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Richard’s Correspondence On The Actual Freedom Mailing List with Correspondent No. 82
RESPONDENT: Richard, for as long as I can remember, I’ve been trying to live fully in what was experienced in what seem to be what you call PCE’s (maybe everyone is doing that – knowingly or not?). RICHARD: Welcome to The Actual Freedom Trust mailing list ... it is my experience that pronouncements such as ‘there must be more to life than this’, and so forth, stemmed from unrecalled pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s), otherwise known as moments of perfection, which all peoples I have spoken to at length have had at some time in their life. They usually tend to occur more readily in childhood ... but can, and do, occur anytime. RESPONDENT: On my long journey of pursuing that, I recently came to the AFT website. From what I’ve read about you, your pursuits were very similar to mine – yet you appear to have come to quite a different place than I have so far – it seems that you may be at the ‘destination’ (for lack of a better word) that I still feel partly separated from. RICHARD: The word ‘destination’ is entirely appropriate ... it being derived from ‘destine’ which, according to the Oxford Dictionary, refers to being bound or intended for a place, to be going to a place. Now comes the seemingly tricky part (and I follow the sensible convention of putting personal pronouns in smart quotes when specifically referring to an identity, a psychological/psychic entity, within the body): ‘my’ destiny is oblivion – death is the end, finish – and, as ‘I’ am going to become extinct anyway, ‘I’ might as well get it over and done with now ... or, at the very least, sooner rather than later. And I say this because ‘my’ extinction at physical death will achieve nothing in regards, not only peace-on-earth, but in enabling the already always existing meaning of life (or ‘the reason for existence’ or ‘the purpose of the universe’ or however one’s quest be phrased) into being apparent ... nothing at all. Whereas ‘my’ (altruistic) ‘self’-immolation, whilst the flesh and blood body is still alive, will ... for this body, that body and every body. RESPONDENT: I very much want to see what I can of what you are and what you are sharing, as quickly as is possible, so I’m here to try to have direct interaction with you (gulp/stomach knot/yippee). To fill in more of the picture (for what each of the following is worth): – I realize that this posting is full of ‘I’, ‘want’, ‘feeling’, ‘being’, etc., which are what are in question here; – it seems that I’m only partly inside of them – that I’m part-PCE and part-not all of the time; –that neither fear or desire are total controlling factors waiting to be overcome – I seem to be only partly in them; – from here it seems that there’s only a little bit waiting to be done – apperception of a last little bit; (‘physical’ and ‘preference’ were big new recent directions from reading the AFT website). RICHARD: The only thing I will comment on, at this stage, is apperception: apperceptive awareness, an unmediated perceiving, can only occur when identity in toto is either in abeyance (during a PCE) or extinct (upon an actual freedom from the human condition). RESPONDENT: If this doesn’t fit with what you are doing on the mailing list at this point – I apologize. RICHARD: What I am doing on this mailing list is responding to what my fellow human being considers important enough to type out and click ‘send’ ... and it might be helpful to bear in mind that what is typed out and sent is what determines the response. RESPONDENT: I haven’t read any of it prior to this posting. I thought what I would read there might, in the short term, throw me off track of what to say, and I didn’t want to let the opportunity of possible contact be affected or delayed. RICHARD: This mailing list is unmoderated as actualism works in the market-place and not behind cloistered walls ... a moderated mailing list would create a false atmosphere as the e-mail interactions quite accurately reflect the face-to-face interactions wherever beliefs (most often cunningly disguised as ‘truths’) are questioned and where ‘my’ very survival depends upon the full gamut of ‘my’ very being – the instinctual passions – swinging into action. The main difference between such e-mail interactions, and face-to-face interactions, is that the former is (physically) safer. Viz.:
RESPONDENT: And finally, posting anonymously makes the most sense to me at this time, as far as I can see. Is that acceptable? Also, I can use a simpler name – this one is the date of the first posting – seems like a good way to generate a number. RICHARD: It makes no substantial difference what name a person is referred to by – or, for that matter, what gender, age, or ethnicity, they are – as what is important is that it is a fellow human being at the keyboard.
