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Richard’s Correspondence On The Actual Freedom Mailing List With Correspondent No. 5
RESPONDENT: For my taste, you guys write way too long posts, so I have not read any post completely. RICHARD: The perpetual purity of this moment of being alive clearly indicates that innocence prevails only where time has no duration.
RICHARD: The perpetual purity of this moment of being alive clearly indicates that innocence prevails only where time has no duration. RESPONDENT: Thanks for the response, Richard. I liked your response. Regards to you as well. RICHARD: I am glad that you liked it ... because 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 ... provided time has no duration.
RICHARD: 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 ... provided time has no duration. RESPONDENT: Yes, Richard. But that is the point of all this (I mean this list and the sannyas list etc.) ain’t it. RICHARD: Aye ... this Mailing List is for those who sincerely intend to bring about an individual peace-on-earth ... an individual peace-on-earth for No. 5, in this case. Then – when there is six billion individual outbreaks of peace-on-earth – there will be global peace-on-earth. This means that all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide will come to an end. RESPONDENT: The mind still chatters. It chatters much less than it did 2 years ago. In my case, it was first the dynamic meditation and then kundalini which helped me throw away a lot of trash so that the mind chatters much less now. RICHARD: May I ask? What kind of trash? (No need for detail ... just an outline would do). RESPONDENT: So, now I pay more attention to the experiences of the body at the moment, for example, the body rocking with the train during the 1 hour morning commute. RICHARD: Yes, this flesh and blood body is already always here at this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space. It is ‘you’ as an identity – an alien who has a parasitical existence in the psyche of the body – that is forever locked out of being here ... now. Thus ‘I’ seek the timeless state of being – selfish immortality – which is but a poor substitute for the actual ... and peace-on-earth is nowhere to be found. The very best thing that ‘I’ can do for peace-on-earth is to self-immolate – psychologically and psychically – so that this body’s apperceptive awareness can become apparent. RESPONDENT: And also look why the mind is chattering. Easier said than done however. The mind calms down in the morning, in the evening and just when getting the sleep. And sometimes at other times. RICHARD: Usually, because the mind chatters, peoples have been taught to blame thought for the ills of humankind ... and thus the feelings – which infiltrate into the mind and cause the chatter – get off scot-free. Indeed the feelings are oft-times praised as being the solution ... as is epitomised in the phrase: ‘Get out of your head and into your heart’. Some people even try to stop thought – gullibly believing that thought creates ‘I’ – and allow the affective faculty to rule. RESPONDENT: By the way, I grew up as a Sikh in a Hindu-Sikh family and Hindu-Sikh community in New Delhi. Sikhs greet each other with the phrase: SAT SRI AKAL. It means Timelessness is the truth. (SAT = truth, AKAL = timelessness). I did not know the meaning of the phrase when I was a kid. Thanks for talking to me, Richard. RICHARD: I grew up in a Christian-based society ... and their venerated wisdom is epitomised by what is written on their tombstones: ‘Rest In Peace’. Thus Christians, too, praise a timeless immortality ... and miss out on peace-on-earth as well. You see, what one is as this body 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 too. We are nowhere in particular ... which means we are anywhere at all. In the infinitude of the universe one finds oneself to be already here, and as it is always now, one can not get away from this place in space and this moment in time. By being here as-this-body one finds that this moment in time has no duration as in now and then – because the immediate is the ultimate – and that this place in space has no distance as in here and there – for the relative is the absolute. In other words: I am already here and it is always now.
RICHARD: When someone says – quite earnestly – that they live in hope of a better future ... just what do they mean? I was browsing through some writing of twelve months ago and noticed – as I was coming to the obvious end of a rather long E-Mail correspondence with a self-professed ‘seeker’ – this final paragraph:
It was a conversation pertaining to something that I wrote about in ‘Richard’s Journal’. Viz.: ‘Last night some members of the local populace gathered communally on the village green, as evening fell, to sing together some evocative songs celebrating the long-ago arrival of their god-on-earth. It was a pretty sight; hundreds of flickering candles held by each person illuminated the scene as the resonance of many throats rose into the mellow air. The atmosphere was charged with an intensity of purpose that was rather sweet to witness ... the swelling voices harmonising, as in one accord they sung of peace on earth and good-will to all. And they seemed to mean it too, their passion of purpose was marred only by their lack of remembrance of the factual nature of all of the religious wars that have beset this fair planet for century upon century. Yet in the newspaper today it is remarked what a success the event had been, as the citizenry had gathered together in the eventide song to celebrate the ideal of peace. Little did the writer realise the utter irony of these words, for an ideal is not an actuality. It is one thing to celebrate idealism ... and another to live actualism. It is indeed unfortunate that so many can be content with so little; to live in hope that some long-dead deity will somehow miraculously manifest and deliver the promised amity and concord that humankind has been plaintively longing for with heartfelt pangs of remorse and regret for hundreds and hundreds of years ... to no avail’. (‘Richards Journal’; ‘Article 30’; page 191). Although most peoples espouse peace-on-earth – be it a Christian Peace or otherwise – when it comes to the nitty-gritty it is revealed to be nothing but idealism. For example, fourteen years ago I was talking with a woman – an alternative hippy-type peace-loving activist – and she listened with interest, asked many appropriate questions, gained an understanding of the gist of what I was conveying – an individual peace-on-earth that would usher in an eventual global peace – and pronounced that it was not for her. I asked: ‘Why?’ She said, with finality: ‘Because I wouldn’t be me’. As she was an officially diagnosed manic-depressive with friend-scattering ‘highs’ followed by suicidal ‘lows’ with an in-between hiatus wherein she patched together her friendships and business dealings, I was somewhat puzzled at the time as to the wisdom of remaining that particular ‘me’. On top of that was the undeniable fact that she actively preached peace ... it was her life’s work. As the years rolled by I came to understand what idealism was ... it became especially apparent whenever the idealist was face-to-face with an actualist. Consider the following exchange with someone raised in the Sikh culture: Post No. 1:
Post No. 2:
Post No. 3:
Post No. 4:
And all this while the radio is doggedly re-playing Christmas Carols like: ‘Peace on Earth; Goodwill to all Mankind’.
