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Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’ with Respondent No. 19
RICHARD: People rely upon feelings to be the final arbiter of truth ... and feelings are notoriously unreliable in ascertaining facticity. Your whole tirade against thought is nothing but an attempt to avoid looking at your feelings.RESPONDENT: Yes, feelings are unreliable in ascertaining facticity. As I stated before there are two types of ‘feeling’ – those that I term emotions, and those that are much deeper, have a connection to something beyond what is explainable. I do look at the emotions. Those are of thought, reactions of memory. The deeper feelings also need to be revealed, I agree. RICHARD: Oh, if only you had stopped here and started examining those deeper feelings as feelings bare of thought. But no ... you already knew better than to do that. To wit: Thought again gets blamed. RESPONDENT: But, still there may be something beyond my individual thought ... yes, that’s it. The other feelings probably come from thought, not necessarily ‘my’ thought, but the stream of thought ... thought must have a connection with other thought that has gone before ... or somehow connects to it to ‘just know things’. RICHARD: ‘Stream of thought’, eh? Sounds like Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s influence here. Try thinking for yourself. RESPONDENT: I am attempting to look at the feeling of feelings, for it is the deep feeling that also needs to be uncovered, as you mention. RICHARD: Then, please, feel the feelings as a ... um ... as a ‘stream of feelings’ perhaps. Perhaps that phraseology might work for you. See the danger of feelings running unchecked by thought. Then you may develop some regard for thought, after all ... it is doing a mighty job (not that I am advocating control and repression ... just see the action of feelings). RESPONDENT: One is separate from reality because in reality there is no psychological time. ‘I’ do not exist in reality. In actuality, we function in time. Verbalisation is time. Thought is time. In reality, verbalisation, the word, naming, does not exist unless it is necessary for it to function. The truth is ‘what is’, and whatever one thinks will not change that. If one is deceiving oneself about what is truth, the truth of the matter is that one is deceiving oneself, but that fact does not make the deceit truth. That deceit is totally thought. Let’s not enter into word games but try to get to the reality behind the words. RICHARD: Sure can ... the ‘reality behind the words’ is that ‘I’ will do anything to stay in existence. After all, ‘I’ have been charged by blind nature to survive at any cost with the powerful instinct for survival. Thus ‘I’ will blame thought so as to distract attention away from the real culprit ... ‘I’ the ‘thinker’. When the attention becomes too great I the ‘thinker – ego ‘I’ – can disappear ... only to reappear as ‘me’ in the heart. Of course ‘I’ will be as humble as all get-out in the hope that no one will notice that ‘I’ am still in existence. A loving self is still a self, nevertheless. This is why no one will examine their feelings with the scrutiny they apply to their thoughts. RESPONDENT: Yes, I can agree with what you are saying. The ego will assume any identity to stay in existence, to be, but, still, these deeper feelings (maybe what you refer to as the soul) need to be listened to. Yes, I can see that feelings are just a more subtle form of thought ... they may have a connection to thought. RICHARD: Yes, usually people do not have a feeling without tying a thought to it ... and then castigating the thought whilst the feeling gets off scot-free. But feelings are not a ‘more subtle form of thought’ ... they are instinctually bred. Instincts first and feelings second ... and thought last. Maybe that is why thought gets all the attention ... being at the top of the heap it is more apparent. RESPONDENT: However, thought is something that is remembered, comes into being through memory, and I can’t see that all feeling comes into existence from ‘my’ memory, but maybe from the memory that is just ‘out there-in here’, as mentioned above. RICHARD: Let us just take one – very obvious – example to start with: child-hood hurts. They are feelings first and foremost and thought is a means to label them. It is feelings that get hurt first – not thought – and it is the feeling-tone memory that is primary. The same applies to child-hood delights, of course. Speaking personally, being without the affective faculty as I am, I have no child-hood hurts whatsoever to resolve. They were all wiped away at one stroke in 1992. RESPONDENT: Maybe we’re nit-picking the word ‘feeling’. I do work hard to be aware of the existence of every thought and feeling. RICHARD: Under every thought lies a feeling-tone. And at the core of feelings lies ‘me’ in all ‘my’ glory. RESPONDENT: I can’t feel guilty that I do not understand. I just don’t, just like the dew is not on the grass this morning – that I can see. RICHARD: Oh, I would not want you to feel guilty ... quite the opposite, in fact. Be bold; be daring; be audacious. Success depends upon determination ... and self-castigation is to be picking on the only person who can set you free. RESPONDENT: You have proven, Richard, that you are far superior in your knowledge to all of the tried and true ways of seeking whatever it was that you were/are seeking. You have made the point that ‘your’ knowledge is superior to other knowledge. I would not argue with you in the least, for, fortunately, I never became involved in all of the Eastern methods of which you are so knowledgeable. RICHARD: Dream on ... your posts give me the impression that you revere Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti and his words are as icons to you. Thus I would venture to guess that you are immersed in Eastern Mysticism up to the neck without realising it ... like a lot of other Westerners. RESPONDENT: Well, one would have to recognise Eastern Mysticism to know it, remember it, and I don’t. RICHARD: But by now you might be becoming aware that it is a pursuit well worth undertaking. All your talk about the ‘timeless’; ‘ending thought’; ‘love’; ‘God’ ... and so on demonstrates to me that you are in it up to the neck ... as I have already observed. I studied it only to get myself out of the mire I had inadvertently immersed myself in ... I was well-meaning and ignorant (a dire combination). RESPONDENT: I do, though, have reverence for the teachings that came through Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti, but I have no personal adoration for the man himself – the flesh and blood individual. RICHARD: Those teachings come from Brahman ... the Indian name for what Mr. Paul Tillich (a theologian and philosopher) called ‘The Ground Of Being’. RESPONDENT: The teachings point the way to love, but it is up to each one to discover that for himself. (Please don’t give me a tirade on ‘love’ paling in hue in the light of ‘actuality’.) RICHARD: Okay, I will go in the other direction then. Love – both secular and sacred – has been revered as the ‘cure-all’ for just about everything. So why has it not done its job? To understand this, one needs to comprehend that for love to exist at all there must be separation between ‘me’ and the person, the persons, the object or the god that ‘I’ am to love. Not for nothing is the statement ‘Love is a bridge’ promoted abroad for all and sundry to take in. My question is: A ‘bridge’ between what two shores? Who are the two ‘I’s that are separate? Do ‘I’ exist, actually exist? ‘I’ may be real, but am ‘I’ actual? If ‘I’ am an illusion then any ‘bridge’ will only reinforce ‘my’ existence ... my very real existence. If a person is said to be ‘egotistic’ or ‘ego-driven’, then a goodly dose of love is advised