Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

Richard’s Selected Correspondence

On Intelligence


RESPONDENT: Richard, I was sitting in my armchair today and thinking ...

RICHARD: Ha ... a nice touch, No 25, a nice touch indeed.

RESPONDENT: ... about ‘native intelligence’ as the principal motive and driving force why a virtual and an actual freedom from the Humane Condition are possible for each and every individual ... and which can eventuate, in the long run, global peace on Earth.

RICHARD: The nearest approximation to ‘native intelligence’, in the real-world, is what the word ‘commonsense’ refers to.

RESPONDENT: More to the point, I was thinking that some humans are simply ‘natively stupid’ (not sure if only because they are crippled by the instinctual passions) ...

RICHARD: I personally prefer the term ‘stupefied’ as it is less pejorative and more informative. For instance:

• [Richard]: ‘Humankind is so stultified – stupefied by centuries of socialisation – that only madness can be allowed ... and it masquerades as ‘normal’. This status-quo is defined as being sanity ... and anything outside this description is classified as insanity. (page 151, Article 21 ‘It Is Impossible To Combat The Wisdom Of The Real World’; ‘Richard’s Journal (Second Edition) ©The Actual Freedom Trust 2004).

RESPONDENT: I’ve met quite a few of them and some even pride themselves with it.

RICHARD: Not only was I informed of something similar to this only recently but others, in face-to-face interactions, have verified that it is a quite common enough experience for it to be considered near-universal.

RESPONDENT: Stupidly seems to be the lowest common denominator for the human race and not intelligence. Just curious, have you taken this into account?

RICHARD: I have, as already indicated, taken stupefaction (and stultification) into account and adjust my expectations accordingly each interaction again ... with religionists, spiritualists, mystics, and metaphysicalists, however, my expectation-meter is automatically pre-set to zero because of their not-knowing principle.


RESPONDENT: Richard, in what way is the ‘sagacity’ of a PCE different than the ‘wisdom’ of God (ASC) or to the ordinary, intermediated ‘understanding’ of the Normal CE?

RICHARD: Discernment is unmediated (and therefore perspicuous).

RESPONDENT: I’ve read somewhere on your portion of the site that the PCE has some sort of in-built ... umm ... ‘ wisdom’ for lack of a better term.

RICHARD: The better term would be perspicacity.

RESPONDENT: Do you derive understanding/ comprehension in a different way than a scientist/ enlightened/ self-realized person does?

RICHARD: Yes ... perspicaciously.

RESPONDENT: That seems obvious to me from your writing. You seem to come as from another league on this mailing list in regard to discerning the facts of the matter. I guess that when the ‘inside’ clears, the ‘outside’ clarifies as well ... I can only speculate about what happens when both of these categories vanish and intelligence works directly, unmediated by any ‘thinker’/’feeler’. Does that mean that what you write is always and naturally factual/actual (as it comes directly from the experience of experiencing)?

RICHARD: In regards the direct experiencing itself ... yes (bar oversights that is); in regards other matters, such as historical review, current affairs, prospective evaluation, and so forth, being matters of opinion (mostly ill-informed) ... no.

*

RESPONDENT: Also, the intelligence that operated when enlightened (much better/freed than the normal experience of it) ...

RICHARD: If I may ask? In what way is intelligence [quote] ‘much better/freed’ [endquote] when enlightened than when normal?

RESPONDENT: The intelligence was not blocked by the many and varied neurotic ‘self’-preoccupations.

RICHARD: In what way, then, is intelligence when blocked by the many and varied psychotic ‘Self’-preoccupations [quote] ‘much better/freed’ [endquote] than intelligence when blocked by the many and varied neurotic ‘self’-preoccupations?

RESPONDENT: We’ve been on this road before ...

RICHARD: In keeping with the ‘road’ analogy, then, here is where that discussion stalled:

• [Respondent]: ‘As for the ‘extraordinary intelligence proof’, it is better to ask a spiritual teacher, for I cannot answer this question nor I can recommend one to you.
• [Richard]: ‘But I do not require any ‘proof’ as, having lived it night and day for eleven years, I have intimate knowledge of what you took for granted to be the ‘extraordinary Intelligence’ of the enlightened state ... which is why I specifically asked you (a) in what way does it far surpass human intelligence ... and (b) some examples of this pre-eminence. Here is the initial exchange: [snipped for space]. In other words, I was asking these questions so as to have you think for yourself – as it was you that said that the enlightened state has ‘extraordinary Intelligence’ which is ‘far surpassing’ any human intelligence and not me – yet instead you would rather have me go trotting around the guru circuit, enquiring of massively deluded people for ‘proof’ of what I already know, rather than face up to the implications and ramifications of what this all means ... and not only what it means for you but for all humankind. In short: there is a vital opportunity here for a momentum towards the ultimate altruistic act to be set in motion. So here is the $64,000 question again (slightly revised this time around): is the timeless and spaceless and formless ‘Consciousness’ intelligent or not ... let alone being an all-surpassing and all-knowing intelligence?
• [Respondent]: ‘Ha, when faced with this question I would prefer to be enlightened, but due to my present ‘comfortably numb’ condition I cannot answer it. I suppose the best example is the best answer and proof, in this case a person who is enjoying such a condition, not the self-realised and various pseudo-gurus but a genuine enlightened man (I cannot recommend one to you as I know no-one alive).
• [Richard]: ‘If I may point out? We have been around this particular mulberry bush before. All you have done this second time around is add the codicil that you know of no such person alive ... which pushes any examination of your claim about [quote] ‘the extraordinary Intelligence of the enlightened State’ [endquote] far surpassing human intelligence off into the never-never land.
You do seem to be having some difficulty in substantiating your claim’.

By your own acknowledgement that state of [quote] ‘much better/ freed’ [endquote] intelligence, lasting in all of its intensity for less than ten seconds, was like having access to the whole comprised knowledge of Being:

• [Respondent]: ‘(...) in my case the whole process of plunging into the Abyss lasted less then 10 seconds (...) What I can remember is that when enlightened I was more intelligent then in my normal condition, it was like having access to the whole comprised knowledge of Being ...’.

If I were a gambler, which I am not, I would bet my bottom dollar that this [quote] ‘much better/freed’ [endquote] intelligence, even though like having access to the whole comprised knowledge of Being, did not/could not/can not suss out that Being per se is contingent, eh?

RESPONDENT: ... let’s say that the energy of thought was flowing more freely due to the lesser amount of barriers/blockages existing in this psyche which in turn was due to the elimination of the ego.

RICHARD: Okay ... let us (provisionally) say that then: could/ did/ can the energy of thought, flowing more freely due to the lesser amount of barriers/blockages existing in that psyche, which in turn was due to the elimination of the ego, suss out that Being Itself is a contingent ‘Being’?

So as to provide some background information I will refer you to the following:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘If I understand it, even ‘being’ itself is undone with that simple act [letting the third alternative come into play]. Your discussion about ending the self with Correspondent No. 39 on Mailing list ‘B’ which culminates in the for-me superb crescendo discussion of going into dread seems to be about that. It is one of the stand-outs for me that I’ve come across so far. Those discussions seem to tell me things I most need and want to know (gulp). I need to, and just as much want to cover the ground between here and there, but the nitty-gritty parts seem to make all the difference in making the direct line much more clear. I like it in the extreme. It seems to give me the ‘wherewithal’ to really be able to move.
• [Richard]: ‘I am pleased to hear that ... I do remember that discussion well for it spells-out that which I had been wanting to have explicitly set down in words for a long time (the identity inhabiting this body all those years ago had looked in vain for anything detailed in that manner) because it pertains to matters which were the critical factor in the turning-point experiences on some uninhabited islands off the north-eastern seaboard of this country in 1985 ... to wit: the existential angst of discovering that one is nothing but a contingent ‘being’ and that one will cease to ‘be’ unless the redemptive straw, of several doomsday straws, be grasped’.

RESPONDENT: No, as I was ‘Being’.

RICHARD: In what way, then, is intelligence [quote] ‘much better/ freed’ [endquote] when enlightened than when normal?

*

RICHARD: What immediately leaps to mind, for instance, is normal human intelligence sussing out that the earth is neither flat nor at the centre of everything ... and yet one could search through all the scriptures, of the enlightened ones over the preceding 3,000-5,000 years, for any reference to such basic information (about the globular shape and non-geocentricity of the planet they omnipotently manifest/ create so as to take on bodily form and thus be able to screw up otherwise intelligent peoples’ lives with their solipsistic narcissism) to no avail.

