Actual Freedom – Selected Writings from Richard's Journal

Actual perfection and excellence can best be described as being organic in the sensate meaning of the word ... it differs from Classical and Romantic perfection and excellence in that it is not an invention. It is not a product of the culturally programmed mind and heart. The trees, the flowers, a sunset or a sunrise, the stars in the night sky, and so on, all convey the flavour of it ... unless beauty obscures clarity Actual perfection and excellence is what is already here – when the false is stripped away – without striving for The True. It exists of its own accord and has always been harmless. It is authentic – self-generating – and thus requires no extraneous support. With one’s mind no longer trapped by the heart’s longings and the mind’s beliefs, it is a sensual delight to walk freely in this, the actual world.

This actual – this sensate and organic – experience of being here now, living my life so happily and harmlessly, remains unsurpassed in the annals of the history of humankind. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Twelve

Pure contemplation is not thinking ‘about’ something … which is the usual way of thought. Pure contemplation does not take a duration of time. It is instant thought, a realisation, a flash of seeing. In pure contemplation ‘I’ do no thinking ... thinking does itself. ‘I’ have no substance, therefore in pure contemplation there is thinking without a ‘thinker’. Thought operates freely ... and in immaculate wonder. Pure contemplation is a state of unsullied wonderment: ‘how can this world happen?’, or ‘what is this universe doing here?’, or ‘where does this body come from?’. These questions are posed in such a way so as not to get a thought-out answer, but to simply wonder, in a pure contemplation of the actual. One stays with the notion: ‘I am this body’ and regards that magical world of the PCE. Opening up to that fairy tale-like world by seeing that it is indeed possible now makes it close … so close as to be already here. It is always already here. Regard the very best as possible for oneself ... and for all human beings. There is a must in pure contemplation that something amazing can happen: all of a sudden ‘I’ am no more and the actual is already here. I am here where I always have been.

One has always been here … one has never been anywhere else. Where else is there but here? Here is perfection for there is no sorrow or malice anywhere. One realises that there is nothing outside of perfection … humans are all unwittingly living their life already in perfection. It is as if everybody is playing a game called ‘Let’s pretend we are lost’, knowing it will only ever be an illusion. Humans are creating the illusion so well that they take it for real … wrongly implying it to be actual. In actuality there is no animosity or anguish, only perfection. This perfection does not come from anywhere. It is already always here. I am not making it happen as ‘I’ did Reality, it is happening of itself. All is self-generating ... and so exquisitely intricate.

This is actual intimacy. To be actually intimate is to be without the separative identity. I am not apart from the universe … I am the universe experiencing itself. Whereas ‘I’ can never be intimate for ‘I’ am distanced from the actual by ‘my’ very ‘being’ ... ‘I’ stand in the way of actual intimacy. It is inevitable that this pure intimacy prevails in the actual for in actual freedom lies benignity; which literally means to be kindly, gentle, harmless, propitious. The intimacy that ‘I’ as a personality can have, as a feeling for another in a relationship, pales into insignificance when compared with the actual intimacy of the universe. There is no need for a relationship here. Relationship requires separate entities in order to do the relating. I am not separate from the universe. This body is literally made of the very stuff of the universe … there is no difference whatsoever between this stuff and me.

I am physically and actually it. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Fourteen

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

In actual freedom, life is experienced as being perfect as-it-is. One knows that one is living in a beneficent universe … and that is what actually counts. The self-imposed iniquities that ail the people who stubbornly wish to remain denizens of the real world, fail to impinge upon the blitheness and gaiety of one who lives the vast scheme of things. The universe does not force anyone to be happy and harmless, to live in peace and ease, to be free of sorrow and malice. It is a matter of personal choice as to which way one will travel. Humans, being as they are, will probably continue to tread the ‘Tried and True’ paths, little realising that they are the tried and failed ways. There is none so contumacious as a self-righteous soul who is convinced that they know the way to live ... as revealed in their ancient and revered moralistic scriptures or ethicalistic secular philosophies. So be it.

This universe has arranged itself so that the one who dares to go all the way is instantly living in universal peace ... irrespective of what other peoples are believing and doing. One is free to act in a way beneficial to all. This is a measure of how perfect life is in the actual. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Twenty

I do not subscribe to the doctrine of doom and gloom. For me, my lot on earth is a matter of cheery destiny, here and now. To put perfection and purity off into the far future – after physical death – or to disclaim the possibility entirely, is to act as a mournful harbinger of fate. One is alive only now, at this moment. The past does not exist as an actuality, it is gone forever and the future has not yet arrived … it does not exist as an actuality, either. Nostalgia for what once was and could have been and apprehension for what could be – and probably will be if the past dictates through the present - are poor substitutes for the joyfulness of living as this moment is. Merriment abounds where one dares to be what one actually is: alive only at this moment. If one is not happy, then the universe’s purity is telling one, via suffering, that one is doing things incorrectly. If one is feeling bad – be it sadness, anger, loneliness, or whatever – then that is a signal that something is amiss. Unless there is a general sense of well-being, right now, then there is something that can be looked at. Life is immensely beneficial in this situation; any suffering is the universe’s perfection steering one back on course. To continue to suffer for the sake of a belief that ‘suffering is good for you’ is imbecilic.