to ameliorate the phenomenon. Yet the persona is still in existence ... a loving and lovable persona, of course, but still here. ‘I’ am the ‘spanner in the works’ and to cover my ‘self’ over with a coating of love is to gild the lily. ‘I’ still lurk around, shielded now by love, wreaking my mischief in disguise. Also, intrinsic to the nature of love is its – always unfulfilled – promise of eternity. One’s life here is here on earth now ... what use is a spurious Eternal Bliss in some conjectured After-Life? Love has produced wars, murders, rapes and aggression since time immemorial ... it staggers me that it still retains its credibility. To kill for ‘Love of Country’ or ‘Love of God’ is surely proof enough for any discerning person. Then there are those ‘Crimes of Passion’ that are brought about by love’s constant companions: possessiveness, jealousy and envy. If these examples are considered too extreme then what about the heartache, the longing, the pining and the yearning that all peoples report as accompanying love’s bliss? This leads to the search for True Love which, supposedly, does not induce these unpleasant characteristics so common to everybody’s experience of love. True Love is simply a fiction ... it is impossible to manifest it here on earth, hence the notion of an After-Life to encompass it. To repeat: Love never delivers on its implied promise. It never has done nor ever will. Its days are numbered, as more and more people are beginning to notice that love itself – not the sensate human body – is failing to live up to its ill-deserved curative reputation again and again. RESPONDENT: I think I’ve lived in your actuality, albeit many years ago. RICHARD: If you did, you would still be living it ... and understanding only too well what I am writing. RESPONDENT: Therefore, I have neither gained nor lost anything. RICHARD: If you say so ... but if I were you I would question that assumption. RESPONDENT: If you are so opposed to all of the ‘ways’ that don’t work, why are you so anxious to reveal your knowledge of them? Why not forget them? RICHARD: I am not anxious at all. I am having a lot of fun ... and I reveal my knowledge of them because we are fellow human beings. RESPONDENT: That is a very weak cop-out. RICHARD: No, it is not. It is just that I have written about this to you before and did not wish to repeat myself endlessly. But at the risk of copping another ‘oh, God, there we go again, same old same old, verbatim from the archives, cut and paste’, I will copy and paste the following that I wrote for you previously:
It is possible to be actually free of the Human Condition, as this body, in this life-time, here on earth. RESPONDENT: All of those ways that did not work seem to have dropped you off in a strange place. RICHARD: Yes, it is very strange indeed. Here is peace-on-earth ... it exists in this actual world. There is an actual world that lies under one’s very nose ... I interact with the same people, things and events that you do, yet it is as if I am in another dimension altogether. There is no good or evil here where I live. I live in a veritable paradise ... this very earth I live on is so vastly superior to any fabled Arcadian Utopia that it would be impossible to believe if I was not living it twenty four hours a day ... and for the last five years. It is so perfectly pure and clear here that there is no need for Love or Compassion or Bliss or Euphoria or Ecstasy or Truth or Goodness or Beauty or Oneness or Unity or Wholeness or ... or any of those baubles. They all pale into pathetic insignificance ... and I lived them for eleven years. RESPONDENT: Oh, God, there we go again, same old same old, verbatim-from the archives, cut and paste (but not of the thinker – Ha, Ha) RICHARD: I freely copy and paste my own writing for a number of reasons ... one of which is that you wrote some time ago that you do not read all the posts that come in as there are so many. Also, you have written just recently that you are not subscribed to the List so I have no way of knowing what you read or do not read. And thirdly: your re-questioning of something already covered tells me that you did not understand the first time around when you read it. There are other reasons too ... but these will do for now. * RICHARD: There can never be peace in the real world. The reality of the real world is an illusion. The Reality of the Mystical World is a delusion. RESPONDENT: But there is peace in the ‘actual’ world? RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: Your own little actual world? RICHARD: It is neither mine nor little ... it is everybody’s and as vast as the infinity and eternity of this physical universe. That’s pretty big by anyone’s standards. RESPONDENT: Or are you just still ‘out there’, the very heart of your being having been ‘blown away’ by psychedelics, the horrors of war, or the frustration of unattainable ‘nirvanas’? RICHARD: No, none of the above. And methinks this is this silliness competition operating here. RESPONDENT: Indeed, it is amazing what the ego will do to stay ‘alive’, in existence. Its protective shell is stronger than any thing the mind of man can devise to destroy it. RICHARD: Not so ... with apperceptive awareness operating the human mind can dissolve anything, whether it be psychological or psychic. RESPONDENT: Everyday I watch thought, the more I realise its limits, i.e., thought realises its thorough inadequateness to do anything ... and we are not talking technology. When ‘I’ and the thought come together; when the observer is the observed; when the ‘time’ separating the self and the duality ceases, what is ‘there’, when time is not? RICHARD: A massive delusion, of course. RESPONDENT: How quick you were to answer. RICHARD: I am able to answer quickly because I spent eleven years studying it from the inside ... I lived in that massive delusion, so I know it well. RESPONDENT: You have given much thought to the ‘timeless’ over years past, and when thought, being of time, was never able to touch ‘it’, came to the massive conclusion that timelessness was a massive delusion. Is this not so? RICHARD: This is not so ... I lived the massive delusion of ‘timelessness’ and was thus able to examine it experientially. RESPONDENT: No one can answer that. That is what Krishnamurti says may ‘come to you’. You cannot go to it’. I’m not saying I believe him; I’m not saying that I don’t believe him. I’m just saying what he said, emphasising a point. RICHARD: And what ‘point’ might that be ... that you are gullible? RESPONDENT: No, just that I can accept the fact that I don’t know. RICHARD: For someone who professes not to know you are very busy telling me where I am going wrong. Do you really ‘accept the fact that you don’t know’ ... or is it more of that ‘correct spiritual-stance’ stuff like being humble and all that? Stuff like: ‘he who is truly wise knows nothing’? RESPONDENT: That ‘I’, thought, can never know. You say the same thing yourself – that thought cannot ‘know’; that there is no ‘thinker’, but then you go to lengths to show us that thought does indeed think it knows. RICHARD: You have read me wrong. I say that thought cannot know whilst there is a ‘thinker’ in there wanting to be the ‘knower’. When ‘I’ as ego – and ‘me’ as soul – abdicate the throne, thought can operate freely and examine whatever. * RICHARD: Have you ever been to India to see for yourself the results of what they claim are tens of thousands of years of ‘That’ coming to you? I have, and it is hideous ... and it is also sobering to realise that the intelligentsia of the West are eagerly following them down the slippery slope of striving to attain to a self-seeking ‘otherness’ ... to the detriment of life on earth. ‘Otherness’ is simply Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s term for ‘The Absolute’ ... which is another