|
Richard’s Correspondence On The Actual Freedom Mailing List With Correspondent No. 15
RESPONDENT No. 12: In around 48 hours, it is highly likely that a friend and I will begin driving north to Byron Bay and I would like to meet you once again for the enjoyment of each others company; and my friend [name withheld] from Holland, has expressed interest in meeting the Richard I have been corresponding with. Would you like that? RICHARD: <snipped for space> RESPONDENT No. 12: It looks like [name withheld] and I will indeed be in Byron by the end of the week; and as you state clearly that ‘it is indeed pointless coming to see me in person’ I will take your words at face-value and ring you when we are in town for a nice friendly pointless lunch and chat together. Great. RICHARD: <snipped for space> RESPONDENT No. 12: Great. I will ring your answering machine if and when my friend [name withheld] and I arrive; and ‘we’ can perhaps arrange a lunch or coffee ‘together’. I can imagine that the ‘flesh and blood body’ would enjoy ‘being apperceptively aware’ in the beach hotel restaurant or some such. RICHARD: <snipped for space> RESPONDENT No. 12: Richard, thanks for the email but I can’t quite find the bit where you tell whether your answer is yes or no to my invitation that I could call you when I am in Byron and we could go out to lunch or coffee just like we did last time I was in Byron and the time before; and the times before that. RICHARD: You will find my response further above (in the ‘snipped for space’ section) ... I am having a break from copy-pasting for now. RESPONDENT No. 12: I could call or not call; I am curious; if you answer is NO; what has changed ... RICHARD: You will find my response further above (in the ‘snipped for space’ section). RESPONDENT No. 12: ... because last time you responded positively to my company. In fact you informed me that Respondent No. 12 is almost the only one who comes to visit Richard. except for the circle of initiates. RICHARD: It is far wiser to stay with factual (printed and published in the public domain) words than conjure up words out of the air when writing to a public mailing list. This way what person ‘A’ alleges person ‘B’ to have said or not said and what person ‘B’ alleges person ‘A’ to have said or not said can be verified from the archives ... otherwise sensible conversation devolves into a ‘tis/‘tisn’t, ‘tis/‘tisn’t, ‘tis/‘tisn’t schoolyard wrangle. For instance: there is no way I would ever say, what you are suggesting I said, to anyone at all at any time at all at any place at all ... I never, ever use the word ‘initiates’ , for just one example, let alone ‘circle of initiates’ . I have no interest in ‘tis/‘tisn’t, ‘tis/‘tisn’t, ‘tis/‘tisn’t schoolyard wrangles whatsoever. RESPONDENT No. 12: So; has something changed? RICHARD: You will find my response further above (in the ‘snipped for space’ section). RESPONDENT No. 12: Could it be for instance that ‘you’ are capable of being pissed off with your friends? RICHARD: First, in an actual freedom from the human condition it is impossible to not like someone whatever the mischief is they get up to ... an actual intimacy is impossible to switch off. Second, in an actual freedom from the human condition it is impossible to have ‘friends’ as an actual intimacy operates unilaterally in regards every man, woman and child without exception ... no body is special because every body is special. Third, in an actual freedom from the human condition it is impossible to get even mildly peeved ... let alone angry. Why do you ask? Surely you are already aware of all this ... or is your ‘Actual Truth=Actual Freedom’ a fake? And in this respect I would also draw your attention to your comment the other day, to another correspondent, where you said that ‘Richard gets up my nose right now’ (that ‘Richard’, of course, being the ‘phantom-friend’ in your mind you give so much reality too). What effect does it have to discover you have had a phantom up your nose all this while? RESPONDENT No. 12: Well; if you are not capable of that; or if you are; makes no difference to me. Why? Because I enjoy ‘your’ ‘company’; that’s ‘why’. RICHARD: You never, ever enjoy my company – I am not that personality your viewpoint superimposes over or into this flesh and blood body – and whomsoever it is whose company you enjoy is all in your mind. There is a particularly apposite word worthy of consideration in this regard ... you will find it further above (in the ‘snipped for space’ section). Put simply: you are busily enjoying a fantasy figure’s company. RESPONDENT No. 12: So shall I ring ‘you’ when I arrive in Byron and we could go out to lunch or coffee? RICHARD: You will find my response further above (in the ‘snipped for space’ section). RESPONDENT: Richard, I have one question about this series of emails: why do you never say frankly, outspoken or plain that you don’t want to see [names withheld], instead of evading into indirectness? I know, you’re implying it almost all the time, but why don’t you say (sorry, write) it explicitly? RICHARD: For a number of reasons: first of all, I am conscious of the fact that I am writing to a fellow human being, and not to words appearing on a screen, who has publicly informed me of their medical condition. Vis.:
I have intimate experience, over many years, of interacting with people who have been suffering from varying degrees of this particularly distressing disorder ... and in my experience (and verified via their own feedback) the most helpful way of interacting is by (a) being sensible and practical at all times and (b) enabling or facilitating the ability to make their own decisions based upon sound physical reasons. It is important, vital, to not pander to flights of fancy and stay down-to-earth and matter-of-fact in any, oft-times fluctuating, instance. Also, there is a ‘game-play’ being acted out here which I am incapable of being drawn into – and I do indeed value my privacy for all the reasons stated – wherein the whole question of authority comes to be focussed on this one (possibly contrived) incident. It is far, far better for another person to see for themselves rather than making me into their authority figure ... and then riling against the decisions that their authority figure then makes. It is called being autonomous.
