Actual Freedom – The Actual Freedom Mailing List Correspondence

Richard’s Correspondence

On The Actual Freedom Mailing List

with Correspondent No. 25


July 30 2001

RESPONDENT: Hello, I’m a new comer into this discussion forum ...

RICHARD: Welcome to The Actual Freedom Mailing List.

RESPONDENT: ... and the reason I joined is because I’m looking for individuals who have attained a higher state of being and consequently a higher state of consciousness. Whether I do this on the net or in actual life the reasons stay the same. I’ve read your journals, especially Richard’s one and I’ve realized that we can find a common ground for understanding.

Right now my reference system consists mainly in ‘fourth way’ ideas, ideas brought to the west by Gurdjieff and later on Ouspensky. I’ve chosen this system of thought as it is the most practical I’ve ever encountered. I’ve also been a member of a fourth way school and I departed as I disagreed with the way in which work was conducted.

My highest state occurred in July 1997 after reading Tao Te King by Lao Tse and ever since I’m searching ... Richard said in his journal that he has been ‘enlightened’ for 11 years, but different people understand different things by the same word. This was one reason for which I left that school, the Teacher saying he was a God and an enlightened being but in fact when I met him proved to be anything else but this. In the fourth way terminology there are seven different types of man:

a) man no. 1, 2 and 3 representing the ordinary mankind numbers according with their innate most developed function in a man (1– motor-instinctive function; 2 – emotional function; 3 – intellectual).

b) man No. 4 that is a man that has balanced all the three functions in him, also a man that works on himself in order to awake, possibly a member of a real school.

c) man No. 5 a man that has awakened and thus knows himself objectively possess a molecular body, that is a soul.

d) man no. 6 a man that is enlightened and objective about the outside world, his Being body made of light stretching within the Earth atmosphere, he has acquired Spirit, he is God, has real I, Self, whatever.

e) man no. 7 a man having a body that is free within the limits of the Solar system and thus obtaining the highest possible for a man.

Everyone in the list above can loose what has obtained except for man no. 7.

My experience is that of being a man no. 6, a state in which I had acquired real I, a Being made of light, state in which I was Everything within the Earth’s atmosphere limit, a God. My real I resembles a 900 years old child, extremely powerful and intelligent yet vulnerable.

VORTEX is the word I like most.

The experience of the state is like that of an atomic bomb detonated over your head, an atomic bomb made of love, bliss, freedom, will and extraordinary ecstasy (like your most powerful orgasm x 10000000). Everyone around you is literally dead, whether a spiritual man, a scientist or a savage from Africa.

Being in all things you know them directly, their inner substance, you don’t need any descriptive procedure based on observation.

There are four states possible for man:

state no. 1 is ordinary sleep state.

no. 2 is waking sleep the state in which mankind lives state.

no. 3 is what is called awakening, man.

no. 4 has glimpses of it, yet it becomes almost permanent for a man no. 5.

Men no. 1, 2, 3 have only very random experiences of it mostly based on accident. Experiences of joy, suffering, extreme fear, etc. produce it. State no. 4 is available for man no. 6 and beyond, it is the state I’ve described. Man no. 5 can have glimpses of it in the same way in which man no. 4 can have short glimpses about the 3rd state.

It is an extremely rear event for a man no. 7 to exist in the actual world, even a man no. 6 is extremely hard to find. you can count them on your fingers. I’ve personally seen only one in Thailand, know a man No. 5 and hope to be more scattered around the world.

The other men who open schools, teach or say all sorts of wonderful things are nothing but blinds leading the blind. Teaching is a direct experience and is as hard as learning a blind man how to see. Of course no one can do that except for someone with the eyes opened. All the spiritual practices resembles someone who’s looking for light in the darkness. You cannot imagine how absurd that is.

Another thing is that in the fourth state there is nothing more to know You have Absolute knowledge of Every thing. Everyone on this planet is dead or asleep. LIFE is not the world or the people as we know them. They are just the world. PEOPLE DO NOT BELONG TO LIFE.

The numbers are just a way for making the understanding easier, in reality things are not so clear and definite, there are variations and between man no. x and the next the difference is like that from 0 to infinity. This is what I understand by enlightenment and it is not taken from the books, it is an experience I’ve lived and it was not an easy one.

