create the feeling that the present is timeless is that human beings – as an identity – are normally out of this universe’s eternal time. Yet time is as intimate as this body being here now at this moment. It is so intimate that I – as a body only – am not separate from it. Whereas ‘I’, as a human ‘being’, have separated ‘myself’ from eternal time by being an entity. To be an ontological ‘being’ is to mistakenly take this body being here as containing an ‘I’, a psychological or psychic entity. To ‘be’ is to take this moment of being alive personally ... as being proof of ‘my’ subjective existence. ‘I’ am an illusion; if ‘I’ think and feel that ‘I’ do exist, then ‘I’ am outside of eternal time. ‘I’ am forever complaining that there is ‘not enough hours in the day’, or ‘I am always running out of time’, or ‘I am always catching up with time’, or ‘I am always behind time’. All this activity is considered ‘normal’, as it is the common experience of humankind. To be an entity is to be forever locked-out of eternal time. Complete security lies inside eternal time. ‘I’ will never look into eternal time; for ‘me’ eternal time is an enemy to be avoided at all costs. ‘I’ condemn ‘myself’ to the endless creation of grandiose schemes to save my soul; ‘I’ concoct all kinds of fantasies about Other-Worldly Dimensions. ‘I’ have to believe in multitudinous Heavenly Kingdoms wherein ‘I’ can reside as an Immaculate Spirit for all of Eternity. ‘I’ am driven to spin dreams and illusions because ‘I’ refuse to see what lies here on earth ... right under ‘my’ nose, as it were. ‘I’ can never live inside eternal time ... whereas I as this flesh and blood body can only be here now. Inside this body there is no ‘being’ ... nothing psychological or psychic left for ‘I’ am extinct. Time is a blessing, not a curse. I can never be out of time, nor anywhere but here, for I have actualised my destiny ... here on earth and now in time. Little do people realise that what they are looking for lies just under their nose; the actuality of peace-on-earth is no further away than instantaneously now in time and properly here on this planet in space. It only takes a determination to evince for oneself something infinitely better than that which has been promised but never delivered. It only takes a sincerity of purpose and a pure intent to instigate a beginning of the end of woe and malevolence. It only takes a dedication to the actualisation of freedom to uncover and make apparent the factual perfection that lies open all around for those with the eyes to see. It only takes the devotion of one’s every waking moment to the delightful task of allowing the instant bestowal of individual universal peace at this moment in time ... befittingly here in the ultimate immediacy of this juncture in space. I am mortal. Mortality is a fact and if one is to be at all exact, one must stick to the facts. To avoid a fact is to avoid involvement ... and there is no greater involvement than being here on earth now, at this point in time. Time and mortality are inextricably linked. Mortality is essential in order to be here, in time. I am glad that I am mortal; if it were not for death, I could not be free to be here. Perennial happiness is only possible because of death and extinction. This physical universe is perfect to the nth degree and I would not presume to change one little bit of it. To live with the fact is to live completely. Nothing is missing, nothing has ever been missing, nor ever will be missing. Life is already complete. By avoiding death – which is avoiding the fact – ‘I’ am standing in the way of the exquisite purity of being alive. By searching for Eternal Life, ‘I’ shut ‘myself’ off from the perfection of being here. ‘I’ am wasting ‘my’ time in the most insidious way possible; but then again, ‘I’ am by nature cunning and deceitful. ‘I’ will do anything but face the fact of ‘my’ own demise. With ‘my’ psychological ‘death’, however, comes release from the fears of physical death. All of the unnamed terrors surrounding death arise from apprehension as to what will happen to ‘me’ as a ‘being’. I regard death with equanimity; when it happens I will welcome it as I do the oblivion of deep sleep each night. Like sleep, it is an agreeable actual occurrence. The search for meaning amidst the debris of the much-vaunted human hopes and dreams and schemes has come to its timely end. With the end of ‘me’, the distance or separation between ‘me’ and ‘my’ senses – and thus the external world – disappears. To be the senses as a bare awareness is apperception, a pure consciousness experience of the world as-it-is. Because there is no ‘I’ as an observer – a little person inside one’s head – to have sensations, I am the sensations. There is nothing except the series of