# Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

Richard’s Selected Correspondence ## On What is Actual Freedom RESPONDENT: How do you know that you haven’t just intellectualised the whole process? RICHARD: It would be a sheer impossibility to intellectualise this perfection day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. It is unbelievably magical to live in a world without fear, for example ... just perfect peace twenty four hours a day. When I wake up in the morning I have nothing but perfection to ‘look forward to’ and when I go to bed at night I have had a perfect day. I take it for granted that when I wake up the following morning it will be the same perfection ... day after day ... after day after day. It actually happens ... day after day ... after day after day. And this has been my on-going experiencing each moment again for years and years now ... plus I know what ‘I’ did to be here now and I know why I am here, now. Besides, if it were but an ‘intellectualised process’ then I would wake up in the pits, would I not? * RICHARD: Yet other humans – some of whom who are downright suspicious of me – have been unable to detect anything untoward at all despite the closest observation possible. There are people here in my daily life who observe me closely – very closely – for all of the waking hours of the day. This kind of scrutiny has been going on for eighteen years now ... and has been fruitless as in regards to finding a fault for the last seven years. No-one has been able to observe a discrepancy between what I say about myself and what they see in my behaviour. No one has been able to observe any trace of an identity or a feeling – an emotion or a passion or calenture – in me since 1992. I have been examined by two accredited psychiatrists (and by one of them every three months for more than three years) and found to have: 1. Depersonalisation: which is an apt description of being bereft of any identity whatsoever ... there is no one at all to answer back when I ask that time-honoured question: ‘Who am I?’ ... not even a silence that ‘speaks louder than words’. 2. Derealisation: which is an appropriate term, for the grim and glum ‘normal’ and humdrum reality of the everyday real world as experienced by 6.0 billion people has vanished forever ... along with the loving and compassionate ‘abnormal’ and heavenly Greater Reality of the metaphysical Mystical World as experienced by .000001 of the population. 3. Alexithymia: which is the term used to describe the condition of a total absence of feelings – usually exhibited most clearly in lobotomised patients – which has been my on-going condition for many, many years now. It has also come to mean being cut off from one’s feelings – as in dissociation – yet the psychiatrists ascertained that I was not dissociating. 4. Anhedonia: which literally means unable to feel pleasure – affectively feeling pleasure – as in the feeling of beauty when viewing a sunrise or listening to music and so on. My condition is classified as a psychotic condition in the DSM – IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders) which is the diagnostic criteria used by all psychiatrists and psychologists around the world for diagnosing mental disorders. Also, a psychologist followed my condition at three-weekly intervals from March 1994 to January 1997. I do find it so cute that a freedom from the human condition is considered to be a severe mental disorder. (Richard, List B, No. 36, 20 September 1999). RESPONDENT: What is the difference between the state you described (that lasted 4 hours, and changed your being) and the permanent state you are in now? RICHARD: Apart from the obvious quantitative difference (on-going for the remainder of one’s natural life) there is a qualitative difference that is more than the outcome of permanence. In a PCE, the identity is merely in abeyance – not extinct – and this abeyant ‘me’ casts an ever-so-faint shadow over the purity of the perfection made apparent. This ever-so-slight pall is of little or no account, however, given the vast differentiation betwixt ‘reality’ and the actuality being evidenced and what one sees is, more or less, what one gets. The actual is so perfect, you see, that nothing ‘dirty’ can get in, as it were ... thus it needs no protection whatsoever. Consequently, the actual freedom is qualitatively different in that there is a safety and security here that has to be lived to be known ... in a PCE one will inevitably revert to ‘normal’ where menace and insecurity prevail. In an actual freedom – as distinct from a PCE – one is pristine, immaculate, impeccable, unimpeachable, unassailable, untouchable and so on as an absolute and irreversible fact. One is utterly harmless and totally reliable ... and peace-on-earth occurs effortlessly. RESPONDENT: After this ‘experience’ you concluded, or felt, that Richard had to go. RICHARD: It was so blatantly obvious, when ‘I’ saw ‘myself’ for what ‘I’ was (a lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning social identity), that thought and feeling had no part to play ... because at the instant ‘I’ saw ‘myself’, an action that was not of ‘my’ doing occurred, and I was not that identity. It all happened of its own accord as a direct result of the ‘seeing’ ... and I was this very material universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. I was living in this fairy-tale-like actual world, that all carbon-based life-forms live in (and could be aware of if only they realised it), which has the quality of a magical perfection and purity; everything and everyone has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, wondrous vitality that makes everything alive and sparkling ... even the very earth beneath one’s feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper ... literally everything is as if it were alive (a rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are). This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence – the actualness of everything and everyone – because we do not live in an inert universe. The infinitude that this very material universe is, is epitomised apperceptively as an immaculate consummation that has always been here, is always here and will always be here. Thus nothing is ‘going wrong’, has ever been ‘going wrong’ and will never be ‘going wrong’. This was what ‘I’ had been searching for – for 33 years – and the joke was that ‘I’ had not known that this is what ‘I’ had been searching for! Thus, when I reverted back to normal in the ‘real world’, ‘I’ knew, with the solid and irrefutable certainty of direct experience, that ‘I’ was standing in the way of the actual being apparent ... and ‘I’ had to go – become extinct – and not try to become something ‘better’. That is, ‘I’ just knew that ‘I’ could never, ever become perfect or be perfection. It was flagrantly evident that the only thing ‘I’ could do – the only thing ‘I’ had to do – was die (psychologically and psychically self-immolate) so that the already always existing perfection could become apparent. Naturally, there was a lot of thinking and feeling about it all – and discussion with one’s peers who all said it was not possible twenty four hours a day – yet there was an awareness that predominated all the while that disregarded all this thinking and feeling and which simply and wordlessly said ‘THIS IS IT’ no matter what conclusions and decisions were reached. When one has experienced the best ... one cannot settle for second-best. RESPONDENT: Was there another movement, experience, fact, involved to make it go? RICHARD: Oh yes ... the PCE was in July 1980 and ‘I’ did not deliberately and consciously and knowingly step onto the wide and wondrous path that leads to an actual freedom from the human condition until January 1981. Thus there was a six-month gestation period wherein the implications and ramifications of abandoning ‘humanity’ were ruminated and digested subliminally. Also, and this is but a personal thing, a close friend of many years standing went ‘stark staring mad’ in December 1980 – what I nowadays know of as ‘divine madness’ – and the event shook ‘me’ to the core. Thus ‘I’ was determined to put to an end, once and for all, to all the religious, spiritual, mystical and metaphysical nonsense that has saturated and dominated both 5,000 years of recorded history and perhaps 50,000 years of pre-history. The war that I volunteered for in 1966 was not just an ideological war (capitalism versus communism) ... I went to war as a gilded youth in order to stop the spread of that ‘godless regime’ from sweeping south. The never-to-be-achieved triumph of ‘Good’ over ‘Evil’ has dominated all conflict since the dawn of human consciousness ... with the nature of both ‘good’ and ‘evil’ being culturally determined, of course. RESPONDENT: Self-immolation is another separate fact? RICHARD: Yes ... it requires a rather curious decision to be made: a decision the likes of which has never been made before nor will ever be made again. It is a once-in-a-lifetime determination and takes some considerable preparation because ‘I’, the aggressive psychological entity and ‘me’, the frightened psychic entity will both vanish forever. After ‘my’ close friend’s ‘divine madness’ began to unfold in its inevitable course through ‘parousia’, the first thing ‘I’ did, in January 1981, was to put an end to anger once and for all ... then ‘I’ was freed enough to live in an ad hoc virtual freedom. It took ‘me’ about three weeks and I have never experienced anger since then. The first and crucial step was to say ‘YES’ to being here on earth, for ‘I’ located and identified that basic resentment that all people that I have spoken to have. To wit: ‘I didn’t ask to be born!’ This is why remembering a PCE is so important for success for it shows one, first hand, that freedom is already always here ... now. With the memory of that crystal-clear perfection held firmly in mind, that basic resentment vanishes forever, and then it is a relatively easy task to eliminate anger once and for all. One does this by neither expressing or repressing anger when an event happens that would previously trigger an outbreak. Anger is thus put into a bind, and the third alternative hoves into view, dispensing with the hostility that is a large part of ‘I’ the aggressive psychological entity, and gently ushering in an increasing ease and generosity of character. With this growing magnanimity, one becomes more and more anonymous, more and more selflessly motivated. With this expanding altruism one becomes less and less self-centred, less and less egocentric ... the humanitarian ideals of peace, kindness, caring, benevolence and humaneness become more and more evident as an actuality. And all this while I asked (as an open question) ‘how do ‘I’ do it?’ (psychologically and psychically self-immolate) ... and the essential character of the perfection of the physical infinitude of this material universe was enabled by ‘my’ concurrence. This enabling is experienced as a ‘pure intent’ running as a ‘golden thread’, as it were, from the purity and perfection of the infinitude to that little-used faculty: naiveté (which is the closest one can get to innocence). Thus the thing is to live, each moment again, a virtual freedom wherein the ‘good’ feelings – the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) are minimised along with the ‘bad’ feelings – the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful) – so that one is free to be feeling good, feeling happy and harmless and feeling excellent/perfect for 99% of the time. If one deactivates the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activates the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (happiness, delight, joie de vivre/ bonhomie, friendliness, amiability and so on) with this freed-up affective energy, in conjunction with sensuousness (delectation, enjoyment, appreciation, relish, zest, gusto and so on), then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception). Delight is what is humanly possibly, given sufficient pure intent obtained from the felicity/ innocuity born of the pure consciousness experience, and from the position of delight, one can vitalise one’s joie de vivre by the amazement at the fun of it all ... and then one can – with sufficient abandon – become over-joyed and move into marvelling at being here and doing this business called being alive. Then one is no longer just intellectually making sense of life ... the wonder of it all drives all intellectual sense away. Such delicious wonder fosters the innate condition of naiveté the nourishing of which is essential if the charm of it all is to occur. Then, as one gazes intently at the world about by glancing lightly with sensuously caressing eyes, out of the corner of one’s eye comes – sweetly – the magical fairy-tale-like paradise that this verdant earth actually is ... and I am the experiencing of what is happening. But try not to possess it and make it your own ... or else ‘twill vanish as softly as it appeared. The other thing ‘I’ did was to become accustomed with the territory that ‘me’, the frightened psychic entity, lurked about in: fear itself. Fear is both the barrier to and the gateway for an actual freedom ... and one runs the full gauntlet from disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness, apprehension, anxiety, fear, terror, horror, dread and existential angst. Dread is the passion to watch out for as the foreboding thus engendered, by the imminence of the existential angst of realising oneself to be nothing but a contingent ‘being’, will generate awe ... and awe is the genesis of all the gods and goddesses since time immemorial. Bearing this understanding firmly in mind, one can be fully with, and sit in fear when it is happening, openly and receptively – not ‘facing fear’ valiantly – so that one can become familiar with one’s very nature. There is an important element to fear, that is easily overlooked due to the domination of the fearsome feeling itself, which is the source of courage: thrill. Thus by focussing more on the thrilling aspect of fear, the energy that was pumping fear now shifts to generating a momentum that will carry one through the barrier ... and into what was previously seen to be ‘another dimension’: here in this actual world. Thus one can become virtually free from all the insidious feelings – the emotions and passions – that fuel the mind and give credence to all the illusions and delusions and fantasies and hallucinations that masquerade as visions of ‘The Truth’. One can become virtually free of all that which has encumbered humans with