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Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’ with Respondent No. 49
RESPONDENT No. 31: What do we mean by ‘effective’? RICHARD: Having the function of accomplishing or executing an event or a condition; having an effect or a result; efficacious, effectual, efficient, useful, of use, helpful, capable, beneficial, advantageous, of assistance, successful, profitable. RESPONDENT No. 31: What is it that is in your mind when you use the word ‘effective’? RICHARD: Nothing more and nothing less than straight-forwardly asking my fellow human being: ‘does it work’? RESPONDENT No. 31: Is it something to be accomplished? RICHARD: Of course ... something ultimate to become apparent; a complete event to occur, take place or eventuate; an utter experiencing to happen. The greatest, the most marvellous accomplishment that a human being can aspire to. RESPONDENT No. 31: What is being accomplished by ‘stunning’? RICHARD: So far it would appear that nothing much of substance is being accomplished ... the phenomenon of ‘stunning’ thoughts is under on-going examination and discussion. RESPONDENT No. 31: I mean what is in your mind that is ‘being accomplished’ by ‘effectiveness of stunning’? RICHARD: What is occurring in this mind is an actual interest in one’s fellow human being’s experience, discovery and subsequent well-being ... hence the query: ‘how effective has being ‘stunned by thinking’ been for you’? RESPONDENT No. 31: In what context is ‘effectiveness’ to operate? RICHARD: In the context of being that which is instrumental in doing the trick by enabling that which is talked about so often to happen; that which delivers the goods so longed for. In other words: the catalyst. RESPONDENT No. 31: Catalyst for what? What is the goods so longed for? RICHARD: The total and complete end of human suffering ... permanently. RESPONDENT: I am a bit concerned about the words ‘effective, and ‘accomplishment’ when you use them too. It’s not clear for me myself, why I would prefer the question of ‘how deep has it been for you’ instead of ‘how effective’. RICHARD: Sure ... I was not so much enquiring, at that initial stage in the discussion which the (above) exchange refers to, as to ‘how deep’ the experience of utter fullness was ... but rather how effective the after-the-event reflective thought had been in enabling further experience. The reason for this is that the experience itself is the best ‘teacher’, as it were, and the more the experience occurs the more clear it is what is required of ‘the thinker’ in order for this to be a twenty-four-hour-a-day happening for the remainder of one’s life. Also, there are no degrees of freedom in the total and complete end of human suffering (no shades, gradations or nuances of depth) as it is a case of all or nothing. It either is or is not: otherwise it is not total; it is not complete; it is not ultimate ... it is not the utter perfection of the purity of innocence. RESPONDENT: The second one somehow leaves a more mechanical impression. One worries for a second if this is the question of a mind that is looking for ‘success’? RICHARD: A sincere mind definitely is looking for success ... otherwise it is not sincere. To be living in peace-on-earth, twenty four hours a day for the remainder of one’s life, is the greatest success ever (it has never happened before in human history). RESPONDENT: There is a lot unkindness and self in the notion of ‘success’. And a great potential to bring suffer for the world, including the human beings. RICHARD: The genuine article – an actual freedom from human suffering – is fail-safe because the perfection of the purity of the already always existing peace-on-earth is so immaculate that nothing ‘dirty’ can get in. Thus benignity, benevolence and blitheness abounds ... ‘tis a peaceful, friendly and happy world one lives in. RESPONDENT: I am not addressing you in particular, I am addressing all of us. RICHARD: Oh, I do not mind at all being particularly addressed ... I am having so much fun and enjoy all correspondence. RESPONDENT: By the way, when everyone is asleep it’s just me and you receiving and sending messages. RICHARD: Yes ... the time difference is not so much, between here in Byron Bay (Australia) and wherever you are in Iran, and more than a few of the people posting are in the US of A where the time difference is greater. I sent my message around sunset (sent at 5.09 PM local time) and Byron Bay is GMT +10.00 and Teheran is GMT +3.30 ... whereas USA is GMT -4.00 (East Coast) or GMT -8.00 (West Coast). The mailing list is usually most busy during the hours before and after sunrise over Australia.
