Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 26

Actual Freedom – Mailing List ‘B’ Correspondence

Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’

with Respondent No. 26

Some Of The Topics Covered

it is only through words that peace-on-earth is possible – in the peak experience I saw ‘myself’ for the social identity that ‘I’ was – the word and the thing it describes – an actual I – ego – what you feel you are in the core of your ‘being’ – how am I experiencing this moment of being alive? – remember a PCE – whittle away at all the social mores and psittacisms – suffering – why settle for second-best – ‘grace’ – investigating affective feelings – apperceptive awareness

November 05 1998:

RESPONDENT No. 21: OK. Tell me how I can eliminate all malice and sorrow.

RICHARD: Do you see – with both eyes – the utter necessity for that course of action? If you do ... you will never be the same again.

RESPONDENT: I do not see that the words of another can point out the utter necessity for the ending of malice and sorrow.

RICHARD: Words are vital as our means of communicating our understanding to one another. It is marvellous that we are able to be discussing these matters of great momentousness ... and momentous not only the individual, but for all of the humans that are living on this verdant planet. It is an amazing thing that not only are we humans able to be here experiencing this business of being alive ... on top of that we can think about and reflect upon what is entailed in words. In addition to this ability, we can communicate our discoveries to one another – comparing notes as it were – and further our understanding with this communal input. One does not have to rely only upon one’s own findings; it is possible, as one man famous in history put it, to reach beyond the current knowledge by standing upon the shoulders of those that went before. It is silly to disregard the results of other person’s enterprising essays into the ‘mystery of life’ – unless it is obviously bombast and blather – for one would have to invent the wheel all over again. (However, it is only too possible to accept as set in concrete the accumulated ‘wisdom of the ages’ and remain stultified ... enfeebled by the insufferable psittacisms passed on from one generation to the next). Speaking personally, I am very appreciative of all those brave peoples who dared to enter into ‘The Unknown’ ... if it were not for them leaving their written words behind I could not be where I am today. Please, do not scorn words ... it is what sets us apart from the other sentient beings.

It is only through words that peace-on-earth is possible.

RESPONDENT: You do claim though, that having ended it yourself, you can pass it on somehow, how so?

RICHARD: Oh, very simply ... we are all fellow human beings. The only way into this world of people, things and events is via the human spermatozoa fertilising the human ova ... thus every human being is endowed, by blind nature, with the basic instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Consequently I know your fear and aggression and nurture and desire intimately ... writing (talking) to you is no different to thinking (talking) about myself.

It is called, in the jargon, relating.

November 07 1998:

RESPONDENT: I do not see that the words of another can point out the utter necessity for the ending of malice and sorrow.

RESPONDENT: You do claim though, that having ended it yourself, you can pass it on somehow, how so?

RESPONDENT: Yes, but it is the individual that senses the nature of the self fragments and changes. Words are removed from that, even though they can draw attention to something.

RICHARD: Not so ... your knowledge of your consciousness is words. Writing, talking and thinking are all of the same ilk. It is feelings – emotions and passions and calentures – that are ‘beyond words’. If you are going to let notoriously unreliable feelings be your final arbiter of a personally salubrious and socially beneficial way of living your life ... then yes, words are indeed ‘removed from that’. As it is often said by the proponents of this ‘Tried and True’ wisdom: ‘words are merely pointers’. But as the ‘Tried and True’ is the ‘tried and failed’ ... then any discerning intellect will no longer scorn words. It is only through words that peace-on-earth is possible.

RESPONDENT: The basic question is can the ego be seen as a whole with all its qualities and seeing the truth of all that it ends.

RICHARD: Oh yes ... indeed it can. Speaking personally, in 1980 I had a pure consciousness experience (PCE) that lasted for four hours. In that four hours I lived the peace-on-earth that is already always here now ... and I saw that ‘I’ (an emotional-mental construct) was standing in the way of this actual freedom being apparent twenty four hours of the day. In that peak experience I saw ‘myself’ for the social identity that ‘I’ was. ‘I’ was the end product of society and nothing more. ‘I’ was a passionate construct of all of the beliefs, values, morals, ethics, mores, customs, traditions, doctrines, ideologies and so on. ‘I’ was nothing but an fabrication in the psyche ... a social identity which is its conscience. Once I had seen this, I then saw that ‘I’ was a lost, lonely, frightened – and a very, very cunning – entity ... what I later came to know as ‘ego’. Just as those Christians who are said to be possessed by an evil entity and need to be exorcised, I saw that every human being had been endowed with an identity as ego ... and it was called being normal. When ‘I’ saw that this was all ‘I’ was ... I was no longer that. I was me ... this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. To say that I was amazed rather fails to adequately describe the feeling of relief that after all there was a solution to the human situation here on earth. I was ecstatic.

