Actual Freedom – The Actual Freedom Mailing List Correspondence

Richard’s Correspondence

On The Actual Freedom Mailing List

with Correspondent No. 44


June 11 2003

RESPONDENT: Richard, thanks for answering. You gave me the following question: ‘Does the roughness or smoothness of bark exist when a tree falls in a forest if nobody is present to touch it?’ I answer you no. Because these qualities need a brain and senses.

RICHARD: Ahh ... here is the follow-up query: does the bark itself exist when a tree falls in a forest if nobody is present to touch it? If so, are the properties of the bark of, say, a falling pine tree different from the properties of the bark of, say, a falling gumbo-limbo tree ... and in what way?

RESPONDENT: And you gave me also the following question ‘Yes because does not depend from your senses and brain.

RICHARD: I did no such thing – I said ‘I will leave that one for you to answer’ – and, even though I make it patently clear all throughout the previous e-mail that the properties of the physical world exist irregardless of a perceiver, it is quite another thing to quote me as saying a sentence I never said (what I did write was in regards to your affirmation that even when your eyes are closed the chlorophyll in leaves continues to deflect a particular light wave ... whereupon I commented that it was a remarkably consistent process and, more pertinently, a process that is not dependent upon you at all).

And as palaeontology evidences that trees existed long before human beings arrived on the scene – and fossilised bark shows what texture it had all those millions of years ago – I am somewhat curious as to how you are going to substantiate your claim that the texture of the bark of trees has no existence sans humans.

RESPONDENT: I wander if you ever was enlightened. ‘This is not one insult’. Because when I asked you if we see the same tree, because we see it from different angles, you answered we are seeing the same tree.

RICHARD: Here is the exchange in question:

• [Respondent]: ‘If I am looking at a tree and you are looking at the same tree, we have the impression that we are looking at the same tree.
• [Richard]: ‘That would be because it is the same tree.... you even said so yourself. Vis.:

• [Respondent]: ‘... and you are looking at the same tree’.

• [Respondent]: ‘But what I see from my position, is different from what you see from your position. We occupy different space. We see it from different angles. The same happens with a chair.
• [Richard]: ‘No matter where this person, or that person, is looking at an object from it is still the same object.
• [Respondent]: ‘But we think we are seeing the same thing because of the name.
• [Richard]: ‘No, this person and that person know they are seeing the same thing because it *is* the same thing ... the name of the thing is merely a convenient and mutually agreed-upon way to refer to it without having to launch into long descriptions of the object in question each time around.

First you tell me I am seeing the same tree as you – and I even pointed out that you said it was the same tree – and now you reinforce this by saying ‘we see *it* from different angles’ [emphasis added] ... and no matter from what position or space or angle two sentient beings are seeing ‘it’ (which is merely a way of referring to ‘the same tree’ by using an abstract pronoun) the tree in question does not all-of-a-sudden cease being the same tree.

Just try chopping down a tree in a state forest and see what happens: it is a fair bet to say that a court magistrate will be most emphatic it be the exact same tree as the protected tree according to the government gazette ... just before fining you and/or confining you to the prescribed detention.

Or would your defence be that it is your tree in your ‘universe’ and not the magistrate’s tree in the magistrate’s ‘universe’?

Furthermore you are mixing the tenses as your initial words ‘if I am looking at a tree and you are looking at the same tree’ are present tense yet your response – ‘I wander if you ever was enlightened’ – is past tense ... if you wish to know how things were experienced whilst spiritually enlightened then please say so.

RESPONDENT: That means you are seeing things and not the reality as is.

RICHARD: Indeed – I am not an enlightened being – thus I see things (as-they-are) and not intuited fantasies (underlying realities) ... to make this comment you had to totally disregard what I have to say about ‘the reality as is’ (only you called it ‘reality the way it really is’ and ‘the underlying reality’ in your previous e-mail).

If you take no notice of what I have to say what is the point of continuing?

RESPONDENT: From my place the light on the tree is different than from yours.

RICHARD: Hmm ... from what I can gather your ‘place’ is inside the flesh and blood body, looking out through the eyes as if looking out through a window, which means that just about any fantasy will do in lieu of acknowledging the fact.

Yet for two normal human beings the colour green is not markedly different (the light which is being deflected by the chlorophyll in the leaves is still within the green range of the spectrum no matter what place each person views it from) ... and even in the dark – or for a blind person – it is still the same tree.

RESPONDENT: You are got in words I doubt if you can see a thing without naming it.

RICHARD: Ha ... nice try, nice try indeed.

*

RESPONDENT: Now I have some questions for you. ‘Why you want to be happy and harmless?

RICHARD: As I do not want to be happy and harmless I cannot answer your question ... I have been here, in the perfection of this actual world, all along simply having a ball.

In other words: it was the identity within who desired happiness and harmlessness ... and ‘he’ desired it like ‘he’ had never desired anything before.

RESPONDENT: Is this not a desire?