RESPONDENT: If someone asks me, and I like that person, I would say: ‘okay, that’s great.’ If I wouldn’t like that person, I would say: ‘well, I hope you don’t mind, but I’d rather not meet with people that I have met on the internet’ or ‘well, I hope you don’t mind, but I’d just rather not.’ No matter whether s/he is sometimes in a state of lower energy or not. It’s a straight question, and I can give a straight answer. There is nothing to leave to his/her decision. RICHARD: What stands out here is that the basis you make your decision on is whether you like a particular person or not (‘if I like that person’ and ‘if I wouldn’t like that person’ ) ... whereas I like every body. RESPONDENT: Pointless doesn’t mean that you don’t want to. RICHARD: Indeed not ... I enjoy every body’s company that I come in contact with. RESPONDENT: And in Actual Freedom, does everything have to have/make a point? RICHARD: In this context ‘pointless’ means that it is to no avail, of no use, of no benefit, of no value to come and see me in person. It is the words that convey and if they will not read my words then they will not listen to my voice either. Whereas if they do read my words then there is no need to come and see me. It is all so very simple.
RESPONDENT: Richard, for now I have one question that comes to my mind many times: It seems to me that you think it very important that you are the single and only one on this planet that is and ever has been Actually Free. RICHARD: It has nothing to do with whether I ‘think it very important’ or not ... I have travelled the country – and overseas – talking with many and varied peoples from all walks of life; I have been watching TV, videos, films, whatever media is available; I have been reading about other people’s experiences in books, journals, magazines, newspapers (and latterly on the internet) for twenty years now, for information on an actual freedom from the human condition, but to no avail. I would be delighted to hear about such people ... so as to compare notes, as it were. RESPONDENT: At least, you stress it time and again, in your writings, and in your ‘defences’ or explanations. RICHARD: No, it is simply a fact ... for as far as I have been able to establish thus far. If you know of such a person, or persons please let me know. Also, whenever someone attacks me I always have the option to defend myself if the situation warrants such a course of action ... there is no ‘turning the other cheek’ pacifism, defeatism, fatalism or martyrdom operating in this flesh and blood body. Have you ever noticed that it is bodiless entities that propagate such a dictum? RESPONDENT: Why is this aspect so important? RICHARD: You do seem to be overlooking the importance of what has been discovered – the already always existing peace-on-earth – and are instead focussing upon what you deem to be what Richard finds important. Whereas this is what is important: none of the saints, sages or seers have ever discovered peace-on-earth ... they all propose an after-death ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’. And they have all displayed varying degrees of those emotions grouped under the ‘catch-all’ words malice and sorrow from time to time. Most commonly they were subject to anger and anguish (disguised and/or designated as being ‘Divine Anger’ and ‘Divine Sorrow’ by themselves and their devotees and/or followers and/or readers). The question to ask is this: Just what is it that is going on in regards the supposed innocence of the saints and sages and seers?
