# Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

Richard’s Selected Correspondence ## On Judgement RESPONDENT: Sometimes I think you are purposely being ignorant of the meaning of my questions. RICHARD: As what you ‘think’ I am being, and what I am actually doing, are two entirely different things it might very well pay to focus on the latter ... to wit: I answered your questions in accord with the way they were written. RESPONDENT: Despite my inability to properly convey what should be taken as an a priori meaning in my questions to you, you should be able to decipher it. RICHARD: Here is your first question from your previous e-mail: • [Respondent]: ‘If a fellow human being threatened to kill you, how would you respond to that? And here is what you say, further below in this very next e-mail, ‘should be taken as an a priori meaning’ contained in that question which I ‘should be able to decipher’: • [Respondent]: ‘If someone threatened to kill you while you while they were pointing a gun to your head and asked you to plea for your life with real tears, could you do it? Not being a mind reader I have no notion whatsoever what goes on in your mind when you write other than the portions of those goings-on you choose to put into words and post to this mailing list ... to then tell me what I ‘should’ be able to do with those written words, and then further tell me that failure to do so can only mean either purposeful ignorance or an inability to decipher meanings, borders on the fantastical. RESPONDENT: That can only mean that what you call ‘actuality’ is either purposeful ignorance or an inability to decipher meanings in improper sentences. This inability leads to having very little in common with most people with identity thus resulting in a lack of friends. RICHARD: Now here is a notion for you: as it is your ‘inability to properly convey’ what goes on in your mind when you write how about you deal with your lack of communication skills ... rather than drawing erroneous conclusions from what you say I ‘should’ be able to do with the portions of those goings-on you choose to put into words and post to this mailing list? RESPONDENT: Anyway, I will accept the difficulty you are either purposely or unexpectedly creating for me by rephrasing my questions in a more careful manner. RICHARD: As I neither ‘purposely’ nor ‘unexpectedly’ created anything for you – I merely answered your questions in accord with the way they were written – there is no such difficulty to accept. RESPONDENT: 1) If someone threatened to kill you while you while they were pointing a gun to your head and asked you to plea for your life with real tears, could you do it? 2) If that person killed you and they got away from the law somehow, some way as this is a rare but possible case, should they receive some penalty in the eyes of the Universe for having killed you? Can you please answer these questions without inserting any judgement of them? RICHARD: Here are your previous questions 1) and 2) and my response in sequence: • [Respondent]: ‘If a fellow human being threatened to kill you, how would you respond to that? • [Richard]: ‘In accord with the legal laws of the country, of course. • [Respondent]: ‘If they succeeded, and got away with that would it be justifiable that they receive some kind of penalty for it? • [Richard]: ‘How would such a person have ‘got away with that’ when, in accord with the legal laws of the country, such a threat was duly reported to the police and thus recorded on file for later reference? (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 49, 19 December 2003). If you could show me where I inserted ‘any judgement’ it would be most appreciated. RESPONDENT: So that my time and your time will not be wasted. RICHARD: If I may point out? This entire e-mail is a waste of your time as I have already made it clear to you, in another e-mail in this thread, that (a) the notion of justice is a human concept and is nowhere to be found in actuality ... and (b) the only eyes this universe has are the eyes of sentient creatures (thus there is no need for your hypothetical questions in whatever form). Moreover, as your response to (a) was [quote] ‘yawn’ [endquote], and your response to (b) was [quote] ‘duh’ [endquote], it is entirely up to you whether you continue to waste your time or not ... put simply the universe, being physical, is value-free (aka non-judgemental) and your god, being metaphysical, is value-loaded (aka judgemental). In short: it is entirely up to humans to sort out their own affairs. RESPONDENT: I can never be the judge of another’s behaviour. It’s questionable whether I should even judge my own. Isn’t that what traps us? RICHARD: Shall I put it this way (about not being judgmental)? Do you personally: • Condone rape and child abuse? • Approve of rape and child abuse? • Have no opinion about rape and child abuse? • Disapprove of rape and child abuse? • Proscribe rape and child abuse? Is it not simply a fact that one makes appraisals of situations and circumstances each moment again in one’s daily life ... this judging is called making a decision regarding personal and communal salubrity. RESPONDENT: I’m not sure of your use of language here. RICHARD: I was responding to your statement that you ‘can never be the judge of another’s behaviour’. When a person rapes someone, or when a person abuses a child, that activity is called ‘behaviour’. As it is not your behaviour in the scenario I sketch then from your point of view that person’s behaviour (raping and abusing) is called ‘another’s behaviour’. What I am asking you this: • Do you personally condone that person’s behaviour? (Condone: overlook, disregard, ignore, close the eyes to, excuse, forgive, pardon). Or: • Do you personally approve of that person’s behaviour? (Approve: endorse, support, agree, commend, back up, grant, consent). Or: • Do you personally have no opinion about that person’s behaviour? (Opinion: view, estimation, judgment, attitude, belief, outlook). Or: • Do you personally disapprove of that person’s behaviour? (Disapprove: object to, frown on, censure, dislike, criticize, condemn, reject). Or: • Do you personally proscribe that person’s behaviour? (Proscribe: ban, bar, forbid, exclude, make illegal, veto, rule out). Put simply: if you are 100% genuine where you say that you ‘can never be the judge of another’s behaviour’ then you are relying upon other people (police, magistrates, jurors and so on) to do your ‘dirty work’ for you so that you will be (somewhat) safe from criminals or banditry in general. And if these police, magistrates, jurors and so on adopted your principle of never judging another’s behaviour as well as you then the bully-boys and feisty-femmes would soon rule the world. Perhaps, in hindsight, it was but an unliveable ideal? RESPONDENT: I also doubt that the person who is unhurt (innocent) needs rules to proscribe ‘rape and child abuse’. RICHARD: Ahh ... good. This is what I was asking (further above): is it possible to live without the need for ‘principles’; without the need to ‘obey these principles’; without the need to ‘accept them’ (so that one may obey them)? For is this not what ‘innocence’ means? RESPONDENT: The rules that society has invented to control human behaviour may be as much an expression of how low we have sunk as a necessity to regulate human conduct. RICHARD: Okay ... so rules (moral and/or ethical principles) are indeed human rules that human society has invented to control human behaviour ... which means that the ‘ground of reality’ they are embedded in (the ‘miracle of love’) is human love after all? And human love is an affective feeling ... as is hatred, for example. RESPONDENT: I have noticed also that if only one or two senses are in operation (I mean if someone is aware of one or two senses only, because the senses are in operation all of them, regardless if one is aware or not), then the ‘I’ is in operation judging, saying this is nice this is ugly I prefer this etc. RICHARD: Hmm ... even though being non-judgemental is a well-known spiritual teaching it is not a hall-mark of enlightenment as the enlightened ones are as judgemental as all get-out: take Mr. Gotama the Sakyan, for example, whose judgement was that not only being alive as a flesh and blood body sucks but that the entire universe was the pits (as in ‘all existence is ‘dukkha’). Generally speaking enlightened beings do not like being here on this verdant and azure planet ... either now or at any other time. RESPONDENT No. 31: As a matter, I really appreciate if you keep things simple and present your ideas one at a time. RICHARD: Yet I do keep things simple because I have only one central point: everybody is going 180 degrees in the wrong direction. (Richard, List B, No. 31a, 26 March 1999). RESPONDENT: Your central point is a judgement of others? RICHARD: May I ask? Why do you attempt to stifle free speech? How will the human race become free of the human condition if each and every person adopted that NDA wisdom of ‘Thalt shall not be judgmental’ (which is but a re-hash of that ‘Tried and Failed’ Christian adage about ‘Judge ye not ...’ anyway)? Why? Do you really want 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 for ever and a day? Put it this way (about that being judgmental nonsense) do you personally: • Condone rape and child abuse? • Approve of rape and child abuse? • Have no opinion about rape and child abuse? • Disapprove of rape and child abuse? • Proscribe rape and child abuse? Do you see what I mean when I repeatedly write about morals being those ‘unliveable edicts handed down by bodiless entities’? It is simply a fact that one makes appraisals of situations and circumstances each moment again in one’s daily life ... this ‘judging’ is called making a decision. And all those wannabe ‘angelic beings’ castigate anyone who thinks for themselves ... whilst secretly doing the very self-same thing. RESPONDENT: Do you include yourself? RICHARD: Are you asking: ‘Is Richard going 180 degrees in the wrong direction?’ No. RESPONDENT: And if you see an opposite is appropriate, do you not adopt this? RICHARD: Of course ... this is called making a decision after taking an appraisal of the situation and circumstances (what some would call ‘making a judgement of others’ ). * RICHARD: How will the human race become free of the human condition (...)? RESPONDENT: To me, this sounds like a contradiction in terms. RICHARD: Okay, I will put it this way: how will human beings (both individually and thus collectively) become free of the instinctually-derived malice and sorrow? Does that clear up the apparent ‘contradiction in terms’ adequately? If so, please allow me to re-present my question. Viz.: How will human beings (both individually and thus collectively) become free of the instinctually-derived malice and sorrow if each and every person adopted that NDA wisdom of ‘Thalt shall not be judgmental’ (which is but a re-hash of that ‘Tried and Failed’ Christian adage about ‘Judge ye not ...’ anyway)? RESPONDENT: In fact, just so you and all see the open hand I am entering this conversation with, I wrote the head of the organization I am affiliated with, letting him know that I was undertaking just such an investigation. Here’s the text of my note to him, which will perhaps relieve you of the burden of your judgements of me and my motives. RICHARD: Just for the record: it is no ‘burden’ for me to make judgements as to where the other is coming from, currently at, or going to (each and every person already has a background, a frame of reference, an agenda, when they first come across actualism) when they discuss life, the universe, and what it is to be a human being, as the very character of what is actual brings what is not out into the open sooner or later ... the challenge is to have that occur sooner rather than later as I like my fellow human being and would rather their self-induced suffering cease as soon as possible. For example: • [Richard]: ‘... I am always well-pleased, when somebody gets something from reading/ hearing what I have to report, for I like my fellow human being no matter where they are coming from, where they are at, or where they are going to ... each person has a background, a frame of reference, an agenda, and the challenge of communication lies in engaging such a person in a sincere, frank, and honest discussion. Which is precisely what is happening in this e-mail exchange’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 36, 29 June 2003). I have been thoroughly enjoying this challenge for many years now ... and the secret to success in making such judgements lies in not taking them to be anything other than a current appraisal in the first place. Viz.: • [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. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 12c, 21 November 2000). RESPONDENT: I am not judging you, however. RICHARD: Judge away to your heart’s content ... I do not subscribe to that Alternate/ New Age morality borrowed from the Christians: ‘Thou shalt not judge’. RESPONDENT: I am just pointing out to you that your opinions of what others have said is not absolute, nor are they truth. RICHARD: Yet what I say is factual ... I can substantiate all my statements. Whenever I do offer an opinion I always say that it is but an opinion ... or a guess or a speculation or an hypothesis and so on. * [...] RESPONDENT: Or is it that you insist on being right even in the face of information which casts doubts on your theories? RICHARD: What information? All that you have presented to me is but variations on mysticism. This is not information ... it is passionate fantasy. RESPONDENT: I can understand, if that is the case, why you would be more concerned with labelling me than with clarifying your position. RICHARD: I have been doing nothing else but clarifying my position ever since I came onto this Mailing List. As for labelling ... I label away to my heart’s content for I do not subscribe to that Alternative/ New Age morality borrowed from Christianity: ‘Thou shalt not label’. PETER: No bleatings of ‘you’re being judgemental’ will work with me – it’s a furphy that’s been bandied around since morals and ethics were first chiselled in stone and devised to silence the sensible. ‘Judge ye not’ is a platitude invented by God-men and other charlatans in order that no one would question the rest of their inane platitudes. It is one of many dimwitacisms, passed off as Guru-wisdom, that have no other meaning or purpose than to keep their followers and disciples under control, humble, grateful, loyal and above all non-thinking. RICHARD: Ha ... ‘dimwitacisms’, eh? Where will this all end ... the English language may never be the same again! Also, I am reminded of something that you wrote on another Mailing List some time ago. Viz.: • [Peter]: On the spiritual path you will be admonished to leave your mind at the door, surrender your will, and trust your feelings. I was sitting at the caff the other day, with a woman whom I have never met before, discussing life, the universe and what it is to be a human being living in the world as it is with people as they are. She listened intently and with interest to my story – she was not adversarial – and was seeking to comprehend what I was experiencing (she ran through a short list of the usual spiritual attributes to no avail) until she sat eyeing me reflectively. ‘I see’, she finally pronounced, ‘you don’t judge people’. ‘Goodness me’, quoth Richard, ‘I am as judgemental as all get-out ... surely you are not neutral on 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 are you? Do you not appraise people, things and events and come to a considered opinion as to what is a sensible course of action ... and what is silly?’ She sat a while longer, considering. ‘I feel there is no charge in you’, she said, ‘that is why it is okay to assess’. ‘What do you mean by ‘no charge’ ?’ ‘No emotions’. ‘Aye ... but more importantly, no identity that needs constant protection by those highly respected feelings’. ‘Then this is indeed Enlightenment’, she concluded, somewhat triumphantly. ‘When I say I have no identity whatsoever I mean it ... I am not God on Earth’. Puzzled silence. ‘I am a fellow human being ... with no instinctual passions nor the ‘self’ engendered thereby’. Bewildered silence. ‘I am talking of the elimination of the instinctual animal ‘self’ that gives rise to the ‘we are all one’ psittacism’. Astounded silence. We may or may not meet again ... she works as a spiritual-group facilitator. RESPONDENT: 5. Once I have understood what the other person is saying, then I judge it. Now, in true listening, this judging happens at a depth and is mostly autonomous. I don’t have to consciously reject what you are saying, if it is not true, but such rejection happens automatically. Vice-versa, I don’t need to accept the truth of your statements consciously; such acceptance comes from a depth. RICHARD: Oh dear ... feelings are notoriously unreliable when it comes to establishing the veracity of something. A feeling is not a fact. Feelings have led humankind awry for aeons, without ever being queried as to whether they are the legitimate mechanism for deciding the authenticity of the matter. Feelings are held to be hallowed; they are given a trustworthiness they do not merit and are seen to be the ultimate adjudicator in any disputatious topic. RESPONDENT: Hence, listening involves processes that are deeper than thinking. There is a silence in which real listening and learning takes place. RICHARD: Again, a feeling is not a fact. Again, feelings have led humankind astray for millennia, without ever being questioned as to whether they are the correct tools for determining the correctness of a matter. Again, feelings are held to be sacrosanct; they are given a credibility they do not deserve. They are seen to be the final arbiter in a contentious issue: ‘It’s a gut-feeling’, or ‘My intuition is never wrong’, or ‘It feels right’, and so on. Thought, shackled by emotion and/or passion and/or calenture, cannot operate with the clarity it is capable of. At the centre of feelings lies a calentural entity known as the soul (by any name). The soul, which has no substance whatsoever, is revered as being the seat of ‘me’; it is ‘my’ essential ‘being’. The feeling of ‘being’ is the impression of being present; it is the perception of a ‘presence’ that transcends time and space and form as a vast silence ... giving rise to the improper assumption that ‘I am that Silence’ (or ‘There is only That’ if one is really cunning). It must be stressed again that all this is