Incidentally, that ecstasy proved to be my undoing – as far as actual freedom is concerned. Ecstasy led to euphoria and euphoria led to bliss. In the blissful state I manifested and became Love Agapé which led to an emanation of Divine Compassion for all living beings who were suffering and in sorrow by virtue of the fact that they were ignorant of the Divine Order of things ... for an Absolute had been revealed to me in that Love and Compassion – it was that Love Agapé and Divine Compassion – and I had been chosen to bring this self-same Love and Compassion to earth. I was to go through a process, when I returned to normal, that would result in my being well-prepared to usher in this new age of peace and prosperity to all humankind. As this revelation continued, I saw a new ‘me’ coming into existence ... a grand ‘Me’, a glorious ‘Me’ and a spiritually fulfilling ‘Me’. I was the Saviour Of Humankind. (As all this was happening, a passing thought occurred to me, which was briefly contemplated ... then banished: What was it that was observing these two other ‘me’s – the ego ‘me’ and the grand ‘Me’? This trifling question was to be of immense benefit years later when I realised that I was living in a delusion and that there was an actual freedom lying beyond ... but that is another story).

There are three I’s altogether, but only one is actual.

RESPONDENT: If yes can your words position another to see that?

RICHARD: Yes, but it requires the 100% cooperation of the other. I cannot be more interested in another’s freedom than they are. Having had nigh on eighteen years experience of talking to recalcitrant egos I have no intention of inspiring, enthusing or exhilarating anyone. I am more than happy to participate in another’s enquiry until they ‘get it’ and begin their voyage of discovery into their psyche – which is the human psyche – but it is their energy that is needed to vitalise their search.

RESPONDENT: I’m not disputing possibility here I want to see the proof of the pudding, so to speak.

Then curiosity becomes fascination ... and then the fun begins. One is drawn inexorably further and further towards one’s destiny ... fascination leads to what others around one would classify as ‘obsession’. A 100% commitment to evoking peace-on-earth is thus actively discouraged by one’s peers. Eventually one realises that one is on one’s own in this, the adventure of a life-time, and a peculiar pig-headed stubbornness to proceed against all odds ensues. Then one takes the penultimate step ... one abandons ‘humanity’.

Freedom is then virtually guaranteed.

RESPONDENT: If on the other hand you are saying that with an attentiveness to the ways of self-ego it can be allowed to wither of its own accord then basically we are in agreement.

RICHARD: No.

November 09 1998:

RESPONDENT: You do claim though, that having ended it yourself, you can pass it on somehow, how so?

RESPONDENT: Yes, but it is the individual that senses the nature of the self fragments and changes. Words are removed from that, even though they can draw attention to something.

RESPONDENT: Agreed, but care with words is needed so that the word does not become the thing.

RICHARD: Not at all ... nobody with any modicum of sense confuses the word ‘coffee-cup’ with the object described. The other reading or listening to these words is a normal human being who understands what a word means, has learned to function in society with all its the legal laws and the social protocols, is a reasonably ‘well-adjusted’ personality seeking to find ultimate fulfilment and complete satisfaction. These words are of no use to an uneducated social misfit with a chip on their shoulder or who is harbouring a neurotic or psychotic condition. Such a person is well-advised to see a psychologist or a psychiatrist or an educator or attend classes on citizenship and cultural etiquette before even bothering to try to unravel the mess that is the Human Condition. Other than that a good dictionary is handy ... like ‘The Oxford Concise’ (650,000 words) and ‘The Merriam Webster’s’ (240,000 words).

RESPONDENT: The basic question is can the ego be seen as a whole with all its qualities and seeing the truth of all that it ends.

RICHARD: Oh yes ... indeed it can. Speaking personally, in 1980 I had a pure consciousness experience (PCE) that lasted for four hours. In that four hours I lived the peace-on-earth that is already always here now ... and I saw that ‘I’ (an emotional-mental construct) was standing in the way of this actual freedom being apparent twenty four hours of the day. In that peak experience I saw ‘myself’ for the social identity that ‘I’ was. ‘I’ was the end product of society and nothing more. ‘I’ was a passionate construct of all of the beliefs, values, morals, ethics, mores, customs, traditions, doctrines, ideologies and so on. ‘I’ was nothing but an fabrication in the psyche ... a social identity which is its conscience. I then saw that ‘I’ was a lost, lonely, frightened – and a very, very cunning – entity ... what I later came to know as ‘ego’. Just as those Christians who are said to be possessed by an evil entity and need to be exorcised, I saw that every human being had been endowed with an identity as ego ... and it was called being normal. When ‘I’ saw that this was all ‘I’ was ... I was no longer that. I was me ... this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware ... as this revelation continued, I saw a new ‘me’ coming into existence ... a grand ‘Me’, a glorious ‘Me’ and a spiritually fulfilling ‘Me’. What was it that was observing these two other ‘me’s – the ego ‘me’ and the grand ‘Me’? There are three I’s altogether, but only one is actual.

RESPONDENT: Oh, an actual I. Is it a varying or constant quality?

RICHARD: What I am is this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. The first person pronoun is not used here to refer to any psychological or psychic identity because in actuality there is nothing other than the physical ... this carbon-based life-form being conscious. There is a consistent quality of perfection ... an unvarying purity. Here is an on-going innocence, an ever-fresh magnanimity which ensures a nobility in character that is vitalised as an endless benevolence ... all effortlessly happening of its own accord. Thus probity is bestowed gratuitously ... dispensing forever with the effort-filled vigilance to gain and maintain righteous virtue. One is free to be me as-I-am; benign and beneficial in disposition. One is able to be a model citizen, fulfilling all the intentions of the idealistic and unattainable moral strictures of ‘The Good’: being humane, being philanthropic, being altruistic, being beneficent, being considerate and so on. All this is achieved in a manner any ‘I’ could never foresee, for it comes effortlessly and spontaneously, doing away with the necessity for morality and ethicality completely.