word for ‘Brahman’, the Hindu ‘Ground Of Being’. Thus any designated ‘Intelligence’ translates easily as ‘God’s Word’. The trouble with people who discard the god of Christianity is that they do not realise that by turning to the Eastern spirituality they have effectively jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. Eastern spirituality is religion ... merely in a different form to what people in the West have been raised to believe in. Eastern philosophy sounds so convincing to the Western mind that is desperately looking for answers. The Christian conditioning actually sets up the situation for a thinking person to be susceptible to the insidious doctrines of the East. At the end of the line there is always a god of some description, lurking in disguise, wreaking its havoc with its ‘Teachings’. If it were not for the appalling suffering engendered it would all be highly amusing. RESPONDENT: I cannot concern myself with the suffering in India, its waiting games, or the appalling results of teachings which you ascribe to Krishnamurti and other Easterners, or Westerners for that matter. RICHARD: Once again, this smacks of selfishness. One can never be free from the suffering of the Human Condition if one is only concerned for oneself. One becomes free for all humankind. RESPONDENT: Krishnamurti himself said he was nothing, just a mirror which we could use to see ourselves, and once we had learned how to see ourselves, we could throw away the mirror. What kind of philosophy is that? RICHARD: It is just more of the ‘Tried and True’. Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain, for example, said much the same thing. Most of the enlightened masters speak of being a mirror ... that is what kind of philosophy it is. It is the tried and failed. RESPONDENT: It you have made more of him than that, then that is your problem. RICHARD: I have made nothing more of him than what he was: an enlightened man surrendered to a higher power ... a power which I, for one, can identify as the Brahman of the Non-Dualist tradition of Advaita Vedanta. Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti said:
And again:
RICHARD: There is also more than a bit of Buddhism thrown in for good measure. RESPONDENT: I do know how tricky thought can be/is. In its attempts to understand ‘all’, it can convince itself that almost anything is real. Thought is not real, but it is actual, actually thought. Only when thought does not function (other than as it has to) will we know what is ‘here’/ ‘there’/‘transformed’, etc. Thought is made up of time – past, present and imagined future, and thought (time) can never enter into or know what is not of thought. By ‘know’, I mean experience – in actuality. RICHARD: It is the ‘thinker’ that is not actual. It is the ‘thinker’ that is made up of a remembered past, a specious present and an imagined future. RESPONDENT: Yes, I agree with that thought, but here we go again nit-picking the words: the thinker is not ‘actual’, but he is ‘real’. Why are you so difficult? Nit, nit, nit. The ‘thinker’ is the thought. The observer is the observed. RICHARD: This ‘the ‘thinker’ is the thought’ philosophy means that the ‘thinker’ will not end until thought does ... which makes it impossible to operate and function in the world of people, things and events. And this ‘the observer is the observed’ philosophy is solipsism ... which makes it stupid to talk to anyone because they are you in disguise (you as God). That is ... Brahma dreaming the universe and all that fairy-story stuff that passes for wisdom in India. * RICHARD: It is the ‘thinker’ that can never enter into the magnificence of this moment in time and this place in space. RESPONDENT: But thought can? RICHARD: Yes, thought operates freely here ... where there is no ‘thinker’. RESPONDENT: Intelligence does not use thought to try and prove that it knows more than everybody else. It doesn’t act like a fighting cock all strutting and prancing around ready to attack its opponent. RICHARD: No, indeed not. This ‘Intelligence’ is being as humble as all get-out in the hope that no one will twig to the fact that it is only ‘I’ in disguise. RESPONDENT: < Grin > RICHARD: I am glad that you find it amusing ... because it is. Although it is black humour, of course, as it has resulted in 160,000,000 people being killed in wars this century alone. * RESPONDENT: This ‘cocky’ attitude somewhat present in some posts only reveals some philosophers wanting to do the battle of thought. RICHARD: Are you still talking to me (Richard) or are you speaking generally? I have more than merely ‘a cocky attitude’ ... my cockiness is actual and comes from an inestimable success. And I am not battling thought here, but rather beliefs ... which are emotion-backed thoughts. No one wants to examine their feelings. RESPONDENT: Generally, but I was also referring to your post in which you beat up on No. 10. RICHARD: The phrase ‘beat up on No. 10’ is a curious choice of words. He talked about being ‘beyond enlightenment’ ... he said that his ‘Transformation’ was ‘not better, just different’. I was merely pointing out to him that all he had written so far were quantumised re-hashes of the ‘Tried and True’. I am still waiting for him to demonstrate where his ‘Transformation’ is different to enlightenment. If someone – like myself – publicly claims to have discovered the secret to life that will cure humanity of all the suffering that has endured through aeons ... then they automatically invite the closest scrutiny. And rightly so. If my posts to him is me giving him a ‘beating up’ then so too are your posts to me ... but to me it is all par for the course, whatever you call it. It is all good fun as far as I am concerned for sincerity – not seriousness – is a blessing. RESPONDENT: When thought, which is of time, fills the head, of course, the timelessness is not there. RICHARD: This ‘timelessness’ is a fantasy born out of a delusion that a realised being is beyond space and time. Immortality is nothing but the instinct-driven desire to survive at all costs ... even at the cost of salubrity. RESPONDENT: I do not think this sort of display of thought is ever going to solve anguish. RICHARD: What will, then? Examining beliefs, perhaps? And thus examining feelings? Anguish is a feeling, after all. RESPONDENT: The end of time, the end of thought ... the endless circle of thought, not thought that is necessary to write your name. Anguish is thought, and as you stated above, feeling is emotion backed thought, but still thought. RICHARD: I did not state above that ‘feeling is an emotion-backed thought’ at all. I say ‘belief is an emotion-backed thought. This is why I copy and paste my own writing verbatim ... people misread what I say the first time around. Sometimes the second and the third, too. RESPONDENT: Is this list merely something to enjoy, pass the time of day, or is it a serious effort to understand and end the problematic child, thought ? RICHARD: I, for one, thoroughly enjoy this List, yes. It is indeed a pleasant pastime, yes. It is not a ‘serious effort’, no. And last, but not least, thought is not a ‘problematic child’ it is the ‘thinker’ that is the problem ... and the ‘feeler’. RESPONDENT: You never got past Krishnamurti 101, did you? You broke the mirror before you ever used it. That thinker is the thought! RICHARD: Looks like you are describing yourself. Endlessly repeating lesson No. 1 of ‘The Krishnamurti Reader’. Viz.: ‘the thinker is the thought’. Speaking personally, I was ‘the mirror’ for eleven years ... so I know it well. RESPONDENT: Humbly and respectfully submitted. RICHARD: Why ‘humbly and respectfully’? Why is there a need for this abject humiliation? RESPONDENT: Webster’s No. 1 meaning of the word ‘Humble’: not proud or haughty; not arrogant or assertive. RICHARD: True ... indeed true.
