# Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

Richard’s Selected Correspondence ## On Male and Female RESPONDENT: I am aware that PCE and EE are much more possible during sexual intimacy and congress hence the urge to experiment. RICHARD: Yes, indeed so. Both my third wife (de facto) and my second wife (de jure) were very keen to experiment. For instance, my third wife initially set out to explore her ‘wild side’ (to use the jargon) as she was most appreciative of being with a man with no limits – no limiting fear – in regards the vast extent, and a near-insatiability at times, of female sexuality. RESPONDENT: Yes. That is what most women will look forward to. RICHARD: Aye, yet when that opportunity is freely accessible – as an ever-available living actuality – all manner of weird behaviour can take place (to the point of utter bizarrerie). Now, obviously I am not going to go into details as my reports are circumscribed by the fact that the persons concerned are both readily identifiable and still alive (I have no such constraints when talking about just myself) but as the subject is of primary importance – man-woman sexuality and intimacy is the genesis of family and thus the very core of civilisation itself – there is too much at stake for me to take my unique insight to the grave/ pyre/ whatever. To explain: I have had three wives – with each marriage spanning more than a decade – as three different persons (a normal person, a mystical person and a freed person). In my first marriage I was both a normal person (at first masculinist then later feministic) and a spiritually enlightened/ mystically awakened person. In my second marriage I was first an enlightened/ awakened person then later an actually freed person. My third marriage was solely as a person actually free from the human condition. Hence me being well-placed to know what nobody else can know. Plus, in the five celibate years between my first and second marriages, I was the single parent of young daughters (at first two girls then later one girl) and gained much understanding at that grass-roots level. Also many women during that period – at least a score if not more – most insistently proposed, via blatant sexuality, either a ménage a deux or a ménage a trois. (Love Agapé is the most potent aphrodisiac ever to be invented). Lastly, as a boy I only had girls as playmates (all the children in the near neighbourhood, in the remote farming community where I was born and raised, were female) and all through my life I have always preferred female company ... to the point of much mocking and ridicule for being thus considered effeminate (to use a more polite word). Most importantly: I like women – they are simply marvellous creatures when at their best – and, being such victims of their own emotions and passions, are both ripe for and deserving of liberation. Especially so as, where the women go, there go men too (eventually). RESPONDENT: And social conditioning pulls tight strings on this ‘wild side’ and mankind finds it most threatening – to social institutions of family, religion, marriage etc. RICHARD: Indeed ... and womankind, having internalised what mankind finds most threatening, can be the most fierce advocates of those ‘tight strings’ (both to themselves and to their kind). However, there more to it than what mankind finds most threatening ... much, much more. * RESPONDENT: Your understanding of women is remarkable and let me admit that my initial reading from AF website (from April 2008-June 2008) did lead me to think of some of your writings as ‘male’ experiences. However, when I finally shed every bit of my inhibition about AF (April 2009) I began to see that AF is about human beings and life and not male/ female/ animal. RICHARD: I appreciate you putting that into words as it is for reasons such as this I have often said I would prefer that the second person to become actually free from the human condition be a woman. Hence my undivided attention on the women in my life – which is not just bonking my brains out, in a mud-brick hut in the hills, as a notorious poster once put it (I actually live in an aluminium cabin at sea-level) – because, as I have already written further below, where the women go, there go men too ... eventually. * RICHARD: Also many women during that period – at least a score if not more – most insistently proposed, via blatant sexuality, either a ménage a deux or a ménage a trois. (Love Agapé is the most potent aphrodisiac ever to be invented). Lastly, as a boy I only had girls as playmates (all the children in the near neighbourhood, in the remote farming community where I was born and raised, were female) and all through my life I have always preferred female company ... to the point of much mocking and ridicule for being thus considered effeminate (to use a more polite word). Most importantly: I like women – they are simply marvellous creatures when at their best – and, being such victims of their own emotions and passions, are both ripe for and deserving of liberation. Especially so as, where the women go, there go men too (eventually). RESPONDENT: That is one special aspect of AF and ought to shed all doubts about it – it is as much available to women and men. In fact, stripping of male/ female identity and instinctual passions will bring to end many of the troubles of humanity. RICHARD: Here in this actual world there is simply no way that a male flesh and blood body can identify as a ‘man’ (with all what is implied in that), and equally so for a female flesh and blood body in regards to identification as a ‘woman’ (with all what is implied in that), as identification itself has no existence in actuality. I just happen to be born male; had I been born female all these reports/ descriptions/ explanations would, presumably, had initially led you to think (from April 2008 to June 2008) of some of my writings as ‘female’ experience. RICHARD: … where the women go, there go men too ... eventually. (Richard, List D, No. 6, 13 November 2009). SRID: Hi Richard, Can you explain what you meant by that? What sort of connection exists in actuality that makes men (male flesh and blood body) follow women? Or, were you just referring to the reality? RICHARD: G’day Srid, ‘Tis good to be chatting with you. I was, of course, just referring to the reality (the real-world reality) as all is equitable in actuality. I also did not mean ‘follow’, as such, but more along the lines of what has been occasionally discussed/ mentioned on this very forum ... to wit: that men (as a generalisation) are reluctant to penetrate deeply and/or go very far into actualism because women (as a generalisation) are looking for love and compassion and an empathetic understanding or, at the very least, affection – from a potential spouse (companion/ partner/ lover/ whatever). Hence my undivided attention on the women in my life, and my preference that the second person to become actually free from the human condition be a woman, as it paves the way for more and more men to be confident of finding a woman who will not settle for second-best (affection, empathy, love and all the rest) but wants only the best ... both for herself and for her spouse. (Not to forget to mention my delight at it being a female, and not a male, who opened the way for a virtual freedom to have an entirely new aspect ... namely: a five-month PCE). I guess my ‘where the women go, there go men too’ way of phrasing it would be best exemplified by those men who buy women’s magazines to find out what the latest is they have to adopt so as to get into a modern woman’s panties. That whole SNAG (sensitive new age guy) phenomenon is an instance of this. Regards, Richard. P.S.: So as to pre-empt anyone who would not recognise facetiae even if it got into bed with them all night, and thus categorises that latter part of my post as a malicious outburst (for example), it is but another instance of my droll sense of humour. RICHARD: To illustrate what I am getting at, I would make the analogy to the man/ woman ‘battle of the sexes’. That is, logical thought versus intuitive thought. RESPONDENT: Notice you have brought in intuition here. The third part of the intellect-instinct categorisation. RICHARD: Actually, I was being polite ... I was referring to the ‘you’re just being logical’ and the ‘you’re just being illogical’ accusations that men and women throw at each other! (Men like to think that they are being rational when in fact they are being logical. Women like to think they are being intuitive when they are actually being irrational). * RICHARD: Neither man nor woman has got it right. Male logic is as useless as female intuition. Reflection needs to be neither logical nor intuitive in order to be reflective. RESPONDENT: But does it need to be affective in someway? Is there pure rationality outside of some mechanical calculus? RICHARD: Neither affective nor rational ... if by ‘rational’ you mean logic. I take ‘rational’ to mean ‘matter-of-fact’ or ‘common-sense’. Neither logic nor intuition fit this category. (Just because something is logical, it does not make it sensible. The same applies to intuition). RESPONDENT: Again, that shows the narrowness of your perspective. RICHARD: Whoops ... it was you wrote it, not me. Do you still maintain that someone who writes ‘this is all there is?’ has a ‘narrow perspective’? RESPONDENT: Oh, yes, you did write it. I asked you a point blank question: ‘are you saying, ‘this is all there is’’? And in your narrow perspective you contend that there is nothing but this blood and body. RICHARD: Do you actually read what I write? RESPONDENT: There is a vast dimension which has nothing to do with time and space, and your wanting to measure that from your small bones and blood body is an indication of your huge ego. RICHARD: Have you noticed – this is just something that I have noticed – that you dispense this ‘huge ego’ wisdom of yours rather liberally on this Mailing List ... and usually to posters with male names? Do you not have something less feminist to contribute? RESPONDENT: How low will you go? RICHARD: As low as you wish to go ... it is you who sets the pace. To the best of my