Actual Freedom – The Actual Freedom Mailing List Correspondence

Continued from Mailing List ‘B’ (No. 26)

January 02 1999

RESPONDENT: Yesterday was pretty plain, the usual thoughts arise, there is the sense of things that are kind of in the background.

RICHARD: May I ask? What is this ‘sense of things’ that are in the background? I ask because I gain the impression you may be referring to having an horizon awareness ... intimations of the direct unveiling of what life is all about. For example, Alan wrote: ‘One realises it is what one has been searching for all the time – and all the time it was right there under one’s nose’.

RESPONDENT: But anyway I have been persisting with the question because it does usually evoke a sense of being in focus and very near.

RICHARD: Yes, ‘very near’ indicates to me that you are alert to the fact that what you may be looking for is not only immanent but imminent. If so, there very well may be apprehension ... it is boundless in its implications. To quote Alan again: ‘When one fully experiences this moment, there is a tremendous sense of ‘getting it’ ... and later he says: ‘doubt and fear are the two emotions I have felt the most – hardly surprising given the enormity of what I am undertaking’ . This is because it has immense ramifications to both yourself and humankind: the ending of animosity and anguish and the ushering in of benignity and benevolence. Yet there is even more to all this other than peace-on-earth ... which is, in itself, inconceivable and unbelievable anyway.

RESPONDENT: Last night when I was about to go to bed, the question still running, there was a sense of a shift and the closeness had a different feel to it. Then there was a feeling great energy and feeling of glee. Having felt great before I persisted with the question. The abundance lasted for perhaps 1 hour and then I fell asleep.

RICHARD: Ah ... this is what causes me to prick up my ears and write what I did (above): ‘closeness’, ‘great energy’, ‘abundance’ and ‘glee’. By ‘glee’ are you indicating triumphant joy ... exuberant delight? It is important to allow these enthusiasms to have full rein ... the ‘great energy’ can carry one through to the other shore. A point to note, however, is that getting into feelings like this – exquisite feelings – leaves one in imminent danger of the seductive snare of Love and Beauty and, conveniently ignoring their opposites, becoming enlightened ... or at least illuminated. ‘Me’ – that feeling of ‘being’ that I call the soul – aggrandises itself with Love and Compassion and Beauty and Truth and swans along in a state of rapturous and euphoric Divine Bliss. Thus one then goes off into some mystical ‘State of Being’ in some metaphysical world and misses out on the clean and clear perfection of this actual world. Nevertheless, in order to actually be here – given that mostly people live in their heads – one must go dangerously through the heart first ... it is a risk well worth taking.

As for ‘abundance’ ... yes, a lushness, a luxurious opulence awaits the one who dares to go all the way.

RESPONDENT: Ah, something comes back to me about last night – I was thinking about awareness, the lack of it and how to develop it, then I realised (again), it must be now and only now. That’s what started the closeness I think.

RICHARD: One of the main keys to success is a focus on time itself as a sensate experience. My oft-repeated refrain is this: ‘The first step to being free is the actual understanding that this moment in time is the only place where being alive happens. The past, although it was actual when it did happen, is not actual now. The future, although it will be actual when it does happen, is not actual now. Only now is actual and as it is always now then the purity of innocence is perpetually here already ... where time has no duration. Then what one is – as this body being apperceptively aware – is this material universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being. The physical space of this universe is infinite and its time is eternal ... thus the infinitude of this very material universe has no beginning and no ending ... and therefore no middle. There are no edges to this universe, which means that there is no centre, either. We are all coming from nowhere and are not going anywhere for there is nowhere to come from nor anywhere to go to. We are nowhere in particular ... which means we are anywhere at all’.

To be the consciousness of the infinitude ... it is no little thing that one does.

February 16 1999

RESPONDENT: I have a bit of trouble summoning up delight (as Richard suggests), as it seems imaginary, as opposed to the release that comes with facing issues. That is still under consideration though.

RICHARD: The first sentence of above paragraph is specifically designed to get one out of ‘stuckness’ ... it is not intended as an on-going way of living life. It is a short, sharp shock of attention – a ‘kick-start’ in the jargon – to counteract the ‘I didn’t ask to be born’ resentment that caused the stuckness in the first place. Another ‘wake-up jab’ (which makes use of any remnant of pride) is to ask oneself: ‘I have two choices right now: being happy and harmless or being dull and degenerate ... which way do I sensibly choose to spend this never-to-be-repeated precious moment of living so that I can honestly call myself a mature adult?’