One is swimming in largesse.

RESPONDENT: If yes can your words position another to see that?

RESPONDENT: Please let me know if I’m being uncooperative. (Ha. Ha. As if you wouldn’t).

RICHARD: Au contraire ... it is your life you are living and it is you who reaps the rewards or pays the consequences for any action or inaction you may or may not do. One has to be scrupulously honest with oneself if one is to go all the way. I have arrived at my destiny and am already always here ... so I have nothing to prove and nothing to achieve. I am retired and on a pension and instead of pottering around the garden I am currently pottering around the Internet. I only write as the whim takes me ... and easily sit with my feet up on the coffee table watching television. I eliminated any necessity for having a conscience ... and I am not about to take on being a probity policeman for anyone. I may be a lot of things ... but I am not silly.

RESPONDENT: I’m not disputing possibility here I want to see the proof of the pudding, so to speak.

RICHARD: Well, all my words are written in a style that stimulates and arouses interest (I have often been accused of being ‘passionate’ such is the evocative power of words!). Gaining another’s interest is but the preliminary stage. The other may become curious as to whether what is being conveyed can be applied to themselves ... and only here does the first step begin. Because only when one becomes curious about the workings of oneself – what makes one tick – is that person participating in their search for freedom for the first time in their life. This is because people mostly look to rearranging their beliefs and truths as being sufficient effort ... ‘I’ am willing to be free as long as ‘I’ can remain ‘me’. In other words: their notion of freedom is a ‘clip-on’. Then curiosity becomes fascination ... and then the fun begins. One is drawn inexorably further and further towards one’s destiny ... fascination leads to what others around one would classify as ‘obsession’. A 100% commitment to evoking peace-on-earth is thus actively discouraged by one’s peers. Eventually one realises that one is on one’s own in this, the adventure of a life-time, and a peculiar pig-headed stubbornness to proceed against all odds ensues. Then one takes the penultimate step ... one abandons ‘humanity’. Freedom is then virtually guaranteed.

RESPONDENT: Of course if one sees the seriously lacking nature of ‘humanity’ then it must at least be questioned.

RICHARD: A rather redundant sentence, do you not think, upon reflection? In order to call it ‘the seriously lacking nature of humanity’ then one must already be seeing it ... unless it is a platitude. Therefore, if one is already seeing it one is already questioning it ... how far have you proceeded in your questioning? A journey into your own psyche is a journey into humanity’s psyche ... for ‘I’ am ‘humanity’ and ‘humanity’ is ‘me’.

RESPONDENT: Too bad if the questioning is dropped in favour of the known comforts.

RICHARD: As there is no purpose served in eschewing creature comforts in some misguided religious or spiritual zeal to blame the physical as being the root of evil ... you must be referring to psychological comforts? If one’s questioning has led to seeing through the belief in the truth of Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy ... can one ‘drop the questioning’ and start believing in them again for some known comfort? Is this not silly? Once started, a sincere journey is a one-way trip ... you will never be the same again.

RESPONDENT: This abandonment is to do with everything that you think you are, and more, so some discomfort is inevitable.

RICHARD: Not just what you ‘think you are’ ... it is even more fundamental than that. It is what you feel that you are in the core of your ‘being’. This does not just cause discomfort. It requires nerves of steel to delve into the stygian depths of the Human Condition. The journey into the psyche is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee. The rewards for doing so are immense, however ... and are of far-reaching consequences not only for oneself but for humankind as a whole.

RESPONDENT: If on the other hand you are saying that with an attentiveness to the ways of self-ego it can be allowed to wither of its own accord then basically we are in agreement.

RICHARD: No.

RESPONDENT: No then is it? Please explain, for example would you say that my having an ego at this time is invalid (maybe silly yes)?

RICHARD: An ego is not something one has ... being an identity in whatever way, shape or form is what ‘you’ are and is an inevitable result of being born. Thus any blame is pointless – and worse – it creates resentment. Being an identity is because the only way into this world of people, things and events is via the human spermatozoa fertilising the human ova ... thus every human being is endowed, by blind nature, with the basic instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. These passions are the very energy source of the rudimentary animal self ... the base consciousness of ‘self’ and ‘other’ that all sentient beings have. The human animal – with its unique ability to think and reflect upon its own death – transforms this ‘reptilian brain’ rudimentary ‘self’ into being a feeling ‘me’ (as soul in the heart) and from this core of ‘being’ the ‘feeler’ then infiltrates into thought to become the ‘thinker’ ... a thinking ‘I’ (as ego in the head). No other animal can do this. This process is aided and abetted by the human beings who were already on this planet when one was born ... which is conditioning and programming. It is part and parcel of the socialising process. Thus seeing the ego is invalid and being ‘attentive to the ways of the ego’ is not sufficient ... there is a ‘me’ lurking in the heart to take over the wheel.

To put it bluntly: ‘you’ in ‘your’ totality, who are but a passionate illusion, must die a dramatic illusory death commensurate to ‘your’ pernicious existence. The drama must be played out to the end ... there are no short-cuts here. The doorway to an actual freedom has the word ‘extinction’ written on it. This extinction is an irrevocable event that eliminates the psyche itself. When this is all over there will be no ‘being’ at all.