recollection you have never used your ‘huge ego’ wisdom on a poster with a female name. You will write disparagingly about roosters strutting and fighting ... but never about hens preening themselves. IRENE to Peter: Every man desires a woman (or ‘chick for free’) who is willing to deny her feelings and intuitions, the very culprits for malice and sorrow ... as far as Richard is concerned, that is. RICHARD: What is with this ‘chick for free’ statement of yours ... are you upholding a woman’s traditional right to sell herself? Is that not degrading to women? Does this not reduce a woman to a commodity? A sex-object? A piece of meat? Do you wish to single-handedly put woman back into the dark ages after all that has been achieved through the whole woman’s liberation movement? Also, you cast archetypal aspersions upon the integrity of women who have dared to run the gamut of their peer’s calumny and obloquy. Your remark reads like being one of those snide digs that women unfortunately indulge in with their contemporaries in order to keep each other sexually repressed ... all the while blaming only men for a woman’s frustration. * IRENE to Peter: Richard sees that feelings and intuitions are the main-cause for all misery and suffering in the world, and believes that women must be helped to get rid of these unfortunate and malicious tendencies ... and become like him. RICHARD: Why this one-eyed view? Why do you turn these discussions into a woman versus man issue? What is your agenda? I talk equally to man and woman ... men have intuition too (popularly known as ‘gut-feelings’ or ‘hunches’). When tested exhaustively, male intuition was demonstrated to be as unreliable as female intuition ... 50/50 on average (which is the same as guessing). The male clairvoyants – now there is proof that intuition is not the exclusive domain of the female of the species – could not better a 53.4% accuracy. Also ... men have feelings too. It is just that they express them differently to women ... a man knows what another man is feeling. We have discussed these issues before – you and I – and you came to recognise the ‘code’ that men use to convey feelings to each other. It is surprising to see so much recidivism in such a short time. RESPONDENT: The writers of the Bible were certainly offended at the notion that women who are regarded as leaders, who were doing astronomy, who are making the predictions, who are directing the planting and harvest times, who schedule the festivals, who teach the ways of civilisation, who taught how to have good sex, might actually be smart enough to figure out that the world is not flat! Perhaps we should take our cue from the Biblical writers who plagiarised their mythology and cosmology, making it patriarchal, and call them Jezebel’s, harlots, temple concubines. RICHARD: I get the impression that you have a romantic view of the ‘feminine principle’ ... as in it being superior to the ‘masculine principle’. Neither patriarchy nor matriarchy is better than the other ... they are both rotten to the core. Just as men can be – and are – patronising towards women ... so too are women ‘matronising’ towards men (to coin a word). If there is to be salubrity, it behoves one to clear the decks and start afresh. Chuck both models out and start thinking and acting as a fellow human being ... the ‘war between the sexes’ has gone on far too long. Women – just the same as men – are born with instinctual fear and aggression and nurture and desire. * RESPONDENT: Obviously the writers didn’t know as much about the sophisticated astronomy of the Babylonian priestesses whose cosmology they were borrowing. They should have asked ‘the prostitute woman whose name was Rahab’ Josh Chapter 2, to edit their draft. Sometimes the errors people make are very instructive to indicate their thinking. RICHARD: Ah, here is some more of your worship of the ‘feminine principle’ that you say I know so little about. ‘Sophisticated astronomy’ indeed ... where does it say that these priestesses knew the earth to be globular? Next you will be saying that they knew it to be an oblate spheroid. As for venerating the feminine principle ... please ponder upon this: women – just the same as men – are born with instinctual fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Thus they too have malice and sorrow in their bosom. RESPONDENT: Because women suffer ‘pain and anguish’ during childbirth (modern drugs to thwart that naturalness not withstanding) women historically have been less prone to the organized murder known as war. RICHARD: Uh huh ... why fight when you have stupefied men to do the fighting for you, eh? And quite often the fighting is instinct-run men fighting over you anyway ... which is quite ego-boosting, would you not say? RESPONDENT: Perhaps it is in that way of looking at it, but isn’t the reason men have been more likely to engage in life threatening activities such as war and hunting due to the fact that males are biologically more expendable gender? RICHARD: Yet females engage in life-threatening activities such as child-birth and defending their young ... why do you wish to make the female more important than the male via dubious theorising? Simply put, an unfertilised ovum is as useless as a spermatozoa all dressed-up but with nowhere to go. Some radical feminists may claim to have at last dispensed with the need for men because of cloning and the dildo ... but the vocal out-pourings of a disgruntled and tiny minority group gaining media publicity because of their desperate philosophical stance does not make a fact go away. The female of any species is born with the same instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire as the male ... do not get sucked into the ‘feminine principle’ (like Mr. Lao Tzu did) through overlooking covert hostility in favour of castigating only the more obvious overt hostility. RESPONDENT: Perhaps it is the unconscious recognition of this fact that make divided from life males prone to violence against the more biologically important gender? RICHARD: Why complicate things with unnecessary theories ... is it not simply the physically stronger bullying the physically weaker? There were official statistics published here in Australia a couple of years ago that showed that while in 94% of the domestic violence cases occasioning bodily harm males were the perpetrators, in 64% of the child abuse cases occasioning bodily harm females were the perpetrators which, whilst still leaving the male overall occasioning much more physical abuse, does point to physical violence being endemic irregardless of gender. But, statistics aside, as the female of any species is born with the same instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire, no female has any greater or easier access to peace-on-earth than males. Also, I do realise that this ‘divided from life’ phrase that you use refers to anyone who will not dumbly submit to their fate ... thus every time that you use it you demonstrate your main objection to being happy and harmless once again. RESPONDENT: They intuitively and experientially are in touch with how much sacrifice goes into creating a life. RICHARD: Aye ... just like men intuitively and experientially are in touch with how much sacrifice goes into preserving kith and kin. RESPONDENT: Males cannot historically compete with females when it comes to sacrifice to preserve kin. RICHARD: If you wish to make that claim then you need to produce the historical evidence and, as I have no intention of gathering the statistics to prove this one way or the other, until you do this impossible feat I will sensibly take it to be 50/50. Besides, are you aware that you have just shot down your own elaborate theory (‘the reason men have been more likely to engage in life threatening activities is that males are biologically more expendable gender’) in your rush to abase yourself before the feminine principle? Tugging the forelock has been a ‘survival tool extraordinaire’ since ancient times. RESPONDENT: So they are thereby less likely to get lost in the ignorance of destroying life without compassion. RICHARD: I cannot resist (it is probably only sentence structure) but are you saying that ‘destroying life without compassion’ is worse than ‘destroying life with compassion’? Then again ... maybe you do mean that? * RESPONDENT: Because women suffer ‘pain and anguish’ during childbirth (modern drugs to thwart that naturalness not withstanding) women historically have been less prone to the organized murder known as war. RICHARD: Uh huh ... why fight when you have stupefied men to do the fighting for you, eh? And quite often the fighting is instinct-run men fighting over you anyway ... which is quite ego-boosting, would you not say? RESPONDENT: Perhaps it is in that way of looking at it, but isn’t the reason men have been more likely to engage in life threatening activities such as war and hunting due to the fact that males are biologically more expendable gender? RICHARD: Yet females engage in life-threatening activities such as child-birth and defending their young ... why do you wish to make the female more important than the male via dubious theorising? Simply put, an unfertilised ovum is as useless as a spermatozoa all dressed-up but with nowhere to go. Some radical feminists may claim to have at last dispensed with the need for men because of cloning and the dildo ... but the vocal out-pourings of a disgruntled and tiny minority group gaining media publicity because of their desperate philosophical stance does not make a fact go away. The female of any species is born with the same instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire as the male ... do not get sucked into the ‘feminine principle’ (like Mr. Lao Tzu did) through overlooking covert hostility in favour of castigating only the more obvious overt hostility. RESPONDENT: Perhaps it is the unconscious recognition of this fact that make divided from life males prone to violence against the more biologically important gender? RICHARD: Why complicate things with unnecessary theories ... is it not simply the physically stronger bullying the physically weaker? There were