Actual Freedom – Selected Writings from Richard's Journal

It is, of course, a bold step to forsake lofty thoughts, profound feelings and psychic adumbrations and enter the actuality of life as a sensate experience. It requires a startling audacity to devote oneself to the task of causing a mutation of consciousness to occur. To have the requisite determination to apply oneself, with the diligence and perseverance born out of pure intent, to the patient dismantling of one’s accrued social identity indicates a strength of purpose unequalled in the annals of history. It is no little thing that one does ... and it has enormous consequences, not only for one’s own well-being, but for humankind as a whole. With an actualism spread like a chain letter, in the due course of time, global freedom would revolutionise the concept of ‘humanity’. It would be a free association of peoples worldwide; a utopian-like loose-knit affiliation of like-minded individuals. One would be a citizen of the world, not of a sovereign state. Countries, with their artificial borders would vanish along with the need for the military. As nationalism would expire, so too would patriotism with all its heroic evils. No police force would be needed anywhere on earth; no locks on the doors, no bars on the windows. Gaols, judges and juries would become a thing of the dreadful past. People would live together in peace and harmony, happiness and delight. Pollution and its cause – over-population – would be set to rights without effort, as competition would be replaced by cooperation.

It would be the stuff of pipe dreams come true. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Foreword

Can he remember any pure consciousness experiences? Can he remember experiencing a moment – or moments – wherein everything falls into place correctly and perfectly? Wherein everybody, oneself included, and everything, is utterly pure? There is an ambience of total peace and harmony. Kindliness and spontaneous generosity of character come spontaneously and easily. One knows, with an absolute certainty, that it is possible to be free of all the ills of humankind … to become free of the ‘Human Condition’ is the only solution to life’s troubles worth pursuing. In the PCE, ‘I’ temporarily abdicated the throne and I knew, by direct experience, that freedom was already actual. It was ‘me’ that was the problem, not the absence of perfection. When ‘I’ ceased to be, perfection became, as always, apparent. One sees that there is only one person who can actually manifest your own freedom from failure in human relationship. Me, myself ... yours truly. It is very important to have confidence in one’s own ability to discriminate between current ‘human’ knowledge and what one personally knows from the PCE’s. This will give one that essential optimism and assurance ... it is the ability to plough on regardless of whatever stands in one’s way until one evokes one’s destiny. It is all to do with a certainty … the solid knowing, born out of the PCE, that it is here for oneself and anyone ... if only one will act upon this sureness. Can he relate to this?

He can. He starts hesitantly, but gaining assurance goes on. He has never told this to anyone before, not even to his wife, because it was a very precious experience to him ... afraid to be made fun of. It happened back before he was married, when he was single and living out in the bush in an old shack. He had hitch-hiked back from town and was dropped off at the nearest intersection. He was walking the last two kilometres ... minding his own business and not thinking of anything in particular ... he remembers seeing some cows in a paddock on the right-hand side of the track ... they were black and white ... and they were especially vivid that day. As he went around the curve in the track ... past a big old tree ... the valley opened up before him. He knew all this as he had walked this track many times before ... but on this occasion he and the trees and the cows and the valley ... were ... sort of ... transformed. It was all as I had just described to him: everything and everybody is in its place, utterly correct and simply perfect. There is this total contentment with life as-it-is inside of him ... and outside, too. And all this has nothing to do with anything ... meaning that it is not precipitated by something. It just happens.

Everything is absolutely wonderful exactly as-it-is. It is an amazing experience. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Six

This is actuality, this, the world as-it-is, this is what you actually are. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Twenty-Nine

These pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s) which usually occur in a ‘peak experience’, as they are sometimes called, change one’s lives forever. In a PCE everything is seen, with unparalleled clarity, to be already perfect ... that humans are all living in perfection ... if only one would act upon one’s seeing. In these moments, ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’, ‘Love’ and ‘Hate’, ‘Generosity’ and ‘Parsimony’, ‘Fear’ and ‘Trust’ ... all these and more, are simply irrelevant. Gods and Goddesses, Devils and Demons, all the battles that have raged throughout the ages are but a nightmare of passionate ‘human’ fantasy. There is a marked absence of hierarchy; no Religious Figure can match the matter-of-fact equality that pervades everything. A quality of kindly understanding prevails, dispensing forever with the need for Authority and Love and Truth and Beauty. And ... of course man and woman live together in perennial peace and harmony.

