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Richard’s Selected Correspondence On Time: This Moment, Timelessness and Eternity
RESPONDENT: You say that ‘this moment’ has no duration, but what fraction of time does it take/ represent (e.g. milliseconds)? RICHARD: This (durationless) moment is eternal. RESPONDENT: It has always existed and it will always exist ... but my query was also in relation to its experiencing. I understand the word ‘moment’ in relation to time, which time is an actual occurrence. Given the fact that you have a certain radius of sensory perception, my question is: how do you experience ‘this moment’ in relation to the events happening around you? e.g. how many ‘this moment’ make the action ‘the cup of coffee next to your keyboard is falling and breaking’? Is this moment experienced as in a frame-by-frame (moment-to-moment) experiencing? The best approximation for me of what you want to convey by ‘this moment’ is a photograph. I agree that it captures the event, but it also captures the moment when that event takes place. RICHARD: All events happen in eternity ... this always existing (eternal) moment is the arena, so to speak, in which such things occur and time – as in past/ present/ future – is a way of measuring these occurrences. Presumably some pre-historical person/ persons noticed what the shadow of a stick standing perpendicular in the ground did such as to eventually lead to the sundial – a circular measure of the movement of a cast shadow arbitrarily divided into twelve sections because of a prevailing duo-decimal counting system – and then to water-clocks/ sand-clocks and thence to pendulum-clocks/ spring-clocks and thus to electrical-clocks/ electronic-clocks and, currently, energy-clocks (aka ‘atomic-clocks’) ... with all such measurement of movement being a measure of the earth’s rotation whilst in orbit around its radiant star. Put succinctly: it is not time itself (eternity) which moves but objects in (infinite) space. * RICHARD: Have you never noticed that it is never not this moment? RESPONDENT: Okay, I notice that ... and it’s fascinating. RICHARD: If I might suggest (before you go on with your ‘but’ immediately below)? Stay with that fascination and allow the marvelling, that it is never not this moment, to unfold in all its wonderment. RESPONDENT: But I’m wondering whether time can be experienced in a different manner by different people/animals. Bats, for example, see an action much slower then humans do. Also, in different emotional states time flows differently for me: when I’m annoyed waiting for someone time flows slower, when I’m excited/happy time goes faster then normal. RICHARD: Time itself – this eternal moment – does not flow (move) ... there is a vast stillness here in this actual world. RESPONDENT: We can talk about altered states of time then. What/who creates these altered states of time ... RICHARD: The identity within, of course (who is always out of time). RESPONDENT: ... and why are you so sure that ‘this moment’ is part and parcel of the physical universe properties? RICHARD: Where there is no identity the physical properties of the universe are startlingly apparent. And this is wonderful. RESPONDENT: Why is it that it cannot be measured (as in duration) and only experientially (which can be another name for subjectivity) understood? RICHARD: This (beginningless and endless) moment cannot be measured as measurement requires a reference point – a beginning and/or an ending – to measure against. Incidentally, where there is no identity (no subject) experiencing can never be subjective (as opposed to
objective). * RICHARD: (...) relative time does not exist in actuality. Time is absolute (as is space and matter). RESPONDENT: I need to mull over it. I have difficulty distinguishing between duration and time. I am not able to comprehend the concept of absolute time. RICHARD: Oh? Yet you are able to comprehend the concept of relative time? Put as simply as possible: in physics the term ‘absolute time’ (or ‘the absolute character of time’) is another way of saying ‘universal time’ (or ‘the universality of time’) ... meaning that it is not dependent upon the relative motion of the observer and the observed. Vis.: ‘relativity (physics): the dependence of observations on the relative motion of the observer and the observed object; the branch of physics that deals with the description of space and time allowing for this’. (Oxford Dictionary). I have oft-times said that the relativity theory might be better named the subjectivity theory. RESPONDENT: Well, I can understand absolute time as contrasted with relative time as described in physics/relativity theory. What I am not able to comprehend is durationless time, which is what I thought you referred to as absolute time. RICHARD: I did point out to you, in my initial response, that I was answering a hypothetical question about an instantaneous awareness seeing instantaneous relative time and space as being two unrelated characteristics of a mathematical model – which is what ‘physics/relativity theory’ is – of the universe. Vis.:
RESPONDENT: The statement that ‘this moment has no duration’ can also be found in St Augustine’s autobiography, as you are certainly aware. The meditation on time is a nice read, although the rest is the usual religious stuff, filled with virginity, sinning, repenting, grace, heaven and hell. RICHARD: Having never read anything by Mr. Aurelius Augustinus I did a little research: presuming that by autobiography you mean his book ‘The Confessions’, and further presuming that the passage you speak of is to be found in ‘Book XI’, nowhere could I find anything relating to what ‘this moment has no duration’ refers to ... to time itself (the arena, so to speak, in which objects move) being without any movement whatsoever. RESPONDENT: Sorry, I had forgotten the title when writing to you but assumed you knew it. ‘The Confessions’ are indeed his autobiography. I thought that your statement ‘this moment has no duration’ could be compared to Augustine’s, Confessions, book XI, chap. XV: ‘(...) If any portion of time be conceived which cannot now be divided into even the minutest particles of moments, this only is that which may be called present; which, however, flies so rapidly from future to past, that it cannot be extended by any delay. (...)’ [endquote]. I think ‘not extended by any delay’ and ‘no duration’ are rather similar. But if the word ‘moment’ in your sentence, contrary to what I presumed, doesn’t mean ‘this present moment’ but refers to ‘time itself (the arena, so to speak, in which objects move) being without any movement whatsoever’ then this sounds dangerously 4-dimensional to me. RICHARD: Have you not ever noticed that it is never not this moment? RESPONDENT: What other moment could it be except this one, always? RICHARD: Am I to take it that you are answering in the affirmative (that you have indeed noticed that it is never not this moment)? If so, what would make you think that my statement ‘this moment has no duration’ could be compared to what Mr. Aurelius Augustinus had to say about a conceptual [quote] ‘portion of time’ [endquote] which cannot be divided into even the minutest particles of [quote] ‘moments’ [endquote] and which portion of time only may be called [quote] ‘present’ [endquote] but which such a moment however [quote] ‘flies so rapidly from future to past’ [endquote] then? RESPONDENT: I have never been to the future, neither to the past, except when thinking about it. RICHARD: Are you referring to future and past events ... or future and past time? RESPONDENT: My girlfriend once remarked that even consciousness is a function of memory, given that it is always a quarter of a second late compared to the ‘actual’ time ‘outside’ of the nervous system. RICHARD: Given that your usage of [quote] ‘even’ [endquote] links your girlfriend’s remark to your previous sentence it is apposite to point out that, by observing that this moment has no duration, I am not referring to a function of memory ... on the contrary:
