# Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

Richard’s Selected Correspondence ## On the Altered State of Consciousness aka Enlightenment RESPONDENT: A few more questions: 1. Richard, what is the physiological nature of the ‘process’ that you (and J Krishnamurti, Konrad Swart and numerous others) underwent during ego dissolution? RICHARD: In a word: electrochemical (the spinal cord, through which all the main nerve fibres go, transmits all kinds of electrochemical signals ... which can result in all manner of psychic manifestations on occasion). In the Indian Tradition they are known as ‘Kriyas’. RESPONDENT: 2. Is ego dissolution a necessary precursor to ‘soul death’ ... RICHARD: No ... if I had known, back in 1981 at the moment of ego-dissolution, what I now know I would not have let the process stop halfway through its happening. * RESPONDENT: So electro-chemical ‘self-immolation’ is not just metaphorical, eh? RICHARD: Indeed not: it is all very, very real ... more real than anything has ever been. RESPONDENT: You were really that close? RICHARD: Yes ... I have written before about how I unwittingly discovered yet another way to become enlightened: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Richard, I’ve been following this discussion with interest and have a couple of questions for you: Which of the 3 ways [Jnani, Bhakti, Yoga] did you use to achieve spiritual enlightenment in 1981? • [Richard]: ‘Well, none of those 3 ways, actually ... I inadvertently ‘discovered’ another way: ignorance. I was aiming for the pure consciousness experience (PCE) and landed short of my goal ... and it took another 11 years to get here. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 16, 8 January 2001). RESPONDENT: I wonder then, what is it that stops most spiritual seekers from going the final yard? RICHARD: Quite possibly it is the narcissistic nature of ‘being’ itself (plus it is incredibly difficult to resist being the ‘Chosen One’). RESPONDENT: Is it because the intermediate state brings with it a marvellous sense of having arrived, and you have no idea at the time that there is further to go? RICHARD: Yes ... there was the overwhelming feeling of having ‘Come Home’. RESPONDENT: Or do you feel that if you go any further you’ll surely (physically) die? RICHARD: Indeed so ... once in the tenacious grip of that exalted state the only thing beyond enlightenment is the physical death that will bring final release (as in ‘Parinirvana’ and ‘Mahasamadhi’ for instance) and one has to first fulfil one’s Mission as the Saviour of Humankind. RESPONDENT: Or maybe it’s because there is no cultural precedent for a state beyond enlightenment, other than physical death? RICHARD: Yes ... which lack of a precedent is the very reason why The Actual Freedom Trust, and thus the web site and this mailing list, exists. * Re: New direction for the list: aye yet again..:) ... What Say Ye. RICHARD: [...]. Ergo, conjure phantasm –> impute a fallacy –> impugn the fallacy–> preach morality/ ethicality –> propose the solution. (And this has been going on, and on, for around 8 & 1/2 years). Speaking personally, there is no ‘us vs them’ operating here – here in actuality – as we are all fellow human beings here (in actuality). (Richard, List D, No. 4, 9 January 2013c) RESPONDENT: Yep. Things are falling into place nicely now. Thank you. I’m only now beginning to see how many of the negative impressions I had of you are actually inseparable from the positive ones. The more I tried to escape the ambivalence by validating either one of the projections, the more it reinforced the other, and made my stuckness between the two poles inescapable. (Psychically inescapable anyhow). Much becoming clear. Wow. RICHARD: Yes, there is neither saint nor sinner (aka ‘the lotus has its roots in mud’) here – here in actuality – where 7+ billion flesh-and-blood bodies are already living, and any ascribing of (idealistic) saintly qualities onto an actually free flesh-and-blood body stems from attempting to counteract the imputed sinner qualities (i.e. automorphically imputed). (Richard, List D, No. 4, 10 January 2013). RESPONDENT: And even the ‘third alternative’ (neither sinner nor saint) had been misappropriated as yet another psychic image/ entity: A heartless/ soulless identity that lacked the endearing human traits and, due to lack of an intuitive faculty, wasn’t able to properly understand itself. It’s basically another way of inadvertently turning a what into a ‘who’. And no surprise that the result doesn’t come close to capturing the innocence of a PCE. RICHARD: Whilst none too sure precisely what you had in mind when you wrote that as such descriptive words, as a ‘heartless/ soulless identity that lacked the endearing human traits’, and ‘due to lack of an intuitive faculty’ was not able to ‘properly understand itself’, do read as if it is an ascription of androidic/ robotic qualities onto an actually free flesh-and-blood body. The ascription of androidic/ robotic qualities is already featured, on more than a few occasions, in my archived correspondence on The Actual Freedom Trust website. Viz.: [...snip android/ robot quote...]. (Richard, List D, No. 4, 5 January 2013). As well as that, the ascription of anosognosia type qualities also already features, on several occasions, on the website. Viz.: [...snip anosognosia quote...]. (Richard, List D, No. 4, 5 January 2013). If what you had in mind was the ascription of, say, sociopathic personality disorder type qualities (or some-such dissociative/ repressive attributes) it would be a sub-set of the imputed ‘sinner qualities’ – i.e. automorphically imputed – already canvassed, much further above now, in the earlier part of this exchange. RESPONDENT: Yes, you’ve understood me, and I believe I’m understanding you. I’d created an ‘actually free identity’ that purports to be the third alternative to the sinner/ saint, but was (as you’ve correctly pointed out here) another variant/ sub-set of the ‘sinner’: one that is damaged and oblivious rather than ruthlessly self-centred. RICHARD: G’day [No. 4 (real name)], Yes, we are indeed understanding each other and, even further to this understanding, do we both – now – understand that the third alternative to either spiritualism or materialism is actually non-imputable (i.e. automorphically) in any way other than some variant of the many and various sinner/ saint ascriptions? Put differently, do we now both understand that anything outside of the human condition – actually outside of it – truly is (as I have remarked on many an occasion) inconceivable and/or unimaginable and incomprehensible and/or unbelievable? Hence, of course, the ascription of androidic/ robotic qualities – some science-fiction alien from another galaxy – or even of a ‘real stranger’ (for instance) from ‘another space’. Viz.: • [quote]: ‘Dalai Lama: ‘Sometimes I Get Angry, Too’. Buddhist leader brings Dan Harris inside the mind of a monk’. {04/18/2011}. • [Intro; 01:26]: ‘Even though the Dalai Lama has supported extensive scientific research on meditation, asking his own monks to put their own heads inside of scientist’s brain-scanners, he admits that even if you do hours and hours of meditation it’s by no means some sort of silver bullet; it will not guarantee you perfect happiness’. • [Mr. Dan Harris; 01:45]: ‘Is your mind always calm?’ • [Mr. Tenzin Gyatso; 01:47]: ‘Hopefully’. • [Mr. Dan Harris]: ‘You never lose your temper?’ • [Mr. Tenzin Gyatso]: ‘No-no-no-no. Occasionally I lose my temper’. • [Mr. Dan Harris]: ‘You do?’ • [Mr. Tenzin Gyatso]: ‘Oh yes. If, uh, someone never lose temper then, perhaps, that may come from {gesturing upwards} another space’. {chuckles}. • [Mr. Dan Harris]: {laughs}. • [Mr. Tenzin Gyatso]: Real stranger. {laughs}. • [Mr. Dan Harris]: ‘So, if someone says to you ‘I never lose my temper’ you don’t believe them?’ • [Mr. Tenzin Gyatso]: ‘Oh, no. No ...’. (abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/dalai-lama-angry-13400561). Moreover, because the third alternative to either spiritualism or materialism is literally inconceivable and/or unimaginable and incomprehensible and/or unbelievable – as well as actually non-imputable (i.e. automorphically) in any way other than some variant of the many and various sinner/ saint ascriptions – it is not at all surprising how all of the pragmatic/ hardcore dharma leaders/ practitioners, for example, spuriously demoted my eleven years intimate experience, night and day, of fully-fledged spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment in order to posit actualism/ actual freedom as being ... um ... ‘ten-fetter’ arahantship. (Otherwise they would be face-to-face with the (metaphysical) fact that the long-awaited ‘Maitreya’/ ‘Mettaya’/ ‘Jampa’ has been and gone and they all missed-out on that event of the millennia). Furthermore, because this third alternative to either spiritualism or materialism is literally inconceivable and/or unimaginable and incomprehensible and/or unbelievable – as well as actually non-imputable (i.e. automorphically) in any way other than some variant of the many and various sinner/ saint ascriptions – it is not at all surprising how all but a few of the sane peoples (inclusive of, and particularly so, counsellors, therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists) have no choice but to diagnose both my eleven years of full enlightenment/ awakenment and my twenty-plus years of an actual freedom from the human condition as insanity. (Hence their demotion of that enlightened/ awakened experiencing of being the ‘Parousia’, the ‘Maitreya’, the ‘Messiah’, etcetera, to that of a patient in a psychiatric ward thinking they be Mr. Napoleon Bonaparte or Ms. Marie Antoinette, or whoever, else they all missed-out on that event of the millennia as well). RESPONDENT: It’s fascinating stuff. In practical terms, it was really casting a shadow over my recollection and evaluation of PCEs, and I’m really chuffed to find that, along with my growing insight into the creation of identities and stances, the innocence of the PCE is being restored. RICHARD: Interestingly enough, when Devika transmogrified into Irene (which she pronounced ee-rain-ah) she declared both of her primary peak experiences (her term for PCE’s) in Amsterdam long before she met me – both her brief riding-a-bicycle-across-an-intersection one and her three-weeks-of-being-beyond-enlightenment experience – as having been corrupted, polluted, by the numerous PCE’s she had after having met me/ whilst being with me and similarly sought to recollect and re-evaluate them. (Which, in her case, involved surreptitiously slipping agape love and compassion into them and, thus, rendering both indistinguishable from ASC’s). RESPONDENT: (Oddly, for all my talk of ‘crazy’, ‘insane’, and what-not, I don’t mind being the guy who’s fascinated by ordinary things like the play of light in a glass ashtray. It occurs to me as I write this that I was probably subject to some rather cynical and repressive influences around the age of seven, but it never *quite* crushed that naivete out of me. Anyway, still learning as I go, here...). RICHARD: Hmm ... could you be referring, by any chance, to the same personality whom you referred to in Message No. 9615 (plus follow-ups in 9616 & 9617) just before advising you were off to England again and, hopefully, then to northern Spain to walk the Camino de Santiago? (Message 9619). • [Respondent]: ‘(...) I know a thing or two about narcissism and narcissists ... possibly more than anyone in this forum ... and not from books. You see, I’ve spent large parts of my life – decades – witnessing first-hand how a narcissistic/ (non-violent) psychopathic personality thinks and behaves, and oftentimes being embroiled in their self-created dramas. The difference between a narcissist and an ordinary person – let alone an actualist – is stunning (and shocking at times). A narcissist’s genuine unconcern for other people couldn’t be learned or faked, even if you tried ...’