RESPONDENT: Yes, or one can alternatively look for the reports of some direct experience of the globular shape of the Earth, or even better, a report about the infinitude of this material universe resulting from an ancient Egyptian/Assyrian hours-long PCE and subsequently imprinted in letters/stone/metal/paintings.

RICHARD: As no such imprinted letters/ stone/ metal/ paintings have any known existence, in stark contrast to the billions – if not trillions – of scribed/ printed scriptural words, your alternate thesis is a non-sequitur .

*

RICHARD: Further to the point: what is intelligent about advocating pacifism, for example, which would not only enable the bully boys and feisty femmes to rule the world, with all which inheres in that, but would also propagate/perpetuate their kind unto future generations per favour the dutiful martyrdom (and thus a willing removal from the human gene-pool) of those seeking instant release into the hereafter of their choice through gullible practise of same?

RESPONDENT: Realizing that one is as much guilty for the first slap as the one that delivered it?

RICHARD: What is intelligent about having such a realisation and, doing nothing fundamental about it, enabling the bully boys and feisty femmes to rule the world via facile compliance?

RESPONDENT: I can answer from experience … what I tend to do when a bully boy and/or feisty femme hits me is to hit back with overwhelming force in the moment if the circumstances allow, or if not, at a time of my own choosing and tenfold.

RICHARD: If I may point out? The query you are answering is about facile compliance upon realising that one is as much guilty for the first slap as the one that delivered it and yet doing nothing fundamental about it ... and not about either an immediate, albeit circumstantial, retaliation in kind with overwhelming force or opportunistic retaliation of a tenfold forceful kind despite that realisation.

RESPONDENT: In fact, revenge is one of the urges that I can’t resist.

RICHARD: What is intelligent about being aware that revenge is one of the irresistible urges and yet, even though realising that one is as much guilty for the first slap as the one that delivered it, doing nothing fundamental about such urges?

RESPONDENT: The overwhelming force, as I know myself quite well, would not exclude death for the offender if there’s serious and intentional damage done, like rape or mutilation or attempted murder.

RICHARD: Again ... what is intelligent about knowing quite well that either the immediate or opportune vindictive force would not exclude death for the bully boy/feisty femme (depending upon both the intention of that predator and the severity of their predation) yet, even though realising that one is as much guilty for the first slap as the one that delivered it, doing nothing fundamental about that irresistible urge?

RESPONDENT: However, if I contributed to the slap ...

RICHARD: If I may interject? As the query regarding an enlightened intelligence advocating facile compliance to the bully boys/feisty femmes is about realising that one *is* as much guilty for the first slap as the one that delivered it then what you are saying by way of an answer would look something like this when contextualised:

• [example only]: ‘However, as I contributed to the slap ...’. [end example].

As anyone who nurses malice and sorrow (and thus their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion) to their bosom is as guilty as the one impelled by same to deliver the first slap your ‘if’ qualifier has no relevance to the topic under discussion.

RESPONDENT: ... [However, if I contributed to the slap ], and although I condemn physical violence ...

RICHARD: If I may ask? Why do you condemn – ‘censure, denounce, deprecate, disapprove of’ (Oxford Dictionary) – physical violence? Could it be because of realising that, even though one is as much guilty for the first slap as the one that delivered it, one is not doing anything fundamental about it, perchance?

RESPONDENT: ... [However, if I contributed to the slap, and although I condemn physical violence], I won’t fight back and I wouldn’t offer the other cheek either.

RICHARD: As ‘offer the other cheek’ is but another way of describing a pacifistic/ appeasement type of response it would appear that the intelligence which advocates same is not [quote] ‘much better/freed’ [endquote] when enlightened than when normal after all.

You do seem to be having some difficulty in substantiating your claim, eh?

*

RESPONDENT: [Realizing that one is as much guilty for the first slap as the one that delivered it?] Or that if it were to turn the slap back, it would turn the situation into a … ummm ….war of countless slaps and thus perpetuate a vicious circle of violence?

RICHARD: As all that is needed to do is point to the example of 1939-45 (where responding massively in kind not only did not perpetuate a vicious cycle of violence but resulted in three previously belligerent autocratic states becoming pacific democratic states) then what is intelligent about not using physical restraint/force when necessary?

RESPONDENT: Hmm ... the primary cause of war is the fight by individuals/ groups/ countries over limited resources, in other words: competitiveness.

RICHARD: The primary cause of a bully boy’s/ feisty femmes’ war, the aggressive fight by that individual’s autocratically-led group/country over (purportedly limited) resources, could indeed be said to be that bully boy’s/feisty femmes’ belligerent competitiveness.

RESPONDENT: You’re talking about overt/physical warfare, not about the psychological/ covert type.

RICHARD: I did take your usage of the word ‘slap’ to mean the overt/physical wallop-clout-whack-thump-biff type of slap ... and, given that you were responding to me asking just what is intelligent about advocating pacifism, which would not only enable the bully boys and feisty femmes to rule the world, with all which inheres in that, but would also propagate/ perpetuate their kind unto future generations per favour the dutiful martyrdom (and thus a willing removal from the human gene-pool) of those seeking instant release into the hereafter of their choice through gullible practise of same, it was quite reasonable to do so.

Therefore, as you responded with nothing other than a variation on the scriptural ‘violence begets violence’ adage of yore I, of course, provided a well-known/ well-documented example of what a load of bosh that is.

RESPONDENT: These covert wars exist even within the EU between otherwise democratic nations, there are rifts and disagreements as with any union/group. Another Younger Dryas in 100 years, take prosperity away from people, levers and controls collapse and democracies turn into autocracies … while war breaks loose.

RICHARD: Even were your futuristic New Ice Age scenario ever to actually come about how would it demonstrate that, by responding massively in kind to three autocratic states’ belligerence between 1939 and 1945, a vicious cycle of violence was thus perpetuated (by turning that belligerent situation into a war of countless slaps) 165 years after the outbreak of hostilities?

Quite frankly, whatever causal connection you are seeing between World War II and a hypothetical mini-ice age five generations hence eludes comprehension.

RESPONDENT: Humans prefer to compete than to cooperate when survival takes over thinking ...

RICHARD: More accurately ... normal human beings are compelled to compete, rather than cooperate, when the savage survival passions have dominion over the tender survival passions.

RESPONDENT: ... war is in the flesh and bones.

RICHARD: War is not in flesh and bones ... war exists only in the psyche.

RESPONDENT: Have you watched ‘Delicatessen’?

RICHARD: I have never even heard of it.

Meanwhile, back at the subject to hand, in what way is intelligence [quote] ‘much better/freed’ [endquote] when enlightened when it advocates pacifism, for example, which would not only enable the bully boys and feisty femmes to rule the world, with all which inheres in that, but would also propagate/ perpetuate their kind unto future generations per favour the dutiful martyrdom (and thus a willing removal from the human gene-pool) of those seeking instant release into the hereafter of their choice through gullible practise of same?

*

RICHARD: And just in case the latter is not clear enough: if every otherwise intelligent non-dictatorial/ non-bandit/ non-criminal/ non-rapacious/ non-pillaging type of person were to actually put into practice, as a world-wide reality, those unliveable doctrines which bodiless deities prescribe then in a remarkably short period of time all babies will be being born with bully boys and feisty femmes as parents ... and with no alternate care-giver/ role-model anywhere to be found.

RESPONDENT: Have you heard of the dark age prior to the ‘dark age’?

RICHARD: Yes ... essentially there were two ages known as ‘dark’ (ignorant/unenlightened): the period of European history from the fall of the Roman Empire in the West to the fall of Constantinople and the period between the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the historical period in Greece (and other Aegean countries).

RESPONDENT: Why do you say that there’s a danger for another dark age (with all this information technology)?

RICHARD: Ha ... the day may come when this era is more aptly re-named the era of misinformation/disinformation technology.

RESPONDENT: Is there less ‘substance’ conveyed?

RICHARD: No, there is actually more substance than ever being conveyed and yet, as it is generally swamped by a prodigious output of egregious factoids, fantasies and fictions endlessly spawned by neo-puritanical social engineers posing as public-health watchdogs, big-brother behaviourists in the guise of left-wing libertarians, religio-political/ religio-philosophical latter-day luddites (adroitly re-inventing themselves in the form of environmentalists/ conservationists/ preservationists), mystico-spiritual shamans masquerading as psychotherapists under the name ‘parapsychology’, and so on and so forth, dominating virtually all channels of communication, both mainstream and marginalised, it largely goes unnoticed.

