Actual Freedom – Mailing List ‘A’ Correspondence

RICHARD: I am only too pleased to respond to your reflections ... I will answer point by point as a detailed account of the views expressed are essential if one is to comprehend the vast difference between an altered state of consciousness such as Spiritual Enlightenment and an actual freedom wherein there is a condition of pure consciousness.

RESPONDENT: (1) Law of conservation of Energy states that Energy can neither be created nor be destroyed .

RICHARD: If you went through my ‘dialogue’ you will have noticed my comments regarding capitalisation: [Quote]: ‘anyone who uses capitalisation is referring to something that is Sacred, Holy, Hallowed, Divine, Heavenly, Sanctified, Sacrosanct, Otherworldly and so on. In other words: God’. [End quote]. As you have capitalised the word ‘energy’ , I take it that you are referring to some god, by whatever name. As you are therefore attempting to mix science and religion, your observation does not mean anything factual at all.

RESPONDENT: (2) As long as the person is alive the body is in activity. However, when the energy is no longer able to activate the body due to malfunction of the body, the body perishes. (Like in a computer the electricity is no longer able to activate it if the hardware fails).

RICHARD: Now that you are using a small ‘e’ for energy, I take it that you mean the animating energy that determines that a body is alive and breathing. As this energy is dependent upon the cellular structure of the body being in an active phase, not in entropy, then when the body dies, this energy dies with it. That is it. Finish.

RESPONDENT: (3) Even when the body perishes the energy continues to be!!

RICHARD: Not so, as I explained above. You are referring to some metaphysical entity like a ‘soul’, or some such thing, which survives the death of the body. Any such entity is clearly a psychic projection of the psychological entity that is known as the ‘self’ which, not being actual, wishes to perpetuate its apparent existence for all eternity. This is but a delusion born out of an illusion. The self, whilst being real – sometimes very real – is not actual.

RESPONDENT: (4) This energy is called the Soul, the Atman, the Self etc. etc.

RICHARD: Yes, I know it is called by these names. These are all metaphysical concepts and have no facticity whatsoever. The apparent existence of a soul requires belief ... and etymologically the word ‘believe’ means: ‘to fervently wish to be true’.

RESPONDENT: (5) However while the energy is in the body due to ignorance we identify ourselves with the body not with the Atman.

RICHARD: It is ignorance (that is, ignoring a fact) to identify with the ‘Atman’ (an Indian religious concept). It is sensible to understand that I am this body.

RESPONDENT: (6) The word ‘religion’ is derived from Latin. ‘Re’ means back, again. ‘Legare’ means to bind, to unite. Etymologically speaking religion means that which binds one back to the origin.

RICHARD: So, some people like to believe that their origin is some god. The fact is that my origin was an ova and a spermatozoa uniting.

RESPONDENT: (7) The purpose of religious teaching is to remove the Ignorance: ‘I am the Body’.

RICHARD: The purpose of religious teaching is to brainwash people into believing nonsense instead of facts and actuality. I am this body; I am the sense organs: this seeing is me, this hearing is me, this tasting is me, this touching is me, this smelling is me, and this thinking is me. Whereas ‘I’, the psychological entity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain. Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the actual world – the world as-it-is.

Of course ‘I’ must invent a god to seek union with so as to end my loneliness and sorrow.

RESPONDENT: (8) We as humans are an evolved being but not yet evolved to understand many things. A dog for example may not understand many things we as humans do.

RICHARD: It is true that a dog does not understand as many things as humans do. But why do you bring evolution into what is basically a religious discussion that you are having? Does your god want you to spend millions of years evolving just so that you can come to understand that you are god? What sense does that make? To condemn you to countless rebirths of suffering and sorrow caused by an in-built ignorance that only evolution can undo sounds suspiciously like a very sick god, to me.

RESPONDENT: (9) Can you tell me how far the space around us extends. Can that space end somewhere? If so what is beyond that?

RICHARD: Space is infinite, so it extends indefinitely. As it is infinite, it can not end somewhere. As it does not end, there is nothing beyond the universe. It is ‘I’ who, being a fiction, desires Immortality to perpetuate ‘my’ real existence for all of Eternity – thus secretly despising this body and this physical life – and it is ‘I’ who, being a central figure in ‘my’ scheme of things, proposes that there is an outside to this material universe. There is not. This universe has no edges ... which means that there is no centre either. With no centre to existence we are nowhere in particular. Being here, as an actuality, is to be anywhere at all, for infinity is everywhere all at once.