RESPONDENT: Richard, I’ve stepped out of – I’m not where and how I want to be – and into – I am where and how I want to be. I did nothing more than that – I got fed up and so I tried this. There’s no evidence that anything is different – other than that I feel great instead of feeling like I was in a vice, and I no longer think or feel as though where I am has any limitations, or can have. I don’t know how it works being here this way, or what to do, but that doesn’t feel like a problem because I can go explore and learn in any way I want. Any ‘limitations’ here don’t seem like they’ll really be limitations – just the way it all works – the structure of experiencing it(?). I can go back to where I was but don’t want to. I can feel fear coming in and pulling me back there, but I’m not convinced that I have to worry about that – but it is pulling. Now the feeling of being here is almost gone. But I’m not willing to concede that I’m out of here – I’m going to try and stay, and work from here, and see more of what it is. Physical feelings are a little different – I kind of feel like the body feels the sensations, rather than me feeling the body. I feel calm and even and open – yet my hands are sweaty like they often are, and there is physical tension, but it’s not bothering me. I’d like to hear anything you might say about what this is. RICHARD: It would appear that ‘this’ – which is where and how you want to be; where you feel great instead of feeling as in a vice; where you no longer think or feel there is any limitations or can be (and where any of those are not really that); where you do not know how it works (other than any limitations being not really that but are, maybe, the structure of experiencing it) or what to do; where not knowing the hows and whys thereof is not a problem (because you can explore and learn in any way you want); where you kind of feel like the body feels the sensations (rather than you feeling the body); where you feel calm and even and open – which is where you can still feel fear/ have sweating hands/ have physical tension is an altered state of consciousness (ASC) of some kind ... especially so if it is the same place where you previously reported that [quote] ‘it seems that there’s only a little bit waiting to be done’ [endquote].
RESPONDENT: Richard, I came across this statement of yours while reading in the Actual Freedom Trust website – ‘It is this simple: eliminate the instinctual passions and you are free.’ RICHARD: You must be referring to this:
Of course, as ‘I’ am the instinctual passions, and as the instinctual passions are ‘me’, then the elimination of the one is the elimination of the other – they are the one and the same thing – and, as ‘I’ cannot eliminate the instinctual passions and yet still stay in existence, any attempt to eliminate the one without eliminating the other can only result in (at best) detachment or (at worst) dissociation. RESPONDENT: (Using pieced-together segments of sentences you’ve written): In order to bring about the possibility of ‘enabling the already always existing’ ‘peace-on-earth’ ‘into being apparent’ ‘for this body, that body, and everybody’ – it seems to me that I must reach the point of seeing myself in my entirety, all at once. RICHARD: Many years ago the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body was wont to say, after having had the
memorable pure consciousness experience (PCE) which set what has nowadays become known as the actualism process in action And ‘he’ would say this because, at the very instant of that seminal PCE happening, ‘he’ did see himself, in ‘his’ entirety, all at once and that very seeing was the end of ‘him’ (albeit for the duration of the PCE). In other words, and speaking generally, mostly people do not dare to see themselves, in their entirety, all at once and elect instead for the detached/dissociated way of seeing ... it being a whole lot safer, so to speak. RESPONDENT: At that point, it seems everything will be clear. RICHARD: Provided it be the end-of-oneself type of seeing ... yes. RESPONDENT: And it seems, in order to ‘eliminate the instinctual passions’, I will have to reach the point of seeing them in their entirety, all at once. Seeing them in their entirety – is, it seems to me, seeing myself in my entirety. RICHARD: As they are both one and the same thing ... indeed so. RESPONDENT: I wonder if all of that is correct. RICHARD: Yes ... and having said all this it must be pointed out that one does not actually ever see oneself, in one’s entirety, all at once because the identity who would do the seeing has to cease to exist for that seeing to occur (whereupon there is no identity to be seen, in its entirety, all at once). And I am neither being tricky nor mystical in saying this ... it is factually so. RESPONDENT: If so, those two ways of looking at the objective seem to mutually feed off of and support each other. This moment strikes me as one of such a giant wide-open possibility that I have to slam my accelerator to the floor in order to fly into it fast enough to keep up with it. RICHARD: Ha ... if the experience of the identity who used to inhabit this flesh and blood body all those years ago is anything to go by the opposite occurs as ‘he’ would oft-times reach for the brake-pedal, in order to slow down the rocketing momentum unleashed upon giving ‘himself’ permission to go all the way, only to find (with a sinking feeling of alarum/a thrilling feeling of gay abandon) that ‘his’ foot went all the way to the floor. Put simply: once launched there is no way of stopping the process ... it is the ride of a lifetime. RESPONDENT: Putting this here so that what I’m doing is on display to maximize the possibility of receiving input from you. RICHARD: Sure ... one of the reasons this mailing list exists is so that my fellow human being can tease out of me items that may not occur to me to write otherwise (as in writing an impromptu article). RESPONDENT: If you have any input, it will be greatly appreciated. RICHARD: You are very welcome ... please bear in mind that all I can do is offer hints, tips, suggestions, clues, and so on, born out of personal experience – insider information as it were – and anything I have to report/describe/explain must, of necessity, be verified experientially in order to be of effect. Merely believing me will get one nowhere ... and fast.
