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Richard’s Selected Correspondence On Spirit
RESPONDENT: I am not an adherent of the doctrine that knowledge is derived from the action of the intellect or pure reason. I am not an intellectualist. RICHARD: Okay ... and are you not an intellectualist in the same way that you are not a spiritualist? RESPONDENT: I don’t understand your question. What do you mean with ‘in the same way’? RICHARD: In the same way that you are not a spiritualist even though the prevailing theme, of 215 e-mails you wrote over the 36 days (31/03/2005- 6/05/2005) you were writing to this list, was about [quote] ‘genuine spirituality’ [endquote] ... for instance:
RESPONDENT: I am simply not a spiritualist. RICHARD: Perhaps, then, what you simply are might be better served by you not writing such things as the following (as it all-too-easily conveys the impression that you are):
RESPONDENT: I am not evoking spirits ... RICHARD: I am not referring to spiritism – ‘the belief that the spirits of the dead can communicate with the living, esp. through a medium; the practice of this belief’ (Oxford Dictionary) – but to spiritualism ... here is an example of the way I mean the word ‘spiritualist’:
Plus here is an example of the way I mean the word ‘spiritual’:
And here is one example of what the word ‘spirit’ means to you:
RESPONDENT: ... nor do I adhere to Eastern belief systems (karma, reincarnation, etc.). RICHARD: Obviously I cannot comment on an etcetera ... here is an instance of what you do believe:
RESPONDENT: I am just a simple man trying to make my way through life. RICHARD: Sure ... do you now understand what I mean with ‘in the same way’ in my question [quote]
‘and are you not an intellectualist in the same way that you are not a spiritualist’ [endquote]? RESPONDENT: Reading the link you gave me, I still think that you are mixing dodgy Spiritual claims with descriptions of freedom (or actual freedom if you prefer) into one category and dismissing them all. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. RICHARD: If I were to use your analogy then this is the ‘baby’ that got thrown out:
In other words all spiritual claims are ‘dodgy’ as there is no ‘spirit’ or ‘presence’ or ‘being’ (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is ‘being’ itself) in actuality ... there are no gods or goddesses of any description in this actual world. It is all so peaceful here. RESPONDENT: I have been captivated with the meaning of life, reality, the universe, God/Man etc., for as long as I can remember. I find that not everyone, by a long shot, has this particular passion – if I may use that term – and it is enjoyable to find others who do. It is doubly enjoyable to run across someone who seems to have resolved the great matter/spirit split. RICHARD: Yes ... but resolving the split through dissolving the ‘spirit’ (an active dissolution of ‘being’), though. Most people attempt to resolve ‘the great matter/spirit split’ from within the human condition: either cognitively (philosophy and psychology) or affectively (spirituality and mysticality). Thus the ‘Tried and True’ is the ‘tried and failed’. RESPONDENT: I find the notion that this material world is somehow unreal, and there is a separate world of spirit that is somehow more real, to be silly, to say the least. RICHARD: To say the least ... yes. The key to understanding this tendency is to be found in the psychiatric phenomenon of ‘dissociation’ ... as is evidenced in severely traumatised patients. RESPONDENT: Like you, I haven’t come to these conclusions because I’ve never believed in the other plane of existence theory, it’s just the for some reason I don’t settle very easily. I’m not a very good believer, I am afraid. And when some concept is seen through, well, it’s just seen through. RICHARD: One cannot start believing in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy once again, eh? * RESPONDENT: Re: the matter/spirit split. You say, ‘yes, but resolving the split through dissolving the spirit (an active dissolution of being)’. I would counter that both matter and spirit as they were understood while split are dissolved. RICHARD: Hmm ... I also wrote: ‘most people attempt to resolve ‘the great matter/ spirit split’ from within the human condition: either cognitively (philosophy and psychology) or affectively (spirituality and mysticality)’. By this I indicated that peoples attempt to integrate matter and spirit (either cognitively through mental understanding or affectively through feeling recognition). My experience (which is where all my description/understanding is drawn from) is that ‘spirit’ goes whilst ‘matter’ (this flesh and blood body) is alive. And also, research has shown me that, despite peoples best efforts, there is