. (Message 9615, Actualism, Others, No. 4 Report, 3 April 2010)). Regards, Richard. RESPONDENT: So ... http://altzen.freeyellow.com/page7.html: (snipped from article): ‘Once Ejo asked: ‘What is meant by the expression ‘Cause and effect are not clouded’?’ This expression is found in the famous Koan known as ‘The Wild Fox’ or ‘Hyakujo’s Fox’ and the following is the first part of the story as it appears in the Mumonkan: When Hyakujo Osho delivered a certain series of sermons, an old man always followed the monks to the main hall and listened to him. When the monks left the hall, the old man would also leave. One day, however, he remained behind and Hyakujo asked him, ‘Who are you, standing there before me?’ The old man replied, ‘I am not a human being. In the old days of Kaashyapa buddha, I was a head monk living here on this mountain. One day a student asked me, ‘Does a man of enlightenment fall under the yoke of causation or not?’ I answered ‘No, he does not’. Since then I have been doomed to undergo five hundred rebirths as a fox. I beg you now to give the turning word to release me from my life as a fox. Tell me, does a man of enlightenment fall under the yoke of causation or not?’ Hyakujo answered, ‘He does not ignore [cloud] causation [cause and effect]’. No sooner had the old man heard these words than he was enlightened’. (end article). So the obvious question is to be: ‘Does a man of apperception fall under the yoke of causation or not?’ RICHARD: Actually it is not such an obvious question after all as the words ‘a man of enlightenment’ and the words ‘a man of apperception’ refer to two entirely different things: enlightenment is the release from the otherwise endless round of birth/ death/ rebirth and apperception is the release from the human condition. ‘Tis only from within the human condition that such concepts as karma and samsara arise (along with their rebirth/ reincarnation implications). RESPONDENT: I’d say: be careful with your response here ... ‘five hundred rebirths as a fox’ ... wow! On the other hand better then ‘five hundred rebirths as a roach’. RICHARD: It essentially makes no difference (be it either as a fox or a roach) because, according to eastern spirituality, it is only as a human being that a sentient being has a chance for enlightenment (which is the main point of being sent back down the metempsychosical path). RESPONDENT: To be fair on that my guess is ‘Yes’ ... but then again the risk is high. RICHARD: The only risk on the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom is that one may be enticed to wander off the path and become enlightened instead. I kid you not. RESPONDENT: So ... I say I don’t know. RICHARD: Okay ... here is a hint: both karma and samsara have no existence here in this actual world. * CO-RESPONDENT: I suppose Vineeto could have asked [No. 18] ‘exactly what do you mean?’ ... RICHARD: Ha ... only to get an amplification like the following, perchance? Viz.: [snip]. CO-RESPONDENT: ... but perhaps that was unnecessary. RICHARD: Hmm ... because of the miasmal nature of the above-quoted amplification the word unwise could be a more appropriate than the word unnecessary. (...) (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 110b, 24 August 2006). RESPONDENT: (...) Given the fact that you have applied the word miasmal to label a particular fragment of a text written by yours truly, some could get the impression that such only could have been done in case if there were the possibility of an affective reaction. (...) So ... to make sure which meaning you have distilled out of the original writing which gave rise to labelling it as ‘miasmal’, I’m asking you which dictionary meaning did you have in mind when you wrote that? RICHARD: The meaning given in the Oxford Dictionary: • ‘miasma: an infectious or noxious vapour, esp. from putrescent organic matter, which pollutes the atmosphere; (fig.) a polluting, oppressive, or foreboding atmosphere; a polluting or oppressive influence’. [endquote]. I made it crystal-clear to you, at 9:25 AM on Tuesday 13/06/2006 AEST, that this mailing list was not set up to discuss spiritualistic solutions to all the ills of humankind as those solutions inevitably involve the self-aggrandisement of the root cause – ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which or ‘being’ itself) – via some process of sublimation and transcendence (self-realisation), until there is only ‘Being’ (aka ‘That’). And yet you took no notice whatsoever and have continued as before ... it is too late to now cry foul, so to speak, when I label your writing for what it is (as having a noxious, polluting, nature). Put pithily: spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment sucks ... big-time. RICHARD: In regards to the topics you inquired about: 1. What I call my puritan period (1982-1986) had nothing to do with the event in the abandoned cow-paddock (1992). 2. This flesh and blood body’s caffeine hypersensitivity is most probably idiosyncratic. 3. I read an article about an awakened/ enlightened female who experienced The Absolute as masculine. 4. The first occasion wherein ‘I’ got out of the way and the painting painted itself, so to speak, was in 1958. RESPONDENT: Do you still remember where you read that article? RICHARD: It was an article in the ‘What Is Enlightenment?’ magazine circa 1996 ... as a furtherance to this topic you may find the following to be of interest: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘The radiant feminine being you’ve experienced when the Absolute changed its face so-to-speak, was the Self of an actual flesh-and-blood human being or not? • [Richard]: ‘No, it was not the Self of anyone in particular – it was Love itself personified as a (metaphysical) feminine form – and, as I said earlier, its femininity I would nowadays consider to be a product of me being of masculine gender ... if I were to have been of feminine gender then Love itself may very well have been personified as a (metaphysical) masculine form. It really makes no difference ... behind all manifestations The Absolute was genderless’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25c, 15 September 2003). RESPONDENT No. 96: Dear friends, here we have to dill with a strwnge phenomenon. Mr.Richard is saying that his was enlightened and he thought he was the parussia.In his own words. Then he met another person that was saying he was the parussia as well,and he said is impossible to be two parussias.Is like some craisy in the mental hospital saying he is Napoleon the grait and then he founds another one saying he is also Napoleon the grait.,so is not possible to be two Napoleons.....I have read about many so called enlightened persons,but nobody said I am Jessus or,this or that. The person,Mr.Richard was in halussination. I think nobody who read about Krishnamurti,Nisargadatta Maharaj etc,nobody said I am this or that. He(Mr.Richard) claims that he was enligntened for so many years,but he was just in one self deciving,halussinating state. RICHARD: You may find a kindred soul at the following URL: [snip link]. Just in case you cannot access that link the essence of it is as follows: ‘(...) AF for me is the product of a failing enlightenment. Richard wrote me that he was the ‘parousia’and met another that was in the same state, so he thought two can not be Jesus and gave up. It reminds me of a person that things he is Napoleon the grate and meets another person, who things he is Napoleon as well and the most logical of them gives up. Was the state Richard was, one enlighened state? Or one religious psychosis? Till now, when I was reading about enlightenment, I never found one to be Jesus, unless he was in a state of psychosis, because that is what the Greek word ‘parousia’means,the second representation of Jesus. That means he was not enlightened. He is lucky he escaped the psychosis’. (Respondent No. 44, Thursday 15/07/2004 7:19 AM AEST). (see Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 96, 24 August 2005a). CO-RESPONDENT: Richard, you thought you were Jesus when you were enlightened? RICHARD: Another co-respondent gained a similar misconstruction from reading only the above quote. Viz.: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘... Richard himself destroyed all his writings during his enlightenment time, that is, when he thought to be the Paraclete (an appellation of the Holy Ghost). • [Richard]: ‘If you could provide the text, with an appropriate reference, wherein Richard said he thought to be the Paraclete – a god spiritually, as distinct from fleshly, active in the world – for the eleven years 1981 to 1992 it would be most appreciated. Incidentally, Richard burnt all what he had written, in that period, post-enlightenment/ awakenment ... not during’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 89a, 13 May 2005). The word Parousia – ‘Greek = presence (of persons), from pareinai be present’ (Oxford Dictionary) – in Christian Theology, and as distinct from the word Paraclete, refers to the Second Advent (aka the second coming) of the Christ (aka the Anointed One) on earth and is derived from the Latin ‘Christus’, from the Greek ‘Khristos’ (meaning ‘anointed’), from ‘khriein’ (anoint), as a translation from the Hebrew ‘masiah’ (Messiah) and refers to ‘The Messiah or Lord’s Anointed of Jewish tradition’ according to the Oxford Dictionary. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 98, 25 August 2005). RESPONDENT: So being the Parousia is being the Christ. Correct? RICHARD: By virtue of it being a Greek translation of the Hebrew written form of the Aramaic for ‘Messiah’ ... yes (which is why, despite ecumenicalism, the festering sore betwixt the two religions is incurable). * CO-RESPONDENT: If you don’t won’t to recount the whole thing could you just point me to a place where this is discussed on the site? RICHARD: Here is where the above beat-up stems from: • [Richard]: ‘If you were to re-read what you have quoted (further above) you will see that it is [quote] ‘an emotional play in a fertile imagination’ [endquote] which is fuelled by an actual hormonal substance ... and there is no way that an emotional play in a fertile imagination is, as you make out, actual (as in your ‘and are actual’ conclusion). To give an obvious example: for about a week, in the early days of being enlightened, I was ‘The Parousia’ and it was not until I met another person who was similarly afflicted that it dawned upon me it was but an emotional play in a fertile imagination ... there was sufficient rationality operating to comprehend there could not be two (simultaneous) manifestations of the ‘Second Coming’ ... (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44g, 8 July 2004a). RESPONDENT: So from the above it seems you are saying you felt/ believed yourself to be the second coming of CHRIST. Is that correct? RICHARD: It is an inherent knowing – intrinsic to the transcendental state of being popularly known as spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment – that one is the expected saviour of humankind (by whatever name) ... had I been raised in a different culture (a buddhistic society for example) the nomenclature would have been different (the Maitreya for example). * RICHARD: ... • [Richard]: ‘Incidentally, this other person was far more deluded than I was ... they had manifested the typical stigmata’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44g, 8 July 2004a). RESPONDENT: Either one is very delusional. RICHARD: Aye ... except that whilst the one receives professional treatment for an illness the other receives reverence and/or adoration (thus having a far-reaching life-or-death influence on entire nations). There is no prize for guessing which one of the two is the most dangerous. * RICHARD: And that is it, in its entirety, written to a person on record as saying they use Greek in their everyday vocabulary. So as to clarify this whole business I will re-post the following: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘What do you make of Krishnamurti’s dying statement that a great energy used his body and such an energy will not re-appear for many years? • [Richard]: ‘He was accurately and correctly reporting his experience. That Christianity has their Parousia; that Buddhism has their Maitreya; that Islam has their Mahdi; that Hinduism has their Kalki; that Judaism has their Messiah; that Taoism has their Kilin and so on all comes from the same type of experience. It is part and parcel of being enlightened (‘I Am That’ or ‘That Thou Art’). • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Was he delusional by any chance? • [Richard]: ‘All enlightened beings are deluded ... the altered state of consciousness (ASC) known as spiritual enlightenment is a delusional state. I am not ‘guru-bashing’ Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti per se ... it is the ASC itself I am targeting. I can use the accredited writings of virtually any enlightened being to demonstrate my points’. (Richard, List B, No. 33d, 23 January 2001). All what a person does, when they liken the enlightened/ awakened experience of being the Parousia, the Maitreya, the Mahdi, the Kalki, the Messiah, the Kilin, and so on, to a patient in a psychiatric ward thinking they be Mr. Napoleon Bonaparte (or Ms. Marie Antoinette or whoever), is to air their ignorance of matters transcendental in public. It is not a strange (as in atypical) phenomenon at all. RESPONDENT: Working in the mental health field, and experiencing spiritual illumination for varying amounts of time not more than 4-6 hours ‘straight’, and no more than about 10 hours in any day) I recognize the difference of being illuminated and believing that one is illuminated and hence understand the distinction you draw in your example. RICHARD: Good ... it is not a little thing we are doing here, on this mailing list, discussing such matters. RESPONDENT: As for what impressed me about enlightenment is probably the very same thing that impressed you. The process of being catapulted in ‘That’ lasted 10 seconds, yet the Enlightened state lasted 3 hours so as to be no misunderstanding. In terms of experiences it was the most intense and wonderful experience of my life I remember til now. I’m not sure if That keeps me from remembering a PCE. RICHARD: It could be ... consciously recalling a PCE means the beginning of the end of ‘me’ (whereas consciously recalling an ASC reinforces and perpetuates ‘me’ immortally) and, as such, one has a vested interest in not being able to locate the memory. RESPONDENT: What still keeps me busy around here is that you say actual freedom is better then Enlightenment (a big wow! from my part) and realising with whom I’m dealing here; someone who has lived That for 11 years. RICHARD: Aye, it is no little thing that is taking place on this mailing list ... those who are discussing these matters have before them a vital opportunity to partake in the precipitation of humankind’s long-awaited emergence from animosity/ amorosity and sorrow/ succour into benevolence and benignity. RESPONDENT: It’s impossible for some folks on the list to imagine what this means and in my case with only this in mind I tend to be more appreciative to what you report. RICHARD: Yes, it means that the current ‘Savage Ages’ will eventually become a thing of the dreadful past ... so much so that they will pass into the waste-bin of history like the ‘Dark Ages’ have. RESPONDENT: I’ve said that it seems to me impossible to exit the Enlightened state on your own accord as that was All there was. Where to exit? RICHARD: There is no ‘exit’ – there is no way out – only when ‘All That Is’ (aka ‘The Absolute’ which is ‘Being’ itself) ceased to exist, via altruistic ‘self’-immolation in toto, did the actual become apparent. RESPONDENT: I was not referring to the help you received from your former partner or some other person but more to where you get the will from. RICHARD: Ahh ... pure intent, born out of the PCE, is what ensured success: I could not, would not, and did not, continue to live a lie. RESPONDENT: Just as a curiosity, in what specific way did she help you? RICHARD: Put briefly: a pact was formed, in the first hour of meeting on a sunny beach, that we would stay true to the peerless purity of the PCE so as to ensure that man and woman could live together in peace and harmony. RESPONDENT: And one more thing, if you were not to be enlightened prior to actual freedom, I would not be here and probably many others. RICHARD: Ah, yes ... I have written of this before: • [Richard]: ‘After the ‘something turning over in the base of the brain/ nape of the neck’ event of September 1981 (as detailed in ‘A Brief Personal History’), and as the western-style mysticism I was experiencing moved deeper into being an eastern-style mysticism (I can recall telling my then wife at that time I was jumping out of the frying pan into the fire as somebody had to sort this mystery out), I just knew that, in order to be able to speak meaningfully about going beyond enlightenment I had to go through enlightenment so as to, not only understand it experientially for myself, but to be able to have insider information, so to speak, to pass on to my fellow human beings. For what is the point of enabling peace-on-earth, and thus demonstrating the actual way to live life for a benighted humanity, if one cannot explain the how and why [and what for], of it? (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 47, 11 August 2003). Thus being a whistle-blower was my express intention all those years ago as, and this is but a personal thing, a very close friend of many years standing went ‘stark staring mad’ in December 1980 – what I came to know of as ‘divine madness’ – and the event shook me to the core ... hence I was determined to put 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 or more of pre-history. Accordingly, I then resurrected the four-hour PCE of mid-1980 and, on the very first day of 1981, irrevocably set foot on the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition which fascinatingly opened up by taking such a step. * RESPONDENT: Why is it that when the Absolute dissipates (temporary experiences), one is falling back to the real-world and not to the actual world (in all cases)? RICHARD: As there were many occurrences too numerous to mention, during the years 1985-1992, when the temporary dissolution of ‘The Absolute’ occasioned a falling-back, as it were, into this actual world your ‘in all cases’ codicil makes no sense. It was those numerous direct experiences of the actual which prompted me to oft-times say to my then-companion (and rather clumsily put into 80,000 or so words on an old-fashioned type-writer) that there is an actual world, the world of the senses, of such pristine perfection and peerless purity that so far exceeded one’s wildest dreams as to be unconceivable/ unimaginable, and that spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment was not the summum bonum of human experience ... which, of course, occasioned her to urge me on in the many different ways she had at her disposal (and there is nothing quite like shooting one’s mouth off to others to galvanise having to put one’s money where one’s mouth is). Incidentally, when those PCE’s would dissipate there was a falling-back into ‘The Absolute’ (once enlightened/ awakened there is no falling-back to normal). * RESPONDENT: Why is it that when the Absolute dissipates (temporary experiences), one is falling back to the real-world and not to the actual world (in all cases)? RICHARD: As there were many occurrences too numerous to mention, during the years 1985-1992, when the temporary dissolution of ‘The Absolute’ occasioned a falling-back, as it were, into this actual world your ‘in all cases’ codicil makes no sense. RESPONDENT: So an enlightened man is not that far (‘twice removed’) from the actual world ... RICHARD: You are obviously referring to this exchange: • [Respondent]: ‘I have trouble in understanding the difference between the