RICHARD: It was for the identity within ... ‘twas the mother of all desires, in fact.

RESPONDENT: But you said you have not desires.

RICHARD: I have indeed said that ... and I will say it again: I have no desires whatsoever.

RESPONDENT: ‘You say you had a nice day and tomorrow you will have another one.

RICHARD: What I have actually said is that I have had a perfect day – and that tomorrow will be another perfect day – and copy-pasting the words ‘nice day’ into the search engine and sending it through all the words I have ever written brought up only one hit. Vis.:

• [Richard]: ‘My companion and I are walking along the beach together, just the two of us. It is a particularly *nice day* towards the end of winter; the cold wind from the south that has been blowing for the past week has finally ceased and the temperature is such that I am in my shirt-sleeves. It is a couple of hours past midday and the sun is high in the western sky; a sky scattered with puffy white clouds standing stark against the intense blue’. [emphasis added]. (page 70, Article Ten; ‘Richard’s Journal’; ©1997The Actual Freedom Trust).

RESPONDENT: How do you know it was a nice day if you had no feelings?

RICHARD: The direct experience of perfection informs of a perfect day: in the (above) context the ‘nice day’ is being sensately experienced ... and not affectively.

RESPONDENT: ‘If you don’t have I or being then who knows it?

RICHARD: Not ‘who’ knows it ... what knows it: this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware knows it.

*

RESPONDENT: There exist people that suffer from anhedonia. Is a fact. Does the brain of these people are different from yours as you operate now?

RICHARD: First of all, anhedonia is usually defined as the inability to affectively feel pleasure (from the Greek ‘an-’ [‘without’] plus the Greek ‘hedone’ [‘pleasure’] which is akin to Greek ‘hedys’ [‘sweet’] from the Latin ‘suavis’) and what is usually overlooked is the inability to affectively feel pain ... as in the pleasure/pain principle so often mentioned in mystical texts.

It has nothing to do with physical pleasure/pain.

Second, usually anhedonia is a central feature of a psychotic disorder ... for example:

• ‘anhedonia is a core clinical feature of depression, schizophrenia, and some other mental illnesses. (www.medterms.com).
• ‘anhedonia: certainly one cardinal feature of depression, and perhaps THE cardinal feature. (www.mentalhelp.net).

Third, from the descriptions I have heard and read it is a psychiatric condition for them ... and not a liberating condition. You may find what Ms. Kristina Luna has to report at the following URL illuminating in this regard: http://juns.nursing.arizona.edu/articles/Fall%202002/luna_anhedonia.htm

Here is the abstract, summary, and conclusion, of that article:

• ‘Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that plagues all cultures and is known to be present in all socio-economic groups. Patients exhibit a wide range of symptoms, which can be classified as either positive or negative. Positive symptoms include hallucinations, delusions, erratic behaviour, pressured speech, and looseness of associations. Negative symptoms include flattening of affect, poor grooming, withdrawal, and poverty of speech. The failure or inability to experience pleasure, also known as anhedonia, is a fairly common negative symptom, but one that is little understood by many in the psychiatric field. By attempting to explain the aetiology of anhedonia, I hope to increase the awareness of this often overlooked concept. (...) In summary, the inability to experience pleasure, or anhedonia, is one of the defining negative characteristics in the deficit syndrome of schizophrenia and also depression. I described how two different theories try to account for the origin of anhedonia. Although the aetiology of anhedonia is still unknown, its negative symptoms are quite obvious and their severity can be measured with standardized scales. I then used social learning theory to analyse the case study of a patient with Anhedonia. Finally, I discussed five nursing interventions that are appropriate when treating those afflicted with anhedonia and schizophrenia. (...) To conclude, it is extremely important for health care providers to be aware of schizophrenia and assessing for anhedonia. By discussing the negative symptom of anhedonia, I hope to increase the awareness of this little understood concept. If and when I encounter schizophrenics during my nursing practice, I intend to utilize the appropriate nursing interventions, such as assessing for anhedonia, establishing a therapeutic relationship, providing a safe environment, and encouraging pleasurable and safe activities. Most importantly, I hope to educate those who are lacking information on schizophrenia and its symptoms. (©The University of Arizona College of Nursing).

As ‘the aetiology of anhedonia is still unknown’ and anhedonia is ‘little understood by many in the psychiatric field’ I cannot answer your query as to how the brain of those people operates differently from the brain in this skull other than to say that it appears to be a psychological condition and not a physiological condition (given that therapy can reverse the process somewhat).

RESPONDENT: I mean what the difference of these patients and you?

RICHARD: In a nutshell: they are not free from the human condition ... they are more deeply entangled than the norm, in fact.

RESPONDENT: You said that you felt a brain change.

RICHARD: More specifically: I said that there was a physical sensation in the brain-stem (at the base of the brain/ nape of the neck).

RESPONDENT: Did you ever thought that you might altered your brain?

RICHARD: No ... all the activity occurred in the brain-stem.