official statistics published here in Australia a couple of years ago that showed that while in 94% of the domestic violence cases occasioning bodily harm males were the perpetrators, in 64% of the child abuse cases occasioning bodily harm females were the perpetrators which, whilst still leaving the male overall occasioning much more physical abuse, does point to physical violence being endemic irregardless of gender). But, statistics aside, as the female of any species is born with the same instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire, no female has any greater or easier access to peace-on-earth than males. Also, I do realise that this ‘divided from life’ phrase that you use refers to anyone who will not dumbly submit to their fate ... thus every time that you use it you demonstrate your main objection to being happy and harmless once again. RESPONDENT: They intuitively and experientially are in touch with how much sacrifice goes into creating a life. RICHARD: Aye ... just like men intuitively and experientially are in touch with how much sacrifice goes into preserving kith and kin. RESPONDENT: Males cannot historically compete with feales when it comes to sacrifice to preserve kin. RICHARD: If you wish to make that claim then you need to produce the historical evidence and, as I have no intention of gathering the statistics to prove this one way or the other, until you do this impossible feat I will sensibly take it to be 50/50. Besides, are you aware that you have just shot down your own elaborate theory (‘the reason men have been more likely to engage in life threatening activities is that males are biologically more expendable gender’) in your rush to abase yourself before the feminine principle? Tugging the forelock has been a ‘survival tool extraordinaire’ since ancient times. RESPONDENT: So they are thereby less likely to get lost in the ignorance of destroying life without compassion. RICHARD: I cannot resist (it is probably only sentence structure) but are you saying that ‘destroying life without compassion’ is worse than ‘destroying life with compassion’? Then again ... maybe you do mean that? (...) RESPONDENT: What point is there in going on? I am equally guilty here of course. RICHARD: There is plenty of point ... peace-on-earth for starters. What we are engaged in is winkling out your adopted modus operandi so that it can be placed on the table and examined for its obvious flaws. So, are you saying that ‘destroying life without compassion’ (as you say males are more prone to) is worse than ‘destroying life with compassion’ (as you infer females are more likely to)? RESPONDENT: To this interesting list, I wonder if any of you are complete, actualised, perfect, if so you may indeed see that the secret of life is to join and be joined by another and all of what you did and said would be to move towards this happening in order for it to happen. No. 10, Moving with and towards Sharon. RESPONDENT No. 12: If there is completeness, is there a movement to join or unite with some thing or someone else ‘out there’? By the way, No. 23 is relieved that you are not moving in on him. RESPONDENT: No not moving in on you, or any other, just seeing if a new way of being can be brought forth. If one becomes complete with themselves (perfect) a discovery may be made, we are a world of two, male and female, until we find a way (which is of what I speak) to join and become as one, this world will remain a violent, and ever deadening place. RICHARD: Surely you do not mean to imply that no matter what one does about eliminating one’s own malice and sorrow, that arises out of the instinctual fear and aggression and nurture and desire that all sentient beings are born with, there can be no peacefulness and liveliness until one attains union with a member of the other gender? You do say that until one does ‘this world will remain a violent, and ever deadening place’. That means that one’s own achievements can be nullified by the intransigence of another ... hardly a recipe for successfully living life freely according to one’s own honest endeavours. Why, it puts one at the mercy of another’s predilection and proclivity! And even if one were to achieve this oneness with one other, would the entire world then be miraculously transformed? If so, do it, man, do it ... No. 23 has been waiting for ages for someone like you to act. And other people, too ... I watched the BBC ‘Hard Talk’ interview with Mr Robert McNamara (US Secretary for Defence during the Vietnam War) a couple of nights ago. He estimated that 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century. I have always understood it to be 100,000,000 ... which was bad enough. I would suggest that you and Sharon better get your act together sooner rather than later if Peace On Earth depends upon your joining and becoming as one ... there are 29 wars going on at this moment. All joking aside – for it is all somewhat pathetic rather than amusing – you came onto this list trumpeting a new ‘Transformation’ that lay ‘Beyond Enlightenment’. You said it was what Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s Enlightenment ‘pointed to’ ... yet all I have seen written by you is ‘quantumised’ rehashes of the ‘Tried and True’ spiritual and metaphysical hocus-pocus which has been demonstrated to be the ‘Tried and Failed’ through thousands of years of appalling suffering by all who applied the revered and sacred ‘Teachings’ of ‘The Ancients’. Just what is so new and efficacious about oneness? * RESPONDENT: This is a man’s world put together by men for men and to be maintained by men, the women must ‘fit in’ and get by using the ‘men’s rule’. Can we ever ‘unite’ as long as this is true? RICHARD: Where on earth is your head at to repeat such asinine ‘radical feminist’ propaganda from the simmering ’sixties? Whilst it is true that men overtly ‘rule the roost’ and/or ‘hold the reins of power’ ... yet all the while women covertly ‘define the parameters and/or ‘dictate the rules’. Or, in the words of Ms. Arianna Stassinopoulos: [quote]: ‘Women are the carriers of society’s values ... men are deviant in the sense that many of the qualities admired in them are also one’s that society has to regard with disapproval ... Women’s Lib portrays society and morality as a male invention to coerce and punish women ... [yet] women are a virtuous group seeking to impose their moral standards on men’. [endquote]. ‘The Female Woman’; pps 134-135 © Arianna Stassinopoulos 1973; published by William Collins Sons & Coy Ltd Glascow). RESPONDENT: You seem to disagree then agree Richard. RICHARD: In case you did not notice ... I was disagreeing all the way through. RESPONDENT: I was speaking of what is here and now, not the sixties. RICHARD: Yet the point is that it is not ‘a man’s world’ now ... just as it never was in the ’sixties. * RICHARD: So as to assist in coming out of the ’sixties, where the battle of the sexes climbed sharply towards its zenith, and here into the ’noughties, where equity and parity is the key to success, you may or may not find the following URL helpful: www.jokeaday.com/nfweird014.shtml (Whomsoever finds scatological humour to be of questionable taste is advised not to access this URL). RESPONDENT: Your URL seems rather silly to me. RICHARD: I was simply acting upon your own advice. Viz.: • [quote]: ‘I am just to lazy to write long posts filled with detail that seems clear to me, the greater amount of words used the less the communing, for to do the work for another is to get to keep doing it, when a person sees not, pointing is difficult’. [endquote]. (Message 00539 of Archive 00/03). May I ask? What does it take for you to grasp that there may very well be something of worth to examine that does not fit your feminist point of view? You have complained to me in the past that I used too many words: [quote]: ‘Well Richard, at least now I can read you message without all of the errors, now can you at least shorten them, so I will read them?’ and again: ‘just a short answer would be perfect’ and again: ‘Damn Richard, a lot of words to say nothing’ [end quotes] ... so, after tossing and turning and laying awake all night, I suddenly saw the light: is it not said that ‘a picture paints a thousand words’? Apparently not, eh? * RICHARD: Bearing in mind that there may very well be something of worth to examine that does not fit a feminist point of view, the question is: what is being ‘pointed to’ in regards your statement (‘this is a man’s world ... the women must ‘fit in’ and get by using the ‘men’s rule’ ... can we ever ‘unite’ as long as this is true?) by my response? Ms. Arianna Stassinopoulos had something of value to say in defining the problem ... and this ‘battle of the sexes’ need no longer hold sway if the need for power is seen at its source. Maybe – just maybe – some reflecting and contemplating on this overt/ covert ‘balance of power’ issue will throw some light on why you and your partner have been unable to ‘unite’. Because then equity and parity will be artless and free. RESPONDENT: This Arianna knows not of what she speaks ... RICHARD: Okay ... but what it is that Ms. Arianna Stassinopoulos ‘knows not of what she speaks’ and where and how? RESPONDENT: What makes the difference about what she said in 1973, I just responded given you posted it to prove your rightness. RICHARD: I am well aware that you ‘just responded’ ... yet you responded with a blanket dismissal (‘this Arianna knows not of what she speaks’) of what she observed. What I am asking is: what is it that is incorrect (according to you) in what I quoted of hers ... and where and how? RESPONDENT: Here and now Richard, she was just expounding her theory, for the profit, or other gain she was looking for RICHARD: Yet the question is not about what you think her motives for writing are, the question is this: what is it that is incorrect (according to you) in what I quoted of hers ... and where and how? * RESPONDENT: ... nor do you I say. RICHARD: Okay ... whereabouts in the few lines I wrote do I know not of what I speak according to you? Viz.: [Richard]: ‘whilst it is true that men overtly ‘rule the roost’ and/or ‘hold the reins