Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Flogged Misconceptions

KONRAD: There is only confusion about a belief in the existence of such an identity. This is why I see that you are the one who is confused, not me.

RICHARD: Perhaps a few quotes from these long-time spiritual seekers might enable you to see – by seeing how others are playing with themselves – just what you yourself are doing here. Vis.:

1. [Spiritual Seeker]: ‘The notion of an ‘I’ that is here seems to be added by thought and cannot be found with close observation’.
2. [Spiritual Seeker]: ‘Thought falsely attributes the true existence of a ‘me’.
3. [Spiritual Seeker]: ‘Thought conceives the true existence of separate things, when, in fact, life is basically undivided’.
4. [Spiritual Seeker]: ‘Thought creates the notion of a ‘me’ and a ‘not’ me. A ‘me’, a watcher, a detached something could never see this since it is what thought creates. The existence of a ‘me’ or an idea of some detached position is merely imputed by thought, so it can never see or observe anything. That is the meaning of ‘the observer is the observed’.
5. [Spiritual Seeker]: ‘By what signs would this self be known to be existing as more than passing phenomenon? It seems that passions or feelings are just changing phenomenon that seemingly arise and pass away in awareness just as thoughts’.
6. [Spiritual Seeker]: ‘To label that ever-changing phenomenon as an instinctual self seems to be the addition of thought’.
7. [Spiritual Seeker]: ‘If I see a real lake and look closer and closer, there is still a lake. If however, I see a mirage of a lake, the closer I get, its lack of existence is clarified. Likewise, the existence of a real self would be clarified with close exposure. What happens, though, is that no substantial self can ever be found’.
8. [Spiritual Seeker]: ‘Since there has never been a real ongoing self from the first (only action based on the assumption or belief in one) there is an appearance of something ending when in fact it is exposing and dropping of the beliefs and misconceptions concerning an ongoing self’.
9. [Spiritual Seeker]: ‘Your belief that there is someone that experiences feelings is a misconception’.
10. [Spiritual Seeker]: ‘Does there need to be a ‘who’ at all to be angry? Anger comes and goes in awareness. Thought may imagine an ‘I’ that is angry, but that seems to be an added label’.
11. [Spiritual Seeker]: ‘Looking now, this moment, there is no one to be angry and nothing that can be labelled angry. There are memories of anger that have arisen and dropped out of exposure. There is no thought of a someone that can proceed anywhere. It is just observing what comes up. It is not a goal, path or method. It is just what occurs naturally’.

Does all this help somewhat, Konrad, to throw some light upon the subject? In Australia, this kind of behaviour is called ‘being a wanker’.

KONRAD: For as long as you think that this is necessary, you have no clear understanding of the real nature of ‘I’. For if you had, you would see that this is ridiculous. For you cannot eliminate something that is not there in the first place. There is only one problem, and that is REALIZING that this ‘I’, this identity IS an illusion. And when this is totally realized, in the sense that it is observed to be true, and not only understood as a possibility, the process of enlightenment sets in.

RICHARD: Perhaps the following exchange might help you to understand how it is for me in regards to what you are now discussing. Vis.:

• [Spiritual Seeker]: ‘You say that there used to be an ‘I’ in this body, but somehow it is gone. Yes?’
• [Richard]: ‘Yes, it is gone ... and not just ‘somehow’, but with full intent and knowledge of what to do and what was happening. Consequently, I know how to get rid of this very persistent self which you quite rightly say is an illusion’.
• [Spiritual Seeker]: ‘If, in fact, there was some real self in your body, where did it go and how did it end? Real things don’t just disappear’.
• [Richard]: ‘How did it end? It was due to my intense conviction that it was imperative that someone evince a final and complete condition that would ‘deliver the goods’ so longed for by humanity for millennia. ‘I’ paid exclusive attention to being alive right here and now only. This type of attention is best known as fascination. Fascination leads to reflective contemplation. This potent combination produces apperception, which happens when the mind becomes aware 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 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 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 is. Everything is seen to be perfect as-it-is. Diligent attention paid to the peak experience gives rise to pure intent. With pure intent running as a ‘golden thread’ through one’s life, contemplation rapidly becomes pure. Pure contemplation is bare awareness ... bare of ‘me’ being aware. Apperception happens of itself.

