Actual Freedom – Articles

More than a few Westerners have foolishly allowed themselves to be taken in by the apparent wisdom coming from the Eastern mystical tradition – ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ and other ‘Altered States Of Consciousness’ (ASC) – because of the paucity of experiential wisdom in their own culture. It all started growing exponentially after the ’sixties generation trekked eagerly to the Himalayas, and to other exotic places eastern, to find the permanent drug experience ... and found cultures who had been practicing same for centuries, which (with the benefit of hindsight) has had predictably the self-same results: mystical ‘States Of Being’ that take one out of the physical world of the senses into a dissociative state of unreality.

However, by being born and raised in the West peoples who are thus not steeped in the mystical religious cultures of the East will be able to escape the trap of centuries of Eastern spiritual conditioning by achieving a condition beyond ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ which lands one directly into the actuality of being here at this place in infinite space right now at this moment in eternal time as this flesh and blood body. For too many years have people sought in vain in the esoteric realms for a genuine exploration and discovery of what it means to live a fully human life, little realising there is an incomparable condition located here in this very physical world, this actual world of the senses. For there is indeed an actual freedom from the human condition that is a physical condition which, not being an affective or cerebral or psychic state of ‘being’, and which ensues when one sidesteps ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’, requires no frantic belief-system with all its faith, hope, trust and surrender to attain it.

The blame for the continuation of human misery and mayhem lies squarely in the lap of those inspired people who, although having sufficient enthusiasm to proceed into ‘The Unknown’, stopped short of the final goal ... ‘The Unknowable’. Notwithstanding the cessation of a personal ego operating, they were unwilling to relinquish the Soul, the Self, the Spirit, the Being ... thus an ego-less Guru is still an identity, nevertheless. In spite of the glamour and the glory of the ASC, closer examination reveals that these ‘Great Sages’ had – and have – feet of clay. Bewitched and beguiled by the promise of majesty and mystery, they have led humankind astray. Preaching submission or supplication they keep a benighted ‘humanity’ in appalling tribulation and distress. The death of the ego is not sufficient: the extinction of the identity in its entirety is the essential ingredient for peace and prosperity to reign for each and everyone individually.

There is nobody to ‘save’ the human race ... all gods and goddesses are but a figment of a feverish imagination known as calenture. After something like five thousand years of recorded history, ‘humanity’ is nowhere nearer to Peace and Harmony than before. Indeed, because of the much-touted Love and Compassion, much Hatred and Bloodshed has followed in their wake. ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’, which has been within the human experience for thousands of years, has not delivered the Peace On Earth it seems to promise. As the process of becoming enlightened is an extreme test of credulity, requiring gullibility stretched to its limit, it seems that only a rare few humans are destined to become ‘Self-Realised’ ... only 0.0000001 of the population, in a recent estimate. The question that commands attention is why this is so: is there something that lies beyond ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ which will usher in the beginning of a genuine possibility of peace for all? Some Gurus and Masters have hinted at and alluded to ‘Going Beyond Enlightenment’ ... yet their ‘Teachings’ have remained exactly the same. Some disciplines suggest that such a condition exists after physical death: when the soul ‘quits the body’. Both the Hindu after-life (‘Mahasamadhi’) and Buddhist after-life (‘Parinirvana’) are two examples of this kind of thought.

Is it not obvious that there be a final and complete condition that will ‘deliver the goods’ so longed for by humanity for millennia? Just like the ego has to dissolve to become enlightened, so too does the soul need to be extirpated. To live in a condition of complete emancipation and utter autonomy – a condition which is both permanent and actual – one needs to eschew not only the embedded ‘self’ but the bodiless ‘Self’ who transcends Time and Space and Form. To forgo not only the feeling of ‘being’ but the mystical state of ‘Being’ itself calls for an audacity unparalleled in the annals of history ... or one’s personal history, at least. It is the most stimulating adventure of a lifetime to embark upon a voyage into one’s own psyche. Discovering the source of the Nile or climbing Mount Everest – or whatever physical venture – pales into insignificance when compared to the thrill of finding out about life, the universe, and what it is to be a human being living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are.

To set out on what is the most marvellous escapade possible one needs to understood that there is nobody stopping you but yourself; then one has the autonomy to inquire, to seek, to investigate and to explore. As soon as one realises nobody is standing in the way but yourself, that realisation becomes an actualisation and one is free to encounter, to uncover, to discover and to find the ‘secret to life’, or the ‘riddle of existence’, or the ‘purpose of the universe’, or the ‘meaning of life’ or whatever one’s quest may be called. To dare to be what-one-is as an actuality – rather than the who ‘you’ were or the who ‘you’ are or the who ‘you’ will be – is to enable the already always existing peace-on-earth to become apparent.