RESPONDENT: In my opinion, the primary cause for the emergence of a new dark age is fear and repression.

RICHARD: As a new dark age is mainly coming from the east to the west the primary cause of its emergence is the failure of materialism to provide meaning to life (as epitomised by existentialist thought around the turn of the nineteenth/ twentieth century which, not all that coincidentally, was around about the time when oriental thought began to gain an ever-increasing grip on occidental thought).

*

RESPONDENT: In other words, how can you know what a dark age is if you haven’t went through it?

RICHARD: Primarily by studying historical texts in conjunction with archaeological findings and, to a certain extent, sifting through folklore, myths, legends, and so on.

RESPONDENT: But surely there were some enlightened/ un-ignorant individuals during these eras, yet collectively there was a period of chaos and unrest for European people primarily due to the migrations and the ensuing insecurity that followed.

RICHARD: Let me see if I am following your line of thought: I point out that were every otherwise intelligent non-dictatorial/ non-bandit/ non-criminal/ non-rapacious/ non-pillaging type of person to actually put into practice, as a world-wide reality, those unliveable doctrines which bodiless deities prescribe then in a remarkably short period of time all babies will be being born with bully boys and feisty femmes as parents – and with no alternate care-giver/ role-model anywhere to be found – purely as a way of illustrating that there is nothing intelligent whatsoever about advocating pacifism, for example, which would not only enable the bully boys and feisty femmes to rule the world, with all which inheres in that, but would also propagate/perpetuate their kind unto future generations per favour the dutiful martyrdom (and thus a willing removal from the human gene-pool) of those seeking instant release into the hereafter of their choice through gullible practise of same ... and your response is to say that surely there were some enlightened/ un-ignorant individuals during the two western ages known as ‘dark’ (ignorant/ unenlightened).

Do you realise that it is secular intelligence you are saying must surely have existed during those periods?

*

RESPONDENT: Is not the very existence of actual freedom dependent upon the existence of the instinctual passions?

RICHARD: No, on the contrary, it is the very absence of the affective faculty/identity in toto which characterises the actual freedom of being a flesh and blood body only.

RESPONDENT: In contrast to enlightenment (which is dependent upon malice and sorrow being extant).

RICHARD: Aye ... or, more specifically, upon ‘being’ itself (usually capitalised as ‘Being’ upon self-realisation) remaining extant.

*

RICHARD: So much for ‘suffer the little children to come unto me’, eh?

RESPONDENT: ... [Also, the intelligence that operated when enlightened], was it the intelligence of the body or that of Being or was it the intelligence of the body yet operating with/subordinated to the ‘contents’/Knowledge of Being?

RICHARD: The intelligence that operated when enlightened was normal intelligence (which is an intelligence crippled by both the instinctual passions and the intuitive ‘being’ they form themselves into) further crippled by the passional/ intuitional ‘being’ within manifesting as ‘Being’ itself ... replete with the delusion that its extraordinarily-crippled intelligence was a supreme intelligence, an all-embracing, all-knowing, all-creative sapience.

RESPONDENT: I see, so there’s the normal intelligence (crippled) in NCE, the supreme intelligence (which is an extraordinarily crippled normal intelligence) in ASC and freed intelligence in PCE?

RICHARD: Aye ... only it is what intelligence is crippled by which is important (and not so much just that it is).


RESPONDENT: It is incredibly daunting to contemplate on the possibility that now it may be possible that with the creation of this list, intelligence has a way to operate in a way that resonation in human consciousness can happen on such a deep level that humanity is propelled into a PCE experience.

RICHARD: By ‘intelligence’ I presume you mean the human brain in action inside the human skull? That is, the intelligence which was born when the flesh and blood body was born and which dies when the flesh and blood body dies? I only ask because [quote] ‘the remains of my identity’ [endquote] may be projecting the same as being a disembodied intelligence.

RESPONDENT: No, not disembodied. An embodied intelligence. The intelligence which is born when a flesh and blood body is born, yet also the intelligence that is implicitly present as an organizing principle (on various levels) that is way beyond the comprehension of the limited capacity of my (perhaps any) human brain to understand how it is that this principle is ‘functioning’.

RICHARD: When I insert your description, of the intelligence which is also implicitly present, into your original sentence (from the top of the page) it looks like this:

• [example only]: ‘It is incredibly daunting to contemplate on the possibility that now it may be possible that with the creation of this list, the intelligence that is implicitly present as an organizing principle (on various levels), that is way beyond the comprehension of the limited capacity of my (perhaps any) human brain to understand how it is that this principle is ‘functioning’, has a way to operate in a way that resonation in human consciousness can happen on such a deep level that humanity is propelled into a PCE experience’.

Two questions immediately spring to mind ... here is the first one:

1. Is there, in fact, ‘also the intelligence that is implicitly present as an organizing principle (on various levels)’ which is functioning in the human body ... or are all organisms self-organisatory (hence no intelligent organising principle required) just as the universe itself is?

*

RESPONDENT: I like it that you encourage to optimise clarity to digital perfection. So ... OK this I find an accurate insertion.

RICHARD: As the ‘accurate insertion’ shows you are saying, in effect, that ‘with the creation of this list’ it now may be possible an incomprehensible intelligence can resonate on such a deep level in human consciousness that humanity is propelled into a PCE, it may very well be worthwhile pointing out, just in case it had not occurred to you, that it was this flesh and blood body which was the impetus for this mailing list being set up as an adjunct to The Actual Freedom Trust web site – for the purpose already detailed several times – and the only intelligence operating in this flesh and blood body is the cognitive faculty of understanding and comprehending (as in intellect and sagacity) ... which means the cerebral ability to sensibly and thus judiciously think, reflect, appraise, plan, and implement considered activity for beneficial reasons (and to be able to rationally convey reasoned information to other human beings so that coherent knowledge can accumulate around the world and to the next generations).

No other animal can do this – in a drought or a famine they languish and/or die – and needless is it to say that this ability is not incomprehensible?

RESPONDENT: I admit this could be taken in its whole as an example of a somewhat high-spirited statement.

RICHARD: Are you admitting that it is not ‘accurate’ to say, in effect, that ‘with the creation of this list’ it now may be possible that an incomprehensible intelligence can resonate on such a deep level in human consciousness that humanity is propelled into a PCE after all?

RESPONDENT: Now lets re-examine it as a statement of opinion. Thus it were to be read which (from your reply) I’m rather confident you did as: I found it is incredibly daunting to contemplate on the possibility that now it may be possible that with the creation of this list, the intelligence that is implicitly present as an organizing principle (on various levels), that is way beyond the comprehension of the limited capacity of my (perhaps any) human brain to understand how it is that this principle is ‘functioning’, has a way to operate in a way that resonation in human consciousness can happen on such a deep level that humanity is propelled into a PCE experience.

RICHARD: As what you have done here is change ‘it is incredibly daunting’ into ‘I found it incredibly daunting’ – thus personalising the sentence – and left the remainder intact do you now see that it was [quote] ‘the remains of my identity’ [endquote] who found it may now be possible that an incomprehensible intelligence can resonate on such a deep level in human consciousness that humanity is propelled into a PCE?

If so the next thing to consider is that due to the over-riding nature of the biological imperative – blind nature’s genetically inherited instinctual survival passions – there is the distinct possibility that ‘the remains of my identity’ (which you like very much and are unwilling to dismantle) and ‘the intelligence that is implicitly present as an organizing principle’ are one and the same thing. And the reason why I suggest this is because it is the instinctual animal ‘self’, which the survival passions form themselves into as a ‘presence’, a ‘being’, who got these flesh and blood bodies here in the first place ... in that all peoples living today are the end-point of myriads of survivors passing on their genes.

In other words, these flesh and blood bodies currently alive are the product of the ‘success story’ of fear and aggression and nurture and desire.

Yet the ability to think, and store thought-memories in the language-accessible areas of the neo-cortex, has also arisen in human beings – in homo sapiens – over many, many millennia and is what sets the human animal apart from the other animals ... it is what makes human beings intelligent. And now that this intelligence, which is the cerebral ability to sensibly and thus judiciously think, reflect, appraise, plan, and implement considered activity for beneficial reasons, has developed in the human animal the blind survival passions are no longer necessary – in fact they have become a hindrance in today’s world – and it is only by virtue of this intelligence that blind nature’s default software package can be safely deleted (via altruistic ‘self’-immolation).