RESPONDENT: What does that meaning have to do with humiliation? Humiliation has a completely different connotation. RICHARD: Etymologically the words ‘humble’ and ‘humiliation’ come from the Latin ‘humilis’ meaning low, lowly, base (from ‘humus’ meaning: on the ground, earth, relating to homo; ‘man’.) Which means: ‘having or showing a low estimate of one’s own importance; an action, thought offered with or affected by such an estimate; lacking assertion, deferential. Of lowly rank or condition’. Thus ‘humble’ has only a derivative meaning of ‘not proud or haughty; not arrogant or assertive’. It is all religious/spiritual posturing ... which is submitting to a higher power (what you have clearly described in this post as ‘Lord’ and ‘God’.) Not for nothing did Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti purportedly say: ‘There is that which is sacred, holy. That I would bow down to; that I would prostrate before’. He talked endlessly about humility and reverence. (Editorial note: the exact quote is as follows: [Ms. Pupul Jayakar]: ‘... the feeling of presence was overpowering, and soon my voice stopped. Krishnaji turned to me, ‘Do you feel It? I could prostrate to It?’ His body was trembling as he spoke of the presence that listened. ‘Yes, I can prostrate to this, that is here’. Suddenly he turned and left us, walking alone to his room’. page 364; Jayakar, Pupul: ‘Krishnamurti – A Biography’; Harper & Row; San Francisco; 1986). * RICHARD: There is no god to be in awe of or to fear ... here in this actual world of sensual delight. RESPONDENT: But there are two sides of one coin. RICHARD: Not in actuality there is not. There are no opposites here: no gods and no demons; no love and no hate; no suffering and no compassion; no evil and no good ... and so on. You allow for as much yourself when describing Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s reality:
There is no anguish or animosity here.
RESPONDENT: One who tried and failed to discover Love has said that love has failed. RICHARD: Oh really? Who was that fool? Was it someone on this List? RESPONDENT: Someone ... has said that love has failed because hundreds (thousands?) (millions?) of ‘seekers’ have failed to find a certain state they were looking for, which they titled ‘love’. Of course, they did not find love because a self cannot find love. RICHARD: Then there is not much chance that all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides will ever cease then is there? They will go on and on ad infinitum unless these ‘seekers’ can begin to understand that love perpetuates all the ills of humankind and stop seeking what you say is impossible to find (only .000001 of the population reach these lofty heights anyway) and start looking for the cause of the problem rather than being seduced into a band-aid solution that just does not work. RESPONDENT: They can find actuality, and it is a good bet that in that actuality there will no be love. RICHARD: I can assure you that there is no love in actuality ... it is more than a ‘good bet’. This is because the soul ‘me’ must expire for actuality to become apparent ... and this soul ‘me’ is love. RESPONDENT: Because one can neither ‘find’ nor ‘try’ Love. Love comes of its volition, not because one has sought after it. RICHARD: Yea verily ... and, as I have said before, it has come to only .000001 of the population. Hardly a recipe for success, now, is it? RESPONDENT: Richard, it is not love that failed, it was the ones looking for love who failed. RICHARD: How can you possibly know this as a fact? Is this your experience talking ... or just something that you have read somewhere and are parroting for my benefit. RESPONDENT: Only one who vows that he knows even the unknowable would state that there is no such thing as Love if he himself had looked and failed to find it. RICHARD: Who is this ‘one’ that you are referring to again? No one called Richard has said that ‘there is no such thing as Love’. Speaking personally, I am on record as saying, over and over again, that Love is a feeling – born out of the affective faculties of the psyche – and is very real. It is not actual, like a human body is, or a tree, or an ashtray, but it is very, very real indeed. Why, it is as real as god is. RESPONDENT: The fact that this person never found Love doesn’t mean that love was ‘tried’. It has never been tried because it was never found and never will be. RICHARD: I wonder just who ‘this person’ is? Speaking personally again, for eleven years, when there was no ‘I’ as ego in this body, Love lived on earth as a human being. However, the native intelligence of this body operated well enough to find the Source of Love. Lo and behold! it was ‘me’ as soul ... coyly hiding in the heart and being as humble as all get-out in the hope that it would remain undiscovered. This exposure was the ending of ‘me’ ... and Love disappeared simultaneously. So did the Absolute. Instantaneously, I was here in this actual world ... this ambrosial paradise. RESPONDENT: I have looked under just as many rocks as you, Richard, but the rocks I have looked under were the rocks of the self ... it is not there. If it’s not under my individual rock, it certainly isn’t under other’s rocks, either – the holy, enlightened men whom you have read and remember with such conformity to correctness. RICHARD: Then if ‘the holy, enlightened men’ have never lived as Love then who has? Or are you – like another person – now saying that Love has never been on earth yet? RESPONDENT: Love is not anywhere to be found. It is a game of hide and seek where Love is the only player. RICHARD: This must be so frustrating for you. RESPONDENT: Krishnamurti says it finds you, not the other way around. RICHARD: How did Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti know this, according to you? Did Love find him? If so, has it found anyone else – living or dead – according to you? RESPONDENT: I suspect that one must be very, very still for it to find us. RICHARD: But a ‘very, very still’ self is still a self, nevertheless. And whilst there is a self it is not going to happen. So, back to the drawing board, eh?
