Actual Freedom – The Actual Freedom Mailing List Correspondence

February 20 2000

RESPONDENT: I have been cunningly, intellectually avoiding self-immolation ... part of my fear stems from the possibility of brain-washing ... and looking silly to others.

RICHARD: The term ‘brain-washing’ refers not only to what ‘the commies’ did to US POW’s during the Korean War (where the term originated) and not only to what the ‘crack-pot cults’ do to their new recruits (which is how the popular press uses the term these days) but applies equally to the well-meant but uninformed peer-group conditioning, parental conditioning and social conditioning that one receives from the moment one first emerges as a baby into the world as-it-is with people as-they-are.

For example: I was born in Australia, of an English/Scottish Hong Kong-born father and an English/English Australia-born mother. With this British background, I was enculturated into believing that I was, literally, an Australian citizen ... but with British blood. Now, blood is blood ... there is no such ‘thing’ as an ‘Australian’, an ‘American’, a ‘German’, a ‘Japanese’ and so on. Thus the wars and the suicides – the blood shed and the tears shed – are precipitated because of the absurdity of identification ... is not all this acculturation ridiculous! However, as an infant, a child, a youth and then a man, I was so programmed as to be unable to discriminate fact from fiction. I had no terms of reference that I could use as a standard to determine which was which, as every single human being on this planet was not simply a flesh and blood body ... but similarly conditioned into being an ‘ethnic’ human being.

Thus I bought the whole package. Hook, line and sinker.

As I slowly started to unravel the mess that humankind was deeply mired in by unravelling it in me, I discovered a second layer under ‘my’ acculturated ethnicity ... ‘I’ was brainwashed into being a ‘man’ and not simply a flesh and blood male body. Under the enculturated layers lies a further identity ... the genetically-inherited animal ‘self’. It took me years and years of exploration and discovery to find out that ‘I’ was a ‘me’ – a ‘being’ – and not simply a flesh and blood body. By identification as ‘me’, a psychological/psychic entity was able to ‘possess’ this body. It is not unlike those Christians who are said to be possessed by an evil entity and require exorcism. Only this ‘possession’ was called being normal. Therefore, every human being is thus possessed by an ‘alien entity’ ... I discovered that a ‘walk-in’ was in control of this body and that this ‘walk-in’ was ‘me’.

So, superficially there is a composite conditioned social identity that encompasses:

1. A vocational identity as ‘employee’/‘employer’, ‘worker’/‘pensioner’, ‘junior/‘senior’ and so on.
2. A national identity as ‘English’, ‘American’, ‘Australian’ and etcetera.
3. A racial identity as ‘white’, ‘black’, ‘brown’ or whatever.
4. A religious/spiritual identity as a ‘Hindu’, a ‘Muslim’, a ‘Christian’, a ‘Buddhist’ ad infinitum.
5. A ideological identity as a ‘Capitalist’, a ‘Communist’, a ‘Monarchist’, a ‘Fascist’ and etcetera.
6. A political identity as a ‘Democrat’, a ‘Tory’, a ‘Republican’, a ‘Liberal’ and all the rest.
7. A family identity as ‘son’/‘daughter’, ‘brother’/‘sister’, ‘father’/‘mother’ and the whole raft of relatives.
8. A gender identity as ‘boy’/‘girl’, ‘man’/‘woman’.

These are related to roles, rank, positions, station, status, class, age, gender ... the whole organisation of brainwashed hierarchical control. What was it you were saying (above) about ‘cunningly, intellectually avoiding self-immolation’ through fear of ‘the possibility of brain-washing’ (presumably by reading actualist writing)? As a social identity one is already nothing but the product of brainwashing ... yet behind all that – underlying all the brainwashed socialised classifications – is the persistent feeling of being an identity inhabiting the body: an affective ‘entity’ as in a deep, abiding and profound feeling of being an occupant, a tenant, a squatter or a phantom hiding behind a façade, a mask, a persona; as a subjective emotional psychological ‘self’ and/or a passionate psychic ‘being’ (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) inhabiting the psyche; a deep feeling of being a ‘spirit’; a consciousness of the immanence of ‘presence’ (which exists immortally); an awareness of being an autological ‘being’ ... the realisation of ‘Being’ itself. In other words: everything you think, feel and instinctually know yourself to be.