Yet, despite of the fact that every single human being has had at least one pure consciousness experience (PCE) of the already always existing peace-on-earth – and usually more – in their lifetime, they somehow cannot differentiate between that peak experience of apperception (wherein ‘I’ the thought personality and ‘me’ the felt ‘being’ temporarily quits the scene and the earthy peace and harmony of the actual world becomes apparent) and their pre-conceived notions that everyday reality is an illusion disguising some metaphysical ‘Greater Reality’. The Glamour and the Glory and the Glitz of the ASC has a tenacious grip upon the minds and hearts of a benighted humanity. It is indeed strange, to the point of being bizarre, that so many persons will turn their backs on the purity of the perfection of being here – of being fully alive – at this moment in time. Here in this actual world, which is where this flesh and blood body is living anyway, is the peace that everyone says they are searching for. All that is required is that one comes to one’s senses – both literally and metaphorically – and spend the rest of one’s life without malice and sorrow. One will then be happy and harmless, blithe and benign, gay and carefree.

It is, of course, a bold step to forsake lofty thoughts, profound feelings and psychic adumbrations and enter into the actuality of life as a sensate experience. It requires a startling audacity to devote oneself to the task of causing a mutation of consciousness to occur. To have the requisite determination to apply oneself, with the diligence and perseverance born out of pure intent, to the patient dismantling of one’s accrued social identity and to the dissolution of one’s inherited genetic identity indicates a strength of purpose unequalled in the annals of history. It is no little thing that one does ... and it has enormous consequences, not only for one’s own well-being, but for humankind as a whole. With an actual freedom from the human condition spread like a chain-letter, in the due course of time, global freedom would revolutionise the concept of humanity.

It would be a free association of peoples world-wide; a utopian-like loose-knit affiliation of like-minded individuals. One would be a citizen of the world, not of a sovereign state. Countries, with their artificial borders would vanish along with the need for the military. As nationalism would expire, so too would patriotism with all its heroic evils. No police force would be needed anywhere on earth; no locks on the doors, no bars on the windows. Gaols, judges and juries would become a thing of the dreadful past ... terror would stalk its prey no more. People would live together in peace and harmony, happiness and delight. Pollution and its cause – over-population – would be set to rights without effort, as competition would be replaced by cooperation. It would be the stuff of all the pipe-dreams come true.

But none of this matters much when one is already living freely in the actual world. In actual freedom, life is experienced as being perfect as-it-is here-on-earth. One knows that one is living in a beneficent and benevolent universe – and that is what actually counts. The self-imposed iniquities that ail the people who stubbornly wish to remain denizens of the grim and glum ‘real world’, fail to impinge upon the blitheness and benignity of one who lives in the vast scheme of things. The universe does not force anyone to be happy and harmless, to live in peace and ease, to be free of sorrow and malice. It is a matter of personal choice as to which way one will travel. Human beings, being as they are, will probably continue to tread the ‘tried and true’ paths, little realising that they are the tried and failed ways. There is none so contumacious as a self-righteous soul who is convinced that they know the way to live as revealed in their ancient and revered scriptures ... or in their much-prized secular philosophies and psychologies.

Because to become free of the human condition one needs to fully acknowledge the biological imperative (the instinctual passions) which are the root cause of all the ills of humankind. Being an identity is because the only way into this world of people, things and events is via the human spermatozoa fertilising the human ova ... thus every human being is endowed, by blind nature, with the basic instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. These passions are the very energy source of the rudimentary animal self ... the base consciousness of ‘self’ and ‘other’ that all sentient beings have. The human animal – with its unique ability to think and reflect upon its own death – transforms this ‘reptilian brain’ rudimentary ‘self’ into being a feeling ‘me’ (as soul in the heart) and from this core of ‘being’ the ‘feeler’ then infiltrates into thought to become the ‘thinker’ ... a thinking ‘I’ (as ego in the head). No other animal can do this. This process is aided and abetted by the human beings who were already on this planet when one was born ... which is conditioning and programming. It is part and parcel of the socialising process.

The genetically inherited passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) give rise to malice and sorrow. Malice and sorrow are intrinsically connected and constitute what is known as ‘The Human Condition’. The term ‘Human Condition’ is a well-established philosophical term that refers to the situation that all human beings find themselves in when they emerge here as babies. The term refers to the contrary and perverse nature of all peoples of all races and all cultures. There is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in everyone ... all humans have a ‘dark side’ to their nature and a ‘light side’. The battle betwixt ‘Good and Evil’ has raged down through the centuries and it requires constant vigilance lest evil gets the upper hand. Morals and ethics seek to control the wayward self that lurks deep within the human breast ... and some semblance of what is called ‘peace’ prevails for the main. Where morality and ethicality fails to curb the ‘savage beast’, law and order is maintained ... at the point of a gun. The ending of malice and sorrow involves getting one’s head out of the clouds – and beyond – and coming down-to-earth where the flesh and blood bodies called human beings actually live. Obviously, the solution to all the ills of humankind can only be found here in space and now in time as this body.