RICHARD: The only time when self-congratulatory mutual back-slapping is experientially deserved there is no ‘the thinker’ extant to take credit. RESPONDENT No. 12: Where there is self-congratulatory back-slapping, there is duality, the framework of time is back again. RICHARD: As the ‘self-congratulatory mutual back-slapping’ being discussed (above) is applicable only to where it is experientially deserved – to where there is no ‘the thinker’ extant – there is, of course, no duality. RESPONDENT No. 19: So, Richard, this ‘self’ of yours that has ‘self immolated’, ‘become extinct’, ‘kaput’, and ‘doesn’t exist in any form’ does make an occasional appearance to congratulate itself on a job well done? RICHARD: No ... the word extinction means what it says: the identity in toto (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) is no more and never will be ever again. And if it were not for ‘his’ voluntary ‘self’-immolation I would not be apparent today to be writing this E-Mail to you ... hence I am very pleased with ‘his’ sacrifice. I did explain all this to you in my response to the second E-Mail you wrote to me on this Mailing List – not that I expect you to remember that far back – so I will copy and paste a section from that post wherein I explain how I owe all that I experience now to ‘him’. Vis.: Psychological self-immolation was the only sensible sacrifice that ‘I’ could make in order to reveal whatever is actual. And what is actual is perfection. Life is bursting with meaning as ‘I’ am no longer present to mess things up. ‘I’ stood in the way of the purity of the perfection of the actual being apparent. ‘My’ presence prohibited this ever-present perfection being evident. ‘I’ prevented the very purity of life, that ‘I’ was searching for, from coming into plain view. With ‘my’ demise, this ever-fresh perfection became manifest. Thus I find myself here, in the world as-it-is. A vast stillness lies all around, a perfection that is abounding with purity. Beneficence, an active kindness, overflows in all directions, imbuing everything with unimaginable fairytale-like quality. For me to be able to be here at all is a blessing that only ‘I’ could grant, because nobody else could do it for me. I am full of admiration for the ‘me’ that dared to do such a thing. I owe all that I experience now to ‘me’. I salute ‘my’ audacity. And what an adventure it was ... and still is. These are the wondrous workings of the exquisite quality of life – who would have it any other way? I am this infinite and perfect physical universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being. Ain’t life grand! RESPONDENT: Richard, can I conclude from what you say that ‘you’ loves order as much as disorder? And ugly as much as beautiful? Life as much as death? RICHARD: If by putting the word ‘you’ in small quotes you are referring to the identity (the psychological and/or psychic entity inhabiting or possessing the body) whom I call ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul, then ... yes. ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ fluctuates between loving and hating both ‘order’ and ‘disorder’ ; oscillates between loving and hating both ‘ugly’ and ‘beautiful’; swings between loving and hating both ‘life’ and ‘death’ ... and so on through all shades of nuance including indifference. However, when ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul ‘self’-immolates in toto – extinction – all such duality vanishes. For example: where there is no hate its antidote – love – likewise evaporates; where there is no sorrow its antidote – compassion – ceases to exist; no ugly, no beauty; no disorder, no order and so on for all the psychological/psychic opposites. The psyche itself – ‘being’ – has ceased to exist. As for ‘life’ and ‘death’ ... death is not the opposite to life at all. There is only birth and death ... life is what happens in between.
RESPONDENT: Richard, can I conclude from what you say that ‘you’ loves order as much as disorder? And ugly as much as beautiful? Life as much as death? RICHARD: If by putting the word ‘you’ in small quotes you are referring to the identity (the psychological and/or psychic entity inhabiting or possessing the body) whom I call ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul, then ... yes. ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ fluctuates between loving and hating both ‘order’ and ‘disorder’ ; oscillates between loving and hating both ‘ugly’ and ‘beautiful’; swings between loving and hating both ‘life’ and ‘death’ ... and so on through all shades of nuance including indifference. However, when ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul ‘self’-immolates in toto – extinction – all such duality vanishes. For example: where there is no hate its antidote – love – likewise evaporates; where there is no sorrow its antidote – compassion – ceases to exist; no ugly, no beauty; no disorder, no order and so on for all the psychological/psychic opposites. The psyche itself – ‘being’ – has ceased to exist. As for ‘life’ and ‘death’ ... death is not the opposite to life at all. There is only birth and death ... life is what happens in between. RESPONDENT: Thank you Richard. Now my question is which entity ‘I’ or ‘me’ is perceiving this state which you are describing ... RICHARD: The brain is entirely capable of perception without any ‘I’ or ‘me’ whatsoever ... it does it a whole lot better, in fact. I am the sense organs: 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’/‘me’, 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. RESPONDENT: ... the state that I name ‘stasis’ if you allow me, as ‘perfect’? RICHARD: Sure ... although most people I have used the word ‘stasis’ with, as being a word describing the motile equanimity that ensues in arriving at perfection, initially comprehend ‘stasis’ as being either a static equipollence or a stagnant immobility ... rather the dynamic, scintillating vitality of the