RESPONDENT: (10) Can you tell me how we came in to being? (Did the chicken come first or the egg ?)

RICHARD: We came into being through sexual intercourse, which unites the ova and the spermatozoa. The embryo thus formed by the rapid doubling of this first cell spends nine months being nourished in the womb. Then one is born into the physical world of sensual pleasure and delight.

As for the hoary question of the chicken and the egg scenario so beloved of pedants ... it is predicated upon there being a beginning to the universe. The universe, being infinite, had no beginning and has no end. This means that there is no middle either. Thus we are already here in space and it is always now in time.

RESPONDENT: (11) Can you tell me how far you can go back in time? 1000 B.C.? One Million B.C.? Before that what ?

RICHARD: Time is eternal; you can go back forever. However, why not try being here ... where this moment is happening? By letting go of the self – the ‘I’ that one holds so dear – then one is being here as-I-am, in the actual world. Being here as-I-am is to be blithe and gay, for life is a delightful adventure in itself. I do not have to do anything to ‘get a thrill’ for it is thrilling to realise, each moment again, that I am actually here. I am fresh, ever-new ... I have never been here before. All that is happening is happening for the first time. Never before in human history has this particular moment occurred, so of course it is exciting. There is no way of knowing what will happen next – how much more stimulated can one be than this? Yet there is an utter safety in all this, for in the actual world nothing can go wrong. The actual world is epitomised by a perfection that is unassailable ... whatever happens is appropriate to the circumstances. Being here as-I-am enables one to be aware of the grand scheme of things, and everything falls into place. A vast understanding, beyond normal human comprehension, is instantly available to one who is genuine. This actual world is rich and vital in all its happening. I am the universe experiencing itself in all its splendour and magnificence. It is abundant, bountiful, luscious ... I luxuriate in being here, so fantastic is it to be alive, to be me as I actually am.

RESPONDENT: (12) As one of the Hindu Saints said: ‘Why are we wasting time in analysing and arguing all this – discover the Self in you!!’

RICHARD: Many of the Hindu Saints have discovered the Self ... and they are exporting their nonsense to all those gullible peoples in the West who are eager for mystical experience. The trouble with people who discard the god of Christianity is that they do not realise that by turning to the Eastern spirituality they have effectively jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. Eastern spirituality is religion ... merely in a different form to what people in the west have been raised to believe in. And it is of no use to protest that Hindu spirituality is not a religion for I have been to India some years ago and studied Hinduism for myself. It is those bits about realising oneself to be ‘That’, by whatever name, that sounds so convincing to the Western mind that is desperately looking for answers. The Christian conditioning actually sets up the situation for a thinking person to be susceptible to the insidious doctrines of the East. At the end of the line there is always a god of some description, lurking in disguise.

RESPONDENT: (13) Everyone at all times is performing an activity knowingly or unknowingly to keep himself or herself happy and as long as we seek this happiness identifying ourselves with this body the happiness can only be temporary since the body dies and is reborn every moment. (Like you). And also seeking happiness through the body will abide by the law of nature where every action has equal and opposite reaction. Pleasure is followed by Pain.

RICHARD: I beg to differ: Happiness is permanent because this body ‘dies’ and is ‘born’ every moment. Time has no duration when the immediate is the ultimate. This moment takes no time at all to be here. 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, there is no middle. There are things happening, but it is as if nothing has happened or will happen. Only this moment exists. This moment has no duration, it takes no time at all to occur – which gives rise to the inaccurate notion that it is ‘Timeless’. This is an institutionalised delusion, for it stems from the egocentric feeling that ‘I’ am ‘Immortal’, that ‘I’ am ‘Eternal’.

