Actual Freedom – Selected Writings from Richard's Journal

All discussion about fear eventually turns around death. This is a fact that needs be faced squarely. To not ‘be’ is inconceivable; it is impossible to imagine not ‘being’ because all one has ever known is ‘being’. There are no terms of reference to compare against – which is the normal way of thinking – and with no comparison there is no possibility of thought dealing with the fact of death. If pursued diligently, thought gives up the attempt and stops … it cannot proceed further. The affective rushes in to fill the gap left by the absence of thought and fear turns to dread … contemplation of extinction invariably turns fear to dread. The instinct to survive takes over and dread flips to its opposite: awe. As it says in some revered scriptures: ‘Fear of The Lord is the beginning of wisdom’. Most religious and spiritual tracts refer to awe and dread when contemplating the majesty and mystery of some Transcendental ‘Being’ lying beyond time and space. Temporal transience is replaced by a firm faith in a timeless and spaceless Divinity that antedates birth and postdates death. Driven by the instinct for survival at any cost – Blind Nature is rather clumsy – one attempts to transcend the duality of Life and Death and achieve Immortality.

If successful, ‘I’ disappear and mysteriously reappear as ‘Me’, the Eternal Self or the Immortal Soul. One is then apparently without fear because one is Deathless … one is Unborn and Undying. One disseminates one’s findings to all and sundry, finding a multitude of gullible penitents willing to suspend sensible reason and sensitive rationality for a chance at avoiding extinction. Such strange goings-on are the way that the denizens of the real world deal with the existential dilemma of facing the facticity of death’s oblivion. It is called being in a state of denial … and results in avoidance and escapism. One’s native intelligence is nowhere to be found operating in all this. What I did was face the fact of my mortality. ‘Life’ and ‘Death’ are not an opposite … there is only birth and death. Life is what happens in between. Before I was born, I was not here. Now that I am alive, I am here. After death I will not be here … just like before birth. Where is the problem?

The problem was in the brain-stem, of course. It is the instinct to survive at any cost that was the problem … backed up by the full gamut of the emotions born out of the four basic instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. The rudimentary self, transformed into an identity, must be extinguished in order for one to be here, in this actual world of the senses, bereft of this pernicious entity. ‘My’ extinction was the ending of not only fear, but of all of the affective faculties. Extinction releases one into actuality ... as this flesh and blood body only I am living in the paradisiacal garden that this verdant planet earth is. We are all simply floating in the infinitude of this perfect and pure universe ... coming from nowhere and having nowhere to go to we find ourselves here at this moment in time and this place in space.

This actual world is an ambrosial paradise. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Thirty-five

Having been started in a family and society, being shaped by its structures, its rules on dependency and conformity, ‘I’ know of no other way of living but in a group. ‘I’ have learned to fear being an outcast, alone and lonely without the continuous endorsement of being a member. ‘I’ have ‘my’ particular – but adopted – beliefs and values, dogmas and creeds, ideals and ‘truths’, myths and superstitions, and so on, that make ‘me’ an accepted member of the group. The adult life of each new recruit to the human race is already laid out before one … and having been disempowered for all of ‘my’ life, ‘I’ am now looking forward to climbing further up the hierarchical ladder. ‘I’ will start ‘my’ own family – dependent upon ‘me’ this time – and ‘I’ will reinforce all of ‘my’ brainwashing by indoctrinating ‘my’ children. ‘I’ will make them, like ‘me’, into social identities ... and wards of ‘our’ culture.

However, the stirrings of wanting to discover just exactly what one is, outside of being a group member, are stronger than the fears about loneliness and being an outcast. To be able to relate to oneself and one’s partner, each moment again with impunity, as to what one actually feels, thinks and experiences is a luxury and freedom never possible within the group. The group does not allow for frank discussion about – and an honest questioning into – the venerated causes for its very existence. My way of living has taken a while to become accustomed to as I often feared to drown, to dissolve in a vast freedom wherein there are no boundaries. Here is a total lack of conformity and compromise. This is my life as-it-is … and what a magical life it is. What I have is a complete confidence in the purity and perfection of the infinitude of this universe which, to my never-ending delight, brings about serendipity. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Nine