What do You understand by being enlightenment?

RICHARD: There is nothing other than The Absolute.

RESPONDENT: I’m waiting for your replies and hope not to have shocked you.

RICHARD: After eleven years of enlightenment and nine years beyond ... how could anything shock?

August 31 2001

RESPONDENT: I’m one of those who try to figure out what actualism really is and most of all what real living means. What I’ve found until now it’s a lack of practical ‘things’ one must/must not do in order to become free from the human Condition-ing and let’s say some actual methods. Also about the so-called apperception (Richard) I want some details. I suppose it’s something in which you’re both aware of yourself and the outside world ...??

RICHARD: There is nothing ‘so-called’ about apperception ... and apperception reveals that there is no ‘outside world’ (or ‘inside world’): apperception is where the creator of the ‘outside world’ is not extant. Apperception – a clear and clean perception – means that the peace-on-earth which is already always just here right now will be apparent. And the actualism method, first put into action in 1981, is a potent method specifically aimed at experiencing a condition of uninterrupted apperception.

Ask yourself, each moment again: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’

To explain: when one first becomes aware of something there is a fleeting instant of pure perception of sensum, just before one affectively identifies with all the feeling memories associated with its qualia (the qualities pertaining to the properties of the form) and also before one cognitively recognises the percept (the mental product or result of perception), and this ‘raw sense-datum’ stage of sensational perception is a direct experience of the actual.

Pure perception is at that instant where one converges one’s eyes or ears or nose or tongue or skin on the thing. It is that moment just before one focuses one’s feeling-memory on the object. It is the split-second just as one hedonically subjectifies it ... which is just prior to clamping down on it viscerally and segregating it from pure, conscious existence. Pure perception takes place sensitively just before one starts feeling the percept – and thus thinking about it affectively – which takes place just before one’s feeling-fed mind says: ‘It’s a man’ or: ‘It’s a woman’ or: ‘It’s a steak-burger’ or: ‘It’s a tofu-burger’ ... with all that is implied in this identification and the ramifications that stem from that.

This fluid, soft-focused moment of bare awareness, which is not learned, has never been learned, and never will be learned, could be called an aesthetically sensual regardfulness or a consummate sensorial discernibleness or an exquisitely sensuous distinguishment ... in a word: apperceptiveness.

The word ‘apperception’ literally means: consciousness being conscious of being consciousness ... as distinct from the normal ‘self’-conscious way of perception (‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious).

• [Dictionary Definition]: ‘apperception (n.): the mind’s perception of itself: apperceptive (adj.): of or pertaining to apperception: apperceptiveness (n.): the condition or quality of being apperceptive: ‘apperceptively’ (adv.): the experience of being apperceptive: ‘apperceptivity’: (n.): the capacity to be apperceptive’. [Fr. aperception or mod. L apperceptio(n-) (Liebniz), f. (non-productive) prefix ap- (assim. form of L ad-) + perception].

In that brief scintillating instant of bare awareness, that twinkling sensorium-moment of consciousness being conscious of being consciousness, one apperceives a thing as a nothing-in-particular that is being naught but what-it-is coming from nowhen and going nowhere at all.

Apperception is very much like what one sees with one’s peripheral vision as opposed to the intent focus of normal or central vision. This moment of soft, ungathered sensuosity – apperception – contains a vast understanding, an utter cognisance, that is lost as soon as one adjusts one’s mind to accommodate the feeling-tone and subverts the crystal-clear objectivity into an ontological ‘being’ ... a connotative ‘thing-in-itself’.

In the process of ordinary perception, the apperception step is so fleeting as to be usually unobservable. One has developed the habit of squandering one’s attention on all the remaining steps: feeling the percept; emotionally recognising the qualia; zealously adopting the perception and getting involved in a long string of representative feeling-notions about it. When the original moment of apperception is rapidly passed over it is the purpose of ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ to accustom one to prolong that moment of apperception – a sensuous awareness bereft of feeling content – so that uninterrupted apperception can eventuate.

Apperception is the clear and direct experiencing of being just here at this place in infinite space right now at this moment in eternal time – sans identity and its feeling-fed realities – and it is a wordless appreciation of being alive and awake on this verdant and azure planet.