misery and despair and live in a state of virtual freedom ... which is beyond ‘normal’ human expectations anyway. Then, and only then, can the day of destiny dawn wherein one becomes actually free. One will have obtained release from one’s fate and achieved one’s destiny ... and the world will be all the better for it. This, the third alternative, is now possible. (Richard, List B, No. 34b, 11 June 1999). RESPONDENT: All that aside, what is it like to be so free (and wonderfully different) RICHARD: It is a freedom well worth living indeed, for in actual freedom lies not only an actual peace but an actual innocence. One is pure innocence personified, for one is literally free from sin and guilt. One is untouched by evil; no malice or sorrow exists anywhere in this body. One is utterly innocent ... innocence, that much abused word, can come to its full flowering and one is easily able to be freely ingenuous – noble in character – without any effort at all. The integrity of an actual freedom is so unlike the strictures of morality – whereupon the psychological and psychic identity within the body struggles in vain to resemble the purity of the actual – inasmuch as probity is bestowed gratuitously. One can live unequivocally, endowed with an actual gracefulness and dignity, in a magical wonderland. To thus live candidly, in arrant innocence, is a remarkable condition of excellence. I have no furious urges, no instinctive anger, no impulsive rages, no inveterate hostilities, no evil disposition ... no malicious or sorrowful tendencies whatsoever. The blind animal instinctual passions, which some neuro-scientists have tentatively located toward the top of the brain-stem in what is popularly called the ‘reptilian brain’, have under-gone a radical mutation. I am free to be me as-I-am; benign and benevolent and beneficial in character. I am able to be a model citizen, fulfilling all the intentions of the idealistic and unattainable moral strictures of ‘The Good’: being humane, being philanthropic, being altruistic, being magnanimous, being considerate and so on. All this is achieved in a manner ‘I’ could never foresee, for it comes effortlessly and spontaneously, doing away with the necessity for virtue completely. This all happens in an actual world that lies under one’s very nose ... I interact with the same kind of people, things and events that you do, yet it is as if I am in another dimension altogether. There is no good or evil here where I live. I live in a veritable paradise ... this very earth I live on is so vastly superior to any fabled Arcadian Utopia that it would be impossible to believe if I was not living it twenty four hours a day ... there is no use for belief here. It is so perfectly pure and clear here that there is no need for Love or Compassion or Bliss or Euphoria or Ecstasy or Truth or Goodness or Beauty or Oneness or Unity or Wholeness or ... or any of those baubles. They all pale into pathetic insignificance ... and I lived them for eleven years. (Richard, List B, No. 25, #idealistic). RESPONDENT: Isn’t the savage, brutal, wild tooth and claw view of nature a bit narrow minded? Isn’t it the projection of the fears of the divided from its source mentality? RICHARD: No. It is that an individual freedom from the human condition could lead to a global freedom from the human condition. It is possible for a chain-reaction effect to ripple through all the peoples who inhabit this planet; imbuing the populace with peace and prosperity. And this freedom from the human condition would revolutionise the concept of humanity. It would be a free association of peoples world-wide; a utopian-like loose-knit affiliation of like-minded individuals. One would be a citizen of the world, not of a sovereign state. Countries, with their artificial borders would vanish along with the need for the military. As nationalism would expire, so too would patriotism with all its heroic evils. No police force would be needed anywhere on earth; no locks on the doors, no bars on the windows. Gaols, judges and juries would become a thing of the dreadful past. People would live together in peace and harmony, happiness and delight. Pollution and its cause – over-population – would be set to rights without effort, as competition would be replaced by cooperation. No longer need people lament the futility of trying to escape from the folly of the ‘Human Condition’. Never again would fear rule the earth; terror would stalk its prey no more ... and another 160,000,000 human beings would not be killed in wars by their fellow human next century. But even if global peace was a long time coming – as is most probable due to stubbornly recalcitrant identities – the most appealing aspect of actual freedom is its instant bestowal of universal peace upon the individual daring enough to go all the way. RESPONDENT: But I guess that the same thing will happen to your words (even though they are so elaborate), once you are not there to explain them. You might have already seen it after corresponding with so many people having different interpretation of your words. Fortunately because of Internet, we can raise doubts to you and you can clarify till you are around. RICHARD: On the contrary, I have been very clear and remarkably consistent about actual freedom and I do not see how anyone can interpret it differently. Viz.: 1. There are three ways of experiencing the world of people, things and events: 1. sensate (senses); 2. cerebral (thoughts); 3. affective (feelings). The feelings include both the affectionate and desirable emotions/ passions (those that are loving and trusting) and hostile and invidious emotions/passions (those that are hateful and fearful). 2. All sentient beings are born with instinctual passions like fear and aggression and nurture and desire genetically bestowed by blind nature which give rise to a rudimentary animal ‘self’ – which is ‘being’ itself – that human beings with their ability to think and reflect upon their mortality have transformed into a ‘me’ as soul (a ‘feeler’ in the heart) and an ‘I’ as ego (a ‘thinker’ in the head). 3. Thus there are three I’s altogether but only one is actual (sensate) and not an identity; I am this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. The primary cause of all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides and so on is the instinctual passions which give rise to malice and sorrow and the antidotally generated pacifiers of love and compassion which, if sublimated and transcended, give rise to Love Agapé and Divine Compassion. This ‘Tried and True’ solution to all the ills of humankind lies within the ‘Human Condition’ and, as it has had 3,000 to 5,000 years to demonstrate its efficacy, can be discarded as being the ‘Tried and Failed’. 4. I am mortal in that I was born, I live for a period of years, then I die and death is the end, finish. The material universe is infinite and eternal and was here before I was born and will be here after I die. 5. There are three worlds altogether but only one is actual; there is nothing other than this actual, physical universe (the normal ‘reality’ as experienced by 6.0 billion human beings is an illusion and the abnormal ‘Reality’ as experienced by 0.0000001 of the population is a delusion born out of the illusion because of the self-aggrandising tendency of the narcissism born of the survival instincts). 6. Peace-on-earth can become apparent to anyone at all irregardless of gender, age or race because the perfection of the infinitude of this spatial and temporal universe is already always here at this place in infinite space ... now at this moment of eternal time. 7. When ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul psychologically and psychically self-immolate – which is the end of ‘being’ itself – then the answer to the ‘Mystery Of Life’ becomes evident as an on-going existential experiencing; I am this physical universe experiencing itself as a reflective, sensate human being; as me, the universe is intelligent (there is no anthropomorphic ‘Intelligence’ that is creating or running existence). 8. There is a wide and wondrous path to actual freedom: One asks oneself, each moment again, ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’? This gives rise to apperception. Apperception is the outcome of the exclusive attention paid to being alive right here and now. Apperception is to be the senses as a bare awareness, a pure consciousness experience (PCE) of the world as-it-is, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. Apperception is an awareness of consciousness. It is not ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious; it is the mind’s awareness of itself. 9. The day finally dawns where the definitive moment of being here, right now, conclusively arrives; something irrevocable takes place and every thing and every body and every event is different, somehow, although the same physically; something immutable occurs and every thing and every body and every event is all-of-a-sudden undeniably actual, in and of itself, as a fact; something irreversible happens and an immaculate perfection and a pristine purity permeates every thing and every body and every event; something has changed forever, although it is as if nothing has happened, except that the entire world is a magical fairytale-like playground full of incredible gladness and a delight which is never-ending. Put succinctly: ‘my’ demise was as fictitious as ‘my’ apparent presence; I have always been here, in this actual world of sensorial delight, one realises, for it was that ‘I’ only imagined ‘I’ existed; ‘my’ presence had been but an emotional/ passional play in a fertile imagination; an emotional/ passional play which fuelled actual hormonal substances, however, triggered off from within the brain-stem by the instinctual emotions/ passions bestowed per favour blind nature. Thus the psyche – the entire affective faculty born of the survival instincts themselves – is wiped out forever and one is finally what one has actually been all along: a sensitive and reflective flesh-and-blood body simply brimming with sense organs revelling in this sensuous world of immediate experience. As this flesh-and-blood body only one is this infinite, eternal, and perdurable universe experiencing itself as an apperceptive human being ... as such it is stunningly aware of its own infinitude. And this is truly wonderful. Thus the search for meaning amidst the debris of the much-vaunted human hopes and dreams and schemes has come to its timely end. With the end of both ‘I’ and ‘me’, the distance or separation between both ‘I’ and ‘me’ and these sense organs – and thus the external world – disappears. To be living as the senses is to live a clear and clean awareness – apperception – a pure consciousness experience of the world as-it-is. Because there is no ‘I’ as a thinker (a little person inside one’s head) or a ‘me’ as a feeler (a little person in one’s heart) – to have sensations happen to them, I am the sensations. The entire affective faculty vanishes ... blind nature’s software package of instinctual passions is deleted. There is nothing except the series of sensations which happen ... not happening to an ‘I’ or a ‘me’ but just happening ... moment by moment ... one after another. To live life as these sensations, as distinct from having them, engenders the most astonishing sense of freedom and magic. Consequently, I am living in peace and tranquillity; a meaningful peace and tranquillity. Life is intrinsically purposeful, the reason for existence lies openly all around. Being this very air I live in, I am constantly aware of it as I breathe it in and out; I see it, I hear it, I taste it, I smell it, I touch it, all of the time. It never goes away – nor has it ever been away – it was just that ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ was standing in the way of the meaning of life being apparent. Life is not a vale of tears. RICHARD: Becoming free of the human condition is an irrevocable occurrence, wherein the ‘lizard-brain’ mutates out of its primeval state ... but if this mutation is not allowed its completion one becomes enlightened. RESPONDENT: This sounds like speculation upon neuro-psychology theories ... are you claiming it is fact? RICHARD: Yes ... this has been my on-going experiencing, night and day, for years now ... it is so ‘normal’ that I take it for granted that there is only perfection. RESPONDENT: Er ... hum ... you have related it to the ‘nape of the neck – how do you know what goes on there? RICHARD: My experiential sensate-feeling experience (sensation) tells me that it was the brain-stem (reptilian brain) where all the activity took place to free me from the human condition. As the result of this (when the activity ceased) is a twenty four hour a day freedom from the human condition then it is entirely reasonable to assume that the relationship was one of cause and effect. It does not take a genius to suss out that what the neuro-biologists are empirically discovering is right on the ball in regards the human condition. * RICHARD: It is important to comprehend that I am putting a story together ‘after the event’ so as to throw some light on what happened for me. My experiential sensate-feeling experience (sensation) tells me that it was the brain-stem (reptilian brain) where all the activity took place to free me from the human condition. RESPONDENT: This speculation is unhelpful when you put it forward as fact. RICHARD: Yet my experiential sensate-feeling experience (sensation) that tells me that it was the brain-stem (reptilian brain) where all the activity took place to free me from the human condition is not ‘speculation put forward as fact’ ... for the nape of the neck is indeed where all the activity took place. I then simply conducted an ad hoc reading of all the research painstakingly done by all those researchers with PET scans and MRI scans and so on so as to provide an empirical basis for other people. As I am already free I have no personal need for an interest in biology at all. The mystics report of activity in the nape of the neck too – amongst a myriad of other things – and similarly I have no need for an interest in their story for my sake. Since I began reporting my experience to my fellow human beings I have needed to find out about all manner of things. My way of becoming free was simple: I stepped out of the ‘real world’ into this actual world and left ‘myself’ behind where ‘I’ belonged. RESPONDENT: He tosses the baby out with the bath water. RICHARD: Oh, I am always chuffed whenever someone says that ... it means that they are starting