of power’ ... yet all the while women covertly ‘define the parameters’ and/or ‘dictate the rules’. [endquote]. RESPONDENT: I said you know not of what you speak given you do not. RICHARD: Oh? Who decided that it is ‘given’ that I do not know of what I speak? RESPONDENT: Me.. RICHARD: Okay, seeing that I am aware, moment-to-moment, of what goes on in this brain (and that you are not privy to this hands-on inspection) how can you possibly ‘see’ that it is ‘given’ that I do not know of what I speak? * RESPONDENT: Your statement above seems correct and is why the male and female cannot unite. RICHARD: Are you saying that the overt/covert power battle between man and woman is the reason that ‘the male and female cannot unite’? RESPONDENT: No, it is only a tiny part. RICHARD: Okay, what is the major part? * RESPONDENT: The men’s club and the women’s club are not very well known, you know! RICHARD: Every woman I have ever spoken to is aware of what you call ‘the men’s club’ and every man I have ever spoken to is aware of what you call ‘the women’s club’ ... plus it is written about in books, newspapers, magazines and on the internet as well as being talked about on radio and television and in seminars. Therefore, is there something new you can contribute to aid human understanding? * RESPONDENT: To ‘unite’ all thought must be gone, and love from intelligence which has been created must be in order. RICHARD: May I ask? Why is it, then, that you and your partner have been unable to ‘unite’? RESPONDENT: There is no reason Richard, reason is for the thoughtful ones, those lost in reason, justification and explanation. RICHARD: Okay, let me put it this way: (1) has ‘all thought gone’ for you? (2) has ‘love from intelligence which has been created in order’ for you? RESPONDENT: All control that thought had is gone, thought is still here otherwise I could not respond. Love which is of Intelligence, born of Creation is Creating. RICHARD: Okay, I take it from this that you fit your detailed requirements to ‘unite’ ... yet it has not happened. Can you ‘see’ what is preventing ‘uniting’ from happening vis a vis you and your partner? * RESPONDENT: I know not what to do to put this in a ‘thought’ spoken way so it can be understood ... RICHARD: May I make a suggestion? First explain why you consider that ‘this is a man’s world put together by men for men and to be maintained by men, the women must ‘fit in’ and get by using the ‘men’s rule’ ... and see what happens, eh? You must have some explanation for having come to this conclusion ... or else you are just writing the first bit of propaganda that comes into your mind (which would make you a fool). RESPONDENT: Perfect Richard, you have hit upon it, I am a fool, a perfect one at that! RICHARD: Good ... now that it has been established that you are a fool who was sucked in badly by some ‘radical feminist’ propaganda from the ‘sixties we can proceed. Am I to take it that you now agree that power itself is the reason why man and woman cannot unite and not because ‘it’s a man’s world’ after all? RESPONDENT: Why do you add to my words? RICHARD: Where did I ‘add to your words’? I had said that unless you had an explanation for your conclusion that it is ‘a man’s world’ it would make you a fool to be just writing the first bit of propaganda that comes into your mind ... and you replied that I had ‘hit upon it, I am a fool’. Where, may I ask again, am I adding to your words? * RESPONDENT: Do you not know that knowledge cannot add to Intelligence? RICHARD: Are you telling me that you are ‘Intelligence’ itself now? The last time we corresponded you said you were an ‘empty vessel’ for ‘Intelligence’ to come through ... have you been taken over completely these days? * RESPONDENT: Power which the male has thus far is the cause of this insanity, if the power were to be given to the female the same result would be. RICHARD: How is this response of yours different from what I wrote (above)? Viz.: [Richard]: ‘power itself is the reason why man and woman cannot unite’. RESPONDENT No. 10: This is a man’s world put together by men for men and to be maintained by men, the women must ‘fit in’ and get by using the ‘men’s rule’. Can we ever ‘unite’ as long as this is true? RICHARD: Where on earth is your head at to repeat such asinine ‘radical feminist’ propaganda from the simmering ’sixties? Whilst it is true that men overtly ‘rule the roost’ and/or ‘hold the reins of power’ ... yet all the while women covertly ‘define the parameters and/or ‘dictate the rules’. Or, in the words of Ms. Arianna Stassinopoulos: • [quote]: ‘Women are the carriers of society’s values ... men are deviant in the sense that many of the qualities admired in them are also one’s that society has to regard with disapproval ... Women’s Lib portrays society and morality as a male invention to coerce and punish women ... [yet] women are a virtuous group seeking to impose their moral standards on men’. [endquote]. ‘The Female Woman’; pps 134-135 © Arianna Stassinopoulos 1973; published by William Collins Sons & Coy Ltd Glascow). So as to assist in coming out of the ’sixties, where the battle of the sexes climbed sharply towards its zenith, and here into the ’noughties, where equity and parity is the key to success, you may or may not find the following URL helpful: www.jokeaday.com/nfweird014.shtml (Whomsoever finds scatological humour to be of questionable taste is advised not to access this URL). (Richard, List B, No. 10c, 15 March 2000). RESPONDENT: You’ve got it right. Covert leads to overt, and overt get into trouble while covert looks like an angel. Empower women over men and chaos is the result. RICHARD: Hmm ... the last time I looked chaos already reigned supreme. As for ‘empowering women over men’ (or empowering men over women): as neither women nor men can ever have the upper hand (it is only the overt/ covert balance of power interaction that can ever change) you need not be concerned about your scenario coming to fruition (for men would covertly ‘define the parameters’ as women now do to keep excesses in check through holding the high moral ground if or when women ever overtly ‘hold the reins of power’). If you fondly imagine that you are currently ‘empowered’ over women then it is time to go back to your drawing board and redraft your thesis in accord with the facts (I take it that you either did not access the URL provided or did not find it informative if you did). It is the need for power itself that is the problem – not who currently overtly or covertly holds it – which is why I suggested coming out of the ’sixties and here into the ’noughties, where equity and parity is the key to success. The cathartic ‘airing one’s dirty linen in public’ of the ’sixties is over for those who actually looked at the dirt displayed. RESPONDENT: There is always a legitimate need for power in any family. RICHARD: Why? And where has outwardly dominating one’s partner (overt power) ever lead to peace and harmony? And where has outward subservience (covert power) towards one’s partner ever lead to peace and harmony? RESPONDENT: There is no such thing as parity. RICHARD: Why not? Do you have a problem with being on a par, in having equivalence, with your partner? If so, why do you need to outwardly dominate her (overt power)? Similarly, does your partner have a problem with being on a par, in having equivalence, with you? If so, why does she need to be outwardly subservient (covert power)? RESPONDENT: In every family one parent has more power than the other and it will always be that way. RICHARD: Hmm ... as you have already stated (further above) that to ‘empower women over men and chaos is the result’ then this politically correct sentence of yours now reads: • [Respondent]: ‘in every family [the man] has more power than [the woman] and it will always be that way’. Other than because it says so in the Christian scriptures ... why do you consider this to be the way that ‘it will always be’? Where is the evidence of history to demonstrate that the man outwardly dominating the woman, and the woman outwardly submitting to the man, has evinced any peace and harmony ... let alone an enduring peace and harmony? Why do you want to insist on preserving the ‘tried and failed’ overt/ covert power battle between the sexes? Is this not all sick? RESPONDENT: The idea that there is a 50-50 situation exists only in someone’s imagination. RICHARD: Yet the idea that ‘the man has more power than the woman’ only exists in someone’s imagination ... and presumably some patriarch’s imagination at that. Similarly, the idea that ‘the woman has more power than the man’ only exists in someone’s imagination ... and presumably some matriarch’s imagination. Why persist in a blind sickness? RESPONDENT: Of course there is also an illegitimate need for power. That is obvious. RICHARD: Why is it obvious? I do not see any basis for a ‘legitimate need for power’ ... let alone a basis for an ‘illegitimate need for power’: any and all power is a sickness, whether one be dominant (overt power) or subservient (covert power). RESPONDENT: In that case why are you trying to overpower people on the list through extensive verbiage? That is your prime endeavour here. RICHARD: Not so ... am I to take it that you have nothing further to contribute to the previous dialogue (above)? If so, are you in agreement or not? RESPONDENT: What happened to your wife? RICHARD: Which wife? RESPONDENT: Who won? RICHARD: Who won what? RESPONDENT: You know what. RICHARD: No ... I do not ‘know what’. I am not a mind-reader ... if I was I would not have asked for clarification as I am only to happy to discuss whatever you think may throw some light onto what is already a complex and complicated issue. If you actually want an answer you will have to be specific about both which wife you are referring to and plus whatever it was that you think someone won so as to find out who it was that won whatever it was that you think happened between myself and whichever wife it was that you think was involved. Meanwhile ... am I to take it that you have nothing further to contribute to the previous dialogue (much further above)? If so, are you in agreement