Apperception is where one is living in the already always existing peace-on-earth and is where one is blithe and carefree, even if one is doing nothing: doing something – and that includes thinking – is a bonus on top of the never-ending perfection of the infinitude which this material universe is.

Apperception is where one is the universe being stunningly aware of its own infinitude.

January 09 2002

RESPONDENT: Reading your posts, some questions arose in my mind about the methods you’re using (namely Actualism) and about the aim of these methods (namely PCE). 1. What is the difference between the Pure Consciousness Experience and the state called ‘enlightenment’? I can only see the difference between the methods used and not in the actual state.

RICHARD: Basically one is about peace-on-earth as this flesh and blood body and the other is about a bodiless after-death peace. Here is a by no means exhaustive list of the differences:

• Spiritualism: The timeless, spaceless and formless realm is real (time and space and form are a dream).
• Actualism: Time and space and form are actual (the timeless, spaceless and formless reality is a dream).

• Spiritualism: God (by whatever name) is infinite and eternal (boundless and limitless).
• Actualism: This physical universe is infinite and eternal (boundless and limitless).

• Spiritualism: God (by whatever name) is beginningless and endless (unborn and undying).
• Actualism: This physical universe is beginningless and endless (unborn and undying).

• Spiritualism: God (by whatever name) is the source of both the universe and human life (consciousness gives rise to matter).
• Actualism: This physical universe is the source of human life (matter gives rise to consciousness).

• Spiritualism: I am not the body.
• Actualism: I am this flesh and blood body only.

• Spiritualism: Physical death is not the end: immortality is forever.
• Actualism: Physical death is the end, finish: mortality is forever.

• Spiritualism: The soul (by whatever name) is real.
• Actualism: The soul (by whatever name) is an illusion.

• Spiritualism: Peace-on-earth is not possible ... peace can only happen after the body physically dies.
• Actualism: Peace-on-earth is possible ... but only as this flesh and blood body.

• Spiritualism: Suffering is transcended (via sublimation).
• Actualism: Suffering is eliminated (via immolation).

• Spiritualism: ‘I’ as ego surrenders and/or dissolves and ‘me’ as soul expands to be God (by whatever name).
• Actualism: Both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul are extinguished.

• Spiritualism: The ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ become one.
• Actualism: Any ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ worlds are an illusion ... only this actual world exists.

• Spiritualism: Love and compassion are the antidotes to malice and sorrow.
• Actualism: Love and compassion can only exist as long as malice and sorrow exists (both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ become extinct).

• Spiritualism: The truth is the key to success and is to be found in the feeling of beauty.
• Actualism: The facts are the key to success and are to be found in the physical world.

• Spiritualism: Belief, faith, trust and hope are fundamental.
• Actualism: Belief, faith, trust and hope play no part whatsoever.

• Spiritualism: Intuition, imagination, visualisation, prescience, clairvoyance, telepathy and divination are essential.
• Actualism: Intuition, imagination, visualisation, prescience, clairvoyance, telepathy and divination can be dispensed with.

• Spiritualism: Inconsistency, contradiction and hypocrisy are central to the spiritual life.
• Actualism: An actual freedom is consistent: it is neither contradictory nor hypocritical.

• Spiritualism: Submission and dependency (through self-seeking ‘self’-surrender) are the hallmarks of the spiritual path.
• Actualism: Autonomy and independence (through altruistic ‘self’-sacrifice) are the hallmarks of the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom.

• Spiritualism: Gratitude is essential on the path to the spiritual goal.
• Actualism: Gratitude is a hindrance on the path to an actual freedom.

• Spiritualism: Humility is essential if one is to be God On Earth.
• Actualism: Dignity is both the means to the end and the end in actual freedom.

RESPONDENT: 2. Is it the experience of being God (enlightenment) an altered state or is it a PCE?

RICHARD: An altered state of consciousness (ASC).

RESPONDENT: 3. Also, Richard, what is your description of enlightenment as you experienced it 20 years ago? (My understanding of the same event can be found in an earlier post).

RICHARD: And my answer is to be found in response to that earlier post: there was only The Absolute (God by whatever name) and nothing else existed. Howsoever, I can flesh it out a little ... my experience, for eleven years in the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’, was an on-going ecstatic state of rapturous, ineffable and sacred bliss: unconditional Love Agapé and Divine Compassion poured forth for all suffering sentient beings twenty four hours of the day.