* RICHARD: If not, then are you aware that time as a measure of the sequence of events (as in past/present/future) is but a convention? RESPONDENT: Aware since high school physics class, yes; there, we were told that the concept of ‘entropy’ was introduced in order to show that this convention is ‘real’ and that time ‘has’ to have a direction. RICHARD: Am I to take it that you are really answering in the negative (else why add a negating codicil to what is otherwise an affirmative)? * RICHARD: To explain: presumably some pre-historical person/ persons noticed what the shadow of a stick standing perpendicular in the ground did such as to eventually lead to the sundial – a circular measure of the movement of a cast shadow arbitrarily divided into twelve sections because of a prevailing duo-decimal counting system – and then to water-clocks/ sand-clocks and thence to pendulum-clocks/ spring-clocks and thus to electrical-clocks/electronic-clocks and, currently, energy-clocks (aka ‘atomic-clocks’) ... with all such measurement of movement being a measure of the earth’s rotation whilst in orbit around its radiant star. Put succinctly: it is not time itself (eternity) that moves ... it is objects existing in (infinite) space which do. RESPONDENT: To make sure I understand you correctly: Are you saying that time is a measure of change – no change (movement), no time? RICHARD: No, I am saying that it is conventional time – time as a measure of the sequence of events (as in past/ present/ future) – which has no existence in actuality; time itself (eternity), just like space (infinity), most certainly exists. There is a vast stillness here. RICHARD: This [what Richard reports/ describes/ explains in explicit detail] has nothing to do with having strings attached (as in rigid interpretations/ beliefs) let alone developing an open mind/a real tolerance: as evidenced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) there is no deity/are no deities in actuality ... whatever interpretations/beliefs one may have held about such are rendered null and void in an instant. RESPONDENT: I would agree that there are no deities in actuality. There is the eternal stillness. The only absolute. Richard just chooses to not speak of it as the divine. He dances around it with euphemisms. And probably rightly so. To put a limit on the ‘limitless’ is unthinkable. RICHARD: By my count it took 11 e-mails for you to unambiguously lay your cards on the table – your second e-mail (wherein you referred to the intelligence which you presuppose moves this flesh and blood body) was arguably a trifle ambiguous – but even so it is never too late to engage in a genuine dialogue. Unless, of course, you really meant it when you hypothesised about walking away from The Actual Freedom Trust web site with no interest (had it not been for a at-first-glance similarity between what Ms. Bernadette Roberts, and the others of similar ilk you referred to previously, speaks of and an actual freedom from the human condition)? It is your call. * RESPONDENT: ‘Stillness’ – is it a lack of noise or lack of movement or what? RICHARD: It is a lack of movement [of time itself]. RESPONDENT: From your description of stillness as a lack of movement I am making the assumption that it is the ‘eye’ that is the organ of perception that apprehends this stillness. Does that mean that a blind person is forever locked out of knowing/seeing this ‘stillness’? RICHARD: All identities are forever locked out of actuality ... not just those inhabiting a blind (physically sightless) body. RESPONDENT: You also seem to be saying that this stillness somehow has the qualities of eternity and timelessness. RICHARD: I am not saying that the lack of movement of time itself (aka durationless time/ eternal time/ beginningless and endless time) – as contrasted to time as a measure of the sequence of events (as in past/present/future) – has the quality of timelessness. RESPONDENT: It [this stillness] ‘is’ the eternal now. RICHARD: No ... the stillness of time itself is not the [quote] ‘eternal now’ [endquote] of religio-spiritual/ mystico-metaphysical lore. RESPONDENT: The only moment there ever is. RICHARD: This moment is the only moment there ever is. RESPONDENT: It is infinite. RICHARD: It is space which is infinite ... time is eternal (and matter is perdurable). RESPONDENT: And I suppose it has other unique qualities that this relative mind (me) cannot imagine. RICHARD: The stillness of time itself is absolute. RESPONDENT: Therefore I am jumping to the conclusion that the stillness is not another object of consciousness like a bird or a plane. RICHARD: The stillness of time itself is ascertained apperceptively (unmediated perception). RESPONDENT: And that the stillness is an essential aspect of the world you inhabit. RICHARD: The stillness of time itself, being a property of that arena (so to speak) in which events occur, is an essential property of this actual world ... the world of this body and that body and every 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 and so on ad infinitum. RESPONDENT: Correct me if I am wrong, but do you claim that you (Richard) are the first person, and possibly the only person to have ‘seen’ the stillness? RICHARD: No ... the stillness of time itself has been experienced by countless peoples during pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s). RESPONDENT: That this ineffable state of purity and perfection is yours alone. RICHARD: The pristine purity and peerless perfection of this actual world is neither ineffable nor mine ... it is readily describable and each and every body already lives in it. RESPONDENT: That the universe waited all this time to reveal itself? RICHARD: The purity and perfection of the infinitude Have you never noticed it is never not this moment? RESPONDENT No. 49: Mass tells space to curve such that a time dilation results as does a gravitational field. Black holes produce ‘currents’ that change the course of light which of course is proof of the mass properties of what scientists call ‘photons’. If all things are relative including time, then does an instantaneous awareness only sense an instantaneous space and time? RICHARD: As time is not relative – except in the mathematical models theoretical physicists posit (in lieu of direct experience) – your query has no substance in actuality. RESPONDENT No. 49: In other words, would you see space and time as two unrelated characteristics? RICHARD: Time and space (and matter) are seamless. RESPONDENT: May be I am not getting your meaning of ‘seamless’, but to me your answer seems to indicate existence of time in actuality. RICHARD: Aye ... time is actual – as is space and matter (mass/energy) – and I am using the word in its ‘without a seam or seams’ (Oxford Dictionary) meaning. Put simply: as there cannot be time without space (and matter), and vice versa, they are indeed related (if that is the right word to use to describe that which is inseparable in the first place). RESPONDENT: As I understand the answer to this question (of Respondent No. 49) should be ‘Time doesn’t exist in actuality’. RICHARD: As my answer to ‘this question Time is absolute (as is space and matter). * RESPONDENT: I need to mull over it. I have difficulty distinguishing between duration and time. I am not able to comprehend the concept of absolute time. RICHARD: Oh? Yet you are able to comprehend the concept of relative time? Put as simply as possible: in physics the term ‘absolute time’ (or ‘the absolute character of time’) is another way of saying ‘universal time’ (or ‘the universality of time’) ... meaning that it is not dependent upon the relative motion of the observer and the observed. Vis.:
I have oft-times said that the relativity theory might be better named the subjectivity theory. RESPONDENT: Well, I can understand absolute time as contrasted with relative time as described in physics/relativity theory. What I am not able to comprehend is durationless time, which is what I thought you referred to as absolute time. RICHARD: I did point out to you, in my initial response, that I was answering a hypothetical question about an instantaneous awareness seeing instantaneous relative time and space as being two unrelated characteristics of a mathematical model – which is what ‘physics/relativity theory’ is – of the universe. Vis.:
* RESPONDENT: This (that time doesn’t exist in actuality) occurred to me while reading another mail of yours to Respondent No. 25. RICHARD: What I am saying, in the e-mail you are referring to, is that time itself (as in durationless time/ eternal time/ beginningless and endless time) – as contrasted to time as a measure of the sequence of events (as in past/ present/ future) – does not move/ flow but that it is objects in (infinite) space which do. [Editor’s Note: time itself, as is readily apparent in the actual world, is the arena (so to speak) in which events occur/in which matter permutates]. I am aware that my words are being hijacked, as it were, by an identity – and thus turned into concepts – forever locked-out of time and accordingly draw a distinction between what the word ‘time’ refers to in the real world (a flow or a movement of the arena, so to speak, in which events occur) and what is actually happening (it is never not this moment) as a prompt for direct experience (there is a vast stillness here). Put succinctly: the moment (this moment) in which event ‘A’ happens is the exact same moment (this moment) in which event ‘B’ happens ... it is only the events which change/move/flow and not the moment itself (eternity). Have you never noticed it is never not this moment? RESPONDENT: Yes I have noticed it, but ... RICHARD: If I might suggest (before you go on with your ‘but’)? Should the occasion arise that you were to again notice it then stay with that noticing so as to allow the marvelling, that it is never not this moment, to unfold in all its wonderment. RESPONDENT: Yes, I will try to do it, but I think it is important for me first to understand what is meant by ‘it is never not this moment’, and as you see below, my understanding is quite different than what you mean. RICHARD: Perhaps a simple demonstration will convey what a thousand words may not: presuming that you are seated at a computer screen situated against a wall in a room ... if you were to turn around, stand up, and look at the opposite wall whilst contemplating bodily moving to there and viewing the computer screen from that position such an event (standing with your back to the opposite wall) would be properly called a future event would it not? Now commence moving towards that (opposite) wall: at the first step ask yourself what time and what place it is ... and do so again at each subsequent step. On each occasion it will be seen that you are just here, at this location, right now, at this moment, all the while you are (supposedly) moving into your future (standing with your back to the opposite wall and viewing the computer screen from that position) ... and I have written about this before:
* RESPONDENT: ... [but] what I am not able to understand is what you wrote just before it. For me, the moment in which event ‘A’ happens is a different ‘this moment’ than the one in which event ‘B’ happens. RICHARD: Are you so sure, upon reflection, that both the event (event ‘A’) and the moment (this moment) are, in fact, different from both the event (event ‘B’) and the moment (this moment) in which that other event happens ... or is it only the events which are different? In other words what is it about this moment (the moment in which event ‘A’ happens) which makes it indeed different from this moment (the moment in which event ‘B’ happens) if it is not only the event which changes? RESPONDENT: Yes, I can see that it is only the event which changes. But I can’t see the moment separate from the event. RICHARD: As you are, presumably, once again seated at your computer screen – after your brief foray into your future (at the opposite wall) – are you now able to see, experientially, that it is only the events which are different? RESPONDENT: And that is why my original impression of this thread was that the time itself doesn’t exist in actuality. RICHARD: Time itself (as in durationless time/ eternal time/ beginningless and endless time) does indeed exist in actuality: time as a measure of the sequence of events (as in past/ present/ future) is but a convention. Presumably some pre-historical person/persons noticed what the shadow of a stick standing perpendicular in the ground did such as to eventually lead to the sundial – a circular measure of the movement of a cast shadow arbitrarily divided into twelve sections because of a prevailing duo-decimal counting system – and then to water-clocks/sand-clocks and thence to pendulum-clocks/spring-clocks and thus to electrical-clocks/ electronic-clocks and, currently, energy-clocks (aka ‘atomic-clocks’) ... with all such measurement of movement being a measure of the earth’s rotation whilst in orbit around its radiant star. Put succinctly: it is not time itself (eternity) which moves but objects in (infinite) space. * RESPONDENT: In other words even though it is always ‘this moment’, each ‘this moment’ is different from the other. RICHARD: If, for you, this moment is indeed different from the other – from any other moment – then it is not ‘always’ this moment after all (for you) as what you are saying, in effect, is that it is always this (different) moment ... which is but another way of saying ‘this ever-changing moment’. Yet it is what happens in this moment which is always different (ever-changing) is it not? RESPONDENT: As I have written above, I am not able to see ‘this moment’ separate from the event. For me each moment is different because of the events attached with it. RICHARD: And, as the events are always changing (nothing is ever exactly the same twice), then this moment is (erroneously) taken to be ever-changing right along with them, eh? Is it not cute that what certain peoples have been searching for over millennia – that which is permanent
– has been just under their noses, as it were, all along? RICHARD: It would seem that the jury is still out on this – and other – matters. RESPONDENT: Yes. At least some of the ‘jury’ is still out – others have returned, and they are contradicting each other :o) RICHARD: Aye ... and, presumably, on and on it will go (we could post URL’s to each other until the cows come home and still the matter would be not settled either way). RESPONDENT: Possibly – or possibly it might get settled by looking further at the evidence. One doesn’t know until it is examined. RICHARD: The ... um ... ‘the evidence’ in this particular instance is what Mr. Tom Van Flandern has to say (and not ‘the evidence’ regarding a magazine columnist) ... and what I found interesting was that he says Lorentzian relativity (where velocity is subsumed under time and space, in contrast to Einsteinian relativity subsuming time and space under velocity), is not only the more simple *theory* to represent the process the GPS operates by – and not only for pragmatic reasons – but is of major importance for the future of physics. Some years ago, whilst in a government office for bureaucratic reasons, I noticed a rather droll sign (which
could very well have been a bumper sticker) propped up on a nearby clerk’s desk which asked what would happen if one were to
switch on the headlights in a space-ship travelling at the speed of light. * RESPONDENT: I find ‘Lorentizian relativity’ interesting too – as the concept is new to me. RICHARD: May I ask what it is that you find interesting about what Mr. Tom Van Flandern has to say about Lorentzian relativity? The reason I ask is because, being but a lay-person, I cannot mathematically know whether Mr. Clifford Will is right, in regards Einsteinian relativity being the better model for the GPS, or whether Mr. Tom Van Flandern is right, in regards Lorentzian relativity being the better model for the GPS, and, apart from drawing attention to the fact that there are (at least) two models being proposed, I am suggesting it is important to remember they are both models (just as the various theories regarding the sub-atomic postulates of quantum theory, for example, also are). What is actually happening to the rubidium and caesium in the clocks on board the satellites – why such highly reactive chemical elements ‘tick’ faster than when on earth in a stronger gravitational field – may very well be entirely something else, of course, as mathematical models are only models ... could it be that the measure of time (the rubidium and caesium in this instance) is what is ‘ticking’ faster and not time itself advancing more quickly? I only mention this because this moment has no duration here in this actual world. RESPONDENT: Again, I have not yet made up my mind on it though – and from what I can tell – it may take quite a while on this one. RICHARD: Okay ... the reason why I linked what I found interesting in what Mr. Tom Van Flandern has to say about Lorentzian relativity with a rather droll sign (which asked what would happen if one were to switch on the headlights in a space-ship travelling at the speed of light) that I noticed propped up on a nearby clerk’s desk, whilst in a government office for bureaucratic reasons some years ago, could be put like this:
I ask this because, according to Einsteinian relativity (in direct contrast to Lorentzian relativity), the