But is one really going to dissolve that which produced one ... that which (apparently) keeps one alive? Hence the attribution of an essential role to ‘the remains of my identity’ ... to wit: ‘the intelligence that is implicitly present as an organizing principle’ which can resonate on such a deep level in human consciousness that humanity is propelled into a PCE.

Thus due to the over-riding nature of the biological imperative, blind instinct has been elevated to the status of an intelligence ... an incomprehensible intelligence which is going to save the human race by propelling it holus-bolus into a PCE in its hour of need. And, as these instinctual survival passions form themselves into a ‘presence’, a ‘being’, it is axiomatic that this ‘presence’, this ‘being’, be an incomprehensibly intelligent ‘presence’ or ‘being’ ... with the all-powerful ability to propel humanity en masse into peace and harmony.

Does this all start to sound familiar?

RESPONDENT: Indeed as I said ‘somewhat high-spirited’ I begin to understand the art of over/under statement is not fully mastered by me yet. I appear to have a multileveled multinational social identity which apparently seem to contain ‘pockets’ of malice and sorrow yet also pockets of not before experienced felicitous feelings that come from the thrill of understanding my life in an ever more fresh way.

RICHARD: Ahh ... so ‘the remains of my identity’ include a ‘multileveled multinational social identity’ and a range of affective feelings, then?

RESPONDENT: So ... my experience is that Actualism becomes indeed a whole new ballgame. When intelligence takes over when/if any bullshit, be it holy or political, hits the fan, it is dealt with the accuracy of a high-tech computer and that’s what you seem to do, Richard. Well that is fair to expect from an veteran living in the actual world.

RICHARD: Perhaps it would be more useful to say that when [an incomprehensible] intelligence takes over it is dealt with the accuracy of the cognitive faculty of understanding and comprehending (as in intellect and sagacity) ... which means the cerebral ability to sensibly and thus judiciously think, reflect, appraise, plan, and implement considered activity for beneficial reasons (and to be able to rationally convey reasoned information to other human beings so that coherent knowledge can accumulate around the world and to the next generations).

No high-tech computer is intelligent.

RESPONDENT: So ... I did not yet fully understand what it meant to be challenged by the Computer itself.

RICHARD: More to the point: do you now ‘fully understand’ what it means to be challenged by the cognitive faculty of understanding and comprehending (as in intellect and sagacity) ... which means the cerebral ability to sensibly and thus judiciously think, reflect, appraise, plan, and implement considered activity for beneficial reasons (and to be able to rationally convey reasoned information to other human beings so that coherent knowledge can accumulate around the world and to the next generations)?

I am, of course, talking about the human brain in action in the human skull.


RESPONDENT: And one more thing: the emotional mind sets an idea in stone and then accepts or rejects the information presented according to its conviction. The conclusion determines the series of information being accepted. That’s how the cults work, no matter if they are based in Himalayas or on the web.

RICHARD: All the more reason to re-visit your earlier assertion, perchance? Vis.: [Respondent]: ‘Also I disagree with Richard’s claim that the affective capacity can become extinct (...) the heart cannot and must not be extinguished’. (‘self vs. Self’; 30 July 2002).

RESPONDENT: The intellectual mind works the other way around: the conclusion is determined from a series of factors: information, experiments and observable facts. After all, it might just work.

RICHARD: Whereas actualism, being neither affective nor cerebral, actually works.

RESPONDENT: I’ve already guess that as my general state is getting better, a thing which was not common during my spiritual years despite all my best efforts and intentions. I’m not very clear though about the affective capacity in humans. I’ve read some books about emotional intelligence and how people centred in this brain are more considerate and have a better lived life, with much more meaning and all that stuff. It seems that this part is responsible for our artistic expression and creativity, relating to others, understanding and it’s also genuinely interested in experiencing an interesting life, not just surviving.

RICHARD: The popular focus on ‘emotional intelligence’ (which is an oxymoron if there ever was) was initiated by Mr. Daniel Goleman upon publication of his book of the same name in 1995. The term ‘Emotional Intelligence’ was first coined by Mr. John Mayer and Mr. Peter Salovey who published two articles on the topic in 1990 and 1993. Their thesis was simple: though frequently conceived as opposites, emotion and intellect often work in concert, each enhancing the other. Mr. Peter Salovey says he and Mr. John Mayer labelled their set of interactions an intelligence ‘to be provocative, to really challenge this idea that emotions are irrational’. Ms. Annie Paul writes:

• ‘Their articles didn’t attract much notice; even their most impressive effort, a 1990 paper that reviewed all relevant literature and set out their first definition of emotional intelligence, was rarely cited in the five years after it appeared. It did, however, come to the attention of Goleman. ‘I read the title and was struck by the phrase, by the power of bringing together two seemingly unconnected and even antithetical concepts’, Goleman says now. ‘I thought it was an extraordinarily powerful way of talking about the nature of emotional life’. He had already begun working on a book about emotions, and he asked Salovey if he could borrow their theoretical model and its name. ‘Fine’, said the psychologist. ‘Just tell people where you heard it’. That was in 1992. Three years later, ‘Emotional Intelligence’ arrived in stores. (...) The book went on to be one of Bantam’s biggest bestsellers in recent memory, with more than a million copies in print (and almost 5 million copies worldwide) If its author was surprised by the success of ‘Emotional Intelligence’, the original researchers were amazed. But their initial thrill at the book’s celebrity soon gave way to dismay. Goleman had distorted their model in disturbing ways’. (www.salon.com/books/it/1999/06/28/emotional/index1.html).

Mr. Daniel Goleman is a prolific writer and has written many books and articles ... for example:

• ‘Destructive Emotions: How Can We Overcome Them? A Scientific Dialogue With the Dalai Lama’. Bantam Doubleday Dell. (2003).
• ‘Healing Emotions: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Mindfulness, Emotions, and Health’. Boston, MA: Shambhala (1997).
• ‘Gifts of the Spirit: Living the Wisdom of the Great Religious Traditions’. San Francisco, CA: Harper (1997).
• ‘The Meditative Mind’. St. Martin’s (1988).
• ‘Consciousness: Brain, States of Awareness, and Mysticism’. San Francisco, CA, Harper and Row, (1979).
• ‘Varieties of the Meditative Experience’. Dutton (1977).
• ‘Buddhist and Western psychology: Some commonalities and differences’. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. 12(1981): 125-136.
• ‘A taxonomy of meditation-specific altered states’. Journal of Altered States of Consciousness. 4 (1978-1979): 203-213.
• ‘Patterning of cognitive and somatic processes in the self-regulation of anxiety: Effects of meditation versus exercise’. Psychosomatic Medicine. 40 (1978): 321-328.
• ‘The role of attention in meditation and hypnosis: A psychobiological perspective on transformations of consciousness’. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis. 25 (1977): 291-308.
• ‘Meditation and consciousness: An Asian approach to mental health’. American Journal of Psychotherapy. 30 (1976): 41-54.
• ‘Attentional and affective concomitants of meditation: A cross-sectional study’. Journal of Abnormal Psychology. 85 (1976): 235-238.
• ‘Mental health in classical Buddhist psychology’. Journal-of-Transpersonal-Psychology. 7(1975): 176-181.
• ‘The Buddha on meditation and states of consciousness: II. A typology of meditation techniques’. Journal-of-Transpersonal-Psychology. 4 (1972): 151-210.
• ‘Meditation as meta-therapy: Hypotheses toward a proposed fifth state of consciousness’. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. 3 (1971): 1-25.

Mr. Don Salmon, in an article titled ‘Indic Influences on Modern Psychology’, writes:

• ‘Although there had been Indic influences on psychology, psychiatry and psychotherapy since the late 1800s, the late 1960s and early 1970s saw a virtual explosion of interest in meditation and Eastern spirituality in general. This was true in the popular culture (...) but spread into the sciences as well. Many young people who went to India, Burma, Thailand and other Asian countries in the 1960s returned in the 1970s to receive first-rate scientific training in psychology. (...) Daniel Goleman, a psychologist and former chief editor of the periodical ‘Psychology Today’, wrote ‘The Varieties of Meditative Experience’ in 1977. Goleman is worth dwelling on for a bit. A friend of Richard Alpert, he went to India to study Hindu and Buddhist meditation. He returned to study psychology at Harvard. He wrote his dissertation studying under Herbert Benson. I’m not absolutely sure of this, but if my memory is correct, it was Goleman who, in what I think was a spark of inspiration with decidedly mixed results, suggested that meditation could be presented in a palatable form to modern secularised individuals as a form of ‘stress management’. He took ideas developed in the 1920s by the physiologist Walter Cannon and later refined by Hans Selye in the 1950s as the ‘stress cycle’ (dealing with the continual arousal of the autonomic nervous system leading to nervous exhaustion). He then suggested that the technique of meditation primarily served to deactivate this stress cycle. At the time, I thought this was a brilliant way of bringing meditation into the mainstream. (www.infinityfoundation.com/ECITpsychframe.htm).