no 100% successful ‘healing’ of the matter/spirit split. Thus traditionally, for the spiritualists, the matter/spirit split is resolved at physical death when ‘matter’ (the body) goes ... and ‘spirit’ lives on in the Timeless and Spaceless and Formless void. And for the materialist, both ‘spirit’ and ‘matter’ goes at physical death. Which is why the spiritualist usually triumphs, in those materialist/ spiritualist debates on TV or the Internet as the spiritualist can ascribe meaning to life (drawn from value ascribed to the quality of the after-death state) while the materialist cannot (hence the Existentialist Philosophers’ twentieth century dilemma of knowingly creating value ex nihilo). RESPONDENT: I have noticed that you apply many of the traditional attributes of spirit to matter: infinite, eternal, benevolent, benign, even, I believe, intelligent in a non-anthropomorphic way. RICHARD: Not ‘applying’, no ... these ‘attributes’ are actually properties (infinite and eternal) and qualities (immaculate and consummate) and values (benevolent and benign) and are my direct experience, each moment again, and those words are my description of what is actually happening (properties plus qualities equals values). It is that peoples for millennia have been ‘stealing’ the properties and qualities and values of this physical universe and attributing them to their particular metaphysical fantasy (whichever god or goddess that is the ‘flavour of the month’) ... and anthropocentrically adding a few (power-based) properties and qualities and values while they at it in order to make him/her into a supreme being. I am simply bringing those properties and qualities and values back where they have belonged all along ... to this infinite and eternal universe (stripping the power-based extraneities along the way). But the universe itself is not intelligent (even in a ‘non-anthropomorphic way’) ... this universe, being infinite and eternal, is much, much more than merely intelligent. Intelligence, which is the ability to think, reflect, compare, evaluate and implement considered action for benevolent reasons, cannot comprehend infinity and eternity (as infinitude has no opposite there is none of the cause and effect relationship which is what intelligence needs in order to operate). Only apperceptive awareness can perceive and/or apprehend infinitude (thus I am this universe experiencing its own infinitude apperceptively). And, as a human being, I am this universe experiencing itself intelligently (just as the universe experiences itself as a cat or a dog or whatever: as a cat, this universe experiences itself miaowing and as a dog this universe experiences itself barking and so on). Thus this universe is not consciousness per se (nor capital ‘C’ Consciousness). RESPONDENT: If you take away that which perpetuates the split (everything that is mutually exclusive, which can only be ascribed to either spirit or matter), then everything is present here and now. I am not trying to make a theist out of you by this statement. But, I also understand that you are not a nihilistic, an existentialist. RICHARD: What I experience is neither ‘existentialistic’ (materialism) To be actualistic is to be living the infinitude of this fairy-tale-like actual world with its sensuous quality of magical perfection and purity: where everything and everyone has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, wondrous, scintillating vitality that makes everything alive and sparkling ... even the very earth beneath one’s feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper ... literally everything is as if it were alive (a rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are). This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence ... the actualness of everything and everyone. We do not live in an inert universe ... but one cannot experience this whilst clinging to immortality. I am mortal. RESPONDENT: For example, it is even a bit funny, but some time ago I became fascinated with some elusive bluish ‘aura’ about my hands. (I always wanted to see my aura because it was a measure of spiritual development, I thought. As is to develop strong, mesmerising ‘energy’). I felt very special until, after some time, I discovered that it is simply an optical illusion due to the fact that my skin is yellowish and the opposite colour of yellow in the spectrum is blue. An eye gets tired staring at an object and creates the illusion of the opposite colour just around any yellowish object! So much for my high spiritual advancement and aura seeing! RICHARD: Any spiritual advancement – with its associated manifestations of eldritch phenomenon –
are also a product of the psyche. But not all uncanny materialisations necessarily produces a change in consciousness but does