RESPONDENT: (...) I’d like to hear anything you might say about what this is. RICHARD: It would appear that ‘this’ – which is where and how you want to be; where you feel great instead of feeling as in a vice; where you no longer think or feel there is any limitations or can be (and where any of those are not really that); where you do not know how it works (other than any limitations being not really that but are, maybe, the structure of experiencing it) or what to do; where not knowing the hows and whys thereof is not a problem (because you can explore and learn in any way you want); where you kind of feel like the body feels the sensations (rather than you feeling the body); where you feel calm and even and open – which is where you can still feel fear/have sweating hands/have physical tension is an altered state of consciousness (ASC) of some kind ... especially so if it is the same place where you previously reported that [quote] ‘it seems that there’s only a little bit waiting to be done’ [endquote]. RESPONDENT: I really appreciated receiving your comments. I’ve been working everyday solid since then, writing and rewriting follow-ups (trying to find a clear understanding and a way to write it), working with new things I’m seeing, and working on applying the ‘method’. I haven’t anything else that is ready to post yet, but before any more time went by, I thought I’d post this. I didn’t want to leave the description the way it was. If you have any comments, I’m very interested. RICHARD: The only comment I can make at this stage is that there is insufficient information to provide a meaningful comment ... besides which I am somewhat reluctant to appraise another’s description unless it be strikingly obvious just what it is as experience has shown that when another tells me they do not know whether such-and-such an experience was an ASC, or something else, it is, as a generalisation, not a pure consciousness experience (PCE) … in a PCE it is startlingly apparent to the experient that is indeed a PCE. For just one example:
RESPONDENT: I don’t know if the above was an ASC, or something else. Whatever it was, the way that I wrote about it was vague, and further, if I apply what I know of your approach to word usage, my wording choices there (such as ‘feel’s and ‘feeling’s) communicate almost the opposite of what I intended. I didn’t want to use words in a new way that wasn’t integrated ‘in me’ – and I knew the meaning would be clear, at least to me, later. RICHARD: By and large it is quite obvious that the words ‘feel/feels’ and ‘feeling/feelings’ can refer to either a sensate experience (as in ‘the sun’s rays feel warming’ and ‘I am feeling the wind’s cooling caress’ for instance) or to an affective experience (as in ‘love/hate feels good/bad’ and ‘I have feelings of sorrow/ compassion’ for example) ... what is a little less obvious, generally speaking, is that they can also refer to an intuitive, and therefore affective, sensing (as in ‘it feels right/true’ and ‘I have feelings of rightness/trueness’). Put succinctly: an intuitive sensing (an affective feeling) of limitlessness is a difference in kind, and not of degree, to
the fact of being without limitation (being sans the psychological/psychic identity) and thus directly experiencing the infinitude RESPONDENT: Perhaps I shouldn’t have posted it the way it was. Here’s some clarification: I decided to put together the best attempt to move forward that I could, and try it. What I could see in-advance was that I wanted to step out of ‘When is this here-and-now going to be infinitely-great like I wish it would be?’ and into ‘This here and now is fully unsurpassable – right here, right now.’ (That’s what the ‘where’ in ‘where and how I want to be’ from the posting refers to). I also wanted to step out of ‘Why aren’t I experiencing this fully, now?’ and into – actually fully and actively experiencing this unsurpassibility here and now. (And that’s what the ‘how’ in ‘where and how I want to be’ refers to). RICHARD: Harking back to your first words in your initial e-mail – [quote] ‘for as long as I can remember I’ve been trying to live fully in what was experienced in what seem to be what you call PCE’s’ [endquote] – your intent was, presumably, to step-out of the one and step-into the other once-and-for-all (as in never-to-return)? And I am asking as it is the intent which is the key factor ... preferably pure intent. RESPONDENT: So: As completely as I could, I left the one and went into the other. Then it seemed that I was just experiencing. Nothing had changed about the circumstance (‘there’s no evidence that anything is different’) yet it was all entirely different because the experiencing was entirely different. It seemed so obvious that limited experiencing could never give anything but limited experience. RICHARD: Bearing in mind that a limited ‘self’ (an identity by another name) can experience itself as being limitless (and a limitless ‘Self’ is still an identity nevertheless) what factors were there about the key words in that description – your ‘then it seemed that I was just experiencing’ sentence – that would indicate it was experiencing sans a limitless identity? RESPONDENT: The next part, about ‘limitations’, was that I didn’t have any sense of being limited whatsoever. RICHARD: Again, was it a direct (unmediated) sensing or an intuitive (affective) sensing? RESPONDENT: It’s not that I had transcended the physical laws and become special; it was that the physical laws weren’t limiting in any way, because I’m the same stuff that everything else is, so there’s nothing about this that could be in opposition to anything else. The sentence: ‘Any ‘limitations’ here don’t seem like they’ll really be limitations – just the way it all works – the structure of experiencing it (?)’ – was more of how physical laws and characteristics weren’t confining (which they sometimes seem to be from a spiritual or metaphysical standpoint) and that rather, they seem to be liberating because they seem to be the very thing that is experienceable. RICHARD: I will say this much: this flesh and blood body is subject to ‘the physical laws’ (such as, for an obvious instance, gravity and, for another example, cause and effect) and these material parameters are most appreciable – and thus most appreciated – else nothing would make sense. RESPONDENT: I don’t remember a place for feelings to be there – (in the beginning when I noticed that I felt great – it seemed like something different than a typical feeling), until when I started to feel fear. To the degree that fear came in – I lost the sense of being there. When I went back to paying attention to here and now, the fear got left behind. So, it doesn’t seem as if feelings could be a part of it, from what I remember. RICHARD: In an ASC feelings cease being the affections one has as they have become an (affective) state of being ... else it be not an ASC. RESPONDENT: Soon I stopped actively doing it so that I could reflect on what it all was – and I drifted back nearer to what I usually do, and that’s where I am still. Everything seemed – here, clear, and maybe a bit extraordinary – but not very vivid or magical. RICHARD: It would appear then, that whatever it was, it was neither an ASC (of the nature popularly know as spiritual enlightenment/mystical awakenment) nor a full-blown PCE ... howsoever the key words – in your ‘then it seemed that I was just experiencing’ sentence – do stand out as being significant ... and very much so. As do ‘there’s nothing about this that could be in opposition to anything else’ for that matter.