to get the drift of what I am saying. Which, in a nutshell, is this: spiritual enlightenment is when ‘I’ as ego (‘the bathwater’) dies; actual freedom is when ‘me’ as soul (‘the baby’) dies as well. Or, as I prefer to put it, identity in toto becomes extinct. RESPONDENT: How would I know whether I had this freedom you speak of? RICHARD: The peerless purity and pristine perfection of this actual world is tangibly obvious. RESPONDENT: How would I know I wasn’t fooling myself? RICHARD: Such peerless purity and pristine perfection cannot be fabricated. RESPONDENT: How have the ‘others’ that claim this freedom not seen they are fooling themselves? I speak of Barry Long, Krishnamurti, Tolle, Jesus and so on and so forth. RICHARD: The freedom that those others claim – a religio-spiritual/ mystico-metaphysical freedom – is not this freedom being discussed (an actual freedom). RESPONDENT: Richard, would humanity sans instinctual passions still have the inclination and ability to maintain a technologically advanced civilisation? RICHARD: As anything short of going naked in the world at large, without so much as even a box of matches, a knife, or a packet of salt, and gathering berries/ fruit by hand and digging for roots/ yams with same, is a technological advancement on pure animality there is no reason whatsoever why human beings collectively would not continue to maintain the myriad benefits of civilisation just because they opted for peace-on-earth. Indeed, whilst it is quite amazing what has already been achieved, despite the human condition, just what possible advancements there are to be accomplished in a world without war and murder and rape and torture and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide, and so on, and so forth, lie beyond present-day comprehension. It will have to be lived in order to find that out. RESPONDENT: Richard, when you were virtually free, you said that you: [quote] ‘I did whatever to induce PCE’s on a daily basis so as to gain maximum benefit from living the nearest approximation to an actual freedom that was possible ... maybe two to three times a day’. [../richard/listbcorrespondence/listb12a.htm#meditated]. So before coming actually free did you have PCE’s a few times a day and then all of a sudden the identity became extinguished? OR did the length of PCE’s get longer and longer until it became permanent? How was it? RICHARD: Oh, it was crystal clear at the outset, from the earliest pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s), that something definitive was to happen, and that it is not a case of PCE’s becoming longer and longer until one of them became permanent (as in not ever ending), as it is intrinsic to the nature of the PCE that whilst this is yours for the asking – for it is both your birthright and destiny – it comes at a price ... that which you hold most dear. Of course, after the (definitive) event it is immediately obvious there never was such a price – that which was held most dear has no existence in actuality – yet until that momentous event is precipitated, by that which is held so dear giving it permission to occur, it is all very real ... as is evidenced by what gets acted-out physically. Incidentally, there is no set date for such an event ... and, moreover, unless permission is given it will never take place. RESPONDENT: By saying ‘counter-frequency thought’ I mean the exactly right thought/ words that will someday do the trick. I’m thinking the exactly right thought/idea will be the one that exactly duplicates the function/purpose of the psyche/ identity, and because two things cannot occupy the same space, then, ZAP. RICHARD: Okay ... all I can say is that the notion of ‘frequency’ does not ring any bells for me (meaning I cannot relate to it). As for the right thought/idea (or, rather, realisation/thought): I have been asked, on occasion, about the significance of the realisation that occurred in an abandoned cow-paddock which preceded/triggered the break-through into an actual freedom from the human condition (Richard, Articles, A Brief Personal History) and by now I basically have a multiple-choice answer (you can take your pick). 1. It had no significance whatsoever (what was being realised/ thought about at that particular moment merely preceded the event) – hence the wording ‘idly mused’ in my report of the episode – as that moment just happened to be when the culmination of the seminal question asked 5-6 weeks prior (‘what am I in relation to other people?’), which had been kept running in the depths of the psyche so as to effect an experiential answer, came about. 2. It was the trigger which induced the culmination of the seminal question asked 5-6 weeks prior (‘what am I in relation to other people?’) which had been kept running in the depths of the psyche so as to effect an experiential answer – in regards to what I was engaged in at that period of my life – hence the wording, in my report of the event, ‘struck by the curious fact’ regarding what I was engaged in at that particular moment. As what I was ‘struck by the fact’ of had nothing whatsoever to do with the seminal question then No. 2 seems unlikely ... which leaves No. 1 as being the likely candidate. In other words, it was the seminal question which delivered the goods – when they were good and ready to be delivered so to speak – and being struck by a fact about something else entirely was simply what was happening when the experiential answer being asked for came about. However, as the fact which I was struck by was that clearing forests to plant grass was no longer valid – and that clearing grass to plant forests was – it would seem that No. 1 is unlikely ... which leaves No. 3 as the likely candidate. 3. The culmination of the seminal question asked 5-6 weeks prior (‘what am I in relation to other people?’), which had been kept running in the depths of the psyche so as to effect an experiential answer, was that the wisdom of yesteryear was no longer valid (meaning that being an enlightened being had reached its use-by date). Yet as the ancient wisdom of the spirit-ridden bronze-age peoples never was valid – whereas clearing forest to plant grass was – it would seem that No. 2 is the likely candidate as what I was actually struck by was that it had got to the stage that I did not actually know what the right thing to do was any longer ... meaning that I was, finally, ready and ripe to be the answer (which is what the word ‘experiential’ refers to when all is said and done). As I said: you can take your pick. * RESPONDENT: O.K. let’s forget the thought frequency thing. You answered my question about what the right thought was that caused AF in you. I’m saying because of the seminal question, you had to admit you had been fooling yourself when you realized your enlightened motivation (survive!) to plant trees was no different than your unenlightened motivation (survive!) to plant grass. RICHARD: Oh no, planting grass really was the right thing to do all those years ago – it is only modern-day peoples who castigate the pioneers for doing what was right then – just as planting trees is the right thing to do nowadays ... what is the right thing to do, in any era, changes into another right thing to do as changes caused by doing the previous right thing happen. What I really realised, at that moment and in that context, was that I no longer knew what the right thing to do was anymore ... and at that moment I was, finally, ripe and ready to be what I actually am. RESPONDENT: But how did you see the fallacy of passionate, identity-driven survival? It had to have been all those PCE’s you had. RICHARD: Yes, it was also all the PCE’s, but not only that (and not specifically that): it was the seminal question that did the trick and the situation and circumstances, peculiar to me and my context at that time, were but the trigger ... if I had been some other person in some other context I could have been washing the dishes, for example, or riding a bicycle. And if I had been some other person in some other context the seminal question would have been different too ... meaning that only you can know what you must do – and you will not know what that is until it happens – and when you do know what to do it will be too late to stop the happening. Hence all the procrastination – it means the end of ‘me’ – because it can, and will, happen now. ALAN: One other thing, I have not read anywhere in your writings, is the ‘feeling’ I had (and still get in a PCE) somewhere around the solar plexus. It is like a feeling of love (can’t think of a better word), a warm glow, a connection with something (not outside nor Some Thing) just a connection with what is. Very difficult to describe – I almost use it as a benchmark as to whether I am having a PCE. RICHARD: This is because the affective faculties still play a role in a PCE – usually – whereas actual freedom is free of calenture entirely. A peak experience is not actual freedom ... actual freedom is much better than what one can experience whilst remaining human. The PCE is the closest that an ‘I’ can come to the actuality of having eliminated all traces of the instincts one was born with. A PCE is not actual freedom ... actual freedom is irreversible. ALAN: Is it not amazing how obvious and simple a fact is, once ‘seen’ for what it is. I was sitting in my favourite contemplative spot in the garden, this morning, pondering on what is preventing my full participation at this moment of being alive. The answer was – ‘it can only be ‘me’’. RICHARD: In a PCE it is startlingly obvious that ‘I’ have been standing in the way of the already always existing peace-on-earth all along ... it is simply self-evident and demonstrably factual. However, when one reverts back to being ‘normal’, although one can remember the purity of the actual, the experiencing of being sans identity is – alas – sadly lacking ... and all-too-often one endeavours to think or (shudder) feel one’s way to this freely available sensuous freedom. ALAN: This led on to the question ‘what am I?’ There are only two alternatives: 1) I am this flesh and blood body, only – and ‘I’ (the entity called Alan, as opposed to the physical body whom others recognise as ‘Alan’) do not actually exist, or 2) ‘I’ believe ‘I’ actually exist. From personal experience of the PCE, I know that premise (1) is not currently so for me, which left me with premise (2). RICHARD: Good, this is honesty with oneself in action ... and one has to be scrupulously honest with oneself if one is to go all the way. One cannot think or feel one’s way into this magical world – the world as-it-is in actuality – but one does need an absolute conviction that such a world exists. This conviction comes out of the pure consciousness experience ... and these peak experiences are momentary glimpses into the actual, the world of pristine perfection. To reiterate: in the PCE, it is immediately seen that ‘I’ do not actually exist. * ALAN: The adventure continues ... RICHARD: Until ‘I’ die, in fact ... ALAN: And ‘I’ do not want to give up the adventure, so some persuasion, or altruism?, is necessary. RICHARD: Ahh ... after ‘the adventure’ is over something far, far better takes its place. ALAN: What? RICHARD: First, there is the not-so-little matter of seducing one’s fellow human being into being happy and harmless – when it does not really matter whether anyone else becomes free of the human condition or not – and in this there is a thrill that is not of fear (because of a familiarity that knows naught of sorrow and malice). But it is the on-going experiencing of the purity of the perfection of the infinitude of this wondrous universe – an experiencing that defies all the odds – which is truly magical. Being intimately here at this place in infinite space, right now at this moment in eternal time, is such an adventure in itself that it makes what ‘I’ did all those years ago pale into insignificance. There is so much more to life than the process of becoming free ... even though that is the journey of a lifetime in itself. Let alone doing something so commonplace as that which normally constitutes ‘an adventure’, for those antics amount to nothing but silly risk-taking for the sake of unconvincing adrenaline rush. What I am saying is that whatever I do is an amazing escapade. RESPONDENT: I certainly do not argue with your freedom. I have met you in person and I enjoy your company. I also respect highly your autonomy. I have absolutely no reason to doubt that you live in Actual Freedom. I just affirm with your correspondent that from that freedom you communicate with others in a way that would suggest you hold your viewpoint as correct and thus definitive; and that therefore all other viewpoints are valid to the extent they agree with yours. RICHARD: Just so that there is no misunderstanding: I do not have a ‘viewpoint’ at all ... let alone ‘correct’ or ‘definitive’. Nothing I write or say about an actual freedom from the human condition is either a viewpoint or a mindset or a world-view or a philosophy or a metaphysics or a thesis and so on as all that I write is a description which comes out of my direct and spontaneous experiencing at this moment in time at this place in space ... my words are an ‘after the event’ report, as it were. Thus, loosely rephrasing your words, the actual freedom which I communicate with others is expressed in a way that clearly describes the actual and direct experiencing of being this flesh and blood body sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul ... and this description is a factual account. That which is actual is neither ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ : it is evident. A fact cannot be argued with ... it can only be reported. For example, if I were to say ‘this is a computer monitor’ I am reporting a fact which cannot be argued with (without being silly). And when I say ‘this is a computer monitor’ no one tells me I am being ‘spiteful, presumptuous, condescending, reductive, etc.’ . No way ... Richard is only ‘spiteful, presumptuous, condescending, reductive, etc. ’ when he points out a fact that pulls the rug from under another’s elaborate belief system slyly dressed up as truth and masquerading as being genuine, authentic and valid. It is the fact which pulls the rug ... not me. * RICHARD: I also took note of what you wrote in your ‘Respondent’s Viewpoint’ : you do allow, although you hold your viewpoint to be ‘correct and true’ , that it may not be. This is an excellent approach. RESPONDENT: Great you agree that that approach is excellent and thus by definition is yours. RICHARD: As I have remarked before in our other thread, I do not have a viewpoint in regards to an actual freedom from the human condition. In other areas where I do have opinions, make estimations, find it reasonable to presume and so on, I never hold it to be ‘true and correct’ in the first place ... for I am well aware that it is only a current appraisal until further investigation shows otherwise. Where I commented that ‘this is an excellent approach’ I was saying that to those who do hold that their viewpoint is ‘correct and true’ for they would be well-advised to allow that it may not be (which is what you are advising on your new web page). Therefore, to those that do, this is an excellent approach. RESPONDENT: I am sure you would not settle on a less than excellent approach any more than I would. RICHARD: But I do not assume that any viewpoint is ‘correct and true’ in the first place ... it is so much easier. RESPONDENT: What is bothering you, Richard. RICHARD: Nothing is bothering me ... when one is free from the Human Condition, life is experienced as being perfect as-it-is, here on earth in this life-time, with people as-they-are. The first step to being free is the actual understanding that this moment in time is the only place where being alive happens. The past, although it was actual when it did happen, is not actual now. The future, although it will be actual when it does happen, is not actual now. Only now is actual and as it is always now then the purity of innocence is perpetually here already ... where time has no duration. This flesh and blood body is already always here at this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space. It is ‘you’ as an identity – an alien who has a parasitical existence in the psyche of the body – that is forever locked out of being here ... now. Thus ‘I’ seek the timeless state of being – selfish immortality – which is but a poor substitute for the actual ... and peace-on-earth is nowhere to be found. The very best thing that ‘I’ can do for peace-on-earth is to self-immolate – psychologically and psychically – so that this body’s apperceptive awareness can become apparent. RESPONDENT: To investigate critically every day ‘What’s going on? Am I happy? Why not?’ is helpful to bring one back to one’s senses, literally. To live in this sensual existence. RICHARD: Aye ... an actual freedom is refreshingly simple. For then one is the universe’s experience of itself as a sensate and reflective human being. Then one is not ‘Spaceless’, I am perennially here; this moment is not ‘Timeless’, it is perpetually now. One has no need for such a paltry surrogate as Immortality ... Immortality pales into insignificance compared to the magnitude of experiencing myself being here now, each moment again, fresh and new and pristine. Nothing that ‘I’ experienced many years ago when ‘I’ explored the Divine Realm can equal the magnificence of being here now in this actual world. An actual freedom far exceeds any Religious Illumination, Spiritual Enlightenment, Mystical Union or any other Metaphysical Altered State Of Consciousness. One does not identify as being God On Earth, or any of that deluded nonsense ... I have no identity whatsoever. One is free to be me; me as I actually am. One is free to be practical, straight-forward and down-to-earth ... one is free of any guile, any hypocrisy, any duplicity, any cupidity or any corruption at all. One is free to live in this magical wonderland that is the actual world. Innocence prevails only where time has no duration and space has no locality ... and as this moment and place has no actual measure, it is ever-new. Likewise, one is ever-new, therefore I can never be tainted; ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ can find no foothold in me. Consequently, one is benign in character and I cannot maliciously harm anyone or anything. Also, one can never be harmed psychologically or psychically, hence one never takes umbrage. As one is unable to be affronted, one is incapable of holding a grudge ... leaving me free from the horror of revenge. By not taking offence in the first place, one has no need to forgive ... which is an ego-enhancing and soul-boosting act of condescension, anyway. Forgiveness is a meagre imitation of magnanimity, which is one of the many charming characteristics of actual freedom. Only out of innocence, which is an ever-fresh condition, can one be magnanimous ... otherwise magnanimity becomes tainted and is a devolution into disdain. One is devoid of any measure of dominion ... I have no sovereignty whatsoever. Accordingly, one is not an ‘Authority’ and I have no omniscient puissance ... meaning I have no power over anyone. All in all, I have no ‘being’, ‘presence’ or ‘spirit’ ... or ‘Being’, ‘Presence’ or ‘Spirit’. And suffering is simply impossible in actual freedom ... I never know sorrow or malice at all. RESPONDENT: If there is no psychic entity in your body than you don’t know and don’t care what will happen next moment. RICHARD: There is no next moment ... there is only this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space. I can intellectually know that there possibly will be a now that is presumably going to happen (and that there was a series of past now-moments that did happen) and can plan according to the probability that certain events are likely to occur (that the banks will be open tomorrow at 9.30 AM, for example) based upon those past experiences. But there actually is no future (or past) whatsoever as I sit here now. Living here, there is only now ... and it is always now. I care for the next moment inasmuch as sensible planning can ensure the optimum creature comforts and ease of life-style ... I purchased a carton of cream yesterday afternoon so that I can have some in this cup of coffee I am sipping now (3.36 AM) when all the shops are closed. Other than sensible planning it is simply silly to ‘care what will happen in the next moment’ (substitute ‘worry’ for ‘care’ ) as it is unknown in that it does not exist. The future is not ‘out there’ somewhere already formed and just waiting to happen ... it has no existence whatsoever until it happens. When the future happens it is called now ... hence there is no future at all. RESPONDENT: So, your experience is always fresh and no boredom or fear is possible. RICHARD: No boredom or fear whatsoever. This moment has never happened before and never will happen again ... thus life is always ever-fresh, novel, original, unique, peerless, matchless and impeccable. RESPONDENT: And because there is no ‘I’ in you, there is nobody to worry about anything or correct, improve anything? RICHARD: There is no worry, no, but I am not too sure that this is because there is no ‘I’ ... it is simply silly to worry as worrying does nothing whatsoever to get an event changed. I correct – and thus improve – what can be corrected ... according to a preference for creature comforts and ease of life-style. For example: if I can sit upon a cushion instead of the brick pavers of the patio I will ... that is a preference. But if a cushion is not available it does not matter ... I thoroughly enjoy being alive at this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space irregardless of what is happening. I could be just as happy and harmless on bread and water in solitary confinement in some insalubrious penitentiary ... but I would be pretty silly to act or behave in such a way as to occasion that outcome! The ‘I’ that used to inhabit this body did everything possible that ‘I’ could do to blatantly imitate the actual in that ‘I’ endeavoured to be happy and harmless for as much as is humanly possible. This was achieved by putting everything on a ‘it doesn’t really matter’ basis. That is, ‘I’ would prefer people, things and events to be a particular way, but if it did not turn out like that ... it did not really matter for it was only a preference. ‘I’ chose to no longer give other people – or the weather – the power to make ‘me’ angry ... or irritated ... or even peeved, if that was possible. It was great fun and very, very rewarding along the way. ‘My’ life became cleaner and clearer and more and more pure as each habitual way of living life was consciously eliminated through constant exposure. Finally ‘I’ invited the actual by letting go of the controls and letting this moment live ‘me’. ‘I’ became the experience of the doing of this business of being alive ... no longer the ‘do-er’. Thus ‘my’ days were numbered ... ‘I’ could hardly maintain ‘myself’ ... soon ‘my’ time would come to an end. An inevitability set in and a thrilling momentum took over ... ‘my’ demise became imminent. The moment of the death of ‘me’ was so real that it was experienced as being that one was going into the grave physically ... that is how real ‘I’ am. RESPONDENT: So, the world is perfect. RICHARD: The clean and clear and pure perfection of peace-on-earth never goes away despite all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicide. There is the preference for the creature-comforts and ease of life-style, of course, but one takes the world of people, things and events as it is. Even if every single human being was happy and harmless, there would still be cyclones and earthquakes and tidal waves and fires and crocodiles and sharks and mosquitoes and so forth. Life is an adventure, after all. The physical world cannot ever be perfect (perfect in the sense that nothing uncomfortable would happen) due to the finite nature of temporal things – animal, vegetable and mineral – and events happen which some people welcome but others not (a farmer may want rain to germinate the crop whilst a builder may want clear skies to get the roof on). I cannot consider for a moment that people would want a nearby volcano to explode and engulf their village or town or city ... yet it happens. And there are the trivial matters of daily life – I spilt hot coffee only a couple of days ago – yet in the final analysis none of these events matter. Ultimately nothing is of utter importance because we are all going to die, some day. Things are only as important as one makes them be. RESPONDENT: I am wondering what is your experience of your thoughts. Do they appear to be localised in your head? RICHARD: Oh yes ... towards the front of the skull, generally. If there is a situation that calls for a considered response there is an active thinking of possibilities and probabilities – an exploring of feasible courses of action – based upon past experience and knowledge. Then the issue is ‘banished’ to the back of the skull where it all gets sorted out of its own accord. Sometimes the outcome is very surprising. For the most of the day there is either few or no thoughts running at all ... none whatsoever. If thought is needed for a particular situation, it swings smoothly into action and effortlessly does its thing. All the while, there is this apperceptive awareness of being here ... of being alive in the infinitude of this universe. No words occur ... it is a wordless appreciation of being able to be here, now. Doing something – and that includes thinking – is a bonus of pleasure and delight on top of this on-going ambrosial experience of being alive and awake and here ... now. Consequently, my life is always blithe and carefree, even if I am doing nothing. RESPONDENT: This is a likely point for a comment. I feel grateful for communication. I wonder if I am a ‘who’. I am comfortable on the mountainside with Wind – Sun – Tree beings: wonderful, in a word. What I am doing is typing; then house cleaning; then cooking. I am here in the typing-blink-aware of wind, mountainside through east windows tans, greens, clear powder blue sky-blink-here. I categorise, prioritise, share statistics: 56 year old female in vigorous happy health. RICHARD: You say that you are a fifty six year old female in vigorous happy health, wondering if she is a who. I am a fifty year old male, also in vigorous happy health, and the father of four children and seven grandchildren from my first marriage. My current companion and I are, by choice, childless and will stay so ... enough is enough! I was born and raised on a dairy farm in the south-west of Australia and currently live on the most easterly point of the Australian seaboard in a small village called Byron Bay. I rent a three-bedroom brick house about one kilometre from the beach. The sound of the waves is an almost constant back-drop ... and is especially audible late at night. The wee small hours are my favourite time for writing and I most often wake up at two or three o’clock in the morning and write until the first kookaburras start their laughing-like call from some trees over the back fence. Then I like to sit and sip an early morning coffee, with my feet up on the computer desk, and be with the first grey light coming into the room ... through to the first glow of pre-dawn ... and then the sunrise itself. The climate here is sub-tropical, which means a warm rain (a deluge) in summer and a dry winter of clear blue skies with warm days and cool nights. At the moment it is a simply delightful morning in late summer. From where I am sitting in my comfortable leather (executive) chair, I can see some prettily coloured parakeets flying and fluttering amidst the foliage of the large bushes outside the sliding glass doors. Their plumage is a splash of colour against the vivid green of the leaves; they seem to be squabbling amongst themselves as they jostle for position ... or maybe they are playfully flexing their wings in the sheer exuberance of being alive on this sunny day. Looking past them, over the high wooden fence, I can see the two large pine trees standing proud; their needles are etched dark green against the crisp blue sky, with the bright sunshine streaming through to their sturdy branches. Away off in the distance, coming faintly over the small field where two horses are busily grazing, comes the faint sound of cars going to and fro along the road running north and south along the coast. Altogether it is an agreeable moment to be alive and living in the magical wonderland that is this actual world. And your environment: you mention a mountain-side through east windows with tans, greens and a clear powder blue sky. How delightful it does sound, for I have also spent time in the mountains (The Himalayas) and there is a special quality that only mountains have. Perhaps because they are old; perhaps because they are majestic; perhaps because, with valleys, they provide a sense of being in the world rather than upon it ... like it is out on the flat desert ... or upon the ocean. And then you go on to say that you are typing ... then