RESPONDENT: Please don’t take anything personal, we are discussing.

RICHARD: As there is no personality in situ to ‘take anything personal’ that can never happen ... and I have no problem at all about being quizzed anyway as anybody stating that they have the solution to all the ills of humankind can expect to be examined rigorously.

And, given all the snake-oil salespeople throughout human history, rightfully so.

July 10 2003

RESPONDENT: Richard, I should like to ask the simple question ‘In which way one person that lost his being and ego, is different than a robot?’

RICHARD: Just because a person actually free of the human condition has no identity whatsoever (neither ego-self nor soul-self/spirit-self) parasitically residing inside the flesh and blood body – and therefore no affective feelings – this absence of identity and its precious feelings does not thus make that person a machine, an automaton, an android (a robot somewhat resembling a human being in appearance designed to function in place of a living organism and carrying out a variety of tasks mechanically in accord with a pre-programmed circuitry).

I do not read/watch science fiction but as I get these type of questions from time to time I have gradually been made aware of various ‘Star Trek’ characters, for instance, and it is pertinent to point out that the stuff of science fiction (creations of imagination) is entirely different to actuality ... a writer replete with identity/ feelings trying to visualise life sans identity/ feelings can, apparently, only conceive of a robotic-like creature speaking in a flat, monotone voice, and devoid of a sense of humour.

I am yet to hear of a robot that experiences life like this, for example:

• [Richard]: ‘I live in the infinitude of this fairy-tale-like actual world where, with its sensuous quality of magical perfection and purity, everything and everyobody 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 everybody. We do not live in an inert universe’.

In fact a robot, being a machine, does not experience anything at all.

RESPONDENT: Richard you define the being as soul.

RICHARD: I variously use words such a ‘soul’, ‘spirit’, ‘presence’, ‘being’ (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is ‘being’ itself) to refer to the feeling-self as distinct from the thinking-self ... and by ‘feeling’ I am meaning the affective feelings (the emotional, passional, and calentural feelings) and not the sensitive feelings (the sensorial, sensual, and sensuous feelings).

As a generalisation the feeling-self is that which is commonly believed to animate the body (quite often misleadingly called consciousness) ... sometimes held to predate birth and oft-times held to survive physical death.

RESPONDENT: I don’t know nothing about soul.

RICHARD: It is a commonly-used English word which, according to the Oxford Dictionary, corresponds formally to the Greek word ‘aiolos’ (‘quick-moving’ or ‘easily moved’) and refers to an entity distinct from the body; a person’s spiritual as opposed to corporeal nature; specifically regarded as immortal and as being capable of redemption or damnation in a future state; the disembodied spirit of a dead person, regarded as invested with some degree of personality and form, and also the seat of the emotions or sentiments ... the emotional part of human nature.

RESPONDENT: For me being is to exist.

RICHARD: To exist is to be here, in space and time, *as* a flesh and blood body ... yet further below you say that after the death of this body the ‘being’ you speak of here will continue in another baby (only you call it ‘this sense of existence’ further below) and that you are born *in* every baby. Vis.:

• [Respondent]: ‘So after death this sense of existence will continue in another baby (NO REINCARNATION AND THESE NONSENSE) I am born in every baby and then the different identities are separating its other’.

As for your ‘NO REINCARNATION’ qualifier: the Buddhists, for example, use the word ‘rebirth’ rather than the word ‘reincarnation’ so as to emphasise their no-Atman (no-soul) to incarnate and thus no-Brahman (no-god) to realise doctrine ... yet highly revere the after-death state (Parinirvana) of an enlightened being and strive for enlightenment themselves so as to attain to their own salvation in the place where the sun don’t shine (the ‘Deathless State’).

RESPONDENT: In the moment you speaks about oblivion after death ...

RICHARD: First and foremost: I report the identity in toto going into blessed oblivion whilst this flesh and blood body was still alive.

Second, with no identity in situ it is patently obvious that there be nothing whatsoever to survive physical death.

Third, hence there was, similarly, nothing which predated birth.

Lastly, physical death is, just as being anaesthetised or even each night upon going to sleep is, the oblivion of consciousness (the state or condition of a body being conscious) as well as the awareness of consciousness (the state or condition of a body being aware of being conscious) ... only never coming to or waking up again.

In other words, physical death is the end, finish.

RESPONDENT: ... this means that now you are in another state, because you are alive.

RICHARD: No, because to say ‘another’ state is to imply that physical death is also a state to exist in when it is not.

RESPONDENT: You are in a state of existence.

RICHARD: I exist *as* a flesh and blood body, in time and space, being apperceptively aware.

RESPONDENT: How you know that you exist?