RESPONDENT: Richard, weeks have gone by since I received your responses to my posts. RICHARD: As even more weeks than that have gone by, since you posted your e-mails, that makes two of us not immediately responding. RESPONDENT: When I read them I found that I am, in fact, receiving kind, thoughtful, caring fellowship in a discussion about this ‘subject’ which is of the fullest importance to me! RICHARD: Good ... and I am pleased that it be of such importance (else nothing substantive would occur). RESPONDENT: What a momentous occurrence! RICHARD: Aye ... a vital opportunity, in fact, as I am wont to say. RESPONDENT: It was therefore (not meaning to be overly dramatic) painful not to have responded to you all of this time. But everything I wrote seemed possibly unsound (i.e. too incomplete, and sometimes maybe even wishfully-thinkingly-dishonest) and the idea of polluting this situation, left me with a sick sensation. For weeks I worked on seeing more clearly and writing replies – along with trying to incorporate what was occurring during that time. I was continually trying to move forward in applying what I’m gathering in – every way I could – and I was trying a lot of things. Everyday I thought I’d finish the responses, but nothing I wrote seemed finally sendable. For one, I find it very difficult to functionally express at this level of experience and discussion (now included). And I sometimes got carried away in excitement and speculation. On top of that – although it seems to have stabilized quite a bit, there seemed to be a widely shifting standpoint of experiencing so that what seemed greatly significant at the writing, later looked to be insignificant, or even suspect. So I’d like to apologize for the rudeness of not acknowledging your caring outreach and fellowship right away (not that you were needing/expecting it), and to say – Thank You! RICHARD: You are very welcome ... and it matters not if there be no immediate response (or any at all for that matter). RESPONDENT: I eventually found that I was not making headway with the follow up’s, so I loosened my grip on the situation and set them aside for a time when I had something clear to say, and pushed forward in a new way. I would like to say that your writing rings like a bell to me, and ‘rings’ me like a bell – if you see what I mean. I’m using a metaphor, but it’s literal in a way because it moves all (or maybe a lot) of me at once – as if everything comes together – like in a moment of perfection. Now that I look at that, maybe it stops all of me from moving – all at once – and that’s what happens in a moment of perfection(!?) RICHARD: That is what happens ... yes. RESPONDENT: (For the ‘I’ everything stops, but for the native intelligence, doesn’t everything come together in a manner of speaking?). RICHARD: In a manner of speaking ...yes (except that it has been together all along but could hardly get a word in edgeways, so to speak, and in those moments has no hindrance). RESPONDENT: I experience that as something seemingly supremely-fine, and massively so (beyond massively), over and over and over and over ... as I’ve been reading. So, for what it’s worth, it’s clear to me what you are intending to do with your writing (as far as I’ve been able to see into it so far), and that it is having exactly the intended effect here. RICHARD: The way I have put it previously is this:
RESPONDENT: I would say that you are communicating something experiential. And it is all somehow so familiar. It seems clearly beyond tremendous, or any word of degree. As an aside, I don’t find your writing to be flowery or verbose at all. RICHARD: Okay ... even so, I make no apologies for an extravagant exuberance with words when I write expressively ... for I am conveying the lavish exhilaration of life itself. RESPONDENT: In fact I find it incredibly distilled and essential. But coming from one with a writing ability such as mine, that observation may be of dubious value! There have been many bits of progress, but some stand out: In your recent batch of responses to threads with other correspondents, you discussed infinite matter not itself evolving; mass/ energy/ form; perpetuum mobilis; etc. In all of that I realized that it’s matter that’s experiencing itself!! I had been working with the idea of the universe experiencing itself – and in that, although I was trying to get past it, I was still caught in an anthropomorphic view. But matter-experiencing-itself – with that I saw past it! What a thing! Agog? Yes! RICHARD: Yes, indeed ... I do recall being dumbfounded, all those years ago, that it has been here all along, out in the open, unconcealed, unhidden (for those with the eyes to see). RESPONDENT: (By the way, it was the discussion of matter, mass, and energy that made it clear to me that matter and mass were not synonymous terms which maybe made this realization possible). RICHARD: Also as an aside: I use the word ‘matter’ (a thirteenth century word from the Latin ‘matteria’) as an all-inclusive word to refer to both its mass phase (‘mass’ is a fifteenth century word from the Latin ‘massa’) and its energy phase (‘energy’ is a sixteenth century word from the Latin ‘energia’). RESPONDENT: It seems to be the irreducible key that unlocks everything. The answer to everything. At that moment I thought: that closes the last big gap. I’ll have to see about that, but that way of looking at it seems to have been a crucial breakthrough. Since then I’ve moved on to trying to actualize this. Another big point that I have come-to in many places on the website, and on this list, is how to neither repress or express an emotion, but to let the third alternative come into play. It seems I’ve been doing a fair amount of that all along without knowing it formally as such, but not yet with some of the big un-tackled issues, and now find it works instantly even on them, to the degree that I apply it. RICHARD: Excellent ... and it is that simple. RESPONDENT: So I’m looking to get into everything else that I’m still doing, to apply that. If I understand it, even ‘being’ itself is undone with that simple act. Your discussion about ending the self with