sensations which happen ... not to ‘me’ but just happening ... moment by moment ... one after another. To be the sensations, as distinct from having them, engenders the most astonishing sense of freedom and release. Consequently, I am living in peace and tranquillity; a meaningful peace and tranquillity. Life is intrinsically purposeful, the reason for existence lies openly all around. Being this very air I live in, I am constantly aware of it as I breathe it in and out; I see it, I hear it, I taste it, I smell it, I touch it, all of the time. It never goes away – nor has it ever been away. ‘I’ was standing in the way of meaning. I am completely happy to be here, securely inside time and space, eating this hamburger. GARY: So, where do equity and parity come into the picture? RICHARD: Only unilateral action will do the trick. GARY: Action as in not of thought? Care to expound? RICHARD: By ‘unilateral’ I mean that living with equity and parity is something one does entirely on one’s own ... it does not depend upon the cooperation of others. What they do is their business (as long as they comply with the legal laws and observe the social protocol, they are left alone to live their lives as wisely or as foolishly as they choose). One does not have to concern oneself about any other person’s modus operandi at all ... they can carry on being grotty if that is what turns them on. Therefore, one’s basic starting point is this: how can one live with equity and parity in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are? The integrity of intent born out of the intensity of this once-in-a-lifetime ‘starting-point’ question precipitates unilateral action which is not of ‘my’ doing once set in motion ... because, at root, it is ‘me’ who is the problem. Thus thought may or may not play a part in it depending upon the circumstances, each moment again, in one’s daily life. This ‘action’ is a neurological process occurring in the skull (specifically at the top of the brain-stem) that gathers a momentum of its own accord ... ‘me’ thinking and feeling may aid or hinder this process from time-to-time but essentially, once one sets the action in motion, the neurological process does the trick itself. It is the pure intent to live in peace and harmony (equity and parity) irregardless of other’s intentions that fuels the process. RESPONDENT: When we look at ourselves, we don’t look at the genetic, cellular level. RICHARD: I do ... and, more importantly, the ego/ soul entity that was inhabiting this body all those years ago did. And ‘he’ psychologically and psychically ‘self’-immolated as a result of this ‘looking’. That was the end of ‘the genetic, cellular level’ ... over, finished. Kaput. RESPONDENT: How can you look at yourself at the genetic level? RICHARD: Speaking personally, in my investigations I first started by examining thought, thoughts and thinking ... then very soon moved on to examining feelings (first the emotions and then the deeper feelings). When I dug down into these passions (into the core of ‘my’ being then into ‘being’ itself) I stumbled across the instincts ... and found the origin of not only the affective faculty but the psyche itself. I found ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’ ... which is the instinctual rudimentary animal self common to all sentient beings. RESPONDENT: Richard, before I hit the road again, I have a question that seems pretty important. Re-reading some of your selected writings, I rediscovered this: [Richard]: ‘The ‘process’ was both prosaic and extraordinary: on the one hand I began undoing all the social conditioning that I had been subject to since birth and on the other hand I generated love for all and sundry. I examined all the social traditions and customs etc., one by one, and released myself from their iron grip. I diminished hate and anger and sadness and loneliness by surrendering to and living in love and oneness ... which is the best that a normal human could do by virtue of the socialisation process. I moved in and out of Sacred States of Heavenly Bliss and Love Agapé and Divine Compassion and immersed myself in the entire ‘process’ with dedication and resolution. I adopted the principle of pacifism (‘turn the other cheek’) and developed Goodness of the highest order. I cleansed and purified myself of all impure thoughts and deeds and worked both hard and industriously in my daily work. I practised honesty and humility in all my interactions with other people and pondered the significance and ramifications of the Divine Order’. (www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/selectedwriting/sw-asc.htm). If the activation of love, compassion, humility, goodness, moral purity, and a passionate faith in the Divine Order etc is not 180 degrees opposite