It was a truly euphoric state of being.

RESPONDENT: 4. Do you agree that a PCE has degrees and that you haven’t reached the highest level yet?

RICHARD: No, I do not agree ... it is the ultimate.

RESPONDENT: 5. What is the resemblance between the principles evoked by Lao Tze in Tao Te King and the AF method?

RICHARD: None whatsoever ... they are 180 degrees opposite.

RESPONDENT: I agree that words are very useful, but we can understand different things by the same word and this is a serious obstacle in communicating ideas (ex: ‘enlightenment’). I find Richard’s intention of great use especially for the former spiritualists (excluding or including the fourth-way?) by not letting the formerly known words, associations and illusions interfere with the actual experience of consciousness ...

RICHARD: Yet my intention is to clearly delineate the differences between the PCE and the ASC.

RESPONDENT: ... an experience which cannot be translated into words.

RICHARD: The experience can indeed be described.

RESPONDENT: Or as Shakespeare says: ‘By any other name a rose will smell as sweet’.

RICHARD: Except that what the word ‘rose’ refers to is not the same thing as what the word ‘manure’ refers to.

RESPONDENT: A sixth question would be: How am I experiencing this moment of being dead?

RICHARD: When you are dead there is no experiencing.

May 10 2002

RESPONDENT: I was wondering if you’re aware of the fact that many of the principles and ideas evoked by AF can be found in other practices, and when I say that I refer to fourth-way ideas. For me they are strikingly familiar.

RICHARD: If you would post what you find strikingly familiar it would help considerably in understanding what you mean ... you will find a précis of actual freedom at the following link: (Richard, Articles, A Précis of Actual Freedom).

I would be most interested to see where the ‘fourth-way ideas’ are strikingly similar.

RESPONDENT: Apart from this, I cannot figure out how Richard managed to ‘escape’ from his real ‘I’ (here in the sense of God, Self, etc.), that is if he has had One (which is the equivalent of saying one’s enlightened). So if you please can explain.

RICHARD: Certainly ... a description of how ‘the sense of God, Self etc.’ disappeared out of my life can be found at the following link: (Richard, Articles, A Brief Personal History).

You will find there a description of a curious event, which occurred at midday on Friday the thirtieth of October 1992, due to my intense conviction that it was imperative that somebody was to evince a final and complete condition that would ‘deliver the goods’ so longed for by humanity for millennia. It is entitled ‘Appendix No. 3: Description Of Becoming Actually Free’.

RESPONDENT: I had the experience of being enlightened, although for only three hours, and it seems to me to be Impossible to exist something beyond that, as this state contains all possibilities.

RICHARD: I had the experience of being enlightened for eleven years – night and day for eleven years – so I had plenty of time to find out how it worked in daily life. It was not until towards the end of the third year that I had an experience of being beyond enlightenment ... you will find a description at the same link: (Richard, Articles, A Brief Personal History).

It is entitled: ‘Appendix No. 2: Description Of A ‘Glimpse’ Of Actual Freedom’.

RESPONDENT: Another aspect of that experience was that the ‘I’ was not mine, but belonged to a person I very much loved; the identity called Respondent was not there during the period. Was not this a PCE, as in my memory it has all + many more of the characteristics attributed by AF language for a PCE?

RICHARD: It most certainly does not match the descriptions of a PCE ... there is no ‘I’ to be loved, and no God or Self to do that loving, in a PCE.

RESPONDENT: I must say I don’t know which were the exact causes for that, maybe the collapse of my identity, or maybe the suffering involved, or maybe the love played an important part in the process. All I know is that it Happened and was real.

RICHARD: Oh, what you describe here is experienced as being real all right – very, very real indeed – but the important point to comprehend is that none of it is actual.

RESPONDENT: What I don’t understand about AF is why do you ignore the fact (for me) that when this identity collapses, someone else gradually takes the space, and that is our true Self. Why do you ignore the Self?

RICHARD: This is a very good question: just as ‘this identity’ collapses so too can the ‘true Self’ collapse (as per the description at the link I provided further above). Thus it is not ignored ... it too ceases to exist.

This is what makes actual freedom differ from spiritual enlightenment.

