# Actual Freedom ~ Commonly Raised Objections Commonly Raised Objections ## Nitpicking, Differences Merely Semantic RESPONDENT: I think you’re too hung up on terminology. RICHARD: Oh? When someone says they are [quote] ‘God with God’ [endquote] in what way am I ‘too hung up on terminology’ if I take that to mean they are saying they are God ... and then making the observation that there is no such ‘being’ or ‘presence’ (by whatever name) in actuality? RESPONDENT: I use the word god from time to time but not in a personal-god sense. RICHARD: That would be because you have not yet realised you are that ... whereas Ms. Byron Katie has and, consequently, has devised a method (presumably the four questions) to enable such self-realisation to come about in others. RESPONDENT: I mean it in the sense of that which is greater than myself or reality. RICHARD: That would appear to be the sense she means it in too ... that which is greater than the ego-self and the universe (meaning that which is a non-material – a timeless and spaceless and formless – source of everything). * RESPONDENT: The only differentiating barrier you have between yourself and other people who have found what you have found, is a very thin one crafted from language. RICHARD: What ‘other people’ are you referring to? If the one example you offered up is anything to go by then none of them have found what I have found. RESPONDENT: This is why you get very picky with your terminology. RICHARD: No, that is why clarity in communication is essential. RESPONDENT: Take away the strict and narrow definitions and your claims of uniqueness (or uniqueness so far!) evaporate. RICHARD: Yet can you take away what you describe as ‘the strict and narrow definitions’ without being silly? For just one example: I report being this flesh and blood body only (sans identity/affections in toto) ... what is left if you take that away? RESPONDENT: You know, one of the things which disturbs me about you, Richard, is a lack of flexibility in the way you handle concepts. One only has to mention the word ‘God’, for example, and you go all into a flutter as if some great crime has been committed. This is very strange to see in a person who claims to be perfect. It is a very obvious point, once grasped, that words like ‘God’ or’ spiritual’ have no inherent meaning to them whatsoever. They mean whatever we want them to mean. Hence, when reading the words of another it is important to discern the meaning given by the author to words of this kind and not get distracted by the fact they are using them in the first place. A perfect person should have no trouble doing this at all. Words like ‘God’ and ‘Truth’ are very useful in that they press home the point that becoming enlightened is tremendously important, not only to the individual but to society as a whole. An enlightened person is perfectly capable of making use of these words without himself being fooled by them, for he is in complete control of the process. He is extremely flexible and adaptable in this regard. As I say, the apparent lack of adaptability in you is not a good sign at all. RICHARD: It is unfortunate that you are disturbed by my handling of concepts because that disturbance will exacerbate your patent inability to perceive the facticity of what I write. Words like ‘God’, ‘Spiritual’ and ‘Truth’ – despite your denial – do indeed have inherent meaning inasmuch as they describe and convey a particular experience that one can have. What else are words for if not to validate meaning for oneself and communicate same to another? I do not ‘go all into a flutter’ but, yes, great crimes have been committed because of peoples believing in these very concepts that you treat in such a cavalier fashion. Just exactly how many wars, murders, tortures and rapes have been carried out by fervent believers we will never know ... but it runs into the hundreds of millions. That it is all unnecessary is what makes it so silly. And I have read enough of your words over the previous months to satisfy myself that I can discern the meaning that you give to them ... I have no trouble at all in doing this as I have passed through that territory myself – experientially, not just intellectually. You are wrong in saying that an enlightened person is not fooled by them for enlightenment blinds a person to facts and actuality – they have surrendered their will and their chance for integrity to ‘The Truth’ and to the ‘Greater Reality’ and are thus ruled by the Supernatural Power and Authority that lies hidden within the psychic world. RESPONDENT: Big deal ... you are nitpicking. RICHARD: If you say so then it is so ... for you, that is. As I know what an actual freedom from the human condition both is and is not, however, I will keep my own counsel on the matter. RESPONDENT: You have invented your own language (PCE, ASC, actual freedom, etc.). RICHARD: Obviously I cannot comment on the ‘etcetera’ but the acronym ASC (‘altered state of consciousness’) already existed and I am merely following the convention for the sake of consistency and clarity in communication; the acronym PCE (‘pure consciousness experience’) already existed in the form of ‘pure consciousness event’ (a senseless and thoughtless ASC wherein all experiencing ceases) and I merely substituted the word ‘experience’ for the word ‘event’ so as to emphasise that the pure consciousness experience was pure (unmediated) sensuousness; the phrase ‘actual freedom’ (a shortened form of ‘an actual freedom from the human condition’) is, however, totally my own invention. RESPONDENT: No different than the Krishnamurtian lingo he developed to suit his needs. RICHARD: Yet I did not develop the actualism lingo for my own