Actual Freedom – Mailing List ‘B’ Correspondence

Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’

with Respondent No. 18

Some Of The Topics Covered

peace – delusion – sense – comparison – instincts – Ancient Wisdom – actual – universe

February 18 1998:

RICHARD (to Respondent No. 32): The use of the phrase ‘rational fear’ is nothing but the self-centred justification for the continued existence of ‘me’. Because, as long as fear exists, ‘I’ exist. And as long as ‘I’ exist, fear exists. The elimination of self in its entirety is the elimination of those instincts. It is possible to be entirely free from all instinctive impulses ... one has no furious urges, no inherent anger, no impulsive rages, no inveterate hostilities, no evil disposition ... no malicious tendencies whatsoever. Now that a thinking, reflective brain has developed over the top of the primitive ‘lizard brain’, one has the ability to trace back through the emotional-mental line to the rudimentary instinctual self ... and eliminate it along with its instincts. One does not need instincts to function and operate in this world of people, things and events ... they may have been necessary in the wild but with a now civilised world they are detrimental to peaceful and harmonious co-existence. The 160,000,000 people killed in wars this century alone testify to this. Until then, humanity’s inhumanity will continue to flourish.

RESPONDENT: Too many people and too much greed may cause earth to give one last sigh and rid itself of these nobodies. Peace.

RICHARD: I do not think the earth will ‘give one last sigh and rid itself of these nobodies’ ... that is an anthropomorphic view-point that does not jell with the facts. The ‘too many people’ come out of this very earth – in the form of food – so why should the earth sigh (if it could) as it is the self-same earth that produces us. Why do humans like to blame themselves for being here? It is as if we have done something wrong by being born ... and this is not so.

This is not too say that there is nothing we can do about our situation – there is plenty we can do. We can start by examining just what it is that drives us to destructive urges and impulses.

People who go around just saying things like ‘Peace’ do not do a single thing about achieving peace-on-earth.

February 18 1998:

RESPONDENT: Freedom is attained by surrender of the ego and being open in the spiritual heart. Understanding is out of the question.

RICHARD: ‘Surrender of the ego’ to whom ... or to what? Being open in the ‘spiritual heart’ to whom ... or to what? Who is doing the ‘surrendering’? Who is doing the ‘being open’?

Is this why understanding is out of the question?

February 19 1998:

RESPONDENT: How would you achieve peace Richard?

RICHARD: It is not a question of how would I achieve peace ... it is a question of how did I achieve peace.

Strangely enough I did nothing. It was ‘I’ that did all the work. Of course ‘I’ was not alone in this endeavour because ‘I’ tapped into the purity and perfection of the infinitude of this physical universe with a pure intent born out of a PCE that ‘I’ had during a peak experience in 1980. Pure intent is a palpable life-force; an actually occurring stream of benevolence and benignity that originates in the vast and utter stillness that is the essential character of the universe itself. Once set in motion, it is no longer a matter of choice: it is an irresistible pull. It is the adventure of a lifetime to embark upon a voyage of exploration and discovery; to not only seek but to find. And once found, it is here for the term of one’s natural life – it is an irreversible mutation in consciousness. Once launched it is impossible to turn back and resume one’s normal life ... one has to be absolutely sure that this is what one truly wants.

Eighteen years ago ‘I’, the persona that I was, looked at the natural world and just knew that this enormous construct called the universe was not ‘set up’ for us humans to be forever forlorn in with only scant moments of reprieve. ‘I’ realised there and then that it was not and could not ever be some ‘sick cosmic joke’ that humans all had to endure and ‘make the best of’. ‘I’ felt foolish that ‘I’ had believed for thirty two years that the ‘wisdom of the real-world’ that ‘I’ had inherited – the world that ‘I’ was born into – was set in stone. This foolish feeling allowed ‘me’ to get in touch with ‘my’ dormant naiveté, which is the closest thing one has that resembles actual innocence, and activate it with a naive enthusiasm to undo all the conditioning and brainwashing that ‘I’ had been subject to. Then when ‘I’ looked into myself and at all the people around and saw the sorrow and malice in every human being, ‘I’ could not stop. ‘I’ knew that ‘I’ had just devoted myself to the task of setting ‘myself’ and ‘humanity’ free ... ‘I’ willingly dedicated my life to this most worthy cause. It is so delicious to devote oneself to something whole-heartedly – the ‘boots and all’ approach ‘I’ called it then!

