Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

RESPONDENT: On further reflection, Richard, I don’t see much point in thinking about you ...

RICHARD: Except that you are not thinking about me ... you are instead thinking about a non-easeful and non-friendly prick who is defensive, pedantic, prone to rub people’s noses in their every mistake, lord it over people, put them down, and etcetera (see further below).

RESPONDENT: ...[I don’t see much point in thinking about you] or your claims any longer. Whatever it is you’ve discovered ...

RICHARD: There is no need to be coy ... you know quite well what it is. For example:

• [Respondent]: ‘Trying to imagine someone who has no feelings, someone who is incapable of empathy, incapable of feeling sorrow or compassion, one naturally tends to think either of someone who is heartless, uncaring, ruthlessly self-centred (a ‘psychopath’ in popular parlance), or someone who is dull, lifeless, emotionally flattened. I am still bothered by this sometimes, even though I know it needn’t be so.
I was thinking this over again recently when I remembered the day two summers ago when I took a long walk in the country, ate two ‘magic’ psilocybin mushrooms, and had 4 hours of PCE on earth. Back at home (still on the fringes of the aptly described ‘magical fairytale-like paradise’) I was talking to my girlfriend on the phone in Sydney. She was crying, telling me about a problem at work that was getting her down. As she was going into the details I was lying there on a sofa looking out a window, watching the sky, observing a magnificent snowy-white cloud drifting way up there in the cool blue immensity. Everything was utterly immaculate. (...)’. (Wednesday, 16/02/2005 6:27 PM AEDST).

RESPONDENT: ... [Whatever it is you’ve discovered] I’m sure it is great fun for you ...

RICHARD: As what you are sure is great fun has an obvious (to you) brokenness in it somewhere your insincerity is ... um ... is almost palpable.

RESPONDENT: ... [I’m sure it is great fun for you] but there is also an obvious (to me) brokenness in there somewhere ... and it is not something I want.

RICHARD: Here is what you went on to say (in that e-mail of yours already part-quoted above) a year ago to the day:

• [Respondent]: ‘... [Everything was utterly immaculate]. What she was telling me belonged to a different world altogether. I heard it, I understood it, I knew she was concerned about it, but it had no relevance here. And the important thing is, I knew it had no relevance *there* either – but there was no way she could really *see* that unless she could experience ... this’. [emphasises in original]. (Wednesday, 16/02/2005 6:27 PM AEDST).

RESPONDENT: Selflessness, absence of malice and sorrow, should (I think, and remember from various times in life, not just PCE’s) result in an easeful and friendly manner that isn’t defensive, pedantic, prone to rub people’s noses in their every mistake, lord it over people, put them down, etc. It should be an obvious improvement that everyone wants to emulate ... but instead you seem for all money to be a prick that everyone bends over backwards to make allowances for on account of you having something to offer.

RICHARD: And here is the very next paragraph (from that e-mail you wrote a year ago to the day):

• [Respondent]: ‘To say that I was callous, cold, indifferent, uncaring, flat, dull or lifeless at that moment would be totally off the mark. No way! What I really wanted was for her to experience the world this way, and to realise that whatever problem she had was made redundant by the perfection of the sky, the clouds, the trees, the air. It’s true to say there was no compassion in me, none whatsoever, because there was no sorrow, and no way I could endorse anyone else’s unnecessary sorrow either. At that moment I was literally incapable of conventional compassion ... but there was genuine caring, and plenty of it’. (Wednesday, 16/02/2005 6:27 PM AEDST).

RESPONDENT: Whatever you’ve got, enjoy it, but keep it.

RICHARD: As what you are telling me to keep and enjoy has an obvious (to you) brokenness in it somewhere – which apparent brokenness presumably gives rise to that non-easeful and non-friendly prick you keep on seeing who is defensive, pedantic, prone to rub people’s noses in their every mistake, lord it over people, put them down, and etcetera – would it be a fair assessment to say there is a marked absence of [quote] ‘genuine caring’ [endquote] in that throwaway line of yours?

RESPONDENT: I’ve seen enough.

RICHARD: It can be quite amazing, at times, to see just how deep shallowness extends.

RESPONDENT: Over and out.

RICHARD: Reading you loud and clear, Agent 86, loud and clear.

RICHARD: ‘I’ cannot experience the actuality of being caring ... ‘I’ can only experience the feeling of being caring. For example, the last time I visited my biological parents (1984) I was told ‘we worry about you’ ... which fretful feeling of apprehension/anxiety is, to them, being caring. They mean well, of course, as do most people.

RESPONDENT: So, all affective caring stems from separation – the need to ‘solve’ isolation and loneliness.

RICHARD: Yes, it does stem from separation – from being a separative identity – and it does have the effect of ‘solving’ (not dissolving) isolation and loneliness, albeit temporarily, but further to the point affective caring verifies, endorses, and consolidates ‘me’.

Not only am ‘I’ thus authenticated, sanctioned, and substantiated ... ‘my’ presence has meaning.

*

RESPONDENT: Are you saying this [taking care of other people and things] only happens in a selfish sort of way? That all feeling caring is selfish – therefore not really caring at all?