RESPONDENT: Before having that experience I knew nothing about religion or have anything in common with any spiritual practice.

RICHARD: Neither did I prior to my first four-hour PCE back in 1981.

RESPONDENT: I’ve read your posts (and I fully agree with you) about some spiritual teachers, about their pretences, the lies and the hypocrisy involved as I was also part of a group.

RICHARD: Good ... however it must be born in mind that I am pointing the finger at the enlightened state itself (and not just ‘some spiritual teachers’ ).

RESPONDENT: It must be made a clear difference about what each one of us understands by the term ‘enlightenment’, as this term has been widely used and may now signify many different things. The best description I can find is in the term ‘4th state of consciousness’ as described in fourth-way terminology. I would also like to ask Richard if he understands the same this as I do by ‘enlightenment’? (Google, Yahoo: ‘fourth way’, ‘4th state’).

RICHARD: I typed the words ‘fourth way’ into my search engine and it came up with so many URL’s that it would be best if you would post the paragraph, or paragraphs, that you find to be the ‘best description’ and we can take it from there.

When I typed ‘4th state’ into my search engine it came up with URL’s for 4th states of matter (theoretical physics).

I also typed the term ‘4th state of consciousness’ into my search engine and all it came up with was URL’s for TM (aka ‘Transcendental Meditation’).

RESPONDENT: What I’ve found out was the truth that none of these present self-named, entitled enlightened beings are at present in such a state, at best in an altered state of consciousness.

RICHARD: Here is a page that may be of interest: http://www.nonduality.com/morea.htm

RESPONDENT: What I want to say is that this so-called Self, Absolute, I, God really exists, it’s alive and kicking and that the state in which you discover him is not an altered state of consciousness but the ultimate state available for humans.

RICHARD: I did not invent the term ‘Altered State Of Consciousness’ (ASC) as it is a commonly used term for the ultimate state which has been available for humans up until now (spiritual enlightenment) .

Now there is an alternative ... actual freedom.

RESPONDENT: To be or not to be a bee?

RICHARD: The whole aim of actualism is to cease ‘being’.

August 06 2002

RESPONDENT: Although I generally agree and enjoy many of the things stated on AF website, I have some doubts and I thought you might found them worth of attention. The first one concerns the writing style of some older actualists, like Peter, Alan and Vineeto, which is similar in its form and content with Richard’s.

RICHARD: Aye ... and that would be because each person, myself included, is talking about, referring to or describing the same identical thing. For example, if you were the first to go outside in the morning to experience the weather, and consequently report that the sky is blue today, then when I too go outside to experience the weather I would similarly say that the sky is blue.

It is nothing more mysterious than an agreement that our experiences match.

RESPONDENT: What I want to say is that when a person belongs to a group whether an actual or a virtual one, a characteristic he acquires is the lack of originality in its thinking, the ability to use new words in describing one’s experiences.

RICHARD: As none of the three people you mention belong to a group then your conclusion is a non-sequitur.

Just as a matter of interest: how many original ways can a person say ‘blue sky’ (bearing in mind that there are 6.0 billion people on the planet)? As for ‘new words’ ... this is how I answered someone else when they raised this same point last year:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Speaking the same lingo [the same words] ... is a hallmark of cultism’.
• [Richard]: ‘Perhaps you may be able to assist me in something rather important? My computer is making both groaning and grumbling noises and when I type in run-commands there is no response ... this is my take on what is going on: I figure that the wheelbarrow is conflicting with the scotch mist – both of which, as you would know, share the same chewing gum – and I am wondering whether it would be best to replace the wheelbarrow or the scotch mist. Do you have any suggestions, tips, hints or clues that might assist me? Maybe I should replace both? Or should I make adjustments to the chewing gum ... and if so, what would be the best way to go about it?’ (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 23, 14 July 2001).

If there were 6.0 billion people all using ‘new words’ to describe the same thing then effective communication would be a thing of the past.

RESPONDENT: Also, I disagree with Richard’s claim that the affective capacity can become extinct, as the affective is a Brain, performing various functions.

RICHARD: Yet I have never said that the affective faculty is ‘a Brain’ ... I have consistently indicated that it is located in what is known as either the ‘reptilian brain’ or the ‘lizard brain’ (which is where the motor faculty is also located) and I have never suggested that this primordial brain itself be eliminated.