There, and only there, is the root cause of animosity and anguish.

Cultural (metaphysical and/or humanistic) brainwashing is but the surface problem ... your very deepest feeling of being – the real ‘me’ – is the base of all the ills of humankind. This ‘being’ is evidenced when one says: ‘But what about me, nobody loves me for me’. For a woman it may be: ‘You only want me for my body ... and not for me’. For a man it may be: ‘You only want me for my money ... and not for me’. For a child it may be: ‘You only want to be my friend because of my toys (or sweets or whatever)’. That deep feeling of ‘me’ – that ‘being’ itself – is at the core of identity. It arises out of the basic instincts that blind nature endowed all human beings with as a rough and ready ‘soft-ware’ package to make a start in life. These instincts – mainly fear and aggression and nurture and desire – appear as a rudimentary self common to all sentient beings. This is why it is felt to be one’s ‘Original Face’ – to use the Zen terminology – when one accesses it in religious/spiritual/mystical meditation practices and disciplines. This is the source of ‘we are all one’, because ‘we’ are all the same-same blind instinctual self that stretches back beyond the dawn of human memory. It is a very, very ancient genetic memory (hoariness does not make it automatically wise, however, despite desperate belief to the contrary).

As for ‘looking silly to others’ : the above descriptions applies to every single one of the ‘others’ – all 6.0 billion of them – any of whom might very well belittle you for daring to be involved in actively bringing about an individual peace-on-earth (which paves the way for global peace on earth). Are you so sure that ‘looking silly’ in the eyes of brainwashed marionettes and instinctive robots is such a big deal?

How on earth can one value the opinions of those who object to being happy and harmless?

RESPONDENT: In fact the opposite has been the case ... people are attracted up to a point ... my wife included. My main game, however, is to continue to investigate myself experientially, (rather than just intellectually), and am very much enjoying all that is on offer on the AF website. Interestingly reading ‘it’ and intellectually understanding ‘it’ is no longer enough on its own now. The magic pudding (AF) must be eaten to be appreciated. I think writing and talking may be a very good beginning to progress beyond thinking and reading. Incremental verifiable improvement ... WOW. Thrilling stuff!

RICHARD: Yes, the ‘incremental verifiable improvement’ comes about when one actually puts one’s intellectual understanding into action ... each moment again in one’s daily life. It is humanly possible to be virtually free of the malice and sorrow that epitomises the ‘Human Condition’ for twenty three hours fifty nine minutes of the day (an arbitrary figure). To be as happy and harmless as is humanly possible for ninety nine percent of the time (another arbitrary figure) is way beyond normal expectations ... such a condition I call a virtual freedom (not to be confused with ‘virtual reality’).

[Dictionary Definition]: ‘virtual’: That is so in essence or effect, although not recognised formally, actually, or by strict definition as such; almost absolute. Possessed of certain physical virtues or powers; effective in respect of inherent qualities. Capable of producing a certain effect or result’.

This virtual freedom can be attained through application and diligence borne upon pure intent. For those that would seek to excuse themselves on the grounds that I am freak, an aberration of nature, this factor belies this justification. It is possible to be virtually free, virtually perfect, virtually pure. To be sure, to live the ultimate requires more than the abrogation of the right to be the social identity, but something quite remarkable is possible before the event. One can, because of pure intent, voluntarily forsake the social identity, and go into exile, into self-retirement, whilst remaining in the market place. One does this by examining all of one’s beliefs – masquerading as ‘truths’ – and watching them vanish as if they had never existed. One can observe oneself in one’s moment-to-moment activities as one goes about daily life. Gradually one notices that ‘I’ have grown rather thin, as if withering away, until ‘I’ become merely a shadow of ‘my’ former self ... causing very little trouble and then only occasionally. This condition will continue to subsist until the inevitable happens and ‘I’ cease to exist in ‘my’ totality of ‘being’. So there is plenty that one can achieve until the ultimate occurs ... there is no longer any excuse for devious behaviour and facile explanations such as ‘I am only ‘human’. Nor is there any justification for stating that ‘life is a vale of tears.