RICHARD: I would rather say ‘self’-centred than ‘selfish’ ... when someone is touched by another’s suffering, as in being moved sufficiently to stimulate caring action, it is their own suffering which is being kindled and quickened. Thus feelings are being aroused, which motivate the activity of caring, and taking care of the other works to assuage the aroused feelings (as well as working to help the other of course). Shall I put it this way? They are missing-out on experiencing the actuality of the caring action, the helpful activity itself, which is taking place.

RESPONDENT: OK, so ‘self’-centred caring (feeling caring) actually works to eliminate one’s own suffering?

RICHARD: Not ‘eliminate’ ... mitigate, alleviate, lessen, diminish.

RESPONDENT: Even so, the other person suffering is getting cared for.

RICHARD: Aye ... the other person does get physically taken care of but both persons miss out on the direct experience of the caring action, the helpful activity itself, which is taking place.

RESPONDENT: So properly caring for the other person is a prerequisite for ‘assuaging’ one’s own aroused feelings.

RICHARD: Yes ... else there be feelings of guilt, compunction, shame, ignominy and so on.

RESPONDENT: Isn’t this actually caring about the other person?

RICHARD: The physical act of caring – the helpful activity itself – is certainly happening but actually caring (an inseparate regard) is not ... there is only feeling caring (a unifying solicitude) occurring.

RESPONDENT: Admittedly, it is caring via one’s own feeling, but one actually does care about the other, since it is only through proper care of the other that one’s own feelings are ‘assuaged’.

RICHARD: No, one does not actually care about the other – one feels that one cares about the other – which is not to deny that ‘proper care’ does occur ... it is remarkable what physical assistance is achieved despite all the hindrances.

RESPONDENT: I’m never quite sure how to take the word, ‘actually’ when you use it – whether it’s sometimes the normal usage – or whether it’s always the ‘actualism’ usage. For example, I am tempted to say that even when one is empathetic and works to resolve another’s suffering – then one actually cared about their suffering – about the other person – again admittedly, via one’s own suffering, yet there is caring taking place – but it’s not actual caring (in the ‘actualism’ usage).

RICHARD: When empathy works to resolve another’s suffering an empathetic caring occurs – this is not under dispute – but it is occurring as a feeling activity ... in the form of affective vibes and/or psychic currents. However, it is only occurring in the real world – there is no empathetic caring here in this actual world – which is a salutary point few comprehend.

For instance, some ‘born-again’ people bailed me up in the street some time ago in order to save me from their devil (only they called it ‘The Devil’ so as to make their fantasy universal): as the conversation waxed they grew more and more intense, their words became loving words, their eyes became radiant eyes, their faces became soft and suffused with a glowing shade of pink, and if my companion had been with me at the time she could have verified, as she has on other occasions, that feeling vibes and psychic currents were swirling and eddying all about.

Eventually they gave up as they could not ‘reach’ me (aka establish a feeling connection).

RESPONDENT: I’m still trying to pin down exactly how feeling caring is an ‘illusion’ of caring. I’m still tempted to think that one does care even in empathy – though not in the actualist sense. Does the illusion come in where one thinks that that sort of caring is (or can be) not self-centred?

RICHARD: That is partly so – an unselfish ‘self’ is still a ‘self’ nevertheless and is perforce ‘self’-centred in all its activities – but there is also the factor of just who it is that is caring for who it is that is being cared for to take into account. In other words: it is an illusory identity inside one body which is caring for an illusory identity in another body. Which is what the born-again people in the above example were (futilely) attempting to do ... and I say ‘futilely’ because there is no entity inside this flesh and blood body to be stroked by their blandishments.

Or to be goaded by intimations of perdition, of course.

RESPONDENT: There is only two possible beliefs or scenarios regarding when the body dies. 1) There is yours in which self is non-existent, not knowing anything at all (includes saying ‘I told you so!’). Therefore creating a negative attitude of living a self indulgent life at everyone else’s expense, because once I’m dead I’ll be non-existent (non-accountable) anyway. Or: 2) Self continues its existence and is held accountable for its time and actions while on the earth. Thereby creating a positive attitude of living to help others.

RICHARD: First of all you are repeating the straw man premise you started this thread with as I do not say that ‘self is non-existent’ at all ... and the very response of mine which you are commenting on clearly shows this where I say that ‘when the body dies the identity ceases to exist’. The only situation where the identity is non-existent before death is where one is actually free from the human condition ... then when the body dies all that happens is that the body dies (as there is no identity extant to die along with it). For such a person your belief or scenario about a ‘self indulgent life’ does not apply as, being sans ‘self’, it is impossible to be ‘self indulgent’ (or indeed any other ‘self’-centred thing you may come up with). If this issue is now cleared up satisfactorily the remainder of what you say can be addressed on its own merits: you seem to be sketching out what could be called a fairly typical religious belief that if the identity does not survive death such a person will live in an unsociable way ... whereas if the identity does survive death such a person will live in a sociable way. Yet this very sociability is a contrived sociableness based upon an after-death reward (obtained by fear of punishment) ... which is ‘self’-centred to the extreme as the god-fearing identity’s pseudo sociability is motivated by post-mortem consequences and not because of fellowship regard for other human beings. To put that another way: the ‘living to help others’ dictum turns fellow human beings into commodities to be used as a means to an end.