perfection wherein everything is the vivid, sparkling and lustrous purity that is coming from nowhere nor going anywhere. Consequently I rarely, if ever, use the word ... too much explaining involved. RESPONDENT: If I am not wrong due to physics the world is going toward an atrophy. Disorder. You perceive what is and call it perfect. RICHARD: In physics, atrophy applies only in a closed system, whereas this universe is perpetually arranging and rearranging itself in myriads of countless form (nebulae, stars, planets and so on) all over the boundless reaches of infinite space throughout the limitless extent of eternal time. This infinitude is perfection (infinitude has no opposite) and as infinitude cannot atrophy (infinitude is perpetuus mobilis) there is no disorder whatsoever. RESPONDENT: So you say everything is fate, correct? RICHARD: No ... there is scope for action which affects events. RESPONDENT: You would not judge me if I bomb the world, because ‘killing’ for feeding oneself is the ‘law of nature’. It’s what there is. RICHARD: The human animal, being able to think, reflect, plan, can implement considered action for benevolent reasons ... no other animal can do this. Thus human beings, over countless years, have formulated agreements as in regards common goals and behaviour for mutual benefit. Thus it is sensible to comply with the legal laws and observe the social protocols. So, of course I would judge you for not acting in a mutually beneficial way – I am not silly – although I am more interested in pointing the finger at a person feeling – and thus thinking – in a non-mutually beneficial way. There are already enough people censuring behaviour. RESPONDENT: Neither do you have any compassion for the one who is killed by me, right? RICHARD: Where there is no sorrow there is no compassion (the opposites go hand-in-hand) ... nor any need. Thus I actually care about my fellow human being ... instead of merely feeling care. RESPONDENT: He had to die anyway ... RICHARD: I am not a fatalist ... in this scenario you are describing he did not ‘have to die anyway’ at all: you killed him. It was a deliberate action which, as I said above, affects events. RESPONDENT: I can’t see this as illustrious and brilliant. RICHARD: Fatalism RESPONDENT: What sees this as illustrious? Toto? Or ‘I’ or ‘me’? RICHARD: Well, I certainly do not see the scenario you describe as ‘illustrious’ (incidentally ‘in toto’ is simply another way of saying ‘in its totality’). RESPONDENT: I just hear gods laughing. RICHARD: All gods and goddesses and devils and demons exist only in the human psyche ... ‘tis your own laughter echoing throughout the psychic corridors. There is no ‘good’ or ‘evil’ here in this actual world. RESPONDENT: And myself trapped in the wants of my organism, which does not die even when it sees nature as it is. RICHARD: In my experience it is possible to be free, in this life-time, as this flesh and blood body ... the pure intent of naiveté is essential.
RESPONDENT: The state that I name ‘stasis’ if you allow me, as ‘perfect’? RICHARD: Sure ... although most people I have used the word ‘stasis’ with, as being a word describing the motile equanimity that ensues in arriving at perfection, initially comprehend ‘stasis’ as being either a static equipollence or a stagnant immobility ... rather the dynamic, scintillating vitality of the perfection wherein everything is the vivid, sparkling and lustrous purity that is coming from nowhere nor going anywhere. Consequently I rarely, if ever, use the word ... too much explaining involved. RESPONDENT: I think I understand this. And I agree. But do you believe that at the level of human beings lives, this equilibrium is altered, or do you find it as much perfect? RICHARD: The people I meet face-to-face and the people I read about in books, journals, newspapers, magazines and the people I watch on films, TV, videos and so on all report, in one way or another, that they do not experience their own life, or the lives of others and life in general, as being perfect. Whereas every body (and I do mean ‘body’) is already walking around in paradise ... which is why I advise people to come to their senses (both figuratively and literally). * RESPONDENT: If I am not wrong due to physics the world is going toward an atrophy. Disorder. You perceive what is and call it perfect. RICHARD: In physics, atrophy applies only in a closed system, whereas this universe is perpetually arranging and rearranging itself in myriads of countless form (nebulae, stars, planets and so on) all over the boundless reaches of infinite space throughout the limitless extent of eternal time. This infinitude is perfection (infinitude has no opposite) and as infinitude cannot atrophy (infinitude is perpetuus mobilis) there is no disorder whatsoever. RESPONDENT: I am really sorry, what I wanted to write was ‘enthropy’ actually ... RICHARD: My mistake too ... I took you to mean ‘entropy’ and answered accordingly (inadvertently typing ‘atrophy’). It should read: ‘In physics, entropy applies only in a closed system, whereas ...’