force of the impact would only be the same as a .96c collision with a stationary object. RESPONDENT: What is time? RICHARD: Time cannot be described in isolation as time and space and form are seamless in that they do not and cannot operate as separate or disparate units. Time and space and form are material inasmuch that they are actually existing and form can be material in its specific meaning as actual things (solid stuff) or active force (energetic stuff). Therefore time can be portrayed as the measure of the movement of form in space and the periodicity of its rearrangement; space is an arena in which form can exist, move and rearrange itself endlessly; form is matter (either in its solid aspect or energetic phase) occupying space (which is infinite) and taking time (which is eternal) to reconfigure itself (which is perpetual). The properties of eternal time and infinite space designate a vast and utter stillness and the properties of perpetual form designate liveliness; a scintillating, sparkling vitality. In a word: infinitude. When one directly ascertains (apperceptive awareness) the properties of infinitude (infinite and eternal and perpetual) the qualities of the property of infinitude become apparent (infinitude has no opposite): pristine and consummate and impeccable. These non-dual qualities are the source of the values of infinitude (benevolent and benign and blithe). RESPONDENT: Is PCE the absolute in your world view? RICHARD: ‘Tis the ultimate experience possible. RESPONDENT: Is there an absolute? RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: What is it? RICHARD: This boundless and limitless actual universe, being beginningless and endless (unborn and undying) is absolute. Apperception (selfless awareness) is an unmediated perspicacity wherein one is this universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being; as such the universe is aware of its own infinitude. It is one’s destiny to be living the utter peace of the perfection of the purity welling endlessly as the
infinitude this eternal, infinite and perpetual universe actually is. RESPONDENT: (snip) ... The inner world lives in universal present time, The outer world is structured progressively in past time. RICHARD: What happens to ‘universal present time’ when the ‘inner world’ ceases to exist? RESPONDENT: Interesting question. RICHARD: It is indeed ... so what happens to ‘universal present time’ when the ‘inner world’ ceases to exist, then? RESPONDENT: Reading the response ‘As I understand it they (thoughts) are an electro-chemical activity in the neurons of the brain’ manifests a different perspective on the question. RICHARD: If I may point out? It was you that introduced the ‘different perspective’ of thought into the question and not me ... I merely answered the query you asked (which query you asked in lieu of answering my question). Vis.:
How you conduct your communications is your business of course ... but it has had the effect of unnecessarily making complex an otherwise simple issue (as evidenced below). RESPONDENT: Would we agree that the ‘inner world’ as described in the offering would be the equivalent to electro-chemical activity in the neurons of the brain? RICHARD: Not if you are going to confine a definition of the ‘inner world’ to thought alone ... the inner world is, primarily, affective in origin (propagated by a rudimentary animal ‘self’ born of the instinctual passions, such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire, located in the brain-stem at the top of the spinal cord). Thought merely aids and abets by putting the intuitive ‘inner world’ into word pictures. RESPONDENT: In other words, universal present time (the collapse of a unified and ceaselessly changing historical timeline <behaviour> into a isolated things/events that persist in ‘present time’) is the result of brain process? RICHARD: What ‘unified and ceaselessly changing historical timeline <behaviour>’ are you referring to? Without duality there is nothing to be ‘unified’. RESPONDENT: Perhaps the following example might aid the discussion. One might have a favourite ‘football team’. One may root for the team, hold the team dear, buy the assorted icons and emblems of the particular team. It has been observed that this admiration of the ‘team’ may be sustained over a period of years, sometimes from childhood through adulthood. Ask ‘what is your favourite team?’ and the response will be ‘X-team’. The same question might be asked two football seasons later, and the response will be ‘X-team’. Over the interceding 2 football seasons, the entire personnel of ‘X-team’ may have been replaced, X-team may have completely new uniforms, perhaps a new stadium, and certainly the plays in X-team’s playbook have been complete modified and revised. In other words, everything that was ‘X-team’ has completely changed, yet the admiration of X-team persists (this admiration being of a thing/ event that persist in ‘present time’ and is probably thought to be the agent of the changes that have taken place, or at the least, the independently existing entity on to which the changes have been foisted). Factually, there was never any unique ‘X-team’ that could change. There was no X-team that could do this or that, change or stay the same. Most accurately, the universal present time ‘isolated thing’ (X-team) is a collapse of what is actually a unified and ceaselessly changing behaviour. RICHARD: Here again, without negating any value in your analogy, you do seem to be taking as granted that there is indeed a ‘unified and ceaselessly changing behaviour’ of a sufficiently enduring facticity such as to provide a firm basis for discussion. My initial question would then need to be re-arranged as follows:
RESPONDENT: This same principle can be applied to any thing/ event (nation, body, ego, soul, psyche, race, planet, universe, etc.) and the same conclusion will be produced. RICHARD: Only if your ‘unified’ principle be taken as fact ... as I have remarked, in the previous post, without ‘duality’ (as in an ‘inner world’ and an ‘outer world’) there is no need for ‘underlying unities’ RESPONDENT: If this collapse is to be attributed to brain process, then, it seems reasonable to surmise, when brain function stops (or when the particular brain function that results in the collapse stops), all isolated thing/ events also cease to exist. RICHARD: Howsoever the question was not about what happens to ‘isolated thing/ events’ but about what happens to ‘universal present time’ upon the ‘inner world’ ceasing. Vis.:
You have introduced a ‘unified and ceaselessly changing behaviour’ in lieu (or in addition to) ‘universal present time’ ... I asked about ‘universal present time’ because the ‘inner world’ creates the ‘outer word’ ... it is an imposition, as a veneer, superimposed over the physical world of people, things and events. Perhaps if I put it this way: palaeontology evidences that this planet earth existed long before human beings ... therefore physical world time (actual time) pre-exists both your ‘inner word’ time (‘universal present time’ ) and your ‘outer world’ time (‘past time’ ). Here is your original statement (from the top of this page):
Hence my initial question about what happens to ‘universal present time’ when the ‘inner world’ ceases to exist ... I could have as easily queried what happens to your ‘outer world’ time (‘past time’) when the ‘inner word’ ceases to exist. Actual time exists independent of any ‘inner word’ time or ‘outer world’ time. RESPONDENT: You jabber. You cannot talk straight and to the point let alone think coherently. RICHARD: May I take this opportunity to demonstrate something? First something Richard wrote yesterday ... followed by something you wrote today. Shall we see just who jabbers? Shall we see just who cannot talk straight? Shall we see just who is to the point? Shall we see just who can think coherently? Vis.:
Now, as you state that both time and space are an illusion, then when you make an illusionary appointment for
a doctor/patient consultation and you get out of your car and walk through an illusionary car-park to enter your illusionary
spacious consulting room to meet this patient at this illusionary time ... just what are you doing? Whereas I say that all this is
actually happening. Then you rattle on about ‘timelessness’ and ‘spacelessness’ – which is to be talking about
nothing – as if it means something profoundly real. Whereas I say there is only unlimited time and boundless space ... and