RESPONDENT: If the ego is still there you will always live self-centred no matter what.

RICHARD: Perhaps if I were to spell it out in full (instead of using the word ‘self’ as I did above): as the identity in toto (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) is not extant in this flesh and blood body it is impossible to live either in an ego-centred way or in a soul-centred way.

RESPONDENT: As you haven’t died physically yet, you cannot know what actually happens once you die until you die.

RICHARD: I beg to differ ... as there is no longer an identity (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) inhabiting this body then when this body dies it is patently obvious that all what will happen is that this body will die.

Thus I can know what actually happens without having to die to find out.

RESPONDENT: So your belief that its the end – (ego ends) is based on belief but not on actual experience so I wouldn’t go pushing that belief.

RICHARD: I am having some difficulty in following your line of reasoning ... as the identity in toto (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) has already ended how can you then say that I have a belief that when this body dies the ego will end?

Incidentally I am not asking you, or anybody else for that matter, to go pushing anything.

RESPONDENT: You say its self centred to live that way but even though you claim no self you still live self centred (feeding and looking after your self).

RICHARD: No, looking after oneself is to be self-reliant, or self-sufficient ... ‘tis only when one has others looking after oneself that one is self-centred (or self-indulgent, as you called it, further above).

Which brings up a very relevant point: as the ‘living to help others’ doctrine is dependant upon there being a steady supply of peoples who are not ‘creating a positive attitude of living to help others’ it rather begs the question as to how the god-fearing identity will get to earn its post-mortem reward if every single identity were to become a god-fearing identity creating a (‘self’-centred) positive attitude of living to help others ... does it not?

To put that another way: to be a giver there has to be a taker ... and when the supply of takers runs out there will be 6.0 billion givers milling about getting more and more desperate by the hour as death comes closer and closer: ‘Here, let me help you’, says a god-fearing identity, ‘for I am creating a (‘self’-centred) positive attitude of living to help others so as to earn my post-mortem reward’. ‘No, let me help you’, says the other god-fearing identity, ‘for I am creating a (‘self’-centred) positive attitude of living to help others so as to earn my post-mortem reward’ ... and so on through all six billion other god-fearing identities.

A salvation which is dependant upon sinners is a sick salvation.

IRENE to Vineeto: Compassion is not what is understood by Richard – [he calls it] the hopeless game of compassion – at least I don’t have that view at all. To me compassion is the full understanding through experiencing all the accompanying emotions of a particularly testing aspect of life, that this is what it is to be grieving, or to be angry or to intensely hate or to be desolate, lonely, utterly discouraged in all of life etc. and to accept it as belonging to the all-round human experience in order to become wise. Not that only the so-called negative feelings will grant wisdom; the positive ones can be even more important in that respect! The richness, the depth of each human feeling reveals the understanding of what it is to be a human being in such an empirical, intimate way that it is later instantly recognised in a fellow human being who is going through the same emotional, human experience and who can then be met by compassion, that very kind understanding that you will have enjoyed with another, not only when life was being particularly difficult or sad, but also when you wanted to share your utmost joy or love. It is indeed such comfort to talk to someone who doesn’t lecture you, but who is right with you in your deepest pain or your exquisite happiness and doesn’t condemn you or suggests all kind of predictable therapies. The reward is first of all in the understanding of being human and secondly it is a privilege to be of genuine help with a person who feels alone, confused and abandoned in their circumstances. Or to be invited by someone who wants to share their most precious feelings with you.

RICHARD: Hmm ... you have well described the trap of compassion – as I call it – for the giver and the receiver thus remain firmly locked into the piquant and seductive snare of the beauty of pathos. Literally the word ‘compassion’ means pathos in common ... and actually starts out as nothing more impelling than a coping-mechanism designed to alleviate – not eliminate – the existential pain and distress of being human. For to be human is to be suffering and to be suffering is to be in sorrow. Indeed, all sentient beings suffer – not only the human animal – and one can travel deeply into the depths of ‘being’ itself ... and come upon Universal Sorrow. The piquancy of one’s personal sorrow pales into insignificance when confronted with the pungency of all the sorrow of anyone who has ever lived or who is living now or who is yet to be born ... for one is indulging oneself in self-justifying grief. There the beauty of this universal pathos reveals what lies eternally silent at the heart of the mystique ... a god or a goddess that is The Truth.

And thus is a new religion born – and another sect to wage their vicious wars – which is why I call the alluring beauty of pathos ‘The Trap Of Compassion’.

There is, however, a third alternative to being human or divine.

RESPONDENT: Finally, there is no need then, to try to debunk the words of Krishnamurti or anybody else in order to promote what, because of the egotism implied by one’s need to debunk, becomes evidence of what is actually one’s beliefs projected as truth.

RICHARD: There is no egotism implied in my debunking of the altered state of consciousness known a ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ ... I am simply passing on to my fellow human beings my experience of life. What they do with this information is their business. There is no need in me to do this debunking because I have no problems whatsoever. Why I do it is because other people tell me that they are suffering so I explain how I ended suffering in myself. One of the triggers that started me on this voyage into my psyche was the realisation that human beings are driven to kill their fellow human beings ... and I was one of them. Now I am not ... and I share that what triggered me because it may trigger them.