RICHARD: Sensately ... I have written about this to you before. Here is an excerpt:

• [Richard]: ‘... if one were to close the eyes one will find there is a sensing, or perception, of being oriented in space (of space all around including behind the body) ... and this has as much to do with balance, acceleration and/or rotation in space, orientation in a gravity field (if there be one) as it has to do with the proprioceptive senses proper in the muscles, tendons, and joints.
The proprioceptive senses are part of the somatic sensory system (somaesthesis/ somaesthesia) which is the faculty of bodily perception (sensory systems associated with the body) and includes skin senses (cutaneous receptors for hot/cold, pressure, physical pleasure/pain, for example) and the internal organs sensors (cardiovascular or circulatory receptors for blood pressure, heart rate, and carbon dioxide and digestive tract receptors for hunger and thirst, for instance) as well as the equilibrium sense, or sense of balance, already mentioned.
Thus proprioception is the ability to sense the position and location and orientation and movement of the body, and its parts, because of the proprioceptors in the muscles, tendons, and joint capsules (in combination with the sense of balance, acceleration and/or rotation in space, and orientation in a gravitational field, of the inner ear or vestibular organ).
In other words: the sense of being here, in space, as a body is not just because of sight (visual perception), sound (auditory perception), touch (cutaneous perception), smell (olfactory perception), and taste (gustatory perception).

RESPONDENT: You must have a sense of existence.

RICHARD: You will see, upon re-reading my response (above) that I clearly say ‘the sense of being here, in space, as a body’ – which is another way of saying ‘the sense of existing, in space, as a body’ – which is most certainly not the same thing as the ‘feeling of existence’ you speak of in a recent e-mail. Vis.:

• [Respondent]: ‘Existence is not mine or yours. Existence is one. We are experiencing the same feeling of existence, the identities made us think we are separate.’ (For every one; Jul 09, 2003).

The ‘sense of existence’ you are enquiring about is intuitive, or instinctive, and thus affective, not sensitive.

RESPONDENT: Or you must make a logical process, for example I am walking etc.

RICHARD: No, it is a sensible process to observe ambulation ... no logic is required.

RESPONDENT: Even in a PCE, how one knows that a PCE took place?

RICHARD: Apperceptively ... and I have written to you about this before also:

• [Respondent]: ‘How do you know it was a nice day if you had no feelings?
• [Richard]: ‘The direct experience of perfection informs of a perfect day: in the (above) context the ‘nice day’ is being sensately experienced ... and not affectively.
• [Respondent]: ‘If you don’t have I or being then who knows it?
• [Richard]: ‘Not ‘who’ knows it ... what knows it: this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware knows it.

In short: apperception, or pure conscious experiencing, is unmediated perception.

RESPONDENT: Means that thought (even subconscious thought) was in operation and so recording was taking place.

RICHARD: No, apperception happens all the time irregardless whether thought is operating or not (and there is no subconscious thought at any time) ... thought, thoughts, and thinking happens spontaneously if and when required by the circumstances.

And ambulation does not require thought.

*

RESPONDENT: I have two parrots in a cage home, and I see them flirting and playing. You said that you are not able for flirting but able for sex.

RICHARD: You must be referring to this:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Do you joke, laugh, flirt (...)?
• [Richard]: ‘I like to joke, yes and I laugh a lot ... there is so much that is irrepressibly funny about life itself. I have no ability to flirt, however, as my libido is nil and void ... yet I have an active sexual life (...).

RESPONDENT: I can’t understand that. I really can’t.

RICHARD: The word ‘libido’ (Latin meaning ‘desire’, ‘lust’) is the psychiatric/psychoanalytic term for the instinctual sex drive, urge, or impulse, and the word ‘flirt’ refers to behaving in a superficially amorous manner, to dally sexually with another ... what is so difficult about understanding that, sans the instinctual passion to procreate (and nurture) the species, the ability to be sexually amorous (either superficially or deeply) ceases to exist?

With no passions driving behaviour one is able to treat the other as a fellow human being ... and not a sex-object.

RESPONDENT: Why you have a companion and you don’t change one every day?

RICHARD: Primarily because of fellowship regard ... and specifically because of how my current companion is.

RESPONDENT: You don’t have any feelings for her, so what a difference makes?

RICHARD: A whole lot of difference ... just for starters I actually care, rather than merely feel that one cares, and thus have genuine consideration for her integrity.

Plus I have no interest whatsoever in toying with my fellow human being, anyway, no matter who they are.

RESPONDENT: Also could you make sex with a 80 years old and 150 kilos?

RICHARD: Pardon, your prejudices are showing.

RESPONDENT: Please don’t even let pass for a moment from your brain that there is any trace of irony in my email.

RICHARD: I will bear that in mind.

*

RESPONDENT: If they give you one injection of adrenaline, will you be able to control your angriness?

RICHARD: What ‘angriness’ are you talking off? There is neither anger nor anguish in this flesh and blood body ... do you really take an actual freedom from the human condition to be a suppression, or even a repression, of the affective feelings?

Just for the record, however, when I have a dental injection to anaesthetise the jaw I always make sure the dentist uses a procaine mixture which does not contain adrenaline, which most such mixtures do, because its effect is psychotropic (just as caffeine, a chemical cousin to cocaine, is).