words ‘sense’ and ‘direction’ when comparing the AF method with spiritual ones. • [Richard]: ‘The oft-repeated ‘180 degrees in the other direction’ phrase simply means coming to one’s senses rather than going further away (withdrawing from the senses) from the world as-it-is than one already is ... everyone is already detached and to practise detachment is to be twice-removed from actuality’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25b, 19 July 2003). RESPONDENT: ... [So an enlightened man is not that far (‘twice removed’) from the actual world] and not that delusional as previously considered. RICHARD: No ... an enlightened person is indeed that far (twice-removed) from actuality and is most certainly that delusional ... all I said was that, as the temporary dissolution of ‘The Absolute’ occasioned a falling-back, as it were, into this actual world on many an occasion too numerous to mention, during the years 1985-1992, your ‘in all cases’ codicil made no sense. RESPONDENT: I would personally say that he is twice as close to the actual world ... RICHARD: Well now ... as you are most insistent that intelligence operates [quote] ‘much better/ freed’ [endquote] when enlightened than when normal it is not at all surprising you would say that an enlightened person, a person so deluded as to typically testify to not being the body/ to physicality having no substance, would be twice as close to actuality as a normal person. RESPONDENT: ... being the affective faculty (secondary processor of information) compared to someone in the real-world living primarily in the mind (tertiary processor of information). RICHARD: Except that, by virtue of the delusion of having become ‘Being’ (born out of the illusion of being nothing other than an affective ‘being’), an enlightened one typically experiences not being the body/ physicality having no substance. RESPONDENT: Did you fall back into the real-world also? RICHARD: I see that I provided the following information almost immediately below: • [Richard]: ‘Incidentally, when those PCE’s would dissipate there was a falling-back into ‘The Absolute’ (once enlightened/ awakened *there is no falling-back to normal*). [emphasis added]. * RICHARD: It was those numerous direct experiences of the actual which prompted me to oft-times say to my then-companion (and rather clumsily put into 80,000 or so words on an old-fashioned type-writer) that there is an actual world, the world of the senses, of such pristine perfection and peerless purity that so far exceeded one’s wildest dreams as to be unconceivable/ unimaginable, and that spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment was not the summum bonum of human experience ... which, of course, occasioned her to urge me on in the many different ways she had at her disposal (and there is nothing quite like shooting one’s mouth off to others to galvanise having to put one’s money where one’s mouth is). RESPONDENT: Hmm ... woomen. RICHARD: As my then-companion may very well have been a male, had my sexual-orientation been homosexual rather than heterosexual, for all the difference gender makes in such a situation and set of circumstances, your (apparently) patronising comment adds nowt to a sensible discussion about why is it not necessarily always the case that, when the Absolute dissipates, there is a falling-back to normal and not to actuality. * RICHARD: Incidentally, when those PCE’s would dissipate there was a falling-back into ‘The Absolute’ (once enlightened/ awakened there is no falling-back to normal). RESPONDENT: I’m the exception to your rule. RICHARD: It is neither my rule nor is your three-hour, and thus temporary, altered state of consciousness (ASC) an exception to the historical reality that, once enlightened/ awakened 24/7, and thus permanently, there is no falling-back to normal. RESPONDENT (to Vineeto): I have written this in my diary this morning and was wondering if you could show it to Richard to see if his interpretation of AF is the same: ‘... there are 3 things that I can be compared with a computer in terms of my functioning: [1] When I am asleep, my senses are on HIBERNATE and take a longer time to come online. [2] When I am awake and not thinking then my senses are on STANDBY. [3] When I am functioning and doing a task because of discomfort of the body, or out of necessity, then my senses are ON. And my hypothesis is when my senses are off – either they are not functioning (e.g. to be blind) or I am dead. The only thing is that to get from STANDBY to ON is only necessary when I need something’. RICHARD: Your analogy, of a computer’s power-saving modes, is not all that much assistance in conveying how you are currently functioning as the only essential difference between ‘off’ and ‘hibernate’ (for a computer) is what transpires after the computer is manually switched back on – to either the default desk-top or to the desk-top as it was (with previously selected programmes running) – and the only difference between ‘on’ and ‘standby’ is that some devices (such as monitors and hard disks) are switched off, by the absence of key-stokes/ mouse-movements, until being switched back on by a key-stoke/ mouse-movement. Furthermore, whether awake or asleep, thinking or not thinking, the senses are functioning anyway – all it takes to bring this flesh and blood body into wakefulness, when asleep, is an unexpected/ unusual touch (the cutaneal sense), or smell (the olfactory sense), or sound (the aural sense), or light (the ocular sense), or taste (the gustatory sense), or posture (the proprioceptive senses) – so it does not follow that the senses can be hibernating, standing-by, or switching-on ... they are always on, so to speak, for as long as a body is alive and not dead. Thus it would appear that what you are referring to, via your computer analogy (it is not entirely unhelpful), is the processing of sensation – be it either cutaneous, ocular, aural, olfactory, gustatory, or proprioceptive sensation – in terms of such processing being deliberated evaluation (for whatever reason) ... and (1) while asleep such an appraisal is in suspension and, for you at least, takes longer to be mobilised than (2) when awake but inactive and thoughtless (where such purposeful assessment is also in suspension) ... whereas (3) when you are active (as in performing a task) and thoughtful (as distinct from thoughtless activity), it is, of course, concurrently in action. * I have read through the remainder of your e-mail, which Vineeto forwarded to me, and in regards to where you asked if I would sit, with eyes closed, touching a porcelain cup without thought operating (so as to provide a comparison with what occurred when you did likewise) I can provide the following information: 1. It is quite the norm for this flesh and blood body that, on a daily basis, thought is often not operating – I tend to call it ‘mind in neutral’ – yet apperception (the mind’s perception of itself) still occurs regardless. 2. To close the eyes is to mask but one of the senses – touch, smell, taste, hearing, and proprioception, remain unmasked – thus, at the very least, subliminal processing of those sensations is still occurring and, consequently, a below-the-threshold-of-conscious-awareness sensitivity of being alive right here, in space, just now, in time, is in operation. 3. To sit, thoughtless, touching a porcelain cup (presumably only with a fingertip) is to be cutaneously feeling something, even though it is not being recognised, just as the (seated) buttocks and thighs are also cutaneously feeling something – if only pressure – therefore it cannot be faithfully said, without dissociating, that there are no sensations/ that there is no experience. Although all there is to go by is what you chose to write, and given you did report that you could not tell [quote] ‘that there were sensations’ [endquote] and that [quote] ‘there was no experience’ [endquote], there is sufficient indication that dissociation *was* taking place and, moreover, as you also report you felt that you were not different from anything in the whole universe – not in terms of material but in terms of something indescribable – it is more than likely that some trance-like affective state of being was occurring. It is not, therefore, at all surprising that you then go on to write about how you are not sure that Richard saying he is the body is actually it. Whereas, where any affective being whatsoever is absent – either in abeyance in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) or extinct upon an actual freedom from the human condition – it is patently obvious that what one is (‘what’ not ‘who’) is the flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware ... whether thought is operating or not. And, as a flesh and blood body is not separate from that which it forms itself with, one is the infinite and eternal and perpetual universe experiencing itself apperceptively ... as such it is stunningly aware of its own infinitude. And this is truly wonderful. RESPONDENT: Richard, I’ve stepped out of – I’m not where and how I want to be – and into – I am where and how I want to be. I did nothing more than that – I got fed up and so I tried this. There’s no evidence that anything is different – other than that I feel great instead of feeling like I was in a vice, and I no longer think or feel as though where I am has any limitations, or can have. I don’t know how it works being here this way, or what to do, but that doesn’t feel like a problem because I can go explore and learn in any way I want. Any ‘limitations’ here don’t seem like they’ll really be limitations – just the way it all works – the structure of experiencing it(?). I can go back to where I was but don’t want to. I can feel fear coming in and pulling me back there, but I’m not convinced that I have to worry about that – but it is pulling. Now the feeling of being here is almost gone. But I’m not willing to concede that I’m out of here – I’m going to try and stay, and work from here, and see more of what it is. Physical feelings are a little different – I kind of feel like the body feels the sensations, rather than me feeling the body. I feel calm and even and open – yet my hands are sweaty like they often are, and there is physical tension, but it’s not bothering me. I’d like to hear anything you might say about what this is. RICHARD: It would appear that ‘this’ – which is where and how you want to be; where you feel great instead of feeling as in a vice; where you no longer think or feel there is any limitations or can be (and where any of those are not really that); where you do not know how it works (other than any limitations being not really