RESPONDENT: AND I still struggle, want, strive to understand this ‘illusory self’ that everybody says doesn’t exist but obscures that Reality which does exist, and if it (self) doesn’t exist, then how does it have such power over the physical? Nobody denies that the physical exists (with the exception of a few weirdos) and yet, this self that doesn’t exist can make the body do things like cry, smile, yell, cuss, get a sick stomach, muscles tie up in knots, get cancer, a headache, get horny, commit murder, rape, leave town, etc. (all in your list). For something that doesn’t exist, the self, the thinker, the ‘I’, the ego, can sure cause a lot of havoc in a physical world, which some on the list say doesn’t exists either or is a figment of one’s imagination, or if we believe that is what we have, then that is what we have.

RICHARD: There is a rather simple way to understand this. For many years I mistakenly assumed that words carried a definitive meaning that was common to all peoples speaking the same language ... for example ‘real’ and ‘truth’. But, as different person’s told me things like: ‘That is only your truth’, or: ‘God is real’, I realised that unambiguous words are required (to a child, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are ‘real’ and ‘true’). Correspondingly I abandoned ‘real’ and ‘true’ in favour of ‘actual’ and ‘fact’, as experience has demonstrated that no one has been able to tell me that their god is actual or that something is only my fact. Therefore this monitor screen is actual (these finger-tips feeling it substantiate this) and it is a fact that these printed letters are forming words (these eyes seeing it validate this). These things are indisputable and verifiable by any body with the requisite sense-organs.

Now, to a person who believes ardently in their god, then for them their god is real ... not actual, mind you, but real. Usually they tell me that their god is more real than we humans are ... that is how real their fervency makes of their belief (it is the same as the child with the Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy example I gave above). So too, is it with regards to this wretched ‘self’. The ‘self’, whilst not being actual, is real ... sometimes very, very real. The belief in a real ‘thinker’ and ‘feeler’ is not just another passing thought. It is emotion-backed imagination at work. ‘I’ passionately believe in ‘my’ existence ... and will defend ‘myself’ to the death if it is deemed necessary. All of ‘my’ instincts – the instinctive drive for biological survival – come to the fore when psychologically and psychically threatened, for ‘I’ am confused about ‘my’ presence, confounding ‘my’ survival and the body’s survival. However, ‘my’ survival being paramount could not be further from the truth, for ‘I’ need play no part any more in perpetuating physical existence (which is the primal purpose of the instinctual animal ‘self’). ‘I’ am no longer necessary at all. In fact, ‘I’ am nowadays a hindrance. With all of ‘my’ beliefs, values, creeds, ethics and other doctrinaire disabilities, ‘I’ am a menace to the body. ‘I’ am ready to die (to allow the body to be killed) for a cause and ‘I’ will willingly sacrifice physical existence for a ‘Noble Ideal’ ... and reap ‘my’ post-mortem reward: immortality.

That is how real ‘I’ am.

RICHARD: I do not use the actualism method ... never have and never will (it was the identity in residence all those years ago who did).

RESPONDENT: Then who was it that just made the above statement?

RICHARD: This flesh and blood body wrote the above words.

RESPONDENT: Who is this ‘I’ you are referring to if is not the identity which has left the ‘building’ ‘all those years ago’.

RICHARD: The first person pronoun is used to refer to this flesh and blood body for both the sake of convenience and to avoid being unduly pedantic ... the above sentence, for example, would look like this otherwise:

• [example only]: ‘This flesh and blood body does not use the actualism method ... never has and never will (it was the identity in residence all those years ago who did)’. [end example].

RESPONDENT: It can only be identity as without it you could not have even made that statement.