RESPONDENT: What is bothering you, Richard. RICHARD: Nothing is bothering me ... when one is free from the Human Condition, life is experienced as being perfect as-it-is, here on earth in this life-time, with people as-they-are. 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. This flesh and blood body is already always here at this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space. It is ‘you’ as an identity – an alien who has a parasitical existence in the psyche of the body – that is forever locked out of being here ... now. Thus ‘I’ seek the timeless state of being – selfish immortality – which is but a poor substitute for the actual ... and peace-on-earth is nowhere to be found. The very best thing that ‘I’ can do for peace-on-earth is to self-immolate – psychologically and psychically – so that this body’s apperceptive awareness can become apparent. RESPONDENT: I am back on the list. RICHARD: So I noticed ... I am pleased to be corresponding with you again as this Mailing List is for those who sincerely intend to bring about an individual peace-on-earth ... an individual peace-on-earth for No. 5, in this case. Then – when there is six billion individual outbreaks of peace-on-earth – there will be global peace-on-earth. This means that all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide will come to an end. I observe that, because the mind chatters, peoples have been taught to blame thought for the ills of humankind ... and thus the feelings – which infiltrate into the mind and cause the chatter – get off scot-free. Indeed the feelings are oft-times praised as being the solution ... as is epitomised in the phrase: ‘Get out of your head and into your heart’. Some people even try to stop thought – gullibly believing that thought creates ‘I’ – and allow the affective faculty to rule. RESPONDENT: You mixed and matched parts of our ‘conversation’ on the list in this post to convey something. RICHARD: Indeed ... I simplified an E-Mail exchange I had been having – with a correspondent who had unsubscribed – for the sake of both clarity and brevity. And what I was conveying is straight-forward and explicit ... what happens to idealism when it meets actualism. You see, when someone precipitately leaves a Mailing List, those who remain – especially the respondent – are left to make whatever sense of such a exit as they may. You had told me that you grew up as a Sikh in a Hindu-Sikh community (and that Sikhs greet each other with the phrase: Timelessness is the truth) and I am aware that for the Sikhs there is one God, who is not represented by idols or images, and that people should serve him by leading a good life in obedience to his commands and by prayer, in particular by repeating the name of God ... until, after one’s soul has passed through various existences by transmigration, one ultimately becomes one with God. I am also aware that Mr. Nanak had his first vision of God at Sultanpur where he proclaimed: ‘There is no Hindu, there is no Mussulman’. Yet I happened to be in New Delhi in October 1984 when Sikh extremists assassinated India’s Hindu Prime Minister Ms. Indira Gandhi after the assault by the Indian army on the Harimandir of Amritsar, the Sikhs’ holiest shrine. I grew up in a Christian-based society ... and their venerated wisdom is epitomised by what is written on their tombstones: ‘Rest In Peace’. Thus Christians, too, praise a timeless immortality ... and miss out on peace-on-earth as well. Yet all this while the radio is doggedly re-playing Christmas Carols like: ‘Peace on Earth; Goodwill to all Mankind’. Peoples pay lip-service to the notion of self-sacrifice – weeping crocodile tears at noble martyrdom – whilst selfishly pursuing the Timeless State of Being ... the ‘Deathless State’. The root cause of all the ills of humankind can be sheeted home to this single, basic fact: the overriding importance of the survival of ‘self’ by whatever name. RESPONDENT: Talk to me straight. RICHARD: When I look back through our correspondence I see that I was talking to you straight ... I was saying that what one is as this body 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. In the infinitude of the universe one finds oneself to be already here, and as it is always now, one can not get away from this place in space and this moment in time. By being here as-this-body one finds that this moment in time has no duration as in now and then – because the immediate is the ultimate – and that this place in space has no distance as in here and there – for the relative is the absolute. In other words: I am already here and it is always now. How can I be more straight than that? What I say and write is both heretical and iconoclastic ... a fact that I make no apology for. The wars and rapes and murders and tortures and corruptions and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides that afflict this globe are far too serious a matter to deal with for me to spend time in mincing words. The gurus and god-men have been peddling their snake oil for centuries to no avail. They have had two to three thousand years to demonstrate their effectiveness as being the ultimate solution. Their time has come to either put up or shut up ... how much longer than these thousands of years do peoples need to further test the efficaciousness of their failed ‘Divine Message’? There is no ‘Peace On Earth’ ... nor has there ever been; there has only ever been a truce from time to time between warring parties. Yet such is the hold that the ‘Tried and True’ has on people that they would rather tread the hoary path again and again ... hoping to succeed where billions have failed. The wisdom of the saints and the sages – wisdom like ‘timelessness is the truth’ for just one example – comes from nothing but the self-centred urge to perpetuate oneself forever and a day ... selfish immortality. I look forward to your considered response.
RESPONDENT: What is bothering you, Richard. RICHARD: Nothing is bothering me ... when one is free from the Human Condition, life is experienced as being perfect as-it-is, here on earth in this life-time, with people as-they-are. RESPONDENT: That clears up that nothing is bothering you. To me it seemed that the tone of the post was conveying that people are not serious about bringing the peace-on-earth. RICHARD: You ascertained the tone correctly ... people are not serious about peace-on-earth. They pay lip-service to
the ideal ... and race off after a metaphysical ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’. But none of this matters when one is already living
freely in the actual world. One knows that one is living in a beneficent and benevolent universe ... and that is what actually counts. The
self-imposed iniquities that ail the people who stubbornly wish to remain denizens of the real world – the ‘Land of Lament’ – fail to
impinge upon the blitheness and benignity of one who lives in the vast scheme of things. The universe does not force anyone to be happy and
harmless, to live in peace and ease, to be free of sorrow and malice. It is a matter of personal choice as to which way one will travel. Most human
beings, being doggedly obdurate as they are, will probably continue to tread the ‘tried and true’ paths, little realising that they are the
tried and failed ways. There is none so contumacious * RICHARD: 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. This flesh and blood body is already always here at this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space. It is ‘you’ as an identity – an alien who has a parasitical existence in the psyche of the body – that is forever locked out of being here ... now. Thus ‘I’ seek the timeless state of being – selfish immortality – which is but a poor substitute for the actual ... and peace-on-earth is nowhere to be found. RESPONDENT: I liked it when you said this the first time as well. RICHARD: Okay ... but did you read it with both eyes? Particularly this bit:
... as contrasted with this bit:
I only ask because you do say (at the bottom of this post):
