Actual Freedom – A Request from Konrad Swart

September 08 1998:

KONRAD: Just for fun I visited your website recently, and was amazed to find a page about our conversation. I thank you that you honour me in this way. The words of Oscar Wilde pop-up into my mind: ‘There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about’. Not that I crave for recognition as an individual that is special in whatever way, for such matters are (finally) unimportant to me. I have not read the complete page, but even when it contains inaccuracies, I do not mind, because I do not desire to become known as somebody special.

RICHARD: Then why quote Mr. Oscar Wilde to me? He certainly craved notoriety. Also, you made such a big thing about being special in your last mail to me ... where you condemned my honest answer in the affirmative to your question ‘do you consider yourself to be special?’ All this being humble business smacks of vanity ... and fools no-one other than yourself. If one has discovered something no other person in human history has discovered ... this is being special. And if this discovery is the complete and total eradication of the ‘dark side’ of human nature – thus eliminating the need to develop and nurture a ‘good side’ – then that is something very special indeed ... for it means peace-on-earth in this life-time as this body. And when it has a global incidence, it means no more wars, rapes, murders, tortures, domestic violence, child abuse, sadness, loneliness, grief, depression and suicide and so on.

KONRAD: There is nothing I represent that I need to defend. This is, as far as I can see, something that we have in common.

RICHARD: Yet – if I may point this out to you – you do have something to defend. This was evidenced in another post you wrote to a Mailing List where you say that you were ‘infuriated’ at someone’s reply to you. Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘You have infuriated me with this statement!’
• [Respondent]: ‘Well, why don’t you use your Tautological Process ™ to drop your fury? Or maybe you aren’t as advanced as you pretend to be’.
• [Konrad]: ‘Why should I? Is there something wrong with being infuriated? I see that there is nothing wrong with it. That is, as long as it does not lead to a situation whereby you become totally irrational. And, as you can see from my mail, I can be infuriated and still be completely rational. There is only a problem, when emotion replaces rational judgement and understanding. But if it does not, the rational processes can be applied on this fury, see what is at the bottom of it, and see whether the emotion emerges from a principle that is a valid one. If it is, the intensity of the emotion can be used as a measure of the degree that some wrong is done’.

Note well the last sentence: [quote] ‘the intensity of the emotion can be used as a measure of the degree that some wrong is done’ [endquote]. That is indeed a clear indication of having something to defend. When it is done between countries ... this kind of emotion can eventually lead to war.

KONRAD: I have found the identity of ‘the process’. I now know how it works, how it comes to be, and how it can be ignited. For it makes my vision completely clear and complete. Especially the connection between ‘the process’ and its structural origin is then clear.

RICHARD: Hmm ... ‘completely clear and complete’ until the next time you change your mind, eh? [quote]: ‘but even when it contains inaccuracies’ [endquote] (See top of page for context)

KONRAD: Intervidualism is something new I am developing now. It is a concept that grew out of my computer programming activities. I think that I am moving within a domain that reaches further than individualism. In fact, I was amazed to find that there IS something beyond it. If you want, I can explain more about this approach in the future. Maybe you like it.

RICHARD: I sure would ... although your ‘intervidualism’ – as contrasted to ‘individualism’ – already sounds like a variation on ‘communalism’.

KONRAD: For it might be that it explains also your communication with others, despite the fact that everything is perfect as far as you can see. It can make this behaviour clear, especially its consistency with your perfect state.

RICHARD: My communication with others is simply based upon the fact that we are all fellow human beings ... and they tell me that they are suffering. Now, I know – from my on-going experience – that all suffering is self-induced and self-inflicted ... and I see the results of this unnecessary suffering in action in the world about. It all stems from the instincts that blind nature endows all sentient beings with at birth ... fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Out of this a passionate ‘me’ in the heart is born, giving rise to an emotional ‘I’ in the head. Thus there is no need for all the wars, rapes, murders, tortures, domestic violence, child abuse, sadness, loneliness, grief, depression and suicide.

KONRAD: One other thing. I take back that you have a closed mind. Not that I think you have not, but I see now that everybody has a closed mind. Mind is, in essence, always closed. The important point is not whether the mind is closed or not, but how to deal with this fact.