. * RESPONDENT: I just hear gods laughing. RICHARD: All gods and goddesses and devils and demons exist only in the human psyche ... ‘tis your own laughter echoing throughout the psychic corridors. There is no ‘good’ or ‘evil’ here in this actual world. RESPONDENT: I agree that nature does not understand any good or evil, but here in human plane, as living organisms we call the loss of energy bad, do you agree with this? RICHARD: I am none too sure what you mean by ‘human plane’ but if you are referring to the human psyche then yes ... ‘good’ and ‘evil’ only exist in the human psyche. RESPONDENT: Are we looking it in a wrong when we say so? RICHARD: The current wisdom (inherited from spirit-ridden Bronze Age ancestors) is 180 degrees in the wrong direction. RESPONDENT: By saying I hear god laughing I was trying to say I feel trapped in this world. RICHARD: And there is no way out ... ‘I’ am the human psyche and the human psyche is ‘me’. * RESPONDENT: And myself trapped in the wants of my organism, which does not die even when it sees nature as it is. RICHARD: In my experience it is possible to be free, in this life-time, as this flesh and blood body ... the pure intent of naiveté is essential. RESPONDENT: Do you agree that your experience (advice) may be not applicable to me, because we are living in different conditions? RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: What I want to say is, honestly Richard, I have always seen the world like you are describing (if I am understanding the things you say correctly) but because of exactly ‘what it is’ I am eating the rotten part of this apple. RICHARD: The apple is rotten to the core. RESPONDENT: So I can’t feel content. I am trapped in a complicated system human beings have devised that results in my loss of energy. RICHARD: There is much more to it than ‘a complicated system human beings have devised’ ... all the different types of ‘a complicated system human beings have devised’ or socialisation in general (peer-group conditioning, parental conditioning and societal conditioning in general) are well-meant endeavours by countless peoples over innumerable aeons to seek to curb the instinctual animal passions. Now, while most people paddle around on the surface and re-arrange the conditioning to ease their lot somewhat, some people – seeking to be free of all human conditioning – fondly imagine that by putting on a face-mask and snorkel that they have gone deep-sea diving with a scuba outfit ... deep into the human condition. They have not ... they have gone deep only into the human conditioning. When they tip upon the instinctual passions – which are both savage (fear and aggression) and tender (nurture and desire) – they grab for the tender (the ‘good’ side) and blow them up all out of proportion as an antidote, as compensating pacifiers ... and the investigation ceases. It takes nerves of steel to don such an aqua-lung and plunge deep in the stygian depths of the human psyche ... it is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee. This is because below or behind the conditioning is the human condition itself ... that which necessitated the controls (conditioning) in the first place. Thus the conditioning can prevent the investigation of the human condition itself. RESPONDENT: And as a human being which is a sub-group of living things I experience pain. RICHARD: It is helpful to draw a distinction betwixt physical pain and emotional pain. Physical pain
is essential, else one could be sitting on a hot-plate and not know that one’s bum was on fire until one saw the smoke rising.
Emotional pain – malice RESPONDENT: Yes looking at the world from the eye of the artist or scientist, of course I am amazed, dazzled by this strange ‘what is’, but I have a lot of taxes to pay to the society, family, etc., which give me no time to sit and watch the rising sun ... . And when I have time I have no energy ... . RICHARD: Speaking personally, the ‘I’ that was made freedom the number one priority in ‘his’
life. ‘He’ was a married man, with four children, RESPONDENT: Thank you for your time. May I know why you are on this list? RICHARD: To participate in the facilitation of global peace-on-earth. RESPONDENT: My mistake about the abbreviation ‘toto’ made me have the greatest laugh of my day for today ... my English!! RICHARD: It is a Latin expression, in fact: my use of ‘in toto’ (meaning ‘in its entirety, completely, without exception’) is simply a way of emphasising the utter totality that the word ‘extinction’ means. There is no phoenix here to arise from the ashes.
RESPONDENT No. 4: Let’s be accurate in our assessments of others. RICHARD: How is that possible? I cannot possibly know another person’s every thought, every feeling, every instinctual impulse ... I cannot know the nuances of their ethnic background, the intimate details of their familial upbringing, the subtleties of their peer-group aspirations and so on. If someone fondly imagines they can accurately assess another person then they may very well be fooling themselves into thinking they are operating from ‘insight’ or ‘clarity’ or some such esoteric thing. <SNIP> RESPONDENT No. 4 to No. 49: I discovered that I could see things a whole lot better without thinking about them. Somehow there was understanding without knowledge. I didn’t even have sufficient knowledge at that time to express some things I understood, especially certain ‘principles’ – as they are called when spelled out in linear language – of how the universe operates and how consciousness operates ... <SNIP> ... I don’t put much value on ethnic background, familial upbringing and other factors which may be operating as a pattern. I only see that a pattern is operating in a person and I listen for an opening which will allow for the penetration of that pattern. It is not the words, however, that penetrate. It is the words spoken at the right moment. Naturally, it is up to the person whether they are listening or not, and can see past the words to the energy of the moment which the words represent. Sometimes there is a palpable change in another which they can feel. Sometimes there is a change in another which is not obvious. And sometimes there is no change at all when the fear is too great, or the pattern is too firmly entrenched. RESPONDENT No. 49 to No. 4: I think this pattern which you are talking about is what Richard calls ‘ethnic background, familial upbringing, etc.’ So what is the matter of disagreement between you two gentlemen? RICHARD: Perhaps the answer to your question will become obvious if what No. 4 was explaining to you (above) is arranged sequentially? Vis.:
I am currently the ‘other person’ that No. 4 has chosen to energetically write to ... I made the mistake of taking his words at face value when writing to another instead of listening to his energy.
