Actual Freedom – Mailing List ‘A’ Correspondence

‘I’, the psychological entity that has taken up a parasitical residence inside this body, can and must be extirpated. Then, and only then, can one see what part thought and feelings play in one’s life. But ‘I’ must disappear entirely – it is no use to merely eliminate the ego, thus sublimating one’s ‘personal self’ and manifesting an ‘Immortal Self’ that is ‘Timeless and Spaceless’; that is ‘Unborn and Undying’; that is ‘Infinite and Eternal’ and so on. If one were to be satisfied with dissolving only the ego then there would still be dissension. For example: there would be, as one school of thought maintains, no thought at all ... that is: ‘No Mind’, ‘Emptiness’, ‘The Void’ and so on. Or there would be, as other disciplines propound, no feelings at all ... that is: ‘Unconditional Love’, ‘Divine Compassion’, ‘Oneness with All’ and so on. The same battle as rages on the secular level continues on the divine level because, by but ridding oneself only of the ego, one has simply transcended the opposites ... not eliminated them.

There a third alternative. ‘I’, as ego and soul, must become extinct. ‘I’, as ego, am an illusion. In a valiant but ultimately futile attempt to ameliorate the Human Condition, ‘I’ transmogrify into another ‘I’ – the second ‘I’ – and, manifesting ‘Divine Compassion’, consider that the job is finished ... and that ‘Unconditional Love’ is the cure-all for humankind’s suffering. It is not. The second ‘I’ is a delusion born out of an illusion. Any solution that this second ‘I’ dispenses is thus also fatally flawed. All the Saints and Saviours and Masters and Messiahs down through the centuries have been driven by a sense of ‘Mission’ to bring ‘Love and Compassion’ to a undiscerning humanity. Even a cursory study of history will quickly show that they have left such bloodshed and hatred in their wake that it beggars description. Something is seriously amiss with the traditional approach. How much longer will humans continue to pursue the ‘Tried and True’ which, upon closer examination, is the ‘Tried and Failed’.

The ‘Divine Solution’ has had thousands of years to demonstrate its efficacy. There is as much war and murder and torture and domestic violence and corruption now as there was when the first ‘Divine Beings’ came along with their spurious solutions. It behoves one to question – and question deeply – just what constitutes the ‘self’ and the ‘Self’ ... the illusion and the delusion. When it is seen that both the first and the second ‘I’, whilst being very real, are not actual – then something remarkable happens. ‘I’, being an illusion, do not actually exist. ‘I’ being a delusion, also do not actually exist. Simply and magically, I am here as this moment is here ... living in the actual world of people, things and events as this flesh and blood body, bereft of both the ‘thinker’ and the ‘feeler’. There is no ‘I’ to be separate, therefore there is no need for ‘Union’, ‘Oneness’, ‘Love’, ‘Compassion’ and so on, to bridge the fanciful distance between ‘me’ and the ‘other’. ‘I’ create the ‘distance’ and ‘I’ create the ‘solution’. It is all a play in a super-charged imagination ... and would be extremely funny if it were not for its disastrous and appalling consequences.

‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ is worthless. The blame for the continuation of human misery lies squarely in the lap of those inspired people who, although having sufficient courage 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 Self ... and an ego-less Self is still an entity, nevertheless. In spite of the glamour and the glory of the Altered State Of Consciousness, closer examination reveals that these ‘Great’ persons 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 self in its entirety is the essential ingredient for peace and prosperity to reign over all and everyone.

Here in the actual, this miraculous world as-it-is, is the secret to life. Here lies a healthy mind, for here only sagacity exists.

RESPONDENT: Do you experience this? Or do you just like talking about things of which you know nothing?

RICHARD: To clarify a very valid point: No, I was not talking about things of which I know nothing ... I was writing out of my own direct experience. If, perchance, I was to venture an opinion I would preface it with: ‘In my opinion ...’. If it is something I have read or heard from another, I would say: ‘I have read ...’ or ‘I have been told ...’.