RESPONDENT: The whole issue would not be then rewiring the affective, instead of eliminating it?

RICHARD: It is this simple: in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) it is patently obvious that there is a marked absence of both the self, by any description, and its affective faculty ... and as it has vanished of its own accord there is, therefore, no rewiring whatsoever required in an actual freedom.

‘Tis all rather magical.

RESPONDENT: Another more visible brain in the human flesh and blood body is the moving brain, which in its turn performs the moving activity. Can this brain become extinct? Or the sexual one?

RICHARD: As the PCE does not include either the absence of the motor function or the absence of the sexual function nobody could answer these speculative queries in any meaningful way ... what I can report, however, is that the sexual drive (an instinctual passion) is absent.

RESPONDENT: My idea about this whole issue of Brains/functions is not that of eliminating the Brains as this would be insane and impossible but instead eliminating the ‘things’ which fill them, these things causing the wrong functioning both in one particular brain and in between those brains, as they all are interconnected. Wrong functioning=>malice, sorrow.

RICHARD: Again, I am not talking about eliminating any of ‘the Brains’ ... I am speaking of the elimination of one of the ‘things’ (the affective faculty and its inherent identity) in the reptilian/lizard brain.

RESPONDENT: Also, about the instinctive brain, I don’t think that one can eliminate the primary instinct of fear. I’m speaking about instinctive fear not emotional one. I saw a documentary about a rare disease (only 3 persons in the world suffer from it) which extinguishes fear. Those people didn’t know what a danger is, and although in rest they were perfectly normal persons, they needed another person to care for them. I remember this disease had something to do with the amygdala, but I’m not sure. They had no fear of heights, they couldn’t recognize what was all about when presented with a photo of a terrified person, they paid no attention when crossing the street, etc.

RICHARD: It may be pertinent to point out that I am not referring to a disease which afflicts a person: I am advising of an altruistic ‘self’-immolation (which means that one acts, deliberately and consciously, with the knowledge aforethought that such a ‘self’-sacrifice is to the benefit of this body and that body and every body).

The knowledge aforethought comes from the PCE.

As for what those peoples with diseased amygdalae experience: I easily comprehend what danger is; I do not need another person to care for me; I fully understand what heights imply; I can readily recognise the terrified appearance of a person in both a photograph and face-to-face ... and I find that I take more care crossing a street than what the normal person does.

RESPONDENT: The point is not extinction of these innate primary impulses but the wrong functioning of them.

RICHARD: This, of course, presumes that there is a right functioning of them.

RESPONDENT: ‘I’ as thinker and ‘me’ as feeler can cease to exist, this is something I have personally verified, but the brain and the heart cannot and must not be extinguished.

RICHARD: If, as you say, you have personally verified that both ‘I’ as thinker and ‘me’ as feeler can cease to exist then why is it that you are so adamant that the affective faculty (the ‘innate primary impulses’ you refer to earlier) must not be extinguished?

The ‘me’ as feeler is the affective feelings – they are one and the same thing – and when the former is absent the latter is absent too.

RESPONDENT: I’m not the supporter of filling these brains with new stuff after eliminating the old one, but instead leaving these brains operate freely and without me interfering, which distorts incoming outer impressions and my inner functioning.

RICHARD: Leaving the reptilian/lizard brain to operate freely means that the ‘innate primary impulses’ you refer to earlier remain intact ... which means leaving intact such things as fear and aggression and nurture and desire, for example.

RESPONDENT: What I’ve previously said concerns the self, yet I’m also interested in discussing about the Self. In various religions this is, paradoxically, with all their interest in God, a taboo topic. As I’ve already said in my previous emails, the experience I’ve had was not of my Self, but of another person’s Self, a female. The Self I’ve experienced is a very old archetype, resembling somehow a printing press, a matrix, it looked like a 1000 years old child, very powerful yet very vulnerable. Its being consists of light, thus enabling the Self to be present everywhere and anytime. It’s a wonderful, beautiful Being, impossible to comprehend by pure intellectual reasoning, let alone described by words. It has to be lived in order to be known.