So, if I may ask, what was it that you liked both this time and the first time that I said it? * RICHARD: The very best thing that ‘I’ can do for peace-on-earth is to self-immolate – psychologically and psychically – so that this body’s apperceptive awareness can become apparent. RESPONDENT: As I said before that these words by themselves, in my opinion, wouldn’t help for ‘I’ to self-immolate either. RICHARD: Yet there is an intrinsic trait common to all sentient beings: self-sacrifice. It manifests in humans in the way that ‘I’ will passionately defend ‘myself’ and ‘my group’ to the death if it is deemed necessary. All of ‘my’ instincts – the instinctive drive for biological survival – come to the fore when psychologically and psychically threatened, for ‘I’ am confused about ‘my’ presence, confounding ‘my’ survival and the body’s survival. Nevertheless, ‘my’ survival being paramount could not be further from the truth, for ‘I’ need play no part any more in perpetuating physical existence (which is the primal purpose of the instinctual animal ‘self’). ‘I’ am no longer necessary at all. In fact, ‘I’ am nowadays a hindrance. With all of ‘my’ beliefs, values, creeds, ethics and other doctrinaire disabilities, ‘I’ am a menace to the body. ‘I’ am ready to die (to allow the body to be killed) for a cause and ‘I’ will willingly sacrifice physical existence for a ‘Noble Ideal’ ... and reap ‘my’ post-mortem reward: immortality. This is called altruism ... albeit misplaced. Thus when ‘I’ willingly self-immolate – psychologically and psychically – then ‘I’ am making the most noble sacrifice that ‘I’ can make for oneself and all humankind ... for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is ‘my’ moment of glory. It is ‘my’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘my’ petty life all worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... to physically die without having experienced what it is like to become dead is such a waste of a life. Now, it is ‘I’ that is responsible for an action that results in ‘my’ own demise ... without really doing the expunging itself (and I am not being tricky here). It is ‘I’ that is the cause of bringing about this sacrifice in that ‘I’ deliberately and consciously and with knowledge aforethought set in motion a ‘process’ that will ensure ‘my’ demise (‘I’ do not really end ‘myself’ in that ‘I’ do not do the deed itself for an ‘I’ cannot end itself). What ‘I’ do, voluntarily and willingly, is to press the button which precipitates an oft-times alarming but always thrilling momentum that will result in ‘my’ inevitable self-immolation. What one does is that one dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here as the universe’s experience of itself. Peace-on-earth is the inevitable result ... because it is already here. ‘I’ was merely standing in the way of this always existing peace-on-earth from becoming apparent. The act of initiating this ‘process’ is altruism, pure and simple. RESPONDENT: I am back on the list. RICHARD: So I noticed ... I am pleased to be corresponding with you again. RESPONDENT: I was enjoying ‘talking’ to you but I had to get off the list when I did. RICHARD: Hokey-dokey ... so here we are, talking again, eh? * RICHARD: This Mailing List is for those who sincerely intend to bring about an individual peace-on-earth ... an individual peace-on-earth for No. 5, in this case. RESPONDENT: This is fine by me for now. RICHARD: Goodness ... you say that No. 5’s peace-on-earth is ‘fine’ ? And only ‘for now’? Why not ‘perfect’ ... and for ‘the remainder of your life’? * RICHARD: Then – when there is six billion individual outbreaks of peace-on-earth – there will be global peace-on-earth. This means that all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide will come to an end. RESPONDENT: Now this is where I have a little difficulty. I did not join the list for bringing global peace-on-earth. So, if you want me to leave the list please feel free to say so. RICHARD: You may come and go as you will ... I set no pre-conditions to continued participation. I mention the purpose of the Actual Freedom Mailing List up-front so that there will be no misunderstanding ... otherwise, if someone is wishing to pursue some Metaphysical Peace they will surely become frustrated. RESPONDENT: A little bit of how I got on the list. I was on the sannyas list and suddenly there was an exceedingly large number of messages from Peter and Vineeto. I did not like Peter and Vineeto’s messages but I noticed that they kept talking about you, Richard, and Actual Freedom. I did not want to rule out what you were saying on this list in spite of the fact that I had found Peter and Vineeto’s messages largely without content and extremely verbose. So I dropped by this list. RICHARD: Aye, we are a verbose mob, us actualists. This is because we are arraigning the trillions and trillions and trillions of words contained in the Sacred Scriptures of all cultures. Now there is verbosity for you! As for content: Vineeto and Peter are a veritable gold-mine of personal information – all courageously and freely shared in the public eye – and methinks you will discover an alarming amount of content once you start reading without sannyasin eyes.
RICHARD: I observe that, because the mind chatters, peoples have been taught to blame thought for the ills of humankind ... and thus the feelings – which infiltrate into the mind and cause the chatter – get off scot-free. RESPONDENT: I also find that feelings cause the chatter. RICHARD: Good ... can we pursue this line of enquiry? You did list, in a post just before abruptly unsubscribing, several feelings that you are rid of:
May I ask? Are there any other feelings left? Or have you got rid of the lot? If so, has the mind ceased chattering? Is there now peace-on-earth for you? * RICHARD: Indeed the feelings are oft-times praised as being the solution ... as is epitomised in the phrase: ‘Get out of your head and into your heart’. RESPONDENT: Here I differ with you. To me, the phrase: ‘Get out of your head and into your heart’, is trying to convey that observe your feelings and understand what they are doing to you. RICHARD: Given that you come from the sannyas-list; given that you practice Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain’s meditations; given that you do Sikh exercises ... then I would hazard a guess that you have totally misunderstood the ‘Teachings’. The ‘Teachers’ want you to become your feelings (the ‘good’ one’s like Love and Compassion and so on) so much so that they will cease being feelings that ‘you’ have and instead ‘you’ become them so totally that they become a state of being wherein ‘you’ survive for all Eternity in a ‘Timeless State Of Being’. * RICHARD: Some people even try to stop thought – gullibly believing that thought creates ‘I’ – and allow the affective faculty to rule. RESPONDENT: I do a few Osho’s and a few Sikh exercises which pretty much calms down the mind and brings the silence. For me this experiment has two purposes (for now): First, it makes things clear for me so I know clearly whatever is ‘bothering’ me. Which in turn helps me to live in present. Second, as a bonus, to see by myself that I am different than those thoughts and feelings I get. RICHARD: Can you recall having an experience wherein ‘you’ ceased to be, temporarily? This experience is known as a pure consciousness experience (PCE) or a peak experience. If so, you may be able to understand that ‘you’ cannot be ‘different than those thoughts and feelings’ ... but that ‘those thoughts and feelings’ are all that ‘you’ are. To split off a part of your ‘being’, by proposing that it is different to the remainder, is to have fallen for that hoary spiritual practice of being the ‘watcher’ ... and thus ‘I’ survive to wreak ‘my’ havoc another day. RESPONDENT: You mixed and matched parts of our ‘conversation’ on the list in this post to convey something. RICHARD: Indeed ... I simplified an E-Mail exchange I had been having – with a correspondent who had unsubscribed – for the sake of both clarity and brevity. And what I was conveying is straight-forward and explicit ... what happens to idealism when it meets actualism. You see, when someone precipitately leaves a Mailing List, those who remain – especially