RICHARD: This mind here is wide-open ... there are no barriers drawn here. However, this does not mean that I will start believing in some metaphysical ‘Absolute’ (a god by whatever name) again ... my mind is definitely ‘closed’ to that fantasy. As I wrote to you once before: ‘do you still believe in Sinterklaas ... or is your mind closed to his actual existence?’

To which you gave a silly answer.

Then you say you have made some discoveries about the ‘process’, especially in relation to a question I asked: ‘is it a form of going beyond ... is it some intermediate state to something else ... is it a state of imbalance?’ Although you never do get around to directly answering this, you do say in the beginning: ‘it is separated from consciousness, but it has a relation with it’.

Firstly, the ‘process’ is only separate from consciousness inasmuch as you relate the feeling of being ‘I’ as being consciousness itself. As this is the case for you, obviously the ‘process’ is indeed experienced as being [quote] ‘separated from consciousness, but has a relation with it’ [endquote] ... it being the device that will free consciousness from the insidious ‘I’ that has a parasitical residence within. In other words, if ‘I’ am felt to be consciousness itself, then the ‘process’ – being impersonal – is definitely separated from ‘I’ (when all of consciousness itself is taken to be nothing but an ‘I’, as is the case with you, it shows the startling degree of identification that this insidious entity has managed to usurp).

Secondly, the relation betwixt the ‘process’ and ‘I’ (which for you is consciousness itself) is that ‘I’ need an impersonal ‘process’ to ensure the ending of ‘me’ as ‘I’ cannot do it of ‘my’ own accord (being without this ‘process’ would be akin to that old adage of being unable to pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps ... which is why these Gurus say that a relationship with a Master is essential for those who have not been able to implement it for themselves).

KONRAD: There is a relation between the intensity of consciousness and its contents. The more skills, know-how, understanding and knowledge you have and are active at a certain moment, the more intense consciousness is.

RICHARD: Aye ... and the more intense the ‘I’ is too, because you equate ‘I’ with the totality of consciousness itself. I found this statement from you intriguing:

• [Konrad]: ‘For there is no difference between consciousness and its contents’.

As this is a direct take from Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti (‘consciousness is its contents’), I wonder what you mean by it. He would go on to say that the emptying of the contents is the ending of consciousness itself ... by which he meant ‘I’, of course (obviously ‘of course’ because there was consciousness operating for him as he was not catatonic – in Samadhi – all of the time).

KONRAD: Since the contents of consciousness can also be an understanding, this insight extends to understanding. This makes, among other things, every understanding a form of thought. So, to give a simple example, if you understand that you ARE your body, then this understanding is a form of thought. Without thought this understanding is impossible. Your claim, that it is possible to realize that you are your body without thought processing going on that make that clear is therefore nonsense.

RICHARD: Okay ... but only if you take consciousness to be ‘contents as thought’ and not ‘contents as ‘I’’. With apperception – which is when there is no ‘I’ or ‘me’ extant – consciousness is pure awareness. That is: devoid of as ‘I’ yet with thinking operating as required by the circumstances. Thought needs no ‘I’ to operate and function. This is the same as the eyes seeing by themselves; the ears hearing autonomously; the skin feeling independently; the nose smelling of its own accord and the tongue tasting freely ... all unfettered by a ‘me’ or an ‘I’.

Thus, for this flesh and blood body called Richard, thought operates in apperception and observes that there is no ‘I’ or ‘me’ in existence in this body ... hence I can say that what I am is this body. I use the first person pronoun to conveniently refer to this flesh and blood body being conscious ... but with no ‘I’ in the driver’s seat. If this is what the enlightened masters said I would agree ... but as their ‘being’ is intact then there is still an identity steering the boat (‘I am The Self’ or ‘I am All’ or ‘I am God’ or ‘I am The Absolute’ or ‘I am The Buddha’ being but some of the many forms this identity can assume). No master or guru has ever said:

• ‘I am this body only’ or ‘I am only this flesh and blood body being conscious’.

Quite the obverse for they say words to the effect:

• ‘You are not the body; you are not the mind; you are The Self that exists beyond time and space and form; you are unborn and undying; when this body dies you will cast it off as with an old suit of clothes’.