house cleaning ... then cooking. Being retired and on a pension, I thoroughly enjoy all the household tasks ... made all so much easier now that the children are grown up. And then you say that you are grateful for communication. I am so impressed with computers and the ease of communication via the Internet, and, although I have only been doing this for a short while and still have a lot to learn, I find it surprisingly easy to master. When I first bought my computer, I presumed that I would have a lot of difficulty (my only technological expertise was operating the ATM at the bank), but this was not to be the case. I like communicating, sharing experience. We are all fellow human beings who, finding ourselves here, compare notes as to what sense we have made out of being alive, about being here on this planet earth, as a human being. And what a joy and delight that is. To not only explore and to investigate, but to uncover and discover ... and then to relate one’s experience to another and have them relate their experience to oneself. And thus, together, a picture gradually emerges as to what it is all about. There is a small circle of associates I am privileged to be with here, who gather together spontaneously and discuss life, the universe and what it is to be a human being. As my discoveries about myself are rather radical – to put it mildly – we always have plenty to talk about. It is such a pleasure to be able to have candid conversation; to be able to pursue an inquiry into the depths of one’s psyche with others in the full knowledge that one does so with impunity ... for nothing we come across do we hold against each other. We are exploring together, and the frankness pays off. The rewards for doing so are both immediate and ultimate. Altogether, it is thoroughly fascinating to be here, doing this business called being alive. RESPONDENT: What is the value of this? RICHARD: The value of it is an individual peace-on-earth for No. 4. When there are six billion outbreaks of individual peace-on-earth there will be global peace-on-earth. Thus all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide will be at an end. Now that is value, eh? Yet there is more ... you will have solved the ‘mystery of life’ and be living the actual. You will be the universe’s experience of itself as a sensate and reflective human being. You will be living the infinitude of the universe’s infinite space and eternal time – here and now – instead of waiting for some specious immortality after physical death. You will be living – as I do – in the fairy-tale-like actual world with its quality of magical perfection and purity. Everything and everyone has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, wondrous vitality that makes everything alive and sparkling ... even the very earth beneath one’s feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper ... literally everything is as if it were alive. A rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are. This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence ... the actualness of everything and everyone. We do not live in an inert universe ... but one cannot experience this whilst clinging to immortality. RICHARD: Maybe I will just stay quiet for awhile and see which way the wind blows ... but I will not be holding my breath whilst watching. RESPONDENT: A sound decision, and no doubt a comfort to your family. RICHARD: I do not have any family, actually. Being free of the Human Condition as I am, there is no one inside this body to be in relationship with anyone at all. I am a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one and no-thing. And I am rotflmao! RICHARD: It has been – and still is – a great trip. RESPONDENT No. 4: Yes. A great trip, but a ‘trip’ nevertheless. RICHARD: Yea verily ... it is somewhat like having a twenty four hour a day drug trip – if that is what you are implying – except that there are no side-effects and it is not illegal. Owing nothing to no one I am free from corruption ... perversity has vanished forever. Unpolluted as I am by any alien entity, my thoughts and my deeds are automatically graceful. Goodwill, freed of social morality, comes effortlessly to me for all internal conflict is over. I am gentle and peaceful in character. Freeing myself of the altered state of consciousness called spiritual enlightenment was the last step into actuality. ‘My’ extinction was the ending of not only fear, but of all of the affective faculties. As this flesh and blood body only, I am living in the paradisiacal garden that this planet earth is. We are all simply floating in the infinitude of this perfect and pure universe ... coming from nowhere and having nowhere to go to we find ourselves here at this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space. Extinction releases one into actuality ... and this actual world is ambrosial, to say the least. (Richard, List B, No. 4a, #pacifist). RESPONDENT: Richard who do you think your kidding? RICHARD: Obviously not you, eh? But – most importantly of all – not myself ... which is what your query implies. When I wake up of a morning I expect – and get – yet another perfect day. This has been going on for so many years now that I can take it for granted ... the perfection of this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space is already always here ... now. I never miss out on the enjoyment and delightful appreciation of being here as this flesh and blood body ... what more proof could I wish for than an on-going purity that is ever-fresh and never-failing? RICHARD: I might say this much, however: It is extremely pleasant to be sitting here at this computer terminal, luxuriating in the joy of being alive and being able to discuss matters of great momentousness for not only the individual, but for all of the humans that are living on this verdant planet. It is an amazing thing that not only are we humans able to be here experiencing this business of being alive ... on top of that we can think about and reflect upon what is entailed. In addition to this ability, we can communicate our discoveries to one another – comparing notes as it were – and further our understanding with this communal input. One does not have to rely only upon one’s own findings; it is possible, as one man famous in history put it, to reach beyond the current knowledge by standing upon the shoulders of those that went before. It is silly to disregard the results of other person’s enterprising essays into the ‘mystery of life’ – unless it is obviously bombast and blather – for one would have to invent the wheel all over again. * RESPONDENT: What where you trying to solve when these two major shifts happened to you? I would be much obliged if you would share your findings with me. RICHARD: I was wanting to know what ‘my’ part in all this mess was. Eighteen years ago ‘I’, the persona that I was, looked at the natural world and just knew that this enormous construct called the world – and the universe itself – was not ‘set up’ for us humans to be forever forlorn in with only scant moments of reprieve. ‘I’ realised there and then that it was not and could not ever be some ‘sick cosmic joke’ that humans all had to endure and ‘make the best of’. ‘I’ felt foolish that ‘I’ had believed for thirty two years that the wisdom of the world ‘I’ had inherited – the world that ‘I’ was born into – was set in stone. This foolish feeling allowed ‘me’ to get in touch with ‘my’ dormant naiveté, which – as I wrote above – is the closest thing one has that resembles actual innocence, and activate it with a naive enthusiasm to undo all the conditioning and brainwashing that ‘I’ had been subject to. Then when ‘I’ looked into myself and at all the people around and saw the sorrow and malice of humankind ‘I’ could not stop. ‘I’ knew that ‘I’ had just devoted myself to the task of setting both myself and humankind free ... ‘I’ willingly dedicated my life to this most worthy cause. It is so lovely to devote oneself to something whole-heartedly ... the ‘boots and all’ approach ‘I’ called it then! Thus I find myself here, in the world as-it-is. A vast stillness lies all around, a perfection that is abounding with purity. Beneficence, an active kindness, overflows in all directions, imbuing everything with unimaginable fairytale-like quality. For me to be able to be here at all is a blessing that only ‘I’ could grant, because nobody else could do it for me. I am full of admiration for the ‘me’ that dared to do such a thing. I owe all that I experience now to ‘me’. I salute ‘my’ audacity. And what an adventure it was ... and still is. These are the wondrous workings of the exquisite quality of life – who would have it any other way? I am this infinite and perfect physical universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being. * RICHARD: It is this ‘me’ that disappears, then what I am – not as an identity – is this flesh and blood body only being apperceptively aware ... the eyes seeing of their own accord instead of an ‘I’ inside the head looking out through the eyes as if from within a room looking out the windows to the world outside. That is all there is operating after the demise of the identity in toto. Then there is no ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ worlds; no ‘me’ to connect with any ‘me’ on the ‘inside’ or any other ‘me’s on the ‘outside’. Then one is here in this fairy tale-like actual world. Here is life as-it-is. Here one is pure innocence personified, for one is literally free from sin and guilt. One is untouched by evil; no malice exists anywhere in this actual world. One is utterly innocent. Innocence, that much abused word, has come to its full flowering in a human being. One is easily able to be freely ingenuous – noble in character – without any effort at all. Ingenuousness is so unlike the strictures of morality – whereupon the entity struggles in vain to resemble the purity of the actual – inasmuch as probity is bestowed gratuitously. One can live unequivocally, endowed with an actual gracefulness and dignity, in a magical wonderland. To thus live candidly, in arrant innocence, is a remarkable condition of excellence. * RESPONDENT: And I fully understand the difference between realisation as a process of change (actuality) and concluding as a process of reality. RICHARD: Actual freedom is not a process of change ... it is the end of the search. Nothing more needs to be done or discovered ... it is a joy and a delight to be alive, living here at this moment in time and this place in space. I have arrived ... this is complete. * RESPONDENT: But at least you acknowledge that you do not investigate any more. From your point of view to investigate what could be unknown is like breaking a perfect circle. RICHARD: Wrong ... for me there is nothing that ‘could be unknown’ at all. I know the unknown each moment again. That is why I have no need to investigate ... it is possible to reach perfection, you know. RESPONDENT: When one IS perfect-ness one shouldn’t disturb it, it’s such a relief. Empty-ness is perfect. Why disturb empty-ness? RICHARD: I have no idea who you are talking about here ... certainly not me. I have never, ever spoken of ‘empty-ness’. As for ‘perfect-ness’, perfection cannot be disturbed anyway, because it is perfect. If it could be disturbed ... it is not perfection. RESPONDENT: It seems you prefer words like beneficent and ambrosial to sacred or blissful. RICHARD: Oh yes, indeed. No way do those two words indicate some mysterious divine source, lying beyond thought, that I have surrendered to. Beneficent means doing or producing good; especially performing acts of kindness and charity; conferring benefits; conducive to personal or social well-being. And ambrosial means something extremely pleasing to taste or smell. I am autonomous and free; beholden to no one and no thing I stand on my own two feet ... instead of prostrating myself in abject humility and self-abnegation. This actual perfection is excellent and free. It is the freely available bonus of daring to be me as-I-am. Unadorned I am more free than a bird on the wing and cleaner than a sea-breeze on a sweltering summer’s day. To be me as-I-am is to be fresh, each moment again. Owing nothing to no one I am free from corruption ... perversity has vanished forever. Unpolluted as I am by any alien entity, my thoughts and my deeds are automatically graceful. Goodwill, freed of social morality, comes effortlessly to me for all internal conflict is over. I am gentle and peaceful in character. Freeing myself of the altered state of consciousness called spiritual enlightenment was the last step into actuality. RICHARD: What is essential to success is to precipitate pure consciousness experiences (they are your personal verification that this is not all a matter of belief, trust, faith and hope) and they are your ‘guide’, your ‘teacher’, your ‘authority’ and so on ... not me. RESPONDENT: Thank you for the response Richard. I appreciate what you have written, and I have just one question about something you have said: of what possible service can you be given that the PCE itself is my guide – and not you? (I ask this since it occurs as a human question timelessly worthy of clarification and not to subject you to undue resistance). RICHARD: The PCE is the inerrant lodestone: all I have ever wanted is that the words and writings of an actual freedom from the human condition should exist in the world as a third alternative ... for anyone to avail themselves of if it be in accord with their own experience and/or aspirations. As such it is an affirmation that such experience is not only valid but a confirmation in that a fellow human being has traversed this territory in an eminently satisfactory way. For eighteen years I scoured the books ... to no avail. Now the information exists – and has taken on a life of its own – and I am well content and having so much fun. I offer tips, hints, suggestions, clues, inside information, anecdotal stories and so on. What the other does with it all is entirely up to them. In the final analysis only you get to live your life and only you have amenability ... it is you who reaps the rewards or pays the consequences for any action or inaction that you may or may not do. And it is the report and the description of my experiencing that is important, not me. Anyone who has met me face-to-face only gets verification that there actually is a flesh and blood body that lives what these words say ... there is no ‘energy-field’ here. In fact, the written word is better as I tend to skip important detail with the spoken word ... this computer