the respondent – are left to make whatever sense of such a exit as they may. RESPONDENT: Indeed, you the respondent, interpreted my exit in your own way. I never claimed that I was trying to bring global peace-on-earth. So there was no need to say I was bringing idealism to an actualism platform. RICHARD: Okay ... that is a fair-enough comment. So, let us see if it was my ‘interpretation’ or a statement of fact: Is an individual peace-on-earth an actuality for you currently and for the remainder of your life? Yes? No? If not, then your meditation is but idealism ... and given that you value ‘Timeless is the Truth’, then you are indeed ‘bringing idealism to an actualism platform’ . RESPONDENT: As for actualism, I see it as ‘actualism’ for now. I have been enjoying what you have been writing to me and to others. But the words such as: Actualism, Actual Freedom, Human Condition are just fancy and glamorous words blinking on my screen for now. Nonetheless, I am willing to stick around and learn more about these fancy words if you do not mind my sticking around. RICHARD: I do not mind at all ... on the contrary, I am pleased that you are here. I am most appreciative of having the response of a fellow human being who is spending the most precious gifts they have – their time and sincerity – to communicate with me about the sense they have made, so far, of life, the universe and what it is to be a human being living in the world as it is with people as they are. To put it another way: I always value another human being simply for daring to be here on this fair earth – and therefore actively doing this living business – irregardless of where they are coming from. * RICHARD: You had told me that you grew up as a Sikh in a Hindu-Sikh community (and that Sikhs greet each other with the phrase: Timelessness is the truth) and I am aware that for the Sikhs there is one God, who is not represented by idols or images, and that people should serve him by leading a good life in obedience to his commands and by prayer, in particular by repeating the name of God ... until, after one’s soul has passed through various existences by transmigration, one ultimately becomes one with God. RESPONDENT: You are right that the words which you have written are thrown around among Sikhs. However, it is true statistically. Not every Sikh takes this popular way of being a Sikh. RICHARD: You have caught my interest here. What is the unpopular way of being a Sikh? * RICHARD: I am also aware that Mr. Nanak had his first vision of God at Sultanpur where he proclaimed: ‘There is no Hindu, there is no Mussulman’. Yet I happened to be in New Delhi in October 1984 when Sikh extremists assassinated India’s Hindu Prime Minister Ms. Indira Gandhi after the assault by the Indian army on the Harimandir of Amritsar, the Sikhs’ holiest shrine. RESPONDENT: Here I find little difficulty with what you are writing. First, I do not understand you using the word ‘Yet’ in: ‘Yet I happened to be ...’ Yes, Guru Nanak said: ‘There is no Hindu, there is no Mussulman’. But what does that have to do with those two Sikhs pulling the trigger on Ms. Indira Gandhi. Are you trying to emphasise the fact that Guru Nanak was trying to bring peace between Hindus and Moslems at the time and these Sikhs went against that message. RICHARD: Do you not find it somewhat ironic – to say the least – that Mr. Nanak, being well-meaning as he presumably was, has added to the problem he sought to resolve? In his time there were these two religious/spiritual groups fighting and killing each other and he said: ‘There is no Hindu, there is no Mussulman’ ... and now there are three religious/ spiritual groups fighting and killing each other. Well done Mr. Nanak, eh! RESPONDENT: By the way, the assassins were not Sikh extremists as you have written but they were Ms. Gandhi’s bodyguards. RICHARD: Yes, I was in New Delhi when it happened ... the bodyguards had unlimited access. Even so, the orthodox Sikh community distanced itself from their actions, calling them extremists. I was reading the newspapers at the time. RESPONDENT: Lastly, I do not think it will be possible for you to understand all the reasons behind all that violence which happened at the time. It will be like I making comments on situations in Ireland or Bosnia or Kosovo. In my opinion, one has to grow in that part to understand the underlying reasons for violence. RICHARD: If I may beg to differ ... this is a cop-out. One would have to have be born, raised and have lived in a particular part of the world to understand the motivations for that particular incidence of violence ... but the underlying cause of violence is intrinsic to the Human Condition and has a global occurrence. When one understands oneself totally, one understands all human beings ... for ‘I’ am ‘humanity’ and ‘humanity’ is ‘me’. RESPONDENT: However, if you were trying to say that Human Condition is responsible for all this violence then that is another matter. RICHARD: It is the only and fundamental matter worth spending precious time in understanding. May I ask? Are you so interested? Because the ending of the cause of violence in No. 5 would be the ushering-in of peace-on-earth ... and you do not seem to be all that keen on this happening?
RICHARD: I grew up in a Christian-based society ... and their venerated wisdom is epitomised by what is written on their tombstones: ‘Rest In Peace’. Thus Christians, too, praise a timeless immortality ... and miss out on peace-on-earth as well. Yet all this while the radio is doggedly re-playing Christmas Carols like: ‘Peace on Earth; Goodwill to all Mankind’. Peoples pay lip-service to the notion of self-sacrifice – weeping crocodile tears at noble martyrdom – whilst selfishly pursuing the Timeless State of Being ... the ‘Deathless State’. The root cause of all the ills of humankind can be sheeted home to this single, basic fact: the overriding importance of the survival of ‘self’ by whatever name. RESPONDENT: I guess so. RICHARD: You ‘guess so’ ? Would you like to find out – for yourself – whether the pursuit of this ‘Timeless State Of being’ precludes peace-on-earth? RESPONDENT: Talk to me straight. RICHARD: When I look back through our correspondence I see that I was talking to you straight. RESPONDENT: Yes, you have. RICHARD: This is so much fun, eh? * RICHARD: I was saying that what one is as this body 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. In the infinitude of the universe one finds oneself to be already here, and as it is always now, one can not get away from this place in space and this moment in time. By being here as-this-body one finds that this moment in time has no duration as in now and then – because the immediate is the ultimate – and that this place in space has no distance as in here and there – for the relative is the absolute. In other words: I am already here and it is always now. RESPONDENT: I guess so. RICHARD: You ‘guess so’ ? Would you like to find out – for yourself – whether ‘time has no duration as in now and then’? * RICHARD: How can I be more straight than that? What I say and write is both heretical and iconoclastic ... a fact that I make no apology for. RESPONDENT: No, for me you are not heretical or iconoclastic. RICHARD: Methinks you will discover an alarming amount of hereticism and iconoclasm once you start reading without sannyasin eyes. * RICHARD: The wars and rapes and murders and tortures and corruptions and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides that afflict this globe are far too serious a matter to deal with for me to spend time in mincing words. The gurus and god-men have been peddling their snake oil for centuries to no avail. They have had two to three thousand years to demonstrate their effectiveness as being the ultimate solution. Their time has come to either put up or shut up. RESPONDENT: What if it is not gurus fault but people understood them incorrectly once they died. RICHARD: Are you saying that millions upon millions – if not billions – of otherwise intelligent and/or pious and/or studious and/or devout peoples throughout these thousands of years have all misunderstood what the ‘Teachers’ teach? Does that not stretch one’s credibility somewhat? And given that billions have ‘misunderstood’, according to you, how come you are so special – in that you fondly imagine that you understand – and they do/did not? Are you outstanding among the millions and millions? Or are the ‘Teachings’ and the ‘Teachers’ – and the source that the ‘Teacher’s Teachings’ come from – horribly and terribly sick? * RICHARD: How much longer than these thousands of years do peoples need to further test the efficaciousness of their failed ‘Divine Message’? There is no ‘Peace On Earth’ ... nor has there ever been; there has only ever been a truce from time to time between warring parties. Yet such is the hold that the ‘Tried and True’ has on people that they would rather tread the hoary path again and again ... hoping to succeed where billions have failed. The wisdom of the saints and the sages – wisdom like ‘timelessness is the truth’ for just one example – comes from nothing but the self-centred urge to perpetuate oneself forever and a day ... selfish immortality. I look forward to your considered response. RESPONDENT: For me ‘timelessness is the truth’ and what you are saying: ‘this moment in time has no duration’ are same statements. That is why I mentioned it the first time. RICHARD: Yes, I was aware of this ... which is why I wrote what I did in my initial post to you. I say that being here now as this flesh and blood body only – sans identity – enables the infinitude of the universe to be apparent. I say that this physical universe’s time is eternal, its space is infinite and its matter is perpetual ... this is what ‘infinitude’ means. Now there is a distinct difference between the word ‘eternal’ and the word ‘timeless’. The word ‘timeless’ is very explicit ... no time (just like ‘selfless’ means no self) as in not subject to time, not affected by the passage of time, out of time, without reference to time and independent of the passage of time. The word ‘eternal’ means all time, as in that which will always exist, that which has always existed, that which is without a beginning or an end in time, that which is everlasting, permanent, enduring, persistent, recurring, incessant, indestructible, imperishable, constant, continuous, continual, unbroken and thus interminable and valid for all time. However, just as there are those who corrupt ‘selfless’ into meaning ‘a not selfish self’, there are those who corrupt ‘timeless’ into meaning ageless, ceaseless, changeless ... which are time-words more applicable to ‘eternal’. Even dictionaries do this. However, when viewed honestly, the word ‘timeless’ selfishly means ‘undying and immutable’ as in ‘immortal and deathless’. Take the modern physicists, for an example of honesty, when they posit their ‘nothingness’ prior to their mathematical ‘Big Bang’. Even though influenced by the pervasive eastern mysticism, they still have enough intellectual rigour to mostly resist using the word ‘eternal’ to refer to that ‘before time began’ fantasy ... they usually say ‘timeless’. As time is eternal – just as space is infinite and matter is perpetual – to be here now as this flesh and blood body only
is to be living an ongoing experiencing of this infinitude of this very material universe (I am using the word ‘infinitude’ in its ‘a
boundless expanse and an unlimited time’ meaning). Therefore, infinitude – having no opposite and thus being perfection itself – is
personified as me ... a flesh and blood body only. Hence my oft-repeated refrain: ‘I am the material universe experiencing itself as a sensate
and reflective human being’ or ‘I am the experience of infinitude’. The infinite character of physical space, coupled with the eternal
character of time and the perpetual character of matter, produces a here and now infinitude that can be understood experientially by one who is
apperceptive. To grasp the character of infinitude with certainty, the reasoning mind must forsake its favoured process of intellectual
understanding through logical and/or intuitive imagination and enter into the realm of a pure consciousness experience (apperception) I will say it again this way: By being here now as-this-body one finds that this moment in time has no duration as in the normal ‘now’ and ‘then’ – because the immediate is the ultimate – and that this place in space has no distance as in the normal ‘here’ and ‘there’ – for the relative is the absolute – and form has no distinction as the normal ‘was’ and ‘will be’ – as matter is energy and energy is matter – and I am already here as it is always now. And no ‘timelessness’ nor ‘truth’ to be seen at all.
RESPONDENT to No. 14: Now I understand the whole thing about PCE. Osho created situations in which we could get PCE’s and hence have a bench mark to work with. While Richard is asking us to remember a PCE, defined with a description, to take it as a bench mark. RICHARD: My understanding (I have read about 80-90 ‘Osho’ books), is that Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain ‘created situations’ so that his sannyasins could have the affective oceanic experience of the ‘oneness’ or ‘union’ that epitomises the ‘deathless state’ (gnosis, samadhi, satori and so on) ... not PCE’s. Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain consistently stated that he ‘was not the body’ whereas in a PCE one is clearly this body only ... and in actual freedom death is the end. Finish. In a PCE there is the direct sensate experience of being here – at this place in infinite space – right now in this moment of eternal time ... there is no affective qualities like ‘Euphoria’ or ‘Bliss’ or ‘Ecstasy’ or ‘Rapture’ leading one to the transcendent ‘Goodness’ (‘Love’ and ‘Compassion’) and to the supramundane ‘Truth’ (‘Beauty’ and ‘Wholeness’) where the awesome ‘Sacred and Holy’ reigns in all its miraculous ‘Ineffability’. In a PCE one is now living – as I do – in the infinitude of this fairy-tale-like actual world with its sensuous quality of magical perfection and purity where everything and everyone has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, wondrous, scintillating vitality that makes everything alive and sparkling ... even the very earth beneath one’s feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper ... literally everything is as if it were alive (a rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are). This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence ... the actualness of everything and everyone. We do not live in an inert universe ... but one cannot experience this whilst clinging to immortality. I am mortal RESPONDENT to Peter: Dynamic Meditation helped me get the first PCE and other Osho’s meditations helped me get consequent PCE’s. That is a fact, take it or leave it. Based on these experiences and one of Osho’s discourses I read early on made me write the statement that Osho was creating situations for us to have PCE’s. RICHARD: Now you have caught my attention ... could you post the quote (giving the name of the book and the chapter number that the discourse is in) as I am always keen to read of another’s description of a PCE. I ask this because in the 80-90 books that I read I never came across him describing a PCE ... he consistently described the mystical experiences of being ‘unborn and undying’ in a metaphysical ‘herenow’ ... which is a ‘timeless and spaceless void’ or a ‘formless and deathless emptiness’ wherein reigns an ‘unknowable and immutable presence’ which is an ‘immortal and ceaseless being’ ... and so on. After all, he did dictate his own epitaph to be inscribed on enduring marble: ‘Never Born: Never Died; Only Visited This Planet’ ... did he not? As I am vitally interested in facilitating the self-less and already always existing physical peace-on-earth to become apparent – and not in narcissistically chasing the self-centred and ‘tried and failed’ metaphysical ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’ – I do appreciate your interest, attention and input into this very important matter. Bringing about an end to all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide is such a fine way to spend a spring day. Would you not agree?