Correspondent No. 39 on Mailing list ‘B’ RICHARD: I am pleased to hear that ... I do remember that discussion well for it spells-out that which I had been wanting to have explicitly set down in words for a long time (the identity inhabiting this body all those years ago had looked in vain for anything detailed in that manner) because it pertains to matters which were the critical factor in the turning-point experiences on some uninhabited islands off the north-eastern seaboard of this country in 1985 ... to wit: the existential angst of discovering that one is nothing but a contingent ‘being’ and that one will cease to ‘be’ unless the redemptive straw, of several doomsday straws, be grasped. RESPONDENT: I’ve also come across some of your descriptions of how – as you might say – the identity that once inhabited the flesh and blood body that you are – dealt with the process of self immolation. They were in your early discussions with Alan in the ‘General Correspondence No. 4’ section. I found them, along with your suggestions to him about how to deal with the process, to be extremely helpful. There have been many, many majorly helpful things, but those give a pretty good idea of where I’m at. As I’ve written this there is increasing anxiety about sending it. There is a concern that putting this out there will somehow lead to a crisis of doubt later on – as if all of this is tainted somehow – dishonest, and that I’ll have to admit it later on and backtrack. It’s the same concern that’s stopped me before. I have to wonder if that is phoney doubt. RICHARD: I cannot, of course, know for sure – only you can know that – yet it does seem to be just that (phoney doubt). RESPONDENT: All I can say is that this reflects my current understanding as well as I can put it into words, and that I am proceeding with this to see for myself if it is true, and if it is, to actualize it myself all the way, as directly as possible. Maybe this post will give some sense of where I stand in relation to pure intent, and the other basic issues in play. Now maybe it will be easy to follow-up on your responses, since I’m not trying to fit all of this into the context of those threads. RICHARD: As I am only going to comment on the main section of your follow-up I will append it further below. RESPONDENT: I know it is long, and it’s more roughly worded than I would like, but experience this last month has taught me that if I try to come back later to clean this up, it will never get sent. So I’ll send it. [Addendum]: In case I was unclear, in the fifth to the last paragraph, where I wrote: ‘I like it in the extreme’ – I mean that I like the nitty-gritty to an extreme degree, not that I like to be extreme. RICHARD: Understood. * RESPONDENT: (...) then it seemed that I was just experiencing. Nothing had changed about the circumstance (‘there’s no evidence that anything is different’) yet it was all entirely different because the experiencing was entirely different. It seemed so obvious that limited experiencing could never give anything but limited experience. RICHARD: Bearing in mind that a limited ‘self’ (an identity by another name) can experience itself as being limitless (and a limitless ‘Self’ is still an identity nevertheless) what factors were there about the key words in that description – your ‘then it seemed that I was just experiencing’ sentence – that would indicate it was experiencing sans a limitless identity? RESPONDENT: The next part, about ‘limitations’, was that I didn’t have any sense of being limited whatsoever. RICHARD: Again, was it a direct (unmediated) sensing or an intuitive (affective) sensing? RESPONDENT: I don’t know which it was (or is). Sometimes there’s a particular kind of doubt portraying experiences such as that, and the memories of them, as projections and embellishments from my reading (a ‘self’ trying to have limitlessness?). I think doubt – if that is the correct word – is essential when genuine (such as what leads one out of an ASC); but this looks like it might be fear/ anchoring masquerading as doubt. I’m trying to see which it is. Having said that, as I recall, during that time – and since, including several heightened times while writing/reflecting on it, I experienced to a degree: 1. Everything/ everybody is participating fully in what’s going on. 2. Everything and everybody are all of one thing. 3. Even every thought and action is in-and-of that same one thing, so there is nowhere for any supposed separate thing to enter in, or be. It’s impossible to be self-centred, or to want to be. There is simply nothing out of which such a thing could be produced. 