Actualism does not just promise ... it delivers a virtual freedom. This virtual freedom is derived from what ‘I’ lived from March to September in 1981 and was epitomised by being as happy and harmless as was humanly possible. This was achieved by ‘me’ asking the question: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ ... for I had experienced the universe’s perfection – personified in a four-hour peak experience – and just knew that it was possible to achieve peace-on-earth in this life-time as this body. To live a virtual freedom one knowingly and deliberately imitates the actual inasmuch as is possible given that one is still human. It is the pure intent to ingenuously live the actual that imbues virtual freedom with its feeling of perfection and subsequent delight and joy. To be without the connection betwixt naiveté (the closest a ‘self’ can come to innocence) and the perfection of the infinitude of this very material universe (as evidenced in a pure consciousness experience), then any freedom loses its dynamism, its lustre, its brilliance, its vivacity ... its very here and now aliveness.

Finally, a genuine opportunity for peace-on-earth to happen has become possible. Persons anywhere can start the process by deciding to lock-on to pure intent and begin to discover just exactly what one actually is (pure intent is born out of the pure consciousness experience (PCE) wherein it is seen, with startling clarity and precision, what one actually is). If one can have a PCE momentarily, one can have another ... and another ... and so on. Eventually, with application and diligence, one can have, more or less, continuous peak experience ... one’s life has been transformed into a virtual freedom.

Then one has a distinct opportunity of becoming actually free.

RESPONDENT: Your descriptions of the PCE and ASC rings very true to my own ... the PCE has none of the glitz and glamour but everything explained about instincts and soul sounds logical if the permanent alternative (AF) are not yet known experientially. Oops. There goes the intellect again trying to understand first. Recently my investigations have required actually doing something about myself ... confronting myself by doing ... usually talking to someone about something. I must take risks methinks if I am to continue and progress into a less Alone state of being.

RICHARD: Aye, it takes great daring and audacity to proceed in the face of the conventional wisdom. If no-one was bold enough to say that the accepted ‘truth’ is a mistake, then the sun would still be revolving around the earth! In the face of public opinion, one needs to be bold to question the collective ‘wisdom’ and find out for oneself the fact of the matter. One of the best ways of doing this is to see that something held to be true is not working. One needs to be audacious to proceed where humankind has not gone before ... and trail-blazers are often castigated for their effrontery. Fancy being ridiculed or ostracised for ascertaining the facticity of something ... for establishing a fact. To be forced to recant, by popular demand, is an outstanding act of dogmatic elitism. With this being the lot of the path-finder, no wonder ‘humanity’ is in the mess that it is in, for who would run the gauntlet?

The one who is called ‘foolish’ by the cynics for ‘looking silly’ perchance?

RESPONDENT: Actual Freedom seems like the best on offer but then again ...??? What a great thing to proceed with the certainty of actually finding an answer one way or the other.

RICHARD: Hmm ... the PCE is the demonstrative ‘proof’ of the sheer excellence of the perfection and purity of the infinitude of this eternal and infinite universe. What is with this ‘best on offer’ stuff ... let alone the ‘but then again ...???’ query? Whence such equivocation ... and whither the fears of ‘brainwashing’?

The PCE speaks for itself ... there is only one freedom worthy of the name.

RESPONDENT: The blue print and the words are in place ... like a kind of map into the unknown psyche?

RICHARD: More than that ... a clearly described wide and wondrous path that eliminates the ‘unknown psyche’ completely.