from what you now recommend, it’s pretty damn close, no? RICHARD: What I now recommend is essentially no different to what I have recommended ever since first becoming apparent on the thirtieth of October 1992 and which is basically the same as what the identity in residence recommended, to anyone prepared to listen at the time, when ‘he’ set about imitating the actual – as evidenced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) in late July 1980 – on and after the first of January 1981 ... to wit: being relentlessly attentive to, each moment again, and scrupulously honest about, how that only moment of ever being alive was experienced so as to feel as happy and as harmless (as free of malice and sorrow) as was humanly possible inasmuch any deviation from such felicity/ innocuity was attended to with the utmost dispatch in order to live as peacefully and as harmoniously as ‘he’ could with ‘his’ then wife and children, in particular, and with anyone and everyone who came into ‘his’ presence. And all that came about – albeit nowhere nearly spelled-out so clearly and concisely – more or less spontaneously on that day as during the PCE, where identity in toto was in abeyance, the affections played no part at all and, moreover, there was such an utter intimacy as to render any trace of a separation needing to be affectively bridged simply risible. Furthermore, that way of living was so successful, for the first three months or so of that year, that ‘he’ was wont to exclaim, to all and sundry, that ‘he’ had discovered the secret to life (for that is how far beyond normal human expectations the felicitous/ innocuous state which has nowadays become known as being virtually free truly is) and ‘he’ was perplexed as to why, it being such a simple thing to do, no-one had ever done it before. Then an event occurred of such impact as to be the turning-point, in regards no longer going directly to what numerous PCE’s evidenced (namely that what is now known as an actual freedom from the human condition was possible here on earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body), and relates back to the initial PCE which set in motion the whole process wherein, unbeknownst to the experiencing due to a total lack of any precedent, it had devolved into an altered state of consciousness (ASC) when a new identity had all-of-a-sudden come into existence ... a grand ‘Me’, a glorious ‘Me’, a fulfilled ‘Me’ who was none other than the long-awaited Saviour Of Humankind! That impactive event took place whilst keenly watching the sunrise casting its brilliant rays earthward, one otherwise-experienced-as-perfect morning in mid-autumn, upon seeing an ornamental bush thus lit, in the garden alongside the ex-farmhouse, luminously aglow, fiercely afire from within as it were, wherefrom it was revealed to ‘Me’ that there was to be a death and a rebirth and, consequently, a catatonic state ensued that resulted in ‘Me’ being carted off to hospital, and kept under intensive care for four hours, until coming out of it in a state of Radiant Bliss (which quite overwhelmed the duty-nurse by the way). ‘He’ was never to be the same again, as Divinity had been working on ‘him’ whilst catatonic, and from that date forward ‘he’ was permanently in a state of human bliss and love ... ‘he’ could do no wrong. As ‘he’ had surrendered to, and thus lived in, love and oneness ‘he’ moved in and out of sacred states of Heavenly Bliss, Love Agapé and Divine Compassion; ‘he’ immersed ‘himself’ in the entire process with dedication and resolution; ‘he’ adopted the principle of pacifism (‘turn the other cheek’) and developed a goodness of the highest order; ‘he’ cleansed and purified ‘himself’ of all impure thoughts and deeds; ‘he’ worked both hard and industriously in ‘his’ daily work; ‘he’ practised honesty and humility in all ‘his’ interactions; ‘he’ pondered the significance and ramifications of the Divine Order; ‘he’ totally believed in and had supreme faith in The Absolute – ‘he’ never doubted the ability of That to bring about the Peace On Earth so long promised – and that ‘he’ was to play the central role in that Divine Plan no longer came as a surprise to ‘him’ as ‘he’ realised that ‘he’ had long yearned to be part of the Salvation Process. The following more or less sums it up: • [Richard]: ‘... back in 1981 I had umpteen number of peak experiences – sometimes two-three times a day varying from minutes to hours – and they were wild and woolly times. Somewhere along the line I had lost sight of the four hour pure consciousness experience [PCE] that had triggered my whole incursion into becoming free of the human condition and there was certainly a ‘difference in degree’ of the affective element in each experience ... ranging from virtually non-existent