# Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

Richard’s Selected Correspondence ## On Ms. Bernadette Roberts RESPONDENT: I have been aware of the ‘entity-less’ or ‘no-self’ condition as a possibility for about 20 years. RICHARD: The following may throw considerable light on the hoary topic of what Mr. Gotama the Sakyan meant by the word ‘anatta’ (often translated as ‘no-self’): • [Ms. Bernadette Roberts]: ‘It is quite possible that at some time or other everyone has made contact with the self-as-subject [as distinct from self-as-object]. All that is required for such an encounter is the cessation of the reflexive movement of the mind bending back on itself. Without this reflexive (or pre-reflexive) movement, we are no longer aware of our own awareness, our own feelings and thoughts, and thus we have encountered self-as-subject. But since this subjective self is as nothing to the mind, we cannot stay in this condition for long and soon fall back into self-consciousness or self-as-object. To remain in this un-reflexive condition for any length of time would mean encountering an emptiness, a void, a nothingness that is the subjective self – *which I have called no-self*’. [bracketed insert and emphasis added]. (‘Pure Subjectivity’, from the book ‘The Experience of No-Self’, by Bernadette Roberts; 1982; http://norea.net/roberts/pure%20subjectivity.htm). RESPONDENT: Not as a condition of this body/ mind, but as a theoretical condition of a human that has dissolved or passed through the ego condition and the unity condition to the freedom of living directly without any sense of ‘beingness’. RICHARD: As an actual freedom from the human condition did not come about until 1992 – which is currently just under 13 years ago – you could not have been aware of it for about 20 years. RESPONDENT: The following is Ann Faraday’s account of no-self. Her partner is John-Wren Lewis (who is in a similar no-self state) – and from what I’ve read both reside in Sydney, Australia. [snipped quote] A question specifically for Richard. It’s interesting to me that many who have this ‘no-self’ experience say that it’s not an ‘experience’ at all – like for example, Bernadette Roberts and U.G. Krishnamurti – and here I see that Ann says virtually the same thing. That is, no experiencer – therefore no experience. Any clue whether this is just a difference in terminology? RICHARD: At first glance it may very well be rhetorical (expressed in terms to persuade or impress) ... you will notice that she more honestly describes it as being an experience in her seventh paragraph. Viz.: • [quote]: ‘*I experience* this Empty-ness as a boundless arena in which life continually manifests and plays, rising and falling, constantly changing, always changing and therefore ever new’. [emphasis added]. And twice in her last paragraph: • [quote]: ‘In the spiritual domain, I would fire all gurus and transpersonal psychologists who use stage-by-stage models of self-development (explaining *experiences like mine* as fifth level transient Nirvikalpa samadhi – or whatever)’. [emphasis added]. And: • [quote]: ‘It is the whole obfuscating concept of self which needs to be transcended, for in *my experience* there has never really been any self to transform, actualise, realize or transcend’. [emphasis added]. I would have to read more of her writings so as to ascertain whether it is indeed ‘just a difference in terminology’ or not. RESPONDENT: Or rather whether there may be some actual, qualitative difference? RICHARD: In the Buddhist tradition, which is where she apparently gained her understanding from going by her use of the capitalised word [quote] ‘Empty-ness’ [endquote] four times to describe the state of being she underwent, there is a qualitative difference ... I have already written before, on Jan 03 2001, about the state of being called ‘dhyana’ in Sanskrit (known as ‘jhana’ in Pali) so I will refer you to the following link: (Richard, List B, No. 12i, #dyana) Suffice is it to say here that this state of being, otherwise known as ‘entering into samadhi’, is a trance state – a state called catalepsy in the West – wherein ‘Form’ and ‘Feeling’ and ‘Perception’ and ‘Mental Fabrications’ and ‘Consciousness’ (all experiencing) cease to exist totally. There is only Bliss. RESPONDENT: Along the same lines, Bernadette Roberts and U.G. Krishnamurti say there is no such thing as ‘consciousness’, but they define consciousness as self-consciousness. RICHARD: Hmm ... yet it is possible for consciousness itself to be absent (see the above link). RESPONDENT: Ann uses the term ‘pure consciousness’ which aligns better with your expression of Actual Freedom. RICHARD: What she is talking of is not the same as an actual freedom from the human condition – as evidenced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) – as what she is describing is an altered state of consciousness (ASC) ... which is a spiritual or mystical state of being. In the ASC ‘pure consciousness’ is otherwise known as ‘God’ or ‘Truth’ or ‘That’. RESPONDENT: Somehow, it seems that this choice that U.G. and Bernadette make – that is, saying that the self is a necessary ingredient for ‘consciousness’ must somehow be related to the stipulation that when there is no-self – there is no ‘experience’. RICHARD: The term ‘no-self’ (not to be confused with the extinction of self in toto which I report) is a Buddhist term (translated from the word ‘anatta’) used to point to a state of being wherein the ‘I’ as ego dissolves and instantaneously expands to become everything and/or nothing ... otherwise known as ‘Sunyata’ or ‘Void’ (‘Emptiness’). RESPONDENT: Then again, Ann says here that there is no experience, yet she calls her ‘state’ pure consciousness. I suppose everybody gets to make up their own descriptions – whatever makes sense to them without any completely developed vocabulary?? RICHARD: It