RESPONDENT: When compassion is actual and is ‘speaking’ through the body, it prods people to discover for themselves.

RICHARD: This sentence puts to lie what you wrote above. You have not seen the fact of compassion for yourself. Compassion is affective and you want yourself and others to be ruled by their feelings and not their native intelligence. Only you dress up this feeling called compassion – like Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti – by rashly calling it intelligence! This ‘intelligence’ is causing people to kill their fellow human beings.

RESPONDENT: How do you know what I have seen?

RICHARD: I only know what you write ... and you praise compassion to the skies and beyond. Obviously you have not questioned it ... it is this simple.

RESPONDENT: Now tell me: how can compassion be ‘affective’?

RICHARD: Goodness me ... by the very word, for starters. ‘Passio’ is the Greek for the Latin word ‘Pathos’ meaning sorrow. Thus the word ‘compassion’ means ‘sorrow in common’ or ‘sorrow shared’ or ‘mutual sorrow’ ... it is as affective as all get-out.

RESPONDENT: Compassion is impersonal, not mine or yours.

RICHARD: It is inherent to the Human Condition, if that is what you mean by ‘impersonal’. But as each and every person’s psyche is the human psyche then compassion is indeed personal. Now ‘Divine Compassion’ is when ‘human compassion’ transforms itself along with the transformation of the ‘I’ as ego into ‘Me’ as Self (by whatever name). It is still sorrow in common ... merely glorified and sanctified. It is still affective.

RESPONDENT: Nor is it an outcome of some ‘spiritual achievement’ or some other delusion of thought/feeling.

RICHARD: May I suggest that you re-examine this statement for veracity?

RESPONDENT: If you are truly compassionate, you know that it is not a matter of choice.

RICHARD: Indeed not ... the Enlightened Ones are driven to bring ‘The Truth’ to humankind. They have surrendered their will to some fictitious ‘Higher Power’ that lies unmanifest behind the throne.

RESPONDENT: It is the movement of life itself, that movement of life which maintains itself, which maintains order.

RICHARD: When you say ‘the movement of life’ you have to be referring to carbon-based life-forms as there is no other form of life. What ‘moves’ these life-forms is the animating energy derived from the calorific content of food. This has nothing to do with an ‘impersonal compassion’. Compassion exists only in the psyche and is an affective energy.

RESPONDENT: Therefore, when the human body is cleared of selfishness, the compassion of nature operates through that body as it operates in all bodies and material systems.

RICHARD: There is no such thing as ‘the compassion of nature’ ... that is a sentimental human invention as is epitomised by the phrase ‘Mother Nature’. Nature is blind ... it does not care two-hoots about you and me. It is only concerned with the survival of the species ... and any species will do as far as blind nature is concerned. Nature is indeed ‘red in tooth and claw’.

RESPONDENT: As you know, all species are genetically programmed to ‘share’ themselves in the interest of their survival.

RICHARD: Aye ... there was an article in a newspaper some months ago announcing the preliminary discovery of a place in the brain which – when stimulated by electrodes – produced an oceanic feeling of oneness. The scientists concerned have speculated that it is the instinctually-programmed socialising faculty ... it promotes communalism. The popular press has dubbed this place in the brain as the ‘God Spot’. I watch with interest for further developments.

RESPONDENT: There aggressiveness is a factor of that compassion.

RICHARD: Aggression is a survival instinct that blind nature endows upon all sentient beings.

RESPONDENT: That is compassion at the physiological, programmed level.

RICHARD: Not so ... compassion arises out of sorrow. Sorrow is because ‘you’ are – by ‘your’ very nature – forever cut-off from the magnificence of being here now at this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space. That is, ‘you’ cannot know the purity of the perfection of the infinitude of this very material universe. This is called, in the jargon, separation. Because of this separation, ‘you’ desire union ... oneness, wholeness and so on. In a word: Love Agapé. How to come upon this divine love?

Now the trap of compassion is that the giver and the receiver remain firmly locked into the poignant and seductive snare of the beauty of pathos. Compassion actually starts out as nothing more impelling than a coping-mechanism designed to alleviate – not eliminate – the existential pain and distress of being human. For to be human is to be suffering and to be suffering is to be in sorrow. Indeed, all sentient beings suffer – not only the human animal – and one can travel deeply into the depths of ‘being’ itself ... and come upon Universal Sorrow. The piquancy of one’s personal sorrow pales into insignificance when confronted with the pungency of all the sorrow of anyone who has ever lived or who is living now or who is yet to be born ... for one is indulging oneself in self-justifying grief. There the beauty of this universal pathos reveals what lies eternally silent at the heart of the mystique ... a god or a goddess that is The Truth. There is an excellent description of what is possible to realise when one travels deeper and deeper into Universal Sorrow in the conversations between Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti, Mr David Bohm and Mr. David Shainburg ... they are particularly illuminating in this respect. Vis.:

• ‘Aren’t you aware of a much deeper sorrow than the sorrow of thought, of self-pity, the sorrow of the image? ... Deep sorrow. Yes, that is the deep sorrow of mankind. For centuries upon centuries it has been like that – you know, like a vast reservoir of sorrow ... You know, sir, there is universal sorrow ... Then there is compassion. Is that the result of the ending of sorrow, universal sorrow? ... is there compassion which is not related to thought? Or is that compassion born of sorrow? Born in the sense that when sorrow ends there is compassion? ... If I don’t end the image, the stream of image-making goes on ... it is there, it manifests in people ... it is universal ... it is the effect of all the brains and it manifests itself in people as they are born ... there is something beyond compassion ... To penetrate into this, the mind must be completely silent ... Now in that silence there is the sense of something beyond all time, all death ... nothing ... not a thing ... and therefore empty and therefore tremendous energy. This energy is ... There is something beyond compassion which is sacred, holy ... What is the relationship between that which is sacred, holy, and reality? ... Relationship comes through insight, intelligence and compassion ... You have an insight into the image ... into the movement of thought ... which is self-pity ... which creates sorrow. Now isn’t that insight intelligence? ... Which is not the intelligence of a clever man ... now work with that intelligence ... that insight is universal intelligence, global or cosmic intelligence ... now move further into it ... an insight into sorrow ... out of that insight compassion ... an insight into compassion ... and there is something sacred ... and that may be the origin of everything ... everything ... all matter, all nature’. (‘The Wholeness Of Life’ published by The Krishnamurti Foundation. Dialogue VII (May 20 1976 – Monday Afternoon).

And thus a new religion may be born – and another sect to wage their vicious wars – which is why I call the alluring beauty of pathos ‘The Trap Of Compassion’.

There is, however, a third alternative to being human or divine.

RESPONDENT: When the human mind is free of selfishness that compassion operates through that mind at the human level.

RICHARD: Compassion does not exist outside of the psyche.

RESPONDENT: It is just natural, not affective, to care when there is nothing which feels it is separate from everything else.

RICHARD: Aye ... it is natural. It is also natural to kill one’s fellow human being. I did something very unnatural ... I eliminated the instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Thus I am free from the Human Condition. With no natural instincts dominating this body, this particular brain’s intelligence operates freely. When my fellow human being is in distress I can easily be of assistance – in whatever capacity I am skilful at – and as this care is free of sorrow on my part it is uncaused.

RESPONDENT: It [compassion] does not seek to establish any point of view in another.

RICHARD: You will find out that it does ... just two sentences below.

RESPONDENT: Nor does it [compassion] seek to change another’s point of view.

RICHARD: You will find out that it does ... just one sentence below.

RESPONDENT: It points out to another the value of observing for himself the nature of ‘himself’.

RICHARD: It is the word ‘value’ that belies your two statements above.

RESPONDENT: You should have been a lawyer, my man. They too rely on trivia in the absence of real insight.

RICHARD: Pardon me for breathing ... I have only your words to go by. If you consider that your words are trivial then sharpen up your writing skills.

RESPONDENT: You may remove the word value if that causes you trouble.

RICHARD: No ... it does not cause me any trouble whatsoever. On the contrary, it shows the importance and estimation that you place on what the power of compassion can do.

RESPONDENT: And consider that the action of pointing out is the important thing to see.

RICHARD: Do you see that you use the word ‘important’ ? Thus you esteem what compassion shows you highly.

RESPONDENT: If I say that is valuable, I am saying it in the sense that eating food is valuable to the body. Nothing more, nothing less.

RICHARD: Not so ... anybody can eat food. But only a favoured few have seen the value of what compassion ‘points out’ and have gone on the become the ‘Compassionate Ones’. They propose to have the solution to all the ills of humankind ... this is a far cry from the ‘nothing more, nothing less’ value of eating food.

RESPONDENT: And when that action is undertaken with utmost and utter seriousness.

RICHARD: You acknowledge here – by the use of ‘utmost and utter seriousness’ – just how strongly compassion seeks to ‘establish a point of view in another’ and to ‘change another’s point of view’ .

RESPONDENT: Did Krishnamurti ‘praise compassion to the skies’, or is that what you are imposing on his views about compassion?

RICHARD: Indeed he did ... and I deliberately wrote ‘to the skies and beyond’ . He praises compassion so highly that he calls it ‘intelligence’ ! I could include literally hundreds of quotes of his here on the value of compassion. May I submit but a few? Vis.:

• ‘Meditation is the awakening of that intelligence that is born out of compassion’.

He makes it quite clear that this intelligence is not the intelligence of thought:

• ‘Compassion is intelligence – which is not the outcome of thought’.

He drives this point home consistently and adds love to the equation:

• ‘Love, which goes with compassion, has its own intelligence – which is not the intelligence of the scientific brain’.

And he describes how to access this intelligence that is love and compassion:

• ‘Only a brain that is silent has a great sense of love, compassion, which is intelligence’.

And as we know from his many statements – particularly the statement just nine days prior to his death – it is a ‘supreme intelligence’ that will not manifest as a body for ‘many hundred years’ . Therefore it is a metaphysical compassion for him ... and is this not praising it to the skies ... and beyond?

RESPONDENT: It’s practical for you perhaps (just as Love Agape and Divine Compassion may be practical for those who experience it).

RICHARD: But Love Agape and Divine Compassion are not ‘practical’ at all ... to practice pacifism and surrender is to allow the bully-boys to rule the world.

RESPONDENT: So you identify pacifism with Love Agape and Divine Compassion?