‘I’ became obsessed with changing ‘myself’ fundamentally, radically, completely and utterly.

This entailed finding the source of ‘myself’ ... and ‘I’ discovered that ‘I’ arise out of the instincts that blind nature endows all sentient beings with at birth. This rudimentary self is the root cause of all the malice and sorrow that besets humankind, and to eliminate malice and sorrow ‘I’ had to eliminate the fear and aggression that this self was made up of ... the instincts. But as this self is the instincts – there is no differentiation betwixt the two – then the elimination of one is the elimination of the other. In fact, with the elimination of the instincts, ‘I’ ceased to exist, period.

Psychological and psychic self-immolation was the only sensible sacrifice that ‘I’ could make in order to reveal that which is actual. And that which is actual is pure perfection. Life is bursting with meaning now that ‘I’ am no longer present to mess things up. ‘I’ stood in the way of the purity of the perfection of the actual being apparent. ‘My’ presence prohibited this ever-present perfection being evident. ‘I’ prevented the very purity of life, that ‘I’ was searching for, from coming into plain view.

With ‘my’ demise, this ever-fresh perfection is now manifest. Peace-on-earth was here all the time.

March 01 1998:

RESPONDENT: Mind, heart and hand in the present moment.

RICHARD: This is a pithy aphorism. It may yet qualify as a psittacism, for I seriously question its sagacity. I have come across this quote, many times, in various books I have read over the years. Maybe nobody else on this list has heard it (although I doubt that due to its ubiquity) and therefore your inclusion of these particular words of wisdom may be of benefit to somebody, somewhere, who can not be bothered thinking for themselves and are content to feed on pap. But, what is your understanding? What are your words of wisdom? For example:

1. Mind: What do you think?
2. Heart: What do you feel?
3. Hand: What are you doing?
4. Present: Where are you?
5. Moment: Who are you?

I look forward to hearing from you, and not from another long-dead author who appears to have had no actual understanding of what they were talking about.

March 01 1998:

RESPONDENT: May the Force be with u as u look at ur navel. What other choice do u have?

RICHARD: Maybe I could grunt?

March 03 1998:

RESPONDENT: Apophatic discourse is the dog chasing its tail.

RICHARD: So, if the via negativa is the dog chasing its tail, then what is the via affirmativa, to you? The tail chasing the dog?

You are merely taking a one-sided view-point here ... mystical experience permits complementary and apparently contradictory methods of expression: fullness as well as emptiness. Both are needed because the Reality made manifest contains its own opposite. Thus even the apparent negations of the apophatic way perform a double function. Whilst being a state void of every determination, nevertheless Deus Absconditus becomes Deus Revelatus.

Although, as far as I am concerned, it is all a massive delusion anyway, but I just thought I might share these observations with you because, without actually saying it, you seem to be implying that my post was apophatical.

It was not, even if only because there is not the slightest trace of religiosity or spirituality in me whatsoever.

March 03 1998:

RESPONDENT: Ain’t evolution wonderful?

RICHARD: No. Mutation is swifter ... so swift as to be instantaneous. The only good thing about suffering is when it ends ... permanently. Evolution is never-ending sorrow.

March 03 1998:

RESPONDENT: And u still pay ur bills?

RICHARD: Grunt.

March 04 1998:

RESPONDENT: Ain’t duality the shits?

RICHARD: And is not the ‘Tried and True’ cure of non-duality akin to taking a dose of salts?

March 04 1998:

RESPONDENT: Is there anything real beyond the 5 senses? I wish there to be but I can’t prove it with the 5 senses.

RICHARD: Why would one ‘wish there to be’ anything beyond the five senses? This actual world – as ascertained sensately – is already always perfect. Here is a purity that can only be lived to be ‘proved’ ... personal experience is the only ‘proof’ worth having. Actuality is so vastly superior to the most exotic paradise and/or heaven and/or samadhi and/or nirvana and/or whatever that anyone ever believed in that it simply cannot be imagined. The impeccable quality of the on-going experience of actually being here is beyond any of ‘my’ wildest dreams.

RESPONDENT: Of course, there are many unknown things within the reach of the 5 senses that appear to be difficult to prove.