RESPONDENT: Richard, I have tried to follow the things you said, how much of it I have been able to understand precisely I don’t know, since my English isn’t good. One thing that I don’t understand, and I hope is not because of my language, is that you say compassion is an antidote of malice. RICHARD: Both love and compassion are the antidotal pacifiers which placate the angry ego and comfort the anguished soul. Yet love has its roots in the very malice it serves to mollify and compassion is sourced in the very sorrow it seeks to soothe ... the one keeps the other in existence (the ‘good’ depends on the ‘bad’ for its very being). There is a major distinction betwixt healing a disease and eliminating the cause of a disease ... thus the ‘cure’ of love and compassion has not worked despite 3,000 to 5,000 years of pious application of such salves to the wound. An approximate analogy might go something like this: the virus ‘varida major’ – the cause of the disease ‘Variola’ (smallpox) in humans and which was one of the world’s most dreaded plagues – was declared eradicated in 1977 due to a mammoth labour-intensive elimination campaign under the jurisdiction of the World Health Organisation. Until the viruses’ global extinction, vaccination with an antidote prepared from ‘varida major’ itself was essential to keep the disease Variola at bay in the community (there were an estimated 2.0 million deaths in 1967; the disease was described as early as 1122 BCE in China, the disease is referred to in ancient Sanskrit texts in India and the 1156 BCE mummified head of the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses V bears evidence of the disease). Since 1980, routine vaccination on a population-wide basis has been discontinued. RESPONDENT: If I am right, you talk of intelligence, an intelligence that can clearly show us the human condition, apart from what we emotionally like it to be, and you say that the intelligence that perceives this, recognizes the only way to solve the problem of human condition is ‘altruism’. RICHARD: Yes, for intelligence to recognise the only solution to all the ills of humankind it must, as you so rightly observe, be apart from how humans ‘emotionally like it to be’. Human intelligence cannot operate cleanly and clearly if it be crippled by affective feelings – emotions and passions and calentures – for the affective feelings input a bias towards preserving the ‘self’. Thus altruistic ‘self’-sacrifice – unlike humble ‘self’-surrender – is the deliberate sacrifice of ‘self’ with no reward whatsoever possible for ‘self’ (otherwise it is not altruism). This clean, clear and pure operation of intelligence is evident in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) wherein the ‘self’, along with all its affective feelings, temporarily abdicates the throne ... and the already always existing peace-on-earth is apparent all about. RESPONDENT: Here, I see, that your intelligence has a tendency to solve not only your problem but the problem of all. RICHARD: Yes, I sought an actual freedom which was possible for each and every person here on earth in this lifetime ... or else it be not a freedom worthy of the name actual. RESPONDENT: This is what I call compassion. Thus I conclude that human intelligence is compassionate. RICHARD: I can understand why you would conclude this to be so ... yet as compassion is amongst the affective feelings it sits right there amidst that which you rightly described (above) as ‘what we emotionally like it to be’ ... and will never, ever be an appropriate guide to salubrity for this body and that body and every body. RESPONDENT: Human intelligence likes to seek and find a form of order in the universe that can benefit all, especially all sentient beings. RICHARD: Indeed ... yet there is neither ‘order’ nor chaos in the universe ... they are but human inventions and do not exist in actuality. The same applies to fairness/unfairness, justice/injustice and any other human concepts that, whilst being useful for human-to-human interaction, are futility in action when applied to the universe. RESPONDENT: And human intelligence finds the solution of altruism for this, which to me is a compassionate solution. RICHARD: There is a marked difference between feeling one cares for others and actually caring for others. RESPONDENT: What is the matter of misunderstanding between me and you, gentleman? RICHARD: Perhaps it is by endeavouring to comprehend via the affective feelings (as in: ‘does what Richard say feel right’)? RESPONDENT: Please don’t cut and past for me, I have tried my best to understand those that I have read so far. If I have not been successful it is because I can’t understand your way of explanation due to my poor English. Also I swear I have looked up all the new words. RICHARD: It is not because of what you call ‘my poor English’ as English speaking peoples have difficulty understanding why a compassionate intelligence is oxymoronic also ... the affective feelings are global in their spread (no one is exempt). For example, Mr. Daniel Goleman wrote:
Despite his clear statement of fact: ‘intelligence can come to nothing when the emotions hold sway’ the remainder of the book extols the virtues of emotions ... indeed the very name of his book ‘Emotional Intelligence’ is the giveaway. Feelings rule in the human world.