A happy and harmless person has a much better chance of precipitating a PCE ... which is the essential pre-requisite for an actual freedom (otherwise this is all theory). It goes without saying, surely, that a grumpy person locks themselves out of being here ... now.

For a full and comprehensive explication of what this succinct paragraph conveys you may care to access the article: ‘Attentiveness and Sensuousness and Apperceptiveness’ on my Web Page.

July 01 1999

RICHARD: I do not have to personally experience schizophrenia in order to comprehend that it is undesirable as a modus operandi for living a salubrious life. I have read enough about it – and talked with enough people who do experience it – to ascertain that it is a living nightmare.

RESPONDENT: I have a cousin who is a schizophrenic. He is 15 and at the moment is almost at the limit of what drugs can do without having uncontrollable shakes etc. Last weekend he was staying with my mum and dad who live close and was in a really bad state. Are you aware of anyone managing this condition with a method like, ‘How am I experiencing this moment’. It seems sensible to tackle this problem when the attacks are at a low ebb, but as far as I know, no method has been employed in this case to even attempt to change the status quo of the conditioning which is undoubtedly contributing to the problem.

RICHARD: No one that I have ever spoken with, who is classified as having schizophrenia (and I spent considerable time with some as it was a condition I was vitally interested in at the time), ever indicated any willingness to join with me in a personal exploration – an experiential investigation – into the depths of their condition ... not one. In fact, as they backed-off, one and all, with marked degrees of alarm and distress, I desisted. I also had this happen with several peoples classified as having bi-polar disorder (manic depression) and my experience with peoples being clinically depressed was similar. There was one person, officially classified as having ‘episodes of paranoid schizophrenia’ (arguably the worst), who became so disturbed as I ‘walked with him’ into his world, that he became markedly wild. Another person in the room went outside and later said to me that the person had ‘become black’ and that there was ‘dark forces’.

Thus, from these experiences and through discussions with relatives and friends of those mentally disturbed – and from my reading on the subject of mental disorders and discussions with psychologists and psychiatrists – I have adopted a sensible policy of making it clear that the person reading or listening to actualism words is a sensible human being who understands what a word means, has learned to function in society with all its legal laws and social protocols, and is a reasonably ‘well-adjusted’ personality seeking to find ultimate fulfilment and complete satisfaction. Actualism is of no use to one who is harbouring a neurotic or psychotic condition or who is an uneducated social misfit with a chip on their shoulder. Such a person is well-advised to see a psychologist or a psychiatrist or an educator or attend classes on citizenship and cultural etiquette before even bothering to try to unravel the mess that is the Human Condition.

I say and do this because when a ‘normal’ person becomes ‘psychotic’ it is because they have found the pressures of life too much to handle and have chosen for psychosis as their way out. As strange as it may sound to normal people, they are comfortable with their modus operandi and have no interest in budging one iota from their position ... despite their pleas for help (a part of their strategy). It may initially sound like ‘hard nails’ on my account ... but counsellors and therapists and psychologists and psychiatrists are the best people for the job of managing their condition.

Let us first get sensible peoples free of the human condition ... then normal people may become interested. When normal people are free of the human condition then peoples genetically prone to mental disorders will not be subject to the ‘status quo of the conditioning which is undoubtedly contributing to the problem’ that makes them choose for psychosis as a way out.

RESPONDENT: Reading Alan’s post got me thinking. [quote]: ‘At one stage, I suddenly thought that this is the primitive self in operation and, just as in a PCE the ‘strong link’ from the amygdala to the neo-cortex is ‘stunned’ into temporary in-operation, what happens in ‘clinical depression’ is that the ‘weak link’ is temporarily (and possibly, in severe cases, permanently) put out of action. There is therefore no ‘feedback loop’ to control the instinctive reactions (and chemical releases) of the primitive self and the basic instincts of fear and aggression are free to run riot without the ‘normal’ controls of morals and injunctions. This would also explain what happens when people ‘run amok’, out of control, in wars and occasions of heightened tension’ [endquote]. It may be actually possible to, by practice, strengthen the feedback link and reduce the chance of psychotic breakdowns.

RICHARD: Hmm ... I have been examined by two accredited psychiatrists and am officially classified as having a severe psychotic condition, according to the DSM-IV (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders – fourth edition) which is the analytical criteria used by all psychiatrists and psychologists around the world for establishing mental disorders. Thus the door to an actual freedom has ‘do not enter: insanity lies ahead’ written on it.