RICHARD: Yea verily ... but only ‘appear to be difficult’ to an identity. Nothing is unknown, when the psychological and psychic entities – ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul – having a parasitical existence within this flesh and blood body, willingly take their leave. Now those, previously, ‘unknown things’ can be known ... apperceptively.

RESPONDENT: Life is very interesting.

RICHARD: Yes indeed, it is very interesting ... and when interest becomes fascination, one is irresistibly impelled to be totally here. Until then, one is standing back and feeling out what it is like to be here ... and feelings are the incorrect tool for apprehending actuality. And, as beliefs are nothing but emotion-backed thoughts, beliefs about actuality – being but a reality – keep one from being here now at this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space.

With infinitude happening now, there is no need for a belief system here.

March 05 1998:

RESPONDENT: Poor Richard, a soul without passion.

RICHARD: There cannot be a ‘soul without passion’ ... a soul is made of passion. No passion equals no soul.

RESPONDENT: Oh God please do not allow me to evolve to that state.

RICHARD: No, never, ever evolve ... hang onto your passion by all the means under your control. Passion like anger, hatred, rage, spitefulness, maliciousness, revenge, jealousy, sadness, sorrow, misery ... and their band-aid solutions like love and compassion and empathy and sympathy and so on. Why, if you did evolve there would be peace-on-earth ... and that is the last thing you would want, apparently.

RESPONDENT: ROTFLMAO

RICHARD: As my ‘Poor Richard’ condition (a classified psychiatric mental disorder) is experienced by you as something to laugh about, all I can say is I am glad to be the recipient of a sample of your much-touted love and compassion.

It proves my point that love and compassion always fail to bring the Peace On Earth that is promised ... and why they fail. They fail because they arise out of malice and sorrow.

As you have just so ably demonstrated.

August 03 1998:

RICHARD (to Respondent No. 14): All this leaves me musing. Does God have an ugly nature then ... or is God’s nature that of serious denial?

RESPONDENT: One can not know God. One can only be God.

RICHARD: Oh, no ... not you too?

RESPONDENT: Of course you can also be illusion ... you are the creator.

RICHARD: Please, careful with the word < you > oh creator ... you are speaking for yourself and not me. I did not create anything. The universe was already here before I was born and will still be here after I die.

Seeing that you know that you are the creator, could you create global peace-on-earth as soon as you read this please?

All this waiting is killing people.

August 17 1998:

RESPONDENT: You believe the infinite, eternal universe is your real God.

RICHARD: Even though I state there is no religiosity, spirituality, mysticism or metaphysicality in me whatsoever? Even though I state that I am a thorough-going atheist through and through? Well done, Sherlock.

RESPONDENT: This includes all energy, detectable and as yet undetectable.

RICHARD: Yes ... I call it by its proper name: the physical universe. Why add an unnecessary metaphysical concept to what is actually physical? Self-aggrandisement? Immortality?

Is this not being self-centred?

RESPONDENT: For you there is nothing beyond the 5 senses.

RICHARD: What is actual is all there is ... and, being infinite and eternal, what an all-there-is this universe is!

RESPONDENT: You are trapped in a universe of your own belief.

RICHARD: Since when has seeing the actual – observing the obvious – become a belief? This physical universe exists in its own right and does not require belief from me to bring it into being or sustain its existence. It was here before I was born and will be here after I die. Just how does that constitute it being a product of my – or anyone’s – belief system?

Besides, experiencing infinitude hardly qualifies for entrapment.

August 17 1998:

RESPONDENT: Be still and know that I am God.

RICHARD: And which god would that be? The last time I looked up the subject, there was upwards of twelve hundred different gods (and that did not include the Hindu Pantheon).

RESPONDENT: Surrender to the unity.

RICHARD: And these 1200 gods were fighting, jostling for position, competing with powers ... and stealing devotees off each other. That does not sound much like ‘unity’ to me.

RESPONDENT: There is no competition.

RICHARD: Of course not – given that such a solipsistic self-absorption proudly trumpeted as ‘I am God’ as being nothing but narcissism writ large – how could there be any competition? Next you will be telling me that you are humble, too.

August 20 1998:

RESPONDENT: Be still and know that I am God.

RICHARD: And which god would that be? The last time I looked up the subject, there was upwards of twelve hundred different gods (and that did not include the Hindu Pantheon).

RESPONDENT: Surrender to the unity.

RICHARD: And these 1200 gods were fighting, jostling for position, competing with powers ... and stealing devotees off each other. That does not sound much like ‘unity’ to me.

