Actual Freedom – Selected Writings from Richard's Journal

One can become virtually free from all the insidious feelings – the emotions and passions – that fuel the mind and give credence to all the illusions and delusions and fantasies and hallucinations that masquerade as visions of The Truth. One can become virtually free of all that which has encumbered humans with misery and despair and live in a state of virtual freedom … which is beyond ‘normal’ human expectations anyway. Then, and only then, can the day of destiny dawn wherein one becomes actually free. One will have obtained release from one’s fate and achieved one’s birthright … and the world will be all the better for it.

It is now possible. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Introduction

However, even if one does not immediately self-immolate psychologically and psychically there is a truly remarkable virtual freedom that can be attained through application and diligence borne upon pure intent. For those that would seek to excuse themselves on the grounds that I am freak, an aberration of nature, this factor belies this justification. It is possible to be virtually free, virtually perfect, virtually pure. To be sure, to live the ultimate requires more than the abrogation of the right to be the social identity, but something quite remarkable is possible before the event. One can, because of pure intent, voluntarily forsake the social identity, and go into exile, into self-retirement, whilst remaining in the market place. One does this by examining all of one’s beliefs – masquerading as ‘truths’ – and watching them vanish as if they had never existed. One can observe oneself in one’s moment-to-moment activities as one goes about daily life. Gradually one notices that ‘I’ have grown rather thin, as if withering away, until ‘I’ become merely a shadow of ‘my’ former self ... causing very little trouble and then only occasionally. This condition will continue to subsist until the inevitable happens and ‘I’ cease to exist in ‘my’ totality of ‘being’. So there is plenty that one can achieve until the ultimate occurs ... there is no longer any excuse for devious behaviour and facile explanations such as ‘I am only ‘human’’. Nor is there any justification for stating that ‘life is a vale of tears’.

I am not in agreement with these cherished psittacisms – those mechanical repetitions of ideas or images, reflecting neither apperception nor autonomous reasoning – that are all inherited from the revered ancestors. Their ‘wisdom’ has proved itself to be a condemnation, convicting humankind to a life-view of victimisation; a mind-set that forbids humans to be unconditionally happy. After all, ‘we are surely not entitled to be happy all the time?’, or ‘aren’t you wishing for the moon?’, and ‘we learn and grow through suffering’. Why should this gigantic happening, called the universe, want to demand of humans that one be as miserable as one can be for the term of one’s natural life? This is preposterous to the extreme! It is as if one is only allowed to be happy outside of this life; that is, after physical death. If one believes this balderdash, one commits oneself to a life of continuous Religious or Existential hope and despair … a purview dependent upon one’s predilection for gloom and doom.

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

Actualism does not promise … it delivers a virtual freedom. Then one has a distinct opportunity of becoming actually free. One of the charming characteristics of actual freedom – apart from the highly desirable perfection and excellence – is the instant bestowal of universal peace upon the one who dares to be me. With peace comes benignity and benevolence. I simply have no desire, no urge, no compulsion – and no need – to hurt the other, or anyone else. I have discovered that it is possible to be free. I have found the joy of being me. Freed by pure intent from the very necessary social constraints – designed to control a wayward ego and a compliant soul – I can have generosity of character without striving. Pleasingly, I can take no credit for being kind, for it comes automatically. Thus I do not suffer from hubris, with its consequential need for practising humility. Altogether, it is an entirely new way of living, never before discovered, never before spoken of. It was sitting here, all of this time.

My life is now carefree ... and full of genuine fun. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Twelve

While it is of the utmost importance to be ultimately free, it is of extreme benefit to be virtually free. Virtual freedom is demonstrably able to be achieved, through application and diligence, once being locked-on to pure intent. Pure intent is a stream of benevolence and benignity that issues forth from the purity of the stillness that is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe … which is the life-giving foundation of all that is apparent. Pure intent replaces morality which, with all its controls on a wayward identity, keeps that very entity in psychological and psychic existence. In virtual freedom one is no longer wayward, thanks to pure intent, hence no need for the controls. Plus pure intent brings about a sagacity in which discoveries are made of a serendipitous quality. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Twenty-seven

The ability to live this instant ultimate is a permanent condition of actual freedom ... and is beyond compare. However, virtual freedom is not to be scoffed at; no longer will one view life on earth as a ‘place of suffering’. One lives in virtual harmony, virtual peace and virtual tranquillity. All this, and more, is achieved without becoming virtuous, without becoming moralistic, without becoming an obnoxious ‘do-gooder’. Virtual freedom, the essential precursor to the ultimate condition, is an eminently desirable condition to be in. One is at ease, content and satisfied ninety-nine percent of the time … and the other one percent causes very little trouble. Although it cannot compare with the ultimate, in stark contrast to ‘normal’ life in the real world, one is blithe and gay … carefree and deliciously happy to an unbelievable extent.

The key factor in the success of virtual freedom is pure intent. Pure intent is a palpable life-force that renders morality redundant ... which is good news, as morality – although well-meant – never works successfully. Morality seeks to control; pure intent eliminates the need for control. With pure intent operating twenty-four-hours-a-day in one’s life, one can safely get out from being under control without going off the rails. One is then virtually free from the resentment, the guilt, the remorse, and all the other factors which are the hall-mark of a wayward self under the control of the social identity. Pure intent is an actually occurring stream of benevolence and benignity that originates in the purity that is the chief attribute of the perfect and vast stillness that is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe … which is the life-giving foundation of all that is apparent. When one gives way to that, when one realises that ‘I’ cannot do it on ‘my’ own, that purity enables one to live one’s life as it is meant to be lived. One is meant to be benign, benevolent and blithe ... life was not meant to be ugly, brutish and sorrowful. It is only when ‘I’ instinctually feel – and thus arrogantly think that ‘I’ know better than the universe how life should be lived – that the troubles and miseries begin. ‘I’ have arrogated responsibility with self-evidently disastrous results.