that but are, maybe, the structure of experiencing it) or what to do; where not knowing the hows and whys thereof is not a problem (because you can explore and learn in any way you want); where you kind of feel like the body feels the sensations (rather than you feeling the body); where you feel calm and even and open – which is where you can still feel fear/ have sweating hands/ have physical tension is an altered state of consciousness (ASC) of some kind ... especially so if it is the same place where you previously reported that [quote] ‘it seems that there’s only a little bit waiting to be done’ [endquote]. RESPONDENT: Richard, I think you had the bad luck, while you were looking for enlightenment ... RICHARD: If I may interject? Where have I ever said I was looking for enlightenment? And I ask this because, to the contrary of what you may think, I have always made it perfectly clear that it was a four-hour pure consciousness experience (PCE) which set the process in motion and not an altered state of consciousness (ASC). That I became enlightened along the way to an actual freedom from the human condition does not mean I was looking for enlightenment ... indeed I did not even know such a thing existed before it happened. Viz.: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Richard, I’ve been following this discussion with interest and have a couple of questions for you: Which of the 3 ways [Jnani, Bhakti, Yoga] did you use to achieve spiritual enlightenment in 1981? • [Richard]: ‘Well, none of those 3 ways, actually ... I inadvertently ‘discovered’ another way: ignorance. I was aiming for the pure consciousness experience (PCE) and landed short of my goal ... and it took another 11 years to get here. To explain: I have never followed anyone; I have never been part of any religious, spiritual, mystical or metaphysical group; I have never done any disciplines, practices or exercises at all; I have never done any meditation, any yoga, any chanting of mantras, any tai chi, any breathing exercises, any praying, any fasting, any flagellations, any ... any of those ‘Tried and True’ inanities; nor did I endlessly analyse my childhood for ever and a day; nor did I do never-ending therapies wherein one expresses oneself again and again ... and again and again. By being born and raised in the West I was not steeped in the mystical religious tradition of the East and was thus able to escape the trap of centuries of eastern spiritual conditioning. I had never heard the words ‘Enlightenment’ or ‘Nirvana’ and so on until 1982 when talking to a man about my breakthrough, into what I called an ‘Absolute Freedom’ via the death of ‘myself’, in September 1981. He listened – he questioned me rigorously until well after midnight – and then declared me to be ‘Enlightened’. I had to ask him what that was, such was my ignorance of all things spiritual. He – being a nine-year spiritual seeker fresh from his latest trip to India – gave me a book to read by someone called Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti. That was to be the beginning of what was to become a long learning curve of all things religious, spiritual, mystical and metaphysical for me. I studied all this because I sought to understand what other peoples had made of such spontaneous experiences and to find out where human endeavour had been going wrong. I found out where I had been going wrong for eleven years ... self-aggrandisement is so seductive. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 16, 8 January 2001). I was not even religious before it all started – I did not even know that there was a difference between a Christian monk and a Buddhist monk, for example, other than that one wore brown robes and the other saffron robes – as I had lumped all religion under the category of superstitious clap-trap way back in childhood and lived a totally secular life. * RESPONDENT: [quote] J. K.: ‘The so-called enlightened people are not enlightened, for the moment they say, ‘I am enlightened’, they are not. That is their vanity’. [endquote]. RICHARD: Ha ... if it be vanity to say ‘I am enlightened’ then what is it to say ‘I am God’ ... humility, perchance? Viz.: • [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘I am God’. (page 65, Krishnamurti, ‘The Path’, 3rd Edition, Star Publishing Trust: Ommen 1930). RESPONDENT: [quote] J. K.: ‘Thought has been responsible for creating god. Thought has been responsible for the searching for illumination, enlightenment. Thought has been responsible for wars, for all the appalling cruelty that is going on in the world’. (Krishnamurti Bombay 2nd Public Talk 25th January 1981). RICHARD: And again ... if thought has been responsible for creating god then ‘truth’ must be a creation of thought as well: • [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘... to discover God or truth – and I say such a thing does exist, I have realised it – to recognise that, to realise that, mind must be free of all the hindrances which have been created throughout the ages’. (‘The Book Of Life: Daily Meditations With J. Krishnamurti’, December Chapter. Published by Harper, San Francisco ; ©1995 KFA). RESPONDENT: So you see you was in a trance state. RICHARD: Not for the reasons you supply here ... but yes, being enlightened, or being god/ truth, can indeed be characterised as a trance state (though I do prefer to say it was a dissociated state or a massive delusion). It was quite staggering to realise what I had been living was an institutionalised insanity. RICHARD: ... this may be an apt moment to point out that you are not dealing with a mere tyro, here, in these matters and, furthermore (just in case you have not noticed), that you are way, way out of your depth on this mailing list. RESPONDENT: What do you suggest with this statement? RICHARD: Simply that ... (1) there is eleven years of intimate experiencing, night and day, of that which the masters of the different traditions speak of for this flesh and blood body to recall (as contrasted to your book-learnt understanding) ... and (2) as what this flesh and blood body has to report/ describe/ explain is beyond that (that which the masters of the different traditions speak of) then all of your book-learnt understanding is about as useful as the teats on a bull are when it comes to participating in the discussions on this mailing list. RESPONDENT: Ok Richard. If you have the practical experience regards the core teaching of the different traditions then (...) In what particular initiatic ‘chain’ were you initiated and by whom? RICHARD: I will first draw your attention to the following: [Respondent]: ‘Just to give you two quotes what is meant with ‘Self’ by the Masters: [snip quotes]. From: ‘The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi’, 1985’. [endquote]. Here is my first question: in what particular [quote] initiatic ‘chain’ [endquote] was Mr. Venkataraman Aiyer initiated and by whom? RESPONDENT: Ramana Maharshi got what is called spontaneous initiation at the age of 17, then he left home and went to Arunachala and behaved like any other sannyasin. RICHARD: Okay then ... here is my response to your query (couched in your terminology): Richard had what could also be called a spontaneous initiation at the age of 34; twelve months after giving notice he left his marital home; he went homeless for five years behaving (more or less) like any other sadhu ... a single, celibate, itinerant, barefooted, unshaven/ unshorn sarong-clad holy man, with all his worldly possessions in a small lidded-bucket, wandering aimlessly in nature. Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘I lived and slept in forests; I lived and slept in the hills; I lived and slept in the valleys; I lived and slept beside streams; I lived and slept on the beaches; I lived and slept on uninhabited islands ... and so on. No woman could entice me as the allure of the love and beauty of nature was unsurpassable ... I had no need for a vow of celibacy. Just being in nature, totally, fully, completely, would transport me into the unknowable ...’. (Richard, List B, No. 33d, 23 January 2001). RESPONDENT: Here his self-report: [quote] ‘I knew nothing, had learned nothing before I came here. Some mysterious power took possession of me and effected a thorough transformation. I knew nothing and planned nothing. When I left home in my 17th year, I was like a speck swept on by a tremendous flood. I knew not my body or the world, whether it was day or night. It was difficult even to open my eyes. The eyelids seemed to be glued down. My body became a mere skeleton. Visitors pitied my plight as they were not aware how blissful I was. It was after years that I came across the term Brahman when I happened to look into some books on Vedanta brought to me. Amused, I said to myself, ‘Is this known as Brahman!?!’ [endquote]. RICHARD: Okay then ... here is my (equivalent) self-report: • [Respondent]: ‘By which way the first ‘I’ (ego or self) can expand and create the second ‘I’ (‘I’ as soul/ ‘I’ as ‘Self’ as ‘me’)? • [Richard]: ‘As a generalisation it has been traditionally held that there are three ways: 1. Jnani (cognitive realisation as epitomised by the ‘neti-neti’ or ‘not this; not this’ approach). 2. Bhakti (affective realisation as epitomised by devotional worship and surrender of will). 