RESPONDENT: What is the matter of misunderstanding between me and you, gentleman? RICHARD: Perhaps it is by endeavouring to comprehend via the affective feelings (as in: ‘does what Richard say feel right’)? RESPONDENT: I don’t think so. I think the matter of our misunderstanding is: 1. You empty intelligence of emotions, but then talk of altruism as an solution which is gifted by the intelligent mind. But altruism is an emotion. It’s is not sentimental but a high form of emotion that is the result of the activity of a super-perceptive human-mind. RICHARD: Altruism is not ‘a high form of emotion’ at all ... self-sacrifice is a basic animal survival passion common to all sentient beings. This trait can be observed in insects such as ants and bees and almost all animals ... mainly with the parental defending of the young to the point of fatal injury leading to death. Defending the group against another group is also simple to observe ... it manifests in humans in the way that one will passionately defend oneself and one’s group to the death if it is deemed necessary. Speaking personally, as a youth this self-sacrificing trait impelled me to go to war for ‘my’ country ... to ‘willingly lay down my life for kith and kin’. It is a very powerful passion indeed ... Christianity, to give just one example, values it very highly: ‘No greater love hath he that lay down his life for another’. However, all of ‘my’ instincts – the instinctive drive for biological survival – come to the fore when psychologically and psychically threatened, for ‘I’ am confused about ‘my’ presence, confounding ‘my’ survival and the body’s survival. Nevertheless, ‘my’ survival being paramount could not be further from the truth, for ‘I’ need play no part any more in perpetuating physical existence (which is the primal purpose of the instinctual animal ‘self’). ‘I’ am no longer necessary at all. In fact, ‘I’ am nowadays a hindrance. With all of ‘my’ beliefs, values, creeds, ethics and other doctrinaire disabilities, ‘I’ am a menace to the body. ‘I’ am ready to die (to allow the body to be killed) for a cause and ‘I’ will willingly sacrifice physical existence for a ‘Noble Ideal’ ... and reap ‘my’ post-mortem reward of immortality. Which is ‘self’-surrender (narcissism) ... not ‘self’-sacrifice (altruism). RESPONDENT: A super perceptive mind does not carry a ‘self’ in the same sense the ordinary mind does. And I think only such emotion of such a super perceptive mind can motivate it to lose itself. RICHARD: In the human animal, when intelligence is operating unimpeded by any affective feelings whatsoever in a pure consciousness experience (PCE), one sees that ‘I’/‘me’ was standing in the way of this already always existing peace-on-earth being apparent. When one reverts to normal – back to being an affective feeling being – when the PCE is over it is startlingly obvious that the only thing to do to enable the already always existing peace-on-earth into being apparent for the remainder of one’s life is to psychologically and psychically ‘self’-immolate. The question then is: how? Simple: the instinctual survival passions are very powerful passions ... the passion for individual survival is surpassed only by the passion for species survival. In others words: animal altruism RESPONDENT: 2. You talk as though intelligence is a part of mind that can work correctly when parts called ‘emotions, sensations’ stop to work or cut out. RICHARD: I specifically point to the affective feelings – emotions and passions and calentures – ceasing to exist when ‘I’/‘me’ abdicates ... and not the ‘sensations’ (sensate feelings). RESPONDENT: But to me intelligence is the ‘Full’ activity of human brain. Thus I insist on the compassionate nature of intelligence which is NOT sentimental but NOT unemotional either. RICHARD: Okay ... it is your life you are living, when all is said and done. RESPONDENT: If you cut out the human heart, limbic system from the brain, what part of brain will give a damn about the neighbour’s daughter being raped? RICHARD: I specifically point to the ‘theory of mind’ RESPONDENT: Isn’t it the depth of emotional stimuli, our loves and hates, that gives the mind the passion to work ‘fully’ – most perceptively, most intelligently to solve its problems?? RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: 3. You talk as though you are saying something different from K. RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: If I am right, he too is talking of solving the human problem’s by using the most of our intelligence. RICHARD: Not so ... the word ‘intelligence’, as used by Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti, points to a disembodied timeless and spaceless energy (what he otherwise calls ‘god’ or ‘truth’ or ‘otherness’ or ‘that which is sacred, holy’ and so on). Vis.:
He is most particular to point out that this ‘immense energy; immense intelligence’ has nothing to do with ‘our intelligence’ at all ... let alone ‘using the most of our intelligence’. Vis.:
He is very clear: when ‘the intelligence that comes’ operates there is ‘no outside authority’ (in one’s outer world) ‘nor inward authority’ (in one’s inner world) because ‘the only authority then is intelligence’ (‘god’ or ‘truth’ or ‘otherness’ or ‘that which is sacred, holy’ and so on). RESPONDENT: He talks of a love that is not sentimental, not personal, a love that is intelligence. RICHARD: He does indeed ... just as the Christians say, for an example, when explaining Love Agapé: ‘God is Love’. RESPONDENT: Or a love that is intelligent. RICHARD: Which is yet another oxymoron ... as is evidenced by the anger (and anguish) which is demonstrably evidenced by saints and sages and seers throughout history. The ‘Tried and True’ is the tried and failed because it is still within the human condition of malice and sorrow with their antidotal pacifiers of love and compassion ... which is why I sought an actual freedom via elimination of the animal ‘self’ who is born of the instinctual passions such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire. * RESPONDENT: Please don’t cut and past for me, I have tried my best to understand those that I have read so far. If I have not been successful it is because I can’t understand your way of explanation due to my poor English. Also I swear I have looked up all the new words. RICHARD: It is not because of what you call ‘my poor English’ as English speaking peoples have difficulty understanding why a compassionate intelligence is oxymoronic also ... the affective feelings are global in their spread (no one is exempt). For example, Mr. Daniel Goleman wrote: [quote]: ‘A view of human nature that ignores the power of emotions is sadly short-sighted. The very name ‘Homo Sapiens’, the thinking species, is misleading in light of the new appreciation and vision of the place of emotion in our lives that science now offers. As we all know from experience, when it comes to shaping our decisions and our actions, feeling counts every bit as much – and often more – than thought. We have gone too far in emphasising the value and import of the purely rational – of what IQ measures – in human life. Intelligence can come to nothing when the emotions hold sway’. [endquote]. (‘Emotional Intelligence’ Copyright © 1995 by Daniel Goleman; Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2 Soho Square, London W1V 6HB; ISBN 0 7475 2803 6). Despite his clear statement of fact: ‘intelligence can come to nothing when the emotions hold sway’ the remainder of the book extols the virtues of emotions ... indeed the very name of his book ‘Emotional Intelligence’ is the giveaway. Feelings rule in the human world. RESPONDENT: Dear sir, I told you my English is not good. You did not accept it. RICHARD: I did nothing of the sort ... if you say your English is ‘not good’ then is indeed not good as only you can know best what you know and experience. What I did say was it is not what you call ‘my poor English’ which is preventing your comprehension of what I say because English speaking peoples also have difficulty understanding why a compassionate intelligence is oxymoronic (as the affective feelings are global in their spread no one is exempt). In other words, based upon my experience with English speaking peoples, what I did ‘not accept’ was this particular reason for not comprehending ... I was not assessing the degree of your ability to speak, write or read the English language. RESPONDENT: Instead you sent me a long paragraph of scientific English. To make me sure I might be one of those oxymorons?? RICHARD: No ... I simply took your words at face value (‘I swear I have looked up all the new words’). If you will provide a list of the ‘scientific English’ words that you do not comprehend I am only to happy to provide their meanings. RESPONDENT: We had three possibilities for this case: 1. My English wasn’t really good. 2. I was an oxymoron. 3. You don’t explain clearly. How did you omit the other two possibilities and state that my case is surely case number 2?? RICHARD: Yet I did not ‘state that [your] case is surely case number 2’ at all as there are numerous reasons possible. Apart from what has already been discussed (about English speaking people not comprehending also) my exact words in answer to your query were [quote]: ‘perhaps it is by endeavouring to comprehend via the affective feelings as in: ‘does what Richard say feel right’?’ [endquote] ... and even then I said ‘perhaps’ because how on earth could I know why you do or do not understand something? RESPONDENT: You don’t bother to write in font sizes that won’t give people eye strain. RICHARD: Out of the hundreds and hundreds of people that I write to only three persons have passed judgment on the format I use ... you are the fourth. Speaking personally, by pre-setting the parameters of both the computer and whichever programme I use, then whatever font, font size, font colour and background the other is using is automatically changed to suit my own tastes. It is so much easier changing oneself than trying to change other people. RESPONDENT: So how can I be sure you explain in a way that everyone can understand? RICHARD: Surely you are not saying that credibility depends upon people using the same font size as you do? Words are words, whether they be spoken, printed or appear as pixels on a screen in this font type or another type; in this size font or another size; in this colour or another colour; on this background or another; in this language or another. Ultimately it is what is being said or written, by the speaker or the writer that lives what is being expressed, that is important ... and facts and actuality then speak for themselves. I invite anyone to make a critical examination of all the words I advance so as to ascertain if they be intrinsically self-explanatory ... and if they are all seen to be inherently consistent with what is being spoken about, then the facts speak for themselves. Then one will have reason to remember a pure conscious experience (PCE), which all peoples I have spoken to at length have had, and thus verify by direct experience the facticity of what is written (which subjective experiencing is the only proof worthy of the name). The PCE occurs globally ... across cultures and down through the ages irregardless of gender, race or age. However, it is usually interpreted according to cultural beliefs – created and reinforced by the persistence of identity – and devolves into an altered state of consciousness (ASC). Then ‘I’ as ego – sublimated and transcended as ‘me’ as soul – manifest as a god or a goddess (‘The Truth’ by any name) and preach unliveable doctrines based upon their belief that they are ‘not the body’. Doctrines like ‘self’-surrender, for example.