RICHARD: Ha ... this flesh and blood body will draw your attention to what this flesh and blood body wrote to you in the second e-mail, of this thread, which this flesh and blood body posted only nine days before you sent this one:

• [Respondent]: ‘... we either exist or we don’t exist it can’t be both, so from the evidence we have its obvious that we exist as a body and also as an awareness entity.
• [Richard]: ‘A flesh and blood body can be aware (aka conscious) sans an entity ... indeed it is the altruistic ‘self’-immolation of that entity, in toto, which enables the already always existing peace-on-earth to be apparent.
Concomitant to the total demise of that entity all that which you ask about further above [now snipped] also ceases to exist ... as does all gods/goddesses (by whatever name).
It is all so clean, clear, and pure, here in this actual world’. (Saturday 6/08/2005 3:08 AM AEST).

RESPONDENT: It seems that passions or feelings are just changing phenomenon that seemingly arise and pass away in awareness just as thoughts. To label that ever-changing phenomenon as an instinctual self seems to be the addition of thought.

RICHARD: I did not just ‘label’ mindlessly ... my words accurately describe a reality that the ‘I’ that used to be in this body saw that I needed to be free from. Words in themselves are not a problem, for words are a description of something ... and it is that something that is being lived which is trapping you ... not the words. I know that some people (Post-Modernists, for example) re-arrange words and definitions to suit themselves, but the underlying reality remains the problem. Semantics is only a superficial problem, in spite of those who write profound tomes about it as if it were the problem in itself. People will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid facing facts and actuality.

RESPONDENT: You point to the affects of action based on the belief in some real self. That action (under the assumption of a separate self) is always in conflict. Pointing to the affects of misconception does not prove the existence of a real ongoing self.

RICHARD: Okay, you have used three very descriptive words here ... belief, assumption and misconception. I would be the last person to ascribe an actuality to the self; the belief in the real existence of an ego and soul is just that ... a belief. It is indeed a misconception; it is indeed an assumption; it is indeed these things (and there a lot more descriptions we can use ... a notion, an idea, an illusion, a mirage, an image and so on) but describing the cause of the existence of self does not end the self’s continued existence now, does it? We know it is still in existence because of the effects it has in the ‘outside’ world ... like all the wars, the murders, the tortures, the rapes, the domestic violence and the corruptions. And we know it is still in existence because of the effects it has in the ‘inner’ world ... like all the sadness, the loneliness, the sorrows, the depressions and the suicides. Although only appearing to be real, its effect is very, very actual.

I wish to be personal here, in order to elucidate this extremely pertinent point. Do you ever get sad? Do you ever get lonely? Do you ever get sorrowful? Do you ever get depressed? Do you ever get angry? Do you ever get spiteful? Do you ever get envious? Do you ever get hateful? Do you ever get bored? Do you ever get peeved? Do you ever get irritable? Do you ever get anxious? Do you ever get afraid? Do you ever get guilty? Do you ever get resentful? Do you ever get ashamed? Do you ever get apprehensive? Do you ever get embarrassed? Do you ever get distressed? Do you ever get jealous? Do you ever get self-conscious? Do you ever get fearful? Do you ever get aggressive? Do you ever get ... I could go on and on, but do you get the point?

And to make it absolutely clear, I will stress just what the point is: that unless all these effects – and many more – have vanished out of your life forever, then knowing that the self is a belief, an assumption, a misconception has done nothing to dislodge this product of belief, assumption and misconception called a self.

RESPONDENT: You say that there used to be an ‘I’ in this body, but somehow it is gone. Yes?

RICHARD: Yes, it is gone ... and not just ‘somehow’ , but with full intent and knowledge of what to do and what was happening. Consequently, I know how to get rid of this very persistent self which you quite rightly say is not real (actual).

RESPONDENT: If, in fact, there was some real self in your body, where did it go and how did it end? Real things don’t just disappear.

RICHARD: How did it end? It was due to my intense conviction that it was imperative that someone evince a final and complete condition that would ‘deliver the goods’ so longed for by humanity for millennia. ‘I’ paid exclusive attention to being alive right here and now only. This type of attention is best known as fascination. Fascination leads to reflective contemplation. This potent combination produces apperception, which happens when the mind becomes aware 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 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 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 is. Everything is seen to be perfect as-it-is. Diligent attention paid to the peak experience gives rise to pure intent. With pure intent running as a ‘golden thread’ through one’s life, contemplation rapidly becomes pure. Pure contemplation is bare awareness – bare of ‘me’ being aware. Apperception happens of itself.