Mr. Steve Hein has this to say about Mr. Daniel Goleman’s book ‘The Meditative Mind’:

• ‘The back cover tells us that Goleman ‘spent two years in the Far East with the meditation masters’. The dedication page says: ‘To Neemkaroli Baba and Sayadaw U Pandita for Tara, Govinddas, and Hanuman’. In the foreword ‘Ram Dass’ (Richard Alpert) talks about how he met Dan Goleman. (...) Alpert also tells us a little about their experiences in India with Neemkaroli Baba. Baba is Alpert’s ‘guru’ and ‘Mahariji’. (...) Alpert talks about the monkey god that they all worshipped: ‘I sat before an eight foot statue of a monkey painted red, and I sang to him and meditated upon him’ (p. xiv) His ‘guru’ convinced him that if he meditated enough he would ‘know God’. He later tells us that he and Goleman had the same ‘guru’ (p. xv). (...) Goleman proceeds to tell us about the many kinds of mediation techniques he learned. In chapters one and two he tells us about something called the ‘visuddhimagga’. He also tells us a little about sila, samadhi, sati, vipassana, sanghas, the eight levels of jhana, etc. In chapter three, he tells us, among other things, that the ‘great danger for the meditator is mistaking what is not the Path for the Path’ (p 27) He also tells us the meditator’s mind has ‘abandoned both dread and delight’ (p 29) Then he talks about ‘nirvana’ and tells us that it is ‘describable only in terms of what it is not’, saying it has ‘no experiential characteristics’. He also says that in nirvana ‘all desires originating from self-interest cease to control’ the meditator’s behaviour. Next he tells us about the ‘stream enterer’ and how he can’t do anything wrong once he has entered the stream, such as lying stealing or earning his living at the expense of others. The book continues in this way. Here are just a few more samples: (p. 44-45): ‘The enraptured devotee is on the threshold of samadhi, or jhana. His ecstasy indicates the access level; he verges on the first jhana. Should he concentrate with enough intensity on his ishta, he can enter samadhi. Once samadhi is reached, according to Swamin Muktananda (1971), there is no further need for chanting or japa ...’. (http://eqi.org/gole.htm).

Editorial reviews for Mr. Daniel Goleman’s latest book ‘Destructive Emotions: How Can We Overcome Them? A Scientific Dialogue With the Dalai Lama’ have the following to say:

• ‘[This book] forcefully puts to rest the misconception that the realms of science and spirituality are at odds. In this extraordinary book, Daniel Goleman presents dialogues between the Dalai Lama and a small group of eminent psychologists, neuroscientists, and philosophers that probe the challenging questions: Can the worlds of science and philosophy work together to recognize destructive emotions such as hatred, craving, and delusion? If so, can they transform those feelings for the ultimate improvement of humanity? As the Dalai Lama explains, ‘With the ever-growing impact of science on our lives, religion and spirituality have a greater role to play in reminding us of our humanity’. (Silvana Tropea, Amazon.com).
• ‘This eighth ‘Mind and Life’ meeting is the seventh to be recorded in book form; Goleman’s account is the most detailed and user-friendly to date. The timely theme of the dialogue was suggested by the Dalai Lama to Goleman, who took on the role of organizer and brought together some world-class researchers and thinkers, including psychologist Paul Ekman, philosopher Owen Flanagan, the late Francisco Varela and Buddhist photographer Matthieu Riccard. In a sense, the many extraordinary insights and findings that arise from the presentations and subsequent discussions are embodied by the Dalai Lama himself as he appears here. Far from the cuddly teddy bear the popular media sometimes makes him out to be, he emerges as a brilliant and exacting interrogator, a natural scientist, as well as a leader committed to finding a practical means to help society. Yet he also personally embodies the possibility of overcoming destructive emotions, of becoming resilient, compassionate and happy no matter what life brings. Covering the nature of destructive emotions, the neuroscience of emotion, the scientific study of consciousness and more, this essential volume offers a fascinating account of what can emerge when two profound systems for studying the mind and emotions, Western science and Buddhism, join forces. Goleman travels beyond the edge of the known, and the report he sends back is encouraging. (From ‘Publishers Weekly’; ©2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.).
• ‘Instead of just transcribing and editing the March 2000 ‘Mind and Life’ meeting involving the Dalai Lama, other Buddhist scholars, and experimental psychologists, Goleman, the meeting’s scientific organizer, gives a narrative account of the five-day event. As a pair of Pulitzer Prize nominations for journalism and a succession of best-sellers beginning with Emotional Intelligence (1995) confirms, experimental psychologist Goleman is no mean writer, and this book is one of the most absorbing and, yes, entertaining reports of brainstorming in the public interest since Plato wrote up those symposia of Socrates. The meeting’s focus was on the emotions and the prospects for enabling people to defuse fear, anger, and other potentially destructive emotions before they trigger damaging behaviour. The Dalai Lama’s interest in these matters stemmed from the desire to find a secular means of achieving the compassionate and peaceable conduct of life that individual Tibetan Buddhist meditation practitioners have realized. (From ‘Booklist’, Ray Olson; © American Library Association).
• ‘Buddhist philosophy tells us that all personal unhappiness and interpersonal conflict lie in the ‘three poisons’: craving, anger, and delusion. It also provides antidotes of astonishing psychological sophistication – which are now being confirmed by modern neuroscience. With new high-tech devices, scientists can peer inside the brain centres that calm the inner storms of rage and fear. They also can demonstrate that awareness-training strategies such as meditation strengthen emotional stability – and greatly enhance our positive moods. The distinguished panel members report these recent findings and debate an exhilarating range of other topics: What role do destructive emotions play in human evolution? Are they ‘hardwired’ in our bodies? Are they universal, or does culture determine how we feel? How can we nurture the compassion that is also our birthright? We learn how practices that reduce negativity have also been shown to bolster the immune system. Here, too, is an enlightened proposal for a school-based program of social and emotional learning that can help our children increase self-awareness, manage their anger, and become more empathetic. Throughout, these provocative ideas are brought to life by the play of personalities, by the Dalai Lama’s probing questions, and by his surprising sense of humour. Although there are no easy answers, the dialogues, which are part of a series sponsored by the Mind and Life Institute, chart an ultimately hopeful course. They are sure to spark discussion among educators, religious and political leaders, parents – and all people who seek peace for themselves and the world. The ‘Mind and Life’ Institute sponsors cross-cultural dialogues that bring together the Dalai Lama and other Buddhist scholars with Western scientists and philosophers. ‘Mind and Life’ VIII, on which this book is based, took place in Dharamsala, India, in March 2000. (Book Description; Amazon.com).

I have provided these detailed quotes because the problem with the peoples who discard the Christian/Judaic god is they do not realise that by turning to the Eastern spiritual philosophy they have effectively jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. Eastern spirituality is religion ... merely in a different form to what people in the West have been raised to believe in. Eastern spirituality sounds so convincing to the Western mind which is desperately looking for answers. The Christian/Judaic conditioning actually sets up the situation for a thinking person to be susceptible to the esoteric doctrines of the East. It is sobering to realise that the intelligentsia of the West are eagerly following the East down the slippery slope of striving to attain to a self-seeking divine immortality ... to the detriment of life on earth. At the end of the line there is always a god/goddess/truth, of some description, lurking in disguise wreaking its havoc with its ‘ancient wisdom’.

Have you ever been to India to see for yourself the results of what they claim are tens of thousands of years of devotional spiritual living?

I have, and it was hideous.

RESPONDENT: There are 4 brains in the human body: intellectual, emotional, motor and instinctive. Why are the all emotional and instinctive brains’ functions considered as ‘unuseful’ and the others (thinking and moving) as useful? It’s a point I don’t understand.