RICHARD: There was a period during my eleven years of being in the enlightened phase (in my sixth year) whereupon what I called ‘The Absolute’ presented itself as being feminine – a Radiant Being initially seen to be Pure Love – which femininity I would nowadays consider to be a product of me being of masculine gender. Eventually I was able to penetrate into the nature of this ‘Radiant Being’ and was able to see ‘Her’ other face:

It was Pure Evil – the Diabolical underpins the Divine – and upon such exposure ‘She’ disappeared forever.

RESPONDENT: The state in which you’re able to know your Self is a state in which you are blown up through space and time, becoming everything. You are thus able to understand the world objectively, as you know the substance out of which every single thing is made. My greatest surprise was to discover that the Whole of humanity is literally dead, and that the universe is alive and intelligent, humans retrieving themselves in an illusory, false refuge they call world. What followed after was Respondent taking that experience and using for its own purpose, which is what usually happens in the spiritual world of teachers and followers. You have to trust my word that what I’ve lived it’s nothing short than heaven. One reason for me in partaking to this discussing list is that I want to know if that was an illusory heaven.

RICHARD: To put it succinctly: yes (as is all which you describe here).

RESPONDENT: I invite all of you who have had a Self experience to try describing it.

RICHARD: Sure ... there was only The Absolute (the Self by whatever name) and nothing else existed.

RESPONDENT: I question if actual freedom from Human Condition is attainable without surpassing the last psychic Archetype, the Self, our Creator, out of which everything has begun?

RICHARD: My experience is that an actual freedom is attainable by going beyond spiritual enlightenment ... however I do not advise going that route (via enlightenment) as it is too traumatic.

Also it is just plain silly.

RESPONDENT: And if that so, the enlightenment ratio being 1/1.000.000 what would it be the AF ratio of success?

RICHARD: As it is exceedingly difficult to live in the massive delusion that spiritual enlightenment is I would easily estimate that the ratio would be much less for those that would go directly.

Much, much less.

RESPONDENT: Could it be that only the one who knows God may be called an atheist?

RICHARD: No.

RESPONDENT: Another thing I want to mention is that the state described by Richard (I’m not yet sure if actual or virtual freedom :)) is very similar in its characteristics with the intermediate state between the normal condition of mankind and the Self state of affairs.

RICHARD: Then I suggest that you re-read my descriptions ... I make it perfectly clear that an actual freedom is beyond ‘the Self state of affairs’ (and not before). For just one example: (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 23, 14 July 2001).

RESPONDENT: I can say that as I’ve pass through this before enlightenment took place.

RICHARD: It is often the case that a PCE can devolve into the altered state of consciousness (ASC) known as spiritual enlightenment – such is the power of identity sweeping back in – and it is not uncommon to then self-centredly take the ASC as being superior to the PCE.

The ASC is exceptionally self-centred (it is sometimes expressed as ‘I am everything and Everything is Me’) ... just look at your own words (further above):

• [Respondent]: ‘The state in which you’re able to know your Self is a state in which you are blown up through space and time, becoming everything’.

Need I say more?

February 10 2003

RESPONDENT: Hi, ‘Looking for flaws ...’. It’s a title taken from a line in the movie ‘Minority Report’. This might be a suggestive title for some of my ideas regarding your site. For the last few months I’ve been browsing AF website not with ‘the boots and all’ attitude but with a more doubtful eye. I do this as I have a ‘good’ experience with harmful actions directed towards me both from others and from myself, with the aim of doing the right thing. This is what spirituality is all about, eh?: the right aim, the wrong method.

RICHARD: It could be said that one of the aims of spirituality is to bring to an end ‘harmful actions’ (aka pacifism) – the main aim being the attainment of immortality and its after-death peace of course – and it is in this very ‘doing the right thing’ (being pacifistic in lieu of being harmless) that one of its major flaws lies.

RESPONDENT: By the way, Enlightenment is very similar with your description of the PCE, except for the presence of the I (aka God). Am I right?

RICHARD: No.

RESPONDENT: Enlightenment is by its very nature a knowing of the universe from the perspective of the electronic world, that is electrons (the particles of light) not from the cells worldview, that is our physical body and senses. And there is no love in that state, nor compassion, nor aggression or any desire to hurt someone, it’s peace indeed.