needs – I have none – as the lingo came about when I first went public in 1997 ... until then I had no name for what I discovered in 1992 (and did not even know, for example, of the ‘pure consciousness event’ acronym before that). In other words, the actualism lingo developed as more and more of my fellow human beings interacted, and likened what I had to report to what was already known, so the differentiation in terminology came about, quite organically, for the sake of clarity in communication. RESPONDENT: In that sense [not knowing what goes on in the minds of intelligent necrophiliacs] I was interested in actualism (in other words, in having a dialogue with an intelligent actualist who (I thought) was claiming, in other words, that sensate pleasure is all that there is to pleasure in the actual world). RICHARD: If both presenting an implausible scenario and persisting with it long after its use-by date qualifies as having an intelligent dialogue then please advise when it deteriorates into being an unintelligent one as it is somewhat tricky, at this stage at least, to discern the difference. RESPONDENT: I think the thread has degenerated into nit-picking now, with doubts as to whether it is an intelligent conversation at this stage. RICHARD: I cannot see how my clearly enunciated reason (above) for requesting advice as to what constitutes an intelligent dialogue (according to you) can be construed as (1) the thread having only now degenerated in its subject matter as I was immediately up-front about your imaginative scenario being implausible when you first presented it in your third e-mail ... and (2) being nitpicking anyway as its implausibility is central to the issue you devoted your entire e-mail to (presumably that of justifying its validity as a means of conducting an investigation else why devote an entire e-mail to it and its ramifications). You even say yourself (further below) that the results of your imaginative ‘thought-experiment’ can only be speculative, not actual. If you were to look again at what I was responding to (at the top of this page) you will see you had said it was in the sense of not knowing what goes on in the mind of an actualist that you were interested in actualism ... hence given that, even though it had been made abundantly clear an imaginative scenario would not and could not (by its very nature) elicit such knowing for you, you were futilely persisting with a fanciful, and thus fruitless method of investigation, there was every reason to enquire as to just what constituted intelligent dialogue. Surely the person that does know what goes on in such a mind is better placed to know what a factual, and thus fruitful, method of investigation is, eh? * RESPONDENT: My dialogue with Richard started with questioning about sex, but it degenerated into nit-picking over a thought experiment I proposed ... RICHARD: Hmm ... given that you said you would be [quote] ‘very much interested in actualism’ [endquote] if you were to be informed that it was enjoyable, here in this actual world, to kiss a perfumed robot, yet in the very next e-mail stated that you would [quote] ‘find it quite pathological if a person imagined having sex with a dead body/robot’ [endquote], is it any wonder I drew that blatant dichotomy to your attention? To cavalierly dismiss clarity in communication as being nit-picking is hardly the stuff of an intelligent dialogue. RESPONDENT: ... ( which was a mere part of the discussion but which became the focus of his onslaught). RICHARD: If I may point out? ‘Twas you that devoted an entire e-mail to it – snipping out all else which was being discussed – and not me. RESPONDENT: We have slightly different semantic interpretations ... RICHARD: Okay ... perhaps you may be inclined to explain to me how the following points are but ‘slightly different’ meanings or connotations applied to words (‘semantic interpretations’): 1. Richard speaks from his direct moment-to-moment experience (he lives what he writes); Ms. Jane Roberts spoke from a disembodied spirit (she did not live what she wrote). Ergo, Ms. Jane Roberts has a ‘stance’; Richard lives an actuality. • Just where lies the ‘slightly different semantic interpretation’? 2. Richard did something very, very unnatural ... resulting in peace-on-earth becoming apparent; Ms. Jane Roberts did something supernatural ... resulting in further addling the minds of otherwise intelligent peoples so that peace on earth is nowhere to be found. • Just where lies the ‘slightly different semantic interpretation’? 3. Richard is easily amoral in that he can totally and reliably be capable of spontaneously interacting in the world of people, things and events, in a way that is neither personally insalubrious nor socially reprehensible, at all times and under any circumstance without exception because he has eliminated the instinctual passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) that form the animal self which is the root cause of all the misery and mayhem; Ms. Jane Roberts channelled a wisdom that promotes a ‘blessed natural aggressiveness’, by equating what a cat does with a mouse as being ‘playfully killing’ and thus ‘that innocent sense of integrity’ and ‘sense of justice’ wherein there is a ‘biological compassion’ because (and this is the central argument) the ‘consciousness of the mouse’ (and a ‘terrified mouse’ at that) ‘leaves its body’ via an ‘innate knowledge of impending pain’, as being a ‘‘new’ consciousness’ by virtue of the ‘emerging triumph’ known as ‘free will’ whereupon all these instinctual impulses are somehow ‘superseded’ by an ‘emotional reality’ induced by ‘the birth of guilt’ wherein committing all the aforementioned mayhem and misery is now felt as being a ‘suggestion’ to live by rather than a ‘rule’ ... and gratuitously called ‘freedom’. • Just where lies the ‘slightly different semantic interpretation’? 