KONRAD: Einstein was once asked whether he was able to explain his general relativity as simple as possible. He said, that the essence was that classical physicists believed, that if you remove all matter from the universe, you are left with space, devoid of matter. But according to general relativity when you remove all matter from space, then space itself has disappeared, too. The same relation exists between thought and consciousness. I have discovered, that if all thoughts are removed from consciousness, then consciousness itself has disappeared too. Apparently consciousness requires thoughts in order to exist, in the same way as space requires matter in order to exist. Without matter no space; without thoughts no consciousness.

RICHARD: The only problem with Mr. Albert Einstein’s theory is that it is just that ... a theory. You cannot ‘remove all matter from space’ no matter how many bull-dozers and dump-trucks you bring into action. Where would you put all that matter? Dump it somewhere some where outside of the universe? There must be an ‘outside’ for Mr. Albert Einstein to even think up this nonsense ... more abstract hypothesising once again. All this can never be demonstrated ... such idle speculation brings so-called ‘discoveries’ that may be very satisfying to the logically-trained mind that is desperately searching for answers from within the human condition, but it does nothing to bring about an end to malice and sorrow in the person who dreams up these schemes. He did not bring about peace-on-earth, in his life-time, for himself. Why quote him to ‘prove’ your point? What, for all of his dialogues with prominent Indians, is his contribution to the study of human consciousness worth ?

Zilch.

My experience is that consciousness continues with or without thought operating ... and on an on-going daily basis, too. How do you explain that away?

KONRAD: Consciousness in general can be defined as the presence of thoughts in our minds that contain energy. Energy, that is supplied by the body.

RICHARD: Only if an ‘I’ or ‘me’ is in charge ... for this ‘energy’ is affective (be it emotion or passion or calenture). The thought operating here as I type these words contains no energy whatsoever.

KONRAD: Any particular realization is also an understanding, and therefore a thought. Or, to put it differently, there is no such thing as a PCE.

RICHARD: This is just crazy ... everyone I have ever questioned has reported at least one PCE in their life. Usually more than one ... and they can last from as little as one-two seconds to several hours. One woman I spoke with had it last all afternoon and night, finally going to sleep at 2.00 AM ... only to find it still happening upon waking. It gradually diminished during the course of the morning. And it is not only my observation ... many are the accounts I have read of this ... the subject is currently being discussed around the world in the fields of academia. It comes up in the new study (of the last fifteen years or so) called ‘Consciousness Studies’. This is where I obtained the phrase ‘PCE’ from ... I had called it a ‘Peak Experience’ (after Mr. Abraham Maslow) until then. Oh, there are many, many websites discussing the nature of consciousness itself ... one such site is called ‘The Journal Of Consciousness Studies’ and operates out of Cambridge University in the UK ... if my memory serves me correct. Their URL is: www.zynet.co.uk/imprint/home.html

KONRAD: When a PCE is accompanied by a realization, this realization is also an understanding, and therefore a thought. Of course, I consider this vision not being beyond doubt. For many years the identity of ‘the process’ was beyond me. Only after thinking thoroughly about my dialogue with the J. Krishnamurti mailing list, and after studying Existential Phenomenology (and finding it too restrictive) the true identity of ‘the process’ became clear. Since this ‘process’ existed in me without me being able to see its identity, you could say that this ‘process’ existed in me as a kind of ‘PCE’. Still, without knowing it, I knew exactly what ‘the process’ was. The only problem was that I did not know THAT I knew it. For I had overlooked the link between the intense study of formal logic that went before the ignition of ‘the process’ and ‘the process’ itself.

RICHARD: Yet you do not state just what this ‘true identity’ of the ‘process’ is ... why are you so cagey? What link? Just what ‘new discovery’ have you made?

KONRAD: It is therefore a simple matter to expand consciousness. Consciousness can be intensified by expanding the structures in your mind that consist of your skills and understandings. This expansion causes the energy of consciousness to increase, and it therefore also causes that new structures are formed that are able to observe the original structures. This makes the original structures to become no longer all-controlling. In other words, this expansion of consciousness is experienced as a form of liberation, or a form of ‘going beyond’ or a form of ‘leaving behind’. But although it is a certain form of thought that is been gone beyond, this practice never leads to going beyond thought as such.