RICHARD: As all I am pointing the finger at is the instinctual passions and the intuitive ‘presence’ they form themselves into – and not the instincts per se – then in your ‘4 brains’ model it is only the ‘emotional brain’ which is the spanner in the works. A readily observable instinctive reaction in oneself, that is not necessarily affective, is the automatic response known as the reflex action (inadvertently touch a hotplate, for instance, and there is an involuntary jerking away of the affected limb) or the startle response.

A classic example of this occurred whilst strolling along a country lane one fine morning with the sunlight dancing its magic on the glistening dew-drops suspended from the greenery everywhere; these eyes are delighting in the profusion of colour and texture and form as the panorama unfolds; these ears are revelling in the cadence of tones as their resonance and timbre fills the air; these nostrils are rejoicing in the abundance of aromas and scents drifting fragrantly all about; this skin is savouring the touch, the caress, of the early springtime ambience; this mind, other than the sheer enjoyment and appreciation of being alive as this flesh and blood body, is ambling along in neutral – there is no thought at all and conscious alertness is null and void – when all-of-a-sudden the easy gait has ceased happening.

These eyes instantly shift from admiring the dun-coloured cows in a field nearby and are looking downward to the front and see the green and black snake, coiling up on the road in readiness to act, which had not only occasioned the abrupt halt but, it is discovered, had initiated a rapid step backwards ... an instinctive response which, had the instinctual passions that are the identity been in situ, could very well have triggered off freeze-fight-flee chemicals.

There is no perturbation whatsoever (no wide-eyed staring, no increase in heart-beat, no rapid breathing, no adrenaline-tensed muscle tone, no sweaty palms, no blood draining from the face, no dry mouth, no cortisol-induced heightened awareness, and so on) as with the complete absence of the rudimentary animal ‘self’ in the primordial brain the limbic system in general, and the amygdala in particular, have been free to do their job – the oh-so-vital startle response – both efficaciously and cleanly.

Cattle, for example, are easily ‘spooked’ by a reptile and have been known to stampede in infectious group panic.


RESPONDENT: What intelligence is the human brain can not fully understand.

RICHARD: Speaking personally, I have no problem understanding what intelligence is.

RESPONDENT: But it is quite evident that it is not conditioned, not limited to past experiences stored in a brain.

RICHARD: Intelligence is the ability of the human animal to think and reflect upon itself. When the flesh and blood body is freed from ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul this intelligence can operate cleanly and clearly. Past experiences stored in the brain are then seen for the asset they are and not the liability you take them to be. It is the affective component of memory that causes your problems.


RESPONDENT: Have you heard of ‘feral’ children – children lost in infancy and adopted by wolves or other animals? Not a modern day occurrence, the last incident being around the turn of the twentieth century.

RICHARD: Do you have a valid source? I have always understood this to be an urban myth?

RESPONDENT: Anyhow, the very interesting thing is that even though humans have the innate capacity for language, no feral children were found who had developed language. We are dependent on the presence of others for that most human of capabilities.

RICHARD: I recently watched a program on TV where some enterprising researcher is examining babies/infants from around the world: it appears that they all come out with what was described as ‘baby babble’ and which is globally identical irregardless of the cultural language. Once they were taught/encouraged to speak what would become their native tongue, the differences appeared. There is much scientific discussion vis a vis the language ability being innate ... hence the difficulty in getting apes to ‘speak’ meaningfully (I say ‘speak’ parenthetically because their vocal chords do not allow regular speech). Of course it is not only the ability to speak – to communicate meaningfully and incrementally advance human knowledge – it is the ability to think, to remember, to compare, to reason, to foresee, to plan and to implement considered action for beneficial reasons that sets the human animal superior to all others.

The ability to think in words is what intelligence is.


ALAN: Yes, definitely most intense at the base of the brain and permeating through the whole head. When I first started to experience this I put it down to a sort of ‘stress’ symptom, caused by questioning ‘my’ existence. I am well acquainted with stress symptoms and, on closer examination the current experience is almost exactly the opposite. I experienced ‘stress’ as a metal headband, gradually getting tighter and tighter. The current experience is of a pressure from within – an exploding, rather than imploding. It seems to almost invariably commence when contemplating ‘this moment of being alive’ or ‘how can I possibly be here’ or ‘I am this universe experiencing itself as a sensate human being’ or similar and lasts, as you say, from minutes to hours.

RICHARD: Is it not incredible that all this can be triggered off by thinking certain thoughts ... contemplation is indeed a tremendous tool to enable such a breakthrough repeatedly. It also serves to answer your previous questions about what is real and what is the result of ‘I’ trying ... this is the very brain cells re-arranging their network by the only means possible: Thought. It is such a shame that the spiritual aspirant is urged to condemn thought and thus allow the feelings to take over. Feelings are so notorious for being unreliable as a means of ascertaining the correct course of action that I am staggered that they be revered so.

It is pertinent to your question inasmuch as the configuration of one’s physical neurones and synapses are formed by the instincts one was born with and the societal conditioning super-imposed over the top of same. Whether it be ‘imploding’ or ‘exploding’, I always experienced the re-configuration as one repairing an engine ... with the vital exception that one had one’s hands in one’s pockets all the while. Of course ‘I’ can re-arrange the brain cells to accord to the facts ... it is the easiest thing in the world once ‘I’ get the knack of so doing.

It does eventually lead to the end of ‘me’, however.


ALAN: Now that we have this marvellous means of communication, which will undoubtedly develop further, who knows what pearls will be uncovered, like me, on the opposite side of the world.

RICHARD: Aye ... the Internet is my chosen means of dissemination for the obvious reason of being interactive and rapid. The electronic copying and distribution capacity of a mailing list service – with it’s multiple feed-back capability – is second to none.

ALAN: I appreciate that words are all we have, however it is unlikely that words alone will be enough to dissuade one from the ASC. This is where it gets fascinating because the question then arises, what do words appeal to? Having set out in 1997 to discover the meaning of my experiences, I could all too easily have become enlightened. However, with your story as a ‘warning’, I think I have managed to avoid this and have turned aside on at least two occasions from their attractions (and examined them once). So, are we back to common sense? I shy away a bit from using ‘native intelligence’ as it tends to convey something like ‘Cosmic Intelligence’ to me.

RICHARD: I use the phrase ‘native intelligence’ in the meaning of ‘autochthonous acumen’ or ‘indigenous prudence’ or ‘congenital judicity’. I am meaning a down-to-earth and matter-of-fact practicality ... an innate sensibility. The term ‘Cosmic Intelligence’ is anthropomorphic and reveals a dearth of sensible reason ... intelligence exists only in the human brain.


PETER: Richard, I mentioned the other day about radical thought so I thought I would send it to you. Let me know what you think of the definition. Thought: ‘The action or process of thinking; mental activity; formation and arrangement of ideas in the mind. Also, the capacity for this. An act or product of thinking; something that one thinks or has thought; an idea, a notion; specially one suggested or recalled to the mind, a reflection, a consideration’.

RICHARD: Thought is a truly remarkable faculty. A clear description of what thought is seems to be desperately needed ... you may find the following exchange illuminating whereby I expand a trifle upon your definition. Vis.:

• [Respondent]: That which is alive can hardly breath without bringing harm or destruction to some aspect of the environment. The whole exercise of personal existence must be a heavy measure on the side of silliness when a larger view is taken toward its effect. Does it not seem silly that this body should eat while another starves? What is the criteria for that which is silly, and that which is sensible?

• [Richard]: The very fact that one is alive means consuming nutrients ... and staying alive means that something, somewhere, must die in order to supply these nutrients. This is a fact of life ... and the marvellous thing about a fact is that one can not argue with it. One can argue about a belief, an opinion, a theory, an ideal and so on ... but a fact: never. One can deny a fact – pretend that it is not there – but once seen, a fact brings freedom from choice and decision. Most people think and feel that choice implies freedom – having the freedom to choose – but this is not the case. Freedom lies in seeing the obvious, and in seeing the obvious there is no choice, no deliberation, no agonising over the ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ judgement. In the freedom of seeing the fact there is only action.

• [Respondent]: Is it silly to kill a bacteria so that a human body can live?

• [Richard]: I have already explained ... seeing the fact determines action.

• [Respondent]: Does the bacteria think it silly to do what it needs to survive?

• [Richard]: What kind of hallucination is it that you are living in? There is no Noddy and Big Ears here in this actual world ... bacteria cannot think.

• [Respondent]: So you believe that bacteria cannot think?