RESPONDENT: One who tried and failed to discover Love has said that love has failed. RICHARD: Oh really? Who was that fool? Was it someone on this List? RESPONDENT: I say that what you found was not ‘love’ but something you labelled ‘love’. Gas maybe? RICHARD: I say that I lived as Love for eleven years ... and you, who knows better than me how I lived even though you were not here, say that I did not. This is developing into a ’tis/’tisn’t; ’tis/’tisn’t; ’tis/’tisn’t situation and is leading nowhere. And to say it was ‘gas’ is simply silliness. RESPONDENT: Someone ... has said that love has failed because hundreds (thousands?) (millions?) of ‘seekers’ have failed to find a certain state they were looking for, which they titled ‘love’. Of course, they did not find love because a self cannot find love. RICHARD: Then there is not much chance that all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides will ever cease then is there? They will go on and on ad infinitum unless these ‘seekers’ can begin to understand that love perpetuates all the ills of humankind and stop seeking what you say is impossible to find (only .000001 of the population reach these lofty heights anyway) and start looking for the cause of the problem rather than being seduced into a band-aid solution that just does not work. RESPONDENT: What has your ‘actuality’ done to solve all of the problems that you talk about that are so prevalent on Earth? Even fewer have found ‘actuality’ than love, according to your estimates. What kind of odds are these? RICHARD: Spiritual Enlightenment has been around for thousands and thousands of years ... at least 2,500 to 3,000 if Mr. Zarathustra and Mr. Gotama the Sakyan and the Rishis were the first ... the Vedas have been provisionally dated to about 1500 BC and the Upanishads to about 1,000 BC (and up to 3,000 years if the dating by some Indian Scholars are correct). An actual freedom has been around for 5 years. Next question please? RESPONDENT: They can find actuality, and it is a good bet that in that actuality there will no be love. RICHARD: I can assure you that there is no love in actuality ... it is more than a ‘good bet’. This is because the soul ‘me’ must expire for actuality to become apparent ... and this soul ‘me’ is love. RESPONDENT: I guess that says it all. Richard, have you sold out, sold your soul to the devil? Just curious. RICHARD: Oh no ... not you too? This is so puerile ... this is what I expect (and get) from Born-Again Christians, but from a Krishnamurtiite? Really? Look, there is no ‘the’ devil ... there is only a Christian devil (and other religions have demons and so on). It is all a nightmarish fantasy on their part ... there is no God and Devil outside of human imagination to either surrender one’s ego to (God) or sell one’s soul to (Devil). That’s it. End of story. RESPONDENT: Because one can neither ‘find’ nor ‘try’ Love. Love comes of its volition, not because one has sought after it. RICHARD: Yea verily ... and, as I have said before, it has come to only .000001 of the population. Hardly a recipe for success, now, is it? RESPONDENT: Oh, now, but we have a really good recipe for ‘actuality’, don’t we? How many zeros after the decimal to indicate the number ‘actuality’ has come to. I don’t know how to write two out of 5.8 billion. Is it something like this: .000000000000002? About those odds again. You did say there was someone else who could verify ‘actuality’, didn’t you? RICHARD: I have said on several occasions there are some other people, yes ... maybe you are referring to this dialogue in particular:
RESPONDENT: Richard, it is not love that failed, it was the ones looking for love who failed. RICHARD: How can you possibly know this as a fact? Is this your experience talking ... or just something that you have read somewhere and are parroting for my benefit. RESPONDENT: I am parroting what you said – in a different way. RICHARD: My word it is ‘in a different way’ ... it has no relationship to what I said whatsoever. RESPONDENT: You said they found love, and it failed, so now I’m suggesting that it was not love they found, and in finding love, they failed. RICHARD: You are seriously suggesting that all the enlightened people that have ever lived – including Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti – have failed to find Love? Are you – like another person – saying that Love has never, ever existed on earth in a human form yet? RESPONDENT: Just because love is not known, I have not blocked the possibility of Love coming into being. I have not found something I labelled ‘love’, and then said ‘love has been tried and it failed’. I would be more inclined to say that maybe it wasn’t love at all. I’ve heard it said that love is ‘when ‘you’ are not’, but being as I still am, then I wouldn’t know about that, either. RICHARD: Just where did you hear it said that ‘love is when ‘you’ are not’? If no one on earth has ever lived Love ... then it can only be a disembodied voice from out of the ether. Are you into channelling perhaps? RESPONDENT: AND, I’m not going to believe you when you say that there is no ‘me/ego’ in your blood and flesh body, for your adamant denial of ‘self, soul, etc.’ leaves me seriously wondering about the one doing the denying. RICHARD: But I do not deny ‘self, soul, etc.’ ... you must be confusing me with No. 22. I fully acknowledge their very real existence and clearly state that the ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul are the source of all human problems. I have said this over and over again to the point of tedious repetition ... do you not read what I write? RESPONDENT: Only one who vows that he knows even the unknowable would state that there is no such thing as Love if he himself had looked and failed to find it. RICHARD: Who is this ‘one’ that you are referring to again? No one called Richard has said that ‘there is no such thing as Love’. Speaking personally, I am on record as saying, over and over again, that Love is a feeling – born out of the affective faculties of the psyche – and is very real. It is not actual, like a human body is, or a tree, or an ashtray, but it is very, very real indeed. Why, it is as real as god is. RESPONDENT: What made you think that what you were feeling was Love? RICHARD: In enlightenment there is no ‘I’ to be feeling Love ... one is being Love. Love is one’s very identity ... it is ‘me’ (transmogrified into a grand ‘Me’) at the very core of ‘being’. RESPONDENT: If feelings aren’t reliable, as you pointed out to me, perhaps it was just that gas acting up again, higher up – in the head. RICHARD: Here is that word ‘gas’ again ... only this time with an explanation of what it means to you: feelings. As Love is of the affective faculties ... I guess it could be described as ‘gas’. Although I would rather say that Love is ‘gaseous’ ... as in ‘ephemeral’. RESPONDENT: The word is not the thing, but I do think there is a word for your condition, and your shrinks have probably told you what it is. RICHARD: Oh, well done! What a great diagnosis ... marred only by the fact that I have already told you that very thing several times before ... and with no ‘probably’ about it. Tell me ... do you ever have anything original to say? For example: ‘the word is not the thing’ is Lesson No. 3 (a) of ‘The Krishnamurti Reader Mark II’. RESPONDENT: The fact that this person never found Love doesn’t mean that love was ‘tried’. It has never been tried because it was never found and never will be. RICHARD: I wonder just who ‘this person’ is? Speaking personally again, for eleven years, when there was no ‘I’ as ego in this body, Love lived on earth as a human being. However, the native intelligence of this body operated well enough to find the Source of Love. Lo and behold! it was ‘me’ as soul ... coyly hiding in the heart and being as humble as all get-out in the hope that it would remain undiscovered. This exposure was the ending of ‘me’ ... and Love disappeared simultaneously. So did the Absolute. Instantaneously, I was here in this actual world ... this ambrosial