RESPONDENT: Richard, for now I have one question that comes to my mind many times: It seems to me that you think it very important that you are the single and only one on this planet that is and ever has been Actually Free. RICHARD: It has nothing to do with whether I ‘think it very important’ or not ... I have travelled the country – and overseas – talking with many and varied peoples from all walks of life; I have been watching TV, videos, films, whatever media is available; I have been reading about other people’s experiences in books, journals, magazines, newspapers (and latterly on the internet) for twenty years now, for information on an actual freedom from the human condition, but to no avail. I would be delighted to hear about such people ... so as to compare notes, as it were. RESPONDENT: I understand that you would like this ... RICHARD: Why is it that I would like to hear about such people ... according to your understanding? RESPONDENT: ... and of course you can inquire as much as you like ... RICHARD: What makes it an ‘of course’ for you that I can inquire as much as I like? RESPONDENT: ... but why state it to be a fact? RICHARD: Because I have travelled the country – and overseas – talking with many and varied peoples from all walks of life, for twenty years, seeking information on an actual freedom from the human condition, but to no avail. Also, I have been watching TV, videos, films, whatever media is available, for twenty years, looking for information on an actual freedom from the human condition, but also to no avail. As well as that I have been reading about other people’s experiences in books, journals, magazines, newspapers (and latterly on the internet) for twenty years, for information on an actual freedom from the human condition, but to no avail as well. Where is this person, or persons, that makes it not a fact? RESPONDENT: You surely must know that facts are not dependant on and that they are different from experiences? RICHARD: How? Is it not a fact that this glass and plastic object (called a computer monitor) you are reading these words on exists? Yet is it not true that establishing the facticity of this computer monitor’s existence (and any subsequent knowledge gleaned about is qualities) is indeed dependent upon, and not different from, the experiencing of its existence? A fact is only established by acknowledgement of its existence. * RESPONDENT: At least, you stress it [that you are the single and only one on this planet that is and ever has been Actually Free] time and again, in your writings, and in your ‘defences’ or explanations. RICHARD: No, it is simply a fact ... for as far as I have been able to establish thus far. RESPONDENT: Now here it seems to me that you confuse facts with your own knowledge. RICHARD: How? Nothing is a fact until its existence has been established ... and such discoveries are called knowledge. RESPONDENT: Did you know all the people in the past, and/or do you personally know all the people that live on this earth? RICHARD: Goodness me, no ... the proliferation of media (such as TV, videos, films, books, journals, magazines, newspapers and the nowadays internet) has done away with the necessity of doing a personal door-to-door survey of every man, woman and child on the planet. RESPONDENT: It really requires a lot of knowledge to know how little one knows, don’t you agree? RICHARD: No ... it became strikingly obvious the very first time I walked into a public library about half a century ago. * RICHARD: If you know of such a person, or persons please let me know. RESPONDENT: I’ll come back to this next year, after I have read more of the website. RICHARD: Okay. [Editorial note: the respondent unsubscribed from the list a few weeks later]. * RICHARD: Also, whenever someone attacks me I always have the option to defend
myself if the situation warrants such a course of action ... there is no ‘turning the other cheek’ pacifism RESPONDENT: Yes, might be, you have the option, but you stress it in everything you write, and you make a point out of it. RICHARD: If I may draw your attention to something relevant to this particular E-Mail? I was responding to you having made ‘a point out of it’ by putting the word in scare quotes in the first place. Vis.:
If you had not done so I would have not responded as I did because I would have thus figured you knew it to be valid that if someone attacks another they may very well be expected to defend themselves. RESPONDENT: This way you mix two kinds of subjects: one concerns ‘Actual Freedom’, and: [Richard]: ‘have you ever noticed that it is bodiless entities that propagate such a dictum?’ RICHARD: Again, it was you who mixed the ‘two kinds of subjects’ ... if you had not put the word in scare quotes in the first place we would not be having this part of this discussion now. But as you did I will ask again: Have you ever noticed that it is bodiless entities that propagate the ‘do not defend yourself’ dictum? * RESPONDENT: Why is this aspect [that you are the single and only one on this planet that is and ever has been Actually Free] so important? RICHARD: You do seem to be overlooking the importance of what has been discovered – the already always existing peace-on-earth – and are instead focussing upon what you deem to be what Richard finds important. RESPONDENT: See what I mean? It seems to be overlooked by many people, for this is not the first question about this, is it? RICHARD: It is indeed not the first time. My search engine shows that this copy-pasted ‘I have scoured the books’ answer of mine features on my web page 36 times ... which must make you the thirty-seventh person to have asked me. RESPONDENT: Maybe, just maybe, because this statement or ‘fact’ as you call it is so prominently present on the website and your responses ... RICHARD: It is somewhat difficult to report to one’s fellow human beings that one has discovered something new to human experience without saying that it is ... um ... something new to human experience. RESPONDENT: ... if it weren’t so important, if you wanted really to focus on the A-A-Existing peace-on-earth, then you wouldn’t spend so many words on it, logically. RICHARD: Or, conversely, these thirty-seven people could focus on what I am saying (that I have discovered the already always existing peace-on-earth) ... instead of frittering away a vital opportunity with frivolous questions. * RICHARD: Whereas this is what is important: none of the saints, sages or seers have ever discovered peace-on-earth ... they all propose an after-death ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’. RESPONDENT: Why is this so important? RICHARD: Just for starters ... 160,000,000 sane people were killed in wars alone, in the last 100 years, by their sane fellow human beings ... and an estimated 40,000,000 people suicided in the same 100 years. Then there are all the murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and so on. Speaking personally, I call peace-on-earth important ... and a selfish fixation on securing one’s post-mortem reward (immortality) in some spurious afterlife totally unimportant. RESPONDENT: Why not just focus on your own words and the way to attain unto that state of actual freedom, instead of belittling what other people/saints/sages etc. have accomplished? RICHARD: I do not do anything so trivial and petty as merely ‘belittling’ what ‘other people/ saints/ sages etc. have accomplished’ ... I chucked all religiosity, spirituality, mysticality and metaphysicality into the waste-bin of history where it belongs years ago. And my life has been an on-going experiencing of pristine perfection ever since. RESPONDENT: Isn’t that what it is all about? RICHARD: Indeed it is ... however, ever since I came onto the internet 99% of the responses have been people objecting to being happy and harmless and insisting that the saints, sages and seers know it all and that I do not. RESPONDENT: Peace does not consist of ‘fighting’ in whatever way against others, does it now? RICHARD: I do not suffer fools gladly ... if someone is so foolish as to think that by entering into a discussion with me with an adversarial attitude – and thus turning it into a debate and then an argument – to defend the status-quo so that their ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul can stay intact ... they will find themselves being progressively driven into the corner of their own making. I am relentless where it comes to dismantling the Human Condition. 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars in the last 100 years ... that is what fighting actually looks like. * RICHARD: And they have all displayed varying degrees of those emotions grouped under the ‘catch-all’ words malice and sorrow from time to time. Most commonly they were subject to anger and anguish (disguised and/or designated as being ‘Divine Anger’ and ‘Divine Sorrow’ by themselves and their devotees and/or followers and/or readers). RESPONDENT: I will come back to this next year also. RICHARD: Okay. [Editorial note: the respondent unsubscribed from the list a few weeks later]. * RICHARD: The question to ask is this: Just what is it that is going on in regards the supposed innocence of the saints and sages and seers? RESPONDENT: Indeed, that is a question, but I don’t see why that is the question. RICHARD: Because thus far in human history it has been the saints and sages and seers who have dominated the world stage with their escapist solution to all the misery and mayhem ... and trumpeting ‘innocence’ into the bargain. RESPONDENT: Again: why not concentrate on how to attain unto that state of actual freedom, if I may call it that? RICHARD: The main stumbling-block seems to be cognitive dissonance RESPONDENT: Isn’t that the basis of the peace on earth, that needs to realized, even though it is already always present? RICHARD: Not ‘realised’ no ... it can only become apparent through the demise of ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul.