When one exposes one’s instincts, all of one’s atavistic feelings of fear surge up. To repeat: ‘I’ am these instincts; these instincts are ‘my’ very ‘being’. Here is where ‘I’ experience ‘myself’ in the most direct form … all alone, forever separate from others. Here is where ‘me’ as ‘being’ is forever threatened, for ‘I’ should not ‘be’ at all. ‘I’ take up individual space and ‘I’ am ashamed of existing … ‘I’ am an apology just waiting to happen. Simultaneously, self-consciousness shows that this utterly personal feeling of ‘I’ being at stake is identical to the psychological ‘will to survive’ of ‘humanity’ at large. ‘I’ and ‘humanity’ are one and the same thing. ‘I’ am ‘humanity’ and ‘humanity’ is ‘me’. Both affective-based concepts are equally absurd and harmful, and – most important of all – contrary to the actual condition of the infinitude of this physical universe. Humans have created a separative identity and then frustratedly railed against this benevolent, benign universe. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Twenty-three

This Supernatural Reality is always spelt with a capital to denote Divinity. Everyday reality – which the Spiritual people call ‘worldly’ – is already an illusion, so any rising above this is to move from an illusion into a delusion. In this delusion ‘I’ feel a Oneness with all of Creation, a sense of ‘Being’. In this sense of ‘Being’, ‘I’ am Timeless and Spaceless ... in other words; Eternal and Infinite. ‘I’ have cheated Death itself. When the body dies, ‘I’ will discard it as ‘I’ would a suit of old clothes and live forever in that Transcendental Realm. ‘I’ will have attained to ‘My’ Essential Nature, which is one of Love Agapé and Divine Compassion. The Incomparable Beauty of ‘My’ Heavenly State is best described as being Ineffable ... which is to dissemble in such an ingenious way that the gullible cannot help but be impressed by and be in awe of, ‘My’ Supreme Condition. ‘I’ have realised ‘Myself’ as being the Absolute, the Supreme ... as being God Incarnate. ‘I’ have manifested ‘Myself’ in order to bring ‘My’ Teachings to humankind.

Remember, all this is a delusion born out of an illusion … it is all a feverish play in a super-active imagination, spurred on by a morbid dread of not ‘being’. Death is viewed as a calamity, a tragedy. ‘I’, being non-material, cannot accept, let alone embrace, that which is physical, that which is actual. Mortality is a physical phenomenon; it is a fact to be faced and understood. To act otherwise is a denial of the actual. This universe is so enormous in its scope, so grand in its order, so exquisite in its form, that it is sheer vanity and utter insolence to presume that what occurs intrinsically to the scheme of things is somehow ‘Wrong’. With an attitude like that, no wonder people hate having to be here on earth. It is no wonder that they feel that they have to ‘Cope with the Now’ whilst waiting for death to release them. It is such a shame that billions of human beings are missing out on the unadulterated perfection of being fully alive; missing out on rejoicing in being here now; missing out on deriving immense pleasure at living this moment, here on earth.

This universe knows what it is doing … to assume that it does not is absurd. This universe was miraculously able to give birth to me, it is marvellously capable of bearing me and will, eventually, wondrously manage to end me. This is the physical, actual order of things in this, the only universe there is. There is nowhere else but here ... and there is no time but now. Anything else than here and now exists only in an enthusiastic imagination … enthused by ‘me’, by any ‘being’ at all. Any sense of ‘being’ is created and sustained by emotive thought ... it is the egocentric fear of not ‘being’ that gives rise to the notion of an ‘myself’. Any fear of the death of ‘me’ is an irrational reaction to the demise of an apparently enduring psychological entity. The ‘death’ of ‘me’ is a non-event; ‘I’ do not actually exist in the first place. There is no actual ‘me’ to either ‘die’ or to have Eternal Life. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Eighteen