RESPONDENT No. 33: And you too, whatever extirpations and such that you have gone through in your life, must be enjoying the occasional flutter in your heart that creative anxiety produces. Isn’t it so? RICHARD: No ... there is no fear here in this actual world where I live – there is no fear in a flower, a tree, an ashtray, an armchair, a rock – not even disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension, let alone anxiety, angst, fear, terror, horror or dread. RESPONDENT: If someone breaks into your house at night, if someone kidnaps your wife, if a sudden economical change takes your pension from you ... I hope none of these actually ever happens to you, but if they did how would you feel? How would you re-act? RICHARD: The burglary question I can answer from direct experience ... someone broke into my house at 3.00 AM about six months ago. How did I feel? I did not feel anything. How did I re-act? There was no need of reaction ... I did the obvious in this day and age: I first rang the police and then rang the 24 hour credit-card hotline. The police arrived at the door just as a neighbour was calling to report a similar break-in ... all-in-all there were nine houses broken into that night. The felon has been apprehended. I have been robbed before ... about six years ago (given the human condition this is all par for the course): that time I was in a position to give chase and recover my possessions from the offender. How did I feel? I did not feel anything. How did I re-act? There was no need of reaction ... there was only action: I had all the energy to hand as was appropriate for the situation. The kidnapping question I can answer from indirect experience ... my wife, my constant companion night and day for eleven years, was ‘kidnapped’ by love some four years ago and packed her bags and moved out of my life. How did I feel? I did not feel anything. How did I re-act? There was no reaction ... I do not ‘own’ anyone: she is her own person and lives her life as she sees fit. Also, there are no guarantees in life regarding another person: everybody is but a missed heart-beat or two away from death; any fellow human being can disappear out of one’s life at any given moment ... and does. The economic question I can answer from personal experience ... I lived an alternative life-style in the latter half of the ‘seventies: growing my own food and so on ... being as self-sufficient as possible. Then, for nearly five years, in a time I call my ‘puritan period’, I was – more or less as time went by – homeless, itinerant, celibate, vegan ... I eventually whittled my worldly possessions down to three sarongs, three shirts, a cooking pot and bowl, a knife and a spoon, a hair brush and a pair of nail scissors. Thus I know I can live simply in a physical sense as well. It may be useful for me to explain that not only do I have no feelings about these scenarios you mention, but I have none about any more you might propose. I do not experience affective feelings per se because I do not have any anywhere in this body at all ... this body lost that faculty entirely when ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul became extinct. Thus, to use the jargon, no one can ‘press my buttons’ as I do not have any buttons – nor any feelings under them – to be activated. Literally I feel nothing at all. Even when, say, watching a magnificent sunrise where some lofty clouds are shot through with splendid rays of golden light, transforming the morning sky into a blaze of glory ... I feel nothing at all. These eyes seeing it delight in the array of colour, and this brain contemplating its visual splendour can revel in the wonder of it all ... but I cannot feel the beauty of it in the emotional and passionate sense of the word feel. Just as when a person becomes physically blind all their other senses are heightened, so too is it when all
affective feelings vanish entirely. This body is simply brimming with sense organs which celebrate in their own sensuous and
sensual delight. Visually everything is intense, vivid and brilliant ... sensuously everything is dynamic, vital and scintillating
with actuality ... sensuality is a matter-of-fact actualness. Everything is endowed with a purity that far exceeds the greatest or
most profound feeling of beauty ... and an intimacy that surpasses the highest or deepest feeling of love possible. An actual
intimacy Fear is the barrier to being intimate ... yet fear is the doorway into intimacy.
RESPONDENT: Please answer each only in few sentences that are NOT – Richardian. Thank you. I mean something that uses daily dictionary – in simple language. I would be grateful. RICHARD: May I ask? Why are you wanting to prescribe (‘answer each only in few sentences’) how another person is to express their experience and/or understanding (‘NOT – Richardian’) so as to have it accord to how you deem it should be (‘something that uses daily dictionary – in simple language’)? Is it not obvious that I would know best what the precise words and word-meanings are that are the most suited, plus the amount of sentences necessary, so as to be accurately conveying something totally new to human experience? * RICHARD: ... research shows that altered states of consciousness (ASC’s) are mainly due to what occurs in the brain receptors (the drug binding sites) for the neurotransmitter glutamate. These binding sites are called the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors. Conditions which precipitate ASC’s (and which can cause low oxygen, low blood flow, low blood sugar and so on) have been shown to release a flood of glutamate which over-activate the NMDA receptors in the process (and which can even kill brain cells in an event known as ‘excitotoxicity). The glutamate flood triggers an array of brain chemicals which bind to NMDA receptors, leading to the ASC. For example, many, many peoples have had both spontaneous and self-induced ‘out of body experiences’ (OBE’s) and ‘near death experiences’ (NDE’s) and their reports have been painstakingly detailed and closely examined by many people of various persuasions. The epiphenomenon of an emergent consciousness was a fascinating study that I followed with interest years ago ... there are many and various documentaries on TV about it. One obvious point stands out clearly: They are all dependent upon a flesh and blood body, that is not actually dead, for their occurrence. RESPONDENT: So? What do you want to conclude? RICHARD: That the transcendental non-temporal and non-spatial and non-material entirely other ‘otherness’, commonly known as ‘The Truth’, that is supposedly self-existent in its own right (and so beloved by religionists, spiritualists and mystics), is dependent for its very existence upon the material substances and the material human brain-mind that, generally speaking, most religionists, spiritualists and mystics tend to spurn. * RICHARD: In other words: the transcendental non-temporal and non-spatial and non-material entirely other ‘otherness’, commonly known as ‘The Truth’, that is supposedly self-existent in its own right (and so beloved by religionists, spiritualists and mystics), is dependent for its very existence upon the material substances and the material human brain-mind that, generally speaking, most religionists, spiritualists and mystics tend to spurn. Needless is it to say that all these studies are usually overlooked/ignored/dismissed by those of transcendentalist persuasion? RESPONDENT: Of course it may have been so. Haven’t you realized so far that transcendentalist sort of people are not a very deep sort of people? RICHARD: Surely you are not suggesting that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti was not ‘very deep’?
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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