Apperception reveals that this moment is hanging in time, it is in a realm of its own. This moment is perennial, not timeless. I am perpetually here – for the term of my natural life – as this moment is; I am not ‘Eternally Present’. What creates the feeling that the present is timeless is that human beings are normally out of time. Yet time is intimate. It is so intimate that I am not separate from it. Whereas ‘I’, as a human, have separated ‘myself’ from time by ‘being’. ‘Being’ is to mistakenly take this body being here as containing an ‘I’, a psychological entity. To ‘be’ is to take this moment of being alive personally – as proof of ‘my’ subjective existence. ‘I’ am an illusion; if ‘I’ think and feel that ‘I’ do exist, then ‘I’ am outside of time. ‘I’ am forever complaining that there is ‘not enough hours in the day’, or ‘I am always running out of time’, or ‘I am always catching up with time’, or ‘I am always behind time’.

With no ‘I’ whatsoever to keep me out of this moment in time, I am pure innocence personified, for I am literally free from sin and guilt. I am untouched by evil; no malice exists anywhere in this body. I am utterly innocent. Innocence, that much abused word, has come to its full flowering in me. I am easily able to be freely ingenuous – noble in character – without any effort at all. The purity of being alive at this moment in time is so unlike the strictures of morality – whereupon the entity struggles in vain to resemble the purity of the actual – inasmuch as integrity is bestowed gratuitously. I can live unequivocally, endowed with a natural grace and dignity, in a magical wonderland. To thus live candidly, in arrant innocence, is a remarkable condition of excellence.

This moment of being alive has never happened before and will never happen again. It is unique. As it is always this moment already, everything is immediately peerless. Therefore it is never boring ... it is ever-fresh ... I am never boring ... I am ever-fresh. I have never been here before ... everything is happening for the very first time ... I am happening for the very first time. Because I am ever-new, I am automatically innocent. Innocence prevails where time has no duration.

The perpetual purity of this moment of being alive actually endows perennial happiness.

RESPONDENT: (14) So, discover the Self in you through meditation, through contemplation, and thou shalt realize the Self in you and that Self alone is real.

RICHARD: The Self may be real, but it is not actual. You will have noticed by now, surely, that I have no intention at all of ‘meditating’ and realising ‘The Self’ in me. I did that back in 1981 and remained stuck in the Altered State of Consciousness called Enlightenment, Nirvana, Samadhi, Satori and so on, for eleven years. That was accomplished by dissolving the ego. In 1992 I dissolved the soul in a like manner and thus ‘The Self’ disappeared along with it. Nowadays, I have no identity whatsoever ... and it is a constant delight to be here, free from malice and sorrow. I am happy and harmless.

RESPONDENT: (15) If someone asks me to prove this I am as lost as I would be to convince somebody how sweet tastes and that it tastes good. These are all but experiences.

RICHARD: It is all right – I know the taste of sweet for I was living in Heavenly Bliss, Love Agapé and Divine Compassion for eleven years. I had arrived. I had become Awakened to the ‘Greater Reality’ in 1981. I was Heavenly Bliss, Love Agapé and Divine Compassion ... there was no separation between me and The Absolute. I had a Divine Sense of Mission to spread ‘The Word’ and I embarked on fulfilling my ‘Sacred Duty’, gathering some disciples on the way, until 1984. Then I started to question just what I was doing and just what had happened to me. Something seemed to be wrong ... this had all been done before by other Masters and Messiahs, Saints and Sages, Avatars and Saviours, to no avail. In fact, instead of bringing Love and Peace, they had left in their wake much bloodshed and hatred ... and I was one of them! Accordingly I travelled to India to find out for myself exactly what was amiss with this whole Enlightenment business by meeting some of these hallowed Gurus and imbibing the centuries of Eastern Spiritual Tradition for myself, instead of merely reading about it in books.

It was to take me eleven years to get out of this massive delusion I was living in and go beyond it to arrive at where I am today. It was eleven years of coming to terms with the understanding that what I was living was megalomania – a Delusion of Grandeur – and that it was what every human being believed in, in some way, shape or form ... but that is another story. Today, I am no longer an Enlightened Master living in an Exalted State of Being ... I am me-as-this-body only, a fellow human being who has no sorrow or malice whatsoever to transcend; hence I am both happy and harmless.

It is a most estimable condition to be in.

RESPONDENT: Thank you for long, patient feedback on my reflections. Can I have your views on what you think is the purpose of this life on earth as a human being?