Pure intent absolves one from the duty to perform. The stream of life, which this moment in time and this place in space is, is the universe living itself as a sensate human being … and is capable of reflecting on its situation. One is supported by the universe – as it were – and one can do no harm. All this and more is indicative of having achieved a state of virtual freedom. After living in the condition of virtual freedom for sufficient time to absorb all the ramifications of a blithesome life, it is highly likely that the ultimate condition can happen. ‘I’ do not make it happen, because ‘I’ cannot make it happen. What is more … ‘I’ am not required to make it happen. An actual freedom happens of itself only when one is fully ready, and not before. One has to become acclimatised to benignity, benevolence and blitheness, because the purity of the actual is so powerful that it would ‘blow the fuses’ if one was to venture into this territory ill-prepared. To precipitously apprehend the vast stillness of infinitude would be too much, too fast, too soon ... one could go mad with the super-abundance of pleasure that pours forth. The in-built tendency of the universe to achieve the optimum knows best as to when the time is right.

Besides, virtual freedom lies beyond ‘normal’ human expectations anyway. If one were to proceed no further, one would have already achieved what a ‘normal’ person deems improbable. It cannot be stressed too much how highly desirable virtual freedom is. Any society based on pure intent with its citizens living in virtual freedom, would be so superior to the current communities that are based upon morality and control, that peace-on-earth would be most likely to be the over-all state of affairs. Although actual sagacity lies only in the ultimate condition, virtual wisdom is sufficient to ensure that the optimum virtual peace and prosperity prevails. To repeat: virtual freedom, borne upon pure intent, does away with the need for control. One is virtually free to live life in an abundantly successful way.

When the ultimate moment happens, one finds that one has gone beyond everything. Nothing remains, only utter stillness abounds. The perfection and purity of the stillness is impossible to imagine or believe … it has to be lived to be known. The journey is over, one has arrived at one’s destination.

One’s destiny is here. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Twenty-three

To enable one to live in virtual freedom one can, among other things, renounce resentment. For the commitment to achieving peace-on-earth to become total, for it to become a complete devotion to effecting perfection, for it to become a dedication of oneself to the consummation of the freedom-of-the-moment, one gladly forsakes humankind’s ‘wisdom’ of old. That ‘wisdom’ is a wishy-washy, part-time, lip-serving, casual approach to the ultimate goal. It is called ‘Hope’. All peoples are constantly exhorted to: ‘do not lose hope’. But, as ‘Hope’ is an impoverished proxy for the actual, the resentment remains. Only by firmly renouncing resentment, by abandoning one’s commitment to proving that life on earth is a ‘vale of tears’, can one’s commitment be staunch only to the ultimate goal. One is then no longer able to agree with others that ‘life on earth is a grim and glum business’. One will easily cease saying things like ‘I didn’t ask to be born’, or ‘sorrow is part and parcel of life’, or ‘learn to accept suffering and grow by worshipping its beauty’. All of these desperate coping-mechanisms become humbug and are never validated again. With each experience of the fact that perfection is already here, the connection becomes stronger. One is laying down a path with each cobblestone being the reminder of the purity of the atmosphere which lies at one’s ultimate destination.

The reminder is of course stronger with each peak experience. Yet, even when asked about it, one is drawn ever more irresistibly to one’s destiny upon talking of its actual existence. Living here becomes more and more interesting, more and more fascinating, as a thrilling momentum gathers pace. One can no longer belittle the ultimate goal, in times of trouble, as being ‘just a dream’, or as ‘a far-away fantasy’, or as ‘it’s not for me, I’m not good enough’. One will happily have the attitude of doing whatever one can do to enable this perfect destiny to happen as soon as possible. One readily understands that one is required to keep the connection open between naiveté and the perfection of that ultimate goal.

Renouncing resentment obviates the need to apply the commonly accepted antidote: gratitude. Gratitude is one of the many ploys designed, by those who expound on the merits of self-imposed suffering, to keep one in servile ignominy and creeping despair. As strange as it may initially seem, gratitude has the same deleterious effect upon one’s well-being as the resentment it seeks to reform. When gratitude is realised as being the panacea that it is, one will gladly renounce it along with the resentment it promises to replace. To successfully dispense with the despised resentment, its companion emotion, the extolled gratitude, must also go. It is a popular misconception that one can do away with a ‘bad’ emotion whilst hanging on to the ‘good’ one. In actualism the third alternative always applies. ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’, ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’, ‘Virtue’ and ‘Sin’, ‘Hope’ and ‘Despair’, ‘Gratitude’ and ‘Resentment’, and so on, all disappear in the perfection of purity.

Purity is the hall-mark of the stillness that is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe … which is the life-giving foundation of all that is apparent. Unless the factuality of the existence of the third alternative is firmly grasped, one is forever fated to shuttle back and forth between the opposites. Gratitude simply does not work for it draws its energy from resentment itself … and from nowhere else. Gratitude feeds off resentment – one cannot be grateful unless one is first resentful – and one cannot maintain any emotion without retaining its opposite. Neither does one adopt that other stratagem: transcendence. Transcendence is a form of sublimation ... to transcend is to confirm and endorse the reality of the opposites. One disposes of all these pathetic methods very simply: By being here now as this flesh and blood body.

Being here now is to put your money where your mouth is, as it were. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Twenty-four