paradise. RESPONDENT: Wow! That’s one big ‘flip out’. RICHARD: Yes indeed, it is considered by those who are knowledgeable in the psychiatric sense to be one the most severe forms of mental disorder possible. I did write to tell you several months ago that you were in dialogue with a madman ... and it is official, for I have a document to prove that I am insane. However, I did rather consider that you – and/or others of a similar disposition – might be willing to explore what main-stream society calls an illness. Oh well, c’est la vie, I guess. RESPONDENT: I have looked under just as many rocks as you, Richard, but the rocks I have looked under were the rocks of the self ... it is not there. If it’s not under my individual rock, it certainly isn’t under other’s rocks, either – the holy, enlightened men whom you have read and remember with such conformity to correctness. RICHARD: Then if ‘the holy, enlightened men’ have never lived as Love then who has? Or are you – like another person – now saying that Love has never been on earth yet? RESPONDENT: That is a distinct possibility. There may have been people who earth, e.g., Krishnamurti, who pointed for others to discover Love or Truth or whatever you want to call that freedom he spoke of. RICHARD: Are you saying that he did not live as Love but pointed to it? Or are you saying that he did live as Love and pointed to it? RESPONDENT: At least it is not manifesting that I can see, and what can I see? ‘I’, being ego, can see nothing clearly. The self that I am prevents clear vision. RICHARD: But you can see clearly when it comes to having a clear vision about Richard’s condition ... why not the other? RESPONDENT: As I’ve said before, I don’t know what a soul is, don’t know if one exist, so I can’t really say that it is either dead or alive. RICHARD: We have been down this path before ... let me refresh your memory:
RESPONDENT: Love is not anywhere to be found. It is a game of hide and seek where Love is the only player. RICHARD: This must be so frustrating for you. RESPONDENT: No. Maybe I just don’t want it badly enough. ‘Not wanting it badly enough’ may be ‘not wanting it’ at all. RICHARD: Nothing worth anything is gained without extending oneself way beyond the norm. One has to want freedom like one has never wanted anything before. I say: rev up desire until one feels that one must surely implode ... and rev it up some more. Unless freedom is one’s number one priority in life – amounting to an obsession – one will always live a second-rate life. RESPONDENT: Krishnamurti says it finds you, not the other way around. RICHARD: How did Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti know this, according to you? Did Love find him? If so, has it found anyone else – living or dead – according to you? RESPONDENT: I have no reason to doubt that he knew what he was talking about. RICHARD: But did Love find him? RESPONDENT: In fact, I have many reasons to accept that he did know what he was talking and writing about. RICHARD: But, again you are not answering the question ... why not? Did he, or did he not, live as Love on earth ... according to you? RESPONDENT: But he added that each one must discover it for himself. As I stated before, Richard, if you are happy, that makes me smile, for you deserve happiness, in my opinion. RICHARD: Not only happy, but harmless ... and that is equally important. Mostly people overlook that part ... and so all the wars go on. RESPONDENT: I suspect that one must be very, very still for it to find us ... yeah, dead. RICHARD: Psychologically dead, of course ... there is no ‘After-Life’. Freedom is here-on-earth ... there is nowhere else than here. But a ‘very, very still’ self is still a self, nevertheless. And whilst there is a self it is not going to happen. So, back to the drawing board, eh? RESPONDENT: A very still self is a self that is not. RICHARD: If it is a self that is not, then there is no way it can be described as a ‘very, very, still self’. RESPONDENT: You knew what I meant. RICHARD: I know very well what you meant. You meant what you wrote: ‘a very, very still self’. Look, if you do want Love (Spiritual Enlightenment) and not go all the way to an actual freedom, then being still is not going to do the trick. This is because not only can you not find Love ... Love does not come to you, either. The way it works is that when you become love then Love is You. Here is how to be Love:
It is quite easy, really. RESPONDENT: Yes, there is self, and that self is me. Since there is no self as you, I still just wonder who is doing all the big talking. RICHARD: Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti had his ‘I’ as ego die in 1922 ... yet you quote him as all get-out. Why do you not wonder ‘who was doing all the big talking’ in him, too? After all, he spent sixty-plus years flying around the world talking to tens of thousands of people. And his ‘me’ as soul was still intact into the bargain. RESPONDENT: Is it the atheist as you? That is an identity you gave yourself, but, of course, that is not a self, now, is it? RICHARD: I also say that I am a fellow human being ... are you going to call that an identity? I also say that I am this flesh and blood body ... are you going to call that an identity too? The first person pronoun is used for convenience and ease of writing ... it is too laboured to say ‘The Speaker’ all the time. And disingenuous as well. I detect more than a trace of cynicism – bordering upon bitterness – in your latest posts. Never, ever give up.
RESPONDENT No. 22: Now you suggest what I have previously said about the already
always essential nature being obscured by notions of a ‘me’. Also now you suggest that an ‘I’ is an illusion (i.e.
something that does not have any substantial true existence), which is different than: (Richard to No. 19): ‘But I do not deny
‘self, soul, etc.’ RESPONDENT: Don’t you mean revolving? RICHARD: Now, you said after our last post: ‘I quit, this whole post is simply silly, especially the part about you seeling your soul to the devil and you buying it’. Is this what you are reduced to ... sniping away at Richard in posts to other people? Is this not conduct unbecoming to ‘a simple country girl from Arkansas’? However, I do not get the inference of ‘revolving’? Is it a typo? Did you mean to write ‘revolting’? Unless, of course, you mean ‘spinning out’ as in ‘it is all unreal, man, far out’? Or are you going to try to put me off again by saying: ‘this whole post is simply silly, especially the part about your point of view revolving and you buying it’? Ain’t life grand!
RICHARD (to Respondent No. 4): I have been examined by two accredited psychiatrists and have been
officially classified as suffering from a pronounced and severe mental disorder. My symptoms are: 1. Depersonalisation. 2.
Derealisation. 3. Alexithymia. 4. Anhedonia RESPONDENT: Richard, I’m going to let my light out from under the bushel and tell you what I see: You are still ‘crazy’, and I still have affection and/or compassion for you. RICHARD: As I am a person devoid of either latent or active enmity, I require no restorative affection
whatsoever to create the illusion of intimacy in my human interactions. And as I am also a person devoid of either latent or
active sorrow, I require no antidotal compassion whatsoever to create the illusion of caring. Thus, in an actual freedom, intimacy
is not dependent upon cooperation. I experience an actual intimacy RESPONDENT: Maybe No. 4 will come around to loving you, also. RICHARD: Hmm ... my posts are written in appreciative response to a fellow human being who is spending the most precious gifts they have – their time and sincerity – to communicate with me about the sense they have made, so far, of life, the universe and what it is to be a human being living in the world as it is with people as they are. To put it another way: I always value another human being simply for daring to be here on this fair earth – and therefore actively doing this living business – irregardless of where they are coming from. Ain’t life grand!