RICHARD: Agreed ... this is ‘I’ as thought – passionate thought – endeavouring to go beyond itself by believing it has transmogrified itself into ‘being’. Some people call this ‘centre-less consciousness’. It is nothing but a delusion, of course.

KONRAD: So although the experience of going beyond looks like leaving the structural domain, it is not. It is the expansion of the old in a situation the old is understood of a special case of the condition you are in after the expansion. You can also express this by saying that what originally is experienced as your total situation, is after the expansion experienced as a special case of a new situation. And therefore this expansion extends the possibilities of action. In this sense, and ONLY in this sense it is freedom.

RICHARD: And a rather paltry freedom at that, do you not concede?

KONRAD: There is no other form of freeing of something than this. There is no other form of freedom than this. So freedom is the result of consisting of more complex, more elaborate, more subtle, more differentiated STRUCTURES. This makes freedom to be identical with freeing. Freedom is therefore something dynamic, not something static. Freedom and freeing yourself are identical.

RICHARD: Freedom is to be living at this moment in time and this place in space as this body only – bereft of any ever-lasting identity – and as this moment and place are anything but static then an actual freedom is indeed dynamic. An actual freedom has nothing to do with structures whatsoever.

KONRAD: This discovery as such has radical consequences. It is IMPOSSIBLE to go ‘beyond thought’. In whatever form our consciousness exists, consciousness is only possible due to the existence of structures in our mind.

RICHARD: I could agree with this depending upon exactly what structures you are referring to. If you are indicating the electro-chemical firing of neurones ... or the physical action in the post-synaptic receptors ... yes. I would not call this activity a ‘structure’, though.

KONRAD: All of these structures are forms of thought.

RICHARD: Ah ... not so. Have you not come across apperception? This is where ‘I’ fall into abeyance and the mind becomes aware of itself (not ‘I’ becoming aware of the mind’s perceptions ... the mind being aware of itself without any self-referential feed-back loop at all).

KONRAD: You can also say this differently. Consciousness is only possible because in the mind there is a structure, consisting of a skill or of knowledge, that demands energy from the body.

RICHARD: Once again, it is ‘I’ that demands energy from the body ... and this energy is affective.

KONRAD: If there is no such structure in the mind, the result is not consciousness without thought, but the result is absence of consciousness. For the existence of some structure in the mind is a NECESSARY condition for consciousness.

RICHARD: This is your experience of a form of catatonia known in India as ‘Going into Samadhi’. It is useless as in regards operating and functioning in the world of people, things and events. The Indians prize it highly, however. I, too, experienced this back in 1981 for over four hours ... my current condition has nothing of that coma-like nature at all. Here consciousness operates of its own accord ... whether thinking is happening or not. Without an ‘I’, thinking is a pleasure and a delight ... yet all the while there is an apperceptive consciousness occurring.

KONRAD: But is a ‘completely still mind’ then impossible? No, it is not. Only the way it is accomplishes is a very special condition of the structures that are present in it. It is possible, that nothing has to be done, because the owner of the brains sees that ‘everything is as it should be’. This special state can be arrived by adopting a structure, that is either completely tautological in nature, or it is completely contradictory in nature. The structure that is completely tautological in nature consists of a conglomerate of thoughts that, taken together form a ‘mosaic’ that represents the tautology completely.

RICHARD: You will do anything – anything logically possible – in order to justify the continued existence of ‘I’. You have taken to this ‘tautological’ theory of yours like a duck to water. So, everything is a tautology, eh? Is this not the same as those who say that everything is ‘relative’? They think that they are saying something profound, yet it is only intellectual masturbation.

KONRAD: Some Eastern religions, of the ‘affirmative kind’, like Hinduism are a perfect example of this. When somebody asserts, that his basic premise is that he sees that he is one with everything, the acceptance of this thought can put his mind in this special tautological state.

RICHARD: It is not ‘the acceptance of this thought’ at all ... it is a feeling. ‘Oneness’ is affective ... it is a felt experience. Get out of your mind, Konrad, and read your Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti with feeling ... that is where all this enlightenment business is at. They become the feeling ... which is why it is a delusion.