RESPONDENT: But what of the unconscious arising of various ego responses, do I crush them as they arise or learn in attentiveness?

RICHARD: Neither. Ask yourself this question each moment again: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’

November 13 1998:

RICHARD: Only when one becomes curious about the workings of oneself – what makes one tick – is that person participating in their search for freedom for the first time in their life. This is because people mostly look to rearranging their beliefs and truths as being sufficient effort ... ‘I’ am willing to be free as long as ‘I’ can remain ‘me’. In other words: their notion of freedom is a ‘clip-on’. Then curiosity becomes fascination ... and then the fun begins. One is drawn inexorably further and further towards one’s destiny ... fascination leads to what others around one would classify as ‘obsession’. A 100% commitment to evoking peace-on-earth is thus actively discouraged by one’s peers. Eventually one realises that one is on one’s own in this, the adventure of a life-time, and a peculiar pig-headed stubbornness to proceed against all odds ensues. Then one takes the penultimate step ... one abandons ‘humanity’. Freedom is then virtually guaranteed.

RESPONDENT: Of course if one sees the seriously lacking nature of ‘humanity’ then it must at least be questioned.

RICHARD: A rather redundant sentence, do you not think, upon reflection? In order to call it ‘the seriously lacking nature of humanity’ then one must already be seeing it ... unless it is a platitude. Therefore, if one is already seeing it one is already questioning it – and as ‘I’ am ‘humanity’ and ‘humanity’ is ‘me’ and a journey into your own psyche is a journey into humanity’s psyche – how far have you proceeded in your questioning?

RESPONDENT: Too bad if the questioning is dropped in favour of the known comforts.

RESPONDENT: This abandonment is to do with everything that you think you are, and more, so some discomfort is inevitable.

RESPONDENT: The problem here is why would one go through this if the reward is not immediately apparent.

RICHARD: What is essential is to remember one of your pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s). A PCE is when one’s sense of identity temporarily vacates the throne and apperception occurs. Apperception is the mind’s perception of itself ... it is a pure awareness. Normally the mind perceives through the senses and sorts the data received according to its predilection; but the mind itself remains unperceived ... it is taken to be unknowable. Apperception is when the ‘thinker’ and the ‘feeler’ is not and an unmediated awareness occurs. The pure consciousness experience is as if one has eyes in the back of one’s head; there is a three hundred and sixty degree awareness and all is self-evidently clear. This is knowing by direct experience, unmoderated by any ‘self’ whatsoever. One is able to see that ‘I’ and ‘me’ have been standing in the way of the perfection and purity that is the essential character of this moment of being here becoming apparent. Here a solid and irrefutable native intelligence can operate freely because the ‘thinker’ and the ‘feeler’ is in abeyance. One is the universe’s experience of itself as a human being ... after all, the very stuff this body is made of is the very stuff of the universe. There is no ‘outside’ to the perfection of the universe to come from; one only thought and felt that one was a separate identity. Apperception is something that brings the facticity born out of a direct experience of the actual. Then what one is (‘what’ not ‘who’) is these sense organs in operation: this seeing is me, this hearing is me, this tasting is me, this touching is me, this smelling is me, and this thinking is me. Whereas ‘I’, the identity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain. Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the actual world – the world as-it-is – by ‘my’ very presence.

RESPONDENT: Is not the actual current state (of suffering), or the knowledge that it will, beyond a reasonable doubt, return that which demands questioning. In which case nerves of steel is not the issue and neither is reward.

RICHARD: If you are not aware of the abject misery of suffering – not only in oneself but all of humankind – then you are not old enough to be able to be reading these words. So, why dwell on suffering ... for that is what the questioning of suffering amounts to. Unless one is a masochist, where is the need to wallow in suffering? For there is nothing to question about suffering ... suffering sucks ... it is the bane of both your existence and all of humankind. The only good thing about suffering is when it ends ... and permanently. And saying that ‘the knowledge that suffering will return’ only indicates the degree to which you have settled for second-rate living ... being human is to suffer. Any temporary easing of miserable suffering colours the current moment with the knowledge of misery’s inevitable return ... thus one is never free from suffering even when feeling good. Why settle for second-best? Demand excellence for yourself ... for your life and for all human beings!

As for talking of matters like ‘nerves of steel’ not being the issue ... what manner of a person would I be if I did not unequivocally present a clear description of what stands between a fellow human being and their freedom? And, of course, one needs to be well aware of – and very clear about – one’s goal as it is only the reward that will entice you to abandon your present situation anyway. This is because there is a beauty in suffering ... the bitter-sweet beauty of pathos is seductive.

RESPONDENT: If on the other hand you are saying that with an attentiveness to the ways of self-ego it can be allowed to wither of its own accord then basically we are in agreement.

RICHARD: No.

RESPONDENT: No then is it? Please explain, for example would you say that my having an ego at this time is invalid (maybe silly yes)?

RICHARD: An ego is not something one has ... being an identity in whatever way, shape or form is what ‘you’ are and is an inevitable result of being born.

RESPONDENT: Oh this is great news, I’m glad to hear that I have no ego.

RICHARD: Aye ... if all this suffering was simply a case of having an ego then one could easily shuck it off and get on with one’s life. Thus one would miss out on one’s moment of glory – one’s crowning achievement – that makes one’s petty life all worth while.