RESPONDENT No. 34: And be responsible (as No. 14 says), or transcend fragmentation (the same). I wonder if you agree. RICHARD: You may stop wondering ... I do not agree. Nobody is responsible for being born with the
instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire ... it is nothing but a rather clumsy software package
genetically inherited by all sentient beings as a rough and ready start to life. If No. 14 wishes to self-aggrandise himself by
taking an obviously ineffective ‘infinite responsibility’ for what the blind forces of nature have produced ... then that is
his business. And if you wish to be equally ineffective in making apparent the already always existing peace-on-earth by ‘transcending
fragmentation (the same)’ then that is your business. RESPONDENT No. 12: Why isn’t it clear that any ideation of self-mastery
(e.g. belief that ‘I’ am free of conditioning or ‘I’ am infinitely responsible or ‘I’ have transformed myself and this
change is permanent or that ‘I’ have taken on the blind forces of nature and brought them to an end in this flesh and blood
body) is self-aggrandizement, thought praising itself for purported accomplishments? RESPONDENT: If the ego is so big that it cannot see the vastness of itself, it can believe it responsible for any and everything and get away with that delusion, don’t you think? RICHARD: Yes, it requires repeated injections of commonsense to penetrate the chinks in the otherwise inviolable bastions of ‘Goodness’ that protects, nourishes and sustains the infinitely expanded identity. As this ‘Reservoir of Goodness’ shields the apotheosised identity from ‘Evil’ – and the physical world is believed ‘evil’ as in the ‘temptation of the senses’ meaning – then commonsense has its work cut out to even make a dent. The outcome? When commonsense is labelled ‘worldly’ – and the gullible seeker buys this shrewdness – then the ‘Ancient Wisdom’ propagated by the ‘Bodiless Ones’ reigns supreme. Then they can declare ‘Ultimate Responsibility’ – whatever that means – and even weep crocodile tears of Divine Compassion for the suffering of humanity. Because in the ‘real world’, when a Government Minister, for example, is caught ‘in flagrante delicto’ he and/or she ‘takes responsibility’ and resigns, at the very least, and pines away ... if suicide be not an option; in the Military Forces, not too long ago, when a Ranking Officer committed an unpardonable sin he ‘took responsibility’ by ritual disembowelment or shooting himself or whatever (‘the buck stops here’). But when a Guru or God-Man – whose ‘Ancient Wisdom’ initiated the morals in the first place that cause these outrageous suicides – displays anger (or any other human trait) it is said to be ‘Divine Anger’ (or any other Divine Trait) and is indicative of the fragile and elusive link between ‘Purusha’ and ‘Prakriti’ (consciousness and nature) and known by some as being ‘Sacred Schizophrenia’. For example: ‘Two birds, inseparable companions, are perched on the same tree; one eats the sweet fruit and
the other looks on without eating’. (Rig Veda I.164.20). This vision, deemed to be meaningful, is duplicated in Mundaka
Upanishad (I.III.1) and in Shvetashvatara Upanishad (IV.6). In the same way as the two birds are inseparable, a human being is not
thought complete and whole without both the aspect of ‘Prakriti’ (which experiences the domain of time and space and form) and
the aspect of ‘Purusha’ (which is timeless and spaceless and formless). Mr. Ishvarakrishna (compiler of ‘Samkhyakarika)
pointed out: ‘Purusha without Prakriti is lame and Prakriti without Purusha is blind’ Similarly, when Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene got angry and cursed the out-of-season fig tree for not bearing fruit, he is excused by apologists as not being ‘In The Spirit’ ... taking ‘Ultimate Responsibility’ means absolutely zilch when you are god ... but it sure sounds good to the desperate believer. Why, even Mr. Ken Wilbur can write pages of meaningless justifications for the Guru’s and the God-Men’s failure to eliminate ‘Basic Nature’ rather than merely transcending it ... and that failure is the only place where ‘Ultimate Responsibility’ has any meaning. Perhaps Mr. Christopher Calder’s attitude sums up why these antics are condoned:
In other words: they are saying that it is not possible to be free from the human condition, here on earth, in this life-time, as this flesh and blood body. And is it no wonder ... after all, the Buddhist’s ‘Ancient Wisdom’ extols ‘Parinirvana’ and the Hindus ‘Ancient Wisdom’ exalts ‘Mahasamadhi’ and the Christians inscribe R. I. P. on their tombstones and so on and so on ... on unto the after-death ‘Ultimate Freedom’. After all, the ‘Ancient Wisdom’ propagated by the ‘Bodiless Ones’ reigns supreme here on earth. The ending 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 requires the ending of malice and sorrow ... which involves getting one’s head out of the clouds – and beyond – and coming down-to-earth where the flesh and blood bodies called human beings actually live. Obviously, the solution to all the ills of humankind can only be found here in space and now in time.
RESPONDENT No. 34: And be responsible (as No. 14 says), or transcend fragmentation (the same). I wonder if you agree. RICHARD: Nobody is responsible for being born with the instinctual passions of fear and aggression and
nurture and desire ... it is nothing but a rather clumsy software package genetically inherited by all sentient beings as a rough
and ready start to life. If No. 14 wishes to self-aggrandise himself by taking an obviously ineffective ‘infinite
responsibility’ for what the blind forces of nature have produced ... then that is his business. And if you wish to be
equally ineffective in making apparent the already always existing peace-on-earth by ‘transcending fragmentation (the same)’
then that is your business. RESPONDENT: I agree with Richard, somewhat. Nobody is ‘infinitely responsible’ until at which time they unravel the mess of conditioning which is the ‘self’. As understanding ‘arises’ within the mind of man, so does responsibility. RICHARD: Nobody is responsible for being born with the instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire ... ‘but’, I say to myself (if I am a normal person): ‘this is my life that I am living, amidst my fellow human beings, and I want to live happily and harmlessly for both my sake and for the sake of my fellow human’. ‘So’, I ask myself (if I am a normal person): ‘What am I to do?’ RESPONDENT: So, if one such as No. 14, who can’t see himself for his ego, how could one be ‘infinitely responsibly’. He is only brainwashed, I guess, Richard, by all of that Eastern reading material that both you and he have been immersed in at one time. Obviously, it has left its conditioning on both of you – him, with a positive attitude; you, with a negative one. RICHARD: Life is not only ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ ... there is a third alternative. RESPONDENT No. 12: Why isn’t it clear that any ideation of self-mastery
(e.g. belief that ‘I’ am free of conditioning or ‘I’ am infinitely responsible or ‘I’ have transformed myself and this
change is permanent or that ‘I’ have taken on the blind forces of nature and brought them to an end in this flesh and blood
body) is self-aggrandizement, thought praising itself for purported accomplishments? RESPONDENT: If the ego is so big that it cannot see the vastness of itself, it can believe it responsible for any and everything and get away with that delusion, don’t you think? RICHARD: Yes, it requires repeated injections of commonsense to penetrate the chinks in the otherwise inviolable bastions of ‘Goodness’ that protects, nourishes and sustains the infinitely expanded identity. As this ‘Reservoir of Goodness’ shields the apotheosised identity from ‘Evil’ – and the physical world is believed ‘evil’ as in the ‘temptation of the senses’ meaning – then commonsense has its work cut out to even make a dent. RESPONDENT: Yes, and how is that commonsense able to make a dent into the ego when it (ego) is ‘bigger than Texas’ – my observation of No. 14’s original post. What is it that can deflate that ego until it is ‘downsized’ to manageability – say the size of Kilgore (just a small town in Texas)? RICHARD: Speaking personally, my experience during eleven years of swanning along in a state of Love Agapé and Divine Compassion, was that commonsense would not let the ‘Grand Me’ that I was get away with this solipsistic ‘Timeless and Spaceless and Formless’ experience that ‘Grand Me’ was living ... the clock ticked the hours and the sun moved through the sky, for example. I find it so hilarious these days, when watching a video with yet another ‘Enlightened Master’ giving a discourse on ‘Timelessness and Spacelessness and Formlessness’, where they look at their diamond-studded watch and say: ‘Enough for