to full-blown grandiosity for the ‘me’ that was inhabiting this body. The PCE stayed pristine in its own domain, however, and stood me in good stead some eleven years later ... as I have recorded in ‘A Brief Personal History’: (Richard, Articles, A Brief Personal History). • ‘It troubled me deeply that I was in such a situation because I seem to be driven by some force to ‘Spread the Word’ and that was never my intention all those years ago when I first had what is known as a ‘Peak Experience’ which initiated my incursion into all matters Spiritual, culminating in the ‘death’ of my ego and catapulting me into this Absolute State. My intent back then had been to cleanse myself of all that is detrimental to personal happiness and interpersonal harmony ... in other words: peace on earth in my life-time. Instead of that rather simple ambition, I found that I was impelled on an odyssey to be the latest Saviour of Humankind in a long list of Enlightened Beings ... and this imposition did not sit well with me’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Alan-b, 25 July 2000). RESPONDENT: The method you now recommend (minimising ‘good’/ ’bad’ feelings, activating felicity/ sensuousness) is what you used only after the ego had already dissolved. RICHARD: The method I now recommend is essentially no different to the course of action I have recommended ever since first becoming apparent and which is basically the same as the way the identity in residence recommended a normal life be lived, when ‘he’ first devised and put into practice what has now become known as the actualism method, on and after the first of January 1981. Incidentally, that way of living/ that course of action did not ... um ... officially become a method until early 1998. And it only came about because of being told to either send more information or draw a clearer map to paradise, on a mailing list set-up under the auspices of the teachings Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti brought into the world, for no other reason than (despite the fact that they are rife throughout most, if not all, of those teachings) any and all methods, ways, paths, and so on, were anathema to his readers/ listeners. Viz.: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘You’re going to have to send more information or draw a clearer map to paradise. • [Richard]: ‘(...) What ‘I’ did, eighteen years ago, was to devise a remarkably effective method of ridding this body of ‘me’. (Now I know that methods are to be actively discouraged, in some people’s eyes, but this one worked). ‘I’ asked myself, each moment again: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ (...)’. (Richard, List B, No. 19, 17 March 1998a). RESPONDENT: It worked, but *only when you were in an Altered State Of Being*, having permanently dissolved your sense of personal identity in an oceanic feeling of oneness with all creation. RICHARD: Just so that there is no misunderstanding: what really worked, when the identity was that ‘Altered State Of Being’, was (1) a continuation of the totally dedicated and/or devoted pure intent to evince what the PCE’s evidenced ... and (2) a furtherance of the irreversible momentum, or inevitability, already set in place on day one as the process is, essentially, that of escaping from one’s fate and attaining to one’s destiny ... and (3) a prolongation of the attentiveness as to how the only moment of being alive was experienced ... and (4) an utter lack of dignity in being so far up oneself (narcissistic) as to render the term ‘egotistical’ a mere bagatelle in comparison ... and (5) a sense of humour which, if nothing else, made possible (6) a delightful resurgence of the earlier felicity/ innocuity which again brought about, in combination with sensuousness, an outstandingly ingenuous sense of amazement, marvel and wonder. And it was that last-named – the wide-eyed wonder of naiveté – which resulted in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception). RESPONDENT: To put it mildly, that [an altered state of being] is not my starting point ... RICHARD: Neither was it ‘my’ starting point ... for instance: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘… but I have a lot of taxes to pay to the society, family, etc., which give me no time to sit and watch the rising sun ... • [Richard]: ‘Speaking personally, the ‘I’ that was made freedom the number one priority in ‘his’ life. ‘He’ was a married man, with four children, running ‘his’ own business, with a house mortgage to pay off and a car on hire purchase ... working twelve-fourteen hour days, six-seven days a week. In other words: normal. And all the while the enabling of freedom took absolute precedence over all other matters and dominated ‘his’ every moment’. (Richard, List B, No. 