derived from calenture; nothing in this has any facticity. This is because ‘I’ generate unfortunate misinformation on account of ‘being’. ‘I’ may be real ... but ‘I’ am not actual. Any ‘Ultimate Reality’ is never actuality ... everyday reality is a world-view created and sustained by emotive thought born out of the instinctual passions. This affective vision is a blinkered version of what is actual. Time is actual, space is actual, form is actual ... and any personal interpretation of the actual is an emotional transubstantiation of it into an illusion called reality. To then transcend this reality is to take a mystical leap into an other-worldly realm ... a supernatural ‘Ultimate Reality’ where silence speaks louder than words. RESPONDENT: I’ve met some towering folks myself in my time and none of those would dare assert their superiority. RICHARD: Yet is it not stunningly clear, to the discerning observer, that the ‘Enlightened Beings’ have squandered their heyday? With this modern era’s rapid and comprehensive publication and communications network, none of their gaffes and improprieties elude notice. Anyone who is at all astute will have perceived that they have fallen short of their own standards ... and have failed to deliver the goods so readily pledged to a credulous humanity. RESPONDENT: Enlightened beings are beyond unenlightened judgement. RICHARD: If I may point out? This stock-standard ‘master’s reply’ simply does not work on me: I experientially detected the facticity of the hypocrisy in spiritual freedom all those years ago. ... and anyway, ‘unenlightened judgement’ also shows they have indeed fallen short of their own standards ... and have failed to deliver the goods so readily pledged to a credulous humanity. RESPONDENT: Enlightenment means freedom from ignorance. You become one with God’s creation. RICHARD: If I may remind you? I already am aware of this (as I am already aware of all of your other non-responsive-to-the-issue replies in this post) due to eleven years of experiential living of enlightenment. You are not addressing the issues at all ... what has this reply have to do with intelligently responding to ‘none of their gaffes and improprieties elude notice ... they have fallen short of their own standards ... and have failed to deliver the goods so readily pledged to a credulous humanity’ ? Does ‘you become one with God’s creation’ mean that ‘God’ falls short of ‘God’s own standards ... and thus fails to deliver the goods so readily pledged to a credulous humanity? Because, as there are more than a few recorded incidences of ‘Enlightened Beings’ displaying both anguish and anger, you seem to be indicating that the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) does not bestow such a remarkable freedom that amorality indubitably is. RESPONDENT: So you say everything is fate, correct? RICHARD: No ... there is scope for action which affects events. RESPONDENT: You would not judge me if I bomb the world, because ‘killing’ for feeding oneself is the ‘law of nature’. It’s what there is. RICHARD: The human animal, being able to think, reflect, plan, can implement considered action for benevolent reasons ... no other animal can do this. Thus human beings, over countless years, have formulated agreements as in regards common goals and behaviour for mutual benefit. Thus it is sensible to comply with the legal laws and observe the social protocols. So, of course I would judge you for not acting in a mutually beneficial way – I am not silly – although I am more interested in pointing the finger at a person feeling – and thus thinking – in a non-mutually beneficial way. There are already enough people censuring behaviour. RESPONDENT: Neither do you have any compassion for the one who is killed by me, right? RICHARD: Where there is no sorrow there is no compassion (the opposites go hand-in-hand) ... nor any need. Thus I actually care about my fellow human being ... instead of merely feeling care. RESPONDENT: He had to die anyway ... RICHARD: I am not a fatalist ... in this scenario you are describing he did not ‘have to die anyway’ at all: you killed him. It was a deliberate action which, as I said above, affects events. RESPONDENT: I can’t see this as illustrious and brilliant. RICHARD: Fatalism is nothing but a sick justification to explain away events in a self-righteous manner. RESPONDENT: Using comparisons you’re doing propaganda. RICHARD: No, using comparisons is to be doing appraisals ... if there be no appraisals nothing means anything. RESPONDENT: I have no interest in anybody’s ‘mental extraordinary’ experiences and much less to try to copycat them. And this is why I stepped in when I read your associate’s [Vineeto], desire to live permanently in it – or at least having more of it: ‘a stunning luminous and perfect ‘self’-less experience’ (which your method promises?). Can you help her on that, or there is nothing permanent in life? RICHARD: Are you saying that Vineeto’s pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s) are the ‘mental extraordinary’ experiences you have no interest in and much less interest in trying to copycat? If so, are you not making an appraisal based upon some (unstated) comparisons and thus, under your assertion, doing propaganda? Be that as it may ... the desire to live permanently (that is for the remainder of one’s life) in what the PCE shows to be possible, or at least experiencing more of them, is what the actualism method was devised for, in 1981, by the identity who used to inhabit this body. Furthermore, the actualism method does not merely ‘promise’ ... it delivers: it delivers either a virtual freedom (thus both my example and my words have already helped) or an actual freedom (which, other than yours truly, is yet to be demonstrated by another person or persons). As for what is permanent in life: have you not ever noticed that it is never not this moment? RESPONDENT No. 37: [...] I would suggest that you read this book ‘Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life’ by Jon Kabat-Zinn. [...] RESPONDENT: Thanks for that link to the book. I’ll be sure to check it out. RICHARD: Not surprisingly, that book fits into the self-help/ personal growth genre (the province of pop-psychology or pop-therapy) and, having been around since 1993, has many online reviews. As one such review begins with ‘I read this book after listening to Jon Kabat-Zinn on Oprah’s radio program ...’ I wonder if you are familiar with the term ‘The Oprahfication of America’ (as in the ‘no-fault moral universe of non-judgmentalism’)? For instance, an editorial review depicts the book as being about ‘... living fully in the present, observing ourselves, our feeling, others and our surroundings without judging them’. Indeed, on page 88 Mr. Jon Kabat-Zinn writes: ‘Meditation is a Way of being, a Way of living, a Way of listening, a Way of walking along the path of life and being in harmony with things as they are’. (As ‘things as they are’ of course includes wars, murders, rapes, tortures, domestic violence, child abuse, sadness, loneliness, grief, depression and suicide the lie of being non-judgmental is readily exposed for those with the eyes to see). So, how is one to achieve this sleight-of-hand? Simple: retreat from it all by going within to find your ‘soul path, a path with heart’ (page xvi). Or, even more to the point, on page 96 he says ‘Dwelling inwardly for extended periods, we come to know something of the poverty of always looking outside ourselves for happiness, understanding, and wisdom’. In regards to the ever-present problem of promoting a buddhistic mindfulness ‘dwelling inwardly for extended periods’ practice in a non-spiritual/ non-mystical way another editorial review says ‘The idea that meditation is ‘spiritual’ is often confusing to people, Kabat-Zinn writes; he prefers to think of it as what you might call a workout for your consciousness’. Regarding this ‘workout for your consciousness’ a customer reviewer writes ‘I read a lot of books on meditation, yoga, and buddhism, and this book doesn’t hold up to any of them’. Another one says ‘... because I have some familiarity with eastern thought I really didn’t connect with much in this book’. I could go on, and on, but I will leave you with what Mr. Jon Kabat-Zinn has to say on that topic instead: on page 264 he opines that ‘meditation can be a profound path for developing oneself, for refining one’s perceptions, one’s views, one’s consciousness, but, to my mind, the vocabulary of spirituality creates more practical problems than it solves’. And thus do the dilettantes spread the sickness of the east. JONATHAN: He [Richard] said that feeling beings inner dialogue is quite self-critical. RICHARD: The following is a quote which will serve to illustrate just what it is you are referring to. Viz.: • [Rick]: I feel more at ease with life, yes. • [Richard]: I have just now re-read our only other exchange (five months ago) wherein, regarding the application of the actualism method, you reported [quote] ‘it’s having some success in that it’s helping me cope’ [endquote] and what immediately springs to mind is that [quote] ‘feeling more at ease with life’ [endquote] is streets ahead of merely being helped to cope. And I am not just ‘talking you up’ as experience has shown that, while peoples are quite ready to self-criticise and bemoan their fate, they are less likely to as readily self-congratulate and applaud their progression out of same. Try patting yourself on the back for each and every success ... as a boost to confidence a well-deserved accolade is a tonic like no other. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Rick, 30 September 2005). The following (quite lengthy) quote is particularly informative vis-a-vis both this and related issues. Viz.: R: Do you see that you do not need to [mentally go back over an item again and again]? Catch yourself doing it: ‘Why am I going through it again. I already know this.’ This is also fun. To watch how your thought process works. Q: And notice how often you put yourself down. R: Tell yourself off. Q(1): For thinking it! R: One discovers that the way one tells oneself off; if one were to talk to another person like that – a friend – one would not have any friends left. You have to live with yourself twenty four hours a day; if you are talking to yourself in such a way that you are not a good friend to yourself, then what are you doing? If I were to talk like that to you, be sharp with you, you would have nothing to do with me. Are you not sharp upon yourself? Q(1): I am very sharp upon myself. R: It is a good thing to become friends with yourself, to decide not to tell yourself off any more: ‘Okay, I will make mistakes from time to time, because I am still human, but if I ‘goof-up’ I will not exacerbate the situation by imposing a condemnation upon myself.’ One always has another chance, another moment in which to do better, to make it work this time. It is always a quick thought, a swift reproach: ‘Oh, you fool!’ or ‘You shouldn’t do that!’ or ‘How stupid!’ Q: Or you’re not good enough: ‘You should know better than that!’ R: It is good to cease doing that because only you live with yourself for the twenty four hours of the day. Everybody else comes and goes, but you remain, ever constant ... for the rest of your life. I can not stress enough how important it is for you to be your own best friend. For then you get to know yourself – you are no longer against yourself. You can discover things about your own make-up: ‘Oh, isn’t that interesting’ or ‘I like that one’ or ‘I didn’t know I was carrying that’ or ‘I’m glad that one is out of the way’. Sometimes, of course, something can come back, three days, three weeks or three months later: ‘Goodness me, I thought I had eliminated that one’. See how vital it is that you are your own best ‘buddy’? You say: ‘Well, I thought I had dealt with that but never mind, I have another moment here, another chance’. This way you work with yourself, instead of in opposition. It is very important. And it is such good fun! Then, everything you do in your daily life, moment to moment, is taking advantage of multiple opportunities. Every moment again is an occasion to improve your lot ... when you are interacting with someone, either face to face or on the telephone ... or a back-ache: ‘Oh god, how terrible!’ ... another opportunity. It is bad enough to feel pain, why make it worse by adding an emotional suffering like ‘I feel terrible’? To feel terrible, emotionally, on top of the physical pain is simply silly when it is possible to disentangle oneself, emotionally, and still feel good about being alive, about being here. This is being sensible, is it not? To feel good, if not happy, all the time? Q: And top of that: ‘I deserve it, too’. You know, god punishes immediately! ‘It’s my own fault’ or ‘I shouldn’t have done that’. Q(2): Or conformity: ‘If everyone else suffers, why shouldn’t I too?’ R: This is a lot easier than that new-age one about not being judgemental. ‘I shouldn’t be judgemental!’ or ‘I’m always evaluating, judging everything and everyone’. This is a much more gentle way of being with oneself. Be kind to yourself – one needs all the help one can get and who is the best person to help you if not you yourself? Who else is going to do it? Only you can live your life, nobody else can do the living of it for you. It is really good to become friendly with yourself, to get to know yourself, to enjoy yourself ... and for goodness sake, stop berating yourself! About being judgemental: It is only a belief – a New-age belief resurrected from the old scriptural injunction: ‘Judge not that ye be judged thyself’. What is wrong with appraising a situation or person or an event? One can not live without evaluating, so the injunction merely makes one feel guilty. Nobody lives according to it anyway – it is an unliveable bit of nonsensical doctrine that frankly does not make sense. Q(1): It’s funny about how I handle this judging business ... what follows is that I can’t do it in any practical way. R: It is a re-run of that hoary one of being tolerant ... another New-age belief is: ‘Be accepting’. What balderdash! Does anyone accept a murderer? A rapist? A pederast? A traitor? A thief? Nobody does these things, they simply mouth regurgitated pap and fondly think themselves to be wise and righteous people. These commandments just have not worked – they have had thousands of years to demonstrate their efficacy at producing peace on earth and they have failed miserably. Most of the New-age stuff is a re-hash of the old ‘tried and true’, which is, actually, ‘the tried and failed’. Q: When someone tells you not to be judgemental, they actually mean: ‘Your opinion doesn’t count’. Their own opinion is, of course, valid – but you are not to question it. It is a clever way of gagging you. R: One woman accused me, years ago, of being judgemental. I said: ‘Of course I am, I do not hold that belief.’ I am neither a New-age aficionado nor a Christian so I can be as judgemental as all get-out ... not that I use the word, personally. Try ‘appraisal’; that will get you away from the moralistic overtones. One does an appraisal of a person, a thing or an event: ‘That’s useful; that’s not. That is silly; that is sensible’. Of course one does this. How on earth can one conduct one’s affairs without appraising, without reviewing, in some way? It is helpful to rid oneself of the concept of ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ and utilise ‘silly’ and ‘sensible’. You will be a lot better off. For example: It is silly to be unhappy, it is sensible to be happy. Q(1): It’s using the same word for ‘Good and Bad’ and ‘Right and Wrong’. R: Not at all. It is not moralistic; it is about the workability of something, the usefulness of whatever it is. I am talking about a very practical thing: It is sensible to be happy; it is silly to be unhappy. It is silly to feel rotten; it is sensible to feel well. You see, it is not self-righteous at all – it is a matter-of fact appraisal. Q(1): No, I wouldn’t use moralistic for that – about being happy. R: Nor for anything. Please, do not use ‘silly’ and ‘sensible’ as a substitute for moralistic values ... that would defeat the purpose. It is a practical, everyday, common-sense thing: ‘How am I feeling at this moment?’ or ‘Am I feeling good?’ or ‘Am I feeling bad?’ ... ‘Oh that’s silly, I’ll do something about myself until I feel good’. Simply, it is sensible to feel good. This is my moment of being alive – I am not alive five minutes ago, nor am I alive five minutes ahead. This is my only moment of being here. How am I experiencing this moment? If I am not experiencing it well now, when will I? It will be a ‘now’ moment when I do, so why not make this ‘now’ moment ... this one that is happening right now. Why waste it by feeling rotten? Why not enjoy it? It works! I am not merely talking theory, this is what I did back in ‘81. I have not missed a moment for sixteen years ... it is always this moment. What a misspent life, to waste each moment waiting for a future happiness ... to sit around feeling rotten, berating oneself, feeling guilty, and so on. (Audiotaped Dialogues, Silly or Sensible) JONATHAN: So it is a very good idea to pat yourself on the back whenever it will promote felicity or get you feeling excellent so you can move on to wide eyed wonder. RICHARD: No, what is a very good idea (to use your phrasing) is to pat yourself on the back whenever you succeed in finding out just what it is which is preventing this moment of being alive – the only moment you are ever actually alive – from being lived at its optimum. In doing so you get to find out how you operate and function (just what it is that makes you ‘tick’ as it were) each moment again. JONATHAN: So if you are a salesman and just made a big sale, pat yourself on the back with the aim of increasing your current happiness so you can on move to feeling excellent and then to wide eyed wonder. RICHARD: No, I neither said that nor anything of that nature (I am clearly talking of success, no matter how slight it may be, regarding consciousness and not in regards to materialistic success). RICHARD: ‘Tis just as well he explains the technique known as “‘Mahāsī’-style noting” as being, basically, a passive witnessing of all sensibilia presenting in the sentiency-field at every moment of percipience, via a bare registering of all such sensorial impressions, because the distinction being drawn betwixt the regular experiencing of all sensibilia and this (supposedly) liberative experiencing of all sensibilia as “an ever-changing flow of sensorial