RICHARD: As an identity is the inevitable result of being born, any blame is pointless – and worse – it creates resentment. Being an identity is because the only way into this world of people, things and events is via the human spermatozoa fertilising the human ova ... thus every human being is endowed, by blind nature, with the basic instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. These passions are the very energy source of the rudimentary animal self ... the base consciousness of ‘self’ and ‘other’ that all sentient beings have. The human animal – with its unique ability to think and reflect upon its own death – transforms this ‘reptilian brain’ rudimentary ‘self’ into being a feeling ‘me’ (as soul in the heart) and from this core of ‘being’ the ‘feeler’ then infiltrates into thought to become the ‘thinker’ ... a thinking ‘I’ (as ego in the head). No other animal can do this. This process is aided and abetted by the human beings who were already on this planet when one was born ... which is conditioning and programming. It is part and parcel of the socialising process. Thus seeing the ego is invalid and being ‘attentive to the ways of the ego’ is not sufficient ... there is a ‘me’ lurking in the heart to take over the wheel.

RESPONDENT: Sorry, I can’t see that this process can be bypassed. If one cannot ‘see’ – if one is dependent on the authority of words – then that is the fact from which he must act.

RICHARD: Sure, keep on doing the process that you are doing as that is what you see to be correct ... and what you see to be correct is what is important. I can only suggest ... what you do with my suggestions is entirely up to you. It is your life that you are living and as long as you comply with the legal laws and observe the social protocol, you are left alone to live your life as wisely or as foolishly as you choose. Only you reap the rewards or pay the consequences for any action or inaction you may or may not do.

RESPONDENT: What keeps the ‘me’ lurking at the heart that is what maintains it as real even when the illusion is seen.

RICHARD: Yes ... ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’ supplies the fuel that drives ‘I’ as ego. It is ‘being’ that is the energy source that creates and maintains the illusion that the real-world exists.

RESPONDENT: I must say here that the nature of existence does change with the attention to the ways ‘ego’.

RICHARD: What is the nature of this change?

RESPONDENT: I am not defending that way as THE WAY, but I feel more must be seen to act as you say.

RICHARD: Indeed ... that is why there is communication.

RESPONDENT: One attempts to see things clearly by firstly removing what is blocking the vision.

RICHARD: One can whittle away at all the social mores and psittacisms ... those mechanical repetitions of previously received ideas or images, reflecting neither apperception nor autonomous reasoning. One can examine all the beliefs, ideas, values, theories, truths, customs, traditions, ideals, superstitions ... and all the other schemes and dreams. One can become aware of all the socialisation, of all the conditioning, of all the programming, of all the methods and techniques that were used to control what one finds oneself to be ... a wayward ego and compliant soul careering around in confusion and illusion. A ‘mature adult’ is actually a lost, lonely, frightened and cunning psychological entity overlaying a psychic ‘being’.

RICHARD: To put it bluntly: ‘you’ in ‘your’ totality, who are but a passionate illusion, must die a dramatic illusory death commensurate to ‘your’ pernicious existence. The drama must be played out to the end ... there are no short-cuts here.

RESPONDENT: You saying that ego does not end without the drama of death.

RICHARD: Yes ... it is ‘your’ moment of glory. It is ‘your’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘your’ petty life all worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... to physically die without having experienced what it is like to become dead is such a waste of a life.

RESPONDENT: Hmm, the ego dies from moment to moment but this seems to be a breaking from a deep response or reflex memory.

RICHARD: Does it really die ‘from moment to moment’ ... or does it appear that way? A ‘deep response’ from what? A ‘reflex memory’ of what? How is this ‘breaking’ experienced?

RICHARD: The doorway to an actual freedom has the word ‘extinction’ written on it. This extinction is an irrevocable event that eliminates the psyche itself. When this is all over there will be no ‘being’ at all.

RESPONDENT: But what of the unconscious arising of various ego responses, do I crush them as they arise or learn in attentiveness?

RICHARD: Neither. Ask yourself this question each moment again: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’

RESPONDENT: Sorry, I don’t seem to be interested in asking this question.

RICHARD: Why do you not want to know how you are experiencing yourself? Is it painful? Is it trite? Or is it scary?

RESPONDENT: Perhaps this ego has nothing to gain.

RICHARD: But it has plenty to gain ... it has a job to do and it is being denied its opportunity.

RESPONDENT: Or I perhaps I don’t see the sense in it. Perhaps you could explain.

RICHARD: An unexamined life is second-rate living.

November 14 1998:

RESPONDENT: Of course if one sees the seriously lacking nature of ‘humanity’ then it must at least be questioned.

RESPONDENT: I am currently discovering some of the deep parts of my emotional weakness and entanglement. Not just pretending that what someone says doesn’t hurt but finding out why it does. There is freedom that comes from that, to act towards resolving other issues, but first things first.

RICHARD: So your questioning of ‘the seriously lacking nature of humanity’ so far amounts to finding out why you feel offended ... is that it? And when there is freedom from that you can act towards resolving ... what other issues? Just what is this ‘the seriously lacking nature of humanity’ that you spoke of?

RESPONDENT: Too bad if the questioning is dropped in favour of the known comforts.

RESPONDENT: At times I have wondered if it really is, because sometimes I just couldn’t care less. But then it starts again.