RICHARD: The purpose of life on earth as a human being is to understand that I, as this body, am not separate from the universe. One is, after all, made up of the very stuff of the universe ... and I mean this as a physical actuality. The very material that this body is constituted of is the material of the universe – one did not come from ‘outside’ of it and be randomly placed ‘in’ here by some god for some mysterious purpose that is not up to humans to fathom. It is possible to fully know the ‘Mystery of Life’ to such an extent that one is completely satisfied and fulfilled. Nothing more needs to be done other than to live it each moment again and to enjoy and appreciate it all fully and totally. The utter purity of this perfect understanding – and the living of it – defies imagination and is impossible to believe. All of ones wishes and dreams are answered ... and more. It is the adventure of a lifetime to embark upon a voyage of exploration and discovery; to not only seek but to find. And once found, it is here for the term of one’s natural life – it is an irreversible mutation in consciousness. Once launched it is impossible to turn back and resume one’s normal life ... one has to be absolutely sure that this is what one truly wants.

The reward for going to the very end of illusion and delusion is to emerge unscathed and to find oneself actually being here for the very first time. The benefits of doing all this are beyond price ... the immediate bestowal of universal peace upon oneself – resulting in thus ushering in the possibility for a global peace-on-earth – is the benefit most worthy of acknowledgment. Yet, rewards and benefits notwithstanding, to have reached one’s destiny is to be of the ultimate service possible – the universe has been able to fulfil itself in me, a human being. Finally there is an intelligence operating unimpeded ... blind nature has been superseded. There is, most assuredly, not an ‘Intelligence’ behind the universe, as is commonly supposed. To entertain such a notion is to commit the vulgar error of anthropomorphism. Intelligence abides only in humans – and the free operation of this intelligence is constantly being thwarted by the parasitical psychological entity known as ‘me’. ‘I’ am an identity, a ‘being’, a ‘presence’ that interferes with the smooth running of life. ‘I’ create everyday reality – and it is a grim business to live in this reality, with only scant moments of reprieve. With the dissolution of ‘I’ – the self in its entirety – reality vanishes and this actual world of perfection and excellence becomes apparent.

Actual perfection and excellence is free. It is the freely available bonus of daring to be me. Freeing myself of ‘Self-Realisation’, which manifests as ‘me’ being ‘The Self’ that exists for all eternity in a ‘Timeless and Spaceless’ realm – the ‘Greater Reality’ – was the last step into actuality. Everyday reality was an illusion and the ‘Greater Reality’ was a delusion born out of the illusion. Unadorned I stand on my own; more free than a bird on the wing and cleaner than a sea-breeze on a sweltering summer’s day. To be me is to be fresh, each moment again. Owing nothing to no one I am free from corruption – perversity has vanished forever. Unpolluted as I am by any alien entity, my thoughts and my deeds are automatically graceful. Goodwill, freed of social morality, comes effortlessly to me for all internal conflict is over. I am gentle and peaceful in character. All this comes as no surprise for it is what humans have all long suspected to be the case. This universe, this physical world humans all live in, is too big in its grandeur, too neatly complex in its arrangement, and too perfectly organised in its structure for humans to be eternally doomed to perpetual misery. Surely, no one can believe for a moment that it is all fated to be forever wrong. This is a tremendous universe in all its workings – this physical world humans live in is magnificent, to say the least.

I do not need the stimulation of frenetic ‘busyness’ to enhance my day with a self-induced sense of importance. I no longer have to justify my existence here on earth by doing and achieving something that is considered ‘worthwhile’ by the denizens of the real world. Being here – fully here – is the summation of all existence; nobody is going anywhere, anyway, for one is already always here. This universe is openly being here in all its splendour and magnificence and I am simply being at this moment in time where only actuality exists. The perfection endowed by the infinitude of all space and time is such a remarkable occurrence that nothing more needs to be done other than to enjoy it through-and-through each moment again. This experience of being here is the experiential apperception of the much sought-after ‘meaning of life’. So what more could one ask for? Nothing is a mystery any more; there is no riddle to be solved nor any puzzle to be unravelled for all is open to view. Because of the sheer infinity of the universe I can never be bored or restless ... each moment is packed so full of the pleasure of being here that I do not have time for reverie or speculation. Other than the essential physical planning required for the smooth running of my day-to-day activities I have no idea at all as to what I want to do with my life. This constant realisation is ambrosial.

One can realise that one is the universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being.