RESPONDENT: I have downloaded the AF web-site from the net onto my computer’s hard drive ... about 53 megs ... and was wondering whether it would be useful to have it as a link from: www.warrnambool.org/wow01.html#COMMUNITY SERVICE. I know you are advocating quality rather than quantity, but why not let people choose ... by letting them know you exist? In exchange for the link the WOW community site require you to include a link back from the AF site.

RICHARD: The main draw-back to the notion is from this end (the reciprocal link on ‘The Actual Freedom Web Site’): some web pages have a profusion of such logos scattered hither and thither which serve to detract from the main event and turn it into a gaudy and confusing page. The ... um ... Directors of ‘The Actual Freedom Trust’ long ago made a policy decision not to go down that road and only have reciprocal links for kindred sites. For an example, Alan in the UK has his own page wherein his describes his own experience at the following URL: http://members.theglobe.com/AlanUK/homepage.htm

Therefore, what you can do – if you are so inclined – is to establish your own Web Page in Warrnambool on one of the many freebie Web Domains (such as what ‘WOW’ is offering sans their censorship) in which you can place all of your own experiences – and observations about any feeling-fed and/or instinctively-driven discoveries – that you have made and/or are making.

It is not as daunting as it initially seems to get a Web Site up and running ... you would become very familiar with that phrase ‘learning curve’ though!

RESPONDENT: More information about the site is available from: www.warrnambool.org/wowring.html

RICHARD: I accessed the URL you provided and came across the following list of requirements to be met. Even if the notion was attractive enough to follow it up there are numerous drawbacks. Viz.:

1. [Quote]: ‘Vision Statement: Objectives: Warrnambool on the Web is an innovative community project – WOW. This exciting initiative is focussed around the publication of information about Warrnambool on the Internet. WOW provides a comprehensive database relevant to people living in Warrnambool and is a useful resource for people wanting to find out more about our community from locations around the world. <SNIP> (www.warrnambool.org/wowvision.html).

RICHARD: Draw-back number one: ‘The Actual Freedom Trust’ is not physically based in Warrnambool, Vic., as the official address of its trustee – ‘The Actual Freedom Company’ – as lodged with the Australian Securities Commission, is Byron Bay, NSW.

2. [Quote]: ‘The Internet address www.warrnambool.org signifies that it is defined as ‘non-commercial’ site. This resource will be used to develop a network of informational web pages, virtual communities and audio/visual web broadcasting, and will be available on a co-operative basis for projects in which Warrnambool on the Web participates. Essentially WOW is established to provide Internet access to Warrnambool’s non-commercial/not for profit community organisations’. <SNIP>.

RICHARD: Simply because ‘Richard’s Journal’ is offered for sale, ‘The Actual Freedom Web-Site’ had to have the commercial appellation (.com) when it was registered as a Domain Name last year ... some of the Internet Search Engines make the same distinction, too (classifying it as ‘commercial’) even though it is a mere 114,000 words for sale as compared with the 1.5 million words offered for free. Nevertheless, rules is rules and a line must be drawn somewhere.

Therefore ‘The Actual Freedom Web-Site’ is not one of ‘Warrnambool’s non-commercial/not for profit community organisations’.

3. [Quote]: ‘WOW aims to provide support for 100 Internet web-sites for local community organisations in the first 12 months. WOW domain names will feature the domain and be finished by the community organisation name. For example: www.warrnambool.org/rotary/ <SNIP>.

RICHARD: Hmm ... the iconoclastic and heretical nature of the content of ‘The Actual Freedom Web-Site’ makes it the very antithesis of the likes of ‘Rotary’ and their ilk ... but here comes the cruncher. Viz.:

4. [Quote]: ‘Guidelines for listing on WOW: Warrnambool on the Web is primarily for Community Web sites with the major content on serving the Warrnambool and District Community. These are some Web Site guidelines that Warrnambool on the Web requires: <SNIP> To ensure the information on WOW is appropriate for everyone in the community, all information submitted for placement will be required to be approved by the Project Management. Personal Home Pages will not be listed on WOW’. <SNIP>.