nothing else. Who did you say is jabbering? Who did you say is not talking straight? Who did you say is not to the point? Who did
you say cannot think clearly? * RESPONDENT: I say that you cannot think clearly. Unlimited time and boundless space – what are these? RICHARD: The infinitude of the very material universe, that is what. RESPONDENT: Time and space are perceivable and have measurable limits and boundaries. RICHARD: Oh? Pray tell me then, as you have perceived and measured both time and space, just how big the universe is ... and how long it has been here and how much longer will it be? Also, just where do you perceive the boundaries of the universe’s space are located ... and what lies beyond it? And just when do you perceive that the limits of the universe’s time are located ... and what was here when it was not? And please, do not tell me ‘nothing’ is or was – which is what you did before when you were rattling on about ‘timelessness’ and ‘spacelessness’ – as if it means something profoundly real. You cannot conceive of a ‘nothing’ unless you acknowledge the actuality of a ‘something’ first to contrast it against ... and you say that the ‘something’ – time and space – are an illusion. And last, but not least, how do you perceive and measure the limits and boundaries of an illusion? Who did you say cannot think clearly? RESPONDENT: Time is a discrete thing like money. To speak of time that has no limit is like telling your bank manager that you want to write out a check for a countless amount of money. RICHARD: Aye ... that is why being here now at this moment in eternal time is to be living a largesse that is impossible to believe. An actual freedom is unimaginable ... it has to be lived to be comprehended. It is temporarily experienced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) however ... which everybody has had at least once in their life. RESPONDENT: Space and time, like the self, are illusions – not your idea of illusion, nor the idea of spiritualists who profess understanding of what the Buddha or Krishnamurti meant by illusion. RICHARD: Let me see if I have got this straight ... space and time, self and body are all illusions, right? (You have told me previously that the body is an illusion. Vis.:
No space means that there are not only no bodies ... but no vegetation or minerals either. Obviously, there are no planets, no suns ... and no universe at all. Now, no time means that nothing is happening, has ever happened or ever will happen. Finally, no self and no body means nothing at all exists ... not mentally, not emotionally, not psychologically, not psychically, not mystically ... nothing at all. When all that is taken away then what you are left with is zilch. Am I understanding you correctly? RESPONDENT: Your understanding of life is non-existent. RICHARD: It would appear, from what you have just written above, that for you everything is
non-existent ... which must include Richard and his understanding. So why are you blathering on about me for ... do you not heed
your own wisdom? Richard – and these words you are reading – are but an illusion ... why are you arguing with an illusion? You
are talking to an echo ... an echo ... an echo. * RESPONDENT: I still say you cannot think clearly. What you have adopted as the actual universe is the product of the scientist’s speculation. RICHARD: Not so ... most of the scientific speculation these days is about a universe (with boundaries) expanding out of a ‘Big Bang’ some twelve to fifteen billion years ago. Before that, they theorise, time and space either did not exist or were contained in a particle so dense that it had to expand. They hypothesise that this expansion will go on for another ten to fourteen billion years and then there will be a ‘Big Crunch’. They think that this mathematically derived cosmogony is cosmology ... such is their religious-like faith in ‘The Truth’ of mathematics. (Indeed I watched one world-renowned mathematician solemnly saying to the television cameras that ‘God must be a mathematician’ ... it is a wonder that he and his wheelchair were not zapped on the spot with a bolt from above!). RESPONDENT: Ten feet is a fact, ten light-years is pure fiction. Ten hours is a long wait, ten thousand generations is ideation. RICHARD: Who are you criticising ... it was you who said ‘time and space are perceivable and have
measurable limits and boundaries’ and not me? Are you so desperate for idiots to pounce upon that you are now reduced to
finding fault with your own statements? RESPONDENT: You are sprouting images again, Richard: ‘I take it for granted that when I wake up the following morning it will be the same perfection ... day after day ... after day after day’. RICHARD: No ... it is no image, it actually happens ... day after day ... after day after day. As this has been my on-going experiencing each moment again for years and years now ... why would I not expect otherwise? Plus I know what ‘I’ did to be here now and I know why I am here, now ... thus I can rightfully take it for granted that I will be experiencing this on-going peace-on-earth when I wake up tomorrow morning. Besides, if it were but an image then I would wake up in the pits, would I not? RESPONDENT: May I suggest, that if you are experiencing peace but find that psychological time is still ticking then you are simply experiencing the magical power of thought and nothing more. RICHARD: What ‘psychological time’ are you talking of? This is actual time that I am living in ... when I wake up in the morning I wake up in actual time. The clock ‘ticks’ the actual time (in arbitrary human measurement) as evidenced in the sun moving through the sky. RESPONDENT: Sir, wake up. RICHARD: No ... to ‘wake up’ in a dream is to be but lucidly dreaming. Only psychological and psychic self-immolation will enable the already always existing peace-on-earth to become apparent. RESPONDENT: Either of us may not wake up tomorrow. RICHARD: Then none of this would matter ... death is the end. Finish. RESPONDENT: Which would be perfection without the name, would it not? RICHARD: No ... those who are left alive will get on with the business of living. And someone,
somewhere, will respond to the challenge of being here now as the universe’s experience of itself. You and I are not the only
fish in the ocean ... this universe has all of time and all of space to manifest itself as the living (carbon-based life-form)
perfection that it is. RESPONDENT: In regard to the term universe in your glossary: ‘The universe, all existing matter, space, and other phenomena regarded collectively and especially as constituting a systematic or ordered whole’. RICHARD: In the glossary on the Actual Freedom Web Page, each article is headed with a selected dictionary definition as an established starting point – this sentence you have quoted is word for word from the Oxford Dictionary – and the text following it, written by Peter, expands upon the standard meaning insofar as it relates to actualism. RESPONDENT: 1) In your previous writings you state that the universe is both infinite and eternal. On what do you base that? 2) In one of your definitions of universe (sorry I can’t find the exact source) you include time as another component of the universe. If the universe has no beginning or end, how does the time element fit in? Is it the objects that are ‘timed’, you mention an endless recombining or recycling or reworking of matter? The universe seems to produce increasingly complex and conscious entities, at least on our planet. What accounts for this seeming evolution? 