or not? * RESPONDENT: Either the man or the woman is going to have the dominant role in the relationship. I say that if it is the woman, it means serious problems for sure. If in your marriages, you did not see anything about this, I doubt I could convince you otherwise. You could have observed it. If you did not, I wonder why? RICHARD: Oh, but I did much more than merely ‘observe’ it: I lived it out (in my first marriage I was ‘masculine’; in my second marriage I was ‘feminine’). RESPONDENT: What happened was that you started out masculine ... RICHARD: Yes ... in my first marriage I was more or less like virtually any other man I met; I was a normal man, well bought-up and educated, a decent and responsible citizen in that I was a typical western youth, raised to believe in God, Queen and Country. I was what is called ‘happily married’ with four ‘lovely children’ owning my ‘own house’ and running my ‘own business’ successfully. People who were into things like what is discussed on this Mailing List were the ‘lunatic fringe’ and were not worth even listening to. All that ‘Love and Truth’ stuff was just ‘pie-in-the-sky’ idealism ... I knew better than they. Which is: if only other people would stop doing ... [insert whatever complaint here] ... then all would be well. In short, I was run by both an ego and a soul; I did not want to look at my instinctual passions or my sorrowful and malicious feelings or my corrupted thoughts or identity-controlled actions and behaviour at all. RESPONDENT: ... and wound up feminine ... RICHARD: Yes ... in the fourteenth year of my marriage I had an experience that showed me who ‘I’ was. ‘I’ was nothing but a lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning entity inside this flesh and blood body. So I acted upon this and, as the result of an earnest and intense process, my ‘ego’ disappeared entirely in an edifying moment of awakening to an Absolute Reality. That is, I underwent a monumental transformation into an Altered State Of Consciousness (ASC) which can only be described as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’. I called this ASC an ‘Absolute Freedom’ because there was definitely a metaphysical Absolute in all this – as distinct from the temporal and spatial and material – that was ever-present, and this Divine state of being immediately imbued me with Love Agapé and Universal Compassion for all sentient beings. In short, I became very feminine indeed. RESPONDENT: ... so you found a masculine wife to match the new you. RICHARD: Yes, but that was not for another five years ... in the meanwhile I went through a time I call my ‘puritan period’. I whittled my worldly possessions down to three sarongs, three shirts, a cooking pot and bowl, a knife and a spoon, a bank book and a pair of nail scissors. I possessed nothing else anywhere in the world and cut all family ties. During that period I was homeless, itinerant, celibate, vegan, (no spices; not even salt and pepper), no drugs (no tobacco, no alcohol; not even tea or coffee), no hair cut, no shaving, no washing other than a dip in a river or the ocean ... which means: whatever I could eliminate from my life that was an encumbrance and an attachment, I had let go of. Then, one sunny morn, I met the woman who was to become my second wife on a long, deserted beach. She was determined to ‘unmask the guru’ (her words) and, whilst remarking that while it was certainly something outstanding to ‘love everybody and everything unconditionally’, could I love one person totally, completely and utterly. In short, could man and woman live together in peace and harmony twenty four hours a day. RESPONDENT: Did you live in harmony 24 hours a day? RICHARD: For the first six years of my second marriage I was still endeavouring to extract myself from the Altered State Of Consciousness (ASC) which is known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ ... and as this divine ‘State Of Being’ imbued me with Love Agapé and Universal Compassion for all sentient beings, I was unable to live in total peace and harmony for the twenty four hours of the day. For the latter five years of the marriage, since going beyond enlightenment and breaking through into an actual freedom from the human condition (wherein malice and sorrow is eliminated and not transcended as in spiritual enlightenment), I have consistently lived in total peace and harmony. This has been my condition since 1992, thus I have had eight years to compare it with the enlightened state ... I can find no fault anywhere. In the enlightened state there were occasional ‘bleed-throughs’ from the transcended ‘I’ as ego entity ... brief flashes of fear, irritation, anguish, desire and so on (a close examination of what is written regarding various Enlightened Masters’ day-to-day lived experience will verify this as being typical). I have had nary a hint nor a glimmer or even a whiff of the faintest trace of a ‘bleed-through’ in actual freedom ... and I am relentless in my examination of myself. After all, I am going public with an outrageous and outstanding claim that could – and should – set the squalid complacency of the religious, spiritual, mystical and metaphysical communities on their ears ... and for those eleven years in the ASC I was determined to be ‘squeaky-clean’ before doing so. Five years without a single hitch satisfied me beyond any doubt whatsoever – not only beyond reasonable doubt – that this is that which is the answer to all the ills of humankind ... and I started writing of my experience in public. RESPONDENT: If so why was she your second wife? RICHARD: Because my first wife, being conventionally religious, and upon being faced with her husband’s spiritual enlightenment in the fifteenth year of a normal marriage, chose for the status-quo and, as far as I know, to this very day is still faithfully waiting for the ‘Second Coming’ of her God-Man (he who has a different notion of what a ‘generation’ means than virtually anyone else). RESPONDENT: What I meant was, why did you end your second marriage if you had found such a harmonious state of existence while with your second wife? RICHARD: Because my second wife, being mystically feministic, and upon being faced with her husband’s actual freedom from the human condition in the sixth year of an abnormal marriage, chose for ‘True Love’ (Matrilineal not Patrilineal) and, as far as I know, to this very day is still faithfully waiting for the ‘True Peace’, that only a female can manifest via ‘True Intimacy’, to manifest itself. RESPONDENT: What kind of peace are you talking about? RICHARD: The utter peace of the perfection of the purity welling endlessly as the infinitude this eternal and infinite universe actually is. RESPONDENT: Who made peace with who? RICHARD: There is no ‘who’ – ‘who’ can never, ever be at peace – it is me as-this-body that is peace personified ... and no one else, as far as I can ascertain, is experiencing this. And, as this peace is so perfect, it does not require anybody else’s cooperation ... mutuality and reciprocity in relationship neither adds to perfection nor does their absence detract from perfection. RESPONDENT: Were you both perfect? RICHARD: What is with this ‘were’ business? The identity in toto (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) is extinct ... annihilated, expunged, liquidated, extirpated. As dead as the dodo but with no skeletal remains. There is no phoenix to arise from the ashes ... there are no ashes. This is final, complete and total. RESPONDENT: By the way, I really like how you deal with gender. What a relief! RICHARD: Aye, we are all fellow human beings irregardless of gender, race, age, era or culture ... as an actuality. RESPONDENT: Very unlike your countryman, Barry Long. Of course, Tantra is all the rage now. I find the idea that reality is fundamentally divided into the masculine and feminine principles totally ludicrous. Talk about never the twain shall meet! RICHARD: Yes, Taoism is the most widely known proponent of this puerile belief system that is not worth studying – except as a curiosity piece or to become free of it – yet this masculine/ feminine dichotomy is global in its spread. Viz.: • Old myths and archetypes are full of examples of such opposites: whilst the Chinese had their ‘Yang’ and ‘Yin’, the Tibetans their ‘Yab’ and ‘Yum’. The Tantras refer to the union of ‘Shiva’ (a Hindu god) and ‘Shakti’ (Shiva’s consort) in one’s own body and consciousness and provide appropriate practices to this end. Buddhism has its ‘Samsara’ and ‘Nirvana’ as aspects of the Same. The Zoroastrian tradition has ‘Ormazd’ (the Good Lord) and ‘Ahriman’ (the Lie); the Gnostic myth speaks of ‘Christ’ and ‘Satan’ as brothers; and the same idea is found in the Vedas, where the ‘Suras’ (‘good spirits’) and ‘Asuras’ (‘bad spirits’) are shown to be cousins. In Prajnaparamita, a Mahayana (northern Buddhist) text, the Illumined Ones are supposed to engage in a laughter in which all distinctions cease to exist. In a different context there is the androgyne (‘man-woman’), the ardhanarishvara in Indian myth. As for the Hindu jivanmukta, the liberated individual is liberated from duality. This is also part of what the Lord Krsna (Krishna) said, when he asked the hero Arjuna to rise above the three gunas (‘modes’). The medieval Christian scholar Nicholas of Cusa put it as ‘coincidentia oppositorum’ (‘union of opposites’). Since the opposites coincide without ceasing to be themselves, this also becomes an acceptable definition of God, or the nature of the Ground. God, said Heracleitus, is day and night, summer and winter, war and peace, and satiety and hunger – all opposites. A 5th- to 6th-century-AD Christian mystical writer called Dionysius the Areopagite advised people to strip off all questions in order that we may attain a naked knowledge of that Unknowing and that we may begin to see the superessential Darkness which is hidden by the light that is in existent things. (Copyright 1994-1984 Encyclopaedia Brittanica). RESPONDENT: I think an awful lot of inequities have stemmed from the masculine/ feminine principles belief (masculine being consciousness, feminine being nature). It bothers