RESPONDENT: Richard, have you read Sir Roger Penrose? RICHARD: What I know of Mr. Roger Penrose’s work is what I have come across in reading other authors when they refer to him and/or quote him in relation to their own work ... or when pursuing ‘Consciousness Studies’ web-sites on the Internet. I have never considered it worth my time to read him as he is not only a self-proclaimed Christian by faith and a Platonist by belief – some of his peers refer to him as a ‘Mentalist’ – and a mathematician by profession ... but mainly because he makes no secret of the fact that he is a relativist. Indeed, near the end of his book ‘Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness’ he states that ‘as a Platonist [he] deeply believes in a world of mathematical forms distinct from both the physical world and the world of our conscious perceptions’. He is, foremost, a theorist of the ‘quantum physics’ persuasion ... in the 1960s he calculated many of the basic features of theoretical science’s ‘black holes’. In 1969, with Mr. Stephen Hawking, Mr. Roger Penrose mathematically proved (mathematical ‘proof’ does not mean ‘demonstrated empirically’) that all matter within a conjectural ‘black hole’ collapses to a ‘singularity’, a hypothetical geometric point in space where mass is compressed to infinite density and zero volume. Mr. Roger Penrose also developed a method of mapping the regions of Mr. Albert Einstein’s abstract ‘space-time’ surrounding a black hole (the much-publicised conceptual ‘space-time’ is a mathematically-derived four-dimensional continuum comprising three dimensions of space and one of time). Such a map, which is called a ‘Penrose Diagram’, supposedly allows one to visualise the effects of gravitation upon an entity approaching a black hole. Not surprisingly, given that the climate that prevails in the academic halls extends to Government Departments, he was knighted for his services to science in 1994. (Another example of this kind of recognition is exemplified by that champion of quantum physics, the mathematical physicist Mr. Paul Davies, who was awarded the 1995 ‘Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion’, which carried a monetary award of $1 million, for his efforts to resolve the dichotomy between science and religion. I only mention him here because after initially becoming interested in the theory of quantum fields in curved space-time at the University of Cambridge – focussing much of his research in that area – in the early seventies he joined fellow-physicists Mr. Stephen Hawking and Mr. Roger Penrose who were researching the thermodynamic properties of black holes at the time. He published ‘The Physics of Time’ (1974), the first of more than 20 books directed to either his professional colleagues or the general public. Mr. Paul Davies’ most recent publications were ‘The Matter Myth’, an argument against the idea of a Newtonian clockwork universe; then one of his most influential works, ‘The Mind of God’; followed by ‘About Time: Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution’ and ‘Are We Alone?’). There is an abundance of ‘Consciousness Studies’ papers published on the Internet. The following URL is a handy starting-place: ling.ucsc.edu/~chalmers/mind.html RESPONDENT: He is a mathematician interested in consciousness. RICHARD: Yes, he reasons that consciousness is more than computation, using the famous theorem posed by the Czech-born logician Mr. Kurt Godel in 1930, which proves that ‘no formal system of sound mathematical rules of proof can ever suffice, even in principle, to establish all the true propositions of ordinary arithmetic’. Mr. Roger Penrose suggests that similarly, ‘human intuition and insight cannot be reduced to any set of rules’ meaning that the mind and the computer are essentially different. Mr. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote, in the ‘New York Times’ on October 31, 1994:
Yea verily, talk about astounding science indeed ... I have found absolutely zilch that suggests that he is even remotely interested in ridding himself of malice and sorrow or becoming free of the human condition. If he addresses the problem of the pernicious effects of the enduring feeling of ‘self’ I am yet to come across it. When I do, I may very well start reading him. RESPONDENT: I just started reading Emperor’s New Mind again. I always wanted to know if Osho had read the older one but never knew who to ask. RICHARD: Whether he read that particular book or not I do not know ... but Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain was well aware of quantum physics’ impact upon the susceptible Western mind. Viz.:
RESPONDENT: He came to give a talk here and said he was not giving a ‘religious’ account of consciousness. I know two of his books: ‘Emperor’s New Mind’; ‘Shadows of the Mind’. RICHARD: Hmm ... when someone says that they are not ‘religious’ , or that they are not talking about ‘religion’ when they use the word ‘God’, one has to understand what they mean. Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain, for example, oft-times claimed not to be ‘religious’ ... yet he is on record as saying ‘I am God – you are all gods’ . I have spoken, personally and on Mailing Lists, with self-avowed atheists ... who quote Mr. Gotama the Sakyan and Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene at me! When questioned they say that they do not believe in ‘the god of the church, temple, synagogue’ and so on ... but that there is an ‘Intelligence’ or a ‘Ground of Being’ or a ‘Universal Mind’ or something similar, that lies beyond the temporal and spatial realm and which is primary and real. Mr. Roger Penrose, being a Platonist, would of course say that he is ‘not giving a ‘religious’ account of consciousness’ ... he is beyond the ‘popular’ religious belief so beloved by the plebeians. Mr. Plato, and virtually all Western Philosophers since his time, have embraced ‘Beauty’ as the only way to ‘The Truth’ (which is their nom de guerre for ‘God’). For a mathematician and a logician, beauty takes the form of ‘elegance’ and ‘symmetry’ ... which are two words that crop up a lot in their writings. They are enamoured of mathematics because of its ‘elegantly structured form’ and its ability for prediction ... and for its abstract qualities that transcend the physical. A philosopher, in the Western tradition, cannot properly be said to be a philosopher unless he/she is a mathematician as well. Hence Mr. Roger Penrose’s insistence on Mr. Kurt Godel’s theorem being the basis of both his book’s theories on consciousness ... for him it is proved mathematically. Thus he does not have to attend to his own malice and sorrow ... which is human malice and sorrow.