now, Evening Darshan will be at 6.00 PM’ ... and walk, with a very obvious form, through the space between their podium and their inner sanctum. * RICHARD: Taking ‘Ultimate Responsibility’ means absolutely zilch when you are god ... but it sure sounds good to the desperate believer. Why, even Mr. Ken Wilbur can write pages of meaningless justifications for the Gurus’ and the God-Men’s failure to eliminate ‘Basic Nature’ rather than merely transcending it ... and that failure is the only place where ‘Ultimate Responsibility’ has any meaning. Perhaps Mr. Christopher Calder’s attitude sums up why these antics are condoned: ‘My answer is that the ego is an integral part of the structure of the human brain. It is not simply psychological, it is physical and hard wired into our neural pathways. It is a self-defence, self-survival mechanism that cannot be destroyed unless the body dies. If you are a bodiless soul you do not need self-defence and you do not need an ego. That is why I agree with author and teacher Huston Smith when he says he believes no man attached to this mortal coil can achieve the ultimate transcendence. You first have to physically die and when the last coil is broken you are totally free. I believe the ego steps aside and becomes less of a problem for most enlightened men but it is never totally destroyed as long as you have a physical body. It would be wonderful to believe that enlightened men were perfect in every way. That would make life simpler and sweeter but it would be fiction, not fact.’ Christopher Calder www.clipper.net/~calder/Osho.html In other words: they are saying that it is not possible to be free from the human condition, here on earth, in this life-time, as this flesh and blood body. And is it no wonder ... after all, the Buddhist’s ‘Ancient Wisdom’ extols ‘Parinirvana’ and the Hindus ‘Ancient Wisdom’ exalts ‘Mahasamadhi’ and the Christians inscribe R. I. P. on their tombstones and so on and so on ... on unto the after-death ‘Ultimate Freedom’. After all, the ‘Ancient Wisdom’ propagated by the ‘Bodiless Ones’ reigns supreme here on earth. The ending 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 requires the ending of malice and sorrow ... which involves getting one’s head out of the clouds – and beyond – and coming down-to-earth where the flesh and blood bodies called human beings actually live. Obviously, the solution to all the ills of humankind can only be found here in space and now in time. RESPONDENT: So you are saying, Richard, that freedom is possible here and now as this flesh and blood body? RICHARD: Yes ... where else? RESPONDENT: I know that you have said that before, and I do not rule out that possibility. RICHARD: Good ... there is no other possibility. RESPONDENT: In fact, Krishnamurti commented that to wait until physical death to die to this ‘I’ and ‘me’ as ego ‘would be too late’. But, Richard, do you say that there is no freedom after the death of the flesh and blood body – that ‘this is all there is?’ RICHARD: Whoa-up there ... it is only in the ‘real world’ that ‘this is all there is?’ is a valid statement. With an actual freedom from the human condition, one is now living in the infinitude of this fairy-tale-like actual world with its sensuous quality of magical perfection and purity where everything and everyone has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvelous, wondrous, scintillating vitality that makes everything alive and sparkling ... even the very earth beneath one’s feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper ... literally everything is as if it were alive (a rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are). This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence ... the actualness of everything and everyone. We do not live in an inert universe ... but one cannot experience this whilst clinging to immortality. I am mortal. RESPONDENT: In other words, is there no ‘spirit’ after physical death? RICHARD: Where is eternity if it be not here? Can there actually be an ‘intermittent’ eternity (an eternity that stops when you are born and starts again after you die)? What kind of an eternity is that!
RESPONDENT: So you are saying, Richard, that freedom is possible here and now as this flesh and blood body? RICHARD: Yes ... where else? RESPONDENT: Perhaps when/where the physical body is not. RICHARD: How would a bodiless freedom bring about peace-on-earth? RESPONDENT: I know that you have said that before, and I do not rule out that possibility. RICHARD: Good ... there is no other possibility. RESPONDENT: Are you sure? RICHARD: Yes. Becoming free from the human condition by physically dying most definitely will not bring about peace-on-earth. RESPONDENT: In fact, Krishnamurti commented that to wait until physical death to die to this ‘I’ and ‘me’ as ego ‘would be too late’. But, Richard, do you say that there is no freedom after the death of the flesh and blood body – that ‘this is all there is?’ In other words, is there no ‘spirit’ after physical death? RICHARD: Where is eternity if it be not here? Can there actually be an ‘intermittent’ eternity (an eternity that stops when you are born and starts again after you die)? What kind of an eternity is that! RESPONDENT: Exactly, Richard. Eternity neither starts nor ends with our physical appearance here on this verdant, vibrantly alive planet. RICHARD: This is indeed correct ... eternity is already here now where we humans are living, eh? And because ‘eternity neither starts nor ends with our physical appearance here on this verdant, vibrantly alive planet’ it means that time was already eternally here before I was born and time will be always eternally here after I am dead. Because, as eternity is already here now it means that time always was and time always will be (‘time always was’ as in ‘no beginning’ and ‘time always will be’ as in ‘no ending’). As time always was and time always will be that means that time always is ... and time always is – eternally – already here now. And no beginning to time and no ending to time means that there is no way one can be outside of time ... one always is here in time as time always is already here now. And as time and space are inextricably linked (one cannot be here in time without space to be here in now) it means that space always has been and space always will be ... space always is as time always is and space that always is, is space that always is everywhere. And space that always is everywhere is infinite space. Infinite space means no edges to space. No edges to infinite space being eternally here means that there is no centre to this universe ... thus there is no way to locate oneself anywhere in particular and as one is nowhere in particular one is anywhere at all throughout infinite space and eternal time. (Because just as one is anywhere at all throughout infinite space because one is nowhere in particular, one is anywhen at all throughout eternal time because one is nowhen in particular). As space always is here it means infinity is always here and as time always is it means eternity is now and as I know that I am here, I know that I am here now where infinity always is already. And as I know that I am here now, I know that I am here now where eternity always is already. I am already always here at this place of infinite space which is already always here now at this moment of eternal time ... where are you if you are not already always here and when are you here if you are not already always here now? Now do you know why are you alive (as this flesh and blood body)? RESPONDENT: We appear to be just a manifestation of the energy that IS (us) from the beginning. RICHARD: Perhaps you would be better off corresponding with No. 14. Because, speaking personally, I am a manifestation of the calorific energy of the food I eat. Besides ... eternity means no beginning. RESPONDENT: What percentage of life is not visible nor present on this planet? What percentage that you are not aware of? RICHARD: What percentage of life is not visible on this planet? If it is not visible on this planet then it cannot be measured ... and if it cannot be measured it cannot be known what percentage of life is not visible on this planet. What percentage of life is not present on this planet? If it is not present on this planet then it cannot be measured ... and if it cannot be measured then it cannot be known what percentage of life is not present on this planet. What percentage is it that I am not aware of? If I am not aware of it then I cannot measure it ... and if I cannot measure it I cannot know what percentage it is that I am not aware of. What percentage of life, that is not visible or present, was it that you imagined you were not aware of?
CORRESPONDENT No. 19 (Part Four) RETURN TO CORRESPONDENCE LIST ‘B’ 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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