me a lot that westerners embrace these philosophies blithely without taking a good look at the way males and females relate today in the countries these beliefs originate from. RICHARD: This blind acceptance of eastern wisdom is, in part, what inspires me to write so prodigiously instead of retiring to some idyllic isle and watching the fish leap in the lagoon. RESPONDENT: When I read that 3000 females a year are killed in India by their in-laws because their dowries are too small, then I find the idea that heaven is masculine and earth is feminine a little less fetching – especially when all spiritualities are trying to make us think their heaven is much more important than earth. If I get going on this one ... . RICHARD: By all means do get going ... it will save me doing same! RICHARD: ... my previous companion eventually became so disappointed by the lack of personal touch (as in ‘no-one to make a connection with’ so as to have a relationship) that upon making a deeply passionate connection with another person she packed her bags and moved out. RESPONDENT: Funny! :-) That’ll teach ya, eh Richard? :-) RICHARD: Ha ... you know how a deeply passionate connection operates, I see. RESPONDENT: Thanks for the laugh, hope all is well. RICHARD: As love never makes anyone well then it would seem that hope is about all you do have to offer to her. RESPONDENT: I got to tell you, same thing recently happened to my buddy, and as she was standing at her car she says, ‘well aren’t you gonna say anything?’, and he says, ‘yes, drive safely’. :-) RICHARD: What I had to say was, of course, not at all platitudinous ... and at least one pertinent thing emerged out of the whole ‘no-one to make a connection with’ issue as two or so years later, after spending 13 months being a proxy maiden aunt, on a daily basis, to the newly born baby girl of a single young mother – which means she is being raised only by females – my previous companion came up to me in a café one day to let me know that she now understands, via this first-hand experience, that the instinctual passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) are indeed innate. Has your buddy’s ex-partner discovered anything of note yet regarding deeply passionate connections? * RESPONDENT: They’re gonna get if and when they’re gonna get it. RICHARD: My previous companion informed me that she would never had got it that the instinctual passions are innate if I had not consistently pointed it out to her in the first place ... to prove me wrong in this regard is what motivated her to observe for herself on a daily basis, by being a proxy maiden aunt over a 13 month period to a newly born baby girl being raised only by females, just what a supposedly innocent baby girl spontaneously experiences (she had a feministic theory/ belief that males put such passions as fear and aggression and nurture and desire into female babies). RESPONDENT: That’s pretty ridiculous. I’ve run into a lot of bitter, angry women but never heard that one before. RICHARD: It does have its echoes in the ‘sugar and spice and all things nice’ doggerel of nursery-room lore, though. RESPONDENT: Pretty funny really, ‘It’s all YOUR fault! :-) Reminds me I saw this cartoon where this woman is smiling, telling her husband upon leaving her psychiatrists office, she says, ‘He agrees with me, it’s all YOUR fault!’ :-) LOL RICHARD: Just as misandry persuades some females to blame the male of the species (as in the above instance drawn from radical feminism) so too does misogyny persuade some males to blame the female of the species (as in ‘the woman she gave me of the tree and I did eat’ for example) and, of course, misanthropy persuades more than a few of either gender to blame the species at large (as in ‘children are born innocent and get corrupted by society’ for instance) ... anything, in other words, but face the fact of blind nature’s biological legacy. Be that as it may: the point being that it just does not make any sense to say you have ‘nothing’ to offer yet in the next breath say ‘they’re gonna get if and when they’re gonna get it’ ... as you have ‘nothing’ to offer there is ‘nothing’ for them to get (never mind the if and when). * RESPONDENT: Like children, they have to find out on their own. RICHARD: Having previously been the parent of four children, plus being a qualified art teacher, I know first-hand that the passing-on of information is invaluable ... if it were not for the sharing of knowledge we could all be still living in caves dressed in animal skins and gnawing on raw brontosaurus bones. RESPONDENT: I raised 4 kids too! And I also was a teacher, ran a swim school, taught hundreds of kids to swim. And like swimming, you don’t really ‘teach’ them, you just give them the ‘tools’ and they do it themselves. RICHARD: This has become all rather circuitous: when I enquired, in a previous e-mail, as to what you had to offer you said ‘nothing’ and then explained, in this e-mail, that you do not ‘give’ anyone anything (adding that it was a big misunderstanding) yet here you ‘give’ people tools whilst saying you do not really ‘teach’ ... even though, further above, you refer to ‘the teaching’ you obviously give (else there is nothing to ‘of a sudden’ be heard). And all this circumlocution is because of a simple and unambiguous query about what it is, other than hope, that you have to offer. RESPONDENT: It has to be self-motivated, the ‘need’ has to be there. And what I find in the case of most people with this realization business is that the ‘need’ really isn’t there. They want a lot of things, but understanding isn’t one of them, or only as it fits their other purposes. As I believe I’ve said before, their ‘life’ is what still has them, wanting it to ‘work out’. And as in the case of your ex, you see very well how that plays out. RICHARD: No, in the case of my previous companion the very reason she moved out was because she was kidnapped by the glamour and the glory and the glitz of love and, as a consequence, irremediably bitten by the enlightenment bug ... the self-motivated ‘need’ was thus inexorably in place and such was her desire for the ‘understanding’ of self-realisation there was naught I could do to bring her back to her senses (both literally and metaphorically). I wrote about these very circumstances in the e-mail posted only eight hours before the first one you wrote to me in this current exchange ... here is a brief excerpt (which is a quote from my journal written at the time it was happening): • [Richard]: ‘... my companion of the last eleven years is moving out (...) After all these delicious years of living together and exploring together, a rather salient and curiously unforeseen event has taken place. She has fallen in love ... and has spent the last six weeks endeavouring to come to terms with the shifting kaleidoscope of passions that swing her from one point of view to another. All the experiential understanding of a virtual freedom gets tossed aside in the twinkling of an eye ... only to come back solidly when she is able to come to her senses once again. We recorded one of our conversations only two weeks ago in order to have something factual – other than one’s notoriously unreliable memory – to fall back upon in the times of love’s stress (snip transcription of taped conversation). (pages 235-236, Article 36, ‘Richard’s Journal’; ©1997The Actual Freedom Trust). But it has all been to no avail, the power of love surging through the bloodstream is too strong to deny ... the body can be persuaded to produce quite an array of chemicals; a veritable cocktail is available to the insidious entity that has a psychological and psychic residence within. Already the only danger that awaits one on the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom is beginning to emerge ... the seduction of Enlightenment has been starting to rear its ‘Tried and True’ head. As I have observed before: it is impossible to combat the wisdom of the real world ... and when the Greater Reality slips beguilingly into view, one can no longer appeal to sensible reason or sensitive rationality. All the atavistic affective inheritance is sweeping away the salubrity of our eleven years together ...’. (pages 239, Article 36, ‘Richard’s Journal’; ©1997The Actual Freedom Trust). Which is one of the reasons why I was so appreciative when she came up to me in a café one day to let me know that she now understands, via first-hand experience and despite the off-the-wall writings of radical feminism, that the instinctual passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) are indeed innate And I am always well-pleased, when somebody gets something from reading/ hearing what I have to report, for I like my fellow human being no matter where they are coming from, where they are at, or where they are going to ... each person has a background, a frame of reference, an agenda, and the challenge of communication lies in engaging such a person in a sincere, frank, and honest discussion. Which is precisely what is happening in this e-mail exchange. RESPONDENT: Richard claims that he just prefers to have the company of a woman instead of being alone. RICHARD: If you could provide the passage where I said I prefer to have the company of a woman ‘instead of being alone’ it would be most appreciated. RESPONDENT: That it [the company of a woman] is a privilege etc. RICHARD: The ‘etc.’ is, in fact, none other than delight (see immediately below). RESPONDENT: But the very fact that he would consider it a privilege, that is, something which adds value to his life, belies the claim that the world is perfect as is for an actualist. RICHARD: This is what I actually wrote: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘In a PCE, there is no need for a relationship as everything is already perfect. There is an enormous feeling of well being and there seems to be no particular motivation to go and find another person and prove that two people of the opposite gender can live together in peace, harmony, equity, etc. My question is: ‘What motivates Richard to be in a relationship with a woman if he is living in Actual Freedom (which I understand to be more or less a permanent PCE)?’ I mean, why bother? • [Richard]: ‘It is not to ‘prove’ that two people can live together in peace and harmony that I am currently living with a female companion – it is impossible to be anything other than happy and harmless here in this actual world – and it is no ‘bother’ at all to live in marriage-like association with a fellow human being of either gender (according to sexual orientation) ... it is both a delight and a privilege. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 77, Friday 22/10/2004 AEST). Nowhere did I say that it is something which ‘adds value’ to my life (thus belying that this actual world is perfect) ... and the odd thing is that all what is required is to just simply ask me, if it be not obvious, what I mean by it being a privilege to be living with a female companion. Just look at what your e-mail brought forth: • [Co-Respondent to Respondent]: ‘Your first two paragraphs get to the heart of the matter. Privilege or something that adds value to his life has no place in PCE ...’. (Saturday 23/10/2004 AEST). And on and on it went ... here is your latest: • [Respondent]: ‘In actualism, why do people prefer a relationship involving the possibility of sexual congress? In what way does it add value to their life, in order for Richard to say that it is a privilege? (Monday 25/10/2004 AEST). It is this simple: there are over 3.0 billion females on this planet ... and one of them wants to spend their most irreplaceable commodity (their time) living with me/ being with me, twenty four hours a day/ seven days a week, for the remainder of their life. Now, that is something special (it is, so to speak, putting one’s money where one’s mouth is big time) ... hence ‘privilege’. To put it all into perspective: I have nothing to offer in the normal sense – no affection/ love/ adoration, no empathy/ sympathy/ commiseration, no high-paying career/ house/ car/ money in the bank, no children/ grandchildren/ great-grandchildren (because of an irreversible vasectomy) – nor anything in the abnormal sense (no charisma/ magnetism/ radiant transmission outside of the scriptures, no enlightenment/ awakenment/ self-realisation through an intense master/ disciple relationship) ... and nothing to offer in regards a singular dispensation in becoming actually free from the human condition (I cannot set anybody free). In short: a fellow human being likes me as-I-am – with no strings attached/ no hidden agenda/ no ulterior motive – for what-I-am ... and not for what I can give/ do/ provide/ dispense and so forth. And this is truly marvellous. RESPONDENT: I mean, can there be an icing on a cake, a cake which is infinitely big? RICHARD: Indeed there can be (and dollops of cream on top of the icing as well) ... bucket-loads of it, in fact. Viz.: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Isn’t ‘self’ really (and literally) an after-thought? For example, humans instinctively respond to certain situations and then the after-thought actually creates the self? For example, an instinctive response to avert a danger, and then after-thought: ‘I could have died’. The latter, I think, is what constitutes the self. Similarly with pleasurable activities: it is the desire to have more that creates the self. • [Richard]: ‘Speaking personally, I have pleasure by the bucket load – and take for granted that there is an endless supply – and no ‘self’ gets created. (Richard, List B, No. 33, 21 September 1999). And: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘You see, it is nearly impossible for me to not seek, to not be self-centred. Perhaps there were/ are moments/ days/ weeks/ etc. of absence of self-centeredness in my dealings with my daughter, family, a few friends. But, by and large, I am rooted in my pleasures. So, whatever I feel, care for, experience, etc. is all tinted by the strong tint of pleasure. • [Richard]: ‘Once again ... have the injunctions of the ‘Deathless Ones’ (the bodiless entities) really had that much influence on your thinking? You have just had a direct experience of the actual ... yet away you go into interpreting it according to the ‘Tried and True’. Speaking personally, I have pleasure by the bucket load – and take for granted that there is an endless supply – and thus enjoy and appreciate the world of people, things and events each moment again. (Richard, List B, No. 33a, 11 October 1999). * RESPONDENT: My dialogue with Richard started with questioning about sex, but it degenerated into nit-picking over a thought experiment I proposed ... RICHARD: Hmm ... given that you said you would be [quote] ‘very much interested in actualism’ [endquote] if you were to be informed that it was enjoyable, here in this actual world, to kiss a perfumed robot, yet in the very next e-mail stated that you would [quote] ‘find it quite pathological if a person imagined having sex with a dead body/ robot’ [endquote], is it any wonder I drew that blatant dichotomy to your attention? To cavalierly dismiss clarity in communication as being nit-picking is hardly the stuff of an intelligent dialogue. RESPONDENT: ... ( which was a mere part of the discussion but which became the focus of his onslaught). RICHARD: If I may point out? ‘Twas you that devoted an entire e-mail to it – snipping out all else which was being discussed – and not me. * RESPONDENT: Also, if you look at Vineeto’s post about how Richard met a woman at a Satsang retreat, you will notice that Richard points out that there is a certain ‘environment’ in the air, what has happened so many times before. RICHARD: Here is the extract from ‘Richard’s Journal’ you are referring to: • [Richard]: ‘I am walking along this deserted beach with a woman from the Satsang Retreat who, up until now, I did not know to speak to as the retreat is being conducted in silence ... and I have not made any effort to get to know anyone or their names. A little while before I had become aware that someone was walking some distance behind me – and moving fast as if desirous of catching up to me – so I had gradually slowed my step accordingly to allow this to happen. Now, having made contact, we are walking abreast and have moved on from discussing the shortfalls of the Satsang Retreat to the main subject of mutual interest ... freedom itself. She had become very interested in me the night before when she found out from close associate of mine that I was living the Altered State Of Consciousness that the meditators back at the Satsang Retreat were aspiring to attain to. She had read some excerpts from some of my writings and had expressed an interest in furthering an acquaintance with this ‘would-be guru’ ... as she rather cynically saw me. We do seem to have a lot in common, however, so soon enough we sit down to rest and pursue these matters in detail. After telling each other about our life stories – albeit briefly – there is a pause as we sit there looking at each other. Our conversation rapidly becomes far more personal than either of us would expect: ‘I have always wondered whether it is possible for man and woman to live together intimately; in perfect peace and harmony.’ ‘It must be possible, surely, if not ...’ ‘If not, then human life is nothing but a very sick joke!’ ‘I cannot believe that for a moment.’ ‘Me neither ... but both would need to be free.’ ‘Do you know any couple like that?’ ‘No, I cannot say that I do ... definitely not.’ ‘For over thirty years I’ve been observing couples ... especially those who are said to be happily married. I’ve always had this fascination, you see.’ ‘And?’ I pause for a moment and sit here looking at her quizzically. The late summer sun is virtually overhead so we cast little shadow as we sit, man and woman, halfway along this deserted white beach. We have just met ... about half an hour ago ... was it really only half an hour ... near total strangers ... a chance meeting at a Spiritual Retreat ... and yet *what is this sensation, this so familiar yet so new atmosphere humming around the two of us*? ‘Well if that is what’s called being happy, then I’ll never get married. The full one hundred percent. That is what I go for.’ ‘I want something much, much better. The best’. ‘People don’t like to hear that, do they? I’ve always been called too idealistic ... wishing for the moon ...’ ‘I have never been able to understand why people will settle for second-best. Many is the time I have been told that you cannot change human nature ... that this is how it is and that is all there is to it.’ ‘Oh ... that one of accepting people as they are?’ ‘Yes, that one. That one where we are all supposed to realise that this is how it is to be human ... the ‘Human Condition’, it is called. I cannot accept, for one moment, that humans are fated to forever bicker, squabble, argue and fight – with rare moments of relative peace in between, moments of temporary happiness, snatches of harmony which seem to hold a promise – only to disappear again in a general discontent. This I will not accept.’ ‘A promise ... like in the fairy-stories we have all been brought up on. You know, I have always felt cheated: after pages and pages of fury and dread, you are supposed to be content with the last half-page of seeming bliss ... and the promise of ... of what? Of a mere: ‘... and they lived happily ever after.’ Nobody ever writes the sequel! That’s my goal in life: to make the sequel possible.’ ‘To live the sequel ... yes ... why not ... and every day again.’ [emphasis added]. (Richard’s Journal, Chapter 1, ‘If One Is Driven By Some Force One Is Not Actually Free’). I have highlighted the words which you refer to as ‘a certain ‘environment’ in the air, what has happened so many times before’ for reasons which will become clear (below). RESPONDENT: I don’t know how to distinguish this ‘feeling’ from how a normal person feels when he is starting to enter into courtship with a woman. RICHARD: I draw your attention to the following (from the first paragraph in the above extract): • [Richard]: ‘She had become very interested in me the night before when she found out from close associate of mine that I was living the Altered State Of Consciousness that the meditators back at the Satsang Retreat were aspiring to attain to. She had read some excerpts from some of my writings and had expressed an interest in furthering an acquaintance with this ‘would-be guru’ ... as she rather cynically saw me’. Here is the very next section which immediately follows on from where the above extract ends: • [Richard]: ‘I am looking at her with an increasing curiosity tempered by bemusement. I have been single and celibate for nigh-on five years – though not because of any misplaced vow – and there have been numerous women attracted to both my character and my life-style throughout this period. Each and everyone had passed on by, upon closer examination, and I had continued happily with my itinerant and solo life. Nevertheless, this sensation happening here, this atmosphere feeding back and forth now, has been intensifying and changing. Mixed in with it now is some welcome thrill – some barely contained thrill at that – for what is a life without the odd tingling excitation? Could it be that I have finally met that ‘someone’ with whom I can pursue the age-old human dream? Do I dare to anticipate? Was I, who having met women before whose company initially augured well only to once more fall short over and again, going to tread that same old path again? Is this yet another tantalising chimera? Am I, after all, pursuing a will-o’-the-wisp here? The thrill is moderated with caution, yet this ambience is here, this very moment ... there is no denying of this. There is almost a breathless hush. Who will speak it? Who will say it first? Who will be the one to spell it out, to acknowledge the immanence that is the very air between us? (Richard’s Journal, Chapter 1, ‘If One Is Driven By Some Force One Is Not Actually Free’). I am using the word ‘immanence’ in its ‘(of God) permanently pervading and sustaining the universe’ Oxford Dictionary meaning for the clearly enunciated reason (in the extract) that the woman who was to become my companion was well-informed, from both the night before and the half-hour just gone by, as to just who it was she was sitting there with under the noonday sun on a deserted white beach. * RESPONDENT: Richard, on www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/listafcorrespondence/listaf44a.htm, you write the following: • [Respondent]: ‘Why you have a companion and you don’t change one every day? • [Richard]: ‘Primarily because of fellowship regard ... and specifically because of how my current companion is. • [Respondent]: ‘You don’t have any feelings for her, so what a difference makes? • [Richard]: ‘A whole lot of difference ... just for starters I actually care, rather than merely feel that one cares, and thus have genuine consideration for her integrity. Plus I have no interest whatsoever in toying with my fellow human being, anyway, no matter who they are’. [endquote]. Can you explain further? RICHARD: Sure ... I was responding an e-mail which started with the following question: • ‘In which way one person that lost his being and ego, is different than a robot?’ (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44a, 10 July 2003). I do not read/ watch science fiction but as I get these type of questions from time to time, from peoples who either conveniently overlook or are oblivious to what is known as ‘theory of mind’, I have gradually been made aware of various ‘Star Trek’ characters, for instance, and it is pertinent to point out that the stuff of science fiction (creations of imagination) is entirely different to actuality ... a writer replete with identity/ feelings trying to visualise life sans identity/ feelings can, it would seem, only conceive of a robotic/ automated android-like organism speaking in a flat, monotone voice and devoid of both a sense of humour and any caring/ consideration for other sentient creatures (aka fellowship regard). To ask why not change companions every day, as if by having no affective feelings it makes no difference just who it is, is to cavalierly disregard the integrity (aka the soundness of character, the honesty, the sincerity) of, not only my current companion, but each and every one of those (365 per year) fellow human beings ... adroitly assuming, of course, as my co-respondent presumably did, that a steady stream of females would indeed be knocking on my door each morning wanting admission as soon as the previous day’s female-in-residence departed for places unknown (an instinctually-driven archetypal male-fantasy if there ever was). Not to mention, of course, the (presumed) total lack of integrity on my part ... but, then again, a robotic-like automaton would be devoid of same anyway, eh? RESPONDENT: In what way does her integrity suffer if you change your partner? RICHARD: It is not case of having another’s integrity suffer – it is a case of (presumably) having so little regard/ no regard at all for another’s integrity that they could be changed daily – and it speaks volumes for the parlous state of the human condition that such a scenario would even be entertained for a moment ... let alone typed-out and sent to me. RESPONDENT: Also, how would you changing your partner ‘toy’ with your fellow human being? RICHARD: The part of the exchange you quoted at the top of this page followed immediately on from this: • [Respondent]: ‘I have two parrots in a cage home, and I see them flirting and playing. You said that you are not able for flirting but able for sex. • [Richard]: ‘You must be referring to this: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Do you joke, laugh, flirt (...)? • [Richard]: ‘I like to joke, yes and I laugh a lot ... there is so much that is irrepressibly funny about life itself. I have no ability to flirt, however, as my libido is nil and void ... yet I have an active sexual life (...)’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 7, 24 January 1999). • [Respondent]: ‘I can’t understand that. I really can’t. • [Richard]: ‘The word ‘libido’ (Latin meaning ‘desire’, ‘lust’) is the psychiatric/ psychoanalytic term for the instinctual sex drive, urge, or impulse, and the word ‘flirt’ refers to behaving in a superficially amorous manner, to dally sexually with another ... what is so difficult about understanding that, sans the instinctual passion to procreate (and nurture) the species, the ability to be sexually amorous (either superficially or deeply) ceases to exist? With no passions driving behaviour one is able to treat the other as a fellow human being ... and not a sex-object’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, 44a, 10 July 2003). Here is what a dictionary has to say about flirting: • ‘flirt: behave in a superficially amorous manner, dally; she’s always flirting with the boys, toy with, trifle with, make eyes at, ogle, lead on; philander with, dally with’. (Oxford Dictionary). For one to actually care, rather than merely feel that one cares, means that one is incapable of toying with/ trifling with/ dallying with one’s fellow human being ... let alone one’s live-in companion. RESPONDENT: Richard, you said in a post to No. 74 a while back that you would not cheat on your partner because that would affect her integrity. RICHARD: I said no such thing. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 74c, 9 June 2005). RESPONDENT: Could you please explain why would sleeping with another woman would affect your partner’s integrity? RICHARD: As I never said what you say I said there is no such thing to explain. RESPONDENT: What type of integrity do you have in mind? RICHARD: The type of integrity I parenthetically delineated in the very exchange you are referring to, of course. RESPONDENT: I can’t grasp the point you’re making. RICHARD: The general point I am making is that being sans the entire affective faculty/ identity in toto does not mean I am a robotic/ automated android-like organism speaking in a flat, monotone voice and devoid of both a sense of humour and any fellowship regard (aka caring/ consideration) for other sentient creatures. The specific point I am making is that for my earlier co-respondent to have asked why not change companions every day, as if by having no affective feelings it makes no difference just who it is, is to have cavalierly disregarded the integrity of, not only my current companion, but each and every one of those (365 per year) fellow human beings – adroitly assuming, of course, as that previous co-respondent presumably had, that a steady stream of females would indeed be knocking on my door each morning wanting admission as soon as the previous day’s female-in-residence had departed for places unknown (an instinctually-driven archetypal male-fantasy if there ever was) – and not to forget, of course, the assumed total lack of integrity on my part ... but, then again, a robotic-like automaton would of course be devoid of same anyway. Incidentally, it is not case of having another’s integrity affected – it is a case of (presumably) having so little regard/ no regard at all for the integrity of ones companion that they could be changed daily – and it speaks volumes for the parlous state of the human condition that such a scenario would even be entertained for a moment ... let alone typed-out and sent to me. RESPONDENT: Where I stand, sex is just an experience in which variety plays an important part, like food or changing residence. RICHARD: Whereas with no separation whatsoever (an actual intimacy) sexual intercourse with a constant companion is a precious experience ... it is both a delight and a privilege that one of the 3.0+ billion females on this planet wants to spend their most irreplaceable asset (their time) living with me/ being with me, twenty four hours a day/ seven days a week, for the remainder of their life. RESPONDENT: Whether I choose to tell my girlfriend about it or not is a matter of personal choice and above all, freedom. RICHARD: For an all-too-brief period a number of years ago my living arrangement was of the ménage à trois variety ... the reward for being up-front and out-in-the-open is exquisite, to say the least, as to be with females being so open and honest together is to be with truly marvellous creatures. 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