KONRAD: This state is experienced as total stillness of mind, although thoughts are not absent.

RICHARD: Oh yes, they can indeed be absent in Eastern Enlightenment. Do you think that all these Enlightened Masters are lying? They experience moments wherein all thinking stops and they experience themselves – and the world about – as purely ‘being’ ... which is affective.

KONRAD: The stillness is the result of the fact that there are thoughts present, but none of the thoughts in particular is the controller of the body.

RICHARD: No, for them feelings are in control of the body.

KONRAD: No, the tautology itself, consisting of all of the thoughts it represents is the true controller of the body, leading to total inaction. It forms some kind of space, wherein all other thoughts can freely roam, without controlling the body exclusively, because they already are doing this implicitly.

RICHARD: When you get a theory by the throat you really run with it, do you not?

KONRAD: Your ideology of ‘being the body’ is also of this form. It is tautological, for it contains obviously everything you are in a tautological manner. The proof of this is that it cannot be denied, for if you deny it, it is the action of the body that is talking, and saying that it denies it. So if you deny that you are your body, you use the body, and in this way you deny implicitly what you say. A tautology consists, after all, of a denial of a denial. So the realization of being your body is a tautological completeness that manifests itself as a condition that makes everything still, and appears as some form of PCE.

RICHARD: Goodness me. Is this what logic does to a person? Do you not see that male logic is as useless as female intuition when it comes to ascertaining the mystery of life?

KONRAD: The second form of this condition is the denial of this tautology. Buddhism, Taoism are examples of this. They talk about ‘going beyond’. But that what they go beyond is perfectly clear to them. It is referred to by the word ‘everything’. So they talk about ‘going beyond everything’. And THIS then becomes the thought that causes no thought in particular to be the thought that controls the body. And it therefore leads to exactly the same state of stillness that is described above. Only now NO thought is allowed to control the body, so the implicit connection that is present in Hindu-like religions is absent. However, the followers of both of these religions do not see, that they have in common that their stillness is the result of a particular state of mind. A state of mind, wherein there is some balance present of all the thoughts that can control the body, but none of them being able to do this, because some structure that is the representation of all of them is in command. This makes ALL talking about a state of consciousness that is beyond thought illusory. There is NO state of consciousness that does NOT involve some form of thought and thinking. This makes ALL talking about something that is beyond thought complete bogus.

RICHARD: It is the Krishnamurtiites you should be saying this too ... not me. I talk of eliminating ‘the thinker’ – not thought – and then thinking can occur spontaneously as required (of course ‘the feeler’ goes along with the ending of ‘being’ ... this is what makes an actual freedom distinctly different to enlightenment).

KONRAD: Okay. So far, so good. When I arrived at this insight, one thing remained to be explained. What, then, is the true identity of ‘the process’ I am feeling? It is a sensation I cannot deny. I can also see, that whenever it is more intense, everything within consciousness is more clear. How can this be, I asked myself, if consciousness itself is completely structural? Or to ask the question in another way: if all states of consciousness are the result of some form of thought and thinking, some form of energy-demanding structure, what kind of structure can give rise to a ‘process’? Meditating on this puzzle I saw the answer. To see the answer I had to make a distinction between thoughts and the energy contained within them.

RICHARD: Why will you not look at ‘the thinker’? Why suspect thought so much? Is not this energy ‘I’? Is not this energy affective? Therefore, am ‘I’ nothing but an emotional/mental construct? ‘I’ may be real – very real at times depending upon the energy – but am ‘I’ actual?

KONRAD: Thoughts exist in the mind, but the energy of thoughts that are in control is supplied with the body .

RICHARD: The energy of ‘I’ thinking – not thoughts of themselves – is affective. It is all feeling induced, at root.