RESPONDENT: Sometimes, I read that meditation is damaging the brain.

RICHARD: I do not, and never have, meditated.

RESPONDENT: Does not mean that somebody becomes crazy, but can alter the feelings functions.

RICHARD: As spiritual enlightenment is patently pathological it all depends on what the word ‘crazy’ means to you: as the word ‘meditate’ is the (inaccurate) English translation of what is known as ‘dhyana’ in Sanskrit (Hinduism) and as ‘jhana’ in Pali (Buddhism) wherein there is a total withdrawal from sensory perception and a cessation of thought, thoughts, and thinking – a totally senseless and thoughtless trance state which could only be described as catalepsy in the West – and, as the resultant state of being (sometimes known as ‘consciousness without an object’) is praised as being the summum bonum of human experience, it thus may very well pay to re-examine whatever it is that you take the word ‘crazy’ to mean.

This is because a never-ending ‘meditation’ (‘dhyana’ or ‘jhana’) – wherein the body is totally inward-looking, totally self-absorbed, totally immobile, and totally functionless (the body cannot and does not talk, walk, eat, drink, wake, sleep or type e-mails to mailing lists) – would result in the body wasting away until its inevitable physical death ... as a means of obtaining peace-on-earth it is completely useless.

Speaking personally I find the word ‘crazy’ far too mild an epithet ... it is quite simply an institutionalised insanity.

RESPONDENT: You admitted that something happened in your brain ...

RICHARD: No, I acknowledged that something happened in the brain-stem:

• [Respondent]: ‘You said that you felt a brain change.
• [Richard]: ‘More specifically: I said that there was a physical sensation in the brain-stem (at the base of the brain/nape of the neck).
• [Respondent]: ‘Did you ever thought that you might altered your brain?
• [Richard]: ‘No ... all the activity occurred in the brain-stem.

I was saying what I meant and meaning what I said.

RESPONDENT: ... but could you explain scientifically what?

RICHARD: As far as I have been able to ascertain from an ad hoc reading of scientific texts it was most probably in the Reticular Activating System (RAS), in general, and quite possibly in the Substantia Nigra, in particular (arguably the seat of consciousness) that the identity in toto expired.

RESPONDENT: Because a change in the brain is a material thing and can be measured and observed.

RICHARD: As no scientist has been able to locate the identity (the self by whatever name) despite all their RI scans (Radio Isotope), CAT scans (Computerised Axial Tomography), CT scans (Computed Tomography), NMR scans (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance), PET scans (Positron Emission Tomography), MRA scans (Magnetic Resonance Angiography), MRI scans (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), and fMRI scans (functioning Magnetic Resonance Imaging) I do not see how they are going to measure and/or observe the absence of it.

RESPONDENT: If something material happened, then if it is not considered damage, then must be one evolutional process.

RICHARD: Hmm ... psychiatry and psychology consider that the combination of depersonalisation, derealisation, alexithymia, and anhedonia is indeed ‘damage’ ... and big-time damage at that (a chronic and incurable psychiatric disorder).

Yet what the instinctually-driven humans do to each other, and themselves, as evidenced by 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, for example, is what ‘damage’ really looks like in action.

Howsoever, as that is accepted as normal, and any action to cease being normal is actively discouraged, the word ‘crazy’ seems particularly apt here.

RESPONDENT: If evolution of Darwin exist, because also this is a theory.

RICHARD: Nope ... evolution is scientific fact (as evidenced by the microbial evolution, in response to antibiotics for instance, which is mistakenly called ‘developing an immunity’).

*

RESPONDENT: If you go for a walk, from where is coming this desire to go for a walk?

RICHARD: This is a loaded question and, as such, impossible to answer in its present form (there is life after desire).

RESPONDENT: And if you are making sex where come these erections, out of the blue?

RICHARD: No, engorgement of the genitals comes from tactile stimulation.

RESPONDENT: I again ask you to excuse me for the questions, but I try to understand.

RICHARD: Sure ... it would help your understanding considerably, however, if you were to take note of what I have to report (for example I notice that you have persisted in your ‘the perceiver and the perceived are one thing’ borrowed wisdom in another e-mail recently whilst regurgitating what you told me about the tree’s leaves being green).

There is no ‘observer’ to be the ‘observed’ here in this actual world.

RESPONDENT: It seems to me more logical, that if something like freedom of the instincts ...

RICHARD: If I may interject? An actual freedom from the human condition is a freedom from the instinctual passions – not the instincts per se – plus, of course, the feeling of ‘being’ (usually designated as a ‘state of being’) or ‘presence’ they automatically form themselves into.

RESPONDENT: ... must happen to humankind, then nature knows when and something will take place.

RICHARD: The identity who used to parasitically inhabit this flesh and blood body acted on the observation that an individual life was too short to hang about waiting for blind nature to get its act together (plus the human condition was already in place by being born replete with instinctual passions anyway).

