Actual Freedom – Mailing List ‘A’ Correspondence

RESPONDENT: Tell us more about this. Are you referring to Kundalini or whatever it is called when the nervous system is seriously challenged by mystical experience? What is that K-thing, anyway?

RICHARD: No, it has nothing to do with Kundalini, for they were not mystical experiences. Perhaps it would serve better if I was to give one specific example in detail instead of briefly describing the numerous experiences over the eleven years ... they only served to strengthen my conviction that an actual freedom was possible whilst this body was alive and breathing anyway.

I was living on an uninhabited island of the tropical coast to the far north of this continent in a time I call my ‘puritan period’. I was doing a ‘Vipassana’ type of life-style (I guess that is how I could describe it) in that for three months I lived in silence, on my own, speaking to no one at all. I had whittled my worldly possessions down to three sarongs, three shirts, a cooking pot and bowl, a knife and a spoon, a one-person tent to live in and an open canoe. I possessed nothing else anywhere in the world and had cut all family ties. No one knew where I was, let alone what I was doing, for I had no contact with anyone at all. Four nearly four years I had been homeless, itinerant, celibate, vegan, (no spices; not even salt and pepper), no drugs (no tobacco, no alcohol; not even tea or coffee), no hair cut, no shaving, (and now no washing other than a dip in the ocean) ... in short: whatever I could eliminate from my life that was an encumbrance and an attachment, I had let go of.

I was already in an altered state of consciousness (this was in 1985 and my ego had dissolved in 1981) and living in what has been described as the ‘Unknown’. I had had some serious reservations about the validity of this as an ultimate state and had been to India the previous year to see if I could ascertain why. My discoveries there had led me to consider the possibility that Enlightenment was not the final stage, so I was ripe and ready to plunge into the ‘Unknowable’. The first of these numerous experiences occurred at maybe three in the morning (I had no watch) and was accompanied by a sense of dread the likes of which I had never experienced – made all the more acute because I had not experienced fear for four years. (I was living in a state of Divine Bliss and Love Agapé which protected me from all sorrow and malice, with its attendant fears and hates). The condition I experienced was of the nature of some ‘Great Beyond’ (I have to put it in capitals because that is how I experienced at the time) and ‘It’ was of the nature of which has always been ascribed, in all the spiritual writings I had read, as being ‘That’ which one ‘Merges With’ at physical death when one ‘Quits the body’. Sometimes known as ‘The Ocean of Oneness’ or ‘Mahasamadhi’ or – dare I say it on this list – ‘Parinirvana’. This is why I said that it ‘seemed so extreme that this flesh-and-blood body must surely physically die to attain to it’.

To put it into a physical analogy, it was as if I was to gather up my meagre belongings, eradicate all marks of my stay on the island, and paddle away over the horizon, all the while not knowing whence I go ... and vanish without a trace, never to be seen again. As no one knew where I was, no one would know where I had gone. In fact, I would become as extinct as the dodo and with no skeletal remains. Psychologically, ‘I’ would cease to ‘be’ at all, I would have no ‘presence’. This was more than death of the ego, which is a major event by any definition; this was total annihilation. No ego, no soul – no ‘Self’. No more Heavenly Bliss, Love Agapé, or Divine Compassion. Only oblivion. It was not at all attractive, not at alluring, not at all desirable, yet I knew I was going to do it – one day – because it was the ultimate condition. Herein lay the secret to the ‘Mystery of Life’.

Some years ago I wrote the following:

‘The ‘death of the ego’ is only for the orthodox-minded people; it is for those who are easily seduced by the Glamour and the Glory and the Glitz of the much-touted Altered State. This is why pure intent is an essential prerequisite to ensure a guaranteed passage through the psychic maze. With pure intent one will not rest until one has gone all the way. One will not be bewitched by the psychic Power and Authority, either. All these allurements are but welcome food for the cunning entity, which wanting only its own survival, readily sublimates itself into the Spirit. With the clarity born of pure intent one can see this play for what it is and move on freely and willingly to what lies at the end of the wide and wondrous path ... the end of ‘being’. With pure intent one will not settle for second best, for it has been seen in the peak experiences that the very best is possible, here on earth. One sees that ‘I’ must disappear entirely. There will be no transcendence, no transmutation, no metamorphosis ... not any of these. For one who goes all the way, no phoenix will exist to arise from the ashes – nothing Metaphysical will remain. There will be no ‘being’ at all. ‘I’ will become extinct.

‘I use the word extinct deliberately for it carries a definitive meaning. Physically, death is the end of an individual member of the species, whilst extinction is the ending of the species itself. The psychological annihilation of ‘I’ – in its entirety – is the psychological ending of the species known as ‘humanity’. It is the end of ‘being’ and the end of an illusion. It is also the end of ‘Being’ and the end of delusion. The Human Condition, with all its appalling sorrow and malice, has come to an end in me. All those would-be wise people who state: ‘You can’t change human nature’ are, fortunately, wrong. Because it is possible for ‘me’ to become extinct, thereby releasing the body from the ‘being’ within, I can walk freely in the world as-it-is ... this actual world. I, as this body only, am living in that perfect purity twenty-four-hours-a-day. I live in a state of benignity, which means a kindly and harmless disposition. Life is a sincere a yet playful game and I am free to enjoy it all, every moment again.