generates all my stock-standard phrases in an instant. As for service: the reward for going to the very end of illusion and delusion is to emerge, unscathed, as the actual. The benefits of doing so are beyond price; to remove oneself from the invidious position of being betwixt sycophants and traducers, being one among many. The immediate bestowal of universal peace upon oneself is the benefit worthiest of acknowledgment. Yet, rewards and benefits notwithstanding, to have reached one’s destiny is to be of the ultimate service possible ... the universe has been able to fulfil itself in a human being. Finally there is an intelligence operating unimpeded ... blind nature has been superseded. To live this is what service is. RESPONDENT: I don’t know. You claim you do know – so how do you know? RICHARD: Because (a) I was normal for 34 years ... and it is the pits; and because (b) I was abnormal for 11 years ... and it sucks. To explain briefly: in 1981, ‘I’ as ego went beyond normal (ego death) resulting in the abnormal state; in 1992 ‘me’ as soul went beyond abnormal (soul death) resulting in the third alternative ... which I choose to call an actual freedom. RESPONDENT: Yet I would concede that even if these things exist and worked, they seem to be so rare that, well, they don’t work, i.e. they are not very practical. But the same thing could be said for your state, don’t you think? RICHARD: Seeing as I went public in 1996 it is not reasonable to class it in the same category as something that has had – at the very least – 5,000 years to demonstrate its efficacy. RESPONDENT: Are you the one and only person ever to have experienced this going-beyond-enlightenment? RICHARD: No one else, as far as I have been able to ascertain in eighteen years of scouring the books and travelling overseas, has experienced this going-beyond-enlightenment. The only person who comes close is Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti whom I found out about in 1997 when I first came onto the Internet. But he does not know what happened to him and has no solutions to offer. He is simply a curiosity to those who go to see him. He states that he is a ‘never to be repeated sport of nature’. Whereas I know where I came from and where I am at and how I got here. RESPONDENT: Also, has the world improved in any substantial way since 1996? RICHARD: I can put you into contact with people who have put actualism into practice in their daily life so that you can ask them for yourself, if that is what you would like. RESPONDENT: What is your prediction of when the change you have experienced will actually result in a world with no tortures, murders, etc? RICHARD: I used to jokingly say 5,000 years (a figure plucked at random) but given the level of objections to being happy and harmless that people come out with I would be inclined to say maybe never. RESPONDENT: These views seem contrary to the idea of freedom, actualised or otherwise. RICHARD: Ahh ... therein lies the nub of the problem: ‘the idea of freedom’ is a far cry from the actuality of freedom. If you have an ‘idea of freedom’ – and set out to achieve that – then you will wind up being a self-righteous prude, for the ‘idea’ is not what the actual is. Whereas I know where I am at and where I came from and how I got here and I can write meaningfully, trenchantly, direct and to the point. As no one else, as far as I have been able to ascertain in eighteen years of scouring the books and travelling overseas, has become actually free of the human condition, then there is no precedent or example that you can use to judge me by. RESPONDENT: Is this indicative of the Actual Freedom that you write about? RICHARD: No ... what you see being written here on this Mailing List is my response to dogma and doctrine. If each and every person were to be happy and harmless (free from the human condition) you would never see me write like I currently do. RESPONDENT: As you are the spokesman for Actual Freedom, it would appear so. RICHARD: In an ‘idea’ of freedom, people are into altering behavioural patterns (rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic) whereas what I speak of is the elimination of that which causes the aberrant behaviour in the first place. As pacifists and their ilk (those who live the doctrine of non-violence) do not eliminate the source of aberrant behaviour ... then they have to imitate the actual ease of an actual freedom from the human condition by making a big splash about their ‘goodie-goodie’ behaviour. To put it simply – and in a way that might just convey it to you – this what I speak of is somewhat indicated by what is possibly the only passage in the Christian’s Holy Scriptures worthy of note. Viz.: • ‘He and/or she that looketh upon a woman and/or man with lust in their heart has already committed adultery’. Which means: clean up your act on the ‘inside’ and the ‘outer’ actions are free to be appropriate to the circumstances. This applies to all anti-social behaviour ... not just a minor thing like sex outside of marriage. Things like all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides, to give but a small yet very representative example. If someone were to bop me on the nose I am free to bop them back. RESPONDENT No. 25: Why are we so easily compliant: why do we give away our freedom so cheaply? RICHARD: But nobody ‘gives away their freedom’ because nobody is free to start off with. Freedom is gained through application and diligence, through patience and perseverance. (Richard, List B, No. 25e, 14 October 1999). RESPONDENT: Freedom is never gained, for that which is gained is always conditioned by the entity, location or circumstance from which it is gained. RICHARD: If your ‘freedom’ is ‘conditioned by the entity’ then it is a pseudo-freedom and not an actual freedom. An actual freedom is when the entity is not. As for the ‘location or circumstance from which it is gained’ ... the ‘location’ is planet earth and the ‘circumstances’ are known as ‘the human condition’. The phrase ‘human condition’ is a well-established philosophical term that refers to the situation that all human beings find themselves in when they emerge here as babies. The term refers to the contrary and perverse nature of all peoples of all races and all cultures. There is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in everyone ... all humans have a ‘dark side’ to their nature and a ‘light side’. The battle betwixt ‘Good and Evil’ has raged down through the centuries and it requires constant vigilance lest evil gets the upper hand. Morals and ethics seek to control the wayward self that lurks deep within the human breast ... and some semblance of what is called ‘peace’ prevails for the main. Where morality and ethicality fails to curb the ‘savage beast’, law and order is maintained ... at the point of a gun. An actual freedom from that lot is to be living an individual peace-on-earth. RESPONDENT: Interesting, the assumption that ‘nobody is free to start off with’. RICHARD: We have been down this road before, you and I, in previous correspondence ... and as long as you are in a state of denial about all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides that blight this otherwise fair planet we all live on, you will never be able to comprehend what I speak of. Just as an alcoholic cannot begin their ‘cure’ until they acknowledge that they have a problem ... so too is it with otherwise intelligent people who are so dissociated from what is going on in the world of people, things and events that they fool themselves into fondly imagining that it is all but a dream in which they are lucidly awake. RESPONDENT: He who is free to search for escape from circumstance through the application of diligence, patience and perseverance is equally as free as he who lives in the freedom that depends on that escape. RICHARD: This is waffle ... maybe divine waffle, but waffle all the same. RESPONDENT: Freedom is not attained or gained, however, Freedom is certainly able to be the experience of being free via escape from circumstance. RICHARD: Speaking personally (and thus not theoretically) in 1980, at the beginning of what was to be a four-hour pure consciousness experience (PCE) that was the turning-point in my life, ‘I’, the entity that you referred to (further above) saw ‘myself’ for what ‘I’ was (a lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning social identity) and the instant ‘I’ saw ‘myself’ ... I was not that. Thus (when I reverted back to normal in the ‘real world’) ‘I’ knew, by direct experience, that ‘I’ was standing in the way of the actual being apparent ... and ‘I’ had to go – become extinct – and not try to become something ‘better’. That is, ‘I’ knew that ‘I’ could never, ever become perfect or be perfection. The only thing ‘I’ could do – the only thing ‘I’ had to do – was die (psychologically and psychically self-immolate). Which is what ‘I’ did ... and now there is this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware sans any entity whatsoever. RESPONDENT: This experience is thus bounded, that is; sharing a boundary with that which it must be without to be existent. Again, actual freedom is then closely related to bound or limited, or having a line beyond which it can not proceed or exist, or to be confined or restricted within certain limits. Without question that which proceeded this experience was equally actual(ly) free (in that actual freedom is to be bounded, limited) because it shares a common boundary with actual freedom. Freedom, if it is that freedom is to be the capacity to exercise choice or free will, (and freedom is to be so or not be freedom at all) is that which may or may not experience the conditioned state called actual freedom, or not, to love (be love), or not, to be anger, violence happiness, sadness, joyfulness, sullenness, logic, insanity, harmfulness, compassion, consciousness, or not. That the choice has been made do adopt actual freedom (to be bound, or limited) does not mean the freedom has been lost, it means that freedom has been exercised in becoming the experience called actual freedom. the experience actual freedom, could, at any moment, be utterly abandoned. Perfect, lacking nothing essential to the whole, complete of its nature, is what you are now Richard, it is what you were before, and what you will be always. You can never be anything other than perfectly what you are and what you are will always be perfectly what it is. This moment is perfectly what it is, nothing is lacking for it to be what it is, and what you are, and what is are perfectly the same thing. It is correct to think ‘I could never, ever become perfect ...’ because even the moment that is the experience that is the thought ‘I could never, ever become perfect or be perfection’ is perfect and could not be so. Perfection, like freedom, is not a thing gained but instead is truth realized and enjoyed. Thank you for sharing the experience actual freedom. RICHARD: Once again you start from a false premise (‘this experience is sharing a boundary with that which it must be without to be existent’ ) ... and thus come once again to an erroneous conclusion. There is no boundary other than in your fervent imagination. Because an actual freedom from the human condition is when ‘that which is within’ ends ... as in ‘come to an end’. Finish, kaput, cease to exist, extinct. As dead as the dodo ... but with no skeletal remains. There is no phoenix here to arise from the ashes. It not only took eleven years of diligence, application, patience and perseverance to bring this about, but determination and intent ... and much internal and external observation; much exploring and uncovering and investigating and discovering before ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul self-immolated. As all this is a far cry from your mental gymnastics you will possibly never understand. I know where I am at, where I came from and how I got here. RESPONDENT: Richard – I see a few flaws in your description of a lack of adrenaline (now called epinephrine). RICHARD: Here is the essence of that description: • [Richard]: ‘(...) Interestingly enough I was not even breathing heavily’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25g, 9 December 2004). And here is the essence of the earlier description: • [Richard]: ‘(...) There is no perturbation whatsoever (no wide-eyed staring, no increase in heart-beat, no rapid breathing, no adrenaline-tensed muscle tone, no sweaty palms, no blood draining from the face, no dry mouth, no cortisol-induced heightened awareness, and so on) as with the complete absence of the rudimentary animal ‘self’ in the primordial brain the limbic system in general, and the amygdala in particular, have been free to do their job – the oh-so-vital startle response – both efficaciously and cleanly (...)’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25g, 9 December 2004). If you can point out the ‘few flaws’ you see in either of those descriptions I will be most interested. RESPONDENT: First of all, can you detect exactly the forms of the molecules that flow through your body? RICHARD: No ... and, given that ‘molecules’ (just like ‘atoms’) are mathematical models of the universe, neither can anybody else. Moreover, as I am an actualist, and not a scientist, my reports/ descriptions/ explanations are experiential, not scientifical, and any reference I may make to matters scientific on occasion are secondary. Did you not take in the import of what [quote] ‘via self-observation’ [endquote] conveys in my further above explanation? Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘This is what I do know *via self-observation*: as there is no identity (no psyche) whatsoever in this flesh and blood body there are no instinctual passions (no fear, no aggression, no nurture, no desire) either – ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’ – thus no such hormones as cortisol and adrenalin are being produced’. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25g, 9 December 2004). RESPONDENT: Also, I am not sure what scientific claims you are consulting ... RICHARD: I am not consulting any scientific claim in either the later or the earlier description ... they are, quite clearly, self-reports. Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘(...) Interestingly enough I was not even breathing heavily’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25g, 9 December 2004). • [Richard]: ‘There is (...) no wide-eyed staring, no increase in heart-beat, no rapid breathing, no adrenaline-tensed muscle tone, no sweaty palms, no blood draining from the face, no dry mouth, no cortisol-induced heightened awareness, and so on (...)’