4. Everything/ everybody is of full value/ merit – except that those kinds of words don’t fit. And there is nothing to gain, and nowhere to put it if there was. There’s only doing – not having, and that’s already always full (as far into that as I experienced). Once I went to a place bustling with people to see if that would shed more light on what it was. Even though it was faded by the time I got there, the experience was closer, more active than usual. Intimate does seem like a good word for it. I seemed to be more as experiencing itself, and less having it. It was a beyond-pleasing shock/ surprise that although that experiencing seemed to be entirely – entirely – action, it was easier than easy (words-of-degree just don’t seem to fit). It seemed to be a little of that stillness you refer to. It was both the most active, and the most still experiencing that I can recall – other than maybe some split-second experiences. RICHARD: I can relate to recollection No. 1 unreservedly; to say the same about No. 2 would require the proviso that the ‘one thing’ be clearly delineated as No. 3 makes it questionable that it be purely physical; I can certainly relate to the ‘not having’ part of No. 4. Consequently, the words which stand out to me are where you say ‘I seemed to be more as experiencing itself, and less having it’ ... so I will say no more and provide the following as it still seems to be more like an altered state of consciousness (ASC) than a pure consciousness experience (PCE):
RESPONDENT: Richard, I continue to be super-glad to read your writing. Through the continuing interaction of this mailing list, it seems to me that you are putting more and more of what actual freedom is, and how to enable it to become apparent, into words – which are filling in gaps in my understanding, and helping me hugely. RICHARD: It is the feed-back nature of the mailing list format which elicits information out of me that would not necessarily come about were I to just sit down and write an article for a book ... which elicited information also includes that which persons critical of what is presented draw forth. RESPONDENT: I thought I’d tell you the way things look to me right now: lately, I am glimpsing the possibility more clearly that I am passional-instinct. Before, when I was trying to move toward virtual freedom, I think I was unwittingly, in large part, moving in an instinctual direction – and therefore heading away from virtual freedom and increasing myself. So far, it’s as if I’m seeing the tip of an iceberg. I came to this when I realized that I wasn’t steering directly for felicity a lot of the time; and that when I was steering for it, there was a limit to how much I could find. While looking for more of it, I became increasingly aware that seriousness and aching seemed to characterize a good deal of my experience. I had read many of your statements about being serious, such as how seriousness ‘actively works against peace-on-earth’ – and thought I was applying them, but I didn’t realize how much seriousness was there(*). RICHARD: As the process of becoming serious occurs during puberty – when the biological imperative kicks in big-time – it thus runs very deep and is fundamental to the make-up of ‘my’ adulthood. RESPONDENT: Looking closer, it seemed that the very thing that I’d been looking-for-felicity-with was that seriousness, aching, and desperateness. At that point, for the first time it looked to me as if I was those feelings (among others yet unseen). It was as if a big burden was lifted – I wasn’t being those feelings, and I was more felicitous than I could ever remember being. It seemed I was in a little bit deeper place in myself – that I had been unaware of. It started out as being filled with sadness that wasn’t about anything specific. Then it felt like sorrow (maybe universal). Again, it seemed clearly to be me rather than ‘my’ feelings. It was a wonderful experience because it wasn’t a new sorrow, but rather seemed to be the revealing of something big that had been there all along. I got excited and grasping, and the experience ended. RICHARD: If it were universal sorrow then in all probability the ‘something big’ may very well have been universal compassion (out of which comes universal love). RESPONDENT: It seemed clear that there is also more beneath sorrow. RICHARD: Aye ... in a word: doom (as in ‘doom and gloom’). RESPONDENT: After that, I ended up being seriousness, etc. again to some degree, and am easing (backing?) out of being it as I notice it. I’m enjoying things more than ever! Apparently there is only so much felicity you can have in desperateness! Go figure! (*) I am beside myself in astonishment right now because I just saw that all seriousness, no matter how plain and regular it seems, is really, all-the-while, pure full-on desperateness in operation in a kind of translated(?) form. Is that correct? RICHARD: Yes ... inasmuch there is no escaping the fact that ‘I’ am doomed to die (to cease to exist). RESPONDENT: It sure seems to be. Also, it seems that this kind of seeing can take me all the way through the rest of what I am. It’s almost unbelievable to see this because it looks like all of a person’s feeling, all-of-the-time, is really full-on suffering – which is a burden that is fully felt all-of-the-time, yet totally unrecognized as such – and is in fact, continuously sought after and perpetuated! Wow! I wonder if this is correct? RICHARD: It is indeed correct. RESPONDENT: Wow, wow, wow. I am very, very interested in anything you might have to say. RICHARD: The following may be of interest:
RETURN TO THE ACTUAL FREEDOM MAILING LIST INDEX RETURN TO RICHARD’S CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
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