RICHARD: It is that ‘all information submitted for placement will be required to be approved by the Project Management’ bit that squashes your notion flat on its face. Experience in the past has shown that censorship is alive and well in Australia; even in (this supposedly ‘avant guard’) Bryon Bay, no one would touch either ‘Richard’s Journal’ or ‘Peter’s Journal’ for publishing ... or for stocking and displaying for sale when they were privately published (even on consignment). Would it be fair to say that such ‘brainwashing’ as discussed (further above) is global in its spread and is as rampant in ‘the Project Management’ as in anywhere else?

Because I am particularly taking note of the subtlety of the ‘to ensure the information on WOW is appropriate for everyone in the community’ part of the sentence ... ‘appropriate’, eh?

Thereby hangs a tale.

March 05 2000

RESPONDENT: Benevolent living, concern for all and quality of life improves because of, and in spite of, Human Nature.

RICHARD: Aye, generally speaking, peoples mean well and work hopefully towards such goals as you describe (above) ... Peter summed it up succinctly in ‘An Introduction to Actual Freedom’:

• ‘The ability to think, plan, reflect and communicate [intelligence] has resulted in the astounding development of the human species, from a grim and deadly fight for the survival of the species, to one of increasing safety, comfort, leisure and pleasure. This last century, in particular, has seen astounding advances made in agriculture, manufacturing, health, life expectancy, wealth, transport, information processing, instant and world-wide communications, social services and education. An increasing proportion of the human population is enjoying comfort, safety, leisure and pleasure the likes of which has never, ever, existed before’.

I fully concur that this has happened ‘in spite of human nature’ ... I am somewhat curious as to how you would expand upon the ‘because of human nature’ aspect of your observation. What is there in human nature that is actually benevolent (harmless), actually concerned (happy) for all and thus actually improves the quality of life (peace-on-earth)? There is a vast gulf betwixt feeling benevolent (with feelings such as pity, sympathy, empathy, compassion and so on) and actually being benevolent (free of malice). Similarly, the concern one feels for others (worry, distress, anxiety, grief, anguish, torment and all the rest) is far removed from the actual interest one has in one’s fellow human being’s welfare (free of sorrow). There is much, much more to the quality of life than an affluent lifestyle and its concomitant facade of peace (a truce derived via the ethics and morals – socialised values and principles imposed through reward and punishment – that is backed-up at the point of a gun) which masquerades as quality for those who settle for second-best.

RESPONDENT: Warring, vicious and malicious behaviour is on the decline ...

RICHARD: Yet to alter one’s behaviour – whilst having a civilising effect – does not eliminate that which causes ‘warring, vicious and malicious behaviour’ in the first place. When push come to shove the veneer of socialisation disappears like the mirage it is and all the survival instincts – the passionate drives, urges, impulses and so on – come to the fore ... and ‘warring, vicious and malicious behaviour’ prevails. There has been 160,000,000 people killed by their fellow human beings in wars in the last 100 years (and a further 40,000,000 killed themselves in the depths of despair) which unnecessary deaths bear mute testimony to the fact that any such behavioural change is but skin deep.

RESPONDENT: [Warring, vicious and malicious behaviour is on the decline] in this new millennium ...

RICHARD: As ‘this new millennium’ is but a scant nine weeks old (and it is a ‘new millennium’ for only 1.0 billion people anyway), do you not think it is a trifle hasty observation when viewed against 5,000 years of recorded misery and mayhem, upon sober reflection? What is the guarantee that such feelings of ‘benevolent living, concern for all and quality of life’ will somehow succeed when all 6.0 billion peoples alive today on this otherwise fair earth are nursing malice and sorrow to their bosom?

RESPONDENT: [Warring, vicious and malicious behaviour is on the decline] in this perfectly improving perfect universe.