A very brief personal history to explain: Spiritual Enlightenment has been around for some thousands of years ... and there is still no peace on earth. I entered into an ongoing Altered State Of Consciousness on Sunday, the sixth. of September 1981, becoming Enlightened in the Eastern spiritual sense of the term. I spent the next eleven years endeavouring to discover why it did not work – why it did not deliver the Peace On Earth it seemed to promise. Accordingly I sought to go beyond Enlightenment into a condition I had glimpsed on many an occasion during those eleven years. On Friday, the thirtieth. of October 1992, I succeeded and landed in actuality ... in what I choose to call actual freedom. Nowadays I know, intimately, why Enlightenment does not deliver the goods ... and, of course, I now know what does. I am not an ‘Enlightened Master’ sitting in an exalted position ... and what a relief that is. I am a fellow human being, who happens to live in a condition of perfection and purity, offering my experience to whomsoever is interested.

As I wrote before: ‘Spiritual Enlightenment is worthless. The blame for the continuation of human misery lies squarely in the lap of those inspired people who, although having sufficient courage 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 Self ... and an ego-less Self is still an entity, nevertheless. In spite of the glamour and the glory of the Altered State Of Consciousness, closer examination reveals that these ‘Great’ persons 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 self in its entirety is the essential ingredient for peace and prosperity to reign over all and everyone.

RICHARD: I am not an ‘Enlightened Master’ sitting in an exalted position ... and what a relief that is. I am a fellow human being, who happens to live in a condition of perfection and purity, offering my experience to whomsoever is interested.

RESPONDENT: What do you feel about No. 4’s and No. 13’s declaration of enlightenment? Your position of fellow human being would seem to be more mature.

RICHARD: If someone wishes to declare themselves Enlightened and they are not ... they only make fools of themselves. If they are actually Enlightened, they still make fools of themselves, for Enlightenment is a delusion born out of an illusion.

RESPONDENT: Yes. I think you have answered the above question. That is my position. I have started a very small E-Mail forum (have not started posting yet). No. 4, and No. 12 are on it as well as Gloria (a heart centred mystic) and Jan (a Sufi orientated mystic) I would be most pleased if you will join us. If there is anyone you would recommend I would be pleased to consider them. The basic idea is for the development of qualities such as service and sharing ... you may find this page on the stages beyond enlightenment of interest: (a now discontinued Web Page URL)

RICHARD: I accessed the Web Page you recommended and found enough to intrigue me. I have not, of course, been able to read everything there, but I will get back to it as soon as possible. So I would be interested in joining your E-Mail forum ... whenever you start posting, feel free to include me on your list.

I look forward to a continuing and fruitful correspondence.

No. 03

RICHARD: To clarify the situation: (1) I am not enlightened. (2) I do not want to be enlightened. (3) I never will become enlightened. (4) Enlightenment is worthless.

RESPONDENT: So despite the fact that most religions and philosophers often define enlightenment as the ultimate state of being at the same time as saying that don’t know what it is because they haven’t got there, you know what it is so well (without being there) that you say it is worthless .

RICHARD: But I have been there, so I am well positioned to say that it is worthless. You do not think that I would come onto this list and make these apparently outrageous statements without knowing what I am talking of, surely? For many years I sought a genuine exploration and discovery of what it means to live a fully human life and in October 1992 I discovered, once and for all, what I was looking for. Since then I have been consistently living an incomparable condition which I choose to call actual freedom – and I use the word ‘actual’ because this freedom is located here in this very material world, this actual world of the senses. It is not an affective or mental state of being; it is a physical condition that ensues when one goes beyond Spiritual Enlightenment.

In September 1981 I underwent a monumental physiological transformation into an Altered State Of Consciousness which can only be described as Spiritual Enlightenment. I became Enlightened as the result of an earnest and intense process which commenced in the January of that year. At approximately six o’clock on the morning of Sunday, the sixth of September 1981, my ‘ego’ disappeared entirely in an edifying moment of awakening to an ‘Absolute Reality’. I lived in the Enlightened State for eleven years, so I have an intimate understanding of the marked difference between Spiritual Enlightenment and actual freedom.