4. No. 10 says that what Ms. Jane Roberts published (above) is ‘closer to Richard’s natural amoral stance’ than what Peter wrote; Richard says ‘How do you see this [Wisdom Of A Bodiless Spirit] as being even remotely close to what Richard experiences and thus promulgates?’ ... to which detailed reply No. 10 says: ‘The Wisdom Of A Not So Bodiless Spirit’. Yet the spirit called ‘Seth’ (an aspect of ‘God’ by whatever name) clearly says [quote]: ‘if your definition of that word (‘spirit’) implies the idea of a personality without a physical body, then I would have to agree that the description fits me’ [endquote]. (page 4; ‘Seth Speaks’; © 1972 by Jane Roberts; published by Bantam Books NY, NY). • Just where lies the ‘slightly different semantic interpretation’? RESPONDENT: The ‘universe seeing or experiencing itself in perfect purity of being’ seems to be another way of expressing the same realisation. Krishnamurti spoke sometimes in dualistic terms, e.g. – ‘the other’, and sometimes in non-dualistic terms, e.g. – a state of mind that knows no separation. Words are merely pointers. RICHARD: Possibly the phrase ‘the universe seeing or experiencing itself in perfect purity of being’ does appear to be the same way of expressing the same realisation ... except that I never wrote that phrase. I write things like ‘I am this physical universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being’. As I compose all my posts in my word processor, before exporting them to my E-Mail programme, I have all of my E-Mails to this Mailing List in a long document. Thus it is an easy matter for me to type ‘universe seeing or experiencing itself in perfect purity of being’ into the search function and send it looking for where I used that phrase. For the life of me I can not find it anywhere. Perhaps you could send me your copy so that I can make the necessary amendments to my version here on my hard disk. RESPONDENT: Everyone reading these posts can see what you have said. It is like Krishnamurti’s tendency to dismiss all prior teachings and expressions, only to ultimately bring the same terms back in, with a new direct understanding of them. The words alone mean nothing. They are just symbols. RICHARD: Words are not ‘just symbols’ they are accurate descriptions. They describe a reality – or an actuality – that exists. My words accurately describe a reality that the ‘I’ that used to be in this body saw that I needed to be free from ... and my words accurately describe a ‘Reality’ that is but a mirage. Words in themselves are not a problem, for words are a description of something ... and it is that something that is being lived which is trapping you ... not the words. I know that some people (Post-Modernists, for example) re-arrange words and definitions to suit themselves, but the underlying reality or Reality remains the problem. Semantics is only a superficial problem, in spite of those who write profound tomes about it as if it were the problem in itself. People will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid facing facts and actuality. Look carefully at what I write ... you will see that I am not ‘dismissing all prior teachings and expressions, only to ultimately bring the same terms back in, with a new direct understanding of them’. For example: • [Richard]: ‘To become enlightened is to find a solution within the Human Condition, and like all solutions found there, it does not work. The Masters and Messiahs, the Saints and the Sages, the Avatars and the Saviours have had thousands of years to demonstrate the efficacy of their ‘Message’, their ‘Teachings’. There is still as much suffering now as there was then. The ‘Tried and True’ is the ‘Tried and Failed’. Unless this fact is thoroughly grasped, anything I write will be read in the same context as spiritual enlightenment and will be seen as merely more of the same old stuff. It is not. The ‘reality’ of the ‘real world’ is an illusion. The ‘Reality’ of the ‘Mystical World’ is a delusion. There is an actual world that lies under one’s very nose ... I interact with the same people, things and events that you do, yet it is as if I am in another dimension altogether. There is no good or evil here where I live. I live in a veritable paradise ... this very earth I live on is so vastly superior to any fabled Arcadian Utopia that it would be impossible to believe if I was not living it twenty four hours a day ... and for the last five years. It is so perfectly pure and clear here that there is no need for Love or Compassion or Bliss or Euphoria or Ecstasy or Truth or Goodness or Beauty or Oneness or Unity or Wholeness or ... or any of those baubles. They all pale into pathetic insignificance ... and I lived them for eleven years’. (Richard, List B, No. 19, 8 March 1998). When I dismiss something ... it stays dismissed. RICHARD: There is something precious in living itself. Something beyond compare. Something more valuable than any ‘King’s Ransom’. It is not rare gemstones; it is not singular works of art; it is not the much-prized bags of money; it is not the treasured loving relationships; it is not the highly esteemed blissful states of ‘Being’ ... it is not any of these things usually considered precious. There is something ultimately precious. It is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe. RESPONDENT: So there is an ultimately precious infinitude of the universe that is when ‘I’ cease to exist. (...) What is ultimately precious is sacred. You are simply changing the words. RICHARD: I think not. This