RESPONDENT: Why must depend on you to change your nature?

RICHARD: Because at the current stage of evolution it is ‘you’ – and only ‘you’ – who can determine the fate of one flesh and blood body in particular and humankind in general.

RESPONDENT: Why you call nature blind nature etc and then you speak about beautiful universe unimaginable etc?

RICHARD: The term ‘blind nature’ is a well-known term which refers to the natural process of species propagation being survival of the species most fitted to the environment.

In short: it is not an intelligent process (the cognitive ability to think, recognise, remember, compare, appraise, reflect and propose considered action for beneficial reasons, which other animals cannot do, is intelligence in operation).

As I never speak about ‘beautiful universe’ your related query is a non-sequitur.

RESPONDENT: Do you think that the universe who created you or in your words the universe who is you experiencing its self, is less intelligent that you?

RICHARD: This infinite, eternal, and perpetual universe is not intelligent (except, as far as space exploration has been able to ascertain, as a human being) ... it is far, far more than merely intelligent.

Human beings value intelligence highly, of course, it being what has enabled the species to progress as far as it has thus far ... but to project this highly valued attribute onto the universe at large is anthropomorphism.

RESPONDENT: Do you think that you could explain to Iraqis when bombs are falling about to be free from their being?

RICHARD: Only if the person concerned spoke English (I have but the one language).

RESPONDENT: I find it logical that a jump will take place when is needed.

RICHARD: Nobody is twisting your arm to become free of the human condition ... all that blind nature is on about is survival of the species (and any species will do as far as blind nature is concerned).

Blind nature does not care two hoots about your condition ... the question is: do you?

*

RESPONDENT: You speak about peace on earth, is this not a feeling toward humanity?

RICHARD: No, it is actually caring about my fellow human beings and not merely feeling that one cares.

RESPONDENT: When they ask you what is passing through your heart when you see your children, you answered, blood.

RICHARD: Indeed I did ... that is because there is no instinctual passions whatsoever in this flesh and blood body.

RESPONDENT: Is this not a contradiction?

RICHARD: No, it is a statement of fact – nobody is special here in this actual world because everybody is special simply by virtue of being alive – and the people who were my children back when I was a father are fellow human beings living their life as they see fit.

I do not interfere ... I never offer unsolicited advice, for example.

RESPONDENT: When you need a policeman, you ask for his help, like the time the thief came to your house. The policeman is not an actualist.

RICHARD: Not in that instance, no ... there is nothing to stop a member of the police force from being an actualist, however, nor any reason why an actualist cannot take up policing as a profession.

RESPONDENT: The real change will take place, when there will not be need for policemen any more, and not locks on the doors necessary.

RICHARD: As that lack of need for police and locks on doors will only come about through radical change in the nature of each and every human being then to wait for ‘the real change’ is to be waiting forever, so to speak.

RESPONDENT: And I think that this will happen when the time will be right.

RICHARD: In the final analysis it is your life you are living and, provided you comply with the legal laws and observe the social protocols, you will be left alone to live your life as wisely or as foolishly as you wish ... only you get to reap the rewards or pay the consequences for any action or inaction you may or may not do.

Your freedom is in your hands and your hands alone.

RESPONDENT: Is good to be aware of our conditioning and make if possible some change to our lives, because this conditioning is man made (Society).

RICHARD: Indeed ... how are you going with curing yourself of agoraphobia?

RESPONDENT: But to arrive to the point by our self to alter or change our brain, may be dangerous also.

RICHARD: In what way is it ‘dangerous’ to become free from the human condition? I am neither in gaol nor a psychiatric institution; I can orient myself in space and time and navigate from point A to point B; I can defend myself when necessary by circumstances; I feed, clothe and house myself, paying all my bills on time; I make contingency plans to meet projected situations; I manage four net-worked computers, an internet domain, a web page, a mail server, and so on, without any prior experience or training; I write millions of words meaningfully strung together in sentences and paragraphs ... and, most importantly, I am neither a danger to myself or to others (which is the very first thing any psychiatrist/psychologist ascertains).

As this has been the situation for over a decade your prognosis is totally invalid.

*

RESPONDENT: After all you are not saying much different things than Jiddu Krishnamurti.

RICHARD: Ha ... an actual freedom from the human condition is 180 degrees in the opposite direction to the spiritual enlightenment he spoke so eloquently of for 60+ years.

RESPONDENT: Only that you are speaking about oblivion ...

RICHARD: Specifically the end of ‘being’ itself ... whereas Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti spoke highly of ‘being’ instead of ‘becoming’.

RESPONDENT: ... and he says that at the time of birth, the stream of thought which is what you call malice ...

RICHARD: I do not call malice ‘the stream of thought’ at all ... I consistently point to its actual origin (the instinctual passions) as it is feelings, and the ‘being’ or ‘presence’ which they automatically form themselves into, and not thoughts which are the root cause of the human condition.

RESPONDENT: ... is entering the body and forming the ego.