• [Richard]: I do not have to believe it ... it is obvious that they simply cannot think. However, if you can produce a bacteria for me that can conceive in – or exercise the mind with or have in the mind – an hypothesis, a theory, a supposition, a plan, a design, a notion, an idea, or can formulate of mentally as in meditate on, turn over in the mind, ponder, contemplate, deliberate or reflect on and come to the understanding – in a positive active way and form connected objectives – or otherwise have the capacity to cogitate and conjecture and choose mentally (as in form a clear mental impression of something actual) then I will acknowledge that you are correct and I am in error.

PETER: The human brain is the most sophisticated development of this extraordinary universe. Not only does it see, hear, smell, taste and touch with its nerve tentacles or stalks, but it can think, cognitise, reflect and communicate, and be aware of itself doing all these things. It also comes in a pretty neat package able to move freely and easily and perform an amazing amount of dexterous activities. The prime activity of human animals that sets them apart from other animals is their ability to think and reflect.

RICHARD: Which, of course, means the only intelligent carbon-based life-form on this planet. Intelligence is not only the faculty of the brain thinking with all its understanding (intellect) but the comprehension of itself in the world of people, things and events ... and the quickness or superiority (sagacity) of such comprehension is the measure of intelligence.


RESPONDENT: The impression I get of the meeting between you and the contemporary spiritual master is one of many, many words and concepts arising in the space we habitually call you.

RICHARD: Aye, your impression is correct – apart from the ‘concepts’ bit – for that was the whole purpose of the meeting.

RESPONDENT: Your language here is a little convoluted. Could you re-phrase it? Do you mean that ‘concepts’ were the whole purpose of the meeting, or they were not ... or something else entirely.

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

Please, do not scorn words ... it is what sets us apart from the other sentient beings. It is only through words that peace-on-earth is possible.


RESPONDENT: You don’t speak much about the extraordinary Intelligence of the enlightened State and its Benevolence, far surpassing any human intelligence or wisdom, as I’m still in doubt about those ‘feet of clay’, I had all the practical skills very much in place.

RICHARD: The expression ‘feet of clay’ refers to a fundamental weakness in a person who appears to be of great merit ... in this context it means the incapacity to live their own teachings (as they are unliveable it is no wonder).

In what way does the ‘extraordinary Intelligence of the enlightened State and its Benevolence’ far surpass human intelligence? Can you provide some examples?

What immediately leaps to mind is human intelligence sussing out that the earth is neither flat nor at the centre of everything ... one can search through all the scriptures, of the enlightened ones over the last 3,000-5,000 years, for any reference to such basic information to no avail.

What I recall, during an ASC very early in the piece, is the impression of being all-knowing (omniscient) ... yet even then I could readily acknowledge that I did not know how to read, write, or understand any other language than the English language. For a documented instance of this: Mr. Sathyanarayana Raju (aka Sai Baba), a currently living example of being considered a god-on-earth by tens of thousands of people, required the head of one of his ashrams in the USA to submit daily reports of all that went on. This man – a devout follower – sincerely wondered why this was necessary ... seeing that Mr. Sathyanarayana Raju was omniscient and would already know every detail of what occurred in the ashram. So he wrote a letter humbly asking clarification ... Mr. Sathyanarayana Raju replied that he was checking on the disciple’s ability to record the events accurately.

Another example is Mr. Mervin Irani (aka Meher Baba) – another god-on-earth for many people – who was asked by a puzzled devotee one day as to why he was reading a newspaper. Another – more wily disciple – went and listened to the overseas weather report and came back to the feet of the master and asked him whether it was raining in New York.

I particularly mention this because of the following:

• [Respondent]: ‘... in the fourth state there is nothing more to know You have Absolute knowledge of Every thing’. (‘Verification’; 30 July 2001).

If Mr. Mervin Irani (aka Meher Baba) and Mr. Sathyanarayana Raju had lived more than five hundred/one thousand years ago they would have been ‘flat earth’ god-men ... but because of human advances in knowledge they were able to know that the earth is an oblate spheroid circling the sun. It is all to do with the human knowledge of the material universe current to the era one is born in ... and has nothing to do with fantastical notions of having ‘Absolute knowledge of Every thing’ at all.

Nobody but nobody is omniscient ... it is this simple.

RESPONDENT: Is this the Intelligence of the species? – as I’ve compared this big ‘I’ in a poem (it seems that an experience like that upgrades your artistic expression – a proof perhaps for its affective starting point, agree?) with a matrix, a printing press for the human race.

RICHARD: The cognitive capacity to understand and comprehend (as in intellect and sagacity) which is the cerebral ability to sensibly and thus judiciously think, remember, reflect, appraise, plan, and implement considered activity for beneficial purposes (and to be able to rationally convey reasoned information to other human beings so that coherent knowledge can accumulate around the world and to the next generations) – which other animals cannot do – is intelligence in operation. The affective feelings – emotions and passions and calentures – are non-cognitive instinctually reactive survival feelings at root and, no matter how refined and cultivated the feelings may be honed to, are not intelligence in operation ... and neither is the affective faculty’s epiphenomenal psychic facility.

*

RESPONDENT: As for asking myself the same question as you did ‘what/who’s looking at whom’ stuff, it’s very understandable as there I was, with no No 25 left of me, busy being somebody else’s Self, conditions were as such that a highly possible logical intelligent outcome resulted: ‘what am I’? as it’s clear I was no Goddess, ha?

RICHARD: Behind all gods and goddesses lies the genderless Absolute ... which can manifest in or as whatever form it likes.

RESPONDENT: But the impact and relevance of it was like thinking why the albatross wings are two meters instead of four when having an intense orgasm.

RICHARD: Hmm ... ‘nuff said about how (supposedly) all-surpassing the ‘big-‘I’ Intelligence of the species’ is then, eh?


RESPONDENT: As for eastern philosophy and its teachings, they amount to nothing more in my view than emptying an empty dark pot in another empty dark pot, another futile action to undertake. What can result from the intersection of the two (West vs. East, science vs. philosophy, belief vs. representation) is nothing but a battle between non-existent entities.

That is not to discard all the scientific break-throughs as being futile, not at all, they can very much make our living here much more pleasant, safe and enjoyable apart from providing to our brains more accurate representations of the world we live in – as a guiding system), but when dealing with Life, the Answer can only be individual, an experiential living one for each person, and can only be brought by consciousness.

RICHARD: Or, more correctly, can only be brought by the identity within ceasing to stand in the way of the meaning of life being apparent ... the answer to the riddle of existence is already here just as it always has been and always will be.

It is out in the open, plain to view, never hidden.

RESPONDENT: And yes, this ‘big I’ is very intelligent, for we are the most successful animal ever to wander the Earth, are we not? ... it’s how I remember it anyhow.

RICHARD: As the ‘big I’ you are referring to was [quote] ‘the extraordinary Intelligence of the enlightened State’ [endquote] in your previous e-mail, which you earlier poetically compared with a matrix, a printing press for the human race, whilst asking if it was [quote] ‘the Intelligence of the species’ [endquote] I wonder just what your ‘yes’ is in response to as my reply was to observe that enlightenment was not intelligence in action.

Perhaps if I were to restate it this way: the affective faculty’s epiphenomenal psychic facility is not intelligent at all – let alone extraordinarily so – as it is the cognitive capacity to understand and comprehend (as in intellect and sagacity) which is the cerebral ability to sensibly and thus judiciously think, remember, reflect, appraise, plan, and implement considered activity for beneficial purposes (and to be able to rationally convey reasoned information to other human beings so that coherent knowledge can accumulate around the world and to the next generations) – which other animals cannot do – which is intelligence in operation.

And this is the intelligence which has made the human animal the most successful animal ever to wander the earth ... moreover, when all the gods and goddesses cease meddling in human affairs (via altruistic ‘self’-immolation in toto) the human species will do even better than it has done so far.

Far, far better, in fact.

*

RESPONDENT: It is that the goal of your method is to achieve the third state (an aim for the spiritual methods as well, though only as an intermediate one) from there on things go indeed in opposite directions.

RICHARD: No ... the goal of the actualism method is to by-pass all altered states of consciousness (to head in the opposite direction from the word go).

*

RESPONDENT: The example I provided with getting drunk was to ascertain whether functions can manifest without consciousness.

RICHARD: Which (amnestic) example has nothing to do with immortality: immortality is, supposedly, consciousness existing without a body ... as in consciousness without an object.

In your example of what bodily occurred during a drug-induced amnesia (which is quite common with many ingested substances) the body was still conscious ... just because what was occurring was not being remembered does not mean the state or condition of being conscious (albeit inebriated) was not happening.