For the next eleven years I travelled the country – and overseas to India – meeting with people from all walks of life in an attempt to discover why Spiritual Enlightenment, which has been within the human experience for thousands of years, had not delivered the Peace On Earth it seemed to promise. As the process of becoming Enlightened is an extreme test of one’s mettle, requiring nerves of steel, it seemed that only a rare few humans were destined to become Self-Realised. The question that commanded my attention was why this was so.

I was looking beyond the superficial and questioning even the most closely held ideas and beliefs. Was there something more to discover ... something that lay beyond Enlightenment that would usher in the beginning of a genuine possibility of peace for all? Some Masters hinted at and alluded to ‘going beyond Enlightenment’ ... yet their Teachings remained exactly the same. Some disciplines suggested that such a condition existed after physical death: when the soul ‘quit the body’. The Hindu Mahasamadhi and Buddhist Parinirvana are two examples of this kind of thought. No useful information could be gained from there.

Over the eleven years I had numerous experiences of a condition that seemed so extreme that one must surely physically die to attain to it. To go beyond Enlightenment seemed to be an impossibility whilst still alive and breathing. Then at midday on Friday, the thirtieth of October 1992, a curious event occurred, due to my intense conviction that it was imperative that someone evince a final and complete condition that would ‘deliver the goods’ so longed for by humanity for millennia. Just like my ego had dissolved, back in 1981, my ‘soul’ disappeared. I was no longer a ‘Self’ existing for all Eternity and transcending Time and Space. I no longer had a feeling of being – or ‘Being’ – any sense of identity whatsoever had vanished without a trace ... and I could thus no longer detect the presence of The Absolute. There was no ‘Presence’ at all. The identity had generated the entire edifice.

Since that date I have continued to live in a condition of complete emancipation and utter autonomy ... the condition is both permanent and actual. This is different to Enlightenment in that it is most definitely substantial: there is no longer a transcendence, for I have neither sorrow nor malice anywhere at all to rise above. They have vanished entirely, leaving me both blithesome and benign – carefree and harmless – which leads to a most remarkable state of affairs. The chief characteristics of Enlightenment – Union with the Divine, Universal Compassion, Love Agapé, Ineffable Bliss, The Truth, Timelessness, Spacelessness, Immortality, Aloneness, Oneness, Pacifism, Surrender, Trust, Beauty, and Goodness – being redundant in this totally new condition, are no longer extant.

Herein lies the unmistakable distinction between this condition, which I call actual freedom and the Enlightened State: I am no longer driven by a Divine Sense Of Mission to bring The Truth, Universal Love and Divine Compassion to the world. I am free to speak with whomsoever is genuinely interested in solving the ‘Mystery of Life’ and becoming totally free of the Human Condition.

This is an actual freedom, here in the world as-it-is, as this body, in this life-time.

RESPONDENT No. 4: Those who are not strongly attached to reaching perfection in the first place can easily mislead. Too many people take this kind of teaching as an excuse to live in any way they please, all the while smugly believing it to be the final destination. They’ve had a minor realisation that everything is perfect and that there is no such thing as a fixed state of enlightenment, and have promptly stopped. Unfortunately, most who reach this stage make no further progress. Richard is a case in point. He is currently dwelling in what I call the Great Pit of Emptiness – a false heaven produced by a shallow understanding of non-duality. A strong desire to attain absolute perfection is needed to escape this stinking pit and, quite frankly, I don’t think Richard has it.

RESPONDENT: Well I would not put it like that. Richard is simply deluded (a bit like yourself) about certain things. Richard, I would like to post your material (with your permission) onto another forum where the list owner has just declared herself the second oldest soul in the universe.

RICHARD: Anything I post to the Internet immediately becomes public property, of course ... you are free to do whatever you like with it.

RESPONDENT: Many thanks.

RICHARD: But thank you for taking the trouble to advise me as to your intentions ... I would be interested to know where you are sending it too ... or, for that matter, anything else you may decide to do with it in the future.

