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Richard’s Correspondence On The Actual Freedom Mailing List with Correspondent No. 84
RESPONDENT: Where is Richard? RICHARD: I have been otherwise occupied, this past month or two, moving house – selling-off furniture, white-goods, desk-top computers, and the like – and settling into my new residence ... a ready-made retreat somewhat removed from mainstream utilities in that it has no internet connection (no telephone cable), electric power comes primarily via photovoltaic cells, bottled liquid petroleum gas fuels the stove, and so forth. RESPONDENT: He hasn’t died again has he? RICHARD: Ha ... I have been here all along (it was the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body who died all those years ago). RESPONDENT: Does he intend to participate here again? RICHARD: Aye, although probably less often than before, and certainly less immediately as, until wireless access comes of age in this country, my only way onto the world wide web is through internet cafés, whenever I come into the nearest town to purchase supplies, or via the connection of select associates should the occasion arise to socialise. I do have a mobile phone but, as uploads/downloads using it as a modem take a month of Sundays to complete, and as by being charged for by the minute it costs an arm and a leg into the bargain, I cannot see that sending off an e-mail anytime of the day or night, as has been my wont, is likely to be happening soon. Apart from all that ... I do notice, having just this previous night read through all the 400+ e-mails since I last wrote, that the mailing list is doing just fine without me. And this pleases me greatly.
RESPONDENT: When Richard advises people to ‘minimise’ the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activate the felicitous feelings what does he really mean by ‘minimise’? RICHARD: He means lessen their grip and reduce both the prevalence and duration of them, through nipping them in the
bud RESPONDENT: Feelings can be ‘minimised’ by brute force, e.g. repression, denial, avoidance and distraction but what is the sensible way to do it? RICHARD: By getting into the habit – humans are very adept at habituation – of feeling felicitous/ innocuous come-what-may ... nothing, but nothing, is worth losing felicity/ innocuity in order to get malicious and/or sorrowful about. It is all very, very simple. * RESPONDENT: I have tried to eliminate fear. RICHARD: If I may ask? What does that have to do about the topic under discussion (which is the subject you chose)? RESPONDENT: I have repeatedly felt the fear, investigated its causes, identified the associated aspects of my social identity and instincts, understood the silliness of spoiling this one and only moment of being alive in such a way ... RICHARD: If I may interject? Have you actually understood the silliness ... or intellectually comprehended it and moved-on to that grass which, although well-trodden, looks oh-so-greener (albeit simply because it on the other side of the fence where multitudes are avidly grazing)? RESPONDENT: ... and so on. Unfortunately I cannot see any changes occurring. The whole process happens on a level that is too superficial. RICHARD: Are you really saying that feeling felicitous/ innocuous for 99% of the time (an arbitrary figure) in your day-to-day life – an amount of felicity/ innocuity which is way beyond normal human expectations – is happening on a level which is too superficial? RESPONDENT: It does not penetrate deeply enough to pull up the roots of fear. RICHARD: Again ... what does that have to do about the topic under discussion (the subject you chose)? * RESPONDENT: The result is that fear still comes, stays as long as it pleases, then departs until next time. Then it comes, stays as long as it pleases, then departs until next time. So on. So forth. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. World without end, hallelujah. RICHARD: If I might suggest? Try looking-up the word ‘sincere’ in a good dictionary or two ... and I only suggest this as sincerity is the key to unlocking naiveté (without which one might as well stand on one’s head in a corner and whistle pop-goes-the-weasel for all the good dabbling with the actualism method will do). * RESPONDENT: I cannot see how it will ever be different because ‘I’ cannot touch the source of it. RICHARD: The reason why you cannot touch the source of fear is because that is what ‘you’ are ... ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’. RESPONDENT: How can ‘I’, a phantasmic figment of these passions, reach down and dig them up by the roots? RICHARD: As the passions are as phantasmic as ‘I’ am – they have no existence in actuality either – it would appear that there has been some considerable intellectual distancing, by ‘me’, from ‘my’ very roots. RESPONDENT: ‘I’ have no grip because I am nothing. RICHARD: True ...yet as what ‘I’ am trying to grip is, contemporaneously, also nothing then ‘me’ and ‘my’ roots are a perfect match for each other (as well they should as they are one and the same thing). RESPONDENT: I am a mere ghost grasping at reflections of something that happened before ‘I’ even appeared and started reacting to it. RICHARD: As it is a bit of a stretch to propose that the instinctual passions swirled around in utero without ever forming themselves into an embryonic feeling being, an instinctually passionate inchoate presence, a rudimentary survival ‘self’ as it were, then it is fair to say that ‘I’ appeared simultaneous to ‘my’ roots’ manifestation. RESPONDENT: How can such a thing act upon itself? RICHARD: In the main ... affectively (although, of course, that would require a cessation of the intellectual distancing); in the minor ... cognitively (even though the feeling self is primal the thinking self is derivative and thus both are, fundamentally, affective in substance). RESPONDENT: Can it? RICHARD: Indeed it can ... for ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’. RESPONDENT: Does it? RICHARD: Indeed it does ... for ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’. RESPONDENT: Who can vouch for this method with 100% sincerity? RICHARD: This particular flesh and blood body typing these words can, of course, as this very discussion would not be taking place had the method not been 100% effective (which is not to forget to mention that the mailing list and the web site owe their very existence to its efficacy). Meanwhile, back at the topic you chose, the method (which has not only already enabled one human being to be actually free from the human condition but has also enabled others to be virtually free of same) is just sitting there ... quite ready to be utilised by anyone who is prepared to give the minimisation effect of it a goodly chance to work its magical-like way of maximising felicity/ innocuity. And here is a clue to make things go tickety-tick: naiveté, being guaranteed to reawaken a child-like sensuosity, means one walks about in a state of wide-eyed wonder, simply marvelling at being just here right now. And all the while leaving intellectualisation to the avidly-grazing intellectuals.
RESPONDENT: When Richard advises people to ‘minimise’ the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activate the felicitous feelings what does he really mean by ‘minimise’? RICHARD: He means lessen their grip and reduce both the prevalence and duration of them, through nipping them in the
bud RESPONDENT: Feelings can be ‘minimised’ by brute force, e.g. repression, denial, avoidance and distraction but what is the sensible way to do it? RICHARD: By getting into the habit – humans are very adept at habituation – of feeling felicitous/ innocuous come-what-may ... nothing, but nothing, is worth losing felicity/ innocuity in order to get malicious and/or sorrowful about. It is all very, very simple. RESPONDENT: Okay, I see I have been going about it the wrong way. Instead of declining to be sucked into the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings I have been going into them willingly in order to explore them in depth, thinking that if I explore them thoroughly enough they might tire themselves out and stop coming back! It hasn’t worked that way. I’ll try it your way now. Thanks. RICHARD: You are very welcome ... and I particularly took note of something you wrote elsewhere. Viz.:
That which I have highlighted is the crux of the matter ... it being why naiveté rarely, if ever, gets a look-in. The following may be of interest in this regard:
In a nutshell: to the cultured sophisticate
RESPONDENT: Regarding the statement: – ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings, ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’. My everyday experience of being a ‘self’ does not entirely match up with this statement. I do not usually identify myself with my feelings or experience myself as inseparable from them. I regard myself as having feelings, being subject to them, rather than being identical with them. RICHARD: Aye ... that is the common, or unexamined, experience of most peoples I have spoken to/read of/heard about. Generally I will then ask them about the deeper feelings, not just the emotions, but the passions themselves ... specifically ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself). Also I will enquire as to whether they would say that human beings are, essentially, feeling beings ... with nary an exception, as far as I can recall, each person has agreed (and quite often with an ‘of course’). * RESPONDENT: I experience my innermost self as a purposeful agent whose essential core is will/volition. Feelings seem to be secondary to this will. They arise like frictional heat energy from the interaction between ‘me’ (will/purpose) and the actual circumstances of life. RICHARD: Interestingly enough I posted several quotes pertaining to that very subject less than two weeks ago (in the
latter half of the e-mail): * RESPONDENT: Richard, I would appreciate it if you would explicate the relationship between self and will/volition as experienced before, during and after enlightenment. RICHARD: Before ... will/volition (experienced as being ego) was self; during ... will/volition (having being surrendered under the illusion of ego-death) was absolute; after ... will/volition (with both ego and soul/spirit extinct) is nothing more complicated than intent/determination. RESPONDENT: When you were normal, did you experience yourself as having feelings ... RICHARD: As a normal person (whilst a child, a youth, a young adult) ... yes. RESPONDENT: ... only later to discover that you were them ... RICHARD: For an enlightened/awakened being feelings are not feelings but a state of being. RESPONDENT: ... or was it clear to you all your life that you were the feelings? RICHARD: It only became (progressively) clear that ‘I’ was ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings were ‘me’ – and that the exalted/venerated states of being were affective in nature – during the eleven years 1981-1992. And I say ‘progressively’ as denial was a powerful factor to be reckoned with.