RICHARD: And where does this ‘stream of thought’ come from – and why – and how does it enter the body – and when – and in what way does it form the ego?

Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti vaguely said ‘it is there ... it manifests itself in people’ when similarly asked (see below).

RESPONDENT: He also never spoke about soul.

RICHARD: Au contraire ... he spoke about an eternal, incorruptible self. Vis.:

• [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘... the only spirituality is the incorruptibility of the self which is eternal’. (www.kfa.org/teachings_pathless_land.htm).

RESPONDENT: He was always saying that higher selves, souls, atman, etc are concepts and nonsense.

RICHARD: If the words ‘the self which is eternal’ (an incorruptible spiritual self) are not pointing to the same thing which the words ‘higher self’, ‘atman’, ‘soul’, and so on, refer to then what do they point to?

RESPONDENT: I don’t defending him but I like to say the things as they are.

RICHARD: Okay ... you will appreciate this quote then:

• [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘... reincarnation is a fact and not a belief’. (‘Early Writings’, Vol. V; p 110; Chetana, Bombay 1969).

And this one:

• [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘It [reincarnation] is a fact for me because I know it’. (‘Early Writings’, Vol. IV; p 69; Chetana, Bombay 1969).

Plus this (for those who dismiss his earlier words):

• [K]: ‘When the organism dies it is finished. But wait a minute. If I don’t end the image, the stream of image-making goes on. (...). That is: I die; the organism dies and at the last minute I am still with the image that I have. (...). So there is this constant flow of image-making.
• [B]: ‘Well, where does it take place? In people?
• [K]: ‘It is there. It manifests itself in people.
• [B]: ‘You feel it is in some ways more general, more universal?
• [K]: ‘Yes, much more universal. (...).
• [B]: ‘In other words you are saying that the image does not originate only in one brain, but it is in some sense universal?
• [K]: ‘Universal. Quite right. (pages 122-126, Dialogue VII; May 20 1976;‘The Wholeness Of Life’; © 1979 by The Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd; Published by HarperCollins, New York).

Or even this one:

• [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘When you die your thought of yourself goes on in that stream as it is going on now – as a Christian, Buddhist, whatever you please – greedy, envious, ambitious, frightened, pursuing pleasure – that is this human stream in which you are caught’. (Talks in Saanen 1974, 6th Public Talk).

Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti was nothing more and nothing less than the latest in a long line of saints, sages, and seers, which Indian spirituality has managed to produce over thousands of years ... do you still want to claim that I am ‘not saying much different things than Jiddu Krishnamurti’ after all?

RESPONDENT: He also never worked. I should like to see him working in the centre of London. He also made two abortions with his best friend’s wife. As said her daughter (Rosalind Rajagopal).

RICHARD: What was most telling in the book ‘Lives In The Shadow With J. Krishnamurti’ was that he, whilst ostensibly being a committed pacifist, instead of ‘sitting together as two friends under a tree discussing matters’ took Mr. Desik Rajagopal to court – three times over a sixteen year period – which court cases were only settled after his demise ... here is the relevant text of the final settlement (written in legalese language):

• [quote]: ‘... the Krishnamurti Parties acknowledge that the documents they sought to recover from the Rajagopal Parties in the prior lawsuits are, in fact, Rajagopal’s documents and may be kept by Rajagopal’. (Case No. 79918, D. Rajagopal, et al. v. J Krishnamurti et al., Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Ventura).

On the one hand there is the ideal (sitting together as two friends under a tree discussing matters) and on the other hand there is the reality (taking out several lawsuits to obtain legal possession of a former associate’s documents) ... and the documents in question are those which Ms. Radha Sloss states verify all she wrote in her book (only they will not be made public until after the persons concerned have died).

In other words, Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti did not listen to his own ‘Teachings’ ... but, then again, he oft-times distanced himself from the ‘Teachings’ as do the many and varied saints, sages and seers (popularly phrased as do not look at the finger but look at what the finger is pointing to).

He made it very clear where his peace lay ... the (supposed) answer to all the ills of humankind is not to be found in the world:

• [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘I have found the answer to all this [violence], not in the world but away from it’. (page 94, ‘Krishnamurti – His Life And Death’; Mary Lutyens; Avon Books: New York 1991).

Eastern spirituality is fundamentally all about avoiding rebirth ... not about peace-on-earth.

*

RESPONDENT: And to end, I should like to say what I think is happening. I think that the sense of existence, is common to all humankind.

RICHARD: To all those not yet free of the human condition the intuitive, or instinctive, feeling of existing (the feeling of ‘being’) is common to all humankind.

RESPONDENT: After with the different conditionings and identities, we think we are separate human beings.

RICHARD: No, it is because of blind nature’s biological inheritance that each and every human being feels separate ... the social conditioning is a well-meant attempt to keep the wayward self under control.

RESPONDENT: Right now my sense of existence is exactly the same with yours ...

RICHARD: You have to be joking, right?