The only good thing about suffering is when it stops ... and one can make it stop, easily, by altering the insidious view that humankind is fated to failure. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Twenty-two

There is something precious in living itself. Something beyond compare. Something more valuable than any ‘King’s ransom’. It is not rare gemstones; it is not singular works of art; it is not the much-prized bags of money; it is not the treasured loving relationships; it is not the highly esteemed Blissful States Of ‘Being’ ... ... it is not any of these things usually considered precious. There is something ultimately precious. It is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe … which is the life-giving foundation of all that is apparent. That something precious is me as-I-am ... me as I actually am as distinct from ‘me’ as ‘I’ really am. I am the universe’s experience of itself. The limpid and lucid perfection and purity of being here now, as-I-am, is akin to the crystalline perfection and purity seen in a dew-drop hanging from the tip of a leaf in the early-morning sunshine; the sunrise strikes the transparent dew-drop with its warming rays, highlighting the flawless correctness of the tear-drop shape with its bellied form. One is left almost breathless with wonder at the immaculate simplicity so exemplified ... and everyone I have spoken with has experienced this impeccable purity and perfection in some way or another at varying stages in their life. Is it not impossible to conceive – and just too difficult to imagine – that this is one’s essential character? One has to be daring enough to live it ... for it is both one’s audacious birth-right and adventurous destiny.

When one lives the magical perfection of this purity twenty-four-hours-a-day; when one has ceased being ‘I’ and is being genuine, one can see clearly that there is no separation between me and that something which is precious. The purity of life emerges from the perfection that wells up constantly due to an immense stillness which is utterly immense in its scope and magnitude. This stillness of infinitude is that something which is precious. It is the life-giving foundation of all that is apparent. This stillness happens as me. This stillness is my essential disposition, for it is the principle character, the intrinsic basis of everything. It is this universe at its genesis. It is not, as it might commonly be supposed, at the centre of everything ... there is no centre here. This stillness, which is everywhere all at once, is the be all and end all of life itself. I am the universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being.

So I am sitting here, bathing in the perfection of this purity, knowing by direct experience this stillness that is precious ... and a fellow human being is asking me about the disputed pollution of a local river. What am I to answer? Am I to acquiesce to what she desires … which is to carry a placard at the river-mouth rally next Saturday morning? For if I were to do so, I would be pandering to her anger and agony, rewarding her for holding such animosity and anguish against her contemporaries. If I counsel against such a performance, I stand accused of ‘not caring for the environment’ ... and of course I do care. But for me to attend any rage-driven rally is to kow-tow to the mob anger which perpetuates savagery. Peace on earth is the furthermost thing from their minds at those moments; the confrontation is the highlight of their day. Although demonstrations can get things changed, the cost in terms of the loss of human togetherness is high. The so-called ‘peaceful rallies’ are not an exception; the participants are fuming with frustration and self-righteous indignation, against all that oppose. There must be a better way to get things changed.

There is a better way. It may not be so physically appealing as the apparent ‘cure’ of a protest, but it has the immense benefit of being permanent. Protest demonstrations are never ending … there is always another cause lurking just around the corner. Some people have become professional protesters; it is their life’s work, their raison d’être. Strangely enough, they are often people engaged in the Human Potential Movement or the Spiritual Quest; firm adherents to the concepts of Personal Growth and Spiritual Enlightenment. Such people profess to be peace-loving activists, although their actions more than often belie their words. They are usually simmering with barely suppressed hostility, eagerly awaiting the next cause they can become involved in. Some of them have attached themselves to a self-declared Saviour of Mankind that they believe in; a Saviour who comes out with their Divine brand of protest against life as-it-is, here on earth as an actuality. Such is not my way of doing things; I am incapable of manifesting the requisite rage and wretchedness.

I have achieved my personal peace-on-earth and I am unable to generate ill will any longer. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Twenty-five

Being deep in a rain-forest goes some way towards making it all clearer... or any wilderness, for that matter. As one travels deeper and deeper into this – initially ‘other’ – world of natural delight, one experiences an intensely hushed stillness that is vast and immense … yet so simply here. I am not referring to a feeling of awe or reverence or great beauty – to have any emotion or passion at all is to miss the actuality of this moment – nor am I referring to any blissful or euphoric state of ‘being’. It is a sensate experience, not an affective state. I am talking about the factual and simple actualness of earthy existence being experienced whilst ambling along or sitting quietly without any particular thought in mind ... yet not being mindless either. And then, when a sparkling intimacy occurs, do not the woods take on a fairy-tale-like quality? Is one not in a paradisiacal environment that envelops yet leaves one free? This is the ambience that I speak of. At this magical moment there is no ‘I’ in the head or ‘me’ in the heart ... there is this apperceptive awareness wherein thought can operate freely without the encumbrance of any feelings whatsoever.

