Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

RICHARD: All is carefree in this actual world ... there is no ‘good’ or ‘evil’ here.

RESPONDENT: Good one, Richard. Here’s another: ‘Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.’ – RUMI-

RICHARD: You are, of course, aware that Mr. Jalal Rumi was a mystical poet? Thus by ‘a field’ he does not mean a literal field (a physical field in time and space) – he is referring to that timeless and spaceless and formless ‘field’ which is located ‘out beyond ideas of right and wrong’ – whereas I am living in this actual world: the world of this body and that body; the world of the mountains and the streams; the world of the trees and the flowers; the world of the clouds in the sky by day and the stars in the firmament by night and so on ad infinitum.

RESPONDENT: With some practice, you too could become a ‘mystical poet’ I suppose.

RICHARD: No chance whatsoever ... there is nary a trace of mysticism in me (nor religiosity, spirituality or metaphysicality). May I ask? Is this your way of saying ‘yes I am aware that Mr. Jalal Rumi was a mystical poet’? And is this your way of saying ‘yes I am aware that by ‘a field’ he does not mean a literal field (a physical field in time and space)’? Also, is this your way of saying ‘yes I am aware he is referring to that timeless and spaceless and formless ‘field’ which is located ‘out beyond ideas of right and wrong’’?

Just curious.

*

RICHARD: In regards to the total absence of ‘good’ or ‘evil’ here in this actual world which I was writing about (further above) ... I need only refer to the following to find Mr. Jalal Rumi’s experience:

• [Mr. Jalal Rumi]: ‘Save those who return to truth and do righteous deeds. God will change their evil into good’. (Discourse 32: Fihi Ma Fihi ‘It Is What It Is’; Translation by A. J. Arberry; published 1961 as ‘Discourses of Rumi’).

So, although Mr. Jalal Rumi had the nous to suss out that ‘ideas of wrong doing and right doing’ were merely that – ideas – he was clearly of the school that was into transforming ‘evil’ into ‘good’. This is because there is ‘good’ and ‘evil’ 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 both ‘good’ and ‘evil’ involves getting one’s head out of the clouds – and beyond – and coming down-to-earth where the flesh and blood bodies called human beings actually live. Obviously, the solution to all the ills of humankind can only be found here in space and now in time as this body. Then the question is: 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 in one’s bosom?

‘Tis an intriguing question, non?

RESPONDENT: Why would anyone ‘nurse malice and sorrow in one’s bosom’??

RICHARD: Probably because 10,000 enlightened masters have set such a sterling example to follow ... but there are 6.0 billion peoples on this planet holding their cherished feelings firmly to their breast that you could ask. They may all have some slightly different answer to mine ... so maybe you could sincerely ask yourself why you get frustrated, for example.

With the requisite sincerity that question will open Pandora’s Box for you.

RESPONDENT: That sounds sick, and wrong, and stupid, and ugly.

RICHARD: Aye ... all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides and so on bear mute testimony to this ancient wisdom being very, very ‘sick, and wrong, and stupid, and ugly’.

There are not many who notice this fact, however.