It would seem that an increase, rather than a reduction, of ‘the chance of psychotic breakdowns’ are in order, no?

August 31 1999

ALAN: I do not think I was trying to think (or feel) my way. In contemplating what was standing in the way of actual freedom, there was the realisation that it could only be ‘me’ though, as you say, in ‘normality’ there is no experience of being ‘sans identity’. I even find it difficult to recall that, during a PCE, the experience was that ‘‘I’ have been standing in the way of the already always existing peace-on-earth all along’. My memory is of purity and perfection and that nothing was separating me, or standing in the way of, that purity and perfection. Which may be saying the same thing.

RICHARD: I have generally found that, when the direct experience (actual intimacy) of being here now (pure consciousness experiencing) diminishes and one reverts to normal, the immediacy of being this flesh and blood body only, in infinite space and eternal time as the universe’s experience of itself, vanishes completely ... and one (strangely) starts to settle for second-best. Why?

RESPONDENT: Richard, I don’t get this bit above of yours. Could you possibly reword it?

RICHARD: During the PCE it is directly evident (with an immediacy) that it is both one’s birthright and destiny to be perfection personified ... this is why one is here doing this business called being alive. Yet when one reverts to normal it only makes intellectual sense that ‘I’ am standing in the way ... and one sets one’s sights lower than being the best.

Does one tamely settle for second-best (dutiful self-deprecation)?

Why?

June 07 2001

RESPONDENT No. 20: Do you sleep?

RICHARD: Yes ... three-four hours at night (occasionally five).

RESPONDENT No. 20: Do you experience three states of consciousness? Four? One only?

RICHARD: One.

RESPONDENT: Richard, your response prompted me to write about an issue that I have been pondering for some time. That is the relationship between instincts and sleep. Its seems that on night when I have had only 4-5 hours sleep, I wake finding that I have very little activity in the area of emotions, yet after a night of long deep sleep my head is groggy and the emotions are much more sensitive. This seems odd as most people I know get more emotional when they have a bad nights sleep. Do you recall having any experience with this? If you were now to sleep 9 hours what do you think would be the effect?

RICHARD: First, it would be impossible for me to sleep 9 hours ... I only have three-four hours (five at the most) of sleep in any twenty-four-hour period to use. When I have used up that amount there is no reservoir of sleep left to call upon ... when I nod-off watching TV for, say, an hour and then go to bed I can only sleep another 2-3 hours before waking. Last night, for example, I did not get to bed at all ... I used all of my quota up sleeping through three-four TV programs.

Second, I can recall that too much sleep (9-10 hours non-stop) back when I was a normal working family man (an instinctual being) all those years ago would result in a grogginess ... but I cannot recall what you report (4-5 hours resulting in very little emotional activity). My memory says that 7-8 hours was the norm then – as was three full meals a day plus snacks – but, then again I was not examining consciousness on a moment-to-moment basis in those days. Once I started doing that though both sleep and food consumption became very erratic (as did my entire life).

Maybe somebody else can be more up-to-date informative than me on this subject?

April 02 2002

RICHARD: ... Thus one is reliably rendered relatively innocent (and virtually happy and harmless) by the benefaction of the perfection and purity of this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe and therefore one is no longer alone in this monumental endeavour ... one has all the energy of infinitude at one’s disposal.

RESPONDENT: Could you please explain the last part a bit more [‘one has all the energy of infinitude at one’s disposal’] as it does sound somewhat metaphysical.

RICHARD: Not metaphysical, no. I am talking of the physical infinitude of this physical universe (‘this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe’) thus the energy of infinitude referred to is a physical energy ... specifically the calorific energy of an apperceptive consciousness.

I can explain it this way: the apperceptive brain in action in the human skull is a ‘self’-less consciousness (a consciousness not fettered by any identity whatsoever) and as such is an unlimited consciousness automatically conscious of the perfection and purity of the infinitude of the universe as an on-going awareness. For a person in the ‘real world’ such a consciousness exists in another dimension – in the infinite and eternal and perpetual actual world in fact – yet is mostly mistaken by peoples to be a god-like consciousness (a non-calorific energy in some timeless and spaceless and formless dimension).

Yet it is nothing more mysterious than the flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware.

One needs to contact, or have a connection with, this apperceptive awareness so as to no longer be alone in the monumental endeavour to end all the misery and mayhem which epitomises the human condition. Hence the activation of one’s innate naiveté – the closest approximation to innocence one can have whilst being a ‘self’ – ensures that such a connection is sustained.

This connection I call pure intent.