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25g, 9 December 2004). I was sailing over a supermarket garden-bed/strolling along a country lane ... I was *not* in a laboratory somewhere, wired to some machine, on either occasion. RESPONDENT: ... [I am not sure what scientific claims you are consulting] but studies done by Schacter provide strong evidence for the conclusion that epinephrine is NOT linked to specific emotions. RICHARD: You may have missed what I wrote in my initial response in this thread: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘(...) From the above phrase [referring to the arising of instinctually-sourced feelings producing a hormonal chemical response] I understand that feelings (out-sourced by the instinctual program) produce hormonal substances, not the other way around. From the TV documentaries I’ve watched, it is because of the physical hormonal substances in the body that certain good/bad feelings arise. Scientists have managed to identify and link certain hormonal substances to particular feelings, giving the impression that a feeling cannot arise without an associated body-produced ‘chemical’. • [Richard]: ‘It is handy to bear in mind, on occasions such as this, that a scientist is an identity inhabiting a flesh and blood body ... for instance a couple of months ago another subscriber to this mailing list posted a link to a transcript of an interview with Mr. Joseph LeDoux – he has training/expertise in both neuropsychology and neurobiology – who has the following to say towards the end: (...)’ (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25g, 1 December 2004). [snip remainder]. In essence what you are doing is singling out one person, with training/ expertise in some ‘-ology’ or another, among many such persons ... only to have me research what that person has to say (in lieu of you conducting a ‘self’-investigation). RESPONDENT: I suggest you research the studies of this man. RICHARD: I have had all manner of peoples advise me to research all manner of things since I first went public on the internet in 1997 ... each and every one of them conveniently overlooking the fact that, being already actually free of the human condition, I have no personal interest whatsoever in doing anything of the sort. RESPONDENT: One of the most important conclusions he made is that if a person could be persuaded that the arousal they received (from ep. injections) was not due to an emotional factor, they would not experience it as emotional. RICHARD: To use a modern colloquialism: that would have to be a no-brainer if there ever was. RESPONDENT: Furthermore, epinephrine signals cells to increase cAMP levels, Triacyglcerol mobilization, and glyconeogenesis, all needed for increased energy availability. This IS the signal for more energy: you still insist that ‘necessity’ gave you the energy you needed? RICHARD: I never insisted upon it in the first place – I provided a report/ a description/an explanation out of my direct experience – and, not only did I experience no feelings/ emotions/ passions whatsoever, neither was there any receival of an adrenaline arousal at all (as expressed in, for example, phrasing such as ‘rushes of adrenaline’ or ‘an adrenaline hit’ and ‘an adrenaline junkie’ and so on). Neither was there any cortisol-induced heightened awareness either – each and every thing specifically looked at, here in this actual world, is already seen in detail – and, as time does not move in actuality, neither did time all-of-a-sudden stand still either. Incidentally (in regards adrenaline injections): whenever I have a dental injection to anaesthetise the jaw, these days, I make sure the dentist uses a procaine mixture which does not contain adrenaline, which most such mixtures do, because its effect is to set-off a psychotropic episode (lasting up to 5-6 hours). As does caffeine (a chemical cousin to cocaine). * RESPONDENT: You have still not addressed the silliness of this claim: [Richard] ‘This is what I do know via self-observation: as there is no identity (no psyche) whatsoever in this flesh and blood body there are no instinctual passions (no fear, no aggression, no nurture, no desire) either – ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’ – thus no such hormones as cortisol and adrenaline are being produced’. [endquote]. RICHARD: As you have not established that there is, in fact, any ‘silliness’ to my (reposted just above) report/ description/ explanation I would suggest you refrain from adding such commentitious nouns to your assertions as they have the effect of turning them into loaded assertions. RESPONDENT: I can certainly point out the silliness in a few of your claims. RICHARD: Au contraire ... all you can do is point out what occurs in a normal human being. Perhaps if I were to put it this way: I provide a report/ description/ explanation of what I know *via self-observation* and yet, completely ignoring such direct experience that there was no heavy breathing/ no perturbation whatsoever – no wide-eyed staring, no increase in heart-beat, no rapid breathing, no adrenaline-tensed muscle tone, no sweaty palms, no blood draining from the face, no dry mouth, no cortisol-induced heightened awareness, and so on, (such as, for instance, no hair standing on end) – you assert that this flesh and blood body is still producing adrenaline anyway because that is what you know, *via text-book learning*, about normal human beings. Not that this kind of reaction is something novel to me ... I have had people assert that my report/ description/ explanation about how the entire affective faculty – all the feelings, emotions, passions, calentures – vanished completely, in 1992, cannot possibly be true for the self-same reason. Furthermore, I have had people say that my report/ description/ explanation about how the identity in toto – both ‘I’ as ego *and* ‘me’ as soul – simultaneously vanished, in 1992, also cannot possibly be true for a similar reason (it is not to be found in spiritual/ mystical text-books). To use a popular expression ... some peoples have difficulty in thinking outside of the box. RESPONDENT No. 11: [...] I can tell you that the odds of achieving actual freedom, to make the identity disappear completely, is next to impossible. RICHARD: G’day No. 11, If, as you say, the odds of achieving actual freedom are next to impossible then it implies that the odds of human beings destroying every man, woman and child on the planet are actually impossible as there is a precedent for the former and no precedent whatsoever for the latter. Be that as it may be ... the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago had no precedent to assure ‘him’ it was possible yet ‘he’ was entirely confident – with the certainty pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s) confer that it be ‘his’ destiny to manumit the body ‘he’ held in bondage. Thus ‘he’ never had any doubt – ‘he’ was freed of doubt by that very absence of choice – an actual freedom was possible, in ‘his’ lifetime, for this flesh and blood body. (Any doubt comes from choice; for most people choice implies freedom – the freedom to chose – yet as choice means options there is always doubt; an actual freedom comes about by there being no choice whatsoever ... hence the word destiny). I only mention this as you have made it clear, both in your postings prior to that frontal leucotome/ transorbital lobotomy email and after it, that you want your path to be the short-cut path – not via a virtual freedom – which means you have no other option but to invoke destiny. (Richard, List D, No. 11, 28 November 2009). RICK: Richard, can you expand on this short-cut path – not via virtual freedom? RICHARD: G’day Rick, Sure ... first of all, the above conditions are utterly vital – entirely confident/ absolute certainty (PCE) freed of doubt/ absence of choice – else any invocatory destiny will be, at best, fruitless. (At worst ... well, fill in your own nightmare/ your own screaming heebie-jeebies scenario). Also, bear in mind that every body is but a missed heart-beat or two away from death each and every day and then death is your constant companion; an ever-present reminder that to die without having ever lived fully – as in totally fulfilled, completely satisfied, utterly content – is such a waste of a life. (I would say to people, all those years ago, that were I to live that which the PCE’s had made apparent – as in an irrevocable permanency – for only five minutes I would then happily die. For that is how precious an actual freedom from the human condition is). RICK: I’d be awfully interested. You haven’t written much about it. [Richard]: ‘There is a rapid (and sudden) way to actual freedom and a gradual (then sudden) way ... and the rapid (and sudden) way does by-pass self-examination. There are certain dangers inherent: [Richard]: ‘After living in the condition of virtual freedom for sufficient time to absorb all the ramifications of a blithesome life, it is highly likely that the ultimate condition can happen. ‘I’ do not make it happen, because ‘I’ cannot make it happen. What is more ... ‘I’ am not required to make it happen. An actual freedom happens of itself only when one is fully ready, and not before. One has to become acclimatised to benignity, benevolence and blitheness, because the purity of the actual is so powerful that it would ‘blow the fuses’ if one was to venture into this territory ill-prepared. To precipitously apprehend the vast stillness of infinitude would be too much, too fast, too soon ... one could go mad with the super-abundance of pleasure that pours forth’. (‘Richard’s Journal’ ©1997 The Actual Freedom Trust. Page: 150). The rapid (and sudden) way is certainly possible – given sufficient pure intent – yet even so there needs to be a tidying-up of social mores and habitual patterns ‘after the event’ anyway ... an actual freedom does not miraculously remove every little detail. It does make the fine-tuning a breeze, though’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 12b, 16 February 1999). RICK: I am tempted to tamper with this ‘rapid (and sudden) way to actual freedom’ despite your warning. RICHARD: With the absolute certainty/ total absence of choice of the PCE the invocation of destiny (oblivion/ extinction) is the deadly simple and fascinated contemplation of the fact that, as physical death is the end of ‘being’ anyway, it might as well happen sooner rather than later. (The oblivion/ extinction of ‘being’ at physical death is entirely without benefit in regards peace-on-earth whereas the oblivion/ extinction of ‘being’ at this moment in time is entirely beneficial to the host body and of a facilitatory benefit to all other bodies). The fascinated contemplation – ‘fascinated’ as in a moth to a flame – morphs into a pure contemplation (as in an apperceptivity) upon it becoming startlingly apparent as an experiential actuality that this moment in time has no duration. What this means, to an identity for whom time moves (as in past/ present/ future), is that the keep-it-safe extinction of ‘being’ (cunningly projected into some future moment) will be happening now when it does take place. (Time has no duration in actuality; now, being eternal, is already always dynamic in that everything happens now; nothing ever happens in past/ present/ future time). As now is the way, then now is the means; as now is the means, then now is the end ... !Bingo! ... it is no longer possible to distinguish between life being lived and life doing the living as any such cause and effect has vanished without a trace (it never was anyway as time, as in past/ present/ future, has no existence in actuality). This is ‘my’ moment of glory; this is ‘my’ crowning achievement; this makes ‘my’ petty life all worthwhile; this is ‘my’ most noble sacrifice for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear; this is ‘my’ legacy for all humankind; ‘my’ reward is to go blessedly into the oblivion ‘I’ have secretly craved all along. ‘My’ extinction made all this possible. Regards, Richard. P.S.: The key-word is: inevitability. RESPONDENT: How can we see that it [identity] has gone away in a flesh and blood body other than our own? RICHARD: In the same way you can see it has not gone away in a flesh and blood body other than your own ... feeling for it affectively/ psychically (intuitively). (...) RESPONDENT: In which way would two actually free people recognize one another? RICHARD: As I only get to meet flesh and blood bodies here in this actual world I can only take another’s word for it that they experience themself to be an identity ... albeit usually in a dissociated way (by saying they have one). RESPONDENT: So there would be no way for you to directly recognize, in their presence, the absence or presence of an identity in another person? RICHARD: I do not/can not recognise something which has no existence in actuality. Viz.: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Richard ... the problem is not the ‘self’ (in regard to war, rape, murder, heartache, sorrow, malice, tooth decay, etc., etc.), the problem is always ‘the other’. And we cannot ‘get rid of’ the other. • [Richard]: ‘Au contraire ... when ‘the ‘self’’ in its entirety (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul), who was parasitically inhabiting this flesh and blood body, psychologically and psychically (ontologically and autologically) self-immolated ... ‘the other’ (all six billion ‘others’ plus all past and future ‘others’) vanished. I only get to meet flesh and blood bodies here in this actual world’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 12k, 2 July 2001). My previous companion (for example) often found that total lack of recognition disconcerting, to say the least, as ‘her’ experience of it then was that it were *as if* I would not recognise ‘her’ (as in either a refusal to do so or an inability to do so) ... for that is how real ‘her’ existence was (to ‘her’ that is). Perhaps if I were to put it this way: just as there are no affective feelings in a stone/a brick (for instance), and just as there is no ‘being’ in a river/a mountain (for example), there are no affective feelings/ is no ‘being’, in any flesh and blood body whatsoever, in actuality (here in this actual world). Here in this actual world (the sensate world which ‘you’ are totally oblivious to and forever locked out of by the very nature of ‘being’ in the first place) every body and every thing and every event is already free (if that be the right word) ... and always has been and always will be. ‘Tis not for nothing I am wont to say that I have been here all along (since 1947) .. simply having a ball. RESPONDENT: In other words, you would not be able to recognize another actually free person if you saw and interacted with them, were they not to explicitly tell you that they are a flesh and blood body only? RICHARD: Oh, it soon becomes obvious, and quite often with even the briefest of conversation, through both tone of voice and content (if not by behaviour, facial expression, and bodily posture, alone), whether or not there is an affective ‘being’ in residence both hijacking my words and imputing all manner of real-to-‘them’ things into me (or, rather, into the ‘me’ which that very ‘being’ as a matter-of-course simultaneously projects into me). It is always a delight to be with another when they are having a pure consciousness experience (PCE) for it soon becomes obvious that there is no affective ‘being’ in residence. For instance: • [Richard]: ‘... I have been able to ascertain that anybody that I have been with whilst they were having a PCE is indubitably experiencing the same-same experience as is my on-going experiencing ... plus they have tended to say things such as they now see what I have been saying all along for themselves; that everything I have ever said is accurate; that they understand what I have been getting at; that they know why it is difficult for others to comprehend; that they can now talk on an equal footing with me; that life is indeed grand ... amazing, marvellous, and truly wondrous. I usually ask pertinent questions: for example very early in the piece I asked my current companion, once the PCE was definitely happening, what she had to say now about love (always a hot topic): ‘Love?’ she said, ‘Why there is no room for love here!’ She went on to expand, saying there was no need for love as everything was already perfect, and there was no separation, and so on ... but she had said enough in her initial response to both satisfy and delight me’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44d, 15 September 2003). Now, I have never used such an expression – ‘there is no room for love here’ – yet I knew perfectly well what was being conveyed. RESPONDENT: How could Peace-on-Earth be possible if every new generation would be born with the same old, same old instinctual passions? RICHARD: The same way it is possible now. RESPONDENT: It would be a continuum ‘ad infinitum’ DIY process and some would simply refuse (for a million reasons) to conform to a happy and harmless life. RICHARD: Nobody is being asked to ‘conform’ to anything (as is the case with morality and/or ethicality) ... it is each and ever person’s choice, each moment again, how they experience this moment of being alive (the only moment they are ever alive). No one is preventing you from being happy and harmless but you. RESPONDENT: And they will be the minority report. RICHARD: Only until they become the majority report. RESPONDENT: Or would the actual free parents would give birth to instinctually free babes in a gradual evolutionary process that would stretch over thousands of years? RICHARD: As I had a vasectomy in my late thirties I am unable to test that theory. RESPONDENT: We’ve been here before, but this just doesn’t make sense to me. RICHARD: Maybe the following will be of assistance: • [Richard]: ‘... The PCE demonstrates that the pristine perfection of the actual world is just here – right now – for the very asking. • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Yes indeed. Thanks for this. It gives me confidence that the whole endeavour is both possible and extremely worthwhile. • [Richard]: ‘In view of the continuing parlous state of both individual and world affairs it is most certainly worthwhile – I have oft-times said it is worth almost anything in terms of personal discomfort/ private disturbance to have happen – and the distinct possibility of more and more outbreaks of individual peace-on-earth (be they virtual or actual) bodes well for humankind at large ... given the twentieth century’s unprecedented move towards the eventual democratisation of all sovereign states it only takes 51% of a population to be living in an actual or a virtual peace and harmony for groundswell changes to take effect. What was previously only the stuff of pipe-dreams is now entirely possible. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 60, 3 December 2003). RESPONDENT: And even if actualism would be practiced by many people (say 500 millions), it would not be an identical process to everyone, as a matter-of-fact it would get distorted, it would degenerate as with everything which happened on a mass scale in the history of humankind and over an extended period of time. RICHARD: You are referring that which is new – thus without precedent – and which is actual, and not fantasy, and are comparing it to not only that which is old but that which is a massive delusion into the bargain, in order to come to your conclusions. RESPONDENT: Nothing remains the same. Yes, the PCE might be identical to everyone, but ... RICHARD: If I may interject (before you go on with your ‘but ...’)? If, as you say, nothing remains the same, how can you then say, in virtually the same breath, that the pure consciousness experience (PCE) be *identical* to everyone? RESPONDENT: ...[but] the process of becoming free will inevitably be distorted, there will be countless ‘branded’ versions of becoming free. RICHARD: As the PCE is essential to the process of becoming actually free from the human condition then any method other than the only one that has worked so far to deliver the goods will be similarly bench-marked ... ‘tis not for nothing that clarity in communication (what some classify as pedantic nit-picking) is the hall-mark of actualism words and writings. RESPONDENT: This will serve the innate human need for diversity and tolerance. RICHARD: Those that choose diversity and tolerance over happiness and harmlessness are simply wasting their only moment of being alive ... frittering a vital opportunity away on more of the ‘Tried and True’ in yet another guise. RESPONDENT: I lived part of my life in communism and I know on my personal skin the effects of idealist unicity, equality and freedom applied in practice. RICHARD: As actualism is not ‘idealist’ your comparison of it to an unfeasible (given the human condition) socio-political system is pointless. RESPONDENT: They have also thought to have found the ‘only and unique’ solution, never tried before. RICHARD: As no actualist has the ‘thought’ that they have found anything of the sort, but rather the direct experience of the actuality, your comparison is again pointless. RESPONDENT: I guess this is my version of ‘you can’t change human nature’ applied on a global scale, but that’s the way I see it in the long run. RICHARD: Okay ... it is your life you are living, when all is said and done, and how you see things is your business, of course. * RICHARD: ... the human species has been doing its thing for at least 50,000 years or so – no essential difference has been discerned between the Cro-Magnon human and Modern-Day human – and may very well continue to do its thing for, say, another 50,000 years or so ... it matters not, in what has been described as ‘the vast scheme of things’ or ‘the big picture’, and so on, whether none, one or many peoples become actually free from the human condition (this planet, indeed the entire solar system, is going to cease to exist in its current form about 4.5 billion years from now). All these words – yours, mine, and others (all the dictionaries, encyclopaedias, scholarly tomes and so on) – will perish and all the monuments, all the statues, all the tombstones, all the sacred sites, all the carefully conserved/carefully restored memorabilia, will vanish as if they had never existed ... nothing will remain of any human endeavour (including yours truly). Nothing at all ... nil, zero, zilch. Which means that nothing really matters in the long run and, as nothing really does matter (in this ultimate sense) it is simply not possible to take life seriously ... sincerely, yes, but seriously? No way ... life is much too much fun to be serious! RESPONDENT: Yes, I see your point as I remember instances of original comedy in my life, although in the real-world where I currently reside, it’s a serious and sometimes deadly business, mainly because people take themselves so seriously (survival takes precedent over enjoying). RICHARD: And therein lies the nub of the issue (in the real-world life is indeed a serious and sometimes deadly business). RESPONDENT: When the potential for freedom is actualized, there’s no need to build another freedom site or to write a book dedicated to the same subject as it is extensively covered, all the while considering myself a factualist instead of an actualist with all the branding and neo-prefixes. I can simply disappear over the horizon if I so wish when ‘The Game’ is over. RICHARD: As an actual freedom from the human condition requires an all-inclusive altruism to effect – and altruism wipes away selfism completely – it would be a contradiction, not only in terms, but in effect to not pass on a report, by whatever means, of the discovery of the already always existing peace-on-earth to one’s fellow human beings. In other words, if for no other reason than simply because of the inherent character of fellowship regard, here in this actual world, were you not to share your experiencing of what life is in actuality – that is, kept it to yourself, for yourself, whilst all about misery and mayhem rages unabated (plus all the branding and neo-prefixing for that matter) – then it would not be an actual freedom from the human condition. Feeling beings do not have a corner on caring. RESPONDENT: I wonder how all these astronauts, who have seen the Earth from space, haven’t seen the folly of the humans below or if they have seen it why didn’t they say loud and clear what stupidity is played down here everyday. RICHARD: Presuming that you are assuming some of them have a PCE – because of the sheer impact of seeing this azure and verdant planet from such a privileged vantage point perchance – then basically you are asking why anyone who is having a PCE is not saying, loud and clear, why all the misery and mayhem being played-out all around the globe is unnecessary. Speaking personally, that is the very thing I would say, all those years ago whenever the ‘I’ who was inhabiting this body went into abeyance, and anybody I have been with since then, whilst they were having a PCE, has expressed variations on the same theme. RESPONDENT: How can they re-become so easily ‘normal’ with only a whisper about their experience? RICHARD: For the same reason why an actual freedom from the human condition is new to human history ... the persistence, and thus dominance, of identity. RESPONDENT: What interests me most about this ‘condition’ is how life is actually experienced. In your case, you have expressed some hints about the bodily functioning. You say that you have no libido, yet you can engage in sex. The obvious question arises: Do you become ‘aroused’ without any mental component (i.e. do you find yourself with an erection when a partner expresses some desire to engage in sex) or what? RICHARD: Here in this actual world it is impossible to ever be hedonic as the affective pleasure/pain centre in the brain – as in the pleasure/pain principle which spiritualism makes quite an issue out of yet never does eliminate – is null and void. You may find the following self-explanatory: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Is it correct to say that ‘actual sex’ is non-erotic? • [Richard]: ‘As the word ‘erotic’ usually means ‘of or pertaining to sexual love; amatory, esp. tending to arouse sexual desire’ (Oxford Dictionary) ... yes; where the word ‘erotic’ means erogenous – ‘of a part of the body: sensitive to sexual stimulation; capable of giving sexual pleasure when touched or stroked’ (Oxford Dictionary) – then ... no’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 61, 11 May 2004). And: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘... if you are making sex where come these erections, out of the blue? • [Richard]: ‘No, engorgement of the genitals comes from tactile stimulation’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44a, 10 July 2003). RESPONDENT: Do the sensations of sexual congress have a different quality than previously in the entity state? RICHARD: As sensations are physical they are no different than when an identity inhabited this flesh and blood body all those years ago ... the experience of same, being direct, is vastly different. RESPONDENT: Would the idea of masturbation ever arise? RICHARD: Having lived with a female companion since 1992 there has been no occasion where, being but a substitute for the real thing, it would ... there is (presumably) no reason why it would not, though, were the situation to be different. RESPONDENT: Do you experience hunger? RICHARD: No (all appetitive desires are null and void). RESPONDENT: When you eat do you have preferences in food? RICHARD: If there be a choice ... yes. RESPONDENT: When it is time to go to sleep do you ‘feel’ sleepy? RICHARD: No ... sleepiness as an actuality indicates that it be time for sleep. RESPONDENT: Or do you experience sleeping as a restful but ‘awake’ state (i.e. awareness never sleeps)? RICHARD: No ... to sleep is to be unconscious. RESPONDENT: Do you dream? RICHARD: No (there is only unconsciousness). RESPONDENT: Do sights and smells have an intensity greater than in the self state? RICHARD: As sights and smells are physical they are no different than when an identity inhabited this flesh and blood body all those years ago ... the experience of same, being direct, is vastly different. RESPONDENT: Do certain smells ever ‘remind’ you of a past experience? RICHARD: Yes ... this flesh and blood body has a lifetime of physical memories. RESPONDENT: Do you ever experience any revulsion with either taste, smell or other sensory experience (i.e. does dog shit stink)? RICHARD: No ... revulsion/ repugnance (disgust) disappeared right along with desire (allurement/ enticement). SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE ON ACTUAL FREEDOM (Part Two) RETURN TO RICHARD’S SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE INDEX RICHARD’S HOME PAGE The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one. Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997- . All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer and Use Restrictions and Guarantee of Authenticity