is obvious that she has, of course, discussed this matter of vocabulary with Mr. John Wren-Lewis who has written the following: • [quote]: ‘My second warning is to mind your language, for the words we use are often hooks that catch us into time entrapment. For example, when we use the term ‘self’ with a small ‘s’ to describe individual personhood, and ‘Self’ with a capital ‘S’ for the fullness of God consciousness, the notion of the one gradually expanding into the other becomes almost inescapable, again concentrating attention along the time line. Mystical liberation, by contrast, is the sudden discovery that even the meanest self is already a focus of the Infinite Aliveness that is beyond any kind of selfhood’. (‘The Dazzling Dark’; www.geocities.com/jiji_muge/dazzdark.html). He had ‘God-consciousness’ thrust upon him in 1983 and the account you quoted at the top of this page was written by Ms Ann Faraday in 1993 (in an article entitled ‘Towards a No-Self Psychology’ in the June issue of the Australian magazine ‘Consciousness’) ... there is that piece of writing and another article she wrote in the same magazine three years later (in an article entitled ‘Ann Faraday’s Summer Book Selection’ in the summer issue of 1996) at the following URL: www.globalideasbank.org/GIB/crespec/CS-175.HTML What I found interesting in the second article is her recommendation to read the works of Ms. Antoinette Varner (popularly known as ‘Gangaji’) ... Viz.: • [quote]: ‘From her tapes and books, Gangaji comes over as a nice lady, her teaching intended to lead you to the space of absolute silence below all the comings and goings of life – a space where you do not find peace, but know yourself to be that peace in which everything arises. In her two volumes, entitled ‘You Are That!’ and ‘Satsang with Gangaji’, she urges us not to explore anything else – not thoughts, emotions, sensations or circumstances, which have already received too much attention – but only ‘That which is before, during and after all objects of awareness. THAT!’ Her tapes of satsang recorded live from boats on the Ganges, temple courtyards and gardens, along with all the natural sounds of surrounding life – birds, bells, chanting, children playing – communicate this sense of Samsara in Nirvana. I also recommend one of the most beautiful and appealing books I’ve come across for a long time ...’. [endquote]. I found it interesting inasmuch that three years after her first article she is finding that what ‘makes sense without any completely developed vocabulary’ to her is to be found in both the Buddhist tradition (‘Samsara in Nirvana’) and in the Advaita tradition (‘only ‘That which is before, during and after all objects of awareness. THAT!’’). Oh well ... c’est la vie, I guess. * RESPONDENT: Richard, a question came to me this evening while watching a video of U.G. Krishnamurti. He stated that for him, perception has no ‘depth’. In some sense, everything seen is ‘flat’. This seems to relate specifically to his claim that ‘thought’ is what gives rise to ‘self’. The reason I say this is that it seems that he is saying that his perception has had any mental content stripped away – some sort of pure perception. Of course, I know your position differs with his account on this. An example he gives is of seeing a tree. He says the tree trunk is not round to his eyesight – it is flat. It’s as if all 3 dimensionality has evaporated. To me, it sounds similar to what some psychologists have speculated the perceptual experience of a newborn might be like – seeing ‘surfaces’ only – without concepts. I don’t know what you know of Bernadette Roberts – but she says virtually the same thing – her perception of the world is ‘flat’ – which is very close to the way U.G. describes his perception. Anyway, there is no way for me to know what their ‘non-experience’ is like, but I don’t hear anything from you that is like what they are saying. During my experience of a ‘mini-PCE’ as I’ve called it, I don’t remember perception as ‘flat’ or ‘without depth’. You describe the actual world as there being ‘no separation’, yet still space and time exist. Does that mean that there is still ‘depth’? I’m not sure how better to ask this question, but I think maybe you understand what I’m asking? What is really amazing to me is that Bernadette Roberts and U.G. describe what seem to be very similar ‘states’ – and actual freedom is also likewise without ‘self’ – yet I anticipate that your experience is much, much different. I am guessing you will say that there is ‘depth’ to your perception in the actual world. If I’m correct that your experience is drastically different from U.G.’s in this respect ... do you have any idea at all what might have happened to U.G. that at least partially nullified the working of thought, meaning, mind, etc in his ‘experience?’ Whatever it was seems to be repeated to some degree in Bernadette Roberts. RICHARD: First and foremost: as the physical world is a three-dimensional world, as evidenced by bodily locomotion, three-dimensional perception (stereoscopic vision) is in accord with actuality – whereas two-dimensional perception (flat vision) is not – and even a blind person knows that a tree is round by running their hands around it (perceiving tactually rather than visually). One way to comprehend what flat vision is like is to cover one eye and observe what happens when stereoscopic vision is no longer operating ... which is a device I learned at art college when beginning to draw and paint and initially had difficulty in transcribing the three-dimensionality of objects in the physical world into the two-dimensionality of objects in the representational world of paper or canvas. It will be seen that the depth of stereoscopic vision (depth of field) vanishes and everything is reduced to overlapping two-dimensional planes (as on paper or canvas) with size (near or distant) and chiaroscuro (light and shadow) and distinction (clear or hazy) being the main characteristics of one-eyed visual depth. As to why the people you refer to see the world in a one-eyed way I could speculate that it may be nothing more than an involuntary outcome of dissociation: as the physical world is unreal to a dissociated mind (Mr Uppaluri Krishnamurti claims that thought creates time and space and matter) the resultant object estrangement can render everything two-dimensional visually – in a cardboard cut-out dream-like way – even though such a person still behaves in a three-dimensional manner (such as walking around in their visually flat world) ... which should bodily demonstrate to them that their vision is playing tricks upon them. And I only say this because I can recall seeing everything in a cardboard cut-out dream-like way myself, when in a solipsistic state many years ago, where everything was as if it were stage-prop scenery ... as in painted back-drops. Locomotion soon disabused me of this notion, however. I would suggest taking Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti’s ruminations on the subject of visual perception (as in a flat perception somehow being a pure perception) with a grain of salt ... as I would suggest doing with virtually all his explanations. For example, as he claims that thought creates the tree referred to (a tree is matter located in space and existing in time) it follows that when thought is not operating there would be no tree at all – a non-dimensional tree as it were – yet it turns out that there is a tree after all ... albeit a two-dimensional tree. O what a tangled web they weave when first they practice to deceive. Put simply: stereoscopic vision has nothing to do with whether there is an identity present inside the body or not and has everything to do with two side-by-side eyes x-distance apart being able to converge on the same thing simultaneously – in contrast to those animals with eyes on either side of their head being unable to converge – which provides for depth of field vision. This is born out by aerial mapping where two cameras mounted under each wing provide photographs in relief as contrasted to a single camera providing photographs without relief. Lastly, my experience is that, irregardless of whether thought is happening or not, stereoscopic vision operates anyway. * RESPONDENT: It strikes me (and I have wondered about this before) – that there is a kind of solipsism of experience going on here – as in much of the spiritual literature on enlightenment and non-duality. Douglas Harding expresses it quite well in his idea of ‘having no head’. I heard Bernadette Roberts put it exactly that way – and I also see it in UG’s statements about not being aware of his body. The ‘experience’ might be characterized by a consciousness being unable to reflect upon itself as to have ‘self’-consciousness – which is why they make so much of it being a non-experience. Ludwig Wittgenstein made this a dominant theme in his life and writing as well. It is an extreme scepticism about thought and knowledge that J Krishnamurti shares to some extent with UG, Wittgenstein, Bernadette Roberts, Douglas Harding, and probably most spiritualists – which is why the limits of knowledge is so important to them. JK talked about intelligence awakening when it discovers it’s limits – UG has similar themes, BR identifies greatly with the ‘Cloud of Unknowing’ and makes much of unknowing, and Wittgenstein was instrumental in giving birth to the current spirit of postmodernism where doubt and scepticism are trusted more highly than common sense knowledge. I’m going on here, but I’m just writing as it occurs to me. The common theme is that reflective consciousness no longer comes into play in this state. The world doesn’t really have a past or future (only timelessness), there is no ‘self’, objects appear flat (no-3D), no ‘attachment’ to the past or future since they don’t exist, all that exists is what is given to present experience – everything else is ‘unknown’. Take that formula and turn in into a life and you get UG’s undivided consciousness. RICHARD: Yes ... an ‘undivided consciousness’ means there is, literally, no observer and the observed (aka subject and object) – the observer is the observed (aka ‘Tat Tvam Asi’/ ‘Thou Art That’) – wherein there is only observation (aka witnessing). In a word: solipsism. RESPONDENT: Could it be this easy? Undivided Consciousness = Solipsism of Present (non-reflexive) Consciousness? RICHARD: It is indeed that easy (although even the word ‘Present’ becomes nonsensical as it is a timeless state). RESPONDENT: I don’t know if you understand what I’m getting at, but I’m beginning to wonder whether you have a big smile of recognition on your face indicating that you understand it all too well – as in what you lived through? RICHARD: Indeed so ... and it is why I am responding to this e-mail ahead of the others awaiting my attention. RESPONDENT: Is this also be the reason why you sniff out solipsism wherever it rears it’s ugly head, because of the relationship between solipsism and spiritual realization? RICHARD: Yes, phrases such as ‘we are all one’ (as in an oceanic feeling of oneness) are meant to be taken literally (as in ‘there is no other’) ... as is ‘I Am That’ (not the ego-‘I’ though) or ‘Thou Art That’ meant to be taken literally. And if the mystic is really coy (which I was) they say ‘There is only That’ – hence the ‘Anatta’ (‘No-Self’) doctrine of Buddhism – and either decline to comment on after-death states or declare there is no such thing as death (such as I did). To awaken in the dream is to be but dreaming lucidly ... and is not to be taken as being awake. * RESPONDENT: Incidentally, as I think I stated previously ... Bernadette Roberts (BR) made the comment to me that she has no imagination as well. RICHARD: Yes ... what you previously said was [quote] ‘On my weekend with Bernadette Roberts, I took note of the fact that she also stated her imagination was extinct’. [endquote]. As I have no text to go by I am unable to ascertain whether she did, in fact, say her imagination was extinct, or in any other way specifically state she has no imagination whatsoever, so all I am left with is that, as Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti does not say that imagination is extinct for him either, or in any other way specifically state he has no imagination whatsoever, whatever it was that she was conveying to you it may not be what you remember it to be. RESPONDENT: There are a good deal of similarities between UG and BR that I won’t go into now. RICHARD: Okay ... it may be helpful to bear in mind, when you consider what Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti and Ms. Bernadette Roberts have to say about imagination, that what they are describing is how a timeless state functions and that it is the memory of the sequence of events which creates the impression of what normal people experience as time (as in past/ present/ future). In other words, what Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti refers to as ‘the continuity of knowledge’/ ‘the totality of experiences’. RESPONDENT: There were however purely affectionate, ecstasy or mystical like ones, but somewhere along the path I stumbled upon three milestones to me that is U.G. Krishnamurti, Bernadette Roberts and AF. RICHARD: As Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti is, basically, still mystico-spiritual (despite sounding like a materialist on occasion), and as Ms. Bernadette Roberts is essentially mystico-religious, then the milestone called ‘AF’ is not to be found on that well-trodden highway to nowhere. RESPONDENT: Here I have to make some digression. [snip digression]. I think though, my present ongoing experience is that of ‘Excellent experience’ or generally as you suggested above virtual freedom. RICHARD: No, I never suggested (further above) that your present ongoing experience is, generally or otherwise, that of virtual freedom ... on the contrary, I clearly stated that, even though all it takes is about three (3) minutes to locate the passages regarding what Mr. Douglas Harding has to say, which passages are blatantly self-explanatory to one who is virtually free of the human condition, you still had to ask me how I would classify him/ his state. And neither would I suggest your normal state is an on-going excellence experience (the penultimate virtual freedom experience) either ... just to refresh your memory: • [Mr. Douglas Harding]: ‘Over the past thirty years a truly contemporary and Western way of ‘seeing into one’s Nature’ or ‘Enlightenment’ has been developing. Though *in essence the same as Zen, Sufism, and other spiritual disciplines*, this way proceeds in an unusually down-to-earth fashion. It claims that modern man is more likely to see Who he really is in a minute of active experimentation than in years of reading, lecture-attending, thinking, ritual observances, and passive meditation of the traditional sort’. [emphasis added]. (www.headless.org/English/thw.htm). • [Mr. Douglas Harding]: ‘The principle of this meditation [‘Unself-conscious Meditation’] is: never lose sight of your Self in any circumstances, and your problems are taken care of – including, strange to say, the problem of self-consciousness. For *finding the Self is losing the self*’. [emphasis added]. (‘The Results of Seeing Who You Really Are’; an article by Douglas Harding from ‘The Toolkit for Testing the Incredible Hypothesis’; www.headless.org/English/reallyr.htm). And while I am at it: • [Ms. Bernadette Roberts]: ‘It is quite possible that at some time or other everyone has made contact with the self-as-subject [as distinct from self-as-object]. All that is required for such an encounter is the cessation of the reflexive movement of the mind bending back on itself. Without this reflexive (or pre-reflexive) movement, we are no longer aware of our own awareness, our own feelings and thoughts, and thus we have encountered self-as-subject. But since this subjective self is as nothing to the mind, we cannot stay in this condition for long and soon fall back into self-consciousness or self-as-object. To remain in this un-reflexive condition for any length of time would mean encountering an emptiness, a void, a nothingness that is the subjective self – *which I have called no-self*’. [emphasis added]. (‘Pure Subjectivity’, from the book ‘The Experience of No-Self’, by Bernadette Roberts; 1982; http://norea.net/roberts/pure%20subjectivity.htm). And: • [Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti]: ‘This individual [referring to himself] is always in a state of meditation. (...) When there is no movement of thought, you don’t know whether it [the outer world] is inside or outside. (...) This absence of the movement of thought which recognises and names things is the state of samadhi, *sahaja (natural) samadhi*. You imagine that samadhi is something he [referring to himself] goes into and comes out of. Not at all; he’s always there’. [emphasis added]. (from Part Four, ‘The Mystique Of Enlightenment’; Second Edition; Published by: Akshaya Publications, Bangalore, INDIA. 1992: www.well.com/user/jct/moetitle.htm). What I would suggest, however, is that your initial LSD trip was an altered state of consciousness (ASC) ... and here is another reason why (from the snipped digression): • [Respondent]: ‘I saw (...) also beauty of the world around ...’