3) What is space? If the universe is material is space a form of matter? RICHARD: First of all, it is physically impossible to empirically establish the extended attributes of space, time and form ... one cannot, ever, hop into some ultra high speed spacecraft and travel to some ‘where’ or ‘when’ or ‘that’ and show or demonstrate or exhibit the universe’s ultimate properties. For those who propose a caused universe: no one has journeyed to where they can witness such a creation of material ex nihilo. For those who propose a temporary universe: no one has travelled to when that limited time began. For those who propose a finite universe: no one has voyaged to the edge of that bounded universe. Similarly, if one could roam forever throughout the physical infinitude of immeasurable matter perpetually arranging and rearranging itself in endless varieties of form all over the boundless reaches of infinite space throughout the limitless extent of eternal time ... one would never ‘prove’ anything. Apart from the current passionate preoccupation by academia with Quantum Theory (which gets ever more frantic due to the mathematicians who, having taken over physics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, are bemiring themselves more and more in their futile efforts to prove their god to be a mathematician) modern astronomy is showing the universe to be immensely vast. For example, in 1986 a huge conglomerations of galaxies that are 1,000,000,000 light years long, 300,000,000 light years wide and 100,000,000 light years thick were found (which finding was confirmed in 1990). This ‘wall of galaxies’, as it became known, would have taken 100,000,000,000 years to form under the workings of the ‘Big Bang’ theory ... which makes the mathematically estimated ‘age’ of the universe – 12 to 14 billion years – simply look sillier than it already did. Obviously then, the entire question revolves around sensible subjective experience ... and I always plunk for a rational or reasonable – the judicious – approach from the word go. I tend to define ‘the universe’ (actuality) as time and space and form mainly because the mystics define ‘The Unknowable’ (Reality) as Timeless and Spaceless and Formless. I say unambiguously and definitively that time is actual, that space is actual, and that form is actual; the mystics state that time is a dream, an illusion or only apparently so, that space is a dream, an illusion or only apparently so, and that form is a dream, an illusion or only apparently so. I say unambiguously and definitively that the Timeless is an illusion, a delusion, or an hallucination, that the Spaceless is an illusion, a delusion, or an hallucination, and that the Formless is an illusion, a delusion, or an hallucination; the mystics state that the Timeless is the only Reality, the Truth, or God, that the Spaceless is the only Reality, the Truth, or God, and the Formless is the only Reality, the Truth, or God. Thus actualism is diametrically opposite or 180 degrees in the other direction to mysticism. Actualism:
Mysticism:
1. The third question first: All time and space and form are physical as opposed to the Timeless and Spaceless and Formless being metaphysical. That is, time and space and form are material inasmuch as material means physical (corporeal), or substance (existing), or concrete (tangible), or objective (perceptible), or substantial (palpable) ... in a word: actual. Therefore the words material and form are interchangeable words given that I am mainly directing my discussions in relation to the claims of religiosity, spirituality, mysticality and metaphysicality wherein time and space and form have no inherent existence. The properties of time and space are that they are material (actually existing) and the property of form is that it is material (matter) in its specific meaning as actual things (solid stuff) or active force (energetic stuff). Which means that time is the measure of the movement of form through space and the periodicity of its rearrangement; space is an arena in which form can exist, move and rearrange itself endlessly; form is matter (either in its solid aspect or energetic phase) occupying space and taking time to reconfigure itself perpetually. The properties of time and space designate a vast and utter stillness and the properties of form specify liveliness; a scintillating, sparkling vitality. Needless to say, time and space and form are seamless in that they do not and cannot operate as separate or disparate units. 2. In regard to the first question: I primarily base the infinity, eternity and perpetuity (collectively known as infinitude) of the universe on my direct experience of the actual, of course, but that is of little use to another person who is not living in this actual world or not currently having a pure consciousness experience (PCE). Therefore, one initially needs to approach the question rationally – through inductive and/or deductive reasoning – so as to dispel the oh-so-persistent feeling of finiteness, temporariness and transitoriness which the psychological and psychic entity manifests over the actual (the centre in consciousness creates the boundary in awareness) thus producing everyday reality’s spatial, temporal and material finiteness. Intellectual rationale:
Experiential disorientation:
Apperceptive awareness:
Apperception – a way of seeing that is arrived at by reflective and fascinating contemplative thought – is when ‘I’ cease thinking and thinking takes place of its own accord ... and ‘me’ disappears along with all the feelings. Such a mind, being free of the thinker and the feeler – ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul – is capable of immense clarity and purity ... and one is this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe experiencing itself as an apperceptive human being; as such the universe is aware of its own infinitude. One is living the utter peace of the perfection of the purity welling endlessly as the infinitude this universe actually is. And at 33 years of age I had a four hour PCE wherein the direct experience of infinitude provided the actual knowing I had desired from childhood ... and I wanted this actuality twenty four hours of the day. Consequently – after an eleven year interlude in an altered state of consciousness wherein God aka Truth arrogated the universe’s infinitude – I entered into the actual world at age 45 and have directly known ever since, each moment again, infinitude as an actually. It is ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ who creates the impression of ‘finite’, ‘duration’ and ‘transience’ ... and then challenges others to prove them wrong. There is no such thing as a physically finite, timed and depletable universe; it is ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ who creates this impression with ‘my’ instinct-driven feelings which cripple an otherwise intelligent mind ... ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ can only think in terms of duality. To think logically is to think in terms of opposites ... and logic is limited inasmuch as it cannot encompass infinitude (infinitude has no duality). When a person says that all of time, all of space and all of form are relative, then any absolute posited must needs be not only ‘no time’, ‘no space’ and ‘no form’ (the unknown negative of the known positive) but also include or enclose all of time, all of space and all of form ‘within it’, so to speak, in order to be the ‘Absolute’ (thus more than a mere negative). Therefore, starting from the known, through some sleight of hand (sleight of mind) the unknown assumes greater importance and, for some people at least, the known is diminished to the point of being seen as an illusion (a spurning not unlike the ‘biting the hand that feeds you’ exercise). Is it that if one can somehow comprehend how a negative can come to both include and surpass the positive that spawns it (perhaps with the logical copula breathlessly gripping the steering wheel) then one is a pundit! When it comes to comprehending infinitude, logic falls flat on its face ... as infinitude has no opposite there is no comparison to enable logic’s seductive ways. Thus, logically, the known is relegated to being the negative (by categorising it as ‘relative’) and the unknown is boosted to being the positive (by categorising it as ‘absolute’) in a process of narcissistic self-aggrandisement (identifying as being the ‘Absolute’). It is the instinctual desire for immortality that fuels punditry. Therefore, it is up to those who propose an edge, a boundary, a beginning, a duration, an ending, a depletion to demonstrate the veracity of their belief. Until then, the universe will go on being what it is: a boundless, limitless, immeasurable infinitude. For those people who attempt to disallow this actual knowing on the grounds of subjectivity I can only say that their knowing is not only subjective as well but a self-centred subjectivity into the bargain. Furthermore, they need to satisfactorily explain why they are unnecessarily complicating what is actually a simple issue: they need to satisfactorily explain why they are positing a finite space ... and where it came from and out of what and how and why; they need to satisfactorily explain why they are positing a limited time ... and when it came and from what and how and why; they need to satisfactorily explain why they are positing depletable form ... and where it came from and out of what and how and why. They also need to satisfactorily explain how they can posit a timeless and empty nothingness ... because one cannot conceive of a ‘nothing’ unless one acknowledges the actuality of a ‘something’ first to contrast it against (and they say that the ‘something’ – time and space and form – are a dream, an illusion or only apparently so). 