These pure consciousness experiences are so actual, so ultimate yet immediate, so relative yet so absolute, that they cannot be ignored. They leave a lasting impression upon one … which can take the form of a pure intent. Pure intent is a palpable life-force; an actually occurring stream of benevolence and benignity that originates in the perfect and vast stillness that is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe. It is no longer a matter of choice … it is an irresistible pull. This pure intent is so impelling that it has kept us together for virtually twenty-four-hours-a-day from the moment we met on that sunny beach, a few short years ago ... and we are utterly pleased to have found one another. To have as a companion someone who shares the identical goal in life to oneself is occasion enough in itself for celebration. Then to have the success after success that we have had throughout our time together, is proof indeed of the benevolence and wisdom of a life well-lived.

The river-washed stones of the gravel path, which we have laid from the shed to the veranda, make a satisfying scrunching sound under my feet. Depositing the basket of eggs and tomatoes on the table in the miniature kitchen of the quaint little caravan that is home, I busy myself with the domestic tasks I enjoy so much. It is exquisite to be always doing things together, for my relationship is eminently satisfying. Soon enough, the aroma of freshly-brewed coffee is filling the air, enhancing the atmosphere.

There is time aplenty for our morning cup. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Four

‘I’ cannot get outside of ‘I’ by thinking about it or feeling it out, for ‘I’ am the ‘thinker’ and the ‘feeler’. Nevertheless one needs to get outside of ‘I’ in order to have an objective standpoint to view ‘I’ from. So how is one to approach this dilemma? How is one going to arrive at the verifiable fact of independently viewing this elusive ‘I’? Imagination? Intuition?

It is actually simple. One starts from the other end, from the viewpoint of the pure consciousness experience … which all humans have had at some stage in their life. A PCE is a spontaneous moment wherein everything and everyone is seen for what it is, including oneself. All is suddenly revealed to be already perfect and in its rightful place ... ‘I’ and ‘my’ world-view have become irrelevant and there is no longer a sense of ‘being’. Everything is simply here as-it-is, no longer needing the support of any ‘presence’. The ‘Mystery of Life’ has been penetrated, albeit briefly. It is important to realise that a peak experience is not to be confused with an Aesthetic Experience, a Spiritual Revelation, a Religious Vision, an Intellectual Insight, or an Emotional Intuition. It is in a category of its own. It may last for only a few seconds or it may stretch into minutes ... many people have had it last for hours. It does not matter how long, what matters is what one does with it. The experience is indelibly locked away in memory but is generally overlooked in the press of everyday life. Yet it works away, giving rise to thoughts such as ‘there must be more to life than this’, or something similar. It is what drives ‘humanity’ on to seek a better way of living, a better way of doing whatever it is that humans are all doing whilst being here on this planet. The search for fulfilment stems from the PCE, for humans all know, or hope, that it must surely come about some day. Why not make that day now? Why not stop procrastinating and putting it off into some imagined future? Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Fifteen

One can induce a peak experience – with practice on a daily basis – by pure contemplation based securely on the previous PCE’s. One of the main characteristics of the peak experience is purity. An unimaginable purity permeates the whole of existence, showering its blessing over all and sundry. From the condition of being ‘human’, one can plug into that purity with a pure intent. Pure intent is the connection between the intimate aspect of oneself, that one usually keeps hidden away for fear of seeming foolish, and the purity of the peak experience. In ‘normal’ life one avoids acting in a way that invites scorn from the insensitive philistines, who would rather perpetuate misery than admit they were wrong in their judgement on life, but the time eventually comes when one can stay quiescent no longer. The urge wells up to penetrate into the ‘Mystery of Life’, to find that ultimate fulfilment, and to achieve peace-on-earth. Pure intent is the highway to this utter freedom, to one’s destiny ... and it is a wide and wondrous path.