RICHARD: It is not necessarily just my classification ... pacifism and surrender (meekness and humility and so on) are primary among the principle injunctions handed down by the Gurus and the God-men.

RESPONDENT: I do not, since I really have no idea what these things are, they’re just words to me

RICHARD: Stick around on this Mailing List and you will soon get the drift ... such attributes are the main event.

RESPONDENT: Is it possible that there is a Love Agape and a Divine Compassion which are not pacifistic – maybe they’re even warlike in some cases?

RICHARD: Not only is ‘a Love Agape and a Divine Compassion’ non-pacifistic and warlike ... any brand of non-human (sacred, divine, unconditional, and so on) love and compassion has left much bloodshed and hatred in its wake. This is because the diabolical underpins the divine.

RESPONDENT: But for the 6 billion people on earth who most likely will never experience this, and for most of the 1 percent who give enough of a damn to try to get to where you are, but who still live and die without having done so – fairly impractical, no?

RICHARD: Are you saying that the possibility of peace-on-earth is so remote that one should give up before even trying? Thus all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides will go on for ever and a day.

RESPONDENT: No, not saying that. I am saying that all the human effort thus far does not seem to have fixed the problem and the problem seems to be complex indeed.

RICHARD: Okay ... ‘all the human effort thus far does not seem to have fixed the problem’ are the key-words. I have discovered something entirely new in human history ... and mostly, when I report my experience to my fellow human beings, people wish to retry ‘all the human effort’ which, as you so rightly say ‘thus far does not seem to have fixed the problem’. For clarity I call it the ‘Tried and Failed’ ... and then get told that I am arrogant (or whatever).

RESPONDENT: You claim the beast is an illusion. He is real.

RICHARD: An illusion it is ... but a very real illusion, for all that. This is why I draw a sharp distinction between the word ‘real’ and the word ‘actual’ (and between ‘true’ and ‘fact’) even though the dictionary gives the same meanings.

RESPONDENT: He will not die at our will .

RICHARD: With sufficient dedication and purpose – with the diligence and application and patience and perseverance born out of the PCE – ‘the beast’ has no chance whatsoever.

RESPONDENT: He may change forms and appearances, but like the serpent of old, he will merely take another form, perhaps posing as all sweetness and light this time.

RICHARD: Yes indeed ... and no ‘perhaps’ about it either. I warn everybody who steps onto the wide and wondrous path to actual freedom of the only danger that lies on the way. You may become enlightened. I kid you not.

RESPONDENT: Out of the ectoplasm of the beast come many forms, including those of apparent beauty and sweetness. They are there for the purpose of seduction and enslavement. This is difficult for people to see.

RICHARD: Yes ... I have been endeavouring to point out to people for some time now that bloodshed and hatred inevitably follows in the wake of the latest charismatic Saviour and Avatar, Messiah and Master, Guru and God-Man who brings Love Agapé and Divine Compassion to a benighted humanity. Quite possibly as many – if not more – people have been killed in religious wars as in territorial wars or ideological wars. Love is such an obviously dangerous passion to have that it amazes me that it is revered so. The seductive nature of the beauty of love and the sweetness of compassion is but a thin veneer over a murky morass ... The Divine needs The Diabolical to underpin its entire structure.

It is all built upon the shifting sands of the instinctual fear and aggression and nurture and desire that all humans are born with ... which is blind nature’s way of perpetuating the species. Energised by the ‘will to survive’ that grew out of the survival instincts, the fear and aggression and nurture and desire are transformed through socialisation into awe and dread – among other things – which are part and parcel of the identity. With awe comes veneration, reverence, homage, worship, respect and deference. With dread comes dismay, consternation, trepidation, terror, horror, repugnance and a dire sense of foreboding. One’s sense of identity is largely made up of feelings – emotions and passions – and the vast majority of the feelings that one supports are not created by oneself; they were assimilated with the mother’s milk and added to thereupon up to the present day. They are atavistic feelings, put into the child with reward and punishment – love and hate – and added to as an adult with the post mortem carrot and stick – awe and dread. They are all designed to strike fear into the heart of the would-be individual, eliciting submission, obedience, acquiescence and conformity out of the contumacious and perverse self. The graceless outcome of this bizarre creation of a divinity was the aberrant transmogrification of the instinctual fear and aggression and nurture and desire into a demoniacal monster that made necessary the antithetical god for its very control.

Stupefied and stultified by centuries of conditioning, it is no wonder that the modern person still seeks recourse from the ‘wisdom of old’. In spite of the huge leaps in understanding gained by scientific discoveries on the nature of the brain, the genetic structure, the hormonal activity and many, many other fields of expertise ... still the ‘tried and true’ practices are invariably put into place when it comes to controlling human nature. The identity, ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul, can best be described as a psychological and psychic parasite living inside the body. In a valiant and understandable attempt to solve the plight of humankind, ‘I’ cease identifying as the ego and identify as the soul ... a shift in consciousness which manifests Love Agapé and Divine Compassion. Unfortunately for its success, Love Agapé is born out of malice and is dependent upon hatred to sustain itself ... and therefore can not provide the ultimate solution: freedom from animosity. So too with Divine Compassion – which has its roots in sorrow – and is unable to provide freedom from anguish. Love and compassion actually perpetuate malice and sorrow, for these are their essential progenitors. Nevertheless, there is an apparently endless supply of willing souls prepared to apply the time-honoured methods of remedying the human situation. ‘I’ obligingly surrender in order to receive ‘my’ rightful dividend.