3. The second question: the universe per se, being infinite, eternal and perpetual is not evolving (infinitude, having no opposite, is perfect). But this particular aspect called the solar system (which is but a current phase in a cycle of perpetual cycles) is evolving carbon-based life-forms. As matter perpetually arranges and rearranges itself (through all eternity and throughout infinity) there are innumerable cycles with countless variety of existence. This current configuration of matter known as planet earth is the first and last time that this particular arrangement will happen (nothing is ever the same twice). Whatever has happened prior to this solar system and this planet becoming habitable to carbon-based life-forms known as human beings, being no longer existent, is simply extinct. Oblivion. When this solar system’s specific composition ends then everything experienced and known to human beings so far will be obliterated as before. Needless to say, the passage of time (past, present, future) is a localised phenomenon: only this moment in eternal time actually exists ... just as only this configuration in perpetuity actually exists here at this place in infinite space. Time has no duration when the immediate is the ultimate and when the relative is the absolute. This moment takes no interval at all to be here: as this form this happening is already always occurring now. Thus it is as if nothing has occurred – nor will occur – for not only is the future not here, but the past does not exist either. If there is no beginning and no end there is no middle: there are things happening, but nothing may well have happened or will happen ... in actuality. Only this moment and this place and this form actually exists right here just now. To summarise:
Thus, just as we humans living on this planet are moving from nowhere to anywhere in infinite space as this form, so too are we coming from nowhen and proceeding to anywhen in time as this form. As it is any measurement that is relative and not the substance of space and time and form, consequently, when ‘I’ and/or ‘me’, the psychological and/or psychic entity called the ‘self’ or the ontological and/or autological ‘Self’, disappears as a measurer (a reference point), measurement ceases to be a reality and the actual becomes apparent. Then, and only then, is one being alive here as an actuality at this place in infinite space and living now as an actuality at this moment in eternal time as an actuality as this particular arrangement of the perpetuity of form. Then one directly ascertains the properties of infinitude: infinite and eternal and perpetual ... and the qualities of infinitude (derived from the properties): pristine and consummate and impeccable ... and the values of infinitude (derived from the qualities): benevolent and benign and blithe. Being alive is ambrosial, to say the least. RESPONDENT No. 45: But it seems inconceivable the rising of this universe by itself, without something behind, and the own matter becoming conscious of itself as human being and feeler. RICHARD: This physical universe always was, already is, and always will be. RESPONDENT: In other words, it is timeless? RICHARD: No ... it is eternal (always was, already is, and always will be). RESPONDENT: I thought you denied the timeless. RICHARD: I do not need to deny ‘the timeless’ any more than I need to deny ‘god’ or ‘goddess’ or ‘unicorn’ ... they are simply irrelevant hypotheses. There is a distinct difference between the word ‘eternal’ and the word ‘timeless’. The word ‘timeless’ is very explicit ... no time (just like ‘selfless’ means no self) as in not subject to time, not affected by the passage of time, out of time, without reference to time and independent of the passage of time ... like the state to which time has no application (the condition into which the soul enters at death) called the afterlife. Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti states that ‘timeless’ means ‘no time’ (and ‘no space’). Vis.:
Whereas the word ‘eternal’ means all time, as in that which will always exist, that which has always existed, that which is without a beginning or an end in time, that which is everlasting time; enduring, persistent, recurring, incessant, constant, continuous and unbroken time; ageless and thus interminable and valid for all time ... which is what this material universe is. Even modern physicists, when they posit their ‘nothingness’ prior to their mathematical ‘Big Bang’, have enough intellectual rigour to use the word ‘timeless’ to refer to that ‘before time began’ fantasy of theirs ... they never say ‘eternal’ because ‘eternal’ is a time-word. Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti is very specific, on occasion, about the distinction betwixt ‘eternal’ and ‘timeless’:
Yea verily ... I can easily ‘see the point’ too. Yet, just as there are those who water down ‘selfless’ (no self) into meaning ‘unselfish’ (a not selfish self), there are those who corrupt ‘timeless’ (no time) into meaning ‘eternity’ (unlimited time). Even dictionaries do this. However, when viewed honestly, the word ‘timeless’ selfishly implies ‘deathless’ (as in ‘immortal’). Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti says that there is ‘something immortal’ and that it is located ‘beyond time’. Vis.:
Whereas I clearly and unambiguously say that it is this universe that is immortal (ageless, ceaseless, unborn, undying, deathless, immutable and indestructible) ... not me. I am mortal. * RESPONDENT: ... and even in that statement [that you are a staunch atheist simply because you cannot know anything else] I see contradiction because you go on to say that you are this universe experiencing itself at this time, at this moment, and the universe has always been as it is now ... perfect and peaceful. If this is so, then you have been since the beginning of time and always be as this universe. RICHARD: There is no ‘contradiction’ ... the stuff of this flesh and blood body is the same-same stuff as the stuff of this universe: therefore this flesh and blood body is the same age as this universe. That the universe first started forming as this one-off shape in 1947, and will keep on replenishing its configuration as this one-off shape for x-number of years until it ceases its configuration as this one-off shape forever, does not make its configuration as this one-off shape separate from this what it already always is. RESPONDENT: Then you are timeless – just as the universe? RICHARD: No ... and neither is this universe ‘timeless’. * RICHARD: Incidentally ... this is where the only ‘contradiction’ is (and all in the one short paragraph): [Respondent]: ‘...the universe has always been’. [Respondent]: ‘... since the beginning of time’. RESPONDENT: Yes, that is just a saying here accepted as meaning ‘unknown.’ RICHARD: Okay ... then this is what your short paragraph reads as:
Could you explain where and what the ‘contradiction’ is that you see when the phrase ‘beginning