RESPONDENT: There is no competition.

RICHARD: Of course not – given that such a solipsistic self-absorption proudly trumpeted as ‘I am God’ as being nothing but narcissism writ large – how could there be any competition? Next you will be telling me that you are humble, too.

RESPONDENT: The separated mind is not humble.

RICHARD: Neither is ‘consciousness in unity’ ... the unified mind is so conceited that it mostly capitalises itself as the ‘Unified Mind’ (by whatever name). Having thus arrogated an ineffective ‘Ultimate Responsibility’, the ‘Unified Mind’ (by whatever name) mostly writes re-hashes of pithy aphorisms that are not worth the rice-paper they were written on in the first place ... or otherwise gives discourses on the merits of humility!

Human hypocrisy transforms itself into divine hypocrisy.

RESPONDENT: Consciousness in unity just is.

RICHARD: If I may point out? It is not ‘just’ anything of the sort ... ‘consciousness in unity’ is very busy perpetuating 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 ever and a day. This is because when a ‘self’ transmogrifies itself into ‘The Self’ (by whatever name), the base passions are not eliminated but modified through sublimation and transcendence ... thus the diabolical underpins the divine.

As on earth so be it in heaven.

May 28 1999:

RESPONDENT: Hmmm, now there is a belief: Richard = right direction Everyone else = wrong direction.

RICHARD: One way of disposing of a fact that is staring everyone in the face is to deny that it exists (by calling all the misery and mayhem ‘Maya’ or ‘Lela’).

Another way is to dismiss it as being ‘a belief’ ... which is what you have done. Because, as misery and mayhem have at least a 3,000 to 5,000 year recorded history – and as peoples everywhere are relying upon an ‘Ancient Wisdom’ that is 3,000 to 5,000 years old – all it takes is a simple observation to see that everybody is going in the wrong direction. Because, if I am wrong and you are right (right in that everyone is already going in the right direction), how come it has taken 3,000 to 5,000 years ... and peace on earth is nowhere to be found?

May I ask? What do you pin-point as the source of 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? Or is it all ‘Maya’ and/or ‘Lela’ for you, too?

Which god are you?

May 28 1999:

RESPONDENT: There is no spirit, only genetics.

RICHARD: Well said ... and locating a genetic cause for 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 is a big step towards bringing all the mayhem and misery to an end.

RESPONDENT: You seem to be a body-brain person, only.

RICHARD: May I ask why you say ‘body-brain’? (The brain is as much the body as the heart, lungs, liver and so on are). Why do you not say: ‘You seem to be a body person’? Why do you trot out that synthetic philosophical ‘mind-body’ dichotomy, so painstakingly elucidated by Mr. René Descartes, as if it were wisdom?

Realising that you are god does not seem to have endowed you with the ability to think for yourself, eh? Were there any other benefits that came your way? Such as: no longer getting sad or lonely or sorrowful or grief-stricken; no longer getting angry or hateful or furious or filled with rage; no longer having to become affectionate or compassionate or loving to compensate.

Or are you, too, waiting for physical death to come and release you into the ‘Peace that Passeth All Understanding’?

May 29 1999:

RESPONDENT: You focus on one extreme of duality. You are in a prison called hell.

RICHARD: If I may point out? It is you who focuses upon ‘one extreme of duality’ and not me ... you sit quaking in a gilded prison called heaven out of abject fear of an opposite (hell). Both exist only in your intuitive/ imaginative faculty born of the instinctual animal passions.

There is a third alternative.

RESPONDENT: The tiger eats a man. It just is. The tiger is not bad.

RICHARD: This is a classic ‘straw man’ argument ... nowhere have I ever said that a ‘tiger is bad’ (just as nowhere have I ever said the human animal is ‘bad’). I long ago abandoned ‘good’ and ‘bad’ because far too many of my fellow human beings have been killed because of what is ‘good’... or savagely punished because they were ‘bad’. Look, when a human kills another human it is doing what comes natural (what you call ‘it just is’) and, like the tiger, is not ‘bad’ for doing so. However, unlike tigers, the human animal can think, reflect and plan for an orderly society wherein one can live safely with one’s fellow human beings ... hence the entirely sensible agreements called ‘laws’. Under these agreements, if you continue to do what comes natural like the tiger does, you will languish behind bars for 25 years to life. If you use your human intelligence (instead of your animal passions like the tiger does) you will find that doing what comes natural is silly.