To enable apperceptiveness to haply occur it is essential to allow a reflective attention – attentiveness – to one’s psychological and psychic world. It is impossible for one to intelligently observe what is going on within if one does not at the same time acknowledge the occurrence of one’s various feeling-tones with attentiveness. This is especially true with the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful). In order to observe one’s own fear, for instance, one must admit to the fact that one is afraid. Nor can one examine one’s own depression, for another example, without acknowledging it fully. The same is true for irritation and agitation and frustration and all those other uncomfortable emotional and passionate moods. One cannot examine something fully if one is busy denying its existence. Whatever feeling one may be having, a fascinated attention – attentiveness – freely divulges it … it is looking with discernibleness. All affective feelings are – quite simply – an hereditary occurrence, an inborn factor to be acutely aware of. No pride, no shame, nothing personal at stake … what is there, is naturally there. There is no clinging to the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) and no fleeing from the hostile and invidious, either (those that are hateful and fearful). A contemplative attention views all feelings as commensurate – nothing is suppressed and nothing is expressed – as attentiveness does not play favourites.

(Dictionary Definition: ‘attentive’: Steadily applying one’s mind or energies; intent, heedful, assiduously alert, aware, watchful. Thus: ‘attentiveness’ (n.): the quality of applying the mind, consideration, thought; also: ‘attentional’ (a.): of or pertaining to the mental faculty of attention, giving heed, noticing; and: ‘attentively’ (adv.); experiencing intently, heedfully, observantly).

Attentiveness gets not infatuated with the good feelings nor sidesteps the bad as attentiveness is a non-feeling awareness; a sensuous attention. Attentiveness is not sentimental susceptibility for it does not get involved with affection or empathy or get hung up on mercurial imaginations and capricious intuitions or ephemeral auguries. Attentiveness does not register feelings and compare the validity of experience according to it ‘feeling right’ or ‘feeling wrong’. Attentiveness is an aesthetic alertness that takes place with minimised reference to self. With attentiveness one sees the internal world with blameless references to concepts like ‘my’ or ‘mine’. Suppose there is a feeling of sadness. Ordinary consciousness would say, ‘I am sad’. Using attentiveness, one heedfully notices the feeling as a natural feeling – ‘There is human sadness’ – thus one does not tack on that possessive personal concept of ‘I’ or ‘me’ … for one is already possessed. Attentiveness is the observance of the basic nature of each arising feeling; it is observing all the inner world – emotional, passionate and calentural – which is whatever is presently taking place in the affective faculty. Attentiveness is seeing how any feeling makes ‘me’ tick – and how ‘I’ react to it – with the perspicacity of seeing how it affects others as well. In attentiveness, there is an unbiased observing of the constant showing-up of the ‘reality’ within and is examining the feelings arising one after the other … and such attentiveness is the ending of its grip. Please note that last point: in attentiveness, there is an observance of the ‘reality’ within, and such attention is the end of its embrace ... finish.

Here lies apperception. Article: Attentiveness, Sensuousness and Apperceptiveness

The way is now clear for that most longed for peace-on-earth to happen. Because it is possible in one human being, the possibility exists for it to be replicated in another ... and another ... and another ... and so on. The most difficult part – discovering the existence of the third alternative – has been accomplished. Now comes the easier part: finding a simpler way for others.

It is possible for a chain-reaction effect to ripple through all the peoples who inhabit this planet; imbuing the populace with peace and prosperity. No longer need people lament the futility of trying to escape from the folly of the ‘Human Condition’. Never again would fear rule the earth; terror would stalk its prey no more ... ... but even if global peace was a long time coming – as is most probable due to stubbornly recalcitrant identities – the most appealing aspect of actual freedom is its instant bestowal of universal peace upon the individual daring enough to go all the way. Thus the reward is immediate and nothing more needs to be done other than to joyfully participate in another person’s voyage of exploration and discovery. In the actual world, one can happily act as a mentor to the other person, freely facilitating their personal quest. It is a life well worth living indeed, for in actual freedom lies not only peace but actual innocence.

One is pure innocence personified, for one is literally free from sin and guilt. One is untouched by evil; no malice exists anywhere in this body. One is utterly innocent. Innocence, that much abused word, can come to its full flowering and one is easily able to be freely ingenuous – noble in character – without any effort at all. The integrity of an actual freedom is so unlike the strictures of morality – whereupon the entity struggles in vain to resemble the purity of the actual – inasmuch as probity is bestowed gratuitously. One can live unequivocally, endowed with an actual gracefulness and dignity, in a magical wonderland. To thus live candidly, in arrant innocence, is a remarkable condition of excellence. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Nineteen

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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.