RESPONDENT: ... and everybody’s else.

RICHARD: I have talked with many and varied peoples from all walks of life (I have both travelled the country and overseas), and watched television, videos, films (whatever media is available), read about other people’s experiences in books, journals, magazines, newspapers (and latterly on the internet), for more than two decades, to find somebody else actually free from the human condition, but to no avail.

Therefore, if you could provide web pages, books titles, magazine articles, newspaper reports, manuscripts, pamphlets, brochures or whatever that I can access – or other mailing lists that I can subscribe to – wherein the words of these people, who have written about how their ‘sense of existence’ is ‘exactly’ the same as mine, can be found I would be most pleased.

We could compare notes, as it were, to determine what is idiosyncratic and what is common.

RESPONDENT: May be now I am swimming and you have headache. But the sense of existence without the identities is the same EXACTLY.

RICHARD: Ahh ... without the parasitical identity within the sense of being here, as a flesh and blood body only, would be very similar (if not exactly the same).

RESPONDENT: I can not see this sense of existence is possible to disappear, because does not exist non existence.

RICHARD: Here is how you started this line of thought:

• [Respondent]: ‘Richard you define the being as soul. I don’t know nothing about soul. For me being is to exist.

Now, while I say it is possible for ‘the being’ I variously call the ‘soul’, ‘spirit’, or ‘presence’, to cease to exist (and this is experiential and not theoretical), you have not only removed what those words refer to (the parasitical entity within the body) through a misunderstanding of what Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti had to say but have substituted the word ‘existence’ as well ... only to then declare that existence cannot cease to exist.

It smacks of being what is academically known as ‘word-magic’.

RESPONDENT: Non existence is a concept born out from opposition to existence.

RICHARD: Whereas altruistic ‘self-immolation’, for the benefit of this body and that body and every body, is born out of the desire for the already always existing peace-on-earth to become apparent sooner rather than later.

To imply that ceasing to exist as a parasitical entity is a concept born from opposition to existence is not all that much different to saying that an actual freedom from the human condition is an escape from dissatisfaction. Vis.:

• [Respondent]: ‘... this actual freedom is a way to escape from your dissatisfaction. One SSRI will make the trick. (Re: justice and fairness; May 07, 2003).

All around you are wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides and so on ... yet you would rather advise taking medication in combination with presenting flawed philosophical arguments (plus pseudo-scientific proofs of a god for that matter) and waiting for blind nature to take its course.

Anything but actually doing something substantial, eh?

RESPONDENT: So after death this sense of existence will continue in another baby (NO REINCARNATION AND THESE NONSENSE) I am born in every baby and then the different identities are separating its other.

RICHARD: The feeling of ‘being’ (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is ‘being’ itself) is what the instinctual passions automatically form themselves into: as the instinctual passions, being biologically inherited, are passed on in the germ cells (the spermatozoa and the ova) it could be said that what you describe as ‘the same feeling of existence’ in another e-mail will continue in another baby ... in all babies, in fact.

RESPONDENT: Think about it.

RICHARD: I have far better things to do with my time – such as sitting with my feet up on the coffee table watching comedies on TV – than thinking about theoretical rehashes of the totally self-centred spiritual/mystical wisdom of yore.

I lived that twaddle dressed-up as sagacity for eleven years ... any and all intellectualising about it will not make it into something else.

*

RESPONDENT: I should like to add to my previous email, when I wrote No reincarnation and all these nonsense please add no higher selves I am, who am I? I am god etc.

RICHARD: This is at odds with what you wrote in another e-mail:

• [Respondent]: ‘I am not a religious person. I don’t mean god the way church over-imposed on us. (...) We consider our selves intelligent but we are a by-product. So must be a higher intelligence’. (Re: The beginning of the universe by Prof. Stephen Hawking Look attachment; Jul 03, 2003).

RESPONDENT: All these are one packer with the only value for Osho to buy Mercedes and all the similar with him frauds gurus. Try to grasp about the existence I wrote without the above packet.

RICHARD: Hmm ... Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain often used the word ‘existence’ as a substitute word for the word ‘god’ (the Jain religion which he was born into is as much a godless religion as the Buddhist religion is) – when he was not using the word ‘godliness’ that is – and Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti found value in ‘reincarnation and all these nonsense’ (as per the quotes further above for example) all the while vigorously denying he was a guru and you post a spurious proof of god to the mailing list, entitled ‘The end of actual freedom?’, and then breathlessly tell me to grasp what you are saying about this (supposed) higher intelligence you call existence ‘without the above packet’ ... as if there were no trace of irony in your words after all.

O what a tangled web they weave when first they practice to deceive.


CORRESPONDENT No. 44 (Part Three)

RETURN TO THE ACTUAL FREEDOM MAILING LIST INDEX

RETURN TO RICHARD’S CORRESPONDENCE INDEX

RICHARD’S HOME PAGE

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 and Use Restrictions and Guarantee of Authenticity