It is far better – and much more understandable – to appraise one’s actions being either ‘silly’ or ‘sensible’. It is simply silly to drive on the wrong side of the road, for example, because of the obvious danger to one’s own life and limb and others ... not ‘bad’ with all its judgmental condemnations of one’s implicit wickedness and wrongness. It is sensible to find out why one is driven to perform socially unacceptable acts, for instance, rather than to refrain from committing these deeds because such restraint is the ‘good’ thing to do. Because ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are emotive words loaded with reward and punishment connotations ... which is poor motivation for salubrious action anyway.

Then one has dignity for the first time in one’s life.

RESPONDENT: You are in a deep hole of your own mind’s making.

RICHARD: Not so ... it is you who are ‘in a deep hole of your own mind’s making’ and not me. I faced up to ‘my’ animal nature and discovered that it was a software package and not hardware. ‘I’ pressed the ‘delete’ button and – as there is no ‘recycle bin’ – ‘I’ became extinct. Both ‘Heaven’ and ‘Hell’ disappeared along with ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ ... the ‘Good’ exists only to combat the ‘Bad’.

There is a third alternative.

June 01 1999:

RESPONDENT: Sorry Richard, mind cannot see itself.

RICHARD: Indeed you may have cause to be sorry – although it is a wasted emotion – because the mind can see itself. Such seeing even has a name: apperception. (Oxford Dictionary: ‘apperception’: the mind’s perception of itself).

Is it not rather humorous, in an ironic sort of way, that the dictionary writers would know that the mind can see itself, whilst you as god do not know this? What price god-hood, eh? Must be all that ‘being still’ business that keeps you so narcissistically self-engrossed that it prevents such clarity as even an Oxford Don can muster, I guess.

RESPONDENT: Be at peace.

RICHARD: Your papal-like blessing comes too late to be tested for its efficacy. Just out of curiosity, how does it feel to be god going around dispensing peace with three little words? How long is it that you have been stemming misery and mayhem in such a simple way?

Meanwhile, here where apperception is ... peace already always is.

June 03 1999:

RESPONDENT: Sorry Richard, mind cannot see itself.

RICHARD: Indeed you may have cause to be sorry – although it is a wasted emotion – because the mind can see itself. Such seeing even has a name: apperception. (Oxford Dictionary: ‘apperception’: the mind’s perception of itself). Is it not rather humorous, in an ironic sort of way, that the dictionary writers would know that the mind can see itself, whilst you as god do not know this? What price god-hood, eh? Must be all that ‘being still’ business that keeps you so narcissistically self-engrossed that it prevents such clarity as even an Oxford Don can muster, I guess.

RESPONDENT: Be at peace.

RICHARD: Your papal-like blessing comes too late to be tested for its efficacy. Just out of curiosity, how does it feel to be god going around dispensing peace with three little words? How long is it that you have been stemming misery and mayhem in such a simple way? Meanwhile, here where apperception is ... peace already always is.

RESPONDENT: The dictionary is not a sacred text.

RICHARD: And I am very pleased that it is not, because faith and trust is not a requisite, when looking-up a word in a dictionary. Instead, a dictionary is a summation of all the understanding humans have had for millennia, codified as sounds that we call words – which may have their origins in grunts – and are thus an expression of experience. As such they are an indication only of what is or can be experienced ... dictionaries (unlike sacred texts) are descriptive and not prescriptive.

As such, it is indicative of human experience that the mind can indeed be aware of itself, as is epitomised by the descriptive collection of grunts ‘apperception’ and is not intended to be prescriptive as (presumably) your sacred texts do in insisting that you believe it to be not possible.

(I say ‘presumably’ because I obviously cannot know what you feel, think, read, believe in or not believe in, or whatever, in order to be as silly as ‘The Ancients’ ... maybe you are capable of being silly all of your own accord).

RESPONDENT: Words only point at truth.