RESPONDENT: Richard, sorry that you understood that I attacked you. RICHARD: I never for a moment considered that you attacked me ... you were quite clear in your initial E-Mail that you were referring to my correspondence with other people. Vis.:
I see you clearly saying ‘you stress it time and again, in your writings, and in your ‘defences’ or explanations’ as a generalisation ... for nowhere do you say, for example, anything like this:
RESPONDENT: This was not my intention, but I can imagine that you received it like being an attack. RICHARD: But why? You were very clear as to what you meant. RESPONDENT: You don’t know me, through mail you can’t hear my intonation or see my facial expressions. RICHARD: I do not need to as I take your words at face value ... I am incapable of ‘reading between the lines’ or otherwise intuiting something that is not there. And if I am not able to suss out what the other intends via context I ask for clarification. RESPONDENT: I don’t know you, I sometimes receive your mail as rather uptight, answering every single sentence. RICHARD: Since when has listening with both ears to what the other is saying, and responding squarely and thoroughly to each aspect they find important enough to take the time to mention, been being ‘rather uptight’? I like communicating and have no interest in ignoring or glossing over or otherwise trivialising and/or disregarding my fellow human beings contribution to a mutual discussion through inattention and/or laziness. RESPONDENT: But that is my personal interpretation, and I can not see or feel what your intentions are. RICHARD: This is my position: We are all fellow human beings who find ourselves here in the world as it was when we were born. We find war, murder, torture, rape, domestic violence and corruption to be endemic – we notice that it is intrinsic to the human condition – and we set out to discover why this is so. We find sadness, loneliness, sorrow, grief, depression and suicide to be a global incidence – we gather that it is also inherent to the human condition – and we want to know why. We all report to each other as to the nature of our discoveries for we are all well-meaning and seek to find a way out of this mess that we have landed in. Whether one believes in re-incarnation or not, we are all living this particular life for the very first time, and we wish to make sense of it. It is a challenge and the adventure of a life-time to enquire and to uncover, to seek and to find, to explore and to discover. All this being alive business is actually happening and we are totally involved in living it out ... whether we take the back seat or not, we are all still doing it. I, for one, am not taking the back seat ... because it is indeed possible for any human being to be totally free from the human condition. RESPONDENT: I just see it as another instance of misunderstandings arising through the still rather limited way of communicating that e-mail is. Even with a close friend of mine I experience misunderstandings that wouldn’t have been there if we had seen each other face to face. RICHARD: Speaking personally, I prefer the written word over the spoken word any time as I tend to skip important detail when talking ... this computer generates all my stock-standard phrases in an instant. Also, the other can read at their leisure and respond at their convenience; there is no pressure to comprehend at the very instant and maybe form a rushed understanding; the words can be re-read for further consideration, clarification and re-appraisal at a later date; there is not any way a personal appeal or attraction can persuade, cajole, influence or otherwise manipulate an emotive result ... and so on. RESPONDENT: One clear misunderstanding arose completely due to my fault: I overlooked that I didn’t finish a sentence, concerning the two subjects that I thought were mixed: [Respondent]: ‘This way you mix two kinds of subjects: one concerns ‘Actual Freedom’, and ...’ I didn’t mean to add the following line that you had written previously, at all. I’m sorry, I didn’t finish my sentence here, I made a mistake? I was reading ahead, writing ahead, and forgot to finish this sentence. What I meant, was: One concerns ‘Actual freedom’, and the other one is you being the single and only one (which can never be proven to be a fact, as you stated above). RICHARD: Ahh ... okay, then it is just as well that this aspect was covered anyway elsewhere in the E-Mail. Incidentally, I never stated that it ‘can never be proven to be a fact’ ... it remains a fact until – or if ever – it is established that another person, or persons, has already discovered the eternally existing peace-on-earth. Although there are still some adherents to Mr. Karl Popper’s abstract logic, that nothing can ever be known for sure, his theories have, by and large, been refuted and discarded by more than a few peoples many years ago (logically it can never be proved that a One-Eyed One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater does not exist, for example). Yet it is entirely reasonable to acknowledge that there is a limit to the rarefied demands of logic. An academic theorist says ‘is it a logical proposition’ ... whereas a field engineer says ‘will it work in practice’. RESPONDENT: I was actually trying to find out whether this point was as important as I derived from your mail, discussions and some other writings. I thought that maybe I missed a point. That’s all why I wrote the question in the first place. So, indeed let’s concentrate on the subjects that really are important. Do I understand correctly from your mail, that your being unique in this is not what is important: that you merely wanted to stress with it that you bring something that is entirely new? RICHARD: Yes. The on-going experiencing of the already always existing peace-on-earth is entirely new to human experience ... everybody I have spoken to at length has temporarily experienced such perfection, in what is called a pure consciousness experience (PCE), but nobody has been able to provide a clear, clean and pure report as an on-going actuality. Usually the PCE is interpreted and/or translated according to selfish personal desires, and by corresponding cultural conditioning, as a variation of the many types of an Altered State Of Consciousness (ASC) which perpetuates the ‘self’ as the ‘Self’ (by whatever name) in some spurious after-life ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’. And thus 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 have gone on forever and a day. Now the opportunity exists for an eventual global peace-on-earth: with 6.0 billion outbreaks of individual peace-on-earth no police force would be needed anywhere on earth; no locks on the doors, no bars on the windows. Gaols, judges and juries would become a thing of the dreadful past ... terror would stalk its prey no more. People would live together in peace and harmony, happiness and delight. But do not hold your breath waiting.
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.
Richard's Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust:
1997-. All Rights Reserved.
Disclaimer |