RESPONDENT: Richard, in the world of ‘Being’ what is it that populates the ‘landscape’ such that it becomes more featureless (like a physical landscape in a blizzard) the further you go toward its outer limits? RICHARD: A striking absence of not only the presence of other enlightened beings/awakened ones but of any direction-markers denoting such having been there already (hence the ‘white-out’ analogy).
RESPONDENT: Richard, in the world of ‘Being’ what is it that populates the ‘landscape’ such that it becomes more featureless (like a physical landscape in a blizzard) the further you go toward its outer limits? RICHARD: A striking absence of not only the presence of other enlightened beings/awakened ones but of any direction-markers denoting such having been there already (hence the ‘white-out’ analogy). RESPONDENT: Okay, thanks. I didn’t know the psychic maze was populated and sign-posted by other ‘Beings’ – although I might have remembered something like it from my early youth. RICHARD: You might be indeed remembering something from your early youth as the term [quote] ‘psychic maze’ [endquote] does not appear anywhere in that passage of mine which your initial query, regarding the world of ‘Being’, is obviously drawn from. The world of ‘Being’ itself has, of course, no spatio-temporal corporeality – it being a timeless and spaceless and formless realm – and the physical analogy is only to emphasise that the presence of other enlightened beings/ awakened ones deepening their enlightenment/ awakenment progressively lessens, and thus gradually weakens, the deeper the penetration is ... until even the lingering remnants of their (collective) energy-field finally peters out altogether. RESPONDENT: Those 11 years must have been a fascinating voyage. RICHARD: Maybe that is why reading/watching science-fiction holds little, if any, interest for me – even the occasional quest-type adventure-fantasy, no matter how extravagant the special-effects may be, soon palls as it almost inevitably/ invariably devolves into being a good-triumphing-over-evil morality/ ethicality play – as the paucity of imagination limits all such genre within its own self-confining/self-perpetuating parameters. * RESPONDENT: On a more practical and personal note, throughout this winter I’ve been applying your method with encouraging results. Mainly :- 1) I’m no longer blindly bouncing back and forth between the ‘bad’ feelings and their ‘good’ pacifiers. At first I found it hard to sit with the ‘bad’ feelings without immediately running into the waiting, welcoming arms of the ‘good’, but now I can understand how vitally important this is if one wants to cure the underlying condition instead of just treating the symptoms. I look for the ‘third alternative’ all the time now. RICHARD: Excellent ... although it is quite simple in hindsight to understand, that for the ‘bad’ feelings to cease their polar opposites the ‘good’ feelings must similarly come to an end, it can be rather difficult to initially comprehend that it is indeed as simple as that. RESPONDENT: 2) I’ve given up blaming other people for my feelings, no matter what the situation. Looking back it seems such a simple and obvious thing to do but it had escaped me. On the flipside I decline to make myself responsible for other people’s emotional hurts (unless I’m hurting them intentionally). RICHARD: Yes ... the reproachful ‘you have hurt my feelings’ works both ways. For instance:
RESPONDENT: 3) I’ve become very conscious of how people are enslaved by the need to belong, and how it is impossible to be unconditionally happy and harmless while we harbour this need. Consequently, I’ve begun to withdraw my psychic/social/emotional tentacles, replacing emotional demands/dependencies with a friendly, commonsense, ‘live and let live’ attitude most of the time. There is a long way to go along this path, and there are some daunting prospects ahead, but I am emboldened by the results of the first steps. RICHARD: Further to the ‘live and let live’ attitude ... the following may be of assistance:
RESPONDENT: 4) I’m learning how to be friends with myself. The very idea once struck me as corny and wishy-washy on a superficial level, and on a deeper level quite impossible because of my intimate familiarity with all the filth and scum in ‘me’. But after overcoming those initial reactions I’ve found out just how much and how often I persecute myself, and how self-defeating it is. There is only ‘me’ in here, and whatever is done to ‘me’ is ‘me’ doing it to myself. RICHARD: Indeed so. There is, however, an aspect of ‘me’ which is virtually unaffected by both ‘my’ vile and virtuous aspects ... and sincerity is the key to accessing it:
RESPONDENT: I’m sure there will be plenty more to come. RICHARD: That is for sure ... simply being alive is an adventure in itself.
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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