RICHARD: Yet these ‘words’ that you claim ‘only point’ consistently point (more or less) to a timeless and spaceless void; these ‘words’ that you claim ‘only point’ consistently point (more or less) to a formless and deathless emptiness; these ‘words’ that you claim ‘only point’ consistently point (more or less) to an unknowable and immutable presence; these ‘words’ that you claim ‘only point’ consistently point (more or less) to an immortal and ceaseless being and so on. These ‘words’ that you claim ‘only point’ consistently point (more or less) to the physical universe as being an illusion, a dream and not ultimately real. These ‘words’ that you claim ‘only point’ consistently point (more or less) to reincarnating through multiple lifetimes until ‘Liberation’ frees one from ‘Karma’ and one never needs being born again. These ‘words’ that you claim ‘only point’ consistently point (more or less) to physical life as being inherently sorrowful and the best thing to do is to scarper ... off into a metaphysical realm of the ‘unborn and/or deathless’ state by whatever name. (That, The Real Self, The Higher Self, The True Self, The Greater Reality, The Essence, The Truth, The Absolute, The Supreme, The Universal Mind, The Ground Of Being, The Tao, Cosmic Consciousness, Nirvana, Satori, Samadhi, Thatness, Suchness, Isness and so on).

Nowhere in the scriptures do these ‘words’ that you claim ‘only point’ consistently point (more or less) to nothing other than this physical universe being it; nowhere in the scriptures do these ‘words’ that you claim ‘only point’ consistently point (more or less) to it being that only this lifetime is it; nowhere in the scriptures do these ‘words’ that you claim ‘only point’ consistently point (more or less) to it being that death is the end, finish, oblivion.

Truly, these ‘words’ that you claim ‘only point’ are amazingly accurate pointers ... one could almost say, that the words you use, are the thing prescribed, eh?

RESPONDENT: The mind cannot see itself.

RICHARD: I fully agree that the mind that is busily ‘being still and knowing that it is god’ cannot see itself. Yet if that self-same mind would become genuinely concerned about the plight of humanity – and be a mind that actually cares about one’s fellow human being – then such a considerate mind would observe that it is swamped by a transmogrified and vainglorious identity that has realised that it is god for purely self-serving post-mortem reasons. Then there would be action ... and such action is not of ‘my’ doing.

Voila! The already always existing peace-on-earth becomes apparent upon ‘my’ demise.

June 04 1999:

RESPONDENT: Sorry Richard, mind cannot see itself.

RICHARD: Indeed you may have cause to be sorry – although it is a wasted emotion – because the mind can see itself. Such seeing even has a name: apperception. (Oxford Dictionary: ‘apperception’: the mind’s perception of itself). Is it not rather humorous, in an ironic sort of way, that the dictionary writers would know that the mind can see itself, whilst you as god do not know this? What price god-hood, eh? Must be all that ‘being still’ business that keeps you so narcissistically self-engrossed that it prevents such clarity as even an Oxford Don can muster, I guess.

RESPONDENT: Be at peace.

RICHARD: Your papal-like blessing comes too late to be tested for its efficacy. Just out of curiosity, how does it feel to be god going around dispensing peace with three little words? How long is it that you have been stemming misery and mayhem in such a simple way? Meanwhile, here where apperception is ... peace already always is.

RESPONDENT: The dictionary is not a sacred text.

RICHARD: And I am very pleased that it is not, because faith and trust is not a requisite, when looking-up a word in a dictionary. Instead, a dictionary is a summation of all the understanding humans have had for millennia, codified as sounds that we call words – which may have their origins in grunts – and are thus an expression of experience. As such they are an indication only of what is or can be experienced ... dictionaries (unlike sacred texts) are descriptive and not prescriptive.

As such, it is indicative of human experience that the mind can indeed be aware of itself, as is epitomised by the descriptive collection of grunts ‘apperception’ and is not intended to be prescriptive as (presumably) your sacred texts do in insisting that you believe it to be not possible.

(I say ‘presumably’ because I obviously cannot know what you feel, think, read, believe in or not believe in, or whatever, in order to be as silly as ‘The Ancients’ ... maybe you are capable of being silly all of your own accord).

RESPONDENT: Words only point at truth.