indicate that something is happening, something is stirring, deep down in one’s psyche. I had many bizarre things happen –
electrical bolts of lightning dazzling on my eyeballs; pressure-pains in the base of my neck; surges of power travelling up my
spine and up over the back and the top of my head down to the forehead; exalted states of consciousness; convulsive twitching of
limbs; energy surges from the pit of my stomach up through my diaphragm into the chest cavity through to the throat producing
intense nausea ... many, many weird things. None of them are important in themselves (some people get caught up in them and
manifest psychic powers, thus never proceeding to the final goal), what is important that one takes them as a sign that a process
is underway ... and to rev up the process with one’s active consent. The mark of success is to be willing to do whatever it
takes, to proceed with all dispatch, employing much vim and vigour ... and have a lot of fun along the way. RESPONDENT: There are no such God images here. RICHARD: We have been down this path before, you and I, and your denial rings as hollow now as then. And you have protested so, not only to me but to other posters. May I re-post an exchange you had with another poster last year wherein you describe your god (‘the other’) as being the ‘sacred’ that ‘calls to or silently contacts the ever-changing body/brain – the human being’? Vis.:
In other posts you have described ‘the other’ as being ‘Intelligence’ and it, too,
being ‘not touched by thought’ is also ‘sacred’. I can re-post them if it would help with an honest and
sincere discussion? RESPONDENT No. 20: Can I suggest to you my read on this: Krishnamurti the man’ is Krishnamurti who is memory, who was and is conditioned, who is thinking, and has this and this to say and has said, and all the rest of it. This otherness is what is there when there is not this conditioning. It is the intelligence that is free of conditioning, and therefore by definition not Krishnamurti What do you think? RESPONDENT: Don’t know. Know only what he said. He said he had ‘visitors’ (loosely stated). I take this to mean spirits. RICHARD: ‘Spirits’ is as good a word as any ... Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti would say that ‘They’ would ‘work on him’ whilst he was ‘away from the body’. Two women would be under strict instructions to ‘stay with the body while he was being worked on’. By ‘worked on’ he meant ‘purified’ ... and in another dimension. All very esoteric and metaphysical stuff indeed ... in the full mystical sense of the words. RESPONDENT: He also said he was free of conflict and unconditioned, so much so that he had to make himself remember to eat. RICHARD: Yes, he was very specific and clear about his state of being. Besides, if he was not living the ‘Teachings’ himself, who was he to preach to others? Unless he was channelling ... which is how modern day ‘seers’ get out of that dilemma. My position is – of course – that the ‘Teachings’ are unliveable ... and have been for century upon century. The ‘Tried and True’ is the ‘Tried and Failed’. RESPONDENT: He also said that the other came ‘uninvited’. I guess it’s not really important, for only he could know whether ‘something else’ was in him or not, and then he said he couldn’t know ‘what it was’, but that others (close to him) might figure it out if they put their minds to it. RICHARD: Except that if one brings the written words of those ‘close to him’ into a discussion on this List, one gets howled down. Speaking personally, I consider it is all of the utmost importance ... given that he has influenced so many people into thinking in a certain way (and still does so even today). RESPONDENT: So if he didn’t know, and we don’t know, I don’t guess anybody will ever know, except maybe for the ‘intelligence’. How’s that for knowing ‘not’? RICHARD: In Australia there is an apt expression: ‘squibbing’ ... which comes from the poor results experienced in a firecracker in which the powder burns with a fizz. Basically it means that the person so named is not applying themselves to the question or task at hand – deliberately – so as to not rock the boat. Would you say that that is a fair description of ‘how’s that for knowing ‘not’?’ * RESPONDENT: Is there spirit in these atoms? RICHARD: No. Spirit is a product of vivid imagination coupled with fervent belief. A will-o’-the wisp, as it were. RESPONDENT: What is the spirit? RICHARD: A product of vivid imagination coupled with fervent belief. A will-o’-the wisp, as it were. RESPONDENT: Is there spirit? RICHARD: Only in the grim and glum real world ‘reality’ and the loving and compassionate metaphysical world ‘Greater Reality’ ... there is no spirit here in actuality. RESPONDENT: Is there ‘memory’ in these atoms? RICHARD: It all depends upon what you mean by ‘memory’ ... atoms cannot remember their