RICHARD: Okay, you are saying that your investigation into the human psyche – which is your psyche – is spasmodic at best. Living in a western democracy in the ’nineties one is so well-provided for that there is hardly the incentive to find out about life, the universe and what it is to be a human being living in the world as it is, eh? Yet ... you would not want to care? Is this why you started this thread by stating: ‘I do not see that the words of another can point out the utter necessity for the ending of malice and sorrow’. After all, you do say ‘then it starts again’. What makes it start again? Idle curiosity? Boredom? After all, you did write – in a recent post to another – that you agree that truth destroys ‘what is’ ... particularly, you said, ‘if the what is, is the false’. Now that reads as if you have had personal experience of this happening ... have you? Because you did add this codicil: ‘That’s where it ends though, that which seeks to befriend truth can never be truth, so the lie (self-importance) lives on’. Is this your experience? Or is this all but platitudes based upon your reading? Does ‘self-importance’ play a big part in your life? Have you seen ‘The Truth’? Did it destroy your falseness? Yes? No? If ‘yes’, then you must be living truly, now ... if ‘no’ then you cannot know that ‘truth destroys that which is false’ now can you? It thus amounts to being nothing but a belief.

RESPONDENT: This abandonment [of ‘humanity’] is to do with everything that you think you are, and more, so some discomfort is inevitable.

RESPONDENT: The problem here is why would one go through this if the reward is not immediately apparent.

RESPONDENT: I don’t understand what that PCE memory is used for, why not just deal with attachment?

RICHARD: What attachment?

RESPONDENT: Are you suggesting that a motive is needed?

RICHARD: Do you have a motive for dealing with attachment?

RESPONDENT: This could make sense if it is seen in its practical sense and not just another idea to own.

RICHARD: Do you have a practical reason for dealing with attachment ... or is it but another idea that you own?

RICHARD: If you are not aware of the abject misery of suffering – not only in oneself but all of humankind – then you are not old enough to be able to be reading these words.

RESPONDENT: Yea, that’s what my dad used to say. Is 36 old enough?

RICHARD: So, you rely upon what dad used to say ... and now you ask Richard. Can you not think for yourself? Do you not have feelings? Are you so inured to violence 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 suicide do not affect you at all?

RICHARD: So, why dwell on suffering ... for that is what the questioning of suffering amounts to. Unless one is a masochist, where is the need to wallow in suffering? For there is nothing to question about suffering ... suffering sucks ... it is the bane of both your existence and all of humankind. The only good thing about suffering is when it ends ... and permanently. And saying that ‘the knowledge that suffering will return’ only indicates the degree to which you have settled for second-rate living ... being human is to suffer. Any temporary easing of miserable suffering colours the current moment with the knowledge of misery’s inevitable return ... thus one is never free from suffering even when feeling good.

RESPONDENT: Good point. In the absence of a resolution though, some forms of suffering will return.

RICHARD: The point I was making was that while extreme suffering – misery – comes and goes, suffering is constant. To be a human is to suffer. As I said ‘saying that ‘the knowledge that suffering will return’ only indicates the degree to which you have settled for second-rate living ... being human is to suffer. Any temporary easing of miserable suffering colours the current moment with the knowledge of misery’s inevitable return ... thus one is never free from suffering even when feeling good’. Do you see this?

RESPONDENT: That [some forms of suffering returns] is a basic fact, which seems to me like good motivation to resolve if possible, the whole issue of suffering.

RICHARD: Why are you searching around for motivation? Do you not feel it? Have you become so accustomed to suffering that you are de-sensitised?

RICHARD: Thus why settle for second-best? Demand excellence for yourself ... for your life and for all human beings! As for talking of matters like ‘nerves of steel’ not being the issue ... what manner of a person would I be if I did not unequivocally present a clear description of what stands between a fellow human being and their freedom? And, of course, one needs to be well aware of – and very clear about – one’s goal as it is only the reward that will entice you to abandon your present situation anyway. This is because there is a beauty in suffering ... the bitter-sweet beauty of pathos is seductive.

RESPONDENT: Yes, bitter sweet, I had chance to taste it just the other day. This one had forever written all over it and rational thinking was hard pressed

RICHARD: Ahh ... so you do have feelings. Now, as you say that ‘rational thinking was hard pressed’ you indicate that the piquant beauty of pathos may be stronger than sensibility ... is that it? With ‘forever written all over it’ you may be indicating that it could be seductive in that it promises eternity whilst all that sensibility offers is the remainder of your life and then death’s oblivion ... is this it?

RESPONDENT: I must say here that the nature of existence does change with the attention to the ways ‘ego’.

RICHARD: What is the nature of this change?

RESPONDENT: Certain trapping are removed and a feeling of ease and grace ensues.

RICHARD: A feeling of ease, yes ... but ‘grace’? Do you mean that the unmerited divine assistance given to a human being for their regeneration or sanctification comes upon you? Because grace is a virtue coming from a god resulting in a state of sanctification. Do you feel that you receive the spontaneous gift of the divine favour in the salvation of sinners ... that divine influence operating in humans for their regeneration? Is this why you agreed that truth destroys ‘what is’ when writing to another? Because that read as if you have had personal experience of this happening and now you are verifying this with reference to ‘grace’ ... yet you also say ‘sometimes I just couldn’t care less’? And you did add this codicil: ‘That’s where it ends though, that which seeks to befriend truth can never be truth, so the lie (self-importance) lives on’.