It is not my ambience nor yours ... yet it is here for everyone and anyone for the asking ... for the daring to be here as this body only. One does this by stepping out of the real world into this actual world, as this flesh and blood body, leaving your ‘self’ behind where ‘you’ belong … because the reality of the real world is an illusion ‘I’ create by ‘my’ very ‘presence’. This ambience delivers the goods so longed for through aeons. Then it is entirely possible, throughout the vast majority of one’s time, for there to be no thoughts running at all … none whatsoever. If thought is needed for a particular situation, it swings smoothly into action and effortlessly does its thing. All the while there is an apperceptive awareness of being here … of being alive at this moment in time and this place in space. No words occur in the brain – other than when necessary – for it is a wordless appreciation of being able to be here now. Consequently, one is always blithe and carefree, even if one is doing nothing. Doing something – and that includes thinking – is a bonus of happiness and pleasure on top of this on-going ambrosial experience of being alive and awake and here on this verdant earth now.

Actualism is for anybody and everybody. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Thirty-four

There is an utter purity in the perfection of this universe that one and all live in which wells up ever-fresh from an immense stillness which is the genesis of all that is apparent. This universe is infinite – it has no beginning and no end – it has always been and always will be here … now. Things may come and things may go but the universe itself is everlasting. As the universe’s space is infinite, it follows that it has no edges. As there are no edges to this universe it means there is no centre to it. And as the universe’s time is eternal, it follows that it has no beginning or ending … hence there is no middle. One is nowhere in particular … and I mean this literally, factually. One and all are floating in limitless space and time upon this planet earth, going nowhere and coming from nowhere. The goal in life is to actualise this infinitude and live it as an actuality each moment again. The living of it is to experience being anywhere all at once whilst being nowhere in particular, for this is the living experience of infinitude. For most people, infinitude just means endless … but this is a limited understanding based upon what the self-bound mind can grasp intellectually.

One can realise that one is the universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being. One is, after all, made up of the very stuff of the universe … and I mean this as a physical actuality. The very material that this body is constituted of is the material of the universe … one did not come from ‘outside’ of it and be randomly placed ‘in’ here by some god for some mysterious purpose that is not up to humans to fathom. It is possible to fully know the ‘Mystery of Life’ to such an extent that one is completely satisfied and fulfilled. Nothing more needs to be done other than to live it each moment again and to enjoy and appreciate it all fully and totally. The utter purity of this perfect understanding – and the living of it – defies imagination and is impossible to believe. All of ones wishes and dreams are answered … and more. It is the adventure of a lifetime to embark upon a voyage of exploration and discovery; to not only seek but to find. And once found, it is here for the term of one’s natural life … it is an irreversible mutation in consciousness. Once launched it is impossible to turn back and resume one’s ‘normal’ life … one has to be absolutely sure that this is what one truly wants.

It is possible to be actually free. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Thirty-six

Sensuousness is the wondrous awareness of the marvel of being here now at this moment in time and this place in space. Attentiveness is the fascination of the reflective contemplation that this moment is one’s only moment of being alive – and one is never alive at any other time than now. Wherever one is … now … one is always here … now … even if one starts walking over to ‘there’ … now … along the way to ‘there’ … now … one is always here ... now … and when one arrives ‘there’ … now ... it too is here … now. Thus attentiveness is an attraction to the fact that one is always here – and it is already now – and as one is already here and it is always now then one has arrived before one starts. This delicious wonder fosters the innate condition of naiveté (which is the closest one can get to innocence) the nourishing of which is essential if the charm of it all is to occur. The potent combination of attentiveness – fascinated reflective contemplation – and sensuousness produces apperception, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. One is intimately aware that this physical space of this universe is infinite and its time is eternal ... thus the infinitude of this very material universe has no beginning and no ending and therefore no middle. There are no edges to this universe, which means that there is no centre, either. We are all coming from nowhere and are not going anywhere for there is nowhere to come from nor anywhere to go to. We are nowhere in particular ... which means we are anywhere at all. In the infinitude of the universe one finds oneself to be already here, and as it is always now, one can not get away from this place in space and this moment in time. By being here as-this-body one finds that this moment in time has no duration as in now and then – because the immediate is the ultimate – and that this place in space has no distance as in here and there – for the relative is the absolute.

In other words: One is already here as it is always now. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Appendix Five