childhood, for example. One needs to watch out for anthropomorphism in all these matters. * RESPONDENT No. 12: It is the claim that ‘the universe is experiencing itself as this flesh and blood body’ that smacks of self-aggrandisement. RICHARD: In what way? I make no claim to be ‘everything’ (aka ‘the otherness which is sacred, holy’). I am this flesh and blood body; I was born, I live for x-number of years, I die ... and death is the end, finish. Oblivion. I am mortal ... it is this universe which is immortal. RESPONDENT: There is a spirit that lives on after death that can effect actual events here on Earth. RICHARD: I have no use for such a hypothesis. RESPONDENT: Perhaps this spirit that lives on, lives in the cells that are passed from one generation to another and that accumulation of energy can effect events – I don’t know. RICHARD: What is passed on in the germ cells is deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), a self-replicating material in the chromosomes of living organisms, and is the carrier of genetic information ... this certainly affects events. RESPONDENT: When the flesh and blood body dies, does not that energy, which is never dying, revert to that from whence it came? RICHARD: As it is your hypothesis ... I will leave it to you to answer. RESPONDENT: In that sense, can the atoms and energy that are you now, and the stuff of which the universe is made, ever really be extinct? RICHARD: What I am is the air breathed, the water drunk, the food eaten and the sunlight absorbed ... thus I am nothing but ‘the stuff of which the universe is made’ (matter). The matter of the universe is both actual things (solid stuff) and active force (energetic stuff). The immeasurable amount of ‘stuff of the universe’ (either in its solid aspect or energetic phase) is perpetually arranging and rearranging itself in endless varieties of myriad form all over the boundless reaches of infinite space throughout the limitless extent of eternal time. This universe, being boundless and limitless (never beginning and never ending) is unborn and undying ... as I remarked (further above): it is this universe which is immortal. RESPONDENT: I watched a TV show about the origins of the humanoid. Scientists are saying that they can trace the origins of our being to a single female who lived in Africa over 3 million years ago. Do we not all have her living atoms in our bodies? RICHARD: All human beings stem from common ancestors ... archaeology and palaeontology is already pushing discovery of beginnings further back than the example you give here. I am following with interest the recent investigations into the life-forms in and around deep undersea volcanic vents and two miles deep in mine shafts ... they do not require photo-synthesis as does all other life-forms but are the result of chemo-synthesis. These are very early days in such research and speculation has it that this may be the origin of life ... self-generated out of the very bowels of the earth itself. RESPONDENT: And where did her atoms come from? The universe? RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: ‘I’ as an ego can die, but are not these living cells what we mean by ‘soul’? RICHARD: Living cells are not what I refer to when I say or write ‘‘me’ as soul’ ... I am referring to precisely what the religious, the spiritual, the mystical peoples are pointing to. RESPONDENT: I realize that your arguments make you an atheist which makes you all knowing – knowing that there is no ‘otherness’. RICHARD: It is my direct experience which produces atheism ... my ‘arguments’ are a story put together after the event, as it were, so as to describe my experience to my fellow human beings using their lingo. RESPONDENT: Who made you God to know it all? RICHARD: As it is your hypothesis ... I will leave it to you to answer. However, I am on record as oft-times saying that I am not an expert on everything – only on a freedom from the human condition – and any other knowledge that I have is what I call ‘encyclopaedic’ ... whatever is just enough information gleaned from other people’s explorations for me to get by on. RESPONDENT: That seems rather strange for a person whose belief in atheism holds that there is no ‘all knowing God’. RICHARD: But I have no ‘belief’ in atheism ... atheism is what is just here right now when one does not believe in gods and goddesses. Here is a useful working definition of what is actual (useful for a fledgling ex-believer): That which is actual is that which remains when one stops believing in it.
RETURN TO RICHARD’S SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved.
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