Just how powerful is this ‘grace’?

RESPONDENT: You saying that ego does not end without the drama of death.

RESPONDENT: Sheesh, where’s this judgmental stuff coming from?

RICHARD: From my personal experience, of course ... I do not just parrot something that I have read.

RESPONDENT: A waste of life?

RICHARD: Indeed ... if one is not living fully – being here now at this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space – then one is most definitely wasting their life. However, it is your life you are living and provided that you comply with the legal laws and observe the social protocols you will be left alone to live your life as wisely or as foolishly as you choose.

RESPONDENT: So how should I accept your argument that all those lives is a waste?

RICHARD: It is not a case of accepting what I say at all ... I would not want any one to merely believe me. I stress to people how important it is that they see for themselves. If they were so foolish as to believe me then the most they would end up in is living in a dream state and thus miss out on the actual. I do not wish this fate upon anyone ... I like my fellow human beings.

RESPONDENT: What judges that [a waste of a life]?

RICHARD: Your abject misery, that is what ... as compared with your state of grace. Why are you objecting to being happy and harmless ... and in such a juvenile manner for all that?

RESPONDENT: Hmm, the ego dies from moment to moment but this seems to be a breaking from a deep response or reflex memory.

RESPONDENT: Yes I would say there are gaps in the focus of oneself.

RICHARD: Are you really saying that ‘gaps in the focus of oneself’ is the ego dying ‘from moment to moment’? If the ego truly dies ... can it come back to life again? Death is the end, finish ... otherwise it is not death.

RESPONDENT: This is identified as a gap in the me.

RICHARD: By ‘me’ are you referring to ego ... or something deeper?

RESPONDENT: The deep response bit is an extrapolation, and I would say that it would seem to come from a more simple and entrenched form of identity.

RICHARD: Hmm ... does all my talk of a rudimentary instinctual self fit in with this description? You do say ‘a more simple identity’ ... and a ‘more entrenched form of identity’. One cannot be a more simple and a more entrenched identity than that one now, can one?

RESPONDENT: But what of the unconscious arising of various ego responses, do I crush them as they arise or learn in attentiveness?

RICHARD: Neither. Ask yourself this question each moment again: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’

RESPONDENT: Sorry, I don’t seem to be interested in asking this question.

RICHARD: Why do you not want to know how you are experiencing yourself? Is it painful? Is it trite? Or is it scary?

RESPONDENT: Perhaps this ego has nothing to gain.

RICHARD: But it has plenty to gain ... it has a job to do and it is being denied its opportunity.

RESPONDENT: Please explain.

RICHARD: Altruism. When ‘I’ willingly self-immolate – psychologically and psychically – then ‘I’ am making the most noble sacrifice that ‘I’ can make for oneself and all humankind ... for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is ‘your’ moment of glory. It is ‘your’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘your’ petty life all worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... to physically die without having experienced what it is like to become dead is such a waste of a life.

RESPONDENT: Or I perhaps I don’t see the sense in it. Perhaps you could explain.

RICHARD: An unexamined life is second-rate living.

RESPONDENT: No, on second thought, I think I just don’t get the question. That is, it doesn’t make sense to me. Quote: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ The how has got me stumped.

RICHARD: Affectively, of course ... that is how you are experiencing this moment. Look, let us not unnecessarily complicate things here. The ‘how’ simply means ‘what feeling am I experiencing right now with’ ... which is: ‘Am I bored?’, ‘Am I resentful?’, ‘Am I at ease?’, ‘Am I glad?’, ‘Am I sad?’ and so on. You see, peace-on-earth is here right now – the perfection of the infinitude of this universe is happening at this moment – and you are missing out on it because you are feeling what it is like to be here instead of actually being here. Hence: ‘How am I experiencing this moment’ means ‘What feeling is preventing the on-going experiencing of peace-on-earth?’

Before applying the actualism method – the ongoing enjoyment and appreciation of this moment of being alive – it is essential for success to grasp the fact that this very moment which is happening now is your only moment of being alive. The past, although it did happen, is not actual now. The future, though it will happen, is not actual now. Only now is actual. Yesterday’s happiness and harmlessness does not mean a thing if one is miserable and malicious now and a hoped-for happiness and harmlessness tomorrow is to but waste this moment of being alive in waiting. All one gets by waiting is more waiting. Thus any ‘change’ can only happen now. The jumping in point is always here; it is at this moment in time and this place in space. Thus, if one misses it this time around, hey presto, one has another chance immediately. Life is excellent at providing opportunities like this.

What ‘I’ did, all those years ago, was to devise a remarkably effective way to be able to enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive each moment again (I know that methods are to be actively discouraged, in some people’s eyes, but this one worked). It does take some doing to start off with but, as success after success starts to multiply exponentially, it becomes progressively easier to enjoy and appreciate being here each moment again. One begins by asking, each moment again, ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’?

Note: asking how one is experiencing this moment of being alive is not the actualism method; consistently enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is what the actualism method is. And this is because the actualism method is all about consciously and knowingly imitating life in the actual world. Also, by virtue of proceeding in this manner the means to the end – an ongoing enjoyment and appreciation – are no different to the end itself.