is the way the words ‘precious’ and ‘sacred’ differ for me: • Precious: priceless, valuable, prized, cherished, beyond price, without price, of incalculable value, of incalculable worth, of inestimable value, of inestimable worth, invaluable, incomparable, irreplaceable, treasured, worth its weight in gold, worth a king’s ransom. (Oxford Dictionary). • Sacred: holy, blessed, blest, hallowed, consecrated, sanctified, godly, divine, deified, supreme, venerated, religious, spiritual, devotional, churchly, ecclesiastical. (Oxford Dictionary). RESPONDENT: Is there a need to be viewed as unique? RICHARD: An actual freedom is unique. RICHARD: I can freely say that I, as I am today, did nothing to become free of the Human Condition. It was ‘I’ that did all the work ... ‘I’ self-immolated. And I am very pleased that ‘I’ did that. I am not proud because I did nothing to earn commendation ... it was ‘I’ that made this possible. Consequently I find myself here, in the world as-it-is, as this flesh and blood body. A vast stillness lies all around, a perfection that is abounding with purity. Beneficence, an active kindness, overflows in all directions, imbuing everything with unimaginable fairytale-like quality. For me to be able to be here at all is a blessing that only ‘I’ could grant, because nobody else could do it for me. I am full of admiration for the ‘me’ that dared to do such a thing. I owe all that I experience now to ‘me’. I salute ‘my’ audacity. And what an adventure it was ... and still is. These are the wondrous workings of the exquisite quality of life – who would have it any other way? Thus I find myself to be this infinite and perfect physical universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being. RESPONDENT: Very beautiful. I mean it. I can sense it ... ‘vast stillness lies all around, a perfection that is abounding with purity’; ‘Beneficence, an active kindness, overflows in all directions’. Yet, again ... this to me is how I understand enlightenment to be. RICHARD: This description (‘a vast stillness lies all around, a perfection that is abounding with purity; beneficence, an active kindness, overflows in all directions’ ) could very well be a description of the Enlightened State Of Being, yes. Religiosity, spirituality, mysticality and metaphysicality in general does not have the corner on descriptive phrases ... what these words describe has no copyright. RESPONDENT: I (unlike you), do not understand enlightenment to be an altered state of consciousness. RICHARD: This is not only my classification ... I am following the generally accepted convention around the world. RESPONDENT: I understand enlightenment to be the state where nothing is in the way of ‘this infinite and perfect physical universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being’. RICHARD: I would be pleased if you could refer me to your sources – I would be delighted to meet such a person – as I have never read any Enlightened Being describing themselves this way ... they say that it is they who are infinite. RESPONDENT: Richard, are we just having linguistic issues here. RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: Or are you just wanting so very much to be the only one who has entered the ‘adventure’. RICHARD: As I said (above) I would be delighted to meet another person who experiences this as I do ... it would be such fun comparing notes. RESPONDENT: Or am I still missing something here? RICHARD: Yes ... enlightenment is when ‘I’ as ego dies and ‘me’ as soul transmogrifies into the ‘Eternal Self’ or ‘Original Face’ or ‘Buddha Mind’ ... or some-such identity. This identity (that I am calling ‘me’ as soul for convenience) is the ‘consciousness’ which reincarnates until liberation and then one has freed themselves from the cycle of birth and death and rebirth. It is ‘me’ as soul that makes this world of people, things and events into a grim and glum reality ... and causes one to seek the ultimate state in a metaphysical realm. Whereas, when ‘me’ as soul likewise dies ... the ultimate is here at this place in infinite space, now at this moment in eternal time. It is this physical universe that is infinite and eternal ... not me. I am mortal. VINEETO: Matter/ energy is not only primary but it is all there is. That’s what makes it so magical. The universe is a physical material universe and there are no disembodied spirits anywhere to be found except in the hearts and minds of human beings who yearn for immortality. Nor was the universe created according to humanly conceived mathematical formulas or models – such beliefs arise from the stifling anthropocentric thinking and self-centred feelings that continue to inhibit the possibility of clear thinking from operating. RESPONDENT: Statements like ‘Matter/energy is not only primary but it is all there is’ make me questioning the Actualist’s ‘Weltanschauung’. How do you know that this is not just another belief as bad [maybe worse] as believing in ‘disembodied spirits’ or a creation of the universe ‘according to humanly conceived mathematical formulas and models’? VINEETO: I know because I am reporting the direct experience that is possible each time when the ‘self’ goes temporarily in abeyance. (…) RESPONDENT: I am asking because these terms ‘matter’ and ‘energy’ themselves have no meaning whatsoever outside of the physical theories that are used to describe them – as one can easily find out for oneself. I will just requote the physicist Metanomski who joined ‘the branch of Einstein’s team opened in Warsaw Mathematical Institute by Infeld, where [he] worked on Relativity’. ‘Mass and Energy are pure constructs of mind having no autonomous phenomenal meaning.’ <snipped rest of the quote> VINEETO: Given that ‘matter’ and ‘energy’ existed long before human beings existed ... RESPONDENT: That is incorrect. ‘Matter’ and ‘energy’ are words used to describe the behaviour of physical systems inside of physical theories. These words are meaningless outside of the theories that define them. When you use the word ‘matter’ as synonym for ‘substance’ or ‘a solid thing’ that’s fine but don’t believe that you know what it is you are talking about. All you do is renaming your sense perceptions and using words out of their proper context. VINEETO: Instead of telling me that usage of words is ‘incorrect’, I suggest that you write to all the dictionary makers around the world and tell them what the words matter and energy means in ‘their proper context’ in the world according to No 81. RESPONDENT: With regard to what existed long before human beings existed – that is not something that you or anybody else can directly know because it simply cannot become part of your experiences. It has to be theorized. VINEETO: Common sense would have it that the matter of this planet existed before human beings existed such that they could walk upon the earth … or are you seriously proposing that human beings wafted around in space waiting for the matter that is the planet to come into existence? Your thoughtless knee-jerk objections to everything and anything that is said, based as they are on a potpourri of spiritual beliefs, metaphysical concepts and pseudo-scientific theories simply make no sense at all. RESPONDENT: And based on our current understanding of quantum physics we cannot say that something that is not perceived by the senses is actually existing. There is only ‘sense data’ and what is outside of sense data cannot be termed as ‘existing’ in the proper sense of the word. And that is not claimed by Eastern Spirituality. That is claimed to be a fact by modern physics. Quantum physicists calls it ‘probability wave’ or whatever, but that is altogether different from how you understand of ‘matter’ and ‘energy’. Modern physics doesn’t support you case. VINEETO: Yes, I know, nor do I take many of the current theories of theoretical physics to be facts. Despite your denial, modern physics has been heavily influenced by Eastern Spirituality, as has a good deal of what passes for scientific thinking for more than a century now. And given that you keep quoting quantum physics to support your case, you might want to contemplate on the fact that quantum physics is a theory based upon a mathematical device (Mr. Max Planck’s ‘quanta’) initially designed to solve the hypothetical problem of infinite ultra-violet radiation from a non-existent perfect ‘black-box’ radiator – in other words, a lot of hot air about nothing … RESPONDENT: Physicists have actually coined a term for your world-view [and it is a world-view regardless whether Richard defines it away or not]. They call it ‘naïve realism’. VINEETO: Ah, you hit the nail on the head – naiveté is the key that allows you to slip out of the armour of your social identity and become unstuck from the grip of your instinctual identity and discover the actual world with a child’s eyes (but with adult sensibilities) – a prerequisite to stepping out of the real world into the actual world where you belong and leave your ‘self’ behind. RESPONDENT: And correct me if I am wrong but one cannot go and use scientific claims to support one’s case if they conveniently fit into one’s world-view and blame scientists for being mistaken if their claims don’t support one’s case. I mean, sure, one can but that would be intellectual dishonest and in conflict with ‘happy and harmless’ [at least how I understand it]. VINEETO: Oh, but I am not doing what you say I am doing. I have inquired into the so-called ‘scientific claims’ that contradict my experience of the actual world and I have always found them to be theories, assumptions, concepts or speculations only, often based on false premises and made seemingly plausible by a combination of pride, faith, passion. … and cognitive dissonance. * VINEETO: [Given that ‘matter’ and ‘energy’ existed long before human beings existed and that human beings have coined the words matter and energy to describe the physical phenomena that they have observed,] do you not think it preposterous (‘having last what should be first’ Oxford Dictionary) to propose that the words matter and energy have ‘no meaning whatsoever outside of the physical theories that are used to describe them’? RESPONDENT: No I don’t think it is preposterous. It is actually a fact. VINEETO: Let me try and get this one right – in the world according to No 81, I cannot call the cup that you hold in your hand matter because in the world according to No 81 the word matter does not refer to an actual thing but rather refers to the physical theories that are used to define matter. By sleight of hand, a swift redefinition and a bit of double speak, t’is only a short step to proposing that the cup in your hand is not a physical substance occupying space as the dictionary defines the word matter but that the cup is matter as a few men in ivory towers and academic institutions would have us believe – insubstantial and ephemeral. You may not see it right now … but there was life (and matter) before theoretical physics. * VINEETO: As for ‘as one can easily find out for oneself’ – for an actualist the finding out for oneself consists of sensate empirical observations combined with sensible down-to-earth autonomous thinking – it does not consist of quoting what one physicist of Einstein’s team believes to be the truth. RESPONDENT: He is not talking about the truth. He is talking about what words like ‘matter’, ‘energy’ and ‘mass’ mean as defined by the physical theories. And they don’t mean much and not at all what you think that they mean. VINEETO: To you, that is. I will stick with my own experience of matter and energy, after all actualism is experiential and down-to-earth. RESPONDENT: With regard to sensate empirical observations – all you have are your sense perceptions and you can invent words to describe them but you won’t never ever know what it is that you describe with these words except that it is your sense perceptions. And that is called a circular reference. VINEETO: First of all, I do not invent words, as the words matter and energy existed and meant what they mean long before theoretical physicists hijacked and redefined them – you need to make your complaints to the dictionary writers. Secondly, because sensate perception is primary and bare awareness of sensate perception is unmediated, I know exactly what it is my senses perceive when I pay attention to it. Words serve to communicate one’s perception to others but they are not needed in order to be aware of one’s sensate experiencing. To put it into plain language, of course the word is not the thing, but human beings have coined many words to describe the many things that exist in the world. The word cup refers to an actual thing we call a cup, the actual thing is actual whether we call it a cup or not. The thing that we call a cup exists in its own right, it has a quality that we call substance in that it had been fashioned from the rocks of the earth and it autonomously exists in space regardless of whether anyone is touching it or looking at it. Nothing circular about that at all – it’s all straightforward really, unless you are a solipsist, that is. RESPONDENT: [And that is called a circular reference.] That’s how consciousness works. A sense perception is derivative of consciousness. VINEETO: To propose that ‘a sense perception is derivative of consciousness’ is, yet again, to put the cart before the horse. Consciousness, the condition of being conscious – as in being alive, not dead, awake, not asleep, and sensible, not insensible (comatose) – is a by-product of animate matter in sentient beings. RESPONDENT: Is this so difficult to understand? VINEETO: Oh, I understand you all too well. It is the anthropocentric self-centred spiritual paradigm – that which is 180 degrees opposite to actualism. I’ve been there, done that and even got the robes and the mala (the initiation-necklace), but in your case your intellectual understanding of spiritualism has apparently led you to the utter isolation of solipsism. * VINEETO: To propose that ‘Mass and Energy’, which are palpable, tangible, tactile, corporeal, physical and material and can be experienced by the physical senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch (it is a fact that the sun exists in that we can both see it, see the energy in the form of light that it gives off and feel the energy in the form of heat that it gives off on our skin), should be ‘pure constructs of mind’ is clear indication that Eastern spiritualism has muddled the mind of many a scientist who in turn have muddled the minds of many a layman. RESPONDENT: It is a very bad style of communication to confuse the proper use of words [mass and energy] and mix them with unrelated topics [Eastern spiritualism] in order to suggest something. That is actually harmful. You simply don’t get that the words ‘mass’ and ‘energy’ don’t stand for [symbolise] any sense data. VINEETO: It was you who suggested that my use of words was not ‘proper’ because I used the words as per the dictionary definitions and not in accordance with the current theories of theoretical physicists. You also introduced the notion that consciousness is primary and sense perception is secondary (‘a sense perception is derivative of consciousness’) and that ‘matter’ and ‘energy’ ‘have no autonomous phenomenal existence’ – a concept which is a purely spirit-ual concept, i.e. it states that spirit (aka consciousness aka the Transcendent, etc.) is primary and matter is a mere derivative of it. I don’t see how pointing out to you that what you are doing on this mailing list is peddling a spiritual concept could be harmful. I do acknowledge that having one’s beliefs challenged can be confronting for those who hold such beliefs, but I would point out that this is something that one could reasonably expect given that you are attempting to teach spiritual beliefs on a non-spiritual mailing list. Personally, it was only because Peter and Richard pointed out to me the spiritual-ness of my beliefs that I was able to question, understand and eventually abandon them which in turn enabled me to perceive the magical physical world without the blinkers of my spiritually-thwarted perception. As for ‘very bad style’ – you are not the first to come up with this objection nor will you be the last. Personally I found that when the discussion degenerates to a critique of style then it is an indication that my co-respondent is not interested in understanding the content of what I have to report. RESPONDENT: And by the way correcting peoples spelling mistakes ... RICHARD: Here is the incident you are (presumably) referring to: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘He [Richard] can be right or scizophrenic. • [Richard]: ‘There are two main ways the word ‘schizophrenic’ is used. For some examples: ‘schizophrenic: 1. (psychiatry) characteristic of or having schizophrenia; 2 (transf. & fig.) characterised by mutually contradictory or inconsistent elements, attitudes, etc’. (Oxford Dictionary). ‘schizophrenic: 1. of, relating to, or affected with schizophrenia; 2. of, relating to, or characterised by the coexistence