With pure intent 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.

The day finally dawns where the definitive moment of being here, right now, conclusively arrives; something irrevocable takes place and every thing and every body and every event is different, somehow, although the same physically; something immutable occurs and every thing and every body and every event is all-of-a-sudden undeniably actual, in and of itself, as a fact; something irreversible happens and an immaculate perfection and a pristine purity permeates every thing and every body and every event; something has changed forever, although it is as if nothing has happened, except that the entire world is a magical fairytale-like playground full of incredible gladness and a delight which is never-ending.

What a marvellous difference this makes to being alive!

RESPONDENT: If I see a real lake and look closer and closer, there is still a lake. If however, I see a mirage of a lake, the closer I get, its lack of existence is clarified. Likewise, the existence of a real self would be clarified with close exposure. What happens, though, is that no substantial self can ever be found.

RICHARD: This is because you, as self, are the very self that is trying to see the self. Of course you will only find an ever-receding mirage. To put it into language you will be familiar with: You, the seer, are what is wished to be seen. You, the seeker, are that which is being sought.

RESPONDENT: Since there has never been a real ongoing self from the first (only action based on the assumption or belief in one) there is an appearance of something ending when in fact it is exposing and dropping of the beliefs and misconceptions concerning an ongoing self.

RICHARD: Unfortunately it is not such a simple matter as merely exposing and dropping beliefs and misconceptions. I would suggest asking who is doing the exposing and dropping. I would enquire into just who is holding the beliefs and misconceptions concerning an on-going self. ‘I’ cannot drop the belief that ‘I’ exist because ‘I’, the would-be ‘dropper’, am what is to be dropped. Like-wise, ‘I’ the would-be ‘exposer’, am what is to be exposed.

Only apperceptive awareness will do the trick.

RESPONDENT: I found this piece in your web site: ‘Given the human elaboration of the instinctual animal ‘self’ into a sophisticated and cunning psychological and psychic identity that appears to live in, and be trapped within, the flesh and blood body, the instinctual animal passions can only be eradicated by totally eliminating both the psychological ‘self’ and the instinctual ‘self’. The bad news is that the elimination of one’s ‘self’ needs to be total – both ‘who’ society has taught you to be and ‘who’ blind nature has programmed you to instinctively feel you are – or in spiritual terms, both the ‘ego’ and the ‘soul’. The good news is that what you are will emerge – a flesh and blood human being, free of malice and sorrow and free of any metaphysical delusions whatsoever’. ??? Can you explain what is the scientific nature of THAT ‘I’ which is supposed to remain after eliminating the above said ‘both the psychological ‘self’ and the instinctual ‘self’ ...

RICHARD: Sure ... there are three I’s altogether but only one is actual (sensate) and not an identity: scientifically speaking what one actually is, sans both ‘I’ as ego and ‘I’ as soul (the freed ‘flesh and blood human being’ mentioned in the quote), could be described as a sentient creature, an intelligent vertebrate, a mammalian animal in general and a bipedal primate with opposable thumbs in particular, that is apperceptively aware.

RESPONDENT: ... and which portion of the brain is responsible for the so called PCE ...

RICHARD: If I may interject? There is nothing ‘so-called’ about a pure consciousness experience (PCE) ... it is indeed called a PCE.

RESPONDENT: ... [and which portion of the brain is responsible for the so called PCE] experience resulting.

RICHARD: It is the brain-stem, primarily, which is the source of the PCE ... most probably in the Reticular Activating System (RAS), in general, and quite possibly in the Substantia Nigra, in particular (arguably the seat of consciousness).

RESPONDENT: That ‘thinker’ or ‘feeler’ is imputed by thought on the basis of ever-changing thoughts and feelings. If there is a belief in a real ‘thinker’ or ‘feeler’ or some real ‘me’, that just another passing thought. Watching thoughts, feelings, and beliefs all come and go as they do, what can be pointed to as some real ‘thinker’?