Then the question is: is it possible to be free of the human condition, here on earth, in this life-time, as this flesh and blood body? Which means: How on earth can one live happily and harmlessly in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are whilst one nurses malice and sorrow in one’s bosom?

There is a wide and wondrous path to actual freedom: One asks oneself, each moment again, ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’? This can give rise to apperception. Apperception is the outcome of the exclusive attention paid to being alive right here just now. Apperception is to be the senses as a bare awareness, a pure consciousness experience (PCE) of the world as-it-is, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. Apperception is an awareness of consciousness. It is not ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious; it is the mind’s awareness of itself.

To be apperceptive is to be here, intimately here at this moment in time where this actual world is such a marvellous place to be alive in, and is a satisfaction and fulfilment unparalleled in the chronicles of antiquity. An actual freedom is a direct intimacy – actually being right here-on-earth just now-in-time – and does not come from love and compassion, for the affective states of being stem from separation. The illusion of intimacy that love and compassion produce is but a meagre imitation of the direct experience of the actual. In the actual world, the ego, the personality, and the soul, the ‘being’ – both subjectively experienced as one’s identity – have ceased to exist; whereas love and compassion accentuates, endorses and verifies ‘me’ as being real. And while ‘I’ am real, ‘I’ am relative to other similarly afflicted persons; vying for position and status in order to establish ‘my’ credentials ... to verify ‘my’ very existence.

To be actually intimate is to be without the separative identity in toto ... and therefore free from the need for love and compassion with their ever un-filled promise of a seeming Peace On Earth. There is an actual intimacy with everyone and everything ... actual intimacy is a direct experiencing of the other as-they-are. Actual intimacy frees one up to a world of factual splendour, based firmly upon sensate and sensuous delight. The candid and unabashed sensorial enjoyment of being this body in the world around is such a luscious and immediate experience, that the tantalising but ever-elusive promise of the mystique of love and compassion drops into the waste-bin of history as they deserve.

The day finally dawns where the definitive moment of being here, right now, conclusively arrives; something irrevocable takes place and every thing and every body and every event is different, somehow, although the same physically; something immutable occurs and every thing and every body and every event is all-of-a-sudden undeniably actual, in and of itself, as a fact; something irreversible happens and an immaculate perfection and a pristine purity permeates every thing and every body and every event; something has changed forever, although it is as if nothing has happened, except that the entire world is a magical fairytale-like playground full of incredible gladness and a delight which is never-ending.

‘My’ demise was as fictitious as ‘my’ apparent presence. I have always been here, I realise, it was that ‘I’ only imagined that ‘I’ existed. It was all an emotional play in a fertile imagination ... which was, however, fuelled by an actual hormonal substance triggered off from within the brain-stem because of the instinctual passions bestowed by blind nature. Thus the psyche – the entire affective faculty born of the instincts itself – is wiped out forever and one is finally what one actually is: this thinking and reflective flesh-and-blood body simply brimming with sense organs, delighting in this very sensual world of actual experience.

Thus the search for meaning amidst the debris of the much-vaunted human hopes and dreams and schemes comes to its timely end. With the end of both ‘I’ and ‘me’, the distance or separation between both ‘I’ and ‘me’ and the sense organs – and thus the external world – disappears. To be living as the senses is to live a clean and clear and pure awareness – apperception – a pure consciousness experience of the world as-it-is. Because there is no ‘I’ as a thinker (a little person inside one’s head) or a ‘me’ as a feeler (a little person in one’s heart) – to have sensations happen to them, one is the sensations. The entire affective faculty vanishes ... blind nature’s software package of instinctual passions is deleted.

Then there is nothing except the series of sensations which happen ... not happening to an ‘I’ or a ‘me’ but just happening ... moment by moment ... one after another. To live life as these sensations, as distinct from having them, engenders the most astonishing sense of freedom and magic. One is living in peace and tranquillity; a meaningful peace and tranquillity. Life is intrinsically purposeful, the reason for existence lies openly all around. It never goes away – nor has it ever been away – it was just that ‘I’/‘me’ was standing in the way of the meaning of life being apparent. Life is not a vale of tears; peace-on-earth is an actual freedom from the human condition; it is indeed possible to be actually free, here on earth, as this body, in this life-time.

To seek and to find; to explore and uncover; to investigate and discover ... these actions are the very stuff of life!

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(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.