RICHARD: I have no intuitive or imaginative faculties whatsoever ... that all disappeared in 1992. I am incapable of the activity of believing ... let alone believing in something.

RESPONDENT: You are not a machine (computer) are you? Do you have a heart?

RICHARD: A physical heart that pumps blood, yes ... a ‘bleeding heart’ as in piteous sentimentality, no. You see, I actually care about my fellow human being ... not merely feel that I care.

RESPONDENT: By heart I did not mean a physical heart nor a ‘bleeding heart’ (which, by the way, is an image you have).

RICHARD: Yet it is not ‘an image that I have’ (can you not upgrade your retorts to the level of a sincere discussion?) but an expression of a factual reality for 6.0 billion peoples. They feel that they care about all the misery and mayhem instead of actually caring. If they actually cared there would be action ... and that action would not be of ‘my’ doing.

It would be the ending of ‘me’ and all ‘my’ subterfuge and trickery.

RESPONDENT: Pain and anguish are part of life.

RICHARD: Hmm ... it is helpful to draw a distinction betwixt physical pain and emotional and mental 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 and mental pain (which is what I indicated by using ‘animosity and anguish’) are totally unnecessary.

RESPONDENT: Physical, mental, and emotional pain are all inter-related; you experience such pain when you consider rape and war, although you prefer to call it apperceptive something or other.

RICHARD: They are not inter-related at all. The only pain I ever experience is physical pain ... all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides do not mentally or emotionally pain me at all. Through not being a ‘self’ I have no feelings – no affective faculty whatsoever – and no ones’ animosity or anguish touches me at all (there being no ‘one’ to be touched). I do not feel sorry for you – or anyone – for I cannot.

I have no compassion whatsoever.

RESPONDENT: ‘Utmost and utter seriousness’ does not refer to the one who is pointing out.

RICHARD: I beg to differ ... Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti made such a big thing about being serious.

RESPONDENT: It refers to the human being who has discovered the nature of the mind, and which discovery – shock that it is – has begun the process of real observation. When the mind has seen the danger of its state of total confusion, it becomes serious about that state. It begins to observe its thoughts more closely.

RICHARD: Aye ... and ignores the affective. Such is the pre-occupation with blaming thought. But, then again, as it was compassion – which is affective – that did the pointing out ... it would hardly point the finger at its own basis now would it?

RESPONDENT: Then the human brain has a chance to perceive the totality of its primordial involvement with illusion, and may be free of it .

RICHARD: Aye ... it is a powerful energy, this compassion, eh? That is because it is affective.

RESPONDENT: Must everything be ‘affective’?

RICHARD: No, not everything. What is affective is Love, Compassion, Bliss, Euphoria, Ecstasy, Truth, Goodness, Beauty, Oneness, Unity, Wholeness and ... and any of those kind of baubles.

RESPONDENT: It is only in our relationships to order that we are confused by the disorder.

RICHARD: Why is that, would you say?

RESPONDENT: Order is my framework, being the only reliable frame that can never collapse.

RICHARD: By ‘order’ you mean the truth (as accessed through love and compassion and beauty)? Thus, is ‘truth’ your non-collapsible framework?

RESPONDENT: If we want to find order, then we must see the disorder. As the disorder is revealed the order remains.

RICHARD: What is the disorder that must be seen so that when disorder is revealed the order remains?

*

RESPONDENT: When you see the disorder, the order remains. Beauty, love, compassion, order ...

RICHARD: Okay. And to take it further, would you say that it goes ‘beauty, love, compassion, order ... truth’?

RESPONDENT: Of course.

RICHARD: Is there any other way to truth than through the deep feelings of beauty, love and compassion?

RESPONDENT: As for ‘Divine Compassion’, I’ve encountered a madman poorly dressed, and as it seemed I’ve had some magnetic properties (people being driven towards me), he came towards me only to look at him, equally peaceful and registering just this body reaction: wonder at the fact that there was no judgement, pity or desire to help (do something to him). It seems there were no positive/negative qualities to be overlaid on the world.

RICHARD: First, if ‘madman’ and ‘poorly dressed’ and ‘equally peaceful’ are not judgements I would like to know what are.

Second, of course there was no pity ... in enlightenment, just as the feeling of love has transformed itself into a state of being called Love Agapé (or some-such name), so too has the feeling of pity become a state of being called Divine Compassion (or some-such name) ... which is radiated to all and sundry.

Third, no desire to help is required as the Divine Compassion itself is the very help needed ... as evidenced by its magnetic property (people being drawn or driven to the enlightened one) whereupon being bathed in their radiant ‘presence’ is (supposedly) the cure for all the ills of humankind.

Lastly, as ‘positive/negative qualities’ are determined by judgement then any denial of judgement creates the illusion that such qualities are not being overlaid on the world.

*

RESPONDENT: As for ‘ASC-PCE?’, the state I’ve experienced back then had had in my view the same properties as the PCE, the same fairy-tale magic, things being covered with sparkling silver, continuously living in the split-of-a-second, etc. But I guess you’re more entitled to speak about it as 3 hours can hardly be compared with 11 years.