This perpetual enjoyment and appreciation is facilitated by feeling as happy and as harmless as is humanly possible. And this (affective) felicity/ innocuity is potently enabled via minimisation of both the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ feelings. An affective awareness is the key to maximising felicity and innocuity over all those alternate feelings inasmuch the slightest diminishment of enjoyment and appreciation automatically activates attentiveness.

Attentiveness to the cause of diminished enjoyment and appreciation restores felicity and innocuity. The habituation of actualistic awareness and attentiveness requires a persistent initialisation; persistent initialisation segues into a wordless approach, a non-verbal attitude towards life. It delivers the goods just here, right now, and not off into some indeterminate future. Plus the successes are repeatable – virtually on demand – and thus satisfy the ‘scientific method’.

So, ‘I’ asked myself, each moment again: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’?

As one knows from the pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s), which are moments of perfection everybody has at some stage in their life, that it is possible to experience this moment in time and this place in space as perfection personified, ‘I’ set the minimum standard of experience for myself: feeling good. If ‘I’ am not feeling good then ‘I’ have something to look at to find out why. What has happened, between the last time ‘I’ felt good and now? When did ‘I’ feel good last? Five minutes ago? Five hours ago? What happened to end those felicitous feelings? Ahh ... yes: ‘He said that and I ...’. Or: ‘She didn’t do this and I ...’. Or: ‘What I wanted was ...’. Or: ‘I didn’t do ...’. And so on and so on ... one does not have to trace back into one’s childhood ... usually no more than yesterday afternoon at the most (‘feeling good’ is an unambiguous term – it is a general sense of well-being – and if anyone wants to argue about what feeling good means ... then do not even bother trying to do this at all).

Thus, by asking ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ the reward is immediate; by finding out what triggered off the loss of feeling good, one commences another period of enjoying this moment of being alive. It is all about being here at this moment in time and this place in space ... and if you are not feeling good you have no chance whatsoever of being here in this actual world. (A grumpy person locks themselves out of the perfect purity of this moment and place). Of course, once you get the knack of this, one up-levels ‘feeling good’, as a bottom line each moment again, to ‘feeling happy’. And after that: ‘feeling perfect’. These are all feelings, this is not perfection personified yet ... but then again, feeling perfect for twenty three hours and fifty nine minutes a day is way beyond normal human expectations anyway. Also, it is a very tricky way of both getting men fully into their feelings for the first time in their life and getting women to examine their feelings one by one instead of being run by a basketful of them all at once. One starts to feel ‘alive’ for the first time in one’s life.

Being ‘alive’ is to be paying attention – exclusive attention – to this moment in time and this place in space. This attention becomes fascination ... and fascination leads to reflective contemplation. Then – and only then – apperception can occur.

Apperceptive awareness can be evoked by paying exclusive attention to being fully alive right now. This moment is your only moment of being alive ... one is never alive at any other time than now. And, wherever you are, one is always here ... even if you start walking over to ‘there’, along the way to ‘there’ you are always here ... and when you arrive ‘there’, it too is here. Thus attention becomes a fascination with the fact that one is always here ... and it is already now. Fascination leads to reflective contemplation. As one is already here, and it is always now ... then one has arrived before one starts. The potent combination of attention, fascination, reflection and contemplation produces apperception, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. Apperception is an awareness of consciousness. It is not ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious; it is the mind’s awareness of itself. Apperception – a way of seeing that is arrived at by reflective and fascinating contemplative thought – is when ‘I’ cease thinking and thinking takes place of its own accord ... and ‘me’ disappears along with all the feelings. Such a mind, being free of the thinker and the feeler – ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul – is capable of immense clarity and purity ... as a sensate body only, one is automatically benevolent and benign.

Psychological self-immolation is the only sensible sacrifice that ‘I’ as ‘me’ being can make in order to reveal that which is actual. And that which is actual is a clear and clean and pure perfection. Life is bursting with meaning when ‘I’ and ‘me’ are no longer present to mess things up. ‘I’ and ‘me’ stand in the way of the clarity and purity of the clean perfection of the actual being apparent. ‘My’ very presence prohibits this ever-present perfection being evident. ‘I’ as ‘me’ being prevents the very purity of life, that ‘I’ am searching for, from coming into plain view. With ‘my’ demise, this ever-fresh perfection is now manifest. Peace-on-earth was here in this actual world all the time.

It is all so simple, in the actual world; no effort is needed to meet the requisite morality of society. I have no ‘dark nature’, no unconscious impulses to curb, to control, to restrain. It is all so easy, in the actual world; I can take no credit for my apparently virtuous behaviour because actual freedom automatically provides beneficial thoughts and deeds. It is all so spontaneous, in the actual world; I do not do it – it does itself. Vanity, egoism, selfishness – all self-centred activity has ceased to operate when ‘I’ as ‘me’ being ceased to be. And it is all so peaceful, in the actual world; it is only in actualism that human beings can have peace-on-earth without toiling fruitlessly to be ‘good’. The answer to everything that has puzzled humankind for all of human history is readily elucidated when one is actually free. The ‘Mystery of Life’ has been penetrated and laid open for all those with the eyes to see. Life was meant to be easy.

So: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’? It beats any pathetic mantra by a country mile.

CORRESPONDENT No. 26 (Part Two)

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