# Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

Richard’s Selected Correspondence ## On Richard’s Enlightenment Resumé RICHARD: Speaking personally, for the first 34 years of my life I was sane (the ordinary, normal, common, or everyday sanity of people in general all over the world) and peace-on-earth was nowhere to be found; for the next 11 years I was in a transformed state of being (which I gradually came to realise was an institutionalised insanity) called The Absolute or Truth, God, Being, Presence, Self, and so on, which was exemplified by love – Love Agapé – compassion, bliss, rapture, ecstasy, euphoria, goodness, beauty, oneness, unity, wholeness and a timeless, spaceless, formless immortal otherness which was a peace that passeth all understanding ... yet all the while peace-on-earth was still nowhere to be found. By ‘institutionalised’ I mean altered states of consciousness that have become institutions over the aeons: instituted as being states of consciousness which are universally accepted as the summum bonum of human existence ... a model to either live by, aspire to, become, or be. (Richard, List B, No. 19l, #sane) RICHARD: ... 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 (...) by my reckoning it would have all been over in a matter of maybe 6-10 seconds (rather than 6 seconds plus eleven years). 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. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 60, 3 December 2003). RICHARD: To explain: for eleven years I was what is classified a ‘Nature Mystic’ (I am not asking anyone to believe me as I am simply telling my story) so I have intimate experience of having a total love affair with nature ... and being fully absorbed in beauty. After all, I had been a practicing artist – plus being a qualified art teacher for private schools – and thus had made my living out of beauty ... and an admiration of and a love for beauty are the primary requisites of being an independent artist. People bought my work because they loved it – literally they fell in love with its beauty – and not because it was ascetically agreeable or met some scholarly criterion for art (shape, form, texture, hue, proportion, balance and so on). With the death of ‘I’ as ego, in 1981, I abandoned my flourishing career, my alternate life-style, my self-sufficiency property in the country and commenced a barefooted, itinerant, homeless, celibate lifestyle of aimless wandering in nature: 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 ... so I know full well what I talk of via personal experience as well as an, admittedly ad hoc, reading on the subject. (Richard, List B, No. 33d, 23 January 2001). RICHARD: Just consider, for a moment, the fact that all the ills of humankind happen in time and space as form. Then consider, for another moment, the fiction that the ‘solution’ to all the ills of humankind, as proposed by all the saints, sages and seers for millennia, is to be found in some timeless, spaceless and formless realm (and not in the world of time and space and form). If you do you will not even need to look up the word ‘delusion’ in a dictionary. (Richard, List B, No. 33d, #adage) RESPONDENT No. 8: Have you ever been in the company of a truly enlightened being? RICHARD: Yes – night and day for eleven years – thus I have intimate knowledge ... and enlightenment sucks. (Richard, List C, No. 8, 1 July 2000). RESPONDENT No. 6: Richard, whose company was that? RICHARD: The most optimum company possible for a ‘hands on’ exploration and investigation into the inner workings of ‘Tried and True’ solution ... the grandiose ‘Me’ that was inhabiting this body from 1981 to 1992. There was nowhere to hide. (Richard, List C, No. 8, 1 July 2000). RESPONDENT: Richard, what did you think, feel and say during that time of ‘enlightenment’? Please help me see that it is exactly the same ‘enlightenment’ that you have said others are talking about. RICHARD: In 1980 I had a peak experience wherein I saw that perfection already always existed in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are and that ‘I’ and/or ‘me’, the psychological and/or psychic entity, was standing in the way ... and no-one else was preventing me from achieving the ultimate goal of being a human. In that peak experience I saw ‘myself’. ‘I’ was the end product of society ... ‘I’ was an emotional construct of all of the beliefs, values, morals, ethics, mores, customs, traditions, doctrines, ideologies and so on. ‘I’ was an emotional-mental fabrication ... a sense of identity with its conscience. I also saw that ‘I’ was a lost, lonely, frightened – and a very, very cunning – entity. Just as those Christians who are said to be possessed by an evil entity and need to be exorcised, I saw that every human being had been endowed with a social entity ... and it was called being normal. To say that I was amazed rather fails to adequately describe the feeling of relief that after all there was a solution to the human situation here on earth. I was ecstatic. That proved to be my undoing – as far as actual freedom is concerned – as ecstasy led to euphoria and euphoria led to bliss. In the blissful state I manifested and became Love which led to an emanation of Compassion for all living beings who were suffering and in sorrow by virtue of the fact that they were ignorant of the Divine Order. The Absolute had been revealed to me in the Love and Compassion – it was Love Agapé and Divine Compassion – and I had been chosen to bring this self-same Love and Compassion to earth. I was to go through a process, when I returned to normal, that would result in my being well-prepared to usher in this new age of Love and Truth to all humankind. As this revelation continued, I saw a new ‘me’ coming into existence ... a grand ‘Me’, a glorious ‘Me’ and a spiritually fulfilling ‘Me’. I was the Saviour Of Humankind! Three nights later I had a similar experience and what I had witnessed in the first revelation was confirmed. Then nothing untoward happened for the next five months – this had been in late July 1980 – until on the first day of January in 1981 when I began a ‘process’ that was to last for nine months, culminating in my Divine Awakening. The ‘process’ was both prosaic and extraordinary: on the one hand I began undoing all the social conditioning that I had been subject to since birth and on the other hand I generated love for all and sundry. I examined all the social traditions and customs etc., one by one, and released myself from their iron grip. I diminished hate and anger and sadness and loneliness by surrendering to and living in love and oneness ... which is the best that a normal human could do by virtue of the socialisation process. I moved in and out of sacred states of Heavenly Bliss and Love Agapé and Divine Compassion and immersed myself in the entire ‘process’ with dedication and resolution. I adopted the principle of pacifism (‘turn the other cheek’) and developed Goodness of the highest order. I cleansed and purified myself of all impure thoughts and deeds and worked both hard and industriously in my daily work. I practised honesty and humility in all my interactions with other people and pondered the significance and ramifications of the Divine Order. I totally believed in and had supreme faith in The Absolute and its ability to bring about the Peace On Earth so long promised. That I was to play the central role in this Divine Plan no longer came as a surprise to me, as I began to realise that I had long yearned to be part of the Salvation Process. I understood that I had to die and be reborn and, consequently, went into a catatonic state that resulted in my being carted off to hospital and kept under intensive care for four hours until I came out of it. I was never to be the same again, as Divinity had been working on me whilst I was catatonic (known as ‘Samadhi’ in Hinduism) and from that date forward I was permanently in a state of human bliss and love ... I could do no wrong. About six weeks prior to the sixth September 1981 I had a revelation that I was going to really die this time, not become catatonic again, and that I was to prepare myself for it. I mustered all of my faith and resolution, renewed all of my trust and allegiance, and awaited the day. The night before I could hardly maintain myself as a thinking, functioning human being as a blistering hot and cold burning sensation crept up the back of my spine and entered into the base of my neck just under the brain itself. I went to bed in desperation and frustration at my apparent inability to be good enough to carry this ‘process’ through to its supreme conclusion. The next morning I awoke and all was calm and quiet. Expressing relief at the cessation of the intensifying ‘process’ that had reached an unbearable level the night before, I lay back on my pillows to watch the rising sun (my bedroom faced east) through the large bedroom windows. All of a sudden I was gripped with the realisation that this was the moment! I was going to die! An intense fear raced throughout my body, rising in crescendo until I could scarcely take any more. As it reached a peak of stark terror, I realised that I had nothing to worry about and that I was to go with the ‘process’. In an instant all fear left me and I travelled deep into the depths of my very being. All of a sudden I was sitting bolt upright, laughing, as I realised that this that was !IT! was such a simple thing: all I had to do was die ... and that was the easiest thing in the world to do. Then the thought of leaving my family and friends overwhelmed me and I was thrust back on the bed sobbing. Then I was bolt upright once more laughing my head off ... then I was back on the pillows sobbing my heart out ... upright, laughing ... pillows sobbing ... upright laughing ... pillows sobbing. At the fifth or sixth time something turned over in the base of my brain – in the top of the brain-stem – which I likened it to turning over a L.P. record in order to play the other side ... with the vital exception that it would never, ever turn back again. It was over ... I had arrived. Love had surrounded me and accepted me completely. I was immersed in Love; I was completely one with Love – Unconditional Love, Love Agapé – for I was home at last. Unexpectedly, I had all knowledge – all that I had ever heard or known had been swept away – and I knew all knowledge: I knew that death did not exist ... I knew that I had existed since the moment of creation; I knew that I shall always exist. I knew that all consciousness is in the act of becoming; I knew that there is no sin or evil; I knew what free will meant – that we choose everything – and I knew that choosing the Absolute had been the only choice to make. I had become Awakened to the Greater Reality. I was Love Agapé and Divine Compassion ... there was no separation between me and The Absolute. I had a Divine Sense of Mission to spread The Word and I embarked on fulfilling my Sacred Duty. As Mr. John DeRuiter has said: ‘I am not my own – I belong to Truth. Whatever Truth does or says is what I do and say and that’s now what I’m here for’. Bewitched and beguiled by the Glamour and Glory and Glitz of the seductive state of ‘Being’, that ensues when one surrenders to the ultimate ‘Power and Authority’ known as ‘The Truth’, I spoke of love as being ‘the way; the means and the end’. ‘There was no such thing as death’, I would say, ‘for I know the secret of ‘Being’. I had realised the ‘Absolute’ and I lived only for ‘The Truth’: ‘The Truth must be spoken’, I would say, ‘though ‘The Truth’ be ineffable it must be told’ ... and so on and so on. I spent the first three years swanning along in a state of ‘Oneness’ with everyone and everything. I was Love Agapé and Divine Compassion all rolled up into one ... and my reward for being the latest Saviour Of Humankind was to be able to live in an on-going ecstatic state of rapturous, ineffable and sacred bliss. All told, for eleven years I lived in the Altered State Of Consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ – night and day for eleven years means I have intimate knowledge – thus I had plenty of time to examine all its nooks and crannies ... and I found much that was murky and dirty lurking around in the outer darkness. Whereas ‘Me’, at the centre of ‘Being’, was dazzling. (Richard, List C, No. 4b, 1 August 2000a). RICHARD: ... What I am doing here on this forum (as I do on others) is to consistently ask the question that I asked myself throughout the eleven years I was living in the ASC known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’. To wit: how come, after 3,000 to 5,000 years of a recorded history, of the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages hawking their ‘Divine Solution’ to all and sundry, there is still as much misery and mayhem as back then? Consequently, I questioned the ‘Teachers’, the ‘Teachings’ and the ‘Source’ of the ‘Teachings’ ... and unearthed this salient point: despite all their rhetoric, peace-on-earth was not on offer. This seminal discovery shook me to my core ... which ‘core’ is where I found the instinctual passions endowed by blind nature. (Richard, List C, No. 3b, 7 April 2000) RESPONDENT: Did you see or listen to K as a ‘mirror’? RICHARD: No ... I had already been living the enlightened state, night and day, for about six months before I first heard of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti. 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 the ‘ego’, 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 examined all this because I sought to understand what other peoples had made of such experience and to find out where human endeavour had been going wrong. I found out where it had been going wrong over an eleven year period ... self-aggrandisement is so seductive. (Richard, List B, No. 34d, 9 May 2002) RESPONDENT: What happened was that you started out masculine ... RICHARD: Yes ... in my first marriage I was more or less like virtually any other man I met; I was a normal man, well bought-up and educated, a decent and responsible citizen in that I was a typical western youth, raised to believe in God, Queen and Country. I was what is called ‘happily married’ with four ‘lovely children’ owning my ‘own house’ and running my ‘own business’ successfully. People who were into things like what is discussed on this Mailing List were the ‘lunatic fringe’ and were not worth even listening to. All that ‘Love and Truth’ stuff was just ‘pie-in-the-sky’ idealism ... I knew better than they. Which is: if only other people would stop doing ... [insert whatever complaint here] ... then all would be well. In short, I was run by both an ego and a soul; I did not want to look at my instinctual passions or my sorrowful and malicious feelings or my corrupted thoughts or identity-controlled actions and behaviour at all. RESPONDENT: ... and wound up feminine ... RICHARD: Yes ... in the fourteenth year of my marriage I had an experience that showed me who ‘I’ was. ‘I’ was nothing but a lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning entity inside this flesh and blood body. So I acted upon this and, as the result of an earnest and intense process, my ‘ego’ disappeared entirely in an edifying moment of awakening to an Absolute Reality. That is, I underwent a monumental transformation into an Altered State Of Consciousness (ASC) which can only be described as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’. I called this ASC an ‘Absolute Freedom’ because there was definitely a metaphysical Absolute in all this – as distinct from the temporal and spatial and material – that was ever-present, and this Divine state of being immediately imbued me with Love Agapé and Universal Compassion for all sentient beings. In short, I became very feminine indeed. RESPONDENT: ... so you found a masculine wife to match the new you. RICHARD: Yes, but that was not for another five years ... in the meanwhile I went through a time I call my ‘puritan period’. I whittled my worldly possessions down to three sarongs, three shirts, a cooking pot and bowl, a knife and a spoon, a bank book and a pair of nail scissors. I possessed nothing else anywhere in the world and cut all family ties. During that period I was homeless, itinerant, celibate, vegan, (no spices; not even salt and pepper), no drugs (no tobacco, no alcohol; not even tea or coffee), no hair cut, no shaving, no washing other than a dip in a river or the ocean ... in short: whatever I could eliminate from my life that was an encumbrance and an attachment, I had let go of. Then, one sunny morn, I met the woman who was to become my second wife on a long, deserted beach. She was determined to ‘unmask the guru’ (her words) and, whilst remarking that while it was certainly something outstanding to ‘love everybody and everything unconditionally’, could I love one person totally, completely and utterly. In short, could man and woman live together in peace and harmony twenty four hours a day. (Richard, List B, No. 21b, 23 March 2000) * RESPONDENT: Did you live in harmony 24 hours a day? RICHARD: For the first six years of my second marriage I was still endeavouring to extract myself from the Altered State Of Consciousness (ASC) which is known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ ... and as this divine ‘State Of Being’ imbued me with Love Agapé and Universal Compassion for all sentient beings, I was unable to live in total peace and harmony for the twenty four hours of the day. For the latter five years of the marriage, since going beyond enlightenment and breaking through into an actual freedom from the human condition (wherein malice and sorrow is eliminated and not transcended as in spiritual enlightenment), I have consistently lived in total peace and harmony. This has been my condition since 1992, thus I have had eight years to compare it with the enlightened state ... I can find no fault anywhere. In the enlightened state there were occasional ‘bleed-throughs’ from the transcended ‘I’ as ego entity ... brief flashes of fear, irritation, anguish, desire and so on (a close examination of what is written regarding various Enlightened Masters’ day-to-day lived experience will verify this as being typical). (Richard, List B, No. 21b, 26 March 2000) * RESPONDENT: If so why was she your second wife? RICHARD: Because my first wife, being conventionally religious, and upon being faced with her husband’s spiritual enlightenment in the fifteenth year of a normal marriage, chose for the status-quo and, as far as I know, to this very day is still faithfully waiting for the ‘Second Coming’ of her God-Man (he who has a different notion of what a ‘generation’ means than virtually anyone else). (Richard, List B, No. 21b, 26 March 2000a) RESPONDENT: How did you experience it? Did you experience awakening? Or did you follow some ‘enlightened teacher’? And why do you say it sucks? RICHARD: In 1980 I had a pure consciousness experience (PCE) that lasted for four hours. In that four hours I lived the peace-on-earth that is already always here now ... and I saw that ‘I’ (an emotional-mental construct) was standing in the way of this actual freedom being apparent twenty four hours of the day. In that peak experience I saw ‘myself’ for the social identity that ‘I’ was. ‘I’ was the end product of society and nothing more. ‘I’ was a passionate construct of all of the beliefs, values, morals, ethics, mores, customs, traditions, doctrines, ideologies and so on. ‘I’ was nothing but an fabrication in the psyche ... a social identity which is its conscience. Once I had seen this, I then saw that ‘I’ was a lost, lonely, frightened (and a very, very cunning) psychological entity ... what I later came to know as ‘ego’. Just as those Christians who are said to be possessed by an evil entity and need to be exorcised, I saw that every human being had been endowed with an identity as ego ... and it was called being normal. When ‘I’ saw that this was all ‘I’ was ... I was no longer that. I was me ... this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. To say that I was amazed rather fails to adequately describe the feeling of relief that after all there was a solution to the human situation here on earth. I was ecstatic. Incidentally, that ecstasy proved to be my undoing – as far as actual freedom is concerned. Ecstasy led to euphoria and euphoria led to bliss. In the blissful state I manifested and became Love Agapé which led to an emanation of Divine Compassion for all living beings who were suffering and in sorrow by virtue of the fact that they were ignorant of the ‘Divine Order’ ... for ‘The Absolute’ had been revealed to me in that Love and Compassion – it was that Love Agapé and Divine Compassion – and I had been chosen to bring this self-same Love and Compassion to earth. I was to go through a process, when I returned to normal, that would result in my being well-prepared to usher in this new age of peace and prosperity to all humankind. As this revelation continued, I saw a new ‘me’ coming into existence ... a grand ‘Me’, a glorious ‘Me’ and a spiritually fulfilling ‘Me’. I was the ‘Saviour Of Humankind’ (as all this was happening, a passing thought occurred which was briefly contemplated ... then banished: What was it that was observing these two other ‘me’s – the ego ‘me’ and the grand ‘Me’? This trifling question was to be of immense benefit years later when I realised that I was living in a massive and institutionalised delusion and that there was an actual freedom lying beyond ... but that is another story). Three nights later I had a similar experience and what I had witnessed on the first revelation was confirmed. Then nothing untoward happened for the next five months – this had been in late July 1980 – until on the first day of January in 1981 when I began a ‘process’ that was to last for nine months, culminating in my ‘Divine Awakening’ on an auspicious September morn. The ‘process’ was both prosaic and extraordinary: on the one hand I began undoing all the social conditioning which I had been subject to since birth and on the other hand I generated love for all and sundry. I examined all the social traditions and customs etc., one by one, and released myself from their iron grip. I diminished hate and anger and sadness and loneliness by surrendering to and living in love and compassion and oneness ... which is the best that a normal human could do by virtue of the socialisation process. I moved in and out of sacred states of heavenly bliss and Love Agapé and Divine Compassion and immersed myself in the entire ‘process’ with dedication and resolution. I adopted the principle of pacifism (‘turn the other cheek’) and developed Goodness of the highest order. I cleansed and purified myself of all impure thoughts and deeds and worked both hard and industriously in my daily work. I practised honesty and humility in all my interactions with other people and pondered the significance and ramifications of the Divine Order. I totally believed in and had supreme faith in The Absolute and its ability to bring about the metaphysical ‘Peace On Earth’ so long promised. That I was to play the central role in this Divine Plan no longer came as a surprise to me, as I began to realise that I had long yearned to be part of the Salvation Process. I understood that I had to die and be reborn and, consequently, went into a catatonic state that resulted in my being carted off to hospital and kept under intensive care for four hours until I came out of it. I was never to be the same again, as Divinity had been working on me whilst I was catatonic and from that date forward I was permanently in a state of human bliss and love ... I could do no wrong. About six weeks prior to the sixth September 1981 I had a revelation that I was going to really die this time, not become catatonic again, and that I was to prepare myself for it. I mustered all of my faith and resolution, renewed all of my trust and dedication, and awaited the day. The night before I could hardly maintain myself as a thinking, functioning human being as a blistering hot and cold burning sensation crept up the back of my spine and entered into the base of my neck just under the brain itself. I went to bed in desperation and frustration at my apparent inability to be good enough to carry this ‘process’ through to its supreme conclusion. The next morning I awoke and all was calm and quiet. Expressing relief at the cessation of the intensifying ‘process’ that had reached an unbearable level the night before, I lay back on my pillows to watch the rising sun (my bedroom faced east) through the large bedroom windows. All of a sudden I was gripped with the realisation that this was the moment! I was going to die! An intense fear raced throughout my body, rising in crescendo until I could scarcely take any more. As it reached a peak of stark terror, I realised that I had nothing to worry about and that I was to go with the ‘process’. In an instant all fear left me and I travelled deep into the depths of my very being. All of a sudden I was sitting bolt upright, laughing, as I realised that this that was IT! was such a simple thing ... all I had to do was die ... and that was the easiest thing in the world to do. Then the thought of leaving my family and friends overwhelmed me and I was thrust back on the bed sobbing. Then I was bolt upright once more laughing my head off ... then I was back on the pillows sobbing my heart out ... upright, laughing ... pillows sobbing ... upright laughing ... pillows sobbing. At the fifth or sixth time something turned over in the base of my brain – in the top of the brain-stem. I likened it to turning over a L.P. record in order to play the other side ... with the vital exception that it would never, ever turn back again. It was over. I had arrived. I had become Awakened to the Greater Reality. I was Love Agapé and Divine Compassion ... there was no separation between me and ‘The Absolute’. I had a Divine ‘Sense of Mission’ to spread ‘The Word’ and I embarked on fulfilling my Sacred Duty, gathering some disciples on the way ... until 1984. Then I started to question just what I was doing and just what had happened to me. Something seemed to be wrong ... this had all been done before by other Masters and Messiahs, Saints and Sages, Avatars and Saviours, Gurus And God-Men to no avail. In fact, instead of bringing Love and Peace, they had left in their wake much bloodshed and hatred ... and I was one of them! Accordingly I travelled to India to find out for myself exactly what was amiss with this whole ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ business by meeting some of these hallowed Gurus and God-Men and imbibing the centuries of Eastern spiritual tradition for myself ... instead of merely reading about it in books. It was to take me eleven years to get out of this massive institutionalised delusion I was living in and go beyond it to arrive at where I am today. It was eleven years of coming to terms with the understanding that what I was living was a massive delusion of narcissistic grandeur ... and that it was what every human being believed in, in some way, shape or form ... but that is yet a further story. Today, I am no longer an ‘Enlightened Master’ living in an exalted ‘State of Being’ ... I am me as-this-body only, a fellow human being who has no malic or sorrow whatsoever to sublimate and transcend; hence I am both happy and harmless. I am what I was on that fateful night in 1980 when I asked the question: ‘what was it that was observing these two ‘me’s – the ego ‘me’ and the grand ‘Me’?’ I am these sense organs in operation: this seeing is me, this hearing is me, this tasting is me, this touching is me, this smelling is me, and this thinking is me. Whereas ‘I’, the identity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain. Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the actual world ... the world as-it-is ... by ‘my’ very presence. Thus there are three I’s altogether, but only one is actual. And only the actual is amoral. (Richard, List C, No. 2a, 13 March 2000). RESPONDENT: Richard, before I hit the road again, I have a question that seems pretty important. Re-reading some of your selected writings, I rediscovered this: [Richard]: ‘The ‘process’ was both prosaic and extraordinary: on the one hand I began undoing all the social conditioning that I had been subject to since birth and on the other hand I generated love for all and sundry. I examined all the social traditions and customs etc., one by one, and released myself from their iron grip. I diminished hate and anger and sadness and loneliness by surrendering to and living in love and oneness ... which is the best that a normal human could do by virtue of the socialisation process. I moved in and out of Sacred States of Heavenly Bliss and Love Agapé and Divine Compassion and immersed myself in the entire ‘process’ with dedication and resolution. I adopted the principle of pacifism (‘turn the other cheek’) and developed Goodness of the highest order. I cleansed and purified myself of all impure thoughts and deeds and worked both hard and industriously in my daily work. I practised honesty and humility in all my interactions with other people and pondered the significance and ramifications of the Divine Order’. (Richard, Selected Writing, ASC, #60) If the activation of love, compassion, humility, goodness, moral purity, and a passionate faith in the Divine Order etc is not 180 degrees opposite from what you now recommend, it’s pretty damn close, no? RICHARD: What I now recommend is essentially no different to what I have recommended ever since first becoming apparent on the thirtieth of October 1992 and which is basically the same as what the identity in residence recommended, to anyone prepared to listen at the time, when ‘he’ set about imitating the actual – as evidenced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) in late July 1980 – on and after the first of January 1981 ... to wit: being relentlessly attentive to, each moment again, 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’ then wife and children, in particular, and with anyone and everyone who came into ‘his’ presence. And all that came about – albeit nowhere nearly spelled-out so clearly and concisely – more or less spontaneously on that day as during the PCE, where identity in toto was in abeyance, the affections played no part at all and, moreover, there was such an utter intimacy as to render any trace of a separation needing to be affectively bridged simply risible. Furthermore, that way of living was so successful, for the first three months or so of that year, that ‘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 being virtually free truly is) and ‘he’ was perplexed as to why, it being such a simple thing to do, no-one had ever done it before. Then an event occurred of such impact as to be the turning-point, in regards no longer going directly to what numerous PCE’s evidenced (namely that what is now known as an actual freedom from the human condition was possible here on earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body), and relates back to the initial PCE which set in motion the whole process wherein, unbeknownst to the experiencing due to a total lack of any precedent, it had devolved into an altered state of consciousness (ASC) when a new identity had all-of-a-sudden come into existence ... a grand ‘Me’, a glorious ‘Me’, a fulfilled ‘Me’ who was none other than the long-awaited Saviour Of Humankind! That impactive event took place whilst keenly watching the sunrise casting its brilliant rays earthward, one otherwise-experienced-as-perfect morning in mid-autumn, upon seeing an ornamental bush thus lit, in the garden alongside the ex-farmhouse, luminously aglow, fiercely afire from within as it were, wherefrom it was revealed to ‘Me’ that there was to be a death and a rebirth and, consequently, a catatonic state ensued that resulted in ‘Me’ being carted off to hospital, and kept under intensive care for four hours, until coming out of it in a state of Radiant Bliss (which quite overwhelmed the duty-nurse by the way). ‘He’ was never to be the same again, as Divinity had been working on ‘him’ whilst catatonic, and from that date forward ‘he’ was permanently in a state of human bliss and love ... ‘he’ could do no wrong. As ‘he’ had surrendered to, and thus lived in, love and oneness ‘he’ moved in and out of sacred states of Heavenly Bliss, Love Agapé and Divine Compassion; ‘he’ immersed ‘himself’ in the entire process with dedication and resolution; ‘he’ adopted the principle of pacifism (‘turn the other cheek’) and developed a goodness of the highest order; ‘he’ cleansed and purified ‘himself’ of all impure thoughts and deeds; ‘he’ worked both hard and industriously in ‘his’ daily work; ‘he’ practised honesty and humility in all ‘his’ interactions; ‘he’ pondered the significance and ramifications of the Divine Order; ‘he’ totally believed in and had supreme faith in The Absolute – ‘he’ never doubted the ability of That to bring about the Peace On Earth so long promised – and that ‘he’ was to play the central role in that Divine Plan no longer came as a surprise to ‘him’ as ‘he’ realised that ‘he’ had long yearned to be part of the Salvation Process. The following more or less sums it up: • [Richard]: ‘... back in 1981 I had umpteen number of peak experiences – sometimes two-three times a day varying from minutes to hours – and they were wild and woolly times. Somewhere along the line I had lost sight of the four hour pure consciousness experience [PCE] that had triggered my whole incursion into becoming free of the human condition and there was certainly a ‘difference in degree’ of the affective element in each experience ... ranging from virtually non-existent to full-blown grandiosity for the ‘me’ that was inhabiting this body. The PCE stayed pristine in its own domain, however, and stood me in good stead some eleven years later ... as I have recorded in ‘A Brief Personal History’: (Richard, Articles, A Brief Personal History). • ‘It troubled me deeply that I was in such a situation because I seem to be driven by some force to ‘Spread the Word’ and that was never my intention all those years ago when I first had what is known as a ‘Peak Experience’ which initiated my incursion into all matters Spiritual, culminating in the ‘death’ of my ego and catapulting me into this Absolute State. My intent back then had been to cleanse myself of all that is detrimental to personal happiness and interpersonal harmony ... in other words: peace on earth in my life-time. Instead of that rather simple ambition, I found that I was impelled on an odyssey to be the latest Saviour of Humankind in a long list of Enlightened Beings ... and this imposition did not sit well with me’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Alan-b, 25 July 2000). RESPONDENT: The method you now recommend (minimising ‘good’/ ’bad’ feelings, activating felicity/ sensuousness) is what you used only after the ego had already dissolved. RICHARD: The method I now recommend is essentially no different to the course of action I have recommended ever since first becoming apparent and which is basically the same as the way the identity in residence recommended a normal life be lived, when ‘he’ first devised and put into practice what has now become known as the actualism method, on and after the first of January 1981. Incidentally, that way of living/ that course of action did not ... um ... officially become a method until early 1998. And it only came about because of being told to either send more information or draw a clearer map to paradise, on a mailing list set-up under the auspices of the teachings Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti brought into the world, for no other reason than (despite the fact that they are rife throughout most, if not all, of those teachings) any and all methods, ways, paths, and so on, were anathema to his readers/ listeners. Viz.: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘You’re going to have to send more information or draw a clearer map to paradise. • [Richard]: ‘(...) What ‘I’ did, eighteen years ago, was to devise a remarkably effective method of ridding this body of ‘me’. (Now I know that methods are to be actively discouraged, in some people’s eyes, but this one worked). ‘I’ asked myself, each moment again: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ (...)’. (Richard, List B, No. 19, 17 March 1998a). RESPONDENT: It worked, but *only when you were in an Altered State Of Being*, having permanently dissolved your sense of personal identity in an oceanic feeling of oneness with all creation. RICHARD: Just so that there is no misunderstanding: what really worked, when the identity was that ‘Altered State Of Being’, was (1) a continuation of the totally dedicated and/or devoted pure intent to evince what the PCE’s evidenced ... and (2) a furtherance of the irreversible momentum, or inevitability, already set in place on day one as the process is, essentially, that of escaping from one’s fate and attaining to one’s destiny ... and (3) a prolongation of the attentiveness as to how the only moment of being alive was experienced ... and (4) an utter lack of dignity in being so far up oneself (narcissistic) as to render the term ‘egotistical’ a mere bagatelle in comparison ... and (5) a sense of humour which, if nothing else, made possible (6) a delightful resurgence of the earlier felicity /innocuity which again brought about, in combination with sensuousness, an outstandingly ingenuous sense of amazement, marvel and wonder. And it was that last-named – the wide-eyed wonder of naiveté – which resulted in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception). RESPONDENT: To put it mildly, that [an altered state of being] is not my starting point ... RICHARD: Neither was it ‘my’ starting point ... for instance: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘… but I have a lot of taxes to pay to the society, family, etc., which give me no time to sit and watch the rising sun ... • [Richard]: ‘Speaking personally, the ‘I’ that was made freedom the number one priority in ‘his’ life. ‘He’ was a married man, with four children, running ‘his’ own business, with a house mortgage to pay off and a car on hire purchase ... working twelve-fourteen hour days, six-seven days a week. In other words: normal. And all the while the enabling of freedom took absolute precedence over all other matters and dominated ‘his’ every moment’. (Richard, List B, No. 49, 23 June 2000). And for another instance: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘I find myself in a situation where I am raising two children and I am married. • [Richard]: ‘So? I found myself in a situation where I was married and raising four children. • [Co-Respondent]: ‘I am doing my best to raise the kids – but how could I possibly be pleased with raising them only to be in ‘abysmal’ situation – only to live in a ‘grim and glum’ reality where the best they can do is live on the better side of misery? • [Richard]: ‘Indeed ... being married and raising four children was one of the many incentives for the ‘me’ who was to get off ‘his’ backside and do something about the whole sorry mess. And now, as a direct result of that altruistic action, the possibility exists for those five fellow human beings to also live fully (as is anybody else) if they so choose’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27e, 5 April 2003). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 60f, 29 September 2005). RICHARD: For eleven years I lived in an Altered State Of Consciousness, so I had plenty of time to examine all its nooks and crannies ... and I found much that was murky and dirty lurking around in the outer darkness. Bewitched and beguiled by the glamour and glory and glitz of the seductive ‘State Of Being’ that ensues when one surrenders to that ‘Power and Authority’, I spent the first three years swanning along in a state of ‘Oneness with everything’. I was Love Agapé and Divine Compassion all rolled up into one ... and my reward for being the latest ‘Saviour Of Humankind’ was to be able to live in ‘Rapturous Bliss’, ‘Ineffable Ecstasy’ and ‘Exalted Euphoria’. However, my native intelligence would not let me get away with anything false and I soon found enough to make me start suspecting something very serious was wrong with Spiritual Enlightenment. To start off with was the inescapable fact that I had a ‘Sense Of Mission’ to bring ‘Peace and Love’ to a suffering humanity – I was driven to spread ‘The Word’ and to disseminate ‘The Truth’ – and this imposition did not sit well with me. In my fourth year I started to question the efficacy of Divine Compassion as a means of resolving sorrow once and for all. As a palliative for suffering it was beyond compare – it superseded pity, sympathy and empathy by a mile – but it remained forever a panacea only. Consolation for sorrow, no matter how divine that solace may be, is not a cure that lasts. In my sixth year I was ready to examine Love Agapé – which up until then had been far too sacred to put under the microscope – and I soon found enough to warrant further investigation. If Divine Compassion had been found to be murky and dirty, I was to go on to discover that Love Agapé was sordid and squalid to the extreme. Just as compassion has its roots in sorrow, so too has love its origin in malice. Hatred is the essential companion to love; the one cannot exist without the other. When I first saw the other face of love I was horrified ... for I was in the grip of a ‘Demonic Power’ disguised as ‘Divine Authority’. The diabolical is but the essential sub-stratum for the righteous; the sinister for the good; the fiendish for the glorious; the infernal for the heavenly; the wicked for the charitable ... and so on. Love Agapé – which has been touted as the cure-all for the ills of humankind for thousands of years – was hand-in-glove with evil. No wonder that religious wars have beset this planet for aeons, for the central tenet of any religious or spiritual path is love ... and love is the very element that will sabotage any well-meant endeavour with its secret agenda. A loving self is still a self, nevertheless. And a self is made out of the sorrow and malice that are generated by the instinctual aggression and fear that humans are born with in order for the species to survive. In my eighth year I turned my attention to the ‘Timeless and Spaceless’ aspect of being enlightened, for although that was my inner experience of myself, I found that I was occupying space as a body moving from place to place – and it took time to do this. The clock kept ticking the hours away and the sun consistently rose in the east, traversed the sky throughout the course of the day and then set in the west. I could clearly observe that time and space were definitely an actuality, despite the feeling that they were an illusion. I also had the sure ‘knowledge’ that I was ‘Deathless’ ... or as they say in the eastern tradition: I was ‘Unborn and Undying’. Had I lost my marbles completely? I would go around telling people that I could not die as I was dead already! Yet what was this corporeal body doing if not eating and drinking, urinating and defecating, waking and sleeping, walking and talking ... and so on? I had to be deluding myself to say that all this gigantic happening called the universe was nothing but an illusion. The eastern philosophy of Maya – although very real – did not hold up in actuality. Then one day, as a result of my deep questioning of my state of being, I was able to experience that without these senses I would not know that I exist. I was the sense organs and these sense organs were me. I was mortal. Immortality was nothing but a self-centred escape from the actual. It was all a case of the persistence of identity. In my tenth year I tentatively approached one of the last bastions of spiritual enlightenment: pacifism. Almost all of the other attributes of what I called an ‘Absolute Freedom’ had been stripped away and if I was to undo what is called ‘ahimsa’ in the east – non-violence – then there would not be much left of my precious ‘Peace On Earth’ that I was charged to bring. I found a strong resistance within myself to contemplate letting go of the scriptural adage: ‘Turn the other cheek’ ... even though I intellectually considered it to be nonsense. If an entire country held such a belief it would be akin to hanging out a sign saying: ‘Please feel free to invade, we will not fight back’. Also, I personally relied upon the police to protect me and mine from any personal attack or robbery – what if they adopted this principle? By the time I had worked my way through this philosophical dilemma I had to turn my sights upon the last thing that stood between me and an actual freedom. I would have to let go of the deeply ingrained concept of ‘The Good’. For this to happen I would have to eliminate ‘The Bad’ in me, or else I would be likely to go off the rails and run amok. Little did I realise that it was ‘The Good’ that kept ‘The Bad’ in place. I was soon to find this out. The Altered State of Consciousness – in particular, spiritual enlightenment – needs to be talked about and exposed for what it is so that nobody need venture up that blind alley ever again. There is another way and another goal. The main trouble with the enlightenment is that whilst the ego dissolves, the identity as a soul remains intact. No longer identifying as a personal ego-bound identity, one then identifies as an impersonal soul-bound identity – ‘I am That’, ‘I am God’, ‘I am The Supreme’, ‘I am The Absolute’ and so on. This is the delusion, the mirage, the deception ... and it is extremely difficult to see it for oneself, for one is in an august state. This second identity – the second ‘I’ of Mr. Venkataraman Aiyer (aka Ramana) fame – is a difficult one to shake, maybe more difficult than the first; for who is brave enough to voluntarily give up fame and fortune, reverence and worship, status and security? One has to be scrupulously honest with oneself to go all the way and no longer be a someone, a somebody of importance. One faces extinction; ‘I’ will cease to be, there will be no ‘being’ whatsoever, no ‘presence’ at all. It is impossible to imagine, not only the complete and utter cessation of ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety, but the end of any ‘Ultimate Being’ or ‘Absolute Presence’ in any way, shape or form. It means that no one or no thing is in charge of the universe ... that there is no ‘Ultimate Authority’. It means that all values are but human values, with no absolute values at all to fall back upon. It is impossible for ‘me’ to conceive that without a wayward ‘me’ there is no need for any values whatsoever ... or an ‘Ultimate Authority’. (Richard, List B, No. 31, 7 March 2000) RESPONDENT: What you saw as love blooming ... RICHARD: No ... love was not something seen. There was only love ... there was nothing else but love. RESPONDENT: [What you saw as love blooming] was of thought because it was considered antidote to what you experienced as suffering. RICHARD: There was no thought about it being ‘considered antidote’ ... love was and to even begin to think about it was ludicrous. RESPONDENT: You were miserable and asked what can I or any human do to end misery? RICHARD: On the contrary ... love came unannounced and unexpected. RESPONDENT: The initial answer was to have a feeling of love and compassion for others, for the world. RICHARD: Not so ... there was love and its compassion poured forth endlessly, unstoppable. RESPONDENT: But love is not a result, there is no how. RICHARD: There was only love ... love was it and it was love. RESPONDENT: It is not self-motivated; it is not my love of the world. RICHARD: There was no self; there was no world. RESPONDENT: Love is when there is no division of self from world and that can not be described. RICHARD: Love was unspeakable; love was its own language. RESPONDENT: Questions as to why there is human misery are answered when separation stops. RICHARD: There was no ‘human misery’ ... love was everything and everything was love. RESPONDENT: But the answer is existential not conceptual. RICHARD: To say ‘existential’ was to be conceptual ... love was all and all was love. RESPONDENT: To seek conceptual answers as to the nature of love or intelligence or of the source is to get lost in images. RICHARD: There was no seeking of ‘conceptual answers’ ... even to say ‘love was the way; love was the means; love was the end’ was to be saying too much. RESPONDENT: The mind understands the unknown by being unknown. RICHARD: There was a vast understanding that could never be put into words ... but the truth had to be spoken, nevertheless. Hence: ‘love was the way; love was the means; love was the end’. RESPONDENT: If ‘you’ are there assessing and evaluating, that is just thought evaluating its own content. RICHARD: There was no ‘me’; there was no assessing; there was no evaluating; there was no content to thought ... there was only love. For three years, by the calendar, there was only love ... and its compassion poured forth endlessly, unstoppable. Then love flew to India ... the rest is history. (Richard, List B, No. 12l, 17 August 2001). * RICHARD: It was an on-going ecstatic state of rapturous, ineffable and sacred bliss: Love Agapé and its Divine Compassion poured forth, unconditionally, for all suffering sentient beings twenty four hours of the day. It was a truly euphoric state of being (there was no more ‘becoming’). RESPONDENT: It would seem that if you had love, you would not give it up unless you found something wrong with it. RICHARD: Indeed ... this is a very perspicacious observation. RESPONDENT: If there was something wrong with it, it could not be real love ... RICHARD: Ha ... this is quite humorous (for all its in inaccuracy) yet serves to show why it is difficult for some to comprehend what I have to report. RESPONDENT: ... so what do you think really happened? RICHARD: There was something beyond Love Agapé and its Divine Compassion (which was God, which was The Truth, which was the Ground Of Being) ... something beyond enlightenment which was of such a magnitude as to be unimaginable, inconceivable, incomprehensible and unbelievable. The condition experienced was of the nature of some ‘Great Beyond’ (I have to put it in capitals because that is how it was experienced it at the time) and it was of the nature of which has always been ascribed, in all the spiritual/ mystical writings I had read, as being ‘That’ which one merges with at physical death when one ‘quits the body’. Sometimes known as ‘Mahasamadhi’ or ‘Parinirvana’, it seemed so extreme that the physical body must surely die for the attainment of it. There was to be seven more years before fruition ... but that is another story. (Richard, List B, No. 21d, 22 August 2001). RICHARD: Aye ... broadly speaking a Western spiritualist will not see the actual universe at all (they will see their god’s universe and a reflection of his/ her glory) and an Eastern spiritualist will not see the actual universe either (they will see their god instead or an illusion or a void empty of self). And, also broadly speaking, a materialist will see a random, chance event ... a meaningless universe. RESPONDENT: I understand you to be saying that either a materialist perceptual view or a spiritualist view (whether it is typical of eastern or western traditions) are just metaphysical projections and these projected interpretations have no actual existence. RICHARD: This is an accurate understanding of what I report. RESPONDENT: They ‘exist’ only in thought. RICHARD: They exist in both thought and feeling ... primarily in feeling (thought mainly organises the feeling into word pictures). RESPONDENT: And you base this conclusion upon the fact that you discovered after several years that your particular spiritualist view was merely projection. At some point something ‘turned over in the brain stem’ and that projection ended completely leaving only the actual universe. RICHARD: Yes, but not my ‘particular spiritualist view’ ... spiritualism per se ended completely. RESPONDENT: But your supposition is that what you ultimately found to be false is representational of what others including K and the Buddha pointed to. RICHARD: It is no ‘supposition’ ... it is something I verified over eleven years of personal investigation, face-face discussions with (and observations of) various saints, sages and seers, and an extensive examination of all the relevant media that I could lay my hands upon. ‘Tis no rushed – or rash – thing that I did ... I wanted to know for sure. RESPONDENT: Yet many including K and Buddhist teachers warn of the danger of false samadhis. RICHARD: If only they would listen to their own advice, eh? RESPONDENT: Taking what you say at face value, there was some kind of mutation or rewiring of the brain. But giving others the benefit of the same doubt, you must equally concede that there may be other kinds of transformations impacting the brain in different ways that account for a human capacity to come in contact with energetic dimensions that you have not encountered. RICHARD: No ... eleven years, night and day, was more than enough to experience all that there is to experience in regards to the variations and nuances in what is popularly called ‘spiritual enlightenment’. RESPONDENT: Indeed, there is no way of knowing what a wide variety of experiencing is possible for human beings. RICHARD: Of course – I never got into experiencing all that which may be called the ‘New Age’ and Shamanistic type of materialisations for example – but in the area that counts (spiritual enlightenment) it is indeed possible. And it was an incredible voyage. (Richard, List B, No. 12n, 28 October 2001). RESPONDENT: You sound like a remarkable man and I would like to ask a question. I have been reading your posts with considerable interest, most of it I had already seen and I was trying to do somewhat the same but I found this gap. The gap between knowing that all sense of identity is a construct, knowing that all joy/ pain and happy/ sad is ego driven and knowing the internal-I can and should be rid from and actual dissolution. I know that information is having effect but surely not as drastically as described by you so let me ask if something can be done, is it a question of time or simply more reasoning or more information. Also, could you affirm that all this is one happening in the now and that it is possible to experience it like that. RICHARD: Where you say ‘you sound like a remarkable man’, if you mean it sincerely I would like to congratulate you for your perspicacity, because I must emphasise that it is vital that you aspire to being a remarkable person yourself ... or else you will not succeed in ridding yourself of your sense of identity. This is very important, because people can put themselves down only too easily as being not good enough, not intelligent enough or not capable enough. I am not gifted or special ... I was born of ordinary parents, was sent to an ordinary state school – receiving an average education until I was fifteen years of age – took an ordinary job and worked for a living. I eventually got married and had four children and bought a house and ... in short, I was relatively normal and did all the expected things. Thus did I live my life for thirty two years according to the ‘tried and true’ methods as laid down by the countless millions of other humans that had lived before me. I tried my best to make their system work to produce the optimum result ... but to no avail. Only then did I make the first and most important movement of my own volition ... I discarded the ‘tried and true’ as being the ‘tried and failed’. (I did say ‘I was relatively normal’ because one thing, and one thing alone, stood out that distinguished me from whomsoever else I met: I wanted to know – as an actuality – just what it was to be a human being here on this planet, as this body, in this life-time.) Eighteen years ago I looked – actually looked for the first time – at the trees and the mountains and the rivers and the oceans and the sky and the clouds ... and the stars at night ... and just knew that this enormous construct called the universe was not ‘set up’ for us humans to be forever forlorn in with only scant moments of reprieve. It was all too big, too enormous, too magnificent and too marvellous to be forever a ‘vale of tears’. I realised there and then that it was not and could not ever be some ‘sick cosmic joke’ that we all had to endure and ‘make the best of’. I felt foolish that I had believed for thirty two years that the wisdom of the world I had inherited – the human world that I was born into – was set in stone. This foolish feeling allowed me to get in touch with my dormant naiveté, which is the closest thing one has that resembles actual innocence, and activate it with a naive enthusiasm to undo all the conditioning and brainwashing that I had been subject to. Then when I looked into myself and at all the people around and saw the sorrow and malice of humankind I could not stop. I knew that I had just devoted myself to the task of setting myself and thus humankind free of impurity and imperfection ... I willingly dedicated my life to this most exemplary cause. It is so delicious to devote oneself whole-heartedly – the ‘boots and all’ approach I called it then – to something so eminently worthwhile as invoking and actualising purity and perfection here on earth. Purity is an actual condition, intrinsic to the perfection of the infinitude of this universe ... the only one we have. A human being can tap into this purity by pure intent. Pure intent can be activated with sincere attention paid to the state of naiveté. To be naive is to be virginal, unaffected, unselfconsciously artless – in short: ingenuous. Naiveté is a much-maligned word, having the common assumption that it implies gullibility. Nevertheless, to be naive means to be simple and unsophisticated. Pride is derived from an intellect inured to naive innocence; to such an intellect, to be guileless appears to be gullible, stupid. In actuality, one has to be gullible to be sophisticated, to be wise in the ways of the real world. The ‘worldly-wise’ realists are not in touch with the purity of innocence; they readily obey the peremptory decrees of the cultured sophisticates. A sample of such decrees are: ‘I didn’t come down in the last shower’, or ‘I wasn’t born yesterday’, or ‘You’ve got to be tough to survive in the real world’, or ‘It’s dog eat dog out there’ ... and so on. Such people are said to have ‘lost their innocence’. Human beings have not ‘lost their innocence’ – they never had it in the first place. Innocence is something entirely new; it has never existed in human beings before. It is an evolutionary break-through to come upon innocence. It is a mutation of the human mind. Naiveté is a necessary precursor to invoke the condition of innocence. One surely has to be naive to contemplate the profound notion that this universe is benign, friendly. One needs to be naive to think that this universe has an inherent imperative for well-being to flourish; that it has a built-in benevolence available to one who is artless, without guile. To the realist – the ‘worldly-wise’ – this appears like utter foolishness. After all, life is a ‘vale of tears’ and one must ‘make the best of a bad situation’ because one ‘can’t change human nature’; and therefore ‘you have to fight for your rights’. This derogatory advice is endlessly forthcoming; the put-down of the universe goes on ad nauseam, wherever one travels throughout the world. This universe is so enormous in size – infinity being as enormous as it can get – and so magnificent in its scope, how on earth could anyone believe for a minute that it is all here for humans to be forever miserable in? It is foolishness of the highest order to believe it to be so. Surely, one can have confidence in a universe so grandly complex, so marvellously intricate, so wonderfully excellent. How could all this be some ‘ghastly mistake’? To believe it all to be some ‘sick joke’ is preposterous, for such an attitude cuts one off from the perfection of this pure moment of being alive here in this fantastic and actual universe. You write: ‘let me ask if something can be done’ about ridding oneself of the ‘internal-I’. Something can definitely be achieved in regards to the socially-imposed identity ... one can readily do something about it if one is suitably motivated to do so. You write: ‘is it a question of time or simply more reasoning or more information?’ ... to which I say yes to all three, but also something far more important than that. If you have followed what I have written so far, you will see it is a question of attitude, predilection, disposition and intent, because one can bring about a benediction from that perfection and purity which is the essential character of the universe by contacting and cultivating one’s original state of naiveté. Naiveté, as I have said, is that intimate aspect of oneself that is the nearest approximation that one can have of actual innocence – there is no innocence so long as there is a self – and constant awareness of naive intimacy results in a continuing benediction. This blessing allows a connection to be made between oneself and the perfection and purity of the infinitude of this physical universe. To reiterate: this connection I call pure intent. Pure intent endows one with the ability to operate and function safely in society without the incumbent social identity with its ever-vigilant conscience. Thus reliably rendered virtually innocent and relatively harmless by the benefaction of the perfection and purity, one can begin to dismantle the now-redundant social identity. To unilaterally relinquish one’s esteemed identity is to go in the face of all received wisdom. Any psychiatrist would readily advise against such a foolish move – they will state that one would fall into a condition of mental and emotional ill-health. They would diagnose that one is likely to suffer from a severe mental disorder – probably ‘Depersonalisation’ and ‘Derealisation’ – with its accompanying anxiety and panic attacks, resulting in the prescribing of anti-psychotropic medication and prolonged psychological counselling. To ‘lose one’s identity’ and to ‘lose contact with reality’ is considered a very serious psychiatric illness indeed. So one must proceed carefully – with the indispensable aid of pure intent – in order to dismantle, step by step, one’s accrued identity and reality. It is important to examine all the beliefs – masquerading as ‘truths’ – that one has accumulated since birth. These beliefs support and encourage the emergence of the much-prized psychological entity inhabiting the psyche of all human beings. This apparent disembowelment is initially resisted, for not only has it never been contemplated before, it also goes against the egocentric, ethnocentric and anthropocentric mind-sets that all humans have been endowed with since time immemorial. It is a radical break with the past ... something akin to an evolutionary mutation, so personally seditious is its revolutionary opening gambit. In order to mutate from the self-centred licentiousness to a self-less sensualism, one must have confidence in the ultimate beneficence of the universe. This confidence – this surety – can be gained from a peak experience, wherein ‘I’, the psychological entity, temporarily ceases to exist and reality becomes actuality. This is called a pure consciousness experience (PCE). Life is briefly seen to be already perfect and innocent ... it is a life-changing experience. One is physically experiencing first-hand, albeit momentarily, this actual world – a spontaneously benevolent world – that antedates the ‘normal’ world. The ‘normal’ world is commonly known as ‘the real world’ or ‘reality’. Repeated peak experiences can be brought about on virtually a daily basis with constant application of pure contemplation of the actual. In pure contemplation, ‘I’, the identity, cease seeing and seeing takes place of its own accord ... this is called apperception, which is defined as ‘the mind’s perception of itself’. Then this actual world – this benign world – that the ‘real world’ was superimposed over, becomes apparent ... except that ‘I’ am not here to experience it. ‘I’ can never be here in this actual world for ‘I’ am an interloper, an alien in psychic possession of the body. ‘I’ do not belong here. All this is impossible to imagine which is why it is essential to be confident that the actual world does exist. This confidence is born out of knowing, which is derived from the PCE in the peak experience, and is an essential ingredient to ensure success. One does not have to generate confidence oneself – as the religions require of one with regard to their blind faith – the purity of the actual world bestows this confidence upon one. The experience of purity is a benefaction. Out of this blessing comes that pure intent, which will consistently guide one through the travails of daily life, gently ushering in an increasing ease and generosity of character. With this growing magnanimity, one becomes more and more anonymous, more and more self-less. With this expanding altruism one becomes less and less self-centred, less and less egocentric and soul-oriented. Eventually the moment comes wherein something definitive happens, physically, inside the brain and ‘I’ am nevermore. ‘Being’ ceases – it was only a psychic apparition anyway – and malice and sorrow are gone, forever, in one human being. So yes, you are correct where you say: ‘all this is one happening in the now’, for only this moment in time and this place in space are actual here and now. This time and place is the arena wherein the infinitude – the eternity and infinity of time and space – of this physical universe becomes apparent. Thus I am the universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being. This on-going experience is ambrosial, to say the least. Does all this go some way to explicating just what the ‘gap’ is where you wrote: ‘the gap between knowing that all sense of identity is a construct ... and actual dissolution’? Because yes, it is indeed possible to ‘experience it like that’ ... everyday, for the rest of your life. (Richard, List A, No. 26). RESPONDENT: When I try to comprehend it I get this meaning: The burning discontent is necessary to attain virtual freedom, but after once one is in virtual freedom, the burning discontent is no more possible (and no more necessary). Do you agree? RICHARD: In my personal experience in 1981, once I was fully launched on the one-way trip to freedom, discontent was left far, far behind. I said YES to life, the universe and what it was to be a human being – I embraced death – and the core resentment (as epitomised in the phrase ‘I didn’t ask to be born’) was eliminated upon the realisation that perfection was already always here ... now. I became as happy and as harmless as was humanly possible for twenty three hours and fifty nine minutes of the day ... this state is what the term ‘virtual freedom’ was drawn out of. At the time I considered that I had discovered the secret of living life successfully ... and boy oh boy, was I in for a surprise when it became apparent that there was more to come. Much, much more. ‘I’ did not know what it was to die ... in the peak experiences ‘I’ merely went into abeyance. RESPONDENT: Now the next question. If there is no discontent and one is happy most of the time in virtual freedom what keeps one still going towards actual freedom? RICHARD: Curiosity, fascination and what amounts to an obsession with finding out about oneself, about life, about the universe and about just what it is to be a human being living in the world as it is with people as they are. All this and more becomes obvious the further one proceeds ... one is inextricably drawn towards one’s destiny. It is intrinsically impelling, exciting, exhilarating, thrilling ... one is living life fully. And it keeps on becoming better and better ... one is constantly amazed at the magical quality of life itself. One experiences an ever-increasing excellence again and again ... and asks: ‘How can best get better?’ Yet it does ... and there is more ... and more ... and more. RESPONDENT: If your answer is the memory of peak experience, then I would say that even in virtual freedom one is discontent with the life as it is, maybe at more subtle level, and then this is no virtual freedom and hence the logical flaw. RICHARD: Yet ‘virtual’ means ‘almost as good as’ or ‘nearly the same as’ or ‘in effect comparable to’ and so on. Therefore, in regards to what is or is not a virtual freedom, watch out that you do not make it indistinguishable from an actual freedom or else it will result in the ‘all or nothing’ dilemma of spiritual achievement ... and lead to that flagitious ‘cutting the other down to size’ syndrome so prevalent in that loving and compassionate world. I leave it up to the person involved to decide for themselves where they are at along their path – the ‘twenty three hours fifty nine minutes (99%)’ is an arbitrary figure, by the way, and I decline to be a probity policeman for anyone – and if one is not scrupulously honest with oneself then just who is one fooling? Nevertheless, I cannot recall any discontent whatsoever in 1981 ... yet I wished to go all the way. I would not settle for second-best – having experienced the best on numerous occasions – and there was also the pressing matter of all the suffering of my fellow human beings. All the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides had impinged themselves indelibly upon my consciousness and provided the necessary ‘back pressure’ to encourage me to proceed poste-haste. Also, logic has its uses in mathematical and mechanical areas of life – human’s creature comforts are dependent upon it – but I have yet to meet a logician who enjoys and appreciates virtually each moment again and essentially lives in peace and harmony with a person of the other gender, day after day after day, through the application of logic to the problem of the human condition. Sensible reason and naiveté coupled with commonsense – practical, down-to-earth, sensitive rationality – triumphs over logic any day. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 4, 26 March 1998). ALAN: Writing this, I am having more and more difficulty in differentiating between the two – if I am in an ASC (assuming it to be ‘me’ as ‘being’) how do I know – as stated above, there is no way for ‘me’ to see myself ‘being’. The only yardstick, for me, appears to be whether I am experiencing Divine Love and Compassion – is that the only difference? RICHARD: Not only Love Agapé‚ and Divine Compassion – they are the obvious yardsticks – but, more importantly: identity. This is why I sent you that description by the young Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti some time ago. Viz.: • ‘I felt acute pain at the nape of my neck. There was a man mending the road; that man was myself; the pickaxe he held was myself; the very stone which he was breaking up was a part of me; the tender blade of grass was my very being, and the tree beside the man was myself. Just then there was a car passing by at some distance; I was the driver, the engine, and the tyres. I was in everything, or rather everything was in me, inanimate and animate, the mountain, the worm, and all breathing things’. I had numerous experiences of a similar nature myself ... and spent eleven years in an altered state of consciousness. I also had other experiences that I overlooked in favour of these ‘I am everything and Everything is Me’ experiences. If I had not been taken in by delusions of grandeur I would have paid particular notice of experiences like this one: • [Richard]: I remember the first time I experienced being the senses only during a PCE. There was no identity as ‘I’ thinking or ‘me’ feeling ... simply this body ambling across a grassy field in the early-morning light. A million dew-drenched spider-webs danced a sparkling delight over the verdant vista and a question that had been running for some weeks became experientially answered: without the senses I would not know that I exist as this flesh and blood body. And further to this: I was the senses and the senses were me. With this came an awareness of being conscious – apperception – rather than ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious. (Richard, General Correspondence, Alan2, 1 August 1998a). Without any identity (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) the distance or separation between ‘me’ and ‘my’ senses – and thus the external world – disappears. To be the senses as a bare awareness is apperception, a pure consciousness experience of the world as-it-is. Because there is no ‘I’ as an observer – a little person inside one’s head – to have sensations, I am the sensations. There is nothing except the series of sensations which happen ... not to ‘me’ but just happening ... moment by moment ... one after another. To be these sensations, as distinct from having them, engenders the most astonishing sense of freedom and release. Consequently, I am living in peace and tranquillity; a meaningful peace and tranquillity. Life is intrinsically purposeful, the reason for existence lies openly all around. Being this very air I live in, I am constantly aware of it as I breathe it in and out; I see it, I hear it, I taste it, I smell it, I touch it, all of the time. It never goes away ... nor has it ever been away. ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ was standing in the way of meaning. When narcissism packs its bags and slinks out of the door ... then I am this physical universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being. As me, this universe can be intelligent ... there is no ‘Intelligence’ behind this universe creating and running the whole show. ALAN: From what I have read it appears others experience anger, while in an ASC. When I was in what I called an ASC, I could not possibly have experienced annoyance, never mind anger, and I think you said you had not experienced anger since your enlightenment in 1980? RICHARD: That is correct – inasmuch that full-blown anger never arose – however minor annoyance did ... which is another area where native intelligence made me question enlightenment. I have located the following exchange: [Richard]: ‘Just look at all the recorded instances of anger in the many Masters that have paraded their stuff throughout history. Just look at all the religious wars that follow the emergence of any charismatic saviour. Why do you think they all have to advocate pacifism, if they can actually trust their precious state of ‘being’ so much, eh? [Konrad]: ‘Right! And that is why I do not follow that course. I am angry at times, and I do not deny it. I deny, however, that enlightenment is a way to end all anger once and for all. I consider that nonsense. [Richard]: ‘So do I ... the altered state of consciousness called spiritual enlightenment does not end anger. An actual freedom does, however, which is one of the many reason why it is superior to enlightenment. I may be a lot of things, but I am not silly. I lived enlightenment for eleven years and irritation came up in me four times (once peeved and three time annoyed). These days I do not even get peeved ... and have not done so since 1992. [endquote]. Now, four times in eleven years may not sound like much ... but it was enough to make me question. Also, there were three or four ‘bleed-throughs’ of fear from the sublimated passions in that period ... the evidence indicating the transcendent nature of the ASC became too much to ignore. I owe a lot to my companion at the time for her persistence in endeavouring to ‘unmask the guru’ (this is her verbatim – and very apt – terminology at the time). ALAN: Also I did not have any urges to stop doing anything – from eating meat to enjoying sex – on the contrary, all such things became a pure delight. What caused you to became vegetarian, vegan and, ultimately, fruitarian? RICHARD: That was all in an effort to ‘purify myself’ according to the wisdom of the ages that I was busily studying at the time. Once again, there was something ‘amiss’ about the state of being I was living. I called it ‘Absolute Freedom’ – and denied being enlightened – because there was something different about it that did not quite fit what I was reading. Consequently, I initially reasoned that I was doing something wrong ... and set out to correct the fault by whatever means the Saints and Sages advocated. Eventually I wound up on an uninhabited island ... I was homeless and itinerant; single and celibate; no worldly possessions other than what I could carry; no family ties; no drugs whatsoever including tea, coffee, sugar or salt; no ambitions or desires ... in other words: whatever was traditionally seen as an impediment to freedom I discarded. It was on that island that I first experienced the ‘Greater Beyond’ (as I called actual freedom then). It was then I discovered that it was Spiritual Enlightenment that was at fault ... and that I could ‘purify’ myself via these ‘Tried and True’ means until the moon turned blue to no avail. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Alan, #pce, 13 December 1998). RESPONDENT: Richard. Isn’t it possible then, that what you are now, is pure God? A plain, brief and straight-forward response appreciated, if you know that is. RICHARD: Yes, I do know. Plainly, briefly and straight-forwardly ... no, I am not ‘pure God’ . RESPONDENT: Richard. I’m surprised by your remark. How is it that you know you are not God??? RICHARD: I know that I am not God for I was for eleven years – from September 1981 until October 1992 ... whereupon it became obvious to me that I was living in a massive delusion. In 1980 I had a peak experience wherein I saw that everything was already perfect as-it-is and that ‘I’, the psychological entity, was standing in the way ... and no-one else was preventing me from achieving the ultimate goal of being a free human. In that peak experience I saw ‘myself’. ‘I’ was the end product of society and nothing more. ‘I’ was an emotional construct of all of the beliefs, values, morals, ethics, mores, customs, traditions, doctrines, ideologies and so on. ‘I’ was nothing but an emotional-mental fabrication ... a sense of identity with its conscience. I also saw that ‘I’ was a lost, lonely, frightened – and a very, very cunning – entity. Just as those Christians who are said to be possessed by an evil entity and need to be exorcised, I saw that every human being had been endowed with a social entity ... and it was called being normal. To say that I was amazed rather fails to adequately describe the feeling of relief that after all there was a solution to the human situation here on earth. I was ecstatic. That proved to be my undoing – as far as an actual freedom is concerned. Ecstasy led to euphoria and euphoria led to bliss. In the blissful state I manifested and became Love Agapé which led to an emanation of Divine Compassion for all living beings who were suffering and in sorrow by virtue of the fact that they were ignorant of the Divine Order of things ... for an Absolute had been revealed to me in that Love and Compassion – it was that Love Agapé and Divine Compassion – and I had been chosen to bring this self-same Love and Compassion to earth. I was to go through a process, when I returned to normal, that would result in my being well-prepared to usher in this new age of peace and prosperity to all humankind. As this revelation continued, I saw a new ‘me’ coming into existence ... a grand ‘Me’, a glorious ‘Me’ and a spiritually fulfilling ‘Me’. I was the Saviour Of Humankind! (As all this was happening, a passing thought occurred to me, which was briefly contemplated ... then banished: Who or what was it that was observing these two ‘me’s – the social ‘me’ and the grand ‘Me’? This trifling question was to be of immense benefit years later when I realised that I was living in a delusion and that there was an actual freedom lying beyond ... but I jump ahead of myself.) Three nights later I had a similar experience and what I had witnessed on the first revelation was confirmed. Then nothing untoward happened for the next five months – this had been in late July 1980 – until on the first day of January in 1981 when I began a ‘process’ that was to last for nine months, culminating in my Divine Awakening on a fine September morning. The ‘process’ was both prosaic and extraordinary: on the one hand I began undoing all the social conditioning that I had been subject to since birth and on the other hand I generated love for all and sundry. I examined all the social traditions and customs etc., one by one, and released myself from their iron grip. I diminished hate and anger and sadness and loneliness by surrendering to and living in love and oneness ... which is the best that a normal human could do by virtue of the socialisation process. I moved in and out of Sacred States of Heavenly Bliss and Love Agapé and Divine Compassion and immersed myself in the entire ‘process’ with dedication and resolution. I adopted the principle of pacifism (‘turn the other cheek’) and developed Goodness of the highest order. I cleansed and purified myself of all impure thoughts and deeds and worked both hard and industriously in my daily work. I practised honesty and humility in all my interactions with other people and pondered the significance and ramifications of the Divine Order. I totally believed in and had supreme faith in The Absolute and its ability to bring about the Peace On Earth so long promised. That I was to play the central role in this Divine Plan no longer came as a surprise to me, as I began to realise that I had long yearned to be part of the Salvation Process. I understood that I had to die and be reborn and, consequently, went into a catatonic state that resulted in my being carted off to hospital and kept under intensive care for four hours until I came out of it. I was never to be the same again, as Divinity had been working on me whilst I was catatonic and from that date forward I was permanently in a state of human bliss and love ... I could do no wrong. About six weeks prior to 6th September 1981 I had a revelation that I was going to really die this time, not become catatonic again, and that I was to prepare myself for it. I mustered all of my faith and resolution, renewed all of my trust and dedication, and awaited the day. The night before I could hardly maintain myself as a thinking, functioning human being as a blistering hot and cold burning sensation crept up the back of my spine and entered into the base of my neck just under the brain itself. I went to bed in desperation and frustration at my apparent inability to be good enough to carry this ‘process’ through to its supreme conclusion. The next morning I awoke and all was calm and quiet. Expressing relief at the cessation of the intensifying ‘process’ that had reached an unbearable level the night before, I lay back on my pillows to watch the rising sun (my bedroom faced east) through the large bedroom windows. All of a sudden I was gripped with the realisation that this was the moment! I was going to die! An intense fear raced throughout my body, rising in crescendo until I could scarcely take any more. As it reached a peak of stark terror, I realised that I had nothing to worry about and that I was to go with the ‘process’. In an instant all fear left me and I travelled deep into the depths of my very being. All of a sudden I was sitting bolt upright, laughing, as I realised that this that was IT! was such a simple thing ... all I had to do was die ... and that was the easiest thing in the world to do. Then the thought of leaving my family and friends overwhelmed me and I was thrust back on the bed sobbing. Then I was bolt upright once more laughing my head off ... then I was back on the pillows sobbing my heart out ... upright, laughing ... pillows sobbing ... upright laughing ... pillows sobbing. At the fifth or sixth time something turned over in the base of my brain – in the top of the brain-stem. I likened it to turning over a L.P. record in order to play the other side ... with the vital exception that it would never, ever turn back again. It was over. I had arrived. I had become Awakened to the Greater Reality. I was Love Agapé and Divine Compassion ... there was no separation between me and The Absolute. I was It. I had a Divine Sense of Mission to spread The Word and I embarked on fulfilling my Sacred Duty, gathering some disciples on the way, until 1984. Then I started to question just what I was doing and just what had happened to me. Something seemed to be wrong ... this had all been done before by other Masters and Messiahs, Saints and Sages, Avatars and Saviours, to no avail. In fact, instead of bringing Love and Peace, they had left in their wake much bloodshed and hatred ... and I was one of them! Accordingly I travelled to India to find out for myself exactly what was amiss with this whole Enlightenment business by meeting some of these hallowed Gurus and imbibing the centuries of Eastern Spiritual Tradition for myself, instead of merely reading about it in books. It was to take me eleven years to get out of this massive delusion I was living in and go beyond it to arrive at where I am today. It was eleven years of coming to terms with the understanding that what I was living was a delusion of grandeur ... and that it was what every human being believed in, in some way, shape or form ... but that is another story. Today, I am no longer an Enlightened Master living in an Exalted State of Being ... I am me-as-this-body only, a fellow human being who has no sorrow or malice whatsoever to transcend; hence I am both happy and harmless. I am what I was on that fateful night in 1980 when I asked the question: ‘Who or what was it that was observing these two ‘me’s – the ego ‘me’ and the grand ‘Me’?’ I am these sense organs in operation: this seeing is me, this hearing is me, this tasting is me, this touching is me, this smelling is me, and this thinking is me. Whereas ‘I’, the identity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain. Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the actual world ... the world as-it-is ... by ‘my’ very presence. Any identity, such as ‘I am God’, is a delusion. (Richard, List a, No. 15a, No. 12). MARTIN: Is the idea that if I’m sincere (as an guileless) that I have nothing to hide, and I can give up my hiding place? RICHARD: (...) In other words, how will you get to know yourself, intimately, unless you reveal yourself as-you-are in reality? Speaking personally, the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body circa 1980-1981 first began finding out just who ‘he’ was, as-he-was in reality, via the guise of being ‘an eccentric artist’ (a socially-acceptable way of being a bit of an oddball) due to the total lack of any precedent and, therefore, of any praxeological publications. (The first of the subsequent millions of words nowadays freely available on The Actual Freedom Trust web site had no public existence prior to 1997). It was such fun! And the more eccentric ‘he’ became – as more and more oddball facets of who ‘he’ really was, as-he-was in reality, emerged into play – the more ‘the others’ lapped it up! Talk about being encouraged by one’s peers to “just be yourself”, eh? Ha! What a hoot it all was – and quite the ‘Drama Queen’ on occasion as well – especially that ‘Latest and Greatest Saviour of Humankind’ part ... it would take some doing to top that (in the ‘oddball’ stakes) no matter what else you have hidden away there. * MARTIN: Bearing in mind I’m not in a relationship and so can’t give that as a reason, can I be fully sincere/ intimate and still say ‘no’? RICHARD: The approach which spontaneously came about during my itinerant and homeless years – which turned out to also be my single and celibate years – was to never say ‘no’ but, rather, to embrace the proposals enthusiastically (there were 20+ propositions of that nature with several being of the ménage à trois variety) with the fundamental proviso that the proposer be 100% committed to going all the way, inclusive of the then-current lifestyle and livelihood, unto the superlative best. MARTIN: What would you recommend saying in these situations, as the usual reasons like ‘I don’t have romantic feelings for you’ are somewhat disingenuous / insincere as I am not looking for romantic feelings with anyone! Thanks. RICHARD: You could, of course, try telling them just what it is you are looking for (in explicit detail). Going by the experience of the egoless feeling-being already mentioned, the last ‘he’ would ever hear from those egoistical proposers in respect to their ill-thought-out proposal – those whose spiritualised ‘self’-centeredness could see but a glamorous and glorious sex-object to use for their ‘self’-justifying delectation and scorecard enhancement – was the rapidly fading sound of their pitter-pattering footsteps as they scampered for the hills. ’Tis quite amazing the effect sincerity had – the genuine article, that is, and not the feeling of earnestness more than a few mistake as being such – on those 20+ par-for-the-course occasions. (Richard, List D, Martin, #2). RESPONDENT: If they say that the fetters are cut from the root, then this means that it cannot arise anymore. RICHARD: Yes, and they are accurately describing their experience; in the fully-awakened/ fully-enlightened state there is the ongoing experiencing of all saṃyojana having been uprooted, rendered groundless, thrown away, unable to sprout again. For instance: • [Richard]: ‘With the death of ‘I’ as ego, in 1981, I abandoned my flourishing career, my alternate life-style, my self-sufficiency property in the country and commenced a barefooted, itinerant, homeless, celibate lifestyle of aimless wandering in nature: 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 ... so I know full well what I talk of via personal experience’. (Richard, List B, No. 33d, 23 January 2001) And another example: • [Richard]: ‘(...). I had whittled my worldly possessions down to three sarongs, three shirts, a cooking pot and bowl, a knife and a spoon, a bank book and a pair of nail scissors ... I was homeless, itinerant, celibate, vegan, (no spices; not even salt and pepper), no drugs (no tobacco, no alcohol; not even tea or coffee), no hair cut, no shaving, no washing other than a dip in a river or the ocean. I possessed nothing else anywhere in the world and had cut all family ties ...’. (Richard, Articles, A Brief Personal History #2) Just as a matter of related interest: when I left Australia in 1984, to fly to India via Singapore on an Indian airline, all I had was three sarongs and three home-sown shirts (plus hairbrush, passport, nail clippers and so forth) in small bag; at the baggage departure counter (in Perth, Western Australia) the attendant, a locally-born employee, somewhat mystified by my lack of luggage, took one look at my bare feet, and insisted on me purchasing footwear in order to board the aeroplane, as per some rule, or regulation; I politely declined, he insistently insisted, I politely declined again, he most insistently insisted, I once again politely declined and the impasse was only broken when a senior airline executive, an Indian woman in Indian garb, came out from her office, took one long look at me (long hair and long beard, full-length sarong, home-sown shirt and bare feet) and clasped her hands together Indian style, bowed her head respectfully, then gestured me gracefully to proceed on through to the departure lounge and, soon, out and on board the aeroplane. Moreover, I had an eighteen-hour stopover in Singapore; in those days hippie-type men with tattered jeans, long hair, beards, etcetera, were banned from entering – an outright crack-down had been taking place for some time – yet, upon approaching the checkout doorway the attendant deferentially waved me through without me having to pause even; I spent the day sight-seeing the CBD, strolling hither and thither as was my wont, and was never approached let alone accosted. There are some distinct advantages to being spiritually enlightened/ mystically awakened when in eastern countries. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 32, 19 December 2012). * RICHARD: Yes, up until the ‘total annihilation/ complete oblivion’ episodes, on some uninhabited islands in the tropics off the north-eastern Australian seaboard, my ongoing experiencing, night and day, of full-awakenment/ full-enlightenment was indeed being totally free of not only *all* of the above saṃyojana but others which appear elsewhere in the Pāli Canon as well. And it was those ‘uninhabited islands’ episodes, of going beyond awakenment/ enlightenment, which experientially gave the impetus for further investigation/ deeper penetration into that highly-prized and much-exalted state of being. [...]. [No] saṃyojana are ever actually ‘uprooted, rendered groundless, thrown away, unable to sprout again’ in the state of full-awakenment/ full-enlightenment – despite that being their ongoing experiencing – as the transcendent nature of that highly-prized and much-exalted state of being is such that the negative emotions/ passions have been sublimated (and not extirpated). In fact, it is the very reason why the adage ‘The lotus has its roots in mud’ has such an immediate and intuitive appeal. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 32, 25 December 2012). RICHARD: Now, No. 14 is a self-confessed solipsist and therefore everything he says about anything at all is intrinsically consistent with whatever there is ... within his ‘I Am It’ philosophy. (Mr. Leo Tolstoy went through a period of solipsism and wrote at length about his experience which I personally found edifying when I experienced a period of extreme subjectivity whilst living in the Himalayas in 1984). Thus, one wonders who it is that he thinks that he writes to on this List ... because the recipients do not actually exist in solipsism. This post you are now reading has no facticity and No. 31 and No. 20 and Richard are nothing but fragments of his imagination ... we have no inherent existence. Therefore, what is he doing by – in effect – talking to himself (and this he is, be there no doubt about that, because he often says that he is ‘glad to be around as you’)? The faintest of clues may very well be emerging in that he has just recently allowed that schizophrenia is actual ... although ‘possibly not internally consistent’. (Richard, List B, No. 14, 22 July 1998). RESPONDENT: I disagree again. Merely because you are a figment of my imagination does not mean I cannot discover anything interesting by talking to you. RICHARD: I had an experience of solipsism back in 1984 (I did not know the word then and called it ‘extreme subjectivity’) which lasted for three days. In such an experience it is of no use to ask anyone something – or check anything against anything – because one is creating everything and anyone. Thus if you ask me something, I will only answer whatever you make me answer (as you are creating me and my answers) hence nothing is verifiable in any meaningful way. It is an alarming experience to have, by the way. Subsequently I discovered that other peoples have experienced and written about ‘extreme subjectivity’ and that it has a name (solipsism) ... Mr. Leo Tolstoy was one such person that I remember reading about. Thus you would not ‘discover anything interesting by talking’ to either me or anyone else ... other than the experience itself is fascinating. (Richard, List B, No. 38, 26 September 1999). RESPONDENT: G’day Richard, How do I learn and discover the essence of who ‘I’ am? Thank you. RICHARD: G’day No. 11, In a word: intuitively (aka feeling yourself out subjectively). Also, much use can be made of what is known as hypnagogic (pre-dormient) and hypnopompic (post-dormient) states which occur, respectively, in the drowsiness stage of intermediate consciousness preceding sleep or in the semiconscious state of transitional consciousness preceding waking ... of the two the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago found the pre-dormient state the easier to manifest. However, as it was the hypnopompic state which revealed the essence of who ‘I’ am – the precise nature of ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself) – an anecdote from that period may throw some light on the matter. I was on a coastal sea voyage, making a northerly passage under sail in a trimaran I then owned, off the north-eastern seaboard of Australia when a storm came up from the south late in the day. Rather than make a run for the port I was heading for under a storm jib alone (with all that entails) I chose to anchor overnight in the lee of a nearby island until the storm blew itself out. A perusal of the appropriate chart showed a narrow bay, between two jagged coral reefs, with a tiny beach at its head and the notation ‘fair-weather anchorage’. I figured, were the worst to come about, I could beach my yacht (an advantage multihull yachts have over monohull yachts) and weather the storm out thataway. I negotiated the two jagged coral reefs, dropped anchor several boat-lengths short of what was actually a miniscule beach, and retired below for the evening. I slept soundly, despite the storm howling all about and the yacht pitching and tossing at anchor, only to emerge from deep sleep into a crystal-clear fully-lucid hypnopompic state just after midnight. (Please note that it was, of course, the ‘I’ who was hypnopompic). In that crystal-clear fully-lucid hypnopompic state ‘I’ was able to penetrate deeply into ‘myself’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself) – or, rather, the penetration took place via ‘my’ full acquiescence – and there, in the centre of all the feelings swirling around, the essence of who ‘I’ am lay gorgeously exposed ... not all that unlike a beautiful rosy pearl, nestled coyly amidst the delicate fleshy tissue of its host, in its shimmering nacreous shell. Except that the essence of who ‘I’ am was a void (and not a ‘thing’ like a pearl is) so the analogy of the void at the centre of whirlpool of water – which is the whirling water in motion – is more apt (albeit not conveying the ethereal radiant beauty of the rosy pearl analogy). Or, in other words, the essence of who ‘I’ am is akin to the calm, still centre of a swirling cyclone/ hurricane/ typhoon. The swirling air/ whirling water is, of course, all the feelings – all of the emotions/ passions – which ‘I’ am comprised of (as in ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’). * At that point, as the storm howled even louder and the yacht lurched sluggishly at anchor, I was fully awake in an instant; sitting up and swinging my legs to the edge of the bunk I stood up ... knee-deep in seawater! Now, when something like that happens in a house one can quickly discern that one’s home is being flooded; on a ship at sea, however, it can mean only one thing ... to wit: one’s home is sinking. But, all the while I was starting the auxiliary engine (mostly underwater) and hauling in the anchor (getting thoroughly soaked) and somehow driving the water-logged trimaran up onto the miniscule beach (unseeable in the pitch black night) without dashing to pieces on the enclosing jagged reefs, that penetration into the essence of who ‘I’ am became indelibly etched into the memory banks. And, as ‘I’ knew exactly who ‘I’ was, that very knowledge was in itself empowering (to use the jargon) and thus contributed enormously to ‘my’ eventual demise. Ain’t life grand! (Richard, List D, No. 11, 16 November 2009) * RESPONDENT: Hi Richard You write: [Richard]: ‘In that crystal-clear fully-lucid hypnopompic state ‘I’ was able to penetrate deeply into ‘myself’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself) – or, rather, the penetration took place via ‘my’ full acquiescence – and there, in the centre of all the feelings swirling around, the essence of who ‘I’ am lay gorgeously exposed ... not all that unlike a beautiful rosy pearl, nestled coyly amidst the delicate fleshy tissue of its host, in its shimmering nacreous shell.’ (Richard, List D, No. 11, 16 November 2009) Would you say that this experience of yours could have been a hallucinatory state which you interpreted according to the fundamental thrust of your seeking, as is common in dream-emergent states? I realize that the last part (after the ellipses in the above sentence of yours) is a metaphor, but I cannot help but think that the ‘I’ is such an inchoate and slippery entity (or void) that to actually see its essence and non-existence in the way you mention could have been due to your persistent desire to look for it in a particular way over an extended period of time, fuelled partly by a memorable insight already in place that there is no ‘me’ or emotional ‘being’ in actuality. In other words, I suspect that your realization (in my words), that the ‘I’ am the felt illusory center of the eddy of feelings and passions, might have been already there in some embryonic form, which embryonic realization then enabled you to see it and recognize it with your own eyes (as it were) on that fateful day. RICHARD: G’day No. 2, So as to put it into perspective: it was a response to being asked how to learn and discover the essence of who ‘I’ am, and not who ‘I’ am in general (social-self + ego-self + soul/ spirit-self), and my anecdotal reply refers to what took place the sixth year (1987) of spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment. Prior to the penetration deep into ‘myself’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself) there had been no pre-existing model, not even embryonic, of such a nature to have insinuated itself into that gorgeous exposure of ‘my’ glorious essence. Indeed, the only pre-existing model (per favour my second wife in the period before that penetration) was in the nature of a dot in the centre of a circle; the dot represented essence and the circle was representative of (self-protective) egoic activity. Because you specifically mention ‘a memorable insight already in place that there is no ‘me’ or emotional ‘being’ in actuality’ it must be stressed that the penetration did not reveal that at all; what lay exposed (as in completely unprotected) was the essence of ‘me’ in all ‘my’ glory ... beautiful, radiant, resplendent and unquestionably worthy of the utmost adoration, worship and veneration. (Hence my lustrous pearl analogy; the eddy analogy is for void, in contrast to thing, as the essence of who ‘I’ am is formless). Kings and Emperors and Sages and Seers alike tremble at the rare honour bestowed only on a graced few, to prostrate before that sacred effulgence, upon choice revelation of its almighty presence. For instance: [Ms. Pupul Jayakar]: ‘... the feeling of presence was overpowering, and soon my voice stopped. Krishnaji turned to me, ‘Do you feel It? I could prostrate to It?’ His body was trembling as he spoke of the presence that listened. ‘Yes, I can prostrate to this, that is here’. Suddenly he turned and left us, walking alone to his room’. (page 364; Jayakar, Pupul: ‘Krishnamurti – A Biography’; Harper & Row; San Francisco; 1986). (Richard, List D, No. 2, 17 November 2009) RICHARD: Of all the books I read, the one that was most informative for me was his pencil-written diary spanning six weeks, where profound ‘otherness’ events were happening for him. (‘Krishnamurti’s Journal’; J. Krishnamurti; Published by HarperCollins; ISBN: 0-06-064841-4; 100 pp). It was the only book I initially took with me when I went through a time I call my ‘puritan period’. I eventually whittled my worldly possessions down to three sarongs, three shirts, a cooking pot and bowl, a knife and a spoon, a bank book and a pair of nail scissors ... but for eight months or so that was my only reading material (I then gave the book to a ‘Krishnamurtiite’ I met along the way in the Himalayas). My experiences on an uninhabited island in the tropics off the north-eastern Australian seaboard came after being in India: there was a group of islands where I stayed for the best part of three months in total silence, on my own, speaking to no one at all and moving from island to island at whim. It was towards the end of the period when I was homeless, itinerant, celibate, vegan, (no spices; not even salt and pepper), no drugs (no tobacco, no alcohol; not even tea or coffee), no hair cut, no shaving, no washing other than a dip in a river or the ocean. I possessed nothing else anywhere in the world and had cut all family ties ... whatever I could eliminate from my life that was an encumbrance and an attachment, I had let go of. In other words: whatever was traditionally seen as an impediment to freedom I discarded. It was there I finally discovered that it was Spiritual Enlightenment that was at fault and that I could ‘purify’ myself via these ‘Tried and True’ means until the moon turned blue ... to no avail. The first of these experiences occurred at maybe three in the morning (I had no watch) and was accompanied by a sense of dread the likes of which I had never experienced even in a war-zone – made all the more acute because I had not experienced fear for four years (I was living in a state of Divine Compassion and Love Agapé which protected me from malice and the underlying fear). The condition I experienced was of the nature of some ‘Great Beyond’ (I have to put it in capitals because that is how I experienced it at the time) and it was of the nature of which has always been ascribed, in all the spiritual/ mystical writings I had read, as being ‘That’ which one merges with at physical death when one ‘quits the body’. Sometimes known as ‘The Ocean of Oneness’ or ‘Mahasamadhi’ or ‘Parinirvana’. It seemed so extreme that the physical body must surely die for the attainment of it. To put it into a physical analogy, it was as if I were to gather up my meagre belongings, eradicate all marks of my stay on the island, and paddle away over the horizon, all the while not knowing whence I go ... and vanish without a trace, never to be seen again. As no one on the mainland knew where I was, no one would know where I had gone. In fact, I would become as extinct as the dodo and with no skeletal remains. The autological self by whatever name would cease to ‘be’, there would be no ‘spirit’, no ‘presence’, no ‘being’ at all. This was more than death of the ego, which is a major event by any definition; this was total annihilation. No ego, no soul – no self, no Self – no more Heavenly Rapture, Love Agapé, Divine Bliss and so on. Only oblivion. It was not at all attractive, not at all alluring, not at all desirable ... yet I knew I was going to do it, sooner or later, because it was the ultimate condition and herein lay the secret to the ‘Mystery of Life’. It was to take seven more years to eventuate ... but that is another story. (Richard, List B, No. 19d, 3 April 2000). * As all this and more fitted my experience, I found it imperative to investigate ... experientially. 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 by going beyond Spiritual Enlightenment – which turned out to be an altered state of consciousness within the human condition – into the actuality of being here on earth in infinite space at this moment now in eternal time as this flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: Is there something more you could say; could you provide more detail about this ‘stepping out’? I would for one to like to know the details about what was in your mind; what went through your mind (or outside of your mind) while you were in total isolation on the island, and how that relates to what/ where you are now, that is if you feel so inclined to share. RICHARD: Basically it was because of my intense urge to evince and demonstrate whatever was possible for this universe to manifest that I was looking into both Universal Compassion and Love Agapé to see what they are made up off. I was busy with these matters because I seemed to be driven by some force to spread ‘The Word’ and that had never been my intention all those years ago when I first had what is known as a pure consciousness experience (PCE). This peak experience initiated my incursion into all matters metaphysical, culminating in the ‘death’ of my ego and catapulting me into the sacred. My intent back then had been to cleanse myself of all that is detrimental to personal happiness and interpersonal harmony ... in other words: peace on earth in our life-time. Instead of that rather simple ambition, I found that I was impelled on an odyssey to be the latest ‘Saviour of Humankind’ in a long list of enlightened ‘Beings’ ... and this imposition did not sit well with me, as they have all failed in their ‘Divine Work’. After something like five thousand years of recorded history, ‘humanity’ was nowhere nearer to peace and harmony than before. Indeed, because of the much-touted Love and Compassion, much Hatred and Bloodshed had followed in their wake. This abysmal fate was something I wish to avoid repeating, whatever the personal cost in terms of losing the much-prized ‘State Of ‘Being’. My diagnosis was simple: If I am driven by some force – no matter how Good that force be – then I am not actually free. (Richard, List B, No. 19d, 3 April 2000). * RESPONDENT: I’m not clear about what you are saying Richard when you say that the ultimate freedom is a state of ‘nothingness’. RICHARD: No ... it is not ‘a state of ‘nothingness’’ at all: an actual freedom from the human condition is when the identity is extinguished in its totality (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul). A spiritual freedom is when the personal identity/ contracted identity (‘I’ as ego) dissolves into the impersonal identity/ expanded identity (‘me’ as soul) and which is most often capitalised as ‘Me’ (‘I Am That’) or ‘Supreme Soul’ (‘That Thou Art’) and all those other names. What I was describing in the paragraph (further above) is how the condition which becomes apparent after the extinction of ‘me’ as soul occurs was temporarily experienced seven years before the pivotal event actually happened. Thus I was describing it in terms of the then current human understanding ... there were no other terms of reference to use at the time. That paragraph is but one paragraph out of a general description of the progression of events leading to where I am today ... a potted history or a brief story-line, as it were. It is but one of the ways that an identity can view what remains after its own demise. It is sometimes culturally viewed as ‘The Ocean of Oneness’ or ‘Mahasamadhi’ or ‘Parinirvana’ and so on. It is not a description of an actual freedom. RESPONDENT: Are you talking about the individual ‘Richard’ that is annihilated ... RICHARD: If by ‘the individual ‘Richard’’ you mean the identity inhabiting the body being annihilated ... then yes. It does not refer to physical death ... it refers to everything that one thinks one is; everything that one feels one is; everything that one instinctually knows one is. The identity in its entirety, completely and without exception, vanishes ... as if it had never been. An illusion/ delusion, in other words. RESPONDENT: ... or do you mean that ‘The Ocean of Oneness’ is annihilated ... RICHARD: It also vanishes ... for it is but a projection of ‘Me’ into ‘My’ spurious after-death timeless and spaceless and formless ... um ... [insert whatever cultural name ]. An illusory/ delusory hallucination, in other words RESPONDENT: ... into the ‘great void of nothingness’ ... RICHARD: Another institutionalised hallucination. RESPONDENT: ... a blackness, nothing, ‘non’? RICHARD: Not ‘a blackness’ no. Nothing. Zilch. Zero. Does not exist; never did exist; never will exist. RESPONDENT: I will proceed after your response. RICHARD: Please do ... this seems to have become unnecessarily complicated where it is not at all complex. It may be because mysticism has rendered the conventional meaning of ‘nothing’ (not anything, non-existent, zero, nought, nil, zilch, naught, zip, nix) into being a mysterious ‘something that is not anything’ (a full emptiness, a great void, a vast abyss). Whereas what is here after the identity vanishes ‘in toto’ is a flesh and blood body having the time of its life! (Richard, List B, No. 19d, 24 June 2000). * RICHARD: This may be an apt place to remind you that I lived for five years in what I call my ‘puritan period’: I whittled all my worldly possessions down to three sarongs, three shirts, a cooking pot and bowl, a knife and a spoon, a bank book and a pair of nail scissors ... I was homeless, itinerant, celibate, vegan, (no spices; not even salt and pepper), no drugs (no tobacco, no alcohol; not even tea or coffee), no hair cut, no shaving, no washing other than a dip in a river or the ocean. I possessed nothing else anywhere in the world and had cut all family ties ... whatever could be eliminated from my life that was an encumbrance and an attachment, I had let go of. In other words: whatever was traditionally seen as an impediment to freedom I discarded. Towards the end of that period I lived in total isolation and silence for approximately three months on uninhabited tropical islands off the north-eastern Australian seaboard ... paddling from island to island in a canoe. You are way out of your depth when it comes to the subject of enslavement, addictions and attachments. (Richard, List B, No. 19i, 26 August 2001c. RESPONDENT: So, what happened in the land from where compassion (supposedly) originated? RICHARD: What happened was the first-hand experience of the end result of thousands of years of love, compassion, intelligence and truth being touted by all the many and various saints, sages and seers ... of it being spoon-fed into the newest recruits to the human race from birth, even (or imbibed with the mother’s milk as it were) and not come at latterly via expatriate saints, sages and seers or books or tapes or mailing lists such as this. ‘Twas a sobering seeing ... they were as mad and as bad and as sad as the rest of the globe. (Richard, List B, No. 33f, 24 August 2001). * RESPONDENT: Then, why single out India for your awakening or whatever you call it? RICHARD: It was where I happened to be at the time that I saw the human condition in action beneath the cultural and/or exoteric and esoteric differences. It was in the fifth month of being on the subcontinent ... in a small hamlet, in the foothills of Uttar Pradesh, a thousand feet or so above the town of Almora, near the Nepalese/ Tibetan border, with the local deity was Kasa Devi (feminine). There had been a cumulative build-up of imprints in the months prior, of course. RESPONDENT: Not that I mind it, I am curious. What was different about India that caused your awakening, or whatever you call it? RICHARD: It was not an ‘awakening’ (the awakening into love, compassion, intelligence and truth had already occurred three or so years previously) ... it was directly seeing the human condition in action irrespective of any culture or society. What was different about India was that the whole purpose of the visit had been to see, first hand, what others had made of similar awakenings (what is generally called spiritual enlightenment). As such I doubt that it would have occurred so readily in Australia ... given that information regarding such experiences comes to the monotheistic-based Australian culture via expatriate saints, sages and seers or books or tapes or mailing lists such as this. Whereas India is steeped in the spirituality of the nature such as this Mailing List is predicated upon. (Richard, List B, No. 33f, 24 August 2001a). * RESPONDENT: ... why would any spiritual tradition, monotheistic or of any other denomination, would be necessary? Please explain your point fully. Thanks. RICHARD: Perhaps I could explain it this way: a seed was planted in India as described above (in 1984); it germinated whilst living in isolation on an uninhabited tropical island off the north-eastern Australian seaboard (in 1985); it flourished during an intimate relationship with a remarkable woman (commencing 1986); fruition came in 1992 (and it was not until 1992 that it became obvious that what I was is this flesh and blood body). There never was a realisation ... the actual became apparent of its own accord in 1992 (because of what was seen in 1984). It took this long as it was a monumental undertaking to break through maybe 3,000-5,000 years of atavistic wisdom. (Richard, List B, No. 33f, 25 August 2001). ANDREW: In retrospect, the work of breaking down the social identity preceded your recall of a pure consciousness experience ... RICHARD: As the remembrance of numerous pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s) occurred in the winter of 1980 then the major part of that circa 1978-1988 ‘turning-point’ decade – in which the identity then inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body sussed-out much of what has been going down for millennia – came afterwards. In fact, the bulk of the sussing-out took place whilst ‘he’ was egoless – and especially so during the years whilst single, celibate, itinerant and homeless (in what I have earlier reported as being ‘his’ puritan period) – as ‘his’ release from being ego-centric enabled considerable insight to take place. (Richard, List D, Andrew, 22 May 2015). RESPONDENT: The ending of sorrow is love. RICHARD: If I may point out? The ending of sorrow is not love ... sorrow is essential for compassion to flourish; without compassion, love has no genesis. Therefore, the ending of sorrow would result in love being stillborn ... and love is the antidote for malice. Without malice, love has no raison d’être. RESPONDENT: Are you writing about your experience or just assuming? RICHARD: I started to empirically encounter this towards the end of 1987 and by about mid 1988 the unfolding of experience came to its inevitable realisation ... but my investigation into compassion had begun in India in 1984 with the Buddhist ‘metta’ (loving-kindness) and ‘karuna’ (pity-compassion). Strangely enough, it was the disclosure of the intrinsically manipulative nature of love in 1987 – and ‘unconditional love’ at that – that triggered the expansion of comprehension and experiential understanding of the composition of the affective faculty ... with the concomitant growth of awareness. It was with Love Agapé being such a ‘sacred cow’ that there had initially been considerable uneasiness about a direct investigation ... hence there was a three year-long gestation period before the fact could be faced squarely. Nevertheless, it was not until 1992 that it all came to fruition ... there is a vast difference between ‘realisation’ and ‘actualisation’. (Richard, List B, No. 32, 23 May 1999). RICHARD: 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 by going beyond Spiritual Enlightenment – which turned out to be an Altered State Of Consciousness (ASC) – into the actuality of being here on earth and now in time as this flesh and blood body. This is because I did not just look to others for confirmation that I had arrived and thus rest on my laurels ... I looked into myself. <SNIP> The condition I went on to experience had the character of some ‘Great Beyond’ (I have to put it in capitals because that is how I experienced it at the time) and it was of the nature of which has always been ascribed, in all the spiritual/ mystical writings I had read, as being ‘That’ which one merges with at physical death when one ‘quits the body’. Sometimes known as ‘The Ocean of Oneness’ or ‘Mahasamadhi’ or ‘Parinirvana’. It seemed so extreme that the physical body must surely die for the attainment of it. The autological self by whatever name would cease to ‘be’, there would be no ‘spirit’, no ‘presence’, no ‘being’ at all. This was more than death of the ego, which is a major event by any definition; this was total annihilation. No ego, no soul – no self, no Self – no more Heavenly Rapture, Love Agapé, Divine Bliss and so on. Only oblivion. It was not at all attractive, not at all alluring, not at all desirable ... yet I knew I was going to do it, sooner or later, because it was the ultimate condition and herein lay the secret to the ‘Mystery of Life’. It was to take seven more years to eventuate ... but that is another story. (Richard, List C, No. 3d, 9 April 2000). RESPONDENT: Hi Richard You write: [Richard]: ‘In that crystal-clear fully-lucid hypnopompic state ‘I’ was able to penetrate deeply into ‘myself’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself) – or, rather, the penetration took place via ‘my’ full acquiescence – and there, in the centre of all the feelings swirling around, the essence of who ‘I’ am lay gorgeously exposed ... not all that unlike a beautiful rosy pearl, nestled coyly amidst the delicate fleshy tissue of its host, in its shimmering nacreous shell.’ Would you say that this experience of yours could have been a hallucinatory state which you interpreted according to the fundamental thrust of your seeking, as is common in dream-emergent states? I realize that the last part (after the ellipses in the above sentence of yours) is a metaphor, but I cannot help but think that the ‘I’ is such an inchoate and slippery entity (or void) that to actually see its essence and non-existence in the way you mention could have been due to your persistent desire to look for it in a particular way over an extended period of time, fuelled partly by a memorable insight already in place that there is no ‘me’ or emotional ‘being’ in actuality. In other words, I suspect that your realization (in my words), that the ‘I’ am the felt illusory center of the eddy of feelings and passions, might have been already there in some embryonic form, which embryonic realization then enabled you to see it and recognize it with your own eyes (as it were) on that fateful day. RICHARD: G’day No. 2, So as to put it into perspective: it was a response to being asked how to learn and discover the essence of who ‘I’ am, and not who ‘I’ am in general (social-self + ego-self + soul/ spirit-self), and my anecdotal reply refers to what took place the sixth year (1987) of spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment. Prior to the penetration deep into ‘myself’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself) there had been no pre-existing model, not even embryonic, of such a nature to have insinuated itself into that gorgeous exposure of ‘my’ glorious essence. Indeed, the only pre-existing model (per favour my second wife in the period before that penetration) was in the nature of a dot in the centre of a circle; the dot represented essence and the circle was representative of (self-protective) egoic activity. Because you specifically mention ‘a memorable insight already in place that there is no ‘me’ or emotional ‘being’ in actuality’ it must be stressed that the penetration did not reveal that at all; what lay exposed (as in completely unprotected) was the essence of ‘me’ in all ‘my’ glory ... beautiful, radiant, resplendent and unquestionably worthy of the utmost adoration, worship and veneration. (Hence my lustrous pearl analogy; the eddy analogy is for void, in contrast to thing, as the essence of who ‘I’ am is formless). Kings and Emperors and Sages and Seers alike tremble at the rare honour bestowed only on a graced few, to prostrate before that sacred effulgence, upon choice revelation of its almighty presence. For instance: [Ms. Pupul Jayakar]: ‘... the feeling of presence was overpowering, and soon my voice stopped. Krishnaji turned to me, ‘Do you feel It? I could prostrate to It?’ His body was trembling as he spoke of the presence that listened. ‘Yes, I can prostrate to this, that is here’. Suddenly he turned and left us, walking alone to his room’. (page 364; Jayakar, Pupul: ‘Krishnamurti - A Biography’; Harper & Row; San Francisco; 1986). Regards, Richard. P.S.: I had to chuckle where you asked whether it could have been a hallucinatory state as the entire phenomenon is nothing but a massive hallucination – a magnipotent delusion – from the very beginning to its absolute end. (Richard, List D, No. 2, 17 November 1999). • [Richard]: ‘I am walking along this deserted beach with a woman from the Satsang Retreat who, up until now, I did not know to speak to as the retreat is being conducted in silence ... and I have not made any effort to get to know anyone or their names. A little while before I had become aware that someone was walking some distance behind me – and moving fast as if desirous of catching up to me – so I had gradually slowed my step accordingly to allow this to happen. Now, having made contact, we are walking abreast and have moved on from discussing the shortfalls of the Satsang Retreat to the main subject of mutual interest ... freedom itself. She had become very interested in me the night before when she found out from close associate of mine that I was living the Altered State Of Consciousness that the meditators back at the Satsang Retreat were aspiring to attain to. She had read some excerpts from some of my writings and had expressed an interest in furthering an acquaintance with this ‘would-be guru’ ... as she rather cynically saw me. We do seem to have a lot in common, however, so soon enough we sit down to rest and pursue these matters in detail. After telling each other about our life stories – albeit briefly – there is a pause as we sit there looking at each other. Our conversation rapidly becomes far more personal than either of us would expect: ‘I have always wondered whether it is possible for man and woman to live together intimately; in perfect peace and harmony.’ * • [Richard]: ‘She had become very interested in me the night before when she found out from close associate of mine that I was living the Altered State Of Consciousness that the meditators back at the Satsang Retreat were aspiring to attain to. She had read some excerpts from some of my writings and had expressed an interest in furthering an acquaintance with this ‘would-be guru’ ... as she rather cynically saw me’. * • [Richard]: ‘I am looking at her with an increasing curiosity tempered by bemusement. I have been single and celibate for nigh-on five years – though not because of any misplaced vow – and there have been numerous women attracted to both my character and my life-style throughout this period. Each and everyone had passed on by, upon closer examination, and I had continued happily with my itinerant and solo life. Nevertheless, this sensation happening here, this atmosphere feeding back and forth now, has been intensifying and changing. Mixed in with it now is some welcome thrill – some barely contained thrill at that – for what is a life without the odd tingling excitation? Could it be that I have finally met that ‘someone’ with whom I can pursue the age-old human dream? Do I dare to anticipate? Was I, who having met women before whose company initially augured well only to once more fall short over and again, going to tread that same old path again? Is this yet another tantalising chimera? Am I, after all, pursuing a will-o’-the-wisp here? The thrill is moderated with caution, yet this ambience is here, this very moment ... there is no denying of this. There is almost a breathless hush. Who will speak it? Who will say it first? Who will be the one to spell it out, to acknowledge the immanence that is the very air between us? (Richard’s Journal, Chapter 1, ‘If One Is Driven By Some Force One Is Not Actually Free’). RESPONDENT: How would what is beyond thought be put under the scrutiny of thought? RICHARD: But it does not necessarily have to be ‘put under the scrutiny of thought’ does it? Can one not have an insight into it? Can one not realise it in the same way as you advocate ‘realizing the false as the false’? Then, after the insight, after the realisation, can thought not operate so as to contemplate, consider and reflect ... and put it into words so as to communicate with one’s fellow human beings? Speaking personally, I had such an insight, such a realisation, into the nature of both love and Love Agapé in 1987 ... and there was instant action. The following eight months or so were oft-times occupied with contemplating, considering and reflecting upon this very factual ‘seeing’ that precipitated such action. (Richard, List B, No. 12d, 27 June 1999). RESPONDENT No. 12: If ‘you’ are there assessing and evaluating, that is just thought evaluating its own content. RICHARD: There was no ‘me’; there was no assessing; there was no evaluating; there was no content to thought ... there was only love. For three years, by the calendar, there was only love ... and its compassion poured forth endlessly, unstoppable. Then love flew to India ... the rest is history. (Richard, List B, No. 12l, 17 August 2001). RESPONDENT: So, what happened in the land from where compassion (supposedly) originated? RICHARD: What happened was the first-hand experience of the end result of thousands of years of love, compassion, intelligence and truth being touted by all the many and various saints, sages and seers ... of it being spoon-fed into the newest recruits to the human race from birth, even (or imbibed with the mother’s milk as it were) and not come at latterly via expatriate saints, sages and seers or books or tapes or mailing lists such as this. ‘Twas a sobering seeing ... they were as mad and as bad and as sad as the rest of the globe. RESPONDENT: How long were you in India? RICHARD: Six months. RESPONDENT: Allow me to add the following from my own experience: I have lived in the US of A for the past ten years, my job brings me in contact with the locals daily, I have an American wife and two American step sons as well as many American friends. Still, I do not understand America fully. RICHARD: Aye ... and you probably never will. Quite possibly no one born and raised in the country will either ... there are too many nuances of differing local cultures and ethnic backgrounds for any one person to understand fully. The same applies to India ... perhaps more so given the enormous cultural diversity which exists on that subcontinent. If you consider you understand India fully you may be well advised to reconsider the extent of your understanding. RESPONDENT: So, what was the depth, the intensity, and the duration of your interaction with India that made you come to the above conclusion? RICHARD: It was of a sufficiency such as to readily see that they were as mad and as bad and as sad as the rest of the globe (which also included yours truly at the time). ‘Twas a sobering seeing. RESPONDENT: Will you consider the possibility that what you concluded might have been based on inadequate contact with and exposure to a foreign land? RICHARD: No ... what was seen was seen with both eyes open: what was seen was the human condition in action beneath the cultural and/or exoteric and esoteric differences. Such that there is no need to ever visit any other country. (Richard, List B, No. 33f, 24 August 2001). * RESPONDENT: So, India could have been any other country ... say, Australia, and the conclusion that you arrived at would have been the same. Right? RICHARD: Yes ... generally speaking, any country will serve the purpose of displaying the human condition in all its sickness. RESPONDENT: Then, why single out India for your awakening or whatever you call it? RICHARD: It was where I happened to be at the time that I saw the human condition in action beneath the cultural and/or exoteric and esoteric differences. It was in the fifth month of being on the subcontinent ... in a small hamlet, in the foothills of Uttar Pradesh, a thousand feet or so above the town of Almora, near the Nepalese/ Tibetan border, with the local deity was Kasa Devi (feminine). There had been a cumulative build-up of imprints in the months prior, of course. RESPONDENT: Not that I mind it, I am curious. What was different about India that caused your awakening, or whatever you call it? RICHARD: It was not an ‘awakening’ (the awakening into love, compassion, intelligence and truth had already occurred three or so years previously) ... it was directly seeing the human condition in action irrespective of any culture or society. What was different about India was that the whole purpose of the visit had been to see, first hand, what others had made of similar awakenings (what is generally called spiritual enlightenment). As such I doubt that it would have occurred so readily in Australia ... given that information regarding such experiences comes to the monotheistic-based Australian culture via expatriate saints, sages and seers or books or tapes or mailing lists such as this. Whereas India is steeped in the spirituality of the nature such as this Mailing List is predicated upon. (Richard, List B, No. 33f, 24 August 2001a). * RESPONDENT: The above paragraphs are not clear to me. What are you saying? RICHARD: It cannot put it more succinctly than this: the human condition was seen, in all its sickness, irrespective of any culture or society (any exoteric and esoteric differences). RESPONDENT: You seem to be acknowledging that the spirituality of India helped you realize something. In what way? RICHARD: It was seen that essentially there was no difference in kind (only a difference in degree) between Western spirituality and Eastern spirituality ... and that the many and various saints, sages and seers (which included yours truly at the time) were as mad and as bad and as sad as anyone, anywhere, anytime. RESPONDENT: If the realization is that there is only this body ... RICHARD: There was no realisation ‘there is only this body’ ... it was nothing more and nothing less than a direct seeing as has already been described above. RESPONDENT: ... why would any spiritual tradition, monotheistic or of any other denomination, would be necessary? Please explain your point fully. Thanks. RICHARD: Perhaps I could explain it this way: a seed was planted in India as described above (in 1984); it germinated whilst living in isolation on an uninhabited tropical island off the north-eastern Australian seaboard (in 1985); it flourished during an intimate relationship with a remarkable woman (commencing 1986); fruition came in 1992 (and it was not until 1992 that it became obvious that what I was is this flesh and blood body). There never was a realisation ... the actual became apparent of its own accord in 1992 (because of what was seen in 1984). It took this long as it was a monumental undertaking to break through maybe 3,000-5,000 years of atavistic wisdom. (Richard, List B, No. 33f, 25 August 2001). RICHARD: I was coming to the end of a time I went through in an endeavour to purify myself which I call my ‘puritan period’. I retreated altogether from civilisation to a group of uninhabited islands in the tropics off the north-eastern Australian seaboard where I stayed for the best part of three months in total silence, on my own, speaking to no one at all and moving from island to island at whim. I had whittled my worldly possessions down to three sarongs, three shirts, a cooking pot and bowl, a knife and a spoon, a bank book and a pair of nail scissors ... I was homeless, itinerant, celibate, vegan, (no spices; not even salt and pepper), no drugs (no tobacco, no alcohol; not even tea or coffee), no hair cut, no shaving, no washing other than a dip in a river or the ocean. I possessed nothing else anywhere in the world and had cut all family ties ... whatever I could eliminate from my life that was an encumbrance and an attachment, I had let go of. In other words: whatever was traditionally seen as an impediment to freedom I discarded. It was there I finally discovered that it was ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ which was at fault and that I could ‘purify’ myself via these ‘Tried and True’ means until the cows came home ... to no avail. I was already in an Altered State Of Consciousness (this was in 1985 and my ego had dissolved in 1981) and living in what has been described as the ‘Unknown’. I had had some serious reservations about the validity of this as an ultimate state and had been to India the previous year to see if I could ascertain why. My discoveries there had led me to consider the possibility that Enlightenment was not the final stage, so I was ripe and ready to plunge into the ‘Unknowable’. I was able to experience what lay beyond Enlightenment several times ... the first of these experiences occurred at maybe three in the morning (I had no watch) and was accompanied by a sense of dread the likes of which I had never experienced even in a war-zone – made all the more acute because I had not experienced fear for four years (I was living in a state of Divine Compassion and Love Agapé which protected me from malice and the underlying fear). This dread contained the existential angst of discovering that ‘I’ was nothing but a contingent ‘being’ and that ‘I’ would cease to ‘be’. Then the condition I went on to experience had the character of the ‘Great Beyond’ – which I deliberately put in capitals because that is how it was experienced at the time – and it was of the nature of being ‘That’ which is attained to at physical death when an Enlightened One ‘quits the body’ ... which attainment is known as ‘Mahasamadhi’ (Hinduism) or ‘Parinirvana’ (Buddhism) and so on. It seemed so extreme that the physical body must surely die for the attainment of it. To put it into a physical analogy, it was as if I were to gather up my meagre belongings, eradicate all marks of my stay on the island, and paddle away over the horizon, all the while not knowing whence I go ... and vanish without a trace, never to be seen again. As no one on the mainland knew where I was, no one would know where I had gone. In fact, I would become as extinct as the dodo and with no skeletal remains. The autological self by whatever name would cease to ‘be’, there would be no ‘spirit’, no ‘presence’, no ‘being’ at all. This was more than death of the ego, which is a major event by any definition; this was total annihilation. No ego, no soul – no self, no Self – no more Heavenly Rapture, Love Agapé, Divine Bliss and so on. Only oblivion. It was not at all attractive, not at all alluring, not at all desirable ... yet I knew I was going to do it, sooner or later, because it was the ultimate condition and herein lay the secret to the ‘Mystery of Life’. (A Brief Personal History) RICHARD: ‘In 1985 I had the first of many experiences of going beyond spiritual enlightenment (as described in ‘A Brief Personal History’ on my part of The Actual Freedom Trust web site) and it had the character of the ‘Great Beyond’ – which I deliberately put in capitals because that is how it was experienced at the time – and it was of the nature of being ‘That’ which is attained to at physical death when an Enlightened One ‘quits the body’ ... which attainment is known as ‘Mahasamadhi’ (Hinduism) or ‘Parinirvana’ (Buddhism). Thus I knew even before becoming actually free that this condition was entirely new to human experience while still alive ...... furthermore, in the ensuing years, as I proceeded to penetrate deeper and deeper into the state of being known as spiritual enlightenment, the psychic footprints, as it were, of those who had explored some of the further reaches of ‘Being’ itself gradually became less and less in number and finally petered out altogether leaving only virgin territory wherever the (psychic) eye would look. I was truly on my own ... no one had ventured into this terrain before. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 46, 6 August 2005). In other words I traversed territory which no enlightened being has ever navigated – virgin terrain somewhat akin to the ‘white-out’ experienced in a featureless landscape of snow and ice – until that ‘Great Beyond’ which has been proposed heretofore to only be possible at physical death became an actuality whilst the flesh and blood body was still alive. I am, of course, referring to not only that which has been described as ‘The Peace That Passeth All Understanding’ (only as an actuality and not a fantasy) but to being the actual experiencing of what has variously been called ‘the meaning of life’, ‘the purpose of the universe’, ‘the riddle of existence’, and so on. In short: being the experiencing of infinitude itself’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 56, 18 October 2003). RESPONDENT: Your response to a woman who was interested in your state led to a situation in which you were personally (as in sexually) involved with her, all this while you (presumably) were enlightened. RICHARD: Perhaps some background information may throw some light upon the matter: when I first met the woman, who was to become my previous companion, halfway along a deserted white beach I was in the process of emerging from a five-year episode which I came to call my ‘puritan period’ (if this starts to sound familiar it is because it is an exegesis from my ‘A Brief Personal History’ article on The Actual Freedom Trust website). I had only recently returned from where I had retreated altogether from civilisation (to a group of uninhabited islands, in the tropics off the north-eastern seaboard of this country I reside in, where I had stayed for the best part of three months in total silence, on my own, speaking to no one at all and moving from island to island at whim). I had whittled my worldly possessions down, during the five-year period, to three sarongs, three shirts, a cooking pot and bowl, a knife and a spoon, a bank book and a pair of nail scissors ... I was homeless, itinerant, celibate, vegan, (no spices; not even salt and pepper), no drugs (no tobacco, no alcohol; not even tea or coffee), no hair cut, no shaving, no washing other than a dip in a river or the ocean. I possessed nothing else anywhere in the world and had cut all family ties ... whatever I could eliminate from my life that was an encumbrance and an attachment, I had let go of. In other words: whatever was traditionally seen as an impediment to freedom I had discarded ... and it had been there I finally discovered that it was spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment which was at fault and that I could ‘purify’ myself via those ‘Tried and True’ means until the cows came home to no avail. As during that period I was already living in what has been described as the ‘Unknown’ I had had some serious reservations about the validity of spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment as an ultimate state and had been to India the previous year to see if I could ascertain why. My discoveries there had led me to consider the possibility that it was not the final stage, so I was ripe and ready to plunge into the ‘Unknowable’. I was able to experience what lay beyond the ‘Unknown’ several times ... the first of these experiences occurred at maybe three in the morning (I had no watch) and was accompanied by a sense of dread the likes of which I had never experienced even in a war-zone – made all the more acute because I had not experienced fear for four years (I was living in a state of Divine Compassion and Love Agapé which protected me from the underlying fear). This dread contained the existential angst of discovering that ‘I’ was nothing but a contingent ‘being’ and that ‘I’ would cease to ‘be’. Then the condition I went on to experience had the character of the ‘Great Beyond’ – which I deliberately put in capitals because that is how it was experienced at the time – and it was of the nature of being ‘That’ which is attained to at physical death when an Enlightened One/ Awakened One ‘quits the body’ ... which attainment is known as ‘Mahasamadhi’ (Hinduism) or ‘Parinirvana’ (Buddhism) and so on. It seemed so extreme that the physical body must surely die for the attainment of it. To put it into a physical analogy, it was as if I were to gather up my meagre belongings, eradicate all marks of my stay on the island, and paddle away over the horizon, all the while not knowing whence I go ... and vanish without a trace, never to be seen again. As no one on the mainland knew where I was, no one would know where I had gone. In fact, I would become as extinct as the dodo and with no skeletal remains. The autological self by whatever name would cease to ‘be’, there would be no ‘spirit’, no ‘presence’, no ‘being’ at all. This was more than death of the ego, which is a major event by any definition; this was total annihilation. No ego, no soul – no self, no Self – no more Heavenly Rapture, Love Agapé, Divine Bliss and so on. Only oblivion. It was not at all attractive, not at all alluring, not at all desirable ... yet I knew I was going to do it, sooner or later, because it was the ultimate condition and herein lay the secret to the ‘Mystery of Life’. Having said that here is the text which immediately precedes that passage previously quoted (wherein I described how I came to meet the woman who was to become my companion): • [Richard]: ‘It is a particularly fine day in late summer and I am walking along a beach that stretches unbroken for many a kilometre. The sun is shining yellow-golden in an azure blue sky bereft of clouds and the ocean is sparkling a million diamonds atop the dancing waves. I am walking on the hard-packed sand at the water’s edge, allowing a particularly larger wave now and then to come creaming over my feet and ankles ... a deliciously cooling sensual delight as it is a hot day. It is extremely pleasant to be wandering along my way with nary a care in the world, for I have been living in an Altered State Of Consciousness for five years now ... and my life is fabulously beautiful in every respect. I call this Altered State that I am living in Absolute Freedom for, although resembling Spiritual Enlightenment in many respects, there is something that is not quite identical to what I have read of others in such a State ... and observed in them in my travels overseas. I also call it Absolute Freedom because there is definitely a metaphysical Absolute in all this – as distinct from the temporal relative – that is ever-present, and this State immediately imbued me with Love Agapé and Universal Compassion for all sentient beings. Since then, because of my intense urge to evince and demonstrate whatever was possible for this universe to manifest, I have been looking into both Universal Compassion and Love Agapé to see what they are made up off. I have been busy with these matters because I seem to be driven by some force to spread ‘The Word’ and that was never my intention all those years ago when I first had what is known as a pure consciousness experience (PCE). This peak experience initiated my incursion into all matters Metaphysical, culminating in the ‘death’ of my ego and catapulting me into this Divine State of Perfect Bliss. My intent back then had been to cleanse myself of all that is detrimental to personal happiness and interpersonal harmony ... in other words: peace on earth in our life-time. Instead of that rather simple ambition, I find that I am impelled on an odyssey to be the latest Saviour of Humankind in a long list of Enlightened ‘Beings’ ... and this imposition does not sit well with me, as they have all failed in their Divine Work. After something like five thousand years of recorded history, ‘humanity’ is nowhere nearer to Peace On Earth than before. Indeed, instead of the much-touted Love and Compassion, much Hatred and Bloodshed has followed in their wake. This abysmal fate is something I wish to avoid repeating, whatever the personal cost in terms of losing this much-prized State Of ‘Being’. My diagnosis is simple: If I am driven by some force – no matter how Good that force be – then I am not actually free. I spent the winter of last year living in silence and isolation on an uninhabited island off the tropical coast far to the north of here considering these matters – without coming to any definite conclusion – but experiencing a possibility of something else. I am presently living in this little seaside village attending what is known as a Satsang Retreat – being in the presence of a Realised ‘Being’ from overseas – to ascertain just where it is going wrong. My plan is to head north to the islands again for the winter, once this episode is over, and resolve this dilemma once and for all. Something is seriously incorrect about the Enlightened State, and I am determined to discover just what that is. Exactly how this will all eventuate I am none too sure ... but I have supreme confidence in my ability to plumb the depths of ‘Being’ to root out anything that should not be there. I am ready and willing for whatever it takes to resolve or dissolve whatever stands in the way of genuine peace-on-earth for anyone and everyone. Obviously something totally new has to come into existence, and I have already had some intimations of what that could be. Hence my investigation into the make-up of Love Agapé and Universal Compassion, as they seem to be the ‘guardians at the gate’, as it were. (Richard’s Journal, Chapter 1, ‘If One Is Driven By Some Force One Is Not Actually Free’). Thus when I did meet the woman, who was to become my companion, on that very beach which stretched unbroken for many a kilometre, I was [quote] ‘ready and willing for whatever it takes to resolve or dissolve whatever stands in the way of genuine peace-on-earth for anyone and everyone’ [endquote] ... after five years, in the enlightened/ awakened state, of being single, celibate, itinerant, vegan, and so on, and so forth. And yet, despite that information being freely displayed in my ‘A Brief Personal History’ article on The Actual Freedom Trust website, you see fit to ask how I can classify my then state as enlightenment, compared with the highest/ furthest reaches in that field, simply because my five-years-on period, of being personally (as in sexually) involved with a woman, is to be found wanting by you. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 74b, 5 November 2004). RICHARD: No, it has nothing to do with Kundalini, for they were not mystical experiences. Perhaps it would serve better if I was to give one specific example in detail instead of briefly describing the numerous experiences over the eleven years ... they only served to strengthen my conviction that an actual freedom was possible whilst this body was alive and breathing anyway. I was living on an uninhabited island of the tropical coast to the far north of this continent in a time I call my ‘puritan period’. I was doing a ‘Vipassana’ type of life-style (I guess that is how I could describe it) in that for three months I lived in silence, on my own, speaking to no one at all. I had whittled my worldly possessions down to three sarongs, three shirts, a cooking pot and bowl, a knife and a spoon, a one-person tent to live in and an open canoe. I possessed nothing else anywhere in the world and had cut all family ties. No one knew where I was, let alone what I was doing, for I had no contact with anyone at all. Four nearly four years I had been homeless, itinerant, celibate, vegan, (no spices; not even salt and pepper), no drugs (no tobacco, no alcohol; not even tea or coffee), no hair cut, no shaving, (and now no washing other than a dip in the ocean) ... in short: whatever I could eliminate from my life that was an encumbrance and an attachment, I had let go of. I was already in an altered state of consciousness (this was in 1985 and my ego had dissolved in 1981) and living in what has been described as the ‘Unknown’. I had had some serious reservations about the validity of this as an ultimate state and had been to India the previous year to see if I could ascertain why. My discoveries there had led me to consider the possibility that Enlightenment was not the final stage, so I was ripe and ready to plunge into the ‘Unknowable’. The first of these numerous experiences occurred at maybe three in the morning (I had no watch) and was accompanied by a sense of dread the likes of which I had never experienced – made all the more acute because I had not experienced fear for four years. (I was living in a state of Divine Bliss and Love Agapé which protected me from all sorrow and malice, with its attendant fears and hates). The condition I experienced was of the nature of some ‘Great Beyond’ (I have to put it in capitals because that is how I experienced at the time) and ‘It’ was of the nature of which has always been ascribed, in all the spiritual writings I had read, as being ‘That’ which one ‘Merges With’ at physical death when one ‘Quits the body’. Sometimes known as ‘The Ocean of Oneness’ or ‘Mahasamadhi’ or – dare I say it on this list – ‘Parinirvana’. This is why I said that it ‘seemed so extreme that this flesh-and-blood body must surely physically die to attain to it’. To put it into a physical analogy, it was as if I was to gather up my meagre belongings, eradicate all marks of my stay on the island, and paddle away over the horizon, all the while not knowing whence I go ... and vanish without a trace, never to be seen again. As no one knew where I was, no one would know where I had gone. In fact, I would become as extinct as the dodo and with no skeletal remains. Psychologically, ‘I’ would cease to ‘be’ at all, I would have no ‘presence’. This was more than death of the ego, which is a major event by any definition; this was total annihilation. No ego, no soul – no ‘Self’. No more Heavenly Bliss, Love Agapé, or Divine Compassion. Only oblivion. It was not at all attractive, not at alluring, not at all desirable, yet I knew I was going to do it – one day – because it was the ultimate condition. Herein lay the secret to the ‘Mystery of Life’. Some years ago I wrote the following: ‘The ‘death of the ego’ is only for the orthodox-minded people; it is for those who are easily seduced by the Glamour and the Glory and the Glitz of the much-touted Altered State. This is why pure intent is an essential prerequisite to ensure a guaranteed passage through the psychic maze. With pure intent one will not rest until one has gone all the way. One will not be bewitched by the psychic Power and Authority, either. All these allurements are but welcome food for the cunning entity, which wanting only its own survival, readily sublimates itself into the Spirit. With the clarity born of pure intent one can see this play for what it is and move on freely and willingly to what lies at the end of the wide and wondrous path ... the end of ‘being’. With pure intent one will not settle for second best, for it has been seen in the peak experiences that the very best is possible, here on earth. One sees that ‘I’ must disappear entirely. There will be no transcendence, no transmutation, no metamorphosis ... not any of these. For one who goes all the way, no phoenix will exist to arise from the ashes – nothing Metaphysical will remain. There will be no ‘being’ at all. ‘I’ will become extinct. ‘I use the word extinct deliberately for it carries a definitive meaning. Physically, death is the end of an individual member of the species, whilst extinction is the ending of the species itself. The psychological annihilation of ‘I’ – in its entirety – is the psychological ending of the species known as ‘humanity’. It is the end of ‘being’ and the end of an illusion. It is also the end of ‘Being’ and the end of delusion. The Human Condition, with all its appalling sorrow and malice, has come to an end in me. All those would-be wise people who state: ‘You can’t change human nature’ are, fortunately, wrong. Because it is possible for ‘me’ to become extinct, thereby releasing the body from the ‘being’ within, I can walk freely in the world as-it-is ... this actual world. I, as this body only, am living in that perfect purity twenty-four-hours-a-day. I live in a state of benignity, which means a kindly and harmless disposition. Life is a sincere a yet playful game and I am free to enjoy it all, every moment again. ‘‘Humanity’, which gave birth to ‘me’, was being sustained by ‘me’ remaining as a ‘being’. ‘I’ am forever fettered by the Human Condition. The species known as ‘humanity’ has searched for an Ultimate Fulfilment within the arena of the Human Condition for all of history. Such a search is endless and futile, for it is a search within an illusion. Only further illusions – further states of ‘being’ – can be found there ... or delusions. Becoming Divine is a delusion – a state of ‘Being’ that is actually an insult to intelligence. ‘I’ will never find the ultimate fulfilment for ‘I’ am standing in the way of the ‘Mystery of Life’ being revealed. There is no way out, ‘I’ am doomed. ‘I’ must, inevitably, cease to ‘be’. Instead of bemoaning ‘my’ fate and vainly searching for an escape, ‘I’ can see ‘myself’ for what ‘I’ am. This seeing is the beginning of the ending of ‘me’. The extinction of ‘me’ is the ultimate sacrifice ‘I’ can make to ensure the possibility of peace-on-earth for not only me but for all humankind. ‘I find myself here, in the world as-it-is. A vast stillness lies all around, abounding with purity. Beneficence, an active kindness, overflows in all directions, imbuing everything with unimaginable fairytale-like quality. For me to be able to be here at all was a blessing that only ‘I’ could grant, because nobody else could do it for me. I am full of admiration for the ‘me’ that dared to do such a thing. I owe all that I experience now to ‘me’. I salute ‘my’ audacity. And what an adventure it was ... and still is. These are the wondrous workings of the exquisite nature of life – who would have it any other way?’ Ultimate fulfilment lies beyond extinction. (pages 103-104: ‘Richard’s Journal’, Article Fourteen, ©The Actual Freedom Trust 1997) (Richard, List A, No. 19, No. 01). RESPONDENT: So I’m looking to get into everything else that I’m still doing, to apply that. If I understand it, even ‘being’ itself is undone with that simple act. Your discussion about ending the self with James on Mailing list ‘B’ which culminates in the for-me superb crescendo discussion of going into dread seems to be about that. It is one of the stand-outs for me that I’ve come across so far. Those discussions seem to tell me things I most need and want to know (gulp). I need to, and just as much want to cover the ground between here and there, but the nitty-gritty parts seem to make all the difference in making the direct line much more clear. I like it in the extreme. It seems to give me the ‘wherewithal’ to really be able to move. RICHARD: I am pleased to hear that ... I do remember that discussion well for it spells-out that which I had been wanting to have explicitly set down in words for a long time (the identity inhabiting this body all those years ago had looked in vain for anything detailed in that manner) because it pertains to matters which were the critical factor in the turning-point experiences on some uninhabited islands off the north-eastern seaboard of this country in 1985 ... to wit: the existential angst of discovering that one is nothing but a contingent ‘being’ and that one will cease to ‘be’ unless the redemptive straw, of several doomsday straws, be grasped. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 82, 27 April 2005). RICHARD: ... enlightenment was something spontaneously seen and understood without any prior spiritual knowledge whatsoever for me. I had never heard the words ‘Enlightenment’ or ‘Nirvana’ and so on until 1982 when talking to a man about my breakthrough into freedom via the death of ‘myself’ in September 1981. He listened – he questioned me rigorously until well after midnight – and then solemnly 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 thus found out via personal experience where I had been going wrong for eleven years ... self-aggrandisement – as in ‘I AM love’ – is so seductive. (Richard, List B, No. 4a, #pacifist). RICHARD: For eleven years I was driven by some ‘energy’ to spread ‘The Word’ (by whatever name) and that had never been my intention before that when I first had what is known as a pure consciousness experience (PCE). That peak experience initiated my incursion into all matters metaphysical, culminating in the ‘death’ of my ego and catapulting me into the sacred and imbuing me with/ immersing me in love and compassion and beauty and truth. My intent had been to cleanse myself of all that is detrimental to personal happiness and interpersonal harmony ... in other words: peace on earth in our life-time. Instead of that rather simple ambition, I found that I was impelled on an odyssey to be the latest ‘Saviour of Humankind’ in a long list of enlightened ‘Beings’ ... and that imposition did not sit well with me, as they had all failed with their ‘Teachings’. After something like five thousand years of recorded history, humankind was nowhere nearer to peace and harmony than before. Indeed, because of the much-touted Love and Compassion, much Hatred and Bloodshed had followed in their wake. That abysmal fate was something I wish to avoid repeating, whatever the personal cost in terms of losing the much-prized state of ‘Being’. My diagnosis back then, which enabled me to be here today, was simple: If I am driven by some ‘energy’ – no matter how ‘good’ that ‘energy’ be – then I am not actually free. (Richard, List B, No. 4b, peakexperience). RICHARD: In late September 1992 a woman, who had been coming to see me on and off for some time, earnestly asked that she be taken on as a disciple ... she seriously wished me to be her master. I was astounded, for I had been at pains to explain that I was not interested in being anyone’s master, for I considered the entire system of the master-disciple relationship, with its attendant surrender, trust, worship and obedience, to be not only insidious, but pernicious as in regards to another person’s freedom. I declined, of course, yet I had to question just what I was ‘putting out’ to people to precipitate such a request. What was my part in all this? What was I doing – indeed what was I being – to encourage another to consider taking this step? I had been dismantling various aspects of the make-up of the Altered State Of Consciousness that I was living in – a state of Spiritual Enlightenment that I called Absolute Freedom – and had thought myself to be virtually free of all that hocus-pocus that goes on in the name of freedom. I asked myself what turned out to be a seminal question: ‘What am I in relation to other people?’ I asked the question in such a way so that I would not get a carefully thought-out and reasoned answer. I wanted an experiential result – and I kept the question burning in the depths of my psyche, discarding any intellectual answers that inevitably popped-up in the course of the next five or six weeks. It troubled me deeply that I was in such a situation because I seem to be driven by some force to ‘Spread the Word’ and that was never my intention all those years ago when I first had what is known as a ‘Peak Experience’ which initiated my incursion into all matters Spiritual, culminating in the ‘death’ of my ego and catapulting me into this Absolute State. My intent back then had been to cleanse myself of all that is detrimental to personal happiness and interpersonal harmony ... in other words: Peace on earth in my life-time. Instead of that rather simple ambition, I found that I was impelled on an odyssey to be the latest Saviour of Humankind in a long list of Enlightened Beings ... and this imposition did not sit well with me, as they have all failed in their Divine Work. After something like five thousand years of recorded history, humanity is nowhere nearer to Peace On Earth than before. Indeed, instead of the much-touted Love and Peace, much Hatred and Bloodshed has followed in their wake. This abysmal fate is something I wish to avoid repeating, whatever the personal cost in terms of losing this much-prized State Of Being. My diagnosis was simple: if I were driven by some force – no matter how Good that force be – then I am not actually free. Then in the late afternoon of the day before Friday the thirtieth of of October 1992, whilst out in an abandoned cow-paddock planting tree seedlings, I was struck by the curious fact that at the beginning of my life I had been engaged in chopping down trees to turn the land into cow-pasture. Now the needs of the situation were sharply reversed and so I paused in my task and stood erect, looking about me in this little sub-tropical valley that the ex-dairy farm was nestled in. As I looked I idly mused upon the irony that the change in human needs regarding physical survival had wrought such radical transformation in the attitudes toward the environment during the forty five years I had been upon this planet. In a flash of a moment a vast understanding of the enormity of the Human Condition transfigured my comfortable comprehension of what it was to be an Enlightened Master ... a Self-Realised Being. My entire affective and cognitive configuration – my highly prized state of awareness – was seen at a glance to be nothing more than a passionate mental construct. In other words, my world fell apart. I entered into a repeat of what I had first experienced on an uninhabited island some seven years previously and nervousness and apprehension mounted to a fear that moved rapidly through terror and horror to the dread that I knew so well from long ago. This was what my seminal question had produced and, turning weak at the knees, I sank to the ground ... to no avail. I could not escape my destiny, for I was situated in a living nightmare of what I swiftly 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 had no choice but to retire to my bed for a sleepless night of frozen immobility ... which continued throughout the morning of the next day. I knew that I would – I must – proceed, but how could I be right and all those ‘great’ and revered masters be wrong? Who was I, a mere boy from the farm, to set himself up to be the ultimate arbiter of human experience? The agonizing doubt was virtually unbearable ... I would not wish this upon anyone ... I would want no one to follow in my footsteps, for I had to run the full gamut of dread to break through to what lay beyond the deception. I realised, at about nine in the morning, that eleven years ago I had inadvertently surrendered my will to a god ... the ‘Absolute’ that I cunningly considered to be ‘That Which Lay Beyond’ had turned out to be Divinity in disguise. I took myself up the hill into a pine plantation that I particularly favoured as a contemplative place and spent an hour and a half digging deep into my psyche to regain my ‘surrender’ ... to get my autonomy back. With a shaky will somewhat in place I returned to my home and, mounting the verandah steps, collapsed in a heap on the bare boards. Unable to move, to think or to feel I could but lie there as my very soul fell away. It was about midday when the process was over and I came to my senses – both figuratively and literally. For along with the dissolution of my soul, my feelings – my emotions and passions – disappeared, never to return. My psyche disintegrated and the second ‘I’ died ... ‘I’ became extinct. The Altered State needs to be talked about and exposed for what it is so that nobody need venture up that blind alley ever again. There is another way and another goal. The main trouble with the Altered State is that whilst the ego dissolves, the identity as soul remains intact. No longer identifying as a personal ego-bound identity, one then identifies as an impersonal soul-bound identity – ‘I am That’, ‘I am God’, ‘I am The Supreme’, ‘I am The Absolute’ and so on. This is the delusion, the mirage, the deception ... and it is extremely difficult to see it for oneself, for one is in an august state. This second identity – the second ‘I’ of Mr. Ventkataraman Aiyer (aka Ramana) fame – is a difficult one to shake, maybe more difficult than the first; for who is brave enough to voluntarily give up fame and fortune, reverence and worship, status and security? One has to be scrupulously honest with oneself to go all the way and no longer be a someone, a somebody of importance. One faces extinction; ‘I’ will cease to be, there will be no ‘being’ whatsoever, no ‘presence’ at all. It is impossible to imagine, not only the complete and utter cessation of ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety, but the end of any ‘Ultimate Being’ or ‘Absolute Presence’ in any way, shape or form. It means that no one or no thing is in charge of the universe ... that there is no ‘Ultimate Authority’. It means that all values are but human values, with no absolute values at all to fall back upon. It is impossible for ‘me’ to conceive that without a wayward ‘me’ there is no need for any values whatsoever ... or an ‘Ultimate Authority’. Thus I find myself here, in the world as-it-is. A vast stillness lies all around, a perfection that is abounding with purity. Beneficence, an active kindness, overflows in all directions, imbuing everything with unimaginable fairytale-like quality. For me to be able to be here at all is a blessing that only ‘I’ could grant, because nobody else could do it for me. I am full of admiration for the ‘me’ that dared to do such a thing. I owe all that I experience now to ‘me’. I salute ‘my’ audacity. And what an adventure it was ... and still is. These are the wondrous workings of the exquisite nature of life – who would have it any other way? I am this infinite and eternal universe experiencing itself as a reflective, sensate human being. (A Brief Personal History) JAMES: Yes, two things stand out: pure intent and don’t possess it. I am looking at pure intent to see if I have it and I am on guard to not pursue it or possess it. RICHARD: You say that ‘two things stand out’ ... yet you slip in a third thing as if I had said it (‘to not pursue it’) when it is really ‘ancient wisdom’ that promotes that view. Speaking personally, the ‘I’ that was pursued it like ‘he’ had never pursued anything before ... ‘he’ made it the number one priority in ‘his’ life. ‘He’ was a married man, with four children, running ‘his’ own business, with a house mortgage to pay off and a car on hire purchase ... in other words: normal. And all the while that ‘he’ pursued it, ‘he’ was working twelve-fourteen hour days, six-seven days a week ... yet ‘his’ pursuit of peace-on-earth took absolute precedence over all other matters and dominated ‘his’ every moment (‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’). (Richard, List B, No. 39, 19 October 1999). RICHARD: If there is freedom from sorrow, there is freedom from love ... be it genuine or not. I have read Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti with an open mind ... because I wanted to know, for myself, if this ‘Love’, this ‘Compassion’, this ‘Beauty’, this ‘Truth’, this ‘Goodness’, this ‘Intelligence’, actually had no opposite. • He is on record a stating something to the effect of: ‘I have always felt protected. There is a reservoir of Goodness that Evil is always trying to get into. One has to be ever vigilant’. So, his ‘Good’ had an opposite. • He is on record as saying: ‘there is something beyond compassion’ ... and compassion is not the be-all and end-all as his compassion was born out of his sorrow – he called it universal sorrow – for he oft-times wanted to ‘cry for you all’. So, his compassion has an opposite. • He is on record as saying: ‘there is something beyond love’ ... and his love likewise has an opposite. • He is on record as describing his intelligence as ‘universal intelligence’ and ‘cosmic intelligence’ ... was there something beyond that? Yes ... and I wanted to know for myself what was beyond all this. Viz.: • He is on record as saying there is ‘that’ which he called ‘the origin of everything’. Speaking personally, I found it well worthwhile to investigate ... experientially. (Richard, List B, No. 12a, 22 March 1999). 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: ‘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. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25d, 26 October 2003). RICHARD: ‘(...) love is usually considered sacrosanct ... yet just as sorrow is essential for its antidotal compassion to flourish love is the antitoxin for malice: without malice, love has no raison d’être. I started to empirically encounter this, whilst sailing my yacht around tropical islands off the north-east coast of Australia with a choice companion, towards the end of 1987 and by about mid 1988 the unfolding of experience came to its inevitable realisation. Strangely enough it was the disclosure of the intrinsically manipulative nature of love – and ‘unconditional love’ at that – in 1987 which triggered the expansion of comprehension and experiential understanding of the composition of the affective faculty ... with the concomitant growth of awareness’. It was with Love Agapé being such a ‘sacred cow’ that there had initially been considerable uneasiness about a direct investigation – my initial enquiry had begun in India in 1984, whilst single and celibate, upon becoming suss about the Buddhist ‘karuna’ (pity-compassion) and ‘metta’ (loving-kindness) – hence there was a three year-long gestation period before the fact could be addressed squarely. Eventually what happened was that at anchor one velvety night with an ebbing tide chuckling its way past the hull what I then called ‘The Absolute’ presented itself as being feminine – a Radiant Being initially seen to be Pure Love – which femininity I would nowadays consider to be a product of me being of masculine gender. Due to an intensity of purpose there was the capacity to penetrate into the nature of this ‘Radiant Being’ and I was able to see ‘Her’ other face: It was Pure Evil – the Diabolical underpins the Divine – and upon such exposure ‘She’ (aka Love Agapé) disappeared forever ... nevertheless it was not until 1992 that it all came to fruition. There is a vast difference between ‘realisation’ and ‘actualisation’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 41, 10 February 2003). RESPONDENT: So despite the fact that most religions and philosophers often define enlightenment as the ultimate state of being at the same time as saying that don’t know what it is because they haven’t got there, you know what it is so well (without being there) that you say it is worthless . RICHARD: But I have been there, so I am well positioned to say that it is worthless. You do not think that I would come onto this list and make these apparently outrageous statements without knowing what I am talking of, surely? For many years I sought a genuine exploration and discovery of what it means to live a fully human life and in October 1992 I discovered, once and for all, what I was looking for. Since then I have been consistently living an incomparable condition which I choose to call actual freedom – and I use the word ‘actual’ because this freedom is located here in this very material world, this actual world of the senses. It is not an affective or mental state of being; it is a physical condition that ensues when one goes beyond Spiritual Enlightenment. In September 1981 I underwent a monumental physiological transformation into an Altered State Of Consciousness which can only be described as Spiritual Enlightenment. I became Enlightened as the result of an earnest and intense process which commenced in the January of that year. At approximately six o’clock on the morning of Sunday, the sixth of September 1981, my ‘ego’ disappeared entirely in an edifying moment of awakening to an ‘Absolute Reality’. I lived in the Enlightened State for eleven years, so I have an intimate understanding of the marked difference between Spiritual Enlightenment and actual freedom. For the next eleven years I travelled the country – and overseas to India – meeting with people from all walks of life in an attempt to discover why Spiritual Enlightenment, which has been within the human experience for thousands of years, had not delivered the Peace On Earth it seemed to promise. As the process of becoming Enlightened is an extreme test of one’s mettle, requiring nerves of steel, it seemed that only a rare few humans were destined to become Self-Realised. The question that commanded my attention was why this was so. I was looking beyond the superficial and questioning even the most closely held ideas and beliefs. Was there something more to discover ... something that lay beyond Enlightenment that would usher in the beginning of a genuine possibility of peace for all? Some Masters hinted at and alluded to ‘going beyond Enlightenment’ ... yet their Teachings remained exactly the same. Some disciplines suggested that such a condition existed after physical death: when the soul ‘quit the body’. The Hindu Mahasamadhi and Buddhist Parinirvana are two examples of this kind of thought. No useful information could be gained from there. Over the eleven years I had numerous experiences of a condition that seemed so extreme that one must surely physically die to attain to it. To go beyond Enlightenment seemed to be an impossibility whilst still alive and breathing. Then at midday on Friday, the thirtieth of October 1992, a curious event occurred, due to my intense conviction that it was imperative that someone evince a final and complete condition that would ‘deliver the goods’ so longed for by humanity for millennia. Just like my ego had dissolved, back in 1981, my ‘soul’ disappeared. I was no longer a ‘Self’ existing for all Eternity and transcending Time and Space. I no longer had a feeling of being – or ‘Being’ – any sense of identity whatsoever had vanished without a trace ... and I could thus no longer detect the presence of The Absolute. There was no ‘Presence’ at all. The identity had generated the entire edifice. Since that date I have continued to live in a condition of complete emancipation and utter autonomy ... the condition is both permanent and actual. This is different to Enlightenment in that it is most definitely substantial: there is no longer a transcendence, for I have neither sorrow nor malice anywhere at all to rise above. They have vanished entirely, leaving me both blithesome and benign – carefree and harmless – which leads to a most remarkable state of affairs. The chief characteristics of Enlightenment – Union with the Divine, Universal Compassion, Love Agapé, Ineffable Bliss, The Truth, Timelessness, Spacelessness, Immortality, Aloneness, Oneness, Pacifism, Surrender, Trust, Beauty, and Goodness – being redundant in this totally new condition, are no longer extant. Herein lies the unmistakable distinction between this condition, which I call actual freedom and the Enlightened State: I am no longer driven by a Divine Sense Of Mission to bring The Truth, Universal Love and Divine Compassion to the world. I am free to speak with whomsoever is genuinely interested in solving the ‘Mystery of Life’ and becoming totally free of the Human Condition. This is an actual freedom, here in the world as-it-is, as this body, in this life-time. (Richard, List A, No. 6, No. 03). RESPONDENT: (15) If someone asks me to prove this I am as lost as I would be to convince somebody how sweet tastes and that it tastes good. These are all but experiences. RICHARD: It is all right – I know the taste of sweet for I was living in Heavenly Bliss, Love Agapé and Divine Compassion for eleven years. I had arrived. I had become Awakened to the ‘Greater Reality’ in 1981. I was Heavenly Bliss, Love Agapé and Divine Compassion ... there was no separation between me and The Absolute. I had a Divine Sense of Mission to spread ‘The Word’ and I embarked on fulfilling my ‘Sacred Duty’, gathering some disciples on the way, until 1984. Then I started to question just what I was doing and just what had happened to me. Something seemed to be wrong ... this had all been done before by other Masters and Messiahs, Saints and Sages, Avatars and Saviours, to no avail. In fact, instead of bringing Love and Peace, they had left in their wake much bloodshed and hatred ... and I was one of them! Accordingly I travelled to India to find out for myself exactly what was amiss with this whole Enlightenment business by meeting some of these hallowed Gurus and imbibing the centuries of Eastern Spiritual Tradition for myself, instead of merely reading about it in books. It was to take me eleven years to get out of this massive delusion I was living in and go beyond it to arrive at where I am today. It was eleven years of coming to terms with the understanding that what I was living was megalomania – a Delusion of Grandeur – and that it was what every human being believed in, in some way, shape or form ... but that is another story. Today, I am no longer an Enlightened Master living in an Exalted State of Being ... I am me-as-this-body only, a fellow human being who has no sorrow or malice whatsoever to transcend; hence I am both happy and harmless. It is a most estimable condition to be in. (Richard, List A, No. 23, No. 01). RICHARD: What specifically initiated the final event was the salutary realisation that the received knowledge of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ was but a house of cards ... an ornate edifice built upon shifting sands. Viz.: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘You answered my question about what the right thought was that caused AF in you. I’m saying because of the seminal question, you had to admit you had been fooling yourself when you realized your enlightened motivation (survive!) to plant trees was no different than your unenlightened motivation (survive!) to plant grass. • [Richard]: ‘Oh no, planting grass really was the right thing to do all those years ago – it is only modern-day peoples who castigate the pioneers for doing what was right then – just as planting trees is the right thing to do nowadays ... what is the right thing to do, in any era, changes into another right thing to do as changes caused by doing the previous right thing happen. What I really realised, at that moment and in that context, was that I no longer knew what the right thing to do was anymore ... and at that moment I was, finally, ripe and ready to be what I actually am’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 50, 11 October 2003). Of course, the situation and circumstances (cutting down long grass in an abandoned cow-paddock preparatory to planting trees) were peculiar to me and my context at that time and had I been some other person in some other context I could very well have been washing the dishes, for example, or riding a bicycle. And had I been some other person in some other context the salutary realisation would have been different too ... meaning that only the particular person can know what they must do – and they will not know what that is until it happens – and when they do know what to do it will be too late to stop the happening. Hence all the procrastination – it means the end of ‘me’ – because it can, and will, happen just here right now. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 94a, 30 December 2005). * RICHARD: Okay ... all I can say is that the notion of ‘frequency’ does not ring any bells for me (meaning I cannot relate to it). As for the right thought/ idea (or, rather, realisation/ thought): I have been asked, on occasion, about the significance of the realisation that occurred in an abandoned cow-paddock which preceded/ triggered the break-through into an actual freedom from the human condition and by now I basically have a multiple-choice answer (you can take your pick). 1. It had no significance whatsoever (what was being realised/ thought about at that particular moment merely preceded the event) – hence the wording ‘idly mused’ in my report of the episode – as that moment just happened to be when the culmination of the seminal question asked 5-6 weeks prior (‘what am I in relation to other people?’), which had been kept running in the depths of the psyche so as to effect an experiential answer, came about. 2. It was the trigger which induced the culmination of the seminal question asked 5-6 weeks prior (‘what am I in relation to other people?’) which had been kept running in the depths of the psyche so as to effect an experiential answer – in regards to what I was engaged in at that period of my life – hence the wording, in my report of the event, ‘struck by the curious fact’ regarding what I was engaged in at that particular moment. As what I was ‘struck by the fact’ of had nothing whatsoever to do with the seminal question then No. 2 seems unlikely ... which leaves No. 1 as being the likely candidate. In other words, it was the seminal question which delivered the goods – when they were good and ready to be delivered so to speak – and being struck by a fact about something else entirely was simply what was happening when the experiential answer being asked for came about. However, as the fact which I was struck by was that clearing forests to plant grass was no longer valid – and that clearing grass to plant forests was – it would seem that No. 1 is unlikely ... which leaves No. 3 as the likely candidate. 3. The culmination of the seminal question asked 5-6 weeks prior (‘what am I in relation to other people?’), which had been kept running in the depths of the psyche so as to effect an experiential answer, was that the wisdom of yesteryear was no longer valid (meaning that being an enlightened being had reached its use-by date). Yet as the ancient wisdom of the spirit-ridden bronze-age peoples never was valid – whereas clearing forest to plant grass was – it would seem that No. 2 is the likely candidate as what I was actually struck by was that it had got to the stage that I did not actually know what the right thing to do was any longer ... meaning that I was, finally, ready and ripe to be the answer (which is what the word ‘experiential’ refers to when all is said and done). As I said: you can take your pick. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 50, 5 October 2003). RICHARD: In essence what remained [after the 1981 ego-death event], as is the case with any spiritually enlightened/ mystically awakened being, was the rudimentary animal ‘self’ (an inchoate affective presence, an embryonic feeler, an incipient intuiter), which virtually all sentient beings are per favour blind nature’s rough and ready survival software hereditarily endowed at conception, aggrandised like all get-out. RESPONDENT: Presumably, in spite of the ‘aggrandising’, it took you 11 years to get what was happening sufficiently to do something about it. RICHARD: I got what was happening after about six years (...) Somewhere around 1989-90 it increasingly dawned upon me that I was being dilatory – putting-off going that extra step – for a number of reasons ... the main one being that it was all uncharted territory/ untraversed terrain. ‘Twas no little thing to do, to venture where none had gone before, and the apprehension was considerable. RESPONDENT: You were convinced that it was uncharted terrain. RICHARD: I knew that is was all uncharted territory/ untraversed terrain. (...) RESPONDENT: I am not being flip when I say I admire your gumption for ‘going where no one had gone before’. RICHARD: You did not say [quote] ‘I admire’ [endquote] ... you specifically said [quote] ‘I fully appreciate’ [endquote]. Viz.: • [Respondent]: ‘I fully appreciate the ‘daring to go where no one had gone before’. Look, all I was doing when responding to what you freely acknowledged as being a presumption (that it took eleven years to get what was happening sufficiently to do something about it) by providing information as to what did occur – and when and how – was to clarify why it took another five years after getting what happened to actually do something about it. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 94a, 3 January 2006). RESPONDENT: In any case, I am extremely curious about ‘him’ – about the ‘good’ as well as ‘bad’ (in general – if it is not personal like shame, shyness, fear, guilt, sorrow, grief) aspects of ‘him’ – I know that you burnt most of your writings – unlike Krishnamurti’s earlier writings which he could not get rid of though he ceased to allude or speak about them mostly (on occasions, he would speak about that ‘boy’). RICHARD: The only reason I burned those writings – about 80,000 words in the same 3-paragraph section/ 3-page article format as ‘Richard’s Journal’ is – the day after being actually freed was because they would have only added confusion to the clarity and purity of the actual via the mish-mash of the very mysticality/ actuality they were composed of. (Essentially they were descriptive/ explanatory articles of the many PCE’s which the spiritually enlightened/ mystically awakened identity had in the latter years; as such the peerless physicality was tainted by the metaphysicality which was the normality which prevailed when abeyance ended; my second wife who, having a command of grammar via being conversant of five languages, edited all my early writing, often observed that this tainture lay in me not permanently living what was therein described/ explained). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 19, 30 November 2009). RICHARD: In my tenth year I tentatively approached one of the last bastions of spiritual enlightenment: pacifism. Almost all of the other attributes of what I called an ‘Absolute Freedom’ had been stripped away and if I was to undo what is called ‘ahimsa’ in the east – non-violence – then there would not be much left of my precious ‘Peace On Earth’ that I was charged to bring. I found a strong resistance within myself to contemplate letting go of the scriptural adage: ‘Turn the other cheek’ ... even though I intellectually considered it to be nonsense. If an entire country held such a belief it would be akin to hanging out a sign saying: ‘Please feel free to invade, we will not fight back’. Also, I personally relied upon the police to protect me and mine from any personal attack or robbery – what if they adopted this principle? By the time I had worked my way through this philosophical dilemma I had to turn my sights upon the last thing that stood between me and an actual freedom. I would have to let go of the deeply ingrained concept of ‘The Good’. For this to happen I would have to eliminate ‘The Bad’ in me, or else I would be likely to go off the rails and run amok. Little did I realise that it was ‘The Good’ that kept ‘The Bad’ in place. I was soon to find this out. (Richard, List B, No. 31, #ahimsa). RESPONDENT No. 42: Can there be no movement in the absolute? RICHARD: A seminal question, which intrigued me for a number of years, was what the nature of that movement in ‘the absolute’ was. (Richard, List B, No. 42b, 19 November 2001). RESPONDENT: No wonder that after years of intriguing, you are still confused. ‘Movement’ and ‘absolute’ are contradictory to one another. If is moves, it can’t be absolute. What does it move in relation to? Elementary, my dear Richardson. :-) RICHARD: This is the ‘movement’ I was referring to: K: ‘... we three are trying to find out that which is beyond the ashes’. S: ‘Right’. B: ‘There is that which is beyond death?’ K: ‘Ah, absolutely’. B: ‘Would you say that it is eternal, or ...’. K: ‘I don’t want to use that word’. B: ‘I mean is it in some sense beyond time?’ K: ‘Beyond time’. B: ‘Therefore eternal is not the best word’. K ‘There is something beyond the superficial death, a movement which has no beginning and no ending’. B: ‘But it is a movement?’ K: It is a movement. Movement, not in time’. (‘The Wholeness Of Life’ pages 131 and 132, © 1979 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd; Published by Harper & Row). As I said, enquiry into the nature of that movement was a seminal question ... and one that logic cannot find the answer to, either. I would suggest that you look into your heart instead ... after all, that is where you say your truth is. Who knows what you may find, eh? (Richard, List B, No. 33i, 20 November 2001a). RESPONDENT: What was it exactly that brought about the death which lead to the ability to live in a veritable garden of eden? RICHARD: In late September 1992 a woman, who had been coming to see me on and off for some time, earnestly asked that she be taken on as a disciple ... she seriously wished me to be her master. I was astounded, for I had been at pains to explain that I was not interested in being anyone’s master, for I considered the entire system of the master-disciple relationship, with its attendant surrender, trust, worship and obedience, to be not only insidious, but pernicious as in regards to another person’s freedom. I declined, of course, yet I had to question just what I was ‘putting out’ to people to precipitate such a request. What was my part in all this? What was I doing – indeed what was I being – to encourage another to consider taking this step? I had been dismantling various aspects of the make-up of the Altered State Of Consciousness that I was living in – a state of Spiritual Enlightenment that I called Absolute Freedom – and had thought myself to be virtually free of all that hocus-pocus that goes on in the name of freedom. I asked myself what turned out to be a seminal question: ‘What am I in relation to other people?’ I asked the question in such a way so that I would not get a carefully thought-out and reasoned answer. I wanted an experiential result ... and I kept the question burning in the depths of my psyche, discarding any intellectual answers that inevitably popped-up in the course of the next five or six weeks. And then it happened as a direct result of keeping the question open – which is another story – thus these days I empirically know what I am in relation to other people: I am not an ‘Enlightened Master’ sitting in an exalted position ... and what a relief that is. I am a fellow human being, who happens to live in a condition of perfection and purity, offering my experience to whomsoever is interested. (Richard, List B, No. 19d, 3 April 2000). RICHARD: The sanity of the real world – which is a sanity that produces wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide – is a sickness, a blight upon this fair earth. Thus, whichever way it is defined, I am not sane ... I have oft-times been told that only a fool – a simpleton – can be happy and harmless in the world of people, things and events. The doorway to an actual freedom has the words ‘Warning: do not open ... insanity lies ahead’ written on it. I opened the door and walked through. Once on the other side – where thousands upon thousands of atavistic voices were insistently whispering ‘fool – fool – fool’ – I turned to ascertain the way back to normal. The door had vanished – and the wall it was set in – and I just knew that I would never, ever be able to find my way back to the real-world ... it had been nothing but an illusion all along. I walked tall and free as the perfection of this material universe personified ... I can never not be here ... now. This universe is so enormous in size – infinity being as enormous as it can get – and so magnificent in its scope – eternity being as magnificent as it can get – how on earth could anyone believe for a minute that it is all here for humans to be forever miserable and malicious in? It is foolishness of the highest order to believe it to be so. Surely, one can have confidence in a universe so grandly complex, so marvellously intricate, so wonderfully excellent. How could all this be some ‘ghastly mistake’? To believe it all to be some ‘sick joke’ is preposterous, for such an attitude cuts one off from the perfection of this pure moment of being alive here in this fantastic actual universe. (Richard, List B, No. 26a, 24 Nov 1998). RESPONDENT: If for some reason you could not write, you could not speak ... perhaps your ‘self’ or even your ‘ego’ may come back into the picture. RICHARD: No, extinct means what it says. The doorway to an actual freedom has the word ‘extinction’ written on it. This extinction is an irrevocable event that eliminates the psyche itself. I opened the door and walked through. Once on the other side – where thousands upon thousands of atavistic voices were insistently whispering ‘fool – fool – fool’ – I turned to ascertain the way back to normal. The door had vanished – and the wall it was set in – and I just knew that I would never, ever be able to find my way back to the real-world ... it had been nothing but an illusion all along. I walked tall and free as the perfection of this material universe personified. I can never not be here ... now. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 12, 15 January 1999). SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE ON ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS 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