RESPONDENT: Richard, just completed reading ‘Richard’s Journal’. Interesting ... would recommend to those who have not read it. I was surprised that the article ‘Attentiveness, Sensuousness, ...’ is not a part of the journal’s appendices. RICHARD: There is no particular reason, it never occurred to me to include it ... maybe in the next edition, then. Any specific reason you would recommend ‘Richard’s Journal’? (I am interested for the purpose of reader feed-back as most of what is contained in the journal is available on the Web Page). Is it the more personal aspect? Or that there is a reasonably coherent story? Or ... ? RESPONDENT: I do not understand the meaning of the terms starting with capital letters, Power, Authority, Love Agapé, Divine Compassion, Oneness, Unity and so on. RICHARD: Capitalisation is an indication of religious, spiritual, mystical or metaphysical qualities being ascribed to
everyday words (I am merely following a convention found in many, many spiritual books). Thus the word ‘Power’ means the god-like
energies RESPONDENT: I understand I have to experience them to understand them. RICHARD: Oh yes ... to understand anything fully requires direct experience, of course. But one could not live long
enough to experience everything first-hand ... are you going to volunteer for a war, for instance? Also, being a male, one cannot experience
matters that are purely female (child-birth and so on) and vice versa. If each and every human being had to wait until they had personal experience
of everything possible to experience as a human being, before doing something about their malice and sorrow, then one would never get anywhere
worthwhile. The whole point of this Mailing List is to discuss together each others’ experience so as to clarify what oneself understands. There
is enough written by enough people to find similarities that may be reliably taken as a prima facie case for investigation without having to
believe anyone RESPONDENT: I also had a thought. If everybody has at least one PCE in one’s life and if the law of averages holds in these matters, on an average, large part of population should have more than one PCE and a very small population should have much more than the average number of PCE’s. Since you said you have been searching through books for anybody talking about anything like Actual Freedom, what about people experiencing PCE’s? What did they do about their experiences, i.e. PCE’s, if they had them? RICHARD: Mostly peoples interpreted them according to the prevailing norms of their culture, as mostly the PCE devolves into an ASC, anyway. For example (if you really wish to get confused) in a paper called ‘What does Mysticism have to Teach us About Consciousness?’ Mr. Robert Forman says:
Goodness me ... ‘trophotropic’ and ‘ergotropic’ and ‘kataphatic’ and ‘apophatic’ ... because of the confusion, I merely took the academically accepted phrase (Pure Consciousness Event) and substituted ‘Pure Consciousness Experience’ for it, a couple of years ago, so as to regain the actual purity of the PCE back from those who ascribe ASC properties (mystical purity) to it. Before that I had been using the expression ‘Peak Experience’, as popularised by Mr. Abraham Maslow, for about eleven years. In the beginning I used hippie terminology (from my ‘alternate’ background after the sixties) but PCE (Pure Consciousness Experience) seems most suitable. I also favoured the word ‘experience’ over ‘event’ because Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti makes such a thing about his ASC not being an experience. An actual freedom is very earthy and, living this experience twenty four hours a day is all new in human history ... thus I get to invent names (like ‘Actual Freedom’) and describe qualities and properties, like any explorer ... it is all good fun. You sent me a description some time back that reads to me as if you have enough direct experience to proceed. Viz.:
I do appreciate your description and, just by the by, seek to establish an ever-expanding data-base of such descriptions so that other people can read them and relate to them and thus remember their own PCE’s. May I add your description to the collection? If so, could you expand and/or clarify? That is: will you clearly define – via your personal experience as partly detailed above – the marked difference betwixt a PCE and an ASC?
RICHARD to No. 4: May I suggest, as a starting point of an examination into your deeply held belief, reading again what I demonstrated (with accredited quotes) in my last post to you? That is: Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s ‘freedom’ is only attainable after physical death? Is this not why there is no peace on earth? RESPONDENT: Richard, it is not clear to me that, according to you ... RICHARD: Oh, it is not ‘according’ to me ... the example I provided (with the accredited quotes) was
according to Mr. Ba Khin (Mr. Satya Goenka’s acknowledged Master). He wrote in 1981: [quote]: ‘On the termination of their lives the perfected
saints, i.e., the Buddhas and arahants, pass into parinibbāna, reaching the end of suffering’ [dukkha]. [endquote]. RESPONDENT: Whether: a) Buddha left a legacy to his community (Bhikkhus and others), a legacy under which freedom is attainable only after physical death. RICHARD: He did indeed (if he ever lived at all). This is because his ‘freedom’ is a metaphysical freedom; that is, a ‘freedom’ from samsara, the endless round of birth and death and rebirth. The Buddhist ‘Parinirvana’ (the same as the Hindu ‘Mahasamadhi’) is an after-death ‘freedom’ ... just the same as the Christian’s ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’. The same holds true for all religions – all spiritualism and all mysticism – and their blatantly self-seeking words will leap out at one, upon reading the hallowed scriptures with both eyes open, and speak for themselves. RESPONDENT: And hence this legacy is responsible for no peace on earth. RICHARD: Yes, peace-on-earth is sacrificed for a spurious after-death ‘Timeless and Spaceless and Formless Peace’. It is their post-mortem reward of ‘Immortality’ ... which is arrant selfishness by any description. RESPONDENT: Or: b) Buddha in some way personally responsible for no peace on earth because he ‘postponed’ freedom until the physical death. RICHARD: Aye (and this is according to me); 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’ or ‘Spirit’ or ‘Soul’ or ‘Atma’ (by whatever name) ... and an ego-less ‘Self’ or ‘Spirit’ or ‘Soul’ or ‘Atma’ (by whatever name) is still an identity, 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 identity in its entirety is the essential ingredient for peace and prosperity to reign over all and everyone. RESPONDENT: Or: c) Some other possibility which I have not thought of. RICHARD: It is not only you that has ‘not thought of’ it ... nobody I have met or read about (presumably 6.0 billion living and maybe 4.0 billion peoples having lived) have ever thought that these revered peoples could be so alarmingly wrong. An actual freedom is entirely new in human history. It is self-centredness (to the utmost degree) to sacrifice peace-on-earth for the ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’.
RESPONDENT No. 12: Richard ... a few days ago I put forward my point of view that ‘Richard is an Artist and the material he works with is fools’. I have changed my viewpoint Richard. My current viewpoint is that ‘The Actual Freedom Trust’ is a vehicle and the driver they are using is a fool. My current viewpoint is that Richard you are being, or will be, used. RICHARD: Hmm ... I recall that on 14/06/2000 you were proposing to the contributors to The Actual Freedom Mailing List that they consider participating in ‘... an actual freedom workshop, a weekend of exploring together what it means to be actually free on this planet in the year 2000 ... Byron Bay in the Spring’. This proposal of yours came just after your circular on 6/06/2000 advertising and promoting a spiritually-based tantric-sex workshop that you were collecting the $375.00 participation fee for. You are not the only person to try to turn an actual freedom into a pay-as-you-participate religion ... and you will not be the last. RESPONDENT: Richard, what do you mean by the phrase spiritually-based in the above statement: ‘... and promoting a spiritually-based ...’? RICHARD: I will provide a copy of the correspondence I wrote at the time and you may see for yourself:
I have always found that honesty and facts sit so well together and provide a firm basis for a sensible discussion about life, the universe, and what it is to be a human being living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are. Otherwise these discussions just eddy and swirl ... whilst all the misery and mayhem goes on and on and on.
RESPONDENT: Thanks Richard. You asked me to see it myself what you meant by the term spiritually-based. So you used the adjective spiritually-based for the workshop because the Humaniversity used words such as ‘spiritual connection’ and ‘human spirit’ in their introduction. And I do not understand neither their usage nor your usage of those terms. RICHARD: Okay ... the word ‘spirit’ means:
... the word ‘spiritual’ means:
... the word ‘spiritually’ means:
Therefore ‘spiritually-based’ means based upon or sourced in the immaterial spirit as opposed to the physical body, hence a ‘spiritually-based workshop’ means ‘a weekend of exploring together what it means’ for the immaterial spirit ‘to be actually free on this planet in the year 2000’ and not ‘a weekend of exploring together what it means’ for the flesh and blood body to be experiencing an actual freedom from the human condition ‘on this planet in the year 2000’ . Consequently ‘a strong spiritual connection to the enlightened Indian Mystic Osho’ means a connection or a relationship to the immaterial spirit known as the enlightened Indian Mystic Osho and not an association with the physical body otherwise known as Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain. Similarly, ‘human spirit’ means that the Humaniversity is focused on the fulfilment of the immaterial spirit in the human body and not on the fulfilment of physical body itself. As an ‘immaterial spirit’ is not a physical world actuality but an ‘inner world’ reality, I have always found that honesty and facts sit so well together and provide a firm basis for a sensible discussion about life, the universe, and what it is to be a human being living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are. If a co-respondent wishes to talk about a spiritual freedom as distinct from an actual freedom it would save a lot of to-ing and fro-ing of E-mails if they would not persist in being duplicitous and fanciful ... to the point of ridiculousness. Otherwise these discussions just eddy and swirl ... whilst all the misery and mayhem goes on and on and on.