impressions” simply by means of conducting an inventory of the regular experiencing of all sensibilia rather eluded me at first sight. Essentially, then, “‘Mahāsī’-style noting” is predicated on the affective-cognitive identity within not being at all responsive – let alone reactive – to each and every instance of visual-aesthesis, audile-aesthesis, olfactorial-aesthesis, gustatorial-aesthesis, somataesthesis, and mentational-aesthesis. I am reminded of an auspicious moment in my mid-twenties when attending an end-of-semester faculty-party, in my art-college days, whilst mooching around amongst the milling crowds of college-students and having my attention drawn to a particularly raucous conversation over in one corner wherein the quite-inebriated participants were discussing the pros and cons of decision-making. The general consensus of opinion was that having to be responsible all the time – i.e., making decisions and being accountable for same – sucked big-time (I was what was called a “mature-age student” and the vast majority of the art-students, being in their late teens and having never left school before entering tertiary-level education, were having to fend for themselves for the first time in their lives). I had happened to stroll on by just as the oldest of the group, a lad of twenty years or thereabouts, was recounting an episode where he and his equally-intoxicated friends had resolved, late one Saturday night at a particularly dissolute party, to declare the next day – a Sunday and thus an obligation-free day – to be a decision-free day as well (and this resolution was to be binding upon all the resolvers). The humorous part of the tale he was recounting – and that auspicious moment signalled earlier – was when, upon awakening nigh-on noontime the next morning, and lazily luxuriating in lying abed at that late hour, it soon became obvious to him that if he were to get up, to get out of bed to answer the ‘calls of nature’ even, it would require a decision being made. So, he lay back abed once more, luxuriating again in lazing the day away (all the while trying to ignore the mounting pressure in his bladder from the indulgences of the night before) until it dawned upon him that he had, albeit inadvertently, just made a decision! Yes, indeed, by virtue of staying abed, instead of getting up, he had broken the basic rule of their decision-free day inasmuch he had *decided* not to get up and, in fact when looked at more closely, had *decided* to lay back upon the pillows again. And with that he got up in the regular way, and went about his normal daily affairs, along with the sobering realisation that being alive, being here on this planet, meant decisions were, necessarily, part-and-parcel of life itself. * There has been many an occasion, throughout my life, wherein I have recalled overhearing that snippet of a raucous conversation as it is a fact of life that, each moment again, there is a mostly-automatic appraisal of the situation and circumstances such as to determine beneficial outcomes to the current course-of-events whether at leisure or when active. And, as the very word ‘appraisal’ implies judgement, it is actually impossible to be “without ... judgement“ . Here are Mr. Siegmund Feniger’s words-of-wisdom once again: • “(...) attention or mindfulness is kept to a bare registering of the facts observed, *without* reacting to them by deed, speech, or by mental comment, which may be one of self-reference (like, dislike, etc.), *judgement* or reflection...”. [emphases added]. The adage “full of pith and wind” cometh to mind, eh? RESPONDENT: Also, I don’t know how this comes into play, but the results of the vipassana, really are helping me deal with bipolar-nos symptoms (in a remarkably better way than other types of meditation, positive thinking, self-help methods, psychotherapy, medication-regimens, etc). RICHARD: As the criteria for “Bipolar Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified” (BP-NOS), as classified in DSM-IV (Text-Revision Edition), was readjusted in DSM-V so as to classify a large percentage of the sub-threshold cases under a different disorder, called Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD), it may very well be that, however it is you are experiencing yourself on a day-to-day basis, it need not necessarily be a clinical disorder. (Then again, of course, it may very well be that it is indeed a clinical disorder, after all, once a revised edition of ‘DSM-V’ is foist upon an unwitting public). You are aware, are you not, that the world-wide therapeutical business is a multi-trillion dollar industry? If not, then a brief article published online in May, 2014, entitled “Which Mindfulness?” – in which authors Mr. Robert Buswell and Mr. Donald Lopez. make the point that “the modern understanding of mindfulness differs significantly from what the term has historically meant in Buddhism” – may very well be elucidative in this regard. Viz.: • “(...). Mindfulness mania is sweeping the land, with mindfulness being prescribed for high blood pressure, obesity, substance abuse, relationship problems, and depression, to name just a few examples. While some mindfulness teachers maintain that what they are teaching is a distinctly secular pursuit, many others claim it is the very essence of Buddhist practice. Regardless, in the current media, mindfulness is strongly associated with Buddhism. “Moment-to-moment, non-judgmental awareness”, however, is not what mindfulness has historically meant in Buddhism. Indeed, whatever relationship this interpretation of mindfulness has to Buddhist thought can be traced back no earlier than the last century. The Sanskrit term smṛti (Pali, sati) was first translated as “mindfulness” in 1881 by Thomas W. Rhys Davids (1843-1922), a former British colonial officer in Sri Lanka who went on to become the most celebrated Victorian scholar of Buddhism. [...]