3. Yoga (bodily realisation as epitomised by the raising of ‘kundalini’ and the opening of ‘chakras’). • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Richard, I’ve been following this discussion with interest and have a couple of questions for you: Which of the 3 ways did you use to achieve spiritual enlightenment in 1981? • [Richard]: ‘Well, none of those 3 ways, actually ... I inadvertently ‘discovered’ another way: ignorance. I was aiming for the pure consciousness experience (PCE) and landed short of my goal ... and it took another 11 years to get here. To explain: I have never followed anyone; I have never been part of any religious, spiritual, mystical or metaphysical group; I have never done any disciplines, practices or exercises at all; I have never done any meditation, any yoga, any chanting of mantras, any tai chi, any breathing exercises, any praying, any fasting, any flagellations, any ... any of those ‘Tried and True’ inanities; nor did I endlessly analyse my childhood for ever and a day; nor did I do never-ending therapies wherein one expresses oneself again and again ... and again and again. By being born and raised in the West I was not steeped in the mystical religious tradition of the East and was thus able to escape the trap of centuries of eastern spiritual conditioning. I had never heard the words ‘Enlightenment’ or ‘Nirvana’ and so on until 1982 when talking to a man about my breakthrough, into what I called an ‘Absolute Freedom’ via the death of ‘myself’, in September 1981. He listened – he questioned me rigorously until well after midnight – and then declared me to be ‘Enlightened’. I had to ask him what that was, such was my ignorance of all things spiritual. He – being a nine-year spiritual seeker fresh from his latest trip to India – gave me a book to read by someone called Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti. That was to be the beginning of what was to become a long learning curve of all things religious, spiritual, mystical and metaphysical for me. I studied all this because I sought to understand what other peoples had made of such spontaneous experiences and to find out where human endeavour had been going wrong. I found out where I had been going wrong for eleven years ... self-aggrandisement is so seductive’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 16, 8 January 2001). In short: I was not even religious before it all started – I did not even know that there was a difference between a Christian monk and a Buddhist monk, for example, other than that one wore brown robes and the other saffron robes – as I had lumped all religion under the category of superstitious clap-trap way back in childhood and lived a totally secular life. * RESPONDENT: Who was your guru? RICHARD: Here is my second question: who was Mr. Venkataraman Aiyer’s guru? RESPONDENT: He had an ‘upaguru’ for initiation, that is, the ‘Self’ itself was his guru. A spontaneous process had taken over in him as he testifies himself. RICHARD: Okay then ... here is my response to your query (couched in your terminology): Richard had ‘The Absolute’ for initiation, that is, the Parabrahman itself was his guru. A spontaneous process had taken over in him as he testifies himself. * RESPONDENT: What was the teaching you were told by your master ... RICHARD: Here is my third question: what was the teaching Mr. Venkataraman Aiyer was told by his master? RESPONDENT: He was told no teaching. RICHARD: Okay then ... here is my response to your query (couched in your terminology): Richard was told no teaching. * RESPONDENT: ... and what was the meditation techniques you were instructed by him to exercise? RICHARD: Here is my fourth question: what were the meditation techniques Mr. Venkataraman Aiyer was instructed by his master to exercise? RESPONDENT: None. No meditation techniques are necessary anyway as he said himself. RICHARD: Okay then ... here is my response to your query (couched in your terminology): Richard had none. No meditation techniques were necessary anyway as he said himself. Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘(...) I spoke of love as being ‘the way; the means and the end’. (Richard, List C, No. 4b, 1 August 2000a) * RICHARD (Postscript): Here is a supplementary question: have you ever heard the term ‘come in spinner’? RESPONDENT: No, I haven’t. RICHARD: The term ‘come in spinner’ typically refers to the verbal art of the wind-up – ‘a deliberate attempt to provoke someone by misleading or hoaxing; a trick, a tease, a practical joke’ (Oxford Dictionary) – in that it marks the moment when the narrator, the trickster spinning the yarn (aka telling the tale), tells the hapless listener they have been conned (duped, tricked, cheated, swindled). The stakes in this game are not, however, just the small change of little truths but the status of truths themselves. In order to arrive at that moment when the narrator can say ‘come in spinner’ to the gulled listener, they have to give away those little truths that will be recognised, picked up, and followed ... followed right up the garden path. In fact, in order to mislead, the narrator must tell the truth. In order to produce difference, to put the listener in a another place from where they think the narrator is, the narrator has to convince them they are in the same place. Needless is it to add that a suitably motivated listener/ reader can self-administer such a wind-up, deliberately conning themselves into fancying they are at the same place as the speaker/ writer despite many clear warnings to the contrary, until the pivotal point arrives when the penny drops (aka understanding dawns) and they are left with nothing but egg on their face ... ‘a condition of looking foolish or being embarrassed or humiliated by the turn of events’ (Oxford Dictionary)? RESPONDENT: I just checked the dictionary. RICHARD: It did not occur to you to access an internet search-engine? RESPONDENT: Does it mean that you put me in the spinner ... RICHARD: No, I never put my fellow human being in the spinner – more than a few of them do that all of their own accord by attempting the impossible (endeavouring to comprehend the new paradigm in terms of the old paradigm) – and neither was I indulging in the verbal art of the wind-up, as described above, either. On the contrary, I am entirely sincere ... what another does with my words is, however, something else entirely. For classic example, of someone doing just that, the first half of what the following URL links to is worth a read: (Richard, List B, No. 4b, 28 June 2000). As the words [quote] ‘come in spinner’ [endquote] appear towards the end of quite a long exchange over several e-mails a fuller comprehension might require some back-tracking through the very detailed, to the point of being laboured, sequence. RESPONDENT: ... by asking me questions back to demonstrate that Ramana Maharshi obviously had no more qualification than his ‘experiences’, that is, no personal guru, no teaching, no meditation techniques? Which would demonstrate that your ‘experiences’ (11 years of enlightenment) are as valid as Ramana Maharshi’s? RICHARD: Perhaps if I were to put it this way? You not only say you found The Actual Freedom Trust web site a year before you first wrote anything to this, its associated mailing list, you also say you have read vast amounts of it over that year ... so surely you must be well aware that you are not dealing with a mere tyro, here, in these matters and that there have been many who have already come and gone before you, on both this and other mailing lists, having tried in vain to outsmart/ outwit me. I have touched upon this before: • [Richard]: ‘(...) I really do wonder, at times, why person after person would consider they can try out smart-aleckry on me, and get away with it, when the evidence of so many e-mails in the archives demonstrates that any such attempt has invariably resulted in them coming off a pathetic second-best (if that)’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 18f, 30 January 2005). Why on earth someone would even think for a moment – let alone actually put the thought into action – that for a person to be able to speak competently about matters transcendent they have to be an initiate of an existing lineage (when it stands to reason, if nothing else, that in order for those lineages to exist in the first place there has to be, ipso facto, a pioneer who was not) is simply beyond sensible comprehension. Hence my cautionary postscript – ‘have you ever heard the term ‘come in spinner’’ – as there were all the hall-marks of a person hell-bent upon self-administering the art of the wind-up come what may. Not that it stopped you, of course, as you (unnecessarily) went ahead and typed-out answers to those (patently obvious) questions, anyway ... and clicked ‘send’. * RESPONDENT: In this case, yes, this reasoning makes sense. Though ... RICHARD: If I may interject (before that subjunctive modifier puts you into another place and thus has you lose the import of what you just acknowledged)? There is more to it than just that ... much, much more: Mr. Venkataraman Aiyer’s state, being one of those mystical states you so easily disparage, is but a recent manifestation of that which makes the very spirituality you so readily praise possible in the first place ... to wit: the experiential understanding which can only come about upon self-realisation ... and which wisdom metaphysicians have fed-off for centuries. RESPONDENT: ... [Though] from a purely doctrinal point of view Ramana Maharshi associated himself with one tradition, that is, with Brahmanism. RICHARD: Whereas Richard, having sufficient integrity such as to be capable of keeping his wits about him, neither associated himself with any tradition nor became a public spectacle ... and was thus able to (eventually) break free from that highly-prized state, that much-venerated summum bonum of human experience. RESPONDENT: Now you go on and say your ‘experiences’ after the 11 years of enlightenment is ‘beyond that (that which the masters of the different traditions speak of)’. I, of course, cannot dispute that but ... RICHARD: If I might stop you just there, before the headiness which the dismissive power a negative conjunction can invoke puts you into another place, so as to ask the outstanding question? Why do you immediately (or maybe even automatically) want to dispute that? Is there not sufficient information on The Actual Freedom Trust web site to establish a prima facie case worthy of further investigation (rather than capricious dismissal)? Is it really beyond the stretch of credibility to even entertain the possibility that spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment/ self-realisation not only can be gone beyond but needs to be? Has not the evidence of the aeons abundantly demonstrated that the religious/ spiritual/ mystical/ metaphysical solution to all the ills of humankind has not, is not, and will not deliver peace on earth? Have not the millions upon millions – if not billions – of earnest, decent, and otherwise intelligent, peoples assiduously practicing same amply shown that those tried and true solutions are the tried and failed? There is as much anguish and animosity, as much misery and mayhem, nowadays as there was back then ... when is enough enough? Intelligence in action is the acknowledgement that something which has not produced the goods, despite at least 3,000-5,000 years for it to work its wisdom in, is never going to deliver on its spurious promise and that it is high time to clear the work-bench and start afresh ... to learn from those that have gone before and move on. Just for starters: one needs to fully acknowledge the biological imperative (the instinctual passions) which are the root cause of all the ills of humankind. The genetically inherited passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) give rise to malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion: these negative and positive feelings are intrinsically connected and