RICHARD: Hmm ... yet there was indeed ‘love in that state’ when you first wrote to this mailing list:

• [Respondent]: ‘The experience of the state is like that of an atomic bomb detonated over your head, an atomic bomb made of love, bliss, freedom, will and extraordinary ecstasy ...’. (‘Verification’; 30 July 2001).

It would seem that you are engaged in a rewrite of your enlightenment experience ... because you are also on record as saying the following:

• [Respondent]: ‘Also I disagree with Richard’s claim that the affective capacity can become extinct (...) the heart cannot and must not be extinguished’. (‘self vs. Self’; 30 July 2002).
• [Respondent]: ‘Also, about the instinctive brain, I don’t think that one can eliminate the primary instinct of fear. (...) The point is not extinction of these innate primary impulses but the wrong functioning of them. (‘self vs. Self’; 30 July 2002).

If I may suggest? It is impossible to marry spirituality with actuality.

RESPONDENT: The state is its very ‘raison d’être’, needs nothing for its confirmation. The troubles come afterwards when the id takes it and uses for its own purposes, mainly survival.

RICHARD: I am not at all surprised that there be a ‘self’-fixation on ‘survival’ ... after all you are at least 900 (or 1000) years old:

• [Respondent]: ‘My real I resembles a 900 years old child, extremely powerful and intelligent yet vulnerable’. (‘Verification’; 30 July 2001).
• [Respondent]: ‘The Self I’ve experienced is a very old archetype, resembling somehow a printing press, a matrix, it looked like a 1000 years old child, very powerful yet very vulnerable’. (‘self vs. Self’; 30 July 2002).

*

RESPONDENT: Your aim, ‘happy and harmless’, may not be the main aim, but is for sure one of the most important in almost all spiritual teachings. So, I would say what you’re bringing here is a new method to a very old human dream.

RICHARD: I would suggest a re-read of this e-mail: (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25, 9 January 2002).

RESPONDENT: And maybe a sane state of consciousness.

RICHARD: As I was insane for 11 years – and sane for the preceding 34 years – I can report from direct experience that there is a third alternative.

*

RESPONDENT: Another thing I’d like to mention is that living systems, and I might say, all systems (economy, internet, human and animal bodies, solar system, etc.) are functioning in this universe and thus are subject to its laws and thus to a process I would call ‘crime’. Disease, fraud, rape, theft, viruses, asteroids, violence, abuse, lying are all examples of this process. Let’s take for example a fact, the number of people killed in war this century alone: 160.000.000, this is roughly 1% of the total living population. It’s crime taken to the scale of ‘humankind’. How many have died from diseases and accidents? I suppose many more.

RICHARD: Are you saying that peace-on-earth is just not possible, then?

*

RESPONDENT: Any action may be corrupted by various factors and I wonder if the fault lies in the ideas one receives or in the doer.

RICHARD: I always advise being guided by the pure consciousness experience (PCE) – rather than by ‘ideas’ received – wherein the ‘doer’ is in concordance with actuality (meaning that fundamentally all what is required is to say !YES! so that the already always existing peace-on-earth can become apparent).

RESPONDENT: Is there a 100% success rate or warranty and no deviation or misinterpreting from all those who practice actualism?

RICHARD: Speaking from personal experience (and not merely theorising) ... yes.

RESPONDENT: And if there are deviations, where do they lead?

RICHARD: The only danger on the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition is that one may become enlightened instead.

I kid you not.

RESPONDENT: As actualism is a process taking place in time, it’s subject to all types of change.

RICHARD: Again, are you saying that peace-on-earth is just not possible, then?

*

RESPONDENT: And one more thing: the emotional mind sets an idea in stone and then accepts or rejects the information presented according to its conviction. The conclusion determines the series of information being accepted. That’s how the cults work, no matter if they are based in Himalayas or on the web.

RICHARD: All the more reason to re-visit your earlier assertion, perchance? Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘Also I disagree with Richard’s claim that the affective capacity can become extinct (...) the heart cannot and must not be extinguished’. (‘self vs. Self’; 30 July 2002).

RESPONDENT: The intellectual mind works the other way around: the conclusion is determined from a series of factors: information, experiments and observable facts. After all, it might just work.

RICHARD: Whereas actualism, being neither affective nor cerebral, actually works.


CORRESPONDENT No. 25 (Part Two)

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The Third Alternative

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