Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Asked Questions

Can you tell me how we came in to being? (Did the chicken come first or the egg ?)

Can I have your views on what is the purpose of this life on earth as a human being?

Richard, are you saying that the ultimate meaning of the universe is to experience itself as a sentient creature? ... and do that by purposely creating reproductive organisms and then sentient creatures out of hard stone and energy? Else why say that life is not a random, chance event in an otherwise empty and meaningless universe? What are the differences between ‘universe’ and ‘life’?

What meaning could be found? If there is any must it not be found in the moment to moment living? If not there, then where?

What do you suppose is the meaning to life?

What is the ‘free’ mind of which you speak? What does a ‘free’ mind do once it is freed?

All that aside, what is it like to be so free (and wonderfully different)? And do you think there is any hope for the rest of us? From your perspective, is anything vitally important in the ‘big picture’, or do we humans make a mountain out of our mole-hill?

Mother nature has figured out that more complex beings are more likely to breed and bring to viability the young. Which, of course, is the only purpose/meaning of life. If any find that last statement disturbing, prove to me otherwise pls.

So ... what is it (the purpose/ meaning/ complexity to be a human being living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are?

By the way, being happy and harmless is not the meaning of life and it is not what was intended for you.

I was ‘putting under the microscope’ yesterday my previous attempts (and their seeming importance at the time) at discovering the ‘meaning of life’ and upon reflection of my most memorable PCE I saw that the only meaning was simply that it (life, the universe and everything) is happening and the ensuing wonder at its glorious perpetuity was in fact, its meaning, no more or less.

It almost seems to me that you are claiming that life cannot be ‘meaningful’ as long as there is an ‘I’ around – if ‘I’ stand in the way of meaning. Does the ‘I’ completely obliterate meaning?

So ... what is it (the purpose/ meaning/ complexity to be a human being living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are? To me this person or that person is as much as I am a phenomenon that appears to be as a fragment of the multitude of appearances. In other words, that grey matter inside of the skull my skull your skull everybody’s skull is not merely passive. So ... what is it (the purpose/ meaning/ complexity to be a human being living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are?

Finally if you really are free from all the things you say then that is amazing. But can you tell me what really matters per se?

Can the ‘me’ have a clear purpose of becoming happy and harmless? Or it will be always a lip service and there is some other part of oneself which becomes manifest when the ‘me’ (feeling part) becomes minimized that has to go about it?

I have two questions: Firstly, Why is the universe here? Why do I exist? Is there a reason? What difference does it make whether Richard is the first to find actual freedom and why do people spend so much time debating it?

Forgetting the ‘meaningless’ evaluation: why is life not a random, chance event aided by the process of natural selection? I suppose the point of saying ‘random’ and ‘chance’ is to separate it from a designer god who had a purpose in mind. The mind’s desire for meaning may be satisfied by experiencing actuality, but I think this is far from saying there is a ‘meaning of life’. The closest thing I can think of to a ‘meaning of life’ is nature’s imperative to reproduce.

Richard, you have written somewhere that life is neither purposeful nor purposeless. Could you explain that? Can you elaborate on the following: the question of life being purposeful or purposeless ‘is a spiritualist/ materialist dichotomy which has no existence in actuality? I can clearly and vividly remember a few PCE’s and I also remember thinking during those PCE’s that this (that) was the only moment I could experience being alive and that there wasn’t any inherent meaning in life. Meaning is to be found in experiencing each moment to its fullest and clearly experiencing the perfection inherent to the universe.

Richard, Is the purpose of life an arbitrary invention? Or is the purpose of life to get action? To explore and to discover if you will. SO then what do you think is the purpose of life?