RICHARD: Yet these ‘words’ that you claim ‘only point’ consistently point (more or less) to a timeless and spaceless void; these ‘words’ that you claim ‘only point’ consistently point (more or less) to a formless and deathless emptiness; these ‘words’ that you claim ‘only point’ consistently point (more or less) to an unknowable and immutable presence; these ‘words’ that you claim ‘only point’ consistently point (more or less) to an immortal and ceaseless being and so on. These ‘words’ that you claim ‘only point’ consistently point (more or less) to the physical universe as being an illusion, a dream and not ultimately real. These ‘words’ that you claim ‘only point’ consistently point (more or less) to reincarnating through multiple lifetimes until ‘Liberation’ frees one from ‘Karma’ and one never needs being born again. These ‘words’ that you claim ‘only point’ consistently point (more or less) to physical life as being inherently sorrowful and the best thing to do is to scarper ... off into a metaphysical realm of the ‘unborn and/or deathless’ state by whatever name. (That, The Real Self, The Higher Self, The True Self, The Greater Reality, The Essence, The Truth, The Absolute, The Supreme, The Universal Mind, The Ground Of Being, The Tao, Cosmic Consciousness, Nirvana, Satori, Samadhi, Thatness, Suchness, Isness and so on).

Nowhere in the scriptures do these ‘words’ that you claim ‘only point’ consistently point (more or less) to nothing other than this physical universe being it; nowhere in the scriptures do these ‘words’ that you claim ‘only point’ consistently point (more or less) to it being that only this lifetime is it; nowhere in the scriptures do these ‘words’ that you claim ‘only point’ consistently point (more or less) to it being that death is the end, finish, oblivion.

Truly, these ‘words’ that you claim ‘only point’ are amazingly accurate pointers ... one could almost say, that the words you use, are the thing prescribed, eh?

RESPONDENT: The mind cannot see itself.

RICHARD: I fully agree that the mind that is busily ‘being still and knowing that it is god’ cannot see itself. Yet if that self-same mind would become genuinely concerned about the plight of humanity – and be a mind that actually cares about one’s fellow human being – then such a considerate mind would observe that it is swamped by a transmogrified and vainglorious identity that has realised that it is god for purely self-serving post-mortem reasons. Then there would be action ... and such action is not of ‘my’ doing.

Voila! The already always existing peace-on-earth becomes apparent upon ‘my’ demise.

RESPONDENT: The mind cannot see itself.

RICHARD: I must give you full marks for persistence ... maybe your mind cannot see itself but to proclaim that this experience is an absolute truth is egocentrism writ large.

RESPONDENT: But sometimes the mind sets itself as the one that knows and is separate from all that is.

RICHARD: Why? If, as you say, the surrendered mind is ‘all that is’ (as in ‘be still and know that I am god’ isness) then why on earth would such all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful being ‘sometimes set itself as the one that knows and is separate from all that is’ in the first place?

RESPONDENT: This dance continues until surrender can no longer be avoided.

RICHARD: Yet, given that ‘I am god’ in the first place – and for some bizarre reason I ‘set myself as being separate’ from myself (thus causing untold misery and mayhem on this planet) – then when I can no longer avoid surrender and I do thus surrender I surrender to ... to ... to myself?

Is this not narcissism?

RESPONDENT: The mind is useful but only part of all that is.

RICHARD: Which part? Is it ... um ... a rebellious part (like in that Christian nonsense about a perfectly created angel in heaven rebelling against its creator god and falling to gross earth as a satanic force)?

RESPONDENT: All is in unity and perfect ... even the fly on the manure pile is Divine.

RICHARD: Oh yes ... so ‘divine’, in fact, that in India (where human ordure is oft-times deposited on top of the ground) this ‘divine’ fly spreads ‘divine’ virulence through ‘divine’ neighbourhoods causing unnecessary ‘divine’ pain and ‘divine’ suffering. In 1984 I visited India to see for myself and spent nearly three months living in the slums of what was then called Madras. The sight of tiny children with unnecessarily bloated bellies and protruding eyes all covered with unnecessary pestilent running sores lying on their unnecessary death-beds on the rubbish-strewn sidewalks tore at my ‘divine’ heart and on down to the depths of my ‘divine’ being (I was the full suite of transcendent feelings back then) and I knew that this ‘divine’ nonsense had gone on long enough.

This is how the mind starts seeing itself ... for that is when I actually started to care about my fellow human ... not merely transcendentally feel that I care.

June 15 1999:

RESPONDENT: You have intuition but you have placed it in denial.

RICHARD: You do seem to know more about me than I do ... yet I have repeatedly written that the intuitive/ imaginative faculty disappeared back in 1992 when the entire psyche vanished concurrent with the deletion of the software program of instinctual passions bestowed at conception by blind nature. And in this ‘computer analogy’ I have also written that there is no ‘Recycle Bin’ to retrieve the program from ... and your advice is: ‘you have placed it in denial’ . Now, as some peoples like to re-name their computer’s recycle bin – into ‘trash can’ for example – I have accordingly searched throughout this body for a re-named recycle bin named ‘denial’ ... wherein you maintain I have placed intuition.