. Quite simply: beauty is an affective experience – the subjective ‘self’s pathetic imitation of the pristine purity of the actual – and, as you currently have a feeling of weightlessness (aka a lightness of being), I would also suggest your present on-going experience is an after-effect of feeling the same a couple of months ago whilst ingesting psilocybin on a daily basis over a two-week period ... a technique, by the way, almost guaranteed to reduce the effect. As I have remarked before, by and large, most substance-induced peak experiences are ASC’s, and not PCE’s (else an actual freedom from the human condition would surely have been discovered aeons ago), which is the main reason why I never advise or encourage anyone to use psychotropic substances. Here is another way I have put it (from my first e-mail to you): • [Richard]: ‘(...) I never advise or encourage anyone to use psychotropic substances (for obvious reasons). If, however, someone already has done so, and intends to do so again of their own accord and volition anyway, then I would counsel their very careful and considered use *as it is all-too-easy for an altered state of consciousness (ASC) to emerge rather than a pure consciousness experience (PCE)* ... there are many accounts available on the internet and 4 or 5 years ago I browsed through several web pages and never found any description that resembled a PCE. (...)’. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 61, 29 January 2004). I do not see how I could have put any more plainly than that. RESPONDENT: ‘The affective system, Roberts says, is the cause of all suffering. Out of it arises all fear, anxiety, and psychological suffering. It would follow, she suggests, that those who have lost the affective system, are free of psychological disorders and would have no reason to seek professional help, and that is why the psychiatric literature has no description of those who have gone beyond the self’. [Book review ‘The Experience of No-Self: A Contemplative Journey’; author: Bernadette Roberts]. RICHARD: There is no point in providing quotes about Ms. Bernadette Roberts as her experience has been presented several times before and responses are available to be read (free of charge) on The Actual Freedom Trust web site ... and, by the way, as you say you have [quote] ‘just found myriads of quotes’ [endquote] it would save a lot of time and bandwidth to do a search of The Actual Freedom Trust web site before reaching for the keyboard again. More to the point, however, were you to actually read that book (and not just quote a reviewer’s understanding drawn from it) you would find passages such as the following: • [Ms. Bernadette Roberts]: ‘It is quite possible that at some time or other everyone has made contact with the self-as-subject [as distinct from self-as-object]. All that is required for such an encounter is the cessation of the reflexive movement of the mind bending back on itself. Without this reflexive (or pre-reflexive) movement, we are no longer aware of our own awareness, our own feelings and thoughts, and thus we have encountered self-as-subject. But since this subjective self is as nothing to the mind, we cannot stay in this condition for long and soon fall back into self-consciousness or self-as-object. To remain in this un-reflexive condition for any length of time would mean encountering an emptiness, a void, a nothingness that is *the subjective self* – which I have called no-self’. [bracketed insert and emphasis added]. (‘Pure Subjectivity’, from the book ‘The Experience of No-Self’, by Bernadette Roberts; 1982; http://norea.net/roberts/pure%20subjectivity.htm). Thus if her experience is anything to go by, and there is no reason why it should not, it does throw considerable light on that hoary topic of what Mr. Gotama the Sakyan meant by the word ‘anatta’ (often translated as ‘no-self’). RICHARD: ... you will not find what is of your interest – the intelligence you presuppose moves this flesh and blood body – on The Actual Freedom Trust web site. RESPONDENT: Yee gads, I think you think that my remark about ‘the intelligence that moves your flesh and blood body’; is subtly hinting at a euphemism for GOD. And that I won’t find any GOD at AF. I am beginning to think the real case is I may not find any intelligence at AF. I’ll try and make this snappy. [snip remainder of e-mail]. RICHARD: I have snipped the remainder of your e-mail because, despite reading it through carefully three times, I was unable to find your explanation of what you think your remark about the intelligence you presupposed moves this flesh and blood body is subtly hinting at (rather than just your ‘yee gads’ reaction as to what you think I might be thinking it does) ... could it be that snappiness is not conducive to a focussed response after all? RESPONDENT: Making it snappy is shorthand for not wasting bandwidth on long discussions. RICHARD: As I already knew what snappy refers to – ‘(of language etc.) to the point, cleverly concise’ (Oxford Dictionary) – my query was in regards to the marked absence, in the response you tried to make snappy, of your explanation of what you meant by your remark about the intelligence you presupposed moves this flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: Lets try and parse this again – My remark about the intelligence that moves your F&B body was strictly as a response to your response that your body remained after the ‘removal’ of the entity. It was meant to convey that intelligence continued unabated. RICHARD: Here is the exchange in question: • [Respondent]: ‘One could say that the self/ SELF disappeared or became so ‘unconscious’ as to be effectively gone. • [Richard]: ‘Whereas this flesh and blood body could not say that. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 94, 23 June 2005). • [Respondent]: ‘Nor the intelligence that moves the above F&B body’. [endquote]. Here is an example of that exchange as parsed by you: • [Respondent]: ‘One could say that the self/ SELF disappeared or became so ‘unconscious’ as to be effectively gone. • [Richard (as parsed by Respondent)]: ‘Whereas this flesh and blood body remained after the ‘removal’ of the entity. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 94, 27 June 2005). • [Respondent (as parsed by Respondent)]: ‘Intelligence continued unabated’. [end example]. As you parse me pointing out that I could not say what you could say (that the self/ Self became so ‘unconscious’ as to be effectively gone) into meaning this flesh and blood body [quote] ‘remained after the ‘removal’ of the entity’ [endquote] and parse your own response, that *nor* could the intelligence which moves same say what you could say (that the self/ Self became so ‘unconscious’ as to be effectively gone), into conveying that [quote] ‘intelligence continued unabated’ [endquote], it becomes abundantly clear why you cannot comprehend that there is nothing – absolutely nothing – of what Ms. Bernadette Roberts has to report to be found on The Actual Freedom Trust web site. Put simply: such lack of comprehension can only lie in the way you [quote] ‘parse’ [endquote] what others write. What I would suggest, then, is reading what she has to say without parsing it ... the following is just one example (out of the unreferenced quotes you provided three days ago) of where she differs fundamentally from what is to be found on The Actual Freedom Trust web site: • [Ms. Bernadette Roberts]: ‘It is imperative to examine closely and realize that the root of the affective system is a sense of selfhood ...’. [endquote]. Here is what a dictionary has to say about ‘root’: • ‘root: the bottom or real basis of a thing; the inner or essential part; [synonyms] source, origin, fountain-head, starting-point, basis, foundation, fundamental, seat, nucleus, kernel, nub, cause, reason; beginnings’. (Oxford Dictionary). She also has this to say about that affective system (the one which has a sense of selfhood as its root): • [Ms. Bernadette Roberts]: ‘Off hand we tend to think of the feeling self as the emotional or affective system, when in truth, the affective system is only the more conscious experience of the feeling self. What few people realize or suspect is that the root experience of the feeling self is the experience of life and being’. (http://norea.net/roberts/what-is-self-part1.htm). And this is what she goes on to say (about that experience of life and being that is the root experience of the feeling self which that affective system has as its root): • [Ms. Bernadette Roberts]: ‘Although the experience of life and being seems to pervade the entire body-mind and to defy a specific bodily location, for the perceptive it seems to have a point of origin in a mysterious non-physical space within ourselves, a space we regard as the centre of consciousness. Much has been said and written of this life-centre. Under various names and headings we find this subjective phenomenon mentioned in the various literatures of the world, from philosophies and religious traditions on down to modern psychology. This feeling centre (which IS the feeling self) has various experiential levels from the physical to the divine. How we see or experience it has to do with our level of spiritual and psychological maturity. Many people regard this mysterious centre as the seat or origin of consciousness. While this is ultimately true, as a matter of developmental priority and experience, however, we cannot say which came first, the knowing or the feeling self. These are basically two sides of the same coin, which coin is the whole of consciousness.’ (http://norea.net/roberts/what-is-self-part1.htm). The following is what she then goes on to say (about the deepest experience of that feeling centre which is the seat or origin of the centre of consciousness – the experience of life and being itself – which is the root experience of the feeling self/ a sense of selfhood which that affective system has as its root): • [Ms. Bernadette Roberts]: ‘Although it is not our intention to go into the various experiences that derive from the feeling centre – energies, emotions, passions and other subtle feelings – it is important to point out that the ‘will’ is, itself, the deepest experience of the feeling-self or centre of consciousness. Thus in experience the will IS the experience of simple ‘being’. (http://norea.net/roberts/what-is-self-part1.htm). If you can find anywhere on The Actual Freedom Trust web site that [quote] ‘will’ [endquote] is the primary cause of all the ills of humankind (all the needless suffering and savagery) I will publicly acknowledge that you are correct in saying that ‘upon seeing your site I immediately recognized the same process [as when I read BR for the first time] being discussed’ and that, furthermore, I have been grossly in error. Just as a matter of related interest ... are you familiar with the phrase ‘Not my will, O Lord, but Thine’? * RESPONDENT: I interpret your rejection in toto of anything she [Ms. Bernadette Roberts] has to say as a focus on the cause of the death of the self/ affective system as the essential issue. RICHARD: You are, of course, free to interpret anything I report/ describe/ explain anyway you wish ... it is your life you are living, when all is said and done, and only you get to reap the rewards, or pay the consequences, for any action or inaction you may or may not have eventuate. Howsoever, when you choose to write to me and inform me of your interpretations I would be doing my fellow human being no favour were I not to set the record straight. I noticed that you wrote the following: • [Respondent]: ‘I am a scientist. As such I am neither a Deist or Atheist in principle. Beliefs in either camp are beliefs that sometimes have benefit and sometimes not. I am sorry that what I consider the core issue (living at ease in the moment as that which is left when the self is no more) has strings attached’. (‘Re: Questions & Commentary’; Sunday 26/06/2005 12:25 PM AEST). Then this: • [Respondent]: ‘So given that we have at least 2 people who have spoken of the journey and the journey’s end and both of them still seem to have rigid interpretations of ‘what is happening’ it doesn’t bode well for any of us, if we think that we will be free of interpretations. Interpretations that might keep us as separate as the common beliefs do to those of us in ‘ordinary’ consciousness’. (‘Re: Bernadette’; Monday 27/06/2005 11:46 PM AEST). And this: • [Respondent]: ‘Developing an open mind and a real tolerance for differences seems to be essential along the path. If that is not ‘automatic’ with you when the system goes down, you end up with a ‘effortlessly functioning mind/ body’ that effortlessly and automatically makes distinctions between people according to their ‘beliefs’. Beware panaceas for all that ails mankind that have strings attached’. (‘Re: Bernadette’; Monday 27/06/2005 11:46 PM AEST). Has it not occurred to you that, as I lived that/ was that (night and day for nigh-on eleven years) which Ms. Bernadette Roberts has written her accounts of, I intimately know the difference between what she (and the others of similar ilk you referred to previously) speaks of and an actual freedom from the human condition? Further to the point, do you take me to be some kind of idiot ... a dim-witted numskull who needs to have it pointed out that the freedom he has lived since then (night and day for these last thirteen years) and reports/ describes/ explains in explicit detail is the same freedom these others speak of? This has nothing to do with having strings attached (as in rigid interpretations/ beliefs) let alone developing an open mind/ a real tolerance: as evidenced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) there is no deity/ are no deities in actuality ... whatever interpretations/ beliefs one may have held about such are rendered null and void in an instant. It is all so impeccable here ... nothing ‘dirty’ can get in (so to speak). RESPONDENT: One of the biggest problems in conversing with Richard is his inability to understand the content of your argument unless you use his terminology ... RICHARD: Speaking of terminology ... I notice you have written the following (further below in that e-mail of yours): • [Respondent]: ‘Even if we are in no-self, the world we perceive is ...’. [endquote]. • [Respondent]: ‘Richard will say that the first example is not a theory but a direct experience in no self ...’. [endquote]. • [Respondent]: ‘Even if I am in no self, I still should be able to ...’. [endquote]. • [Respondent]: ‘I am not contesting reality but I am contesting Richard’s claim to know reality. BR is ‘intellectually more honest’ when she says that we don’t know ...’. [endquote]. You may find this exchange informative: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘You just couldn’t help your no-self with that last barb, could you? • [Richard]: ‘If I may draw the following to your attention? Viz.: • [ Co-Respondent]: ‘Tis only a suggestion, though’. Your typical rather condescending, smug ending. Kind of strange for a no self to be feeling ‘smugness’. Or is it? Can a no self feel smug? Just curious. I sure as hell wouldn’t know’. • [Richard]: ‘As the phrase ‘no self’ is a term used by some mystics (self-realised spiritualists), usually of a buddhistic persuasion, to refer to an ego-less state of being there is nothing strange about such a ‘being’ feeling something ... after all they are that affective being. Whereas an actual freedom from the human condition only happens when that affective being – which is ‘being’ itself – altruistically ‘self’-immolates in toto ... hence any feeling of either condescension or smugness you are reading into my words can only be a projection of your own feelings’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 53, 27 October 2003a). Essentially the only difference between ‘no-self’ and ‘no self’ is the hyphen’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 53a, 28 October 2003a). Just so that there is no misunderstanding: whilst the altered state of consciousness (ASC) Ms. Bernadette Roberts experiences can indeed be categorised as a ‘no-self’/ ‘no self’ state of being there is no way that an actual freedom from the human condition can be classified in such a manner ... as evidenced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) where identity in toto, and not just the ego-identity, is in abeyance. Incidentally, I do understand the content of your argument – just because it is fallacious does not mean it cannot be comprehended – inasmuch I have had the same and similar arguments presented to me, face-to-face, long before coming onto the internet in 1997. It is the word ‘fact’ which bugs more than a few religionists and/or spiritualists and/or mystics and/or metaphysicians because they cannot dismissively say, for example, ‘that is only your fact’, as a variant on the hoary ‘that is only your truth’ or ‘that is only your belief’ or ‘that is only your interpretation’, and so on, without being silly about it. In short: contrary to what you say Ms. Bernadette Roberts has to say (further above) physicality can indeed be known. * RESPONDENT: This [the ‘dogmatic assertions’ variation on earlier similar speculations] all shows only one thing too clearly: If you thought yourself to be the Absolute before self-immolation, you will still think yourself to be the Absolute after self-immolation – just in ‘physical’ disguise. RICHARD: It does no such thing ... what it does show, however, is the lengths you will go to (up to and including shooting yourself in the foot) in order to think/ hope you can rather explain and reduce my experience to fit into an unnamed psychiatric condition by likening it to religiosity and/or spirituality and/or mysticality and/or metaphysicality. For example: the many and various realised/ enlightened/ awakened