RICHARD: This universe, being infinite and eternal, is already always perfect: it is neither improving nor ‘perfectly improving’ (whatever that means) as perfection cannot be improved. One can be this perfection personified ... which is an instant end, in one person, to that which provides the potentiality for warring and murdering and raping and torturing and domestic violence and child abuse and suicide. If such an individual outbreak of peace-on-earth were to be contagious, then one will have happily and harmlessly helped to initiate a global peace-on-earth ... with no more need to alter behaviours so as to effect an unstable lifestyle (a pseudo ‘quality of life’) ever again.

Then vigilance is no more.

RESPONDENT: Why? Because it doesn’t work as a life style in most cases.

RICHARD: Indeed, yet rearranging the deckchairs on the ‘Titanic’ is going to achieve ... what?

RESPONDENT: People eventually are learning.

RICHARD: If I may ask? What exactly is it that people ‘eventually are learning’? Apart from a handful of people, all I hear, read and see is objections to be happy and harmless ... and a blanket denial that the instinctual animal passions are the root cause of all the ills of humankind.

And I do not lead a cloistered life ... I have twenty four hour a day access to the Internet (which includes all the world’s major newspapers) and 24 channels of television just for starters.

RESPONDENT: While people are saving lives by the thousands ... life keeps getting better <snip> the world is changing in case nobody notices this wonderful fact.

RICHARD: Hmm ... I am one of those who has not ‘noticed this wonderful fact’ . Just where, precisely, is ‘the world changing’ ... and in what ‘wonderful’ way?

RESPONDENT: I evolve with the world as it is and move on ... to crystallise my thinking and doing is to die. Which means anyone can prove all this right or wrong in whatever context they wish to dream up.

RICHARD: Hokey-dokey ... the ‘context’ in which I place the only ‘change’ worthy of the name is freedom from the human condition which, as it has not happened anywhere at all that I have noticed, makes it all too easy to ‘prove all this wrong’ . My question then is this:

Is this a context I ‘wished to dream up’ ... or is it a physical context?

RESPONDENT: ‘Death from diseases’, is the main cause in this study (death from ‘all other causes’ in Wales and England has fallen from 35% to 14% of all deaths in 97 years) ... life is not all suicide, war and revenge. From this information I can postulate all kinds of cause and effect scenarios depending on the colour of ‘my’ glasses on the day.

RICHARD: Ahh, this may explain where you are coming from ... were you wearing your rose-coloured glasses, perchance, whilst you were writing all this?

RESPONDENT: ‘I’ took all my glasses off years ago. Concern and hope may push or pull ‘me’ towards an AF ‘belief system’ and it binds while ‘I’, (and others), persist in being superior, inferior, unequal instinct-ridden or problem-ridden.

RICHARD: What ‘glasses’ did you ‘take off years ago’? I only ask because what part does ‘hope’ have to play in one who has no glasses? Also, what is an ‘AF ‘belief system’’ when it is at home? Is it that bogus ‘belief system’ which ‘binds’ or is it the ‘hope’ that ties? Lastly, as an actual freedom from the human condition is so superior to anything any other human being has ever lived, it leaves any ‘being superior, inferior, unequal’ posturing in the litigious ‘Land Of Lament’ for dead. It has always amused me, whenever some spiritual aspirant takes me to task for being superior, that they praise the humility of their current hero ... all the whilst apparently not noticing that their ‘humble saviour’ is swanning about busily being ‘God On Earth’ or a ‘Supreme Being’ by any other name!

An actual freedom is such an exceedingly superior way of living life that its pre-eminence is unbelievable, unimaginable, unconceivable and incomprehensible.

RESPONDENT: Will reply to previous mail when I have thought of a useful response ... or is this response sufficient?