of time’ is not there to make such a contradiction in the first place? RESPONDENT: Could the [primordial] movement we’re discussing be timeless, in the sense of ‘not touched by time’ – not conditioned, limited, or contingent, and yet containing time as a rhythm, a pulse of life? RICHARD: Not if it is ‘primordial’ (meaning primeval, prehistoric, the earlier times and so on). RESPONDENT: I’d rather not restrict myself to that definition. Can ‘primordial’ not also mean ‘from the beginning of time’, i.e. continuing, whereas you seem to fix it in the past. RICHARD: The phrase ‘from the beginning of time’ can only be true if time did indeed have a beginning ... whereas ‘primordial’ refers to the era when (for example) this planet was young. Yet there was a time, also primordial, when this solar system’s star was young ... just as other stars can be seen to be being ‘born’, as it were, elsewhere in space ... and for those other young stars the particular era (right now) their events are occurring in is also said to be primordial (for them). Therefore, a primordial movement is purely a local event describing the beginning of the formation of a particular body in time (and space) ... not the beginning of time. * RESPONDENT: The word ‘time’ may refer to a variety of things which can be quite distinct from one another. RICHARD: What ‘variety of things’? Time is the periodicity of the movement of form in space. RESPONDENT: I don’t think it’s that simple. RICHARD: Why not? Just because other peoples take something simple and intellectually turn into being something complicated does not make it actually complicated (outside of their fertile imaginations). RESPONDENT: I’ve read discussions of time that were so confusing and complex that I gave up reading ... RICHARD: So have I ... whereas time is incredibly simple (it is already always happening just here right now). RESPONDENT: ... but still came away with a sense of time that eludes definition, or even comprehension. RICHARD: Yet time is easily defined as being the periodicity of the movement of form in space and easily comprehended by the passage of the sun in the sky by day and the wheeling of the stars in the firmament by night. RESPONDENT: So, time-wise, I live in an idiot’s paradise. RICHARD: Whereas the flesh and blood body called ‘No. 42’ is already always here in an actual paradisum voluptatis. * RESPONDENT: Or is it that the movement creates time (maybe even different kinds of time), whenever it’s appropriate? RICHARD: Do you allow the possibility that time always was, already is, and always will be? RESPONDENT: Yes, but I have doubts that that’s all there is to it. RICHARD: What on earth do you mean by ‘that’s all there is to it’ ... eternity
(beginningless and endless time) means that it is an all-inclusive everywhen which boggles the mind (intellectual thought) leaving
one in a state of wonder and amazement at the sheer magnitude of this marvellous universe. * RESPONDENT: I have no idea what time is. Only k’s equation of time=thought seems worth keeping. RICHARD: Yet even when thought stops the sun still marks its passage through the sky by day and the stars still wheel through the firmament by night ... so the equation ‘time=thought’ is patently incorrect. RESPONDENT: I sense that’s a feeling which may not be shared by you. RICHARD: I have no ‘feeling’ about the matter ... I observed the fact that when thought has
stopped time has kept on keeping on. RESPONDENT: Richard’s responses to stimuli: I was giving some thought to how emotions function to make a thought occur and I realized that they can be independent, but I am still unsure if they are interwoven. Let us consider a stimulus which only emotion can respond to, then one without emotion would have to use some kind of associative analyses to grasp that stimulus, but what if they don’t have one? Now take curiosity for instance, what is the origin of this response? If Richard has unrequited curiosity then I suppose he would accept any reason out of the infinite reasons for why he has not. If Richard were running a long-distance race and he reaches the point of ‘not wanting to continue’, then would he decide to give up on the million dollar prize waiting at the finish line? Time: Ok, perhaps Richard does not have a sense of time. So what else is there? Actions and events. I’m guessing that Richard measures his life by actions and events that are called for. Pleasure: Its been said countlessly that Richard enjoys comedy, humour and other forms of entertainment. He can also accept life in a jail cell. This in combination with his loss of imagination and therefore sense of time, would mean that he would enjoy the entertainment as is but would not miss it if it were not presented to him. He literally accepts the moment he is in. Am I right about all this Richard? RICHARD: First of all: why were you only ‘giving some thought’ to how emotions function (rather than feel how they do and thus find out experientially)? Second, what stimulus are you referring to that only emotion can respond to? Third, what kind of associative analyses is it that one without emotion does not have? Fourth, the origin of curiosity is sentience itself ... sentient beings are by their very nature inquisitive. Fifth, what is it that Richard has not (such that he would accept any reason out of infinite reasons)? Sixth, I would not be running in a long-distance race in the first place. Seventh, as this moment has no duration it is the arena, so to speak, in which things happen ... have you never noticed it is never not this moment? Eighth, time is the measure of the movement of form through space and the periodicity of its rearrangement ... although the past did happen it is not actual now; although the future will happen it is not actual now; only this moment is actual. Ninth, pleasure, or entertainment in whatever form, is but a bonus on top of the sheer delight of being just here, right now, as a flesh and blood body only no matter the situation or circumstance ... hence solitary confinement in some insalubrious penitentiary cannot take away the direct experience of the pristine purity of this actual world. Tenth, the absence of imagination is not the reason why this time is eternal (as in your ‘loss of imagination and therefore sense of time’ phrasing). Lastly, as there is only ever this moment there is nothing to literally accept ... as a flesh and blood body
only one is already always just here, right now, irregardless. RICHARD: This moment has no duration here in this actual world ... but I doubt that those who seek to disallow the direct experience of eternity are conscious of that when they write to me. My guess is they are just uncritically regurgitating what they were taught at school. RESPONDENT: The brain has difficulties (it seems) to conceptualise eternity, yet as it has done so, it is fairly well capable of making the inference in hindsight that as the universe is eternal and as experience is a phenomenon of that, how could/would this experience possible have had a beginning or could have an end? RICHARD: As this flesh and blood body was born on a particular date, lives for x-number of years, and
then dies – and death is the end, finish, of its experience – then the direct experience of eternity does indeed have a
beginning and an end ... and, furthermore, such experiencing ceases each night whilst asleep, when under anaesthesia So much for hindsight inferences drawn from conceptualisations, eh? RESPONDENT: In other words in experience infinity is embedded as experience. Time then becomes merely measured in terms of how many nickels need to be put into a parking meter in order to acquire institutionalised legislated permission to have a car parked, on a particular location for say i.e. 1 hour such as that one has time to go to do some shopping. RICHARD: There is a distinct difference between the measure of time (as in past/present/future) and time itself: this moment is the arena, so to speak, in which events occur and, just as everything is existing in infinite space, everything is happening in eternal time. There is a vast stillness here ... if you were to listen intently to the jingle of the nickels it may become apparent. RESPONDENT: Interesting then would be the question: suppose one would return (after one hour) and one would find out, that the car has been damaged beyond repair (a clear case of total-loss) and one also finds out that this is not a case that will be covered by insurance (for whatever reason) then have these nickels (spent as parking money) been spent in a sensible way? RICHARD: If you were just here right now all the while then ... yes. * RICHARD: An expanding universe is neither spatially infinite nor temporally eternal. RESPONDENT: I’d say too easy. In order to define matter, space is required in order to define space matter is required yet as the universe is only material (in actualism) there can neither be contraction nor expansion of the universe In hmm actuality. RICHARD: Yes ... a universe (all time and all space and all form) which expands/contracts can only do so if there be that which is other than time and space and form (a non-material otherness which is timeless and spaceless and formless). Such a non-physical otherness is sometimes referred to as a matrix. RESPONDENT: Interestingly however there is movement of matter into an unknown and/or unknowable direction. RICHARD: Only in imagination – nothing is coming from, or going to, anywhere or anywhen in actuality – as everything is already just here right now. As it always has been and always will be.
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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