RESPONDENT: Well I will be using it as an indication of those who declare enlightenment. It will probably go to the Buddhist or Insight forums.

RICHARD: Out of curiosity: Who does she say is the oldest soul in the universe?

RESPONDENT: Well far be it from me to say ‘curiosity is an indication of a trivial mind’ but the information is delusional and therefore I have no intention of asking.

RICHARD: The information that everyone on this planet gives out is delusional – especially that of the Enlightened Masters – yet I study it all. This is so I can point out to people where they are deluded if the occasion arises. If it were not for curiosity I would not be living in the perfection of this moment as I am now. Far from being the ‘indication of a trivial mind’ ... it is one of the greatest tools for freedom available.

RESPONDENT: You see, Richard, if your ‘beyond Enlightenment’ state is irrelevant you have no need to declare it. In fact it displays little wisdom. However that is your understanding.

RICHARD: For a person who actively promotes their own web-site under every post I hardly consider you are in a position to pass criticism. In fact, you personally sent me to a web-site which deals specifically with a subject entitled ‘Beyond Enlightenment’. People in glass houses, eh?

However, I freely declare it because of all of the wars, the murders, the tortures, the rapes, the domestic violence and the corruption that is going on this fair earth of ours. For far too long humankind has been living in ignorance ... an ignorance that is reinforced and perpetuated by the ‘wisdom’ of all the Saints and Sages, the Masters and Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours since time immemorial.

After all, we are fellow human beings, albeit benighted, genuinely endeavouring to live in peace ... or are you?

RICHARD: But I have been there, so I am well positioned to say that it is worthless. You do not think that I would come onto this list and make these apparently outrageous statements without knowing what I am talking of, surely?

RESPONDENT: Why not – I do it all the time.

RICHARD: I have noticed.

RESPONDENT: Perhaps you need to read the web page entitled: ‘Beyond Enlightenment’.

RICHARD: I did as you said and read it. I am beginning to comprehend why you act as you do.

*

RICHARD: For many years I sought a genuine exploration and discovery of what it means to live a fully human life and in October 1992 I discovered, once and for all, what I was looking for. Since then I have been consistently living an incomparable condition which I choose to call actual freedom – and I use the word ‘actual’ because this freedom is located here in this very material world, this actual world of the senses. It is not an affective or mental state of being; it is a physical condition that ensues when one goes beyond Spiritual Enlightenment.

RESPONDENT: Sounds excellent. Can you levitate?

RICHARD: No.

*

RICHARD: In September 1981 I underwent a monumental physiological transformation into an Altered State Of Consciousness which can only be described as Spiritual Enlightenment.

RESPONDENT: Your descriptive abilities are obviously effected by the serious nature of your ‘Altered State Of Consciousness’ – did you have a history of mental illness before your enlightenment or just after? I of course mean that in the most harmless way.

RICHARD: During.

*

RICHARD: I became Enlightened as the result of an earnest and intense process which commenced in the January of that year. At approximately six o’clock on the morning of Sunday, the sixth of September 1981, my ‘ego’ disappeared entirely in an edifying moment of awakening to an ‘Absolute Reality’. I lived in the Enlightened State for eleven years, so I have an intimate understanding of the marked difference between Spiritual Enlightenment and actual freedom.

RESPONDENT: It sounds like you were in need of a good breakfast.

RICHARD: I ate very well, actually.

*

RICHARD: For the next eleven years I travelled the country – and overseas to India – meeting with people from all walks of life in an attempt to discover why Spiritual Enlightenment, which has been within the human experience for thousands of years, had not delivered the Peace On Earth it seemed to promise.

RESPONDENT: Nobody promised this – obviously you were misinformed. Jesus said he brought a sword. Buddha informed us existence was suffering (misery guts) Mohamed killed anyone who did not accept his ‘truth’. No. 12 hates women.

RICHARD: I did say ‘seemed to promise’ ... one does need to read the fine print, eh?

*

RICHARD: As the process of becoming Enlightened is an extreme test of one’s mettle, requiring nerves of steel, it seemed that only a rare few humans were destined to become Self-Realised. The question that commanded my attention was why this was so.