RICHARD: It is to no avail to ask me what is a ‘sufficient response’ because what you respond to – or do not respond to – is entirely up to yourself. Speaking personally, the delight in any and all writing that I do is instant and complete in itself ... and thus imposes no obligation upon anyone to reply in kind. It is your life you are leading: I can only suggest (offer tips, hints, clues, inside information and so on) ... what you do with my suggestions is likewise entirely up to you. It is you who either reaps the rewards or pays the consequences for any action or inaction that you may or may not do. Provided you comply with the legal laws and observe the social protocols you will be left alone to live your life as wisely or as foolishly as you wish.

As a suggestion only: as this is ‘The Actual Freedom Mailing List’, and as the peoples of ‘Wales and England’ (with one notable exception) are not cognizant of an actual freedom from the human condition, it may very well be useful to write about what you have personally explored – and thus discovered and uncovered, sought and found in yourself in your daily life – rather than some vague allusions to what some peoples are managing to do in an affluent country with regards to maintaining law and order (even though still stubbornly clinging to their genetically inherited passions) without explaining how or why this came about and with what guarantee it will continue.

Only if you are so inclined, of course.

April 01 2002

GARY: Apparently, after self-immolation has taken place, having a good laugh is not ruled out, as Richard has written else-where about nearly rolling on the floor in laughter. Is this then ‘an affective experience’?

RESPONDENT: Sounds like it to me, Gary. Perhaps Richard could elaborate on this apparent contradiction?

RICHARD: It is only an ‘apparent contradiction’ if all laughter is first determined to be affective ... one can laugh with the sheer delight of being alive or in moments of great pleasure. I recall that when freedom first happened there was much laughter because it was as if I had been playing a great joke upon myself by searching everywhere and everywhen for something that was already always just here right now ... I am chuckling even now as I write about it (all suffering is self-caused and totally unnecessary).

Also, one can laugh where something is ludicrous, farcical, absurd, ridiculous and so on ... speaking personally, I find the TV series ‘3rd Rock From The Sun’ humorous as it oft-times demonstrates many of the foibles of human nature (as in the first thirty four years of my life). Plus it is hilarious that for eleven years I lived-out the experience of being the latest saviour of humankind ... there is much about life which is irrepressibly funny.

And I find it cute that an actual freedom from the human condition is deemed an incurable mental disorder.

RESPONDENT: Perhaps one should not dwell on (or believe), in the authority of others?

RICHARD: There is a distinct difference between the authority of experience (expertise) and the authority of law (rule).

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P.S. I typed the words ‘rolling’ and ‘the floor’ and ‘laughter’ into this computer’s search engine and sent it through all my written words ... this is what came up:

• [Richard]: This discussion is not a competition about which one of us knows the most or is the cleverest at putting words together. We are talking about the possibility of your peace and your happiness and your harmony coming about here on earth, as this body, in this lifetime. For you to personally experience the ultimate each moment again, twenty four hours a day, three hundred and sixty five days of the year ... for the remainder of your life.
• [Respondent]: Actually doesn’t sound that appealing – I don’t mind a bit of suffering – it’s good for the soul.
• [Richard]: Peace and happiness and harmony does not ‘sound that appealing’? Are you for real? Do you mean to say that you condone wars, murders, tortures, rapes, domestic violence incidents and child abuse ... not to forget all the sadness, loneliness, grief, depression, despair and suicides? Do you really mean it when you say: ‘I don’t mind a bit of suffering’? If it was not so serious, I would be rolling about the floor laughing by now, at what you have just written ... for it is ludicrous. Read it again and see for yourself what nonsense it is. (Richard, List A, No. 5a, No. 14).

And:

• [Respondent]: ... [I agree that] it is funny that someone struts the world stage preaching humility and saying at the same time that they are God ...
• [Richard]: Yes ... it is comical because it is absurd, preposterous, farcical, ridiculous, nonsensical and foolish. (...) Ever since I became capable of appreciating ‘black humour’ (thanks to the TV series ‘Black Adder’) I sometimes have a difficult job to not roll about the floor laughing. What makes it black humour is that such hypocritical duplicity perpetuates all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides forever and a day. (Richard, List B, No. 20e, 11 January 2001).

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