beings report that the observer is the observed/ the seer is the seen ... thereby, according to your rationale, immunising themselves from criticism by equating their report with what they report. Yet all it takes is a pure consciousness experience (PCE) for it to be patently obvious they are so narcissistic as to be totally solipsistic. RESPONDENT: How? RICHARD: There is no how – that entire ‘dogmatic assertions’ variation on your earlier similar speculations is a flight of fancy from beginning to end – as the timeless and spaceless and formless (and thus metaphysical) absolute, which the aggrandised identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago experienced, perished simultaneous to ‘his’ expiration ... revealing, as it were, that it was this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe which had been absolute (as in not contingent/ existing without any other and thus without compare/ incomparable as in peerless/ matchless) all along. RESPONDENT: (1) Immunize yourself by equating the report with the reported. RICHARD: Here is a scenario for you: supposing one were to say that the plastic and silicon object these words appear as pixels on is a computer monitor, and not a wheelbarrow, then in what way is that statement of what is patently obvious an equating of the report (that the plastic and silicon object these words appear as pixels on is a computer monitor and not a wheelbarrow) with what is being reported (the fact that the plastic and silicon object these words appear as pixels on is a computer monitor and not a wheelbarrow)? Furthermore, in what way is that statement of fact (that the plastic and silicon object these words appear as pixels on is a computer monitor and not a wheelbarrow) an immunisation from criticism? RESPONDENT: (2) Attach the attributes of the Absolute to the reports. RICHARD: As the primary attributes, as you call them, of a metaphysical absolute are that it be an immaterial/ incorporeal (as in timeless and spaceless and formless) absoluteness there is no way that anybody can attach, as you claim, those characteristics to either the reports of that which is physically absolute or to that physically absolute which is being reported (this spatially infinite and temporally eternal and materially perpetual universe). RESPONDENT: And you will be reporting about the Absolute – just in ‘physical’ disguise – and nobody will be able to do anything about it. RICHARD: Au contraire, anybody with sufficient nous can (a) intellectually discern the marked distinction between that which is reported as being timelessly and spacelessly and formlessly (immaterially/ incorporeally) absolute and that which is reported as being materially/ corporeally (of infinite spatiality and eternal temporality and perdurable materiality) absolute ... and (b) intellectually comprehend that a metaphysical absolute is contingent upon time and space and form existing in the first place (were it not for physicality no such thing as a metaphysical proposition could even begin to be postulated) ... and (c) experientially ascertain the startlingly obvious difference betwixt the two absolutes via an altered state of consciousness (ASC) and a pure consciousness experience (PCE). And it is the latter (wherein the tire hits the road so to speak) which is the final arbiter of all matters experiential. RESPONDENT: The only one who could uncover our ‘Absolute in disguise’ is someone who is entity-free ... RICHARD: Sure ... but not somebody that is free of identity in toto, though. RESPONDENT: ... [The only one who could uncover our ‘Absolute in disguise’ is someone who is entity-free] but such a person (like BR for example) will not be acknowledged as an ‘authority’ by Richard for the very reason that s/he wouldn’t make the same dogmatic assertions about sense perceptions ... RICHARD: No ... such a person as Ms. Bernadette Roberts, for example, whilst being acknowledged as having the experiential authority (as in the intimate investigational expertise) to report knowledgably about a metaphysical absolute will not be acknowledged as having the experiential authority (as in the intimate investigational expertise) to report knowledgably about the physical absolute. RESPONDENT: ... hence, so prescribes the perverse logic (based on the immunising fallacy: report = reported) ... RICHARD: It is indeed perverse ... but as what you are referring to (the report being the reported) is your rationale, and not mine, then that perversion is yours and yours alone. RESPONDENT: ... [hence], s/he cannot be entity-free and must be in ASC! RICHARD: No, such a person is indeed [quote] ‘entity-free’ [endquote] – else they cannot have the experiential authority (as in the intimate investigational expertise) to report knowledgably about a metaphysical absolute (as evidenced in an ASC) – as distinct from being free of identity in toto (as evidenced in a PCE). RESPONDENT: As to his ‘followers’ (Vineeto, Peter, others) they cannot help but must believe him ... RICHARD: On the contrary, such persons as you mention can, and do, verify for themselves experientially (via PCE’s or even via both PCE’s and ASC’s) that what Richard has to report/ describe/ explain is in accord with fact and actuality. Incidentally, experience over many years has shown that it is usually religionists and/or spiritualists and/or mystics and/or metaphysicalists who gratuitously toss in epithets like [quote] ‘followers’ [endquote] and other pejorative words of that ilk ... such as, for instance, ‘disciples’. RESPONDENT: ... [they cannot help but must believe him] and reiterate – like good disciples used to do – their ‘Absolute in disguise’s dogmatic assertions. It is indeed a sad story. RICHARD: As it is your story, and not mine, then the (self-inflicted) sadness you are feeling is yours and yours alone. 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