RICHARD: The ‘I’ who is doing the ‘watching’ ... that is who can be pointed to as some real ‘thinker’. The belief in a real ‘thinker’ and ‘feeler’ is not ‘just another passing thought’. It is emotion-backed imagination at work. ‘I’ passionately believe in ‘my’ existence ... and will defend ‘myself’ to the death if it is deemed necessary. All of ‘my’ instincts – the instinctive drive for biological survival – come to the fore when psychologically and psychically threatened, for ‘I’ am confused about ‘my’ presence, confounding ‘my’ survival and the body’s survival. However, ‘my’ survival being paramount could not be further from the truth, for ‘I’ need play no part any more in perpetuating physical existence (which is the primal purpose of the instinctual animal ‘self’). ‘I’ am no longer necessary at all. In fact, ‘I’ am nowadays a hindrance. With all of ‘my’ beliefs, values, creeds, ethics and other doctrinaire disabilities, ‘I’ am a menace to the body. ‘I’ am ready to die (to allow the body to be killed) for a cause and ‘I’ will willingly sacrifice physical existence for a ‘Noble Ideal’ ... and reap ‘my’ post-mortem reward: immortality.

RESPONDENT: The perception of ‘egotistical persons’ seems to involve the labelling process of thought that imputes a ‘person’ on to the observable activities of an ever-changing body/mind.

RICHARD: It is not merely a labelling process; thought does not just ‘impute a ‘person’ on the observable activities’ ... there is indeed an ego – and a soul – operating in that ‘egotistical person’. Hence the egotistical behaviour ... or whatever another displays.

*

RESPONDENT: Yes. Seeing has nothing to do with an ‘I’.

RICHARD: Okay, I want to go into this very, very carefully, for it is oh-so-easy for the mind to befool itself. Remember what you said towards the beginning of this thread: ‘The dualism of those who see versus those who don’t seems to rely on the same discriminating activity of thought as that of the division between ‘me’ and not ‘me’’?

Now you are saying: ‘seeing has nothing to do with a ‘me’. Could it be that one has fallen foul of that common spiritual trap of the mind splitting off a segment of itself to form a non-judging watcher? Because then one can rightly say that there is ‘just seeing the nature of what takes place’. If this is so, then one is in a state of detachment ... not freed of the ‘me’. This is an impersonal ‘I’ who simply sees thoughts come and go; who simply sees feelings come and go; who simply sees psychic phenomena come and go ... and does not interfere. From this detached position, an ‘I’ is nowhere to be found ... it is ever-elusive. A detached self is still a self, nevertheless.

I say this because you also said towards the beginning of this thread: ‘We can glimpse or think about how the ‘me’ is but a dualistic notion, but still see a distinction between a ‘me’ that knows this as opposed to a ‘me’ that doesn’t. This is a manifestation of the very misconception that was supposedly realised’.

This is an apt description of ‘The Watcher’.

RESPONDENT: There never was any ego or soul entity. There is just conditioning, programming that includes those beliefs as well as the instinctive reactions.

RICHARD: Aye ... yet the instinctive reactions have their energy base in the instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire that blind nature endows on all sentient beings. These passions are the very energy source of the rudimentary animal self ... the base consciousness of ‘self’ and ‘other’ that all sentient beings have. The human animal – with its unique ability to think and reflect upon its own death – transforms this ‘reptilian brain’ rudimentary ‘self’ into being a feeling ‘me’ (as soul in the heart) and from this core of ‘being’ this ‘feeler’ then infiltrates into thought to become a thinking ‘I’ (as ego in the head). No other animal can do this. This process is aided and abetted by the human beings who were already on this planet when one was born ... which, as you say, is conditioning and programming. It is part and parcel of the socialising process. Thus seeing the ‘I’ as false is not sufficient ... there is a ‘me’ lurking in the heart to take over the wheel. Then – and this is for all those intellectuals who fondly imagine that ‘seeing’ something as being false is sufficient – if the ‘me’ in the heart is also seen to be false ... there is still a matter of those pesky instinctive reactions to give lie to their claims of ‘there never was any ego or soul entity’.

To put it bluntly: ‘you’ in ‘your’ totality, who are but an illusion, must die an illusory death commensurate to ‘your’ pernicious existence. The drama must be played out to the end ... there are no short-cuts here. The doorway to an actual freedom has the word ‘extinction’ written on it. This extinction is an irrevocable event that eliminates the psyche itself. There will be no ‘being’.