The peak experience provides an objective standpoint to view the identity from. It is easily seen from here that ‘I’ stand in the way of ultimate fulfilment ... of ‘my’ destiny. Pure contemplation is the means to provide one with repeated opportunities to make this examination thorough; all doubt is removed and only surety remains. This is the only way one will be convinced that ‘I’ must vanish altogether. This is why I can say, confidently, that the ‘death of the ego’ is not sufficient, for it only means substituting an impersonal ‘I’ – now called ‘Being’ – for the personal ‘I’. ‘Being’, whether it goes with a capital to denote Divinity or not, means an ‘I’ is still in existence. Therefore the ‘death of the ego’ people’s ‘discoveries’ about the fate of ‘humanity’ are questionable, to say the least, and their ‘solutions’ to life’s problems are equally suspect. Unless there is an end to ‘being’, which is what death is, one cannot say one has penetrated into the ‘Mystery of Life’, one has not found ultimate fulfilment, one has not achieved peace-on-earth. One is only fooling oneself – and some other gullible people – if one is so easily satisfied. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Fifteen

In order to facilitate a peak experience happening, one needs to see the place pride and humility plays in one’s life. ‘I’ am proud of ‘my’ major achievement … which is maintaining ‘myself’ as an identity. ‘I’ will do anything but relinquish ‘my’ grip on this flesh-and-blood body, including humbling ‘myself’ before some God in order to ameliorate the pernicious effects of pride. However, humility is merely the antidote to pride … and they feed off each other, continuously. For example, one cannot but feel proud of one’s accomplishment of self-abasing humility ... it is in the nature of the entity to do so. A humbled self is still a self, nonetheless, leaving one proud of one’s performance. When one realises how silly all this is; when one sees that pride and humility are standing in the way of freedom from all self-centred activity, something astounding occurs. ‘I’ vanish. I am simply here where I have always been ... and pride, with its companion in arms, humility, has disappeared along with all the other feelings. I am free to be here now in the world as-it-is. Unadorned and unencumbered, I can stand on my own two feet, owing allegiance to no-one.

Although each pure consciousness experience brings a fresh beginning, an absolute newness, the condition of freedom from ‘I’ has indubitable character traits ... each time discovered anew with the same delight as if it were the first time. With each experience one finds oneself here in this ever-fresh, never contaminated moment. Here is an atmosphere free from ‘human’ feelings, from ‘humanity’s truisms, from religion’s morals and from civilisation’s mores ... all of which are humanistic and cultural coping-mechanisms and agreements. There is a delicious surprise to be found in actualism: it is so liveable. It is living, here on earth, as this actual body, simply brimming with sensory organs … yet completely devoid of emotions and passions manifesting as hallucinatory thoughts and utopian idealism. It is indeed possible to live peacefully, at ease and undisturbed by these futile feelings and delusive thoughts. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Seventeen

Apperceptive awareness can be evoked by paying exclusive attention to being alive now. This moment is one’s only moment of being alive … one is never alive at any other time than now. And, wherever one is, one is always here … even if one starts walking over to there, along the way to there one is always here … and when one arrives ‘there’, it too is here. Thus attention becomes a fascination with the fact that one is always here … and it is already now. Fascination leads to reflective contemplation. As one is already here, and it is always now … then one has arrived before one starts. The potent combination of attention, fascination, reflection and contemplation produces apperception, which occurs when aware happens of itself. Apperception is an awareness of consciousness. It is not ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious; it is the mind’s awareness of itself. 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. Such a mind, being free of the ‘thinker’ and the ‘feeler’ – ‘I’ as ego and soul – is capable of immense clarity and purity.

All this is born only out of pure intent. Pure intent is derived from the PCE experienced during a peak experience, which all humans have had at some stage in their life. A peak experience is when ‘I’ spontaneously cease to ‘be’, temporarily, and this moment and place is here and now. Everything is seen to be perfect as-it-is. Diligent mindfulness paid to the peak experience gives rise to pure intent. With pure intent running as a ‘golden thread’ through one’s life, reflective contemplation rapidly becomes more and more fascinating. When one is totally fascinated, reflective contemplation becomes pure awareness ... and then apperception happens of itself. With apperception operating more or less continuously in ‘my’ day-to-day life, ‘I’ find it harder and harder to maintain credibility. ‘I’ am increasingly seen as the usurper, an alien entity inhabiting this body and taking on an identity of its own. Mercilessly exposed in the bright light of awareness – apperception casts no shadows – ‘I’ can no longer find ‘my’ position tenable. ‘I’ can only live in obscuration, where ‘I’ lurk about, creating all sorts of mischief.

‘My’ time is speedily coming to an end, ‘I’ can barely maintain ‘myself’ any longer. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Eighteen