of disparate or antagonistic elements’. (American Heritage® Dictionary). ‘schizophrenic: 1. of schizophrenia: relating to or resulting from schizophrenia; 2. offensive term: an offensive term meaning characterised by conflicts and contradictions (insult)’. (Encarta Dictionary). As only a psychiatrist – who, unlike a psychologist, is a medical doctor as well – has the necessary professional qualifications to make a diagnosis of schizophrenia (and who would be able to spell the word correctly) it is reasonable to assume you are referring to the second, the transferred and figurative, usage of the word’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 96, 9 August 2005). As can be readily seen I was not, repeat not, correcting a spelling mistake ... I was providing a reason for assuming that my co-respondent was referring to the second, the transferred and figurative, usage of the word. RESPONDENT: ... [correcting peoples spelling mistakes] when you make them yourself (...) is just tawdry and impolite. RICHARD: Here is the occasion you are (presumably) referring to: • [Respondent]: ‘I was just reading Richards reasons for thinking that eating meat is harmless. • [Richard]: ‘Or, more accurately, you were just selectively reading one part of an explanation of mine as to why vegetarians, vegans, and fruitarians are essentially no different to pacifists ... to be superficially altering behavioural patterns is to be merely rearranging the deck-chairs on the ‘Titanic’. (...) (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 98, 2 September 2005). • [Respondent]: ‘Oh yeah I almost forgot. You were so nice to correct our nutty Italian friends spelling in so gracious a manner I thought I might return the favour. It is ‘Behavioral’, not ‘Behavioural’. You would think someone with so much insight into human behaviour would know how to spell it. Eat up mate’. (Friday 2/09/2005 2:11 PM AEST). I will draw your attention to the following: • ‘behavioural (also -ior-): of, pertaining to, or forming part of behaviour; behaviouralism: behavioural science [the science of animal (and human) behaviour] esp. as applied to politics; behaviouralist: a practitioner of behaviouralism, (adv) of or pertaining to behaviouralism or behaviouralists; behaviourally: as regards behaviour’. (Oxford Dictionary). RESPONDENT: So that is what you decided to respond to above and beyond all the other questions raised in my mail? RICHARD: No, that is what I responded to before answering the other questions you raised in your e-mail ... and here is an example as to why (from the same e-mail): • [Respondent]: ‘I was just reading Richards reasons for thinking that eating meat is harmless. • [Richard]: ‘Or, more accurately, you were just selectively reading one part of an explanation of mine as to why vegetarians, vegans, and fruitarians are essentially no different to pacifists ... to be superficially altering behavioural patterns is to be merely rearranging the deck-chairs on the ‘Titanic’. • [Respondent]: ‘Bottom line for him I suppose is that it is not done out of malice. • [Richard]: ‘Put simply: it is not violence per se (as in physical force/restraint) or the potential for violence which is the problem: ... (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 98, 2 September 2005). • [Respondent]: ‘Notice in the above exchange I use the word malice which is then turned into the world violence by you’. [endquote]. Whereas, of course, this is what I actually wrote: • [Richard]: ‘Put simply: it is not violence per se (as in physical force/restraint) or the potential for violence which is the problem: it is ‘me’, as the emotions and passions, fuelling the violence, or fuelling the potential for violence, who begets all the misery and mayhem’. I was responding to your comment [quote] ‘bottom line for him I suppose is that it is not done out of malice’ [endquote] with an explanation as to why it is not – that there is no identity here to fuel the act – because the first paragraph of that an explanation of mine as to why vegetarians, vegans, and fruitarians are essentially no different to pacifists had, apparently, passed right over your head when you read it. Viz.: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Neither is eating a hamburger [harmless]. Just ask the cattle. • [Richard]: ‘Actually, I was talking about having eliminated malice – what is commonly called evil – from oneself in its entirety. That is, the ‘dark side’ of human nature which requires the maintenance of a ‘good side’ to eternally combat it. By doing the ‘impossible’ – everybody tells me that you can’t change human nature – then one is automatically harmless ... which does not mean abstaining from killing. It means that no act is malicious, spiteful, hateful, revengeful and so on. It is a most estimable condition to be in’. (Richard, List A, No. 16, No. 02). In short: as there was no reason for you to [quote] ‘suppose’ [endquote] that my actions are not done out of malice – it was already clearly spelt-out for you – I simply wanted to see if you could comprehend something quite ordinary ... to wit: I am not in the business of [quote] ‘correcting peoples spelling mistakes’ [endquote] and neither did I spell the word ‘behavioural’ incorrectly. And the reason why I wanted to see if you could comprehend something quite ordinary is because of this (from the same e-mail): • [Respondent]: ‘At one point you equated eating meat with drinking water filled with micro-organisms. That made me angry because I was asking an honest fair question and that was evasion of the question. Why angry? Because Actualism sounds *reasonable*. Then I start talking to you and watch you respond to others and it really