*

RICHARD: The psyche is not memory at all ... it is born of the instinctual passions. When ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul become extinct the psyche vanishes ... then memory is understood as being the asset that it is and not a liability.

RESPONDENT: The so-called human ego-structure, human conditioning is memory-based. There is thought of me before enlightenment, me after enlightenment, me becoming free etc. There is an experience and with that energy, conditioning dissolves. Thought converts that into attainment by me. But actually the process is impersonal.

RICHARD: As I am bodily constituted of various bits and pieces of this physical universe and I am bodily animated by the calorific content of food and the oxygen content of air and so on – which are also various bits and pieces of this physical universe – and that due to the process of inevitable physical entropy I will bodily cease being animated (which is another way of saying birth then living then death) it is entirely reasonable to say that the entire process of being alive anyway is already impersonal. Giving credence to any ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul as being somehow essential in any part or all of this in any personal way is simply illusionary and narcissistic self-centredness in action.

Yet there is this rudimentary animal ‘self’ of the survival instincts endowed by blind nature as evidenced in animals ... and there is the rub. The presence of this base ‘self’ – which is ‘being’ itself – has nothing to do with conditioning and programming or thought and memory ... you were physically born this way.

RICHARD: All is carefree in this actual world ... there is no ‘good’ or ‘evil’ here. <snipped for space>

RESPONDENT: Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.

RICHARD: You do seem to be missing the point: there is neither ‘good’ nor ‘evil’ in this flesh and blood body.

RESPONDENT: For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?

RICHARD: This seems to be at least somewhat in accord with what I have been saying: ‘good’ cannot exist without ‘evil’ and ‘evil’ cannot exist without ‘good’ ... they co-exist; they go hand-in-hand. There is a well-known saying ‘the lotus blossom has its roots in mud (‘good’ has its roots in ‘evil’) ... it is a symbiotic relationship. There can never, ever be ‘a good that knows no evil’ or ‘a love that knows no hate’ and so on. Which is why it is carefree here in this actual world ... there is neither ‘good’ nor ‘evil’ here.

<snipped for space>

RESPONDENT: The truly good ask not the naked, ‘Where is your garment?’ nor the houseless, ‘What has befallen your house?’

RICHARD: And you abruptly finish by introducing a new definition: ‘truly good’ as distinct from ‘good’. Is there another instalment along the way, expanding on what a ‘truly good’ person does, as compared with what a ‘truly evil’ person does (presumably the ‘truly evil’ is the truly tortured ‘truly good’)? It does seem to get ever-more complicated ... yet all this while there never has ever been any ‘good’ or ‘evil’ here in this actual world. No thirsting and hungering whatsoever ... all is carefree.

RESPONDENT: ‘Thirst (noun): need for liquid: a desire or need to drink a liquid, or the feeling of dryness in the mouth and throat caused by a need for a liquid; thirsting, (3rd person present singular thirsts): experience thirst: to feel a thirst for a liquid. Hunger (noun): 1. need to eat: the need or desire for food; 2. craving: a great need or desire for something – a hunger for knowledge; hungering, (3rd person present singular hungers)’.

RICHARD: Oh? A definition for ‘hunger’ and ‘thirst’ eh? Okay, shall we apply it to your opening question (further above):? Vis.:

• [Respondent]: ‘what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?

... now reads:

• [Translation]: ‘what is evil but good tortured by its own need or desire for food; its own craving, its great need or desire for something, its hunger for knowledge ... and its need for liquid, its desire or need to drink a liquid, its feeling of dryness in the mouth and throat caused by a need for a liquid, its thirsting, its feeling of a thirst for a liquid?

May I ask? What is it that you are wishing to convey to me? That all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and so on are caused by a lack of food and water and knowledge? If so, this latest offering of yours does seem to make the ever-more complicated even more convoluted. Yet all this while there never has ever been any complications and convolutions here in this actual world – let alone any ‘good’ or ‘evil’ – hence all is carefree.

Plus there is no lack of food, water and knowledge.

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