RICHARD: As well as that there is a vast body of mystical literature which gives many, many descriptions of the ASC (and the enlightened state itself) which, despite your earlier rewrite of your enlightenment experience, and your recent redefinition of love, speak unambiguously about love not only being one of the key features but affective into the bargain. For example:

• [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘We talk of love as being either carnal or spiritual and have set a battle going between the sacred and the profane. We have divided what love is from what love should be, so we never know what love is. Love, surely, is a total *feeling* that is not sentimental and in which there is no sense of separation. It is complete purity of *feeling* without the separative, fragmenting quality of the intellect’. [emphasis added]. (page 76, ‘On Living and Dying’; Chennai [Madras], 9 December 1959; ©1992 Krishnamurti Foundation of America).

In other words, spiritual/ sacred love is human love transformed into a state of being called Love Agapé (or some-such name).

Also, there is no Divine Compassion in a PCE (hence no magnetic properties to draw people to one) thus one can pass unnoticed in the world – a definite plus if there ever was – and judgement operates very well indeed as whatever qualities are apparent are easily recognised for what they are (arising out of properties) so that actual values easily ensue.

Plus the delusion of omniscience (the impression of having absolute knowledge of everything) does not arise in a PCE.

Incidentally, there are no ‘things being covered with sparkling silver’ here in this actual world and, as there is only ever this moment, it is eternal ... hence no ‘continuously living in the split-of-a-second’.

RESPONDENT: The Actualists have trained themselves in the art of ‘entity hunting’ in which they ‘ruthlessly’ undo that which stands between them and their freedom. [snip] You might be able to whittle an identity down far enough to enjoy an actual freedom or something very delightful indeed but I wonder about the nature of the residue. I’d class the ‘residue’ as clever enough to evade simple adversarial probing and ‘ruthless’ exposure. I’d say it would be canny enough to call itself an Actualist and step aside far enough for a lovely virtual or actual freedom. [snip] The quality and character of self observation is as important as the subject of the observation. To pursue matters ‘ruthlessly’ may ‘do the trick’ but I think it produces a fanatic. [snip] In my personal experience I was taught by a therapist (who happened to be a Buddhist) to use the same method. Each session was spent reporting the results of my observations and exploring material as it emerged from my body in this moment. I learnt that every feeling I had could be observed in my body. We experimented with different ‘probes’ or intents if you will and turned up some primal material at times. I’d say that I explored some instinctual material but I don’t really know how to tell the difference from other material. My therapist recommended a gentle approach to observation. I used to get frustrated and want to ‘cut to the chase’ but I saw the results of my hard-headedness in a few interesting sessions. My gentle minded therapist was able to coax a trapped and extremely scared ‘child’ from the depths of my guts. The child was terrified of me and would only emerge when the therapist was around. Why was that? Because at the time I was a cold hearted brute to myself and my observational capacity was limited by that. My therapist believed that the quality and character of observation was as important as the content of the observation. There may well be a ‘cunning alien entity’ hijacking your bodily resources in a parasitical manner but it’s probably good to be aware that while you can smash the entity ruthlessly on the head, your goolies may be caught in its mandibles. :-) Ruthlessness is a good way to send material underground.

RICHARD: Here is what the word ‘ruthless’ means to me:

• ruthless [from ruth + -less.]: having no pity or compassion; pitiless, merciless. (Oxford Dictionary).

Where a Buddhist therapist recommends a ‘gentle approach to observation’ they would, more than likely, be advocating ‘metta’ (Pali for ‘loving-kindness’) and ‘karuna’ (Pali for ‘pity-compassion’) else they would not be in accord with the four fundamental Buddhist principles known as ‘brahma-vihara’ (divine-abidings) – the other two are ‘mudita’ (‘gladness at others’ success’) and ‘upekkha’ (‘onlooking equanimity’) – and needless is it to say that metta and/or karuna are as good a way as any for the cunning alien entity (an affective entity at root) to escape detection and survive to live yet another day in which to wreak its havoc in the world at large?

And in a similar vein here is what the words ‘pitiless’, ‘merciless’, and ‘relentless’ mean to me:

• pitiless [from pity + -less]: without compassion; showing no pity; merciless. (Oxford Dictionary).
• merciless [from mercy + -less]: without mercy; showing no mercy; pitiless, unrelenting. (Oxford Dictionary).
• relentless [from relent + -less]: incapable of relenting; pitiless; insistent and uncompromising. (Oxford Dictionary).

Anyone who asks themself, each moment again, how they are experiencing this moment of being alive – the only moment one is ever alive – whilst under the influence of ruth (compassion, pity; the feeling of sorrow for another) and/or pity (compassion, sympathy; clemency aroused by the suffering or misfortune of another) and/or mercy (disposition to forgive or show compassion) and/or relent (yield; give up a previous determination or obstinacy; become merciful/lenient, show mercy/pity; abate; slacken, relinquish, abandon) is surely just wasting their time ... frittering away the opportunity of a lifetime on but more of the ‘Tried and Failed’ in yet another guise.

‘Tis not for nothing that the alien entity is described as ‘cunning’.