KONRAD: This explained the DIRECTION of the ‘flow’ of the process. Namely, FROM the body TO the brains. Something I was always very curious about. However, this explanation did not explain the constant presence, and the periodicity of it. To explain this, more thinking was necessary. And I came up with the following: Expansion of consciousness is always structural. But such an expansion is also a movement in more abstract domains of thinking. More abstract also implies more encompassing. (And in more simple terms.) As you know, I know quite a lot about logic. I have trained myself in logic, and am doing this constantly. Logic deals with abstractions in general. Now logic shows, that there is a level of abstraction, whereby the degree of abstraction is so high, that it is impossible to go further than that. It is, because if you try to expand from this level you do not end up into a higher level, but you end up in exactly the same level you have started from! Let me explain more fully. In proposition logic a language L consists of 4 criteria. 1: an alphabet of symbols. 2: a definition of a well-formed formula that can be formed of these symbols. 3: an infinite number of axioms, expressed in a finite number of so-called axiom schemes. These are formulas that describe what form any tautology has. 4: a rule of deduction, the modus ponens rule. Now the interesting part is, that it can be proved that L is complete AND consistent. This means that L contains exactly all of the deductions that are logical. And these INCLUDE the proof of its own completeness and consistency. In fact, it is even a simple matter to deduce L from L! (Its completeness is a lot harder to prove.) So you can say, that L stands for thinking itself. The fact that L can be deduced from L implies therefore, that thinking can understand itself completely, in all of its aspects, ramifications, and implications. However, if somebody arrives at this level of abstraction whereby this is clearly understood, this also causes the energy of consciousness to move into a kind of ‘loop’. For expansion causes the energy contained in the thought of L to move constantly FROM L INTO L. The result is some kind of self-reference.

RICHARD: Logically this is correct enough for as far as it goes ... but living has very little to do with abstractions. Living is actual.

KONRAD: A self-reference that needs so much energy from the body that the flow of this energy is experienced as a constant sensate process.

RICHARD: Yet it is affective, if you examine it closely. It can have a sensate effect, of course, but it is affective at its source.

KONRAD: Next to this, it is periodical, because it is somewhat comparable with a microphone picking up the sound of a loud-speaker, that is amplified and therefore made audible by the speaker, and therefore picked up by the microphone etc. Something similar happens with consciousness when it becomes completely self-referential. the ENERGY of the insight is then moving into a periodic process of self-reference. This level of self-reference can be the result not only of studies of logic, but it can be the result of a development wherein this abstract domain of thinking is reached from many other routes. In fact, whatever route somebody takes, if he continues to develop his abstract capacity of thought and thinking, he will inevitably arrive at this state of continuous self-reference. this level of self-reference is therefore something everybody can reach, whatever his starting point. The only condition is his preparedness to continue to develop his understanding.

RICHARD: Yet an ‘understanding’ is not the living of it ... it is an intellectual understanding. If it is understood deeply enough – as in a realisation – it is reinforced by feelings ... and it becomes a felt understanding. The living of it – where no self-referent ‘I’ is extant – is an actual understanding ... except that the word ‘understanding’ does not adequately describe the experience. The word ‘apperception’ is the most appropriate word to describe an actual understanding

KONRAD: However, this fact does not deny that it is in its very essence structural. It is NEVER a form of ‘going beyond thought and thinking’. So the ‘process of enlightenment’ is just the natural outcome of continuous development of insight, skills, and understanding. Nothing more, nothing less. It represents therefore a stage of development anybody can have, as long as he continues with developing himself. It will even become inevitable, if his method of developing his understanding and insight is effective enough. Since most routes are not that effective, this explains why it is such a rare phenomenon. My analysis however, shows one thing very clearly.It is a mistake to think, that it is possible to go ‘beyond thought and thinking’. Believing this will HALT the development of anybody who buys into it. THIS is the danger that is present in people like J. Krishnamurti. For although J. Krishnamurti has reached this state of self-reference, his puzzlement of what it was caused him to stop studying, and even expressing the opinion that real insight cannot be found in studying. In this he was utterly and totally wrong. This message even causes his sympathisers to close themselves to the ONLY way people have to develop themselves. The result is self-inflicted stupidity. And therefore very dangerous.

RICHARD: It is dangerous, yes ... but not for your reason. It is dangerous because it is based upon an affective response to life’s exigencies. And we all know just how reliable feelings are. Even deeper feelings – Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti constantly espouses Love and Compassion – are notoriously ineffective. 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: I can also explain, why ‘the process’ can be a temporary phenomenon, as has been the case with you.