‘‘Humanity’, which gave birth to ‘me’, was being sustained by ‘me’ remaining as a ‘being’. ‘I’ am forever fettered by the Human Condition. The species known as ‘humanity’ has searched for an Ultimate Fulfilment within the arena of the Human Condition for all of history. Such a search is endless and futile, for it is a search within an illusion. Only further illusions – further states of ‘being’ – can be found there ... or delusions. Becoming Divine is a delusion – a state of ‘Being’ that is actually an insult to intelligence. ‘I’ will never find the ultimate fulfilment for ‘I’ am standing in the way of the ‘Mystery of Life’ being revealed. There is no way out, ‘I’ am doomed. ‘I’ must, inevitably, cease to ‘be’. Instead of bemoaning ‘my’ fate and vainly searching for an escape, ‘I’ can see ‘myself’ for what ‘I’ am. This seeing is the beginning of the ending of ‘me’. The extinction of ‘me’ is the ultimate sacrifice ‘I’ can make to ensure the possibility of peace-on-earth for not only me but for all humankind.

‘I find myself here, in the world as-it-is. A vast stillness lies all around, abounding with purity. Beneficence, an active kindness, overflows in all directions, imbuing everything with unimaginable fairytale-like quality. For me to be able to be here at all was a blessing that only ‘I’ could grant, because nobody else could do it for me. I am full of admiration for the ‘me’ that dared to do such a thing. I owe all that I experience now to ‘me’. I salute ‘my’ audacity. And what an adventure it was ... and still is. These are the wondrous workings of the exquisite nature of life – who would have it any other way?’

Ultimate fulfilment lies beyond extinction. (pages 103-104: ‘Richard’s Journal’, ©The Actual Freedom Trust 1997)

RICHARD: Time has no duration when the immediate is the ultimate and the relative is the absolute. This moment takes no interval at all to be here now. Thus it appears that it is as if nothing has occurred, for not only is the future not here, but the past does not exist either. If there is no beginning and no end, is there a middle? There are things happening, but nothing has happened or will happen ... or so it seems. Only this moment exists.

RESPONDENT: To me, what you are describing is simply the experience most human beings have when they encounter the limit of their imagination as they try to transcend the ordinary view of three dimensional geometry and time. You are, for a moment, confounded – stuck in a dilemma: On the one hand you intuit that the popular concept of time/space is a myth, but on the other you cannot imagine (image) the alternative.

RICHARD: I was not writing of transcending the concept of time/space in imagination, I was writing about actually being here in space and now in time ... as a factual, evidential, obvious and clear actuality. (I do not use imagination as I do not have that faculty. Imagination arises from the same source as belief – a psychological entity known as the self.) What I was talking about may become clearer to you by describing the nature of the infinity of space, and then go on to understanding the nature of the eternity of time.

Physically and thus factually, this actual universe has no ‘inside’ as there is no ‘outside’ to infinity. Therefore there is no centre (no middle) and thus, with infinity, somewhere as a place is no ‘where’ (nowhere) in particular. There is no measurement possible with infinite space, for there is no reference point (an edge) to compare against. Living on planet earth, humans measure space in comparison to the localised distance between here and there. It is this measurement that is relative, not the universe. ‘Here’ is, as a fact, anywhere in infinity.

So is it too with time. As there is no beginning and end to time, there is no middle. ‘Now’ as a fixed point has no ‘when’ (nowhen) in particular (it is whenever we humans agree to make it). There is no measurement possible in eternity, for there is no reference point (before a beginning) to compare against. Living on the planet earth in localised daylight and darkness, humans measure time in comparison to the period between now and then. It is this measurement that is relative, not time. Just as ‘here’ is anywhere in infinity, so too is ‘now’ anywhen in eternity.

Thus, just as we humans living on this planet are moving from nowhere to anywhere in infinite space, so too are we coming from nowhen and proceeding to anywhen in time. As it is any measurement that is relative, not the substance of space and time, consequently, when ‘I’, the psychological entity called the self, disappears as a measurer (a reference point), measurement ceases to be a reality and the actual becomes apparent. Then, and only then, is one being alive here as an actuality in space and living now as an actuality in time.

None of us are coming from somewhere or going someplace for we are always here and it is already now. We are never not here and it is never not now. Where else could we be but here? When we move from ‘here’ to ‘there’, as we are moving we are always here ... and when we arrive ‘there’, we are here. Similarly when else could it be but now? As we wait for ‘then’ to become ‘now’, while we are waiting it is always now ... and when ‘then’ arrives, it is now.

RESPONDENT: Imho, the next step in the evolution of human consciousness will include the ability to embrace ten or more dimensions.

RICHARD: I did read a book years ago that detailed thirteen senses – and they became increasingly specious, after the first five, and not fitting the classification of sense organ. It is the same with any other spatial dimensions that I have read of.

Incidentally, as I am new to computer jargon I am presuming that ‘imho’ indicates: ‘In my humble opinion’?

Is this correct?