. “Mindfulness of the body is intended to result in the understanding that the body is a collection of impure elements that incessantly arise and cease, utterly lacking any semblance of a permanent self. That is, the body, like all conditioned things, is marked by three characteristics (trilakṣaṇa): impermanence, suffering, and non-self. Clearly, mindfulness here is hardly “non-judgmental awareness”. The story of how the popular understanding of mindfulness derived from modern Vipassanā meditation and how Vipassanā first came to be taught to laypeople in Burma in the early decades of the 20th century is told in Erik Braun’s article “Meditation en Masse” in the Spring 2014 issue of Tricycle. There is thus no need to retell that story here. Armed with this knowledge, Buddhists of the world can unite in the fight against high blood pressure, but need not concede that the mindfulness taught by various medical professionals today was somehow taught by the Buddha”. (www.tricycle.com/blog/which-mindfulness). That last line of theirs could be paraphrased as – “Armed with this knowledge, Buddhists of the world can unite in the fight against either ‘Bipolar Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (BP-NOS)’ or ‘Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)’ but need not concede that the mindfulness taught by various medical professionals today was somehow taught by the Buddha” – without even missing a beat. RESPONDENT: This would be okay/ acceptable to me, even if the results were completely explainable as placebo or scripting. Does this sort of, legitimize my beliefs, in any way? Thanks again, Richard. RICHARD: As the very definition of the placebo-effect specifically excludes the subject knowing it to be a placebo (an inert substance or form of therapy which nevertheless psychosomatically generates beneficial outcomes) – as is the case for the nocebo-effect to work its detrimental outcomes as well – then what you are saying, in effect, is you are gunna keep on believing in it no matter what facts you might be presented with (such as all of the above). Now, I doubt that there be a official disorder of that nature, tucked-away somewhere in the ever-voluminous DSM (‘twas notebook-sized in the 1950s before pharmaceutical companies began to seriously grease the palms of some of its highly-influential authors), as it would mean something like 99% of the population could be diagnosable under the DSM’s multitudinous categories – instead of the current 50% (half the population) being classifiable – but perhaps you might be inclined to lobby for its inclusion as you do come across as being intent on receiving some kind of pay-off for all the effort you expend on ...um... on disorder maintenance. Whatever you do, though, one thing is for sure: actualism practice is contraindicated in your case. Viz.: January 21 2006 RICHARD: (...) I distinctly recall the identity in residence all those years ago informing ‘his’ wife at the time that ‘he’ had been doing it the following-the-herd way for 30+ years, but to no avail, and that it was high-time ‘he’ set about doing it ‘his’ way (and when she asked what way that was ‘he’ said ‘he’ did not know but it would become progressively apparent, provided ‘he’ took the first step, with each successive step ‘he’ took). So ‘he’ set about imitating the actual – as evidenced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) in late July 1980 – on the first of January 1981 simply by each moment again being relentlessly attentive to, and *scrupulously honest* about, how that only moment of ever being alive was experienced so as to feel as happy and as harmless (as free of malice and sorrow) as was humanly possible inasmuch any deviation from such felicity/ innocuity was attended to with the utmost dispatch in order to live as peacefully and as harmoniously as ‘he’ could with ‘his’ wife and children, in particular, and with anyone and everyone, in general, who came into ‘his’ presence. And that way of living was so successful, compared to the norm, that in a very short time ‘he’ was wont to exclaim to all and sundry that ‘he’ had discovered the secret to life (for that is how far beyond normal human expectations the felicitous/ innocuous state which has nowadays become known as a virtual freedom truly is) and ‘he’ was perplexed as to why, it being such a simple thing to do, no-one had ever done it before. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Rick-a, 21 January 2006). * March 23 2006 JONATHAN: In other words how do you avoid self deception? RICHARD: By being *scrupulously honest with oneself*. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Jonathan2, 23 March 2006). * September 08 2005 CO-RESPONDENT: Well, I guess it’s impossible to avoid. RICHARD: Your guess is, not all that surprisingly by now, grossly incorrect; hypocrisy is remarkably easy to avoid (provided there be pure intent of course). CO-RESPONDENT: Caveat emptor. RICHARD: As the honesty referred to on The Actual Freedom Trust web site is self-honesty (being *scrupulously honest with oneself*) perhaps ‘caveat venditor’ might have been a more applicable finale to your dismissive summary of what you have made of actualism and actualists during your 25-day perusal. And I mention this because, in the final analysis, the only person one ever ends up fooling is oneself. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 97c, 8 September 2005). * November 09 1998 CO-RESPONDENT: Please let me know if I’m being uncooperative. (Ha. Ha. As if you wouldn’t). RICHARD: Au contraire ... it is your life you are living and it is you who reaps the rewards or pays the consequences for any action or inaction you may or may not do. One has to be *scrupulously honest with oneself* if one is to go all the way. I have arrived at my destiny and am already always here so I have nothing to prove and nothing to achieve. I am retired and on a pension and instead of pottering around the garden I am currently pottering around the Internet. I only write as the whim takes me and easily sit with my feet up on the coffee table watching television. I eliminated any necessity for having a conscience and I am not about to take on being a probity policeman for anyone. I may be a lot of things ... but I am not silly. [emphasis added]. (Richard, List B, No. 26, 9 November 1998). What you may be right at home with, however, is affism practice as to be a successful affer is to have turned ‘self’-deceit into a high art-form. 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