RICHARD: I know you can, Konrad. But because it is based in male logic ... it misses the mark completely. Your explanation has nothing to do with how I experience living this life here.

KONRAD: For if an expansion, ANY expansion is thorough enough, it can cause ‘the process’ to occur. Especially, if it contains a self-reference, as is the case with every religious route. For every religious route asks about Man himself, and therefore US in particular. And therefore it contains SOME form of self-reference. However, if the self-reference finds an answer into a structure that is not essentially self-referential, ‘the process’ stops. Since you ended with the realization, that you are your body, your ‘process’ ended into a structural conclusion that looks at itself as something essentially from the outside.

RICHARD: Yet my ‘process’ did not end with a realisation ... it ended when ‘I’ ended.

KONRAD: And therefore it stopped. The conclusion that you are your body is just not abstract enough to sustain a continuous self-reference, and therefore cannot sustain ‘the process’ indefinitely.

RICHARD: But this ‘I am this body’ description I give is not a conclusion at all. It is a factual report of how it is for me. There is no identity here to ‘be’ this body ... this body being conscious – apperceptively aware – is all there is. Thinking about these matters is simply a way of describing the experience ... nothing more and nothing less. And it is delicious.

KONRAD: And, another thing, it certainly is NOT something that is beyond everything that others have found. It is a religion that is structural identical with Hinduism. It is just a new form of Hinduism, different in its formulation, but the same in its effect on individuals.

RICHARD: How on earth can you say this? There is not the slightest trace of religiosity or spirituality in me ... I expressly disavow the existence of anything metaphysical at all. No god or gods; no mystical primal source for the universe; no soul; no after-life; no reincarnation ... nothing of Hinduism or Buddhism at all. 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.

KONRAD: And another thing. Into our dialogues you have always tried to place me within a Hinduism frame. As I have now explained above, this is even essentially wrong, for my background is that of science.

RICHARD: I have not done so at all ... the only reference I have ever made with you and Hinduism is where I pointed out that the Indians – and that includes Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists – have had ‘cramp-like’ sensations. They call them ‘kriyas’ ... and that tiddly bit of information I passed on to you because I considered you might make use of it. If you extrapolate from this that I categorise you as ‘Hinduism’ then that is your business. Speaking personally, I would tentatively place you somewhere in the long line of Western philosophers who have borrowed bits and pieces from Eastern philosophy ... if I had to place you on the very little I know of you, that is.

KONRAD: My background is science of the Popper kind. His basic assertion is, that we can never be certain about anything positive.

RICHARD: Well, he is wrong ... just like you. One thing you can be certain of is that you are going to die.

KONRAD: For no amount of positive evidence can prove a general statement.

RICHARD: Yes it can ... people are dying everywhere. There is not one single person alive today that is born more than 150 years ago. Ergo: every person’s inevitable death is an absolute and positive statement.

KONRAD: However, we CAN be certain of something negative, for only ONE counterexample is enough to disprove the generality of a general statement.

RICHARD: Yeah ... well it looks as if I have just given you something positive that you will never be able to give a ‘counterexample’ to, eh? For who do you know that is 60,000 plus years old?

KONRAD: This scientific attitude is basically Buddhist, not Hinduism. I understand why you always tried to look upon me from a Hinduism perspective.

RICHARD: Well, you will be seeing now that you are wrong in your surmise.

KONRAD: For what a person can become conscious of, and is able to understand is completely dependable on his development. And that is completely determined the structures that he has built, and therefore can exist in his consciousness.

RICHARD: If you are talking of study – scholastic study – then I agree.

KONRAD: In all of our conversations you have never demonstrated any ability to observe from the Buddhist perspective. Of course, you had an OPINION about it (it is bogus), but this is not the same as understanding it.

RICHARD: Oh, I understand it all right ... from the inside. I lived in the enlightened state for eleven years. My scholastic study of the teachings of Buddhism are indeed very limited ... I simply cannot be bothered studying too much of what is essentially a delusion. I have read only enough to get me by in discussions with erudite practitioners. The same applies to what I know of logic ... I have only a cursory knowledge that is sufficient for as far as it goes. I have no intention of being an expert on everything.