just knocked the piss out of the whole thing’. [emphasis added]. Is it [quote] ‘reasonable’ [endquote] to conclude that I am correcting peoples spelling mistakes when I make them myself even though I never did correct another’s spelling nor ever spelt the word ‘behavioural’ incorrectly? If your answer is in the negative then is it [quote] ‘reasonable’ [endquote] to choose to be angry just because I pointed out that killing other living organisms (be they either flora or fauna whether big or small) is a fact of life? RESPONDENT: [Richard]: ‘6. Peace-on-earth can become apparent to anyone at all irregardless of gender, age or race because the perfection of the infinitude of this spatial and temporal universe is already always here at this place in infinite space ... now at this moment in eternal time’. (www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/articles/aprecisofactualfreedom.htm). I think the word irregardless should be changed to regardless. RICHARD: Both words mean the same thing. Viz.: • ‘irregardless: = regardless [without regard to or consideration of something; despite the consequences, nonetheless]’. (Oxford Dictionary). RESPONDENT: I retract my words. I no longer consider you a ‘prick’. It is indeed a privilege for me to have the chance to converse with you. I do mean it. RICHARD: Okay ... I will re-phrase my question, then: how on earth can someone – anyone – appreciate the words and writings spoken and written by a person that is not a caring human being, a person that is aggressive, a person that is arrogant by nature? RESPONDENT: See? RICHARD: See ... what? RESPONDENT: Do you mean to say that I should go over my correspondence with a fine-toothed comb and retract each and every phrase which conveyed my impression of you being a prick, even though I have said that I no longer hold to that view? RICHARD: No ... the whole point of me responding to these impressions/ points of view/ considerations is contained in what I wrote a little over a week ago: • [Respondent]: ‘... in your conversations, more often than not, the impression is that of a prick, not a caring human being. • [Richard]: ‘As I said at the beginning: I have been discussing these matters with my fellow human being for 25 years now and have had that particularly insidious argument (an argument which rests upon no evidence whatsoever but relies solely upon intuition and imagination) presented to me on many an occasion. This is one of those occasions’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 74f, 2 February 2006). Quite frankly, there are far more important matters to discuss than the things some peoples choose to read into my words no matter how exact, precise, referential, and so forth, they become ... things like pedantry (for instance) or a failure on my part to understand yet another point of view (for example) or even (believe it or not) me trying to act like a computer. RESPONDENT: The above is a typical example of needless pedantry ... RICHARD: If peoples did not have a predilection for reading things into my words which are simply not there I would have no need for exactness, precision, cross-referencing, and so forth ... I wrote far more loosely when I first came on-line (and also in ‘Richard’s Journal’) and it was only interaction with the many and various malcontents and misfits (by and large mainly religionists, spiritualists, mystics, and metaphysicalists), in those early years, which has occasioned me to hone my writing skills so as to obviate, as far as possible, having to re-visit same again and again until all the looseness was tightened up. I have written about something similar before: • [Richard]: ‘A curious thing I have noticed, ever since I started writing on the internet, is that my writing has become increasingly peppered with qualifiers, conditioners, caveats, codicils, and footnotes (...) Thus where I used to say ‘contrary to popular belief it is possible to be happy and harmless all the time’ (for example) nowadays it looks like this: [Richard]: ‘... perhaps this is also an apt moment to explain that nowhere do I say that either the human animal or the other animals cannot be (relatively) happy from time-to-time or (relatively) harmless from time-to-time – and even for extended periods – but that the survival passions, and the feeling-being they automatically form themselves into, not only preclude both total happiness and harmlessness and happiness all-the-time and harmlessness all-the-time but occlude the direct experience of the meaning of life as a living actuality each moment again’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44c, 17 August 2003). RESPONDENT: ... [The above is a typical example] of failing to understand the other person’s point of view ... RICHARD: Has it not dawned upon you yet that others’ points of view, impressions, considerations, and so on, about me or of me mean nothing to me? I intimately know, via first-hand experience, that whatever it is they feel/ intuit/ imagine/ infer me to be, or to be doing, it has no existence outside of their intuitive/ imaginative facility. RESPONDENT: ... and trying to act like a computer. RICHARD: I will say this much: the more you try to dig yourself out of the hole you made, by attempting to duck-shove the onus for your points of view/ impressions/ considerations onto me, the deeper into it you get yourself ... as I intimately know (via first-hand experience) that I am not, repeat not, trying to act like a computer your throwaway line is nothing but ... um ... a load of hogwash. What is the point of typing out worthless stuff and nonsense ... let alone clicking ‘send’? Actual Freedom Homepage
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