RESPONDENT: Thanks Richard. You asked me to see it myself what you meant by the term spiritually-based. So you used the adjective spiritually-based for the workshop because the Humaniversity used words such as ‘spiritual connection’ and ‘human spirit’ in their introduction. And I do not understand neither their usage nor your usage of those terms. RICHARD: Okay ... the word ‘spirit’ means: [Dictionary Definition] <snip> ... the word ‘spiritual’ means: [Dictionary Definition] <snip> ... the word ‘spiritually’ means: [Dictionary Definition] <snip> Therefore ‘spiritually-based’ means based upon or sourced in the immaterial spirit as opposed to the physical body, hence a ‘spiritually-based workshop’ means ‘a weekend of exploring together what it means’ for the immaterial spirit ‘to be actually free on this planet in the year 2000’ and not ‘a weekend of exploring together what it means’ for the flesh and blood body to be experiencing an actual freedom from the human condition ‘on this planet in the year 2000’. Consequently ‘a strong spiritual connection to the enlightened Indian Mystic Osho’ means a connection or a relationship to the immaterial spirit known as the enlightened Indian Mystic Osho and not an association with the physical body otherwise known as Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain. Similarly, ‘human spirit’ means that the Humaniversity is focused on the fulfilment of the immaterial spirit in the human body and not on the fulfilment of physical body itself. RESPONDENT: Thanks again for explaining what you mean by the terms spirit, spiritual and spiritual based. RICHARD: You are very welcome ... it is strange, is it not, that there be peoples who do not comprehend that terms like ‘the spiritual world’ and ‘spiritual freedom’ refer to the world of the spirit (the ‘inner’ world) with its subjective reality, called truths, and not to the material world (the ‘outer’ world) with its objective actuality, called facts? RESPONDENT: Now I am curious, how you determine that the workshop was/is a spiritual based. RICHARD: It did not take very much research at all as I recall ... the relevant URL’s were provided. RESPONDENT: From your last message, I concluded that you determined that the workshop was spiritual-based merely because the Humaniversity used words such as ‘spiritual connection’ and ‘human spirit’ in their introduction. RICHARD: Oh, no ... I went through the entire Humaniversity Web Page and the associated Web Pages. It is just that I cannot fit all of it into an E-Mail that I selected only part of their introduction as a summary. RESPONDENT: If you really came to your conclusion as I have thought you did, then, for my taste, your method and hence your conclusion about the workshop may or may not be the correct one. RICHARD: If you are at all interested I would recommend doing your own research on the relevant Web Pages so as to dissolve your ‘may or may not be’ dilemma ... as I said: I could not fit all of it into an E-Mail. I can, however, provide a short, edited paragraph where Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain talks about what he means by ‘spirit’, ‘spiritual’ and ‘therapy’ in these types of workshops. Viz.:
Again ... I have selected only part of his discourse as being but a brief summary. There is much, much more in this vein than the little which I have quoted. * RICHARD: As an ‘immaterial spirit’ is not a physical world RESPONDENT: I have no experience of ‘immaterial spirit’. And hence if I ask you a question relating to ‘spirit’ or ‘spiritual’, the question is going to be quite speculative and not totally based on facts. RICHARD: Yet everything about ‘spirit’ or ‘spiritual’ could be called speculative as it is all a subjective ‘inner world’ reality anyway. However, as so many people have come upon the same, or similar, subjective ‘inner world’ reality, over the last 3,000 to 5,000 years of recorded history, subjective reality has taken-on the appearance of being more valid than objective actuality. Hence all the misery and mayhem goes on unchecked. RESPONDENT: If you do not like that I will not ask you questions about things/phenomena I have not experienced. RICHARD: I am only too happy to talk about these ‘things/phenomena’ so as to clear the way for a sensible discussion ... I have only ever been interested in peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body * RICHARD: If a co-respondent wishes to talk about a spiritual freedom as distinct from an actual freedom it would save a lot of to-ing and fro-ing of E-mails if they would not persist in being duplicitous and fanciful ... to the point of ridiculousness. RESPONDENT: This part is a little confusing to me. I am not certain if you are talking about me as a co-respondent. RICHARD: No, I am referring to the dialogue that your initial question relates to (‘Richard, what do you mean by the phrase spiritually-based in the above statement: ‘... and promoting a spiritually-based ...’?’). RESPONDENT: But for now, I will take it as if you are talking about me. I do not know what spiritual freedom is, I do not know what actual freedom is. Both are fancy and glamorous words flickering on my computer screen. That is all. I do not know how can I talk about either of them. RICHARD: There are upwards of 3.1 million words available, to be read for free on The Actual Freedom Trust Web Page, that are exclusively devoted to these very two subjects. Sometimes involvement with such words can have a way of involving one in an investigation in their own psyche ... and the next thing one knows is that the ‘fancy and glamorous words’ are indistinguishable from the contents of one’s psyche. This is because ‘my’ psyche is the ‘human’ psyche ... the ‘human’ psyche is ‘me’. RESPONDENT: If you do not want to indulge in this to-ing and fro-ing of E-mails with me, it is fine by me. RICHARD: I am only too happy to be to-ing and fro-ing – I have all the time in the world – it is just that the other will keep on suffering for about as long as they keep on hedging their bets. RESPONDENT: I can see you have your work cut out for you with so many other people on the list. RICHARD: I am doing fine at the moment – about half a year ago I bit off more than I could chew and had to cut back on my correspondence and get myself organised – these days I have bigger, faster computers, better operating systems and more efficient search programs and back-up software. RESPONDENT: And I know writing on the internet is not easy, at least for me. RICHARD: I am having the time of my life here at the keyboard. * RICHARD: Otherwise these discussions just eddy and swirl ... whilst all the misery and mayhem goes on and on and on. RESPONDENT: Well, the search for the reasons of misery and mayhem in me goes on, along with these discussions. RICHARD: If these discussions are clarifying the distinction betwixt the actual and the spiritual then all is proceeding apace.
RETURN TO THE ACTUAL FREEDOM MAILING LIST INDEX RETURN TO RICHARD’S CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
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