49, 23 June 2000). And for another instance: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘I find myself in a situation where I am raising two children and I am married. • [Richard]: ‘So? I found myself in a situation where I was married and raising four children. • [Co-Respondent]: ‘I am doing my best to raise the kids – but how could I possibly be pleased with raising them only to be in ‘abysmal’ situation – only to live in a ‘grim and glum’ reality where the best they can do is live on the better side of misery? • [Richard]: ‘Indeed ... being married and raising four children was one of the many incentives for the ‘me’ who was to get off ‘his’ backside and do something about the whole sorry mess. And now, as a direct result of that altruistic action, the possibility exists for those five fellow human beings to also live fully (as is anybody else) if they so choose’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27e, 5 April 2003). RESPONDENT: ... and neither is it the starting point of anyone else around here. RICHARD: I have had on-line discussions with quite a few self-realised beings (albeit mostly of the just-add-water-and-stir-thoroughly variety) ... plus several face-to-face discussions over the years. Quite simply: one starts wherever one is at. RESPONDENT: I well understand that you reject enlightenment as a tried and failed solution to the ills of humankind, and I understand why. BUT, my question concerns the method, not the goal. In one of our early conversations, you said to me that when your ego ‘died’ you were only seconds away from an actual freedom, if only you had known at the time that such a thing was possible: • [Richard]: ‘... if I had known, back in 1981 at the moment of ego-dissolution, what I now know I would not have let the process stop halfway through its happening (...) by my reckoning it would have all been over in a matter of maybe 6-10 seconds (rather than 6 seconds plus eleven years)’. • [Respondent]: ‘So electro-chemical ‘self-immolation’ is not just metaphorical, eh?’ • [Richard]: ‘Indeed not: it is all very, very real ... more real than anything has ever been’. • [Respondent]: ‘You were really that close? • [Richard]: ‘Yes ... I have written before about how I unwittingly discovered yet another way to become enlightened ...’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No 60, 3 December 2003). So ... you activated the process of self-immolation by activating powerful passions. RICHARD: The identity inhabiting this body activated the process of *partial* ‘self’-immolation – the ego-dissolution, or death of the ego, referred to in the above exchange – by activating love and compassion (and rapture and euphoria and ecstasy and bliss and so on) ... whereas the process of ‘self’-immolation *in toto* involved the deactivation of those antidotal pacifiers for malice and sorrow (and all those others). RESPONDENT: Not innocuous felicitous feelings but powerful, red-hot passions. RICHARD: The felicitous/ innocuous feelings are in no way docile, lack-lustre affections ... in conjunction with sensuosity they make for an extremely forceful/ potent combination as, with all of the affective energy channelled into being as happy and harmless as is humanly possible (and no longer being frittered away on love and compassion/ malice and sorrow), the full effect of ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being – which is ‘being’ itself – is dynamically enabled for one purpose and one purpose alone. RESPONDENT: No wonder you were able to engage the whole of your being in this process. RICHARD: So as to inject a modicum of commonsense into your train of thought: the identity inhabiting this body was able to engage the whole of ‘his’ being in the process which led to ‘self’-immolation in toto, via first undergoing an ego-death/ ego-dissolution, primarily and ultimately because of pure intent. And the key to unlocking such naiveté is sincerity, pure and simple. RESPONDENT: And from where I stand, there’s little wonder that no-one else has. RICHARD: Where one stands does, of course, determine what one sees. RESPONDENT: (9 months of intense ‘self’-immolation vs. 10 years of mere reconditioning is what it comes down to as I see it). RICHARD: Ha ... there is much more to an entirely-new model than just ripping the engine of the ole hog apart and giving it a reco so that it will be good for another few hundred thou or so. Much, much more ... do you realise that what you are saying, in effect, is that all what is required for any realised/ enlightened/ awakened being, to become actually free from the human condition, is but a re-working what remains of identity (the deeper and most fundament part) after partial ‘self’-immolation? RESPONDENT: So why, if you were mere seconds away from ‘self’-immolation using the original method, do you now recommend an altogether different one (almost 180 degrees opposite) that only worked after your ego had dissolved? RICHARD: Hmm ... if what you really want is to become realised/ enlightened/ awakened then it is not all that difficult. Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘There is a sure-fire way to become enlightened ... if that is what one really wants. It is important to realise, deeply, that not only can ‘you’ not find Love Agapé ... Love Agapé does not come to ‘you’, either. The way it works is that when ‘you’ become ‘love’ then Love becomes You ... Love Agapé is You As You Really Are. Here is how to be Love Agapé: 1. First, get out of your head and feel deep within yourself, past the emotions, into the deeper feelings – the core of your ‘being’ – for there you will feel intense human love (the nurturing/ desiring instinctual passion). 2. Identify totally with this love as pure feeling – live it as being it fully every moment of your day – and surrender your will to existence itself. 3. Your identity as ‘me’ as soul (‘me’ at the core of ‘being’) will transmogrify itself into the Absolute in an edifying moment of awakening as ‘The Truth’. 4. You will then realise that this is your ‘True Self’ ... the ‘Me’ that exists Timelessly and Spacelessly and Formlessly. 5. You will then be Love Agapé ... You will have come to bring Your message of ‘Truth and Love’ to a suffering humanity. 6. You will be utterly convinced that You will succeed because all the others who came before You were not as Enlightened As You Are. 7. The whole world has been waiting for You. It is quite easy, really’. (Richard, List C, No. 9, 4 July 2000). And if that intense human love cannot immediately be felt (as in step No. 1 above) then the quickest way to activate it is to go deeply into personal sorrow (which can readily be done just by feeling sad about the whole sorry mess which is the human condition and empathy will take over) until it becomes universal sorrow – the essential pathos of all sentient creatures – whereupon it flips over and turns into compassion ... which passion, upon fully flowering in all its goodness and charity, becomes a radiant love for all suffering beings. Then move on to step No. 2. RESPONDENT: It seems to me that using the first method would be *heaps* more potent than second because it engages the passions instead of (trying to) systematically undermine them – which, in my personal experience, only takes the wind out of one’s sails. RICHARD: The actualism method is not about undermining the passions ... on the contrary, it is about directing all of that affective energy into being the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (that is, ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being, which is ‘being’ itself) in order to effect a deliberate imitation of the actual, as evidenced in a PCE, so as to feel as happy and as harmless (as free of malice and sorrow) as is humanly possible whilst remaining a ‘self’. Such imitative felicity/ innocuity, in conjunction with sensuosity, readily evokes amazement, marvel, and delight – a state of wide-eyed wonder best expressed by the word naiveté (the nearest a ‘self’ can come to innocence whilst being a ‘self’) – and which allows the overarching benignity and benevolence inherent to the infinitude, which this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe actually is, to operate more and more freely. This intrinsic benignity and benevolence, which has nothing to do with the imitative affective happiness and harmlessness, will do the rest. All that was required was ‘my’ cheerful, and thus willing, concurrence. RESPONDENT: There is an answer to a question being asked in ‘Selected Correspondence’ that I haven’t understood, and I would appreciate if you or Richard will clarify that. [Co-Respondent]: Are you saying then that in order to eliminate the ‘I’ and the ‘me’ that the instinctual passions themselves have to be eliminated ... [Richard]: No ... and the reason why not is this simple: who would be doing the eliminating of the instinctual passions? As ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’ it is an impossibility because the result of trying to do so would be a stripped-down rudimentary animal ‘self’ (seemingly) divested of feelings ... somewhat like what is known in psychiatric terminology as a ‘sociopathic personality’ (popularly known as ‘psychopath’). Such a person still has feelings – ‘cold’, ‘callous’, ‘indifferent’ and so on – and has repressed the others. Richard, Selected Correspondence, Self-immolation Richards says here – ‘who would be doing the eliminating of instinctual passions?’ – Isn’t it apperceptiveness doing so? The third I? What is the difference between investigating instinctual passions and eliminating them? I would like to add another quote posted in the same correspondence section I have misunderstood, here it is: [Richard]: ‘If one deactivates the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activates the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (happiness, delight, joie de vivre/ bonhomie, friendliness, amiability and so on) with this freed-up affective energy, in conjunction with sensuousness (delectation, enjoyment, appreciation, relish, zest, gusto and so on), then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception).’ Richard, Selected Correspondence, Self-immolation 2 What is the difference between 1. de-activating the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activating the felicitous/ innocuous feelings, 2. eliminating instinctual passion (the action that is impossible and advised to be avoided), and 3. investigating emotions and instinctual passions? RICHARD: Dear Vineeto, I received the e-mail you forwarded (entitled ‘A Question Of Something Misunderstood In AF ‘Selected Correspondence’) ... the answers to the specific queries contained therein are as follows: 1. As apperception (unmediated perception) only occurs when identity in toto/ the entire affective faculty is either in abeyance – as in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) – or where it is extinct (upon an actual freedom from the human condition) there is no way that apperceptiveness could be doing the eliminating of the instinctual passions. Besides which, my rhetorical question was about who, and not what, would be doing that proposed elimination of the instinctual passions. 2. As the term ‘the third I’ refers to the flesh and blood body only (as in sans the instinctual passions/ the entity formed thereof) there is no way that such an freed organism could be doing that proposed elimination of the instinctual passions. 3. The difference between ‘me’ investigating what ‘I’ am fundamentally made up of (the instinctual passions) and ‘me’ eliminating that which ‘I’ am fundamentally made up of (the instinctual passions) is that in the former ‘I’ get to stay in existence and in the latter ‘I’ cease to exist ... simply because ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’. 4. The difference between de-activating both the ‘good’ feelings (those that are loving and trusting) and the ‘bad’ feelings (those that are hateful and fearful) and activating the felicitous and innocuous feelings (those that are happy and harmless) is that not only does it have the immediate benefit of feeling good or feeling happy and harmless or feeling excellent/ perfect for 99% of the time, as one goes about one’s normal everyday life, it has the ultimate benefit of assisting in the rewiring of the brain’s habitual circuitry before the once-in-a-lifetime event – altruistic ‘self’-immolation – happens which wipes out the entire affective faculty/ the identity in toto (aka the instinctual passions/ the entity formed thereof). 5. The difference between de-activating both the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings, and thus being able to activate the felicitous/ innocuous feelings, and eliminating instinctual passions (the action that is impossible and advised to be avoided) is that in the former ‘I’ get to stay in existence and in the latter ‘I’ cease to exist (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’). 6. The difference between de-activating both the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings, and thus being able to activate the felicitous/ innocuous feelings, and investigating emotions and instinctual passions is that with the former one’s normal everyday life is able to be enjoyed and appreciated each moment again and in the latter one is finding out why one is not being able enjoy and appreciate one’s normal everyday life each moment again. Lastly, in that e-mail exchange I was clearly making the point that, although it is hypothetically correct that the elimination of the instinctual passions would be the elimination of ‘I’/ ’me’, it does not work that way in practice (for reasons such as already explained in the part-quoted text). To wit: not only is it a dangerous approach – as ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’ then the result of trying to do so would be a stripped-down rudimentary animal ‘self’, seemingly divested of feelings, somewhat like what is known in psychiatric terminology as a ‘sociopathic personality’ (popularly known as ‘psychopath’) – it is an impossibility anyway. Only altruistic ‘self’-immolation, in toto, will do the trick. SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE ON HOW TO BECOME FREE (Part Four) 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