KONRAD: This proves, that you have not understood the essence of Buddhism.

RICHARD: No ... I lived it instead of studying it.

KONRAD: Especially its operation of negation, and how it functions, as I have described above. So it is no surprise, that your vision is a rediscovery of the stillness of Hinduism, and not that of Buddhism.

RICHARD: Hmmm ... three points immediately spring to mind:

• One: I do not have a ‘vision’ ... I speak out of my on-going experience.

• Two: It is not a ‘rediscovery’ of anything ... least of all Hinduism.

• Three: The negation of Buddhism is nothing but the ridiculousness of male logic taken to its extreme (‘nirvana neither is nor is not ... and it is not is nor is not either’). Essentially Buddhism is similar to Taoism. (‘the Way the can be described is not the Way’).

So much for negation.

KONRAD: Therefore I was always able to understand far more of you (something you have admitted yourself) than you of me.

RICHARD: I have never, ever admitted any such thing. Where do you get all these fantasies about me from?

KONRAD: I could give responses to you that you recognized as true representations of your positions, but the converse was not the case. For the least you had to be able to respond more sensibly is understanding Buddhism, and how its psychology effects consciousness.

RICHARD: You have not responded with anything I would recognise as being ‘true representations of your positions’ at all. I repeat: where do you get this stuff from?

KONRAD: I want to add one personal thing. Since all of this has become clear, the ‘cramp-like’ movements of my body have stopped completely, and ‘The process’ has even more intensified, and become ‘smoother’.

RICHARD: Ah ... so something may very well be happening that will take you further along the road to an ultimate freedom. What is your current appraisal? What is your plan?

KONRAD: You probably disagree with all of it. But I still send you this mail to show you, that ‘the process’ is something completely natural. It is not something that makes an individual special. For there are many forms of self-referential abstract structures, that can carry this ‘process’, not all of them equally beneficial, as is the case with J. Krishnamurti’s formulations. However, whatever its form, it DOES give a person the capability to become completely aware of everything that is going on within him. It is, therefore, in that sense an advancement over every religion, that can only hope to provide for total inner stillness. You can therefore say, that it is the only condition wherein the ‘sub-conscious’ ends. For the continuous self-reference that is occurring makes it the solution of the ‘eye-problem.

RICHARD: You have referred to this ‘eye-problem’ before ... and any analogy eventually falls short of what it seeks to explain. I saw my ‘self’ back in 1980 and knew intimately what I had to be free of. So I was indeed able to see what is behind the ‘eye’ (to use your borrowed analogy).

KONRAD: And as a last remark, in my particular case it is a form of logic, and therefore western. But it is a form of logic that can carry this ‘process’, and therefore eastern. This makes this discovery to be the synthesis of both east and west I have been looking for so long.

RICHARD: This is okay inasmuch as you do not consider that I am either Western or Eastern ... or any meld of the two. An actual freedom is something totally new in the history of human consciousness.

KONRAD: Funny, that it dawns on me the moment that I do not want to be special anymore.

RICHARD: Speaking personally, I did want to be special. I had had enough of the ‘Tried and True’ with all its wars, rapes, murders, tortures, domestic violence, child abuse, sadness, loneliness, grief, depression and suicide. Something new – and something that works – is indeed very special.

KONRAD: But, on the other hand, maybe it is a necessary condition for this kind of understanding. For only by not wanting to be special anymore, and therefore not to be a spokesperson of something beyond my own little self in an attempt to rise above mediocrity, I had the independence of mind to look at ‘the process’ as something that represents a phenomenon of the mind in general, that is potentially present in everybody.

RICHARD: Yet your ‘own little self’ is the spanner in the works. Such humbleness is simply vanity standing on its head.

KONRAD: For this I am grateful for the discussions I have had with you. I am especially relieved to see, that this is completely explainable, and that therefore psychological tricks like those in Zen are not necessary to make this point clear. For everything that is rational, can be explained unambiguously.

RICHARD: Yes ... but can it be lived successfully? Does it bring individual peace-on-earth? Will it lead to a global peace-on-earth?

KONRAD: But understanding of it can be troublesome.

RICHARD: I am sure that it does, Konrad!