RESPONDENT: The instinctive brain can function independent of whether you’re conscious or not ...

RICHARD: Or, to put that another way, the autonomic nervous system functions non-consciously (as evidenced in sleep).

RESPONDENT: ... this body will very much regulate its flow of blood, the heart will beat of his own accord, the digesting process will not require your attention, etc.; also a good example can be found in patients living in a state of coma.

RICHARD: Somehow you seem to be conflating what the word ‘consciousness’ refers to (the suffix ‘-ness’ forms a noun expressing a state or condition) with what the word ‘self-conscious’ refers to (the awareness of being conscious) ... and, while the state or condition of being conscious can also include being aware of being conscious, the vast majority of conscious organisms (animals) do not have self-awareness.

A comatose person is an unconscious person ... neither conscious nor aware of being conscious.

RESPONDENT: Animals and birds do not require consciousness in order to live, so it seems there are many examples where the brains do not require consciousness in order to perform their usual activities.

RICHARD: All sentient beings are conscious ... and sentience means consciousness. Vis.:

• ‘sentience: the condition or quality of being sentient; consciousness, susceptibility to sensation’. (Oxford Dictionary).

A sentient being, and all animals are sentient (having the power or function of sensation), is a living organism capable of sensory perception (a virus, for example, is an organism without sentience) which means that sensory perception is what consciousness is at its most basic ... perception means consciousness (aka awareness). Vis.:

• ‘perception: the state of being or process of becoming aware or conscious of a thing, spec. through any of the senses; the faculty of perceiving; an ability to perceive; [synonyms: (...) awareness, consciousness]. (Oxford Dictionary).

In popular usage, however, the word ‘consciousness’ can also mean the (illusory) identity which is being conscious ... whereas the word ‘awareness’ does not usually carry that connotation.

To put that another way: while the word ‘conscious’ can mean the same as what the word ‘aware’ means the word ‘consciousness’ can also mean something other that what the word ‘awareness’ means ... it can mean the supposedly immortal entity which makes a sentient being alive and not dead (as in the phrase ‘consciousness has left the body’ to signify physical death).

RESPONDENT: It seems consciousness is a luxury item exclusively at the use of the human animal.

RICHARD: Again you appear to be talking of self-consciousness (not to be confused with ‘self-conscious’ as in being embarrassed) or self-awareness ... if so there is evidence that the chimpanzee is self-conscious (aka self-aware) and, although it is early days yet in the research, there is some evidence that dolphins may be too.

It is far from being a luxury item ... it is a vital precursor to intelligence.

That the vast majority of animals are not self-conscious (do not have self-awareness) is the reason why, by and large, it is generally held that animals do not have a consciousness which ‘leaves the body’ at physical death.

RESPONDENT: In what way is consciousness related to intelligence?

RICHARD: If you are indeed referring to self-consciousness, or self-awareness, it is an essential prerequisite for intelligence to arise: intelligence is not only the faculty of the human brain thinking, with all its understanding (intellect) and comprehension (sagacity), but includes its cognisance (awareness or consciousness) of being a body existing in the world of people, other animals, plants, things and events.

Moreover, intelligence requires self-reference – which involves the issue of agency (intervening action towards an end; action personified; a source of action towards an end) and agency can be only self-referential – plus intelligence also requires self-interest: a self-referential organism is concerned about its existence, and by extension others’ existence, in that it is biased – it finds water appealing and acid unappealing for example – and being biased is what being self-interested means.

However, if you are referring ‘consciousness’ as popularly meaning the (illusory) identity which is being conscious ... it is, of course, not related to intelligence at all.

Its presence cripples intelligence, in fact.

*

RESPONDENT: As for asking myself the same question as you did ‘what/who’s looking at whom’ stuff, it’s very understandable as there I was, with no Respondent left of me, busy being somebody else’s Self, conditions were as such that a highly possible logical intelligent outcome resulted: ‘what am I’? as it’s clear I was no Goddess, ha?

RICHARD: Behind all gods and goddesses lies the genderless Absolute ... which can manifest in or as whatever form it likes.

RESPONDENT: But the impact and relevance of it was like thinking why the albatross wings are two meters instead of four when having an intense orgasm.

RICHARD: Hmm ... ‘nuff said about how (supposedly) all-surpassing the ‘big-‘I’ Intelligence of the species’ is then, eh?

RESPONDENT: I think you got it wrong here, the question ‘who/what is watching who?’ was not asked by the ‘big I’ as SHE could not ask such a question, it was rather the body (intellectual brain) reaction to an event such as the ASC. This question had no relevance to the Self where my sense of identity was situated, so the comparison with the albatross’s wings span ... it was an irrelevant questioning for the Self.

RICHARD: Okay ... perhaps it is the way you put a sentence together as your ‘there I was, with no Respondent left of me, busy being somebody else’s Self’ report conveys that you are [quote] ‘the extraordinary Intelligence of the enlightened State’ [endquote], which supposedly far surpasses any human intelligence, whilst asking the question.

However, this is similar wording to your earlier testimony (that you are the light which permeates everything and that from this you get the impression you are omniscient) ... do you see that, even though there was no name left of you, and with your sense of identity situated in the Self, it was human intelligence which was operating (albeit overwhelmed by the intensity of the orgasmic-like-experience to the point that the impact of the ‘highly possible logical intelligent outcome’ was rendered irrelevant by that Self’s presence)?

The $64,000 question is this: is the Self, a Being of light, the Light which permeates everything, a God, Goddess, or Master behind the curtains, the One who holds in His hand the wires that make humans human, the Creator out of which everything has begun, the Intelligence of the species, intelligent or not ... let alone an all-surpassing and all-knowing intelligence?

Where is the evidence of this intelligence?

For eleven years, night and day, I was able to intimately explore this issue, and other issues, and all that was evident was an outstanding ignorance and a remarkable arrogance ... the example in the previous e-mail of planet earth being a heliocentric spheroid being but one instance of the ignorance and the arrogation of the properties of the universe, and the aggrandisement of human qualities, in this e-mail are but some instances of the arrogance.

More importantly was the arresting evidence that, after something like three to five thousand years of scriptural history recording the many and varied instances of gods and goddesses imparting their all-surpassing wisdom to a benighted humanity, humankind was nowhere nearer to peace and harmony than before. Indeed, because of the much-touted love and compassion, much hatred and bloodshed had followed in the wake of the many and varied saints and sages and seers.

Thus demonstrably the ‘Tried and True’ is the ‘tried and failed’: intelligence in action is the acknowledgement that something which has not produced the goods, despite at least 3,000-5,000 years for it to work its wisdom in, is never going to deliver on its spurious promise and that it is high time to clear the work-bench and start afresh ... learn from those that have gone before and move on.

For starters: one needs to fully acknowledge the biological imperative (the instinctual passions) which are the root cause of all the ills of humankind. The genetically inherited passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) give rise to malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion: these negative and positive feelings are intrinsically connected and constitute what is known as ‘The Human Condition’.

The term ‘Human Condition’ is a well-established philosophical term that refers to the situation that all human beings find themselves in when they emerge here as babies. The term refers to the contrary and perverse nature of all peoples of all races and all cultures. There is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in everyone ... all humans have a ‘dark side’ to their nature and a ‘light side’. The battle betwixt ‘Good and Evil’ has raged down through the centuries and it requires constant vigilance lest evil gets the upper hand. Morals and ethics seek to control the wayward self that lurks deep within the human breast ... and some semblance of what is called ‘peace’ prevails for the main. Where morality and ethicality fails to curb the ‘savage beast’, law and order is maintained ... at the point of a gun.

The ending of malice and sorrow, and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion, involves getting one’s head out of the clouds – and beyond – and coming down-to-earth where the flesh and blood bodies called human beings actually live. Obviously, peace on earth can only be found here in space and now in time as this material body. Then the question is: is it possible to be free of the human condition, here on earth, in this life-time, as this flesh and blood body?

Which means: how on earth can one live happily and harmlessly, in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are, whilst one nurses malice and sorrow, and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion, in one’s bosom?

RESPONDENT: It’s nice to discuss with you about these matters as there are less then a few who are willing to sincerely discuss them in the open.

RICHARD: You are very welcome ... and one of the reasons why there is little willing and open discussion into these matters is because they are held to be sacrosanct (not to be questioned).

Another reason is that to do so could be the beginning of the end of ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety.


SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE ON INTELLIGENCE (Part Three)

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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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