constitute what is known as ‘The Human Condition’. The term ‘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. The ending of malice and sorrow, and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion, involves getting one’s head out of the clouds – and beyond – and coming down-to-earth where the flesh and blood bodies called human beings actually live. Obviously, peace on earth can only be found here in space and now in time as this material body. Then the question is: is it possible to be free of the human condition, here on earth, in this life-time, as this flesh and blood body? Which means: how on earth can one live happily and harmlessly, in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are, whilst one nurses malice and sorrow, and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion, in one’s bosom? * RESPONDENT: ... [but] based on my theoretical understanding I have just found myriads of quotes which indicate that they clearly taught the overcoming of the affective faculty. RICHARD: Hmm ... eradicating is vastly different to overcoming, non? RESPONDENT: First quote: ‘[Un]-self-ishness, from the Indian point of view is an amoral state, in which no question of ‘Altruism’ can present itself, liberation being as much from the notion of ‘others’ as it is form the notion of ‘self’, and not in any sense a psychological state, but a liberation from all that is implied by the ‘psyche’ in the word ‘psychology’. [Ananda Coomaraswamy, Hinduism and Buddhism]. RICHARD: The experiential state which lies behind those words is (initially) one of union – a state of oneness as expressed in ‘We are all One’ for instance – and (ultimately) one of solipsism – a state of aloneness as expressed in ‘There is only That’ for example – so of course there is liberation from the notion of ‘others’ as well as ‘self’. Whereas in actuality there is no separation in the first place such as to necessitate such self-absorbed narcissism ... there is an actual intimacy with every body, every thing, and every event, here. In regards to altruism: the word altruism can be used in two distinctly different ways – in a virtuous sense (as in being unselfish), such as the author you quoted is using it, or in a zoological/ biological sense (as in being diametrically opposite to selfism) – and it is the latter which is of particular interest to a person wanting to enable the already always existing peace-on-earth to being apparent, in this lifetime as this flesh and blood body, as it takes a powerful instinctive impulse (altruism) to overcome a powerful instinctive impulse (selfism) ... blind nature endows each and every human being with the selfish instinct for individual survival and the clannish instinct for group survival (be it the familial group, the tribal group, or the national group). By and large the instinct for survival of the group is the more powerful – as is epitomised in the honey-bee (when it stings to protect/ defend the hive it dies) – and it is the utilisation of this once-in-a-lifetime gregarian action which is referred to in my oft-repeated ‘an altruistic ‘self’-sacrifice/ ‘self’-immolation, in toto, for the benefit of this body and that body and every body’. As for amorality ... the following links may throw some light upon that: www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/listccorrespondence/listc01.htm#06Mar00 (Richard, List C, No. 1, 6 March 2000). www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/listccorrespondence/listc02.htm#07Mar00 (Richard, List C, No. 1, 7 March 2000) www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/listccorrespondence/listc03.htm#08Mar00 (Richard, List C, No. 1, 8 March 2000). RESPONDENT: [Mr. Ananda Coomaraswamy]: ‘I call him a Brahman indeed’, the Buddha says, ‘who has passed beyond attachment both to good and evil; one who is clean, to whom no dust attaches, a-pathetic’. [endquote]. Not: ‘apathetic’, i.e. ‘not pathological’, as are those who are subject to their on passions or sym-pathise with those of others. RICHARD: Being utterly apathetic myself I do understand that word (from the Greek ‘apethēs’ which literally means ‘without feeling’) properly refers to a passionless existence/ not feeling emotion – and not just to the popular usage (as in stolid indifference/ stoic disinterest) – yet what must be comprehended, when speaking of the buddhistic goal, is that the ultimate state (‘jhana’) is one in which not only does the affectional ability cease but also the sensorial, the cognitional and the motorial functions as well ... plus consciousness itself (more on this further below). Incidentally, I would be quite suss of someone translating Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s (Pali) title for such a person – an Arahant – into him really meaning a ‘Brahman’ [the Pali word ‘brahmana’ refers to that which is; which is not what the Sankrit word ‘Brahman’ refers to]. RESPONDENT: Second quote: ‘The affective system, Roberts says, is the cause of all suffering. Out of it arises all fear, anxiety, and psychological suffering. It would follow, she suggests, that those who have lost the affective system, are free of psychological disorders and would have no reason to seek professional help, and that is why the psychiatric literature has no description of those who have gone beyond the self’. [Book review ‘The Experience of No-Self: A Contemplative Journey’; author: Bernadette Roberts]. RICHARD: There is no point in providing quotes about Ms. Bernadette Roberts as her experience has been presented several times before and responses are available to be read (free of charge) on The Actual Freedom Trust web site ... and, by the way, as you say you have [quote] ‘just found myriads of quotes’ [endquote] it would save a lot of time and bandwidth to do a search of The Actual Freedom Trust web site before reaching for the keyboard again. More to the point, however, were you to actually read that book (and not just quote a reviewer’s understanding drawn from it) you would find passages such as the following: • [Ms. Bernadette Roberts]: ‘It is quite possible that at some time or other everyone has made contact with the self-as-subject [as distinct from self-as-object]. All that is required for such an encounter is the cessation of the reflexive movement of the mind bending back on itself. Without this reflexive (or pre-reflexive) movement, we are no longer aware of our own awareness, our own feelings and thoughts, and thus we have encountered self-as-subject. But since this subjective self is as nothing to the mind, we cannot stay in this condition for long and soon fall back into self-consciousness or self-as-object. To remain in this un-reflexive condition for any length of time would mean encountering an emptiness, a void, a nothingness that is *the subjective self* – which I have called no-self’. [bracketed insert and emphasis added]. (‘Pure Subjectivity’, from the book ‘The Experience of No-Self’, by Bernadette Roberts; 1982; http://norea.net/roberts/pure%20subjectivity.htm). Thus if her experience is anything to go by, and there is no reason why it should not, it does throw considerable light on that hoary topic of what Mr. Gotama the Sakyan meant by the word ‘anatta’ (often translated as ‘no-self’). * RESPONDENT: These are just two quotes of many possible quotes which show that the masters’ teaching is very well beyond ‘Love Agape’ and ‘Compassion’. RICHARD: You may find the following informative in this regard: • [Co-Respondent]: “What do You understand by being enlightenment?” • [Richard]: “There is nothing other than The Absolute”. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25, 30 July 2001). And this: • [Co-Respondent]: “Richard, what is your description of enlightenment as you experienced it 20 years ago? (My understanding of the same event can be found in an earlier post)”. • [Richard]: “And my answer is to be found in response to that earlier post: there was only The Absolute (God by whatever name) and nothing else existed. Howsoever, I can flesh it out a little ... my experience, for eleven years in the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’, was an on-going ecstatic state of rapturous, ineffable and sacred bliss: unconditional Love Agapé and Divine Compassion poured forth for all suffering sentient beings twenty four hours of the day. It was a truly euphoric state of being”. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25, 9 January 2002). And this: • [Co-Respondent]: “I invite all of you who have had a Self experience to try describing it”. • [Richard]: “Sure ... there was only The Absolute (the Self by whatever name) and nothing else existed”. • [Co-Respondent]: “I question if actual freedom from Human Condition is attainable without surpassing the last psychic Archetype, the Self, our Creator, out of which everything has begun?” • [Richard]: “My experience is that an actual freedom is attainable by going beyond spiritual enlightenment ... however I do not advise going that route (via enlightenment) as it is too traumatic. Also it is just plain silly”. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25, 6 August 2002). And this: • [Co-Respondent]: “As an example [of a description of ‘Self’], is the description ‘a very old child’ valid in your case?” • [Richard]: “No, the description “there is nothing other than The Absolute” is what is valid in my case (...)”. • [Co-Respondent]: “If you can provide a brief description for your particular Self image, so as to compare notes, I would be pleased to read it”. • [Richard]: “Sure ... there was only The Absolute (the Self by whatever name) and nothing else existed”. • [Co-Respondent]: “Or is it indescribable?” • [Richard]: “No, it is easily described: there was nothing other than The Absolute”. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25c, 25 August 2003). In other words, in full-blown spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment, there is only ‘That’ (the unmanifest by whatever name) and the manifest – all time and all space and all form – is but a dream/ an illusion/ an appearance ... meaning that in reality there is neither creation nor destruction, and thus, neither bondage nor liberation/ neither a seeker after liberation nor the liberated. RESPONDENT: They taught the loss of the ‘psyche’ and that’s only possible without the ‘affective faculty’ and without the ‘affective faculty’ there are no ‘passions’, without passions no attachment ‘good’ [love] and ‘evil’ [hate], no difference between ‘self’ and ‘others’, no ‘altruism’, no morals. That’s the core teachings of the metaphysical doctrine and that’s pretty close to what you report. RICHARD: It is not at all close to what I report (let alone pretty close): what you have, rather loosely, detailed there can only occur in what is best described in western terms as a cataleptic state ... ‘condition of trance or seizure with loss of sensation or consciousness and abnormal maintenance of posture’ (Oxford Dictionary). Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘It is quite common to have heightened sensory perception in an ASC (provided it be an extroversive ASC as contrasted to an introversive ASC) ... the nature mystics have written extensively about such experience: (www.jnani.org/natmyst/natmyst_set.html). However, the introversive ASC is generally held to be both superior and more significant as it is exemplified by (a) the disappearance of all the physical and mental objects of ordinary consciousness and, in their place, the emergence of a unitary and undifferentiated consciousness and thus (b) the event is non-temporal (timeless), non-spatial (spaceless), and non-material (formless). Mr. Robert Forman, on page 131 of the ‘Journal of Consciousness Studies Volume 5, Issue 2, 1998’, (in a paper called ‘What Does Mysticism Have To Teach Us About Consciousness?’), described the introversive ASC as a pure consciousness *event* so as to emphasise the absence of any experienced object – it is pure subjectivity in other words – which is also why such terminology as ‘Consciousness Without An Object’ is used to describe the totally senseless and thoughtless trance state known as ‘dhyana’ in Sanskrit (Hinduism) and as ‘jhana’ in Pali (Buddhism). In the West such a state can only be described as catalepsy ... apart from Mr. Venkataraman Aiyer, in his early years, possibly the best-known example could be Mr. Gadadhar Chattopadhyay (aka Ramakrishna): onlookers can see the body is totally inward-looking, totally self-absorbed, totally immobile, and totally functionless (the body cannot and does not talk, walk, eat, drink, wake, sleep ... or type e-mails to mailing lists). A never-ending ‘dhyana’ or ‘jhana’ would result in the body wasting away until its inevitable physical death ... as a means of obtaining peace-on-earth it is completely useless’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25b, 24 June 2003). RESPONDENT: How are you beyond them? RICHARD: By actually hosting no affective faculty (and all which inheres with that) whatsoever. RESPONDENT: Can it actually be that you experience the same they refer to but you interpret it differently? RICHARD: No, not at all ... not even a remote possibility. RESPONDENT: Did you find similar quotes like the one above ... RICHARD: I was not at all interested in second-hand analyses, from pundits and reviewers like those you provided, as it was first-hand accounts of the experiencing itself which was of vital importance to me at the time. RESPONDENT: ... while you were doing your research or were you only able to find references to ‘Love Agape’ in the spiritual literature of the different traditions? RICHARD: As your query comes presupposed out of the misconception that essentially all Richard has to report about that eleven-year period is Love Agapé I would suggest you do with actualism what you say you did for seventeen years with spiritualism ... to wit: actually read what is on offer on The Actual Freedom Trust website. ‘Tis only a suggestion, mind you. RICHARD: For those who are ‘that’, punctuating this pithy aphorism should be a breeze. For those who are not ‘that’, punctuating the witty doggerel should be an eye opener. For those who are not interested in ‘that’ at all, clicking the delete button should bring great satisfaction. Viz.: ‘I am that that is I am that that is that that is is and is not simultaneously I am that that is and is not and that is it it is it really is it’. RESPONDENT: ‘I am that. That is, I am that that is. That that is is and is not simultaneously. I am that that is and is not and that is it. It is, it really is it’. Is that it? RICHARD: Near enough: (‘I am that. That is, I am that that is. That that is, is and is not simultaneously. I am that that is and is not – and that is it. It is. It really is it!’) RESPONDENT: Is that all there is to it? RICHARD: That is not ‘all there is to it’ for those who believe in this eastern mystical thought ... it is their whole ground of being. It is their passion, their very core identity. RESPONDENT: What’s it to you? RICHARD: It is one of the main causes of the promotion and perpetuation of all the anguish and animosity that has beset this fair planet since time immemorial. Many years ago – nearly a quarter of a century ago – back in my ‘hippy’ days when I lived in and travelled around this country in a psychedelic bus for five years, I had that painted along the sides. Not many passer’s-by could work it out ... eastern mystical thought had not infiltrated into the West so thoroughly then as now. Anyway, I believed in it through and through ... so much so that I lived it as a reality for eleven years. I was situated in a living nightmare of what I came to see was nothing short of institutionalised insanity. Any altered state of consciousness was a delusion born out of the illusion of self ... but only because of humankind’s ignorance. It is truly dreadful to be trapped in a massive delusion for eleven years, unable to find any way out and knowing that no other human being can help, for the altered state has been held up for millennia as being the Summum Bonum of human existence. All the literature on the subject praised the state of consciousness I was in (Enlightenment, Illumination, Moksha, Samadhi, Satori, Nirvana, Sunyata and so on) and yet I just knew it was a mirage that I was living. I am simply sharing my experience for others to do what they will with. Is that not what this List is here for? RESPONDENT: Do you really want to go at it with me? Let’s have a go at it, what do you say? RICHARD: Have a go at what? A self-centred (and therefore selfish) belief system devised by our stupefied ancestors? Is it really worth fighting over? RESPONDENT: Seriously, isn’t the above little exercise a waste of time? RICHARD: I think not. RESPONDENT: What are you trying to prove with such statements, how witty one can be? RICHARD: Oh ... wit. Yes, that comes next. You have only solved the ‘pithy aphorism’ part. (For those who are ‘that’, punctuating the pithy aphorism should be a breeze) The ‘wit’ lies in the second solution. (For those who are not ‘that’, punctuating the witty doggerel should be an eye opener: ‘I am that. That is, I am that that is. That that is, is and is not. Simultaneously, I am that that is – and is not – and that is ‘It’. It is? ‘It’ really is ‘It’?’ Seeing that you appear a trifle disappointed, maybe you should have followed the sensible advice: ‘For those who are not interested in ‘that’, clicking the delete button should bring great satisfaction’. You still can, you know. * RESPONDENT: Is that all there is to it? RICHARD: That is not ‘all there is to it’ for those who believe in this eastern mystical thought ... it is their whole ground of being. It is their passion, their very being. It is one of the main causes of the promotion and perpetuation of all the anguish and animosity that has beset this fair planet since time immemorial. Many years ago – nearly a quarter of a century ago – back in my ‘hippy’ days when I lived in and travelled around this country in a psychedelic ‘bus for five years, I had that painted along the sides. Not many passer’s-by could work it out ... eastern mystical thought had not infiltrated into the West so thoroughly then as now. Anyway, I believed in it through and through ... so much so that I lived it as a reality for eleven years. I was situated in a living nightmare of what I came to see was nothing short of institutionalised insanity. Any altered state of consciousness was a delusion born out of the illusion of self ... but only because of humankind’s ignorance. It is truly dreadful to be trapped in a massive delusion for eleven years, unable to find any way out and knowing that no other human being can help, for the altered state has been held up for millennia as being the Summum Bonum of human existence. All the literature on the subject praised the state of consciousness I was in (Enlightenment, Illumination, Moksha, Samadhi, Satori, Nirvana, Sunyata and so on) and yet I just knew it was a mirage that I was living. I am simply sharing my experience for others to do what they will with. Is not that what this List is here for? RESPONDENT: Very interesting story. Thanks for talking about it with us. I don’t quite understand why you insist it was such a waste of time, and yet have repeated it here on this list as if it is for our edification. RICHARD: I am insisting because unitary perception is a delusion born out of the illusion of self. All the Great Thinkers of the past and present – and the future too, the way things are going – are spell-bound by the insidious seduction of the glamour and the glory and the glitz of the altered states of consciousness. The most beguiling of them all is spiritual enlightenment (Moksa, Samadhi, Satori, Nirvana, Sunyata and so on). You are not the only one to wonder at my perseverance ... No. 5 has noted persistence and determination and queries my disavowal of passion. It is just that unitary perception is a solution that has been hawked around for thousands of years ... realising oneness. Those peoples who have realised this have lead a gullible humankind, that is desperately searching for answers, astray. All the wars, murders, tortures, rapes and destruction that has eventually followed the emergence of any specially hallowed master attests to this. All the sadness, loneliness, grief, depression and suicide that has ensued as a result of following any specifically revered master’s teaching offers its mute testimony. All the Saints and the Sages; all the Masters and the Messiahs; all the Saviours and the Avatars; all the Gurus and the God-men have not been able to bring about their much-touted global Peace On Earth. This has been the sorry lot of humankind since time immemorial. Over 160,000,000 million people have been killed in wars alone this century. Nigh on 200 wars have occurred since the dropping of the atom bomb in 1945. SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE ON ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS (Part Four) RETURN TO RICHARD’S SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE INDEX RICHARD’S HOME PAGE The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one. Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997- . All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer and Use Restrictions and Guarantee of Authenticity