Nope ... ‘denial’ does not exist on this flesh and blood hard-drive.

RESPONDENT: Surrender and intuition shall return.

RICHARD: Hokey-dokey ... whom shall I surrender to? Which of the 1200 gods do you recommend? Which god did you wish to be, back in the days when you started to lose the plot, and which god did you end up being? And what is so crash-hot about intuition anyway? When tested exhaustively, the most intuitive peoples could only muster a 53.4% accuracy rating and all the others 50/50 ... which is the same odds as guess-work. It does seem to me to be a lot of trouble, to ask for the CV’s of all 1200 gods (in order to ascertain which one has the better track-record) and then trustingly surrender just to regain a very unreliable faculty called intuition.

Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain (self-acknowledged to have surrendered), for example, predicted on 2 September 1983 that:

• [quote] ‘beginning next year, the world will face 15 years of catastrophic natural and man-made disasters – including nuclear war. Tokyo, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Bombay all will be destroyed – but the holocaust will not be confined to these major political centres. And unless human consciousness changes totally, man cannot survive. As he is right now, he is already out-dated. There will be floods which have never been known since the time of Noah, along with the earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and everything else that is possible through nature. There will be wars which are bound to end in nuclear explosions, hence no ordinary Noah’s Arks are going to save humanity. (Here) we are creating a Noah’s Ark of consciousness, remaining centred exactly in the middle of the cyclone. I say to you that except this there is no other way’ [endquote]. (© ‘The Rajneesh Times’ 1983).

My high-school arithmetic tells me that 1983 plus 15 makes 2 September 1998 (last year) the end of his 15 year holocaust. When I watch television I see places like Tokyo, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Bombay still standing – and still expanding – so I guess there is a giant conspiracy going on and it is old footage being replayed so as to lull me into a false sense of security!

But ... so much for ‘divine’ intuition, eh?

August 04 1999:

RESPONDENT: ‘... he who speaks does not know ...’. Where does that leave you?

RICHARD: The full (public) version is, of course, ‘he who speaks does not know; he who knows does not speak’. Given that what is being referred to is ‘that which is ever unknowable’, then it is vital that any speaking to be done (and ‘The Truth’ must be spoken) should only be done by the one who has woken up to the reality that ‘he does not know’ (because he alone knows he can never know) so as to ensure that the esoteric lineage remains uncorrupted. Consequently, any pseudo-mystic, who fondly imagines that they know ‘that which is ever unknowable’ (and gullibly demonstrates this imprudence in public by ostentatiously popping one-liner psittacisms onto mailing lists) has not penetrated the cryptic focus of Mr. Lao Tzu’s inscrutable pun ... thus he separates the boys from the men with an uncanny precision long after he dispersed the ether. Needless to say, the profundity of the layers of arcane meaning built into this pithy aphorism also escapes the pseudo-seekers’ purview (who deem it an acceptable ‘not speaking’ modus operandi to utter laconic axioms to the privileged inner circle) who seek to perpetuate the aura of sanctimony that enhances the symbiotic sage/ student fusion of seeker and sought. Thus (and do not make this public knowledge) the secret saying reads: ‘he who knows that he does not know speaks; he who does not know that he does not know does not speak’. Therefore, you will now realise, I am sure, that the ‘Be still and know that I am God’ phrase that you have inadvertently been using is incorrect.

What you should be saying is: ‘Be still and know that I do not know that I am not God’.

August 04 1999:

RESPONDENT: You are what you seek, Richard.

RICHARD: Ahh ... this is that ‘seek thee not’ adage is it not (as in ‘seek thee not that thee be thee that thee seeketh’)? Or do you mean ‘seek thee not thine’ (as in ‘seek thee not thine, that thee be sought by thine that seeketh thee when thee seeks thee not’)?

I oft-times mused upon just who was seeking who in the first place ... I found it much simpler to ‘seek not thee nor thine’ (as in ‘seek not thee nor thine, that thee which be not sought by thee, nor by thine that seeketh thee when thee seeks thee not, may be extirpated’).

Thus I am freed to ask: are thee thine ... or are thee thee?


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