RESPONDENT: Most people have nerves of putty.

RICHARD: It is pusillanimity that stops people, mostly.

*

RICHARD: I was looking beyond the superficial and questioning even the most closely held ideas and beliefs. Was there something more to discover ... something that lay beyond Enlightenment that would usher in the beginning of a genuine possibility of peace for all? Some Masters hinted at and alluded to ‘going beyond Enlightenment’ ... yet their Teachings remained exactly the same.

RESPONDENT: Quite right too – wouldn’t want to strain your nerves of steel.

RICHARD: I was talking about already existing ‘great’ teachers, actually.

*

RICHARD: Some disciplines suggested that such a condition existed after physical death: when the soul ‘quit the body’. The Hindu Mahasamadhi and Buddhist Parinirvana are two examples of this kind of thought. No useful information could be gained from there.

RESPONDENT: I can see you have studied with some of the most profound teachers that ever drove a taxi.

RICHARD: I have read hundreds and hundreds – maybe into the thousands – of books. I wanted to know; I wanted to understand.

*

RICHARD: Over the eleven years I had numerous experiences of a condition that seemed so extreme that one must surely physically die to attain to it. To go beyond Enlightenment seemed to be an impossibility whilst still alive and breathing. Then at midday on Friday, the thirtieth of October 1992, a curious event occurred, due to my intense conviction that it was imperative that someone evince a final and complete condition that would ‘deliver the goods’ so longed for by humanity for millennia. Just like my ego had dissolved, back in 1981, my ‘soul’ disappeared. I was no longer a ‘Self’ existing for all Eternity and transcending Time and Space. I no longer had a feeling of being – or ‘Being’ – any sense of identity whatsoever had vanished without a trace ... and I could thus no longer detect the presence of The Absolute. There was no ‘Presence’ at all. The identity had generated the entire edifice.

RESPONDENT: Brilliant. You ceased to exist. From this we can conclude that you are not bonkers because one must exist or have a soul to so do. Therefore you are making this all up to test peoples gullibility. You are not a woman because they are not intelligent enough to be devious. Therefore you are a God. Om Mani Padme Hum.

RICHARD: One cannot be a god when one is bereft of a soul or spirit ... of ‘being’.

*

RICHARD: Since that date I have continued to live in a condition of complete emancipation and utter autonomy ... the condition is both permanent and actual. This is different to Enlightenment in that it is most definitely substantial: there is no longer a transcendence, for I have neither sorrow nor malice anywhere at all to rise above. They have vanished entirely, leaving me both blithesome and benign – carefree and harmless – which leads to a most remarkable state of affairs. The chief characteristics of Enlightenment – Union with the Divine, Universal Compassion, Love Agapé, Ineffable Bliss, The Truth, Timelessness, Spacelessness, Immortality, Aloneness, Oneness, Pacifism, Surrender, Trust, Beauty, and Goodness – being redundant in this totally new condition, are no longer extant.

RESPONDENT: Marvellous. The things one can do with a bit of mental imbalance, an E-Mail account and the inhuman imagination.

RICHARD: I do call Spiritual Enlightenment ‘institutionalised insanity’.

*

RICHARD: 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.

RESPONDENT: Speak God-like One. Transcender of humanity we await the expression of freedom. Know any good jokes?

RICHARD: Yes.

*

RICHARD: This is an actual freedom, here in the world as-it-is, as this body, in this life-time.

RESPONDENT: Wow. I am speechless. You said it, so it must be true.

RICHARD: Quite frankly, I fail to see the point in responding to any more replies of yours like this one. Therefore, to save wasting other people’s time and space – and mine – I will not. If you have something intelligent and constructive to contribute – either critical or agreeable – then, of course, I will respond.

I detect from all your posts to this list that you may fancy yourself as being a bit of a ‘Court Jester’ type of person. The main trouble with someone setting oneself up to be the ‘Court jester’ is that while trying to make a fool of oneself for laughs, they actually do make a fool of themselves.