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General Correspondence Page Number Five
Respondent No. 1 RICHARD: Further to our conversation a couple of weeks ago, whereupon I said that I would send you something to read so as to find out if you are still interested in the freedom I espouse, I am sending two books that you may be particularly curious about looking through ... I can thoroughly recommend ‘Peter’s Journal’ as being a very good read. However, there is much, much more than a couple of books about an actual freedom from the ‘Human Condition’... I am very active on the Internet – it being the best way to put something as controversial as this out into the world – and I maintain a Web Page from my own living room. There is literally millions of words, available for free, about life, the universe and what it is to be a human being living in the world as it is with people as they are. If you can find the time to gain access – and there are ‘Internet Cafés’ virtually everywhere nowadays – I am sure you would find it beneficial to understanding what is going on. There is also a ‘Mailing List’ integrated with the Web Page wherein anyone throughout the world can interact with anyone else interested in exploring the ‘Human Condition’ in themselves so as to achieve their destiny ... and enable peace-on-earth. I conduct virtually all of my interactions about freedom via this marvellous tool (instant global communication) that has only emerged in the last few years, which – as no book or magazine publishers would touch my writing – bypasses all censorship and reaches right into other people’s living rooms. Who knows; some day there may be no more wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides. Ahh ... life is grand! RESPONDENT: This new technology is really something to understand! RICHARD: Yes, I agree with you that this technology does take a lot to understand ... I have been on what the computer salesman called a ‘long learning curve’ when I first purchased my computer nearly three years ago. There has been – and still is – so much to learn, and the technology keeps on improving and I keep on learning so as to keep pace with it. It is a lot of fun and very rewarding into the bargain. RESPONDENT: I have being reading some of the mailing list and find it good reading, especially Peter and Vineeto, but you all lost me when you talk about the masses, the rest of the world, it just sounds too big for me. RICHARD: Aye, it is an enormous thing to tackle, global human animosity and anguish, but it can all be simplified by realising that an investigation of ‘my’ psyche is an investigation into the ‘human’ psyche for ‘I’ am ‘humanity’ and ‘humanity’ is ‘me’. It is the most stimulating adventure of a lifetime to embark upon a voyage into one’s own psyche. In 1981 I set out on what was to become the most marvellous escapade possible. As soon as I understood that there was nobody stopping me but myself, I had the autonomy to inquire, to seek, to investigate and to explore. As soon as I realised nobody was standing in the way but myself, that realisation became an actualisation and I was free to encounter, to uncover, to discover and to find the ‘secret to life’ or the ‘meaning of life’ or the ‘riddle of existence’, or the ‘purpose of the universe’ or whatever one’s quest may be called. To dare to be me – to be what-I-am as an actuality – rather than the who ‘I’ was or the who ‘I’ am or the who ‘I’ will be, calls for an audacity unparalleled in the annals of history ... or one’s personal history, at least. To seek and to find; to explore and uncover; to investigate and discover ... these actions are the very stuff of life! RESPONDENT: A far different Richard to the one who said to me (upon walking up the hill back when you and I were camping in the tents in 1985): ‘War is natural’ – or something like that. RICHARD: Oh, I still maintain that statement because war is indeed natural ... and therein lies the nub of the problem. What I did was very, very unnatural and – given that it is natural to kill one’s fellow human being – I am well-pleased to be so atypical. As to being a ‘far different Richard’ to the one you knew: that is explained in an article titled ‘A Brief Personal History’ in ‘Richard’s Journal’ and on my Web Page. What I am today (‘what’ not ‘who’) is the end result of investigations that commenced during the period that you and I associated ... in 1984, just before I went to India, I started questioning what I came to call ‘The Trap of Compassion’ (and I do remember sharing my musings and deliberations with you at the time). For eleven years I lived in an altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ so I had plenty of time to examine all its nooks and crannies ... and I found much that was murky and dirty lurking around in the outer darkness. Bewitched and beguiled by the Glamour and Glory and Glitz of the seductive state of ‘Being’ that ensues when one surrenders to that ‘Power and Authority’ that lies unmanifest behind the throne, I spent the first three years swanning along in a state of ‘Oneness’ with everything. I was Love Agapé and Divine Compassion all rolled up into one ... and my reward for being the latest ‘Saviour Of Humankind’ was to be able to live in Ineffable Rapture, Bliss, Ecstasy and Euphoria. However, my native intelligence would not let me get away with anything false and I soon found enough to make me start suspecting something very serious was wrong with Spiritual Enlightenment. To start off with was the inescapable fact that I had a ‘Sense Of Mission’ to bring ‘Love and Compassion’ to a suffering humanity – I was driven to spread ‘The Word’ and to disseminate ‘The Truth’ – and this imposition did not sit well with me. Thus in 1984 I started to question the efficacy of Divine Compassion as a means of resolving sorrow once and for all. As a palliative for suffering it was beyond compare – it superseded pity, sympathy and empathy by a mile – but it remained forever a panacea only. Consolation for sorrow, no matter how Divine that solace may be, is not a cure that lasts. This is when I started referring to it as ‘The Trap of Compassion’. RESPONDENT: War is the most horrid thing ... if I say that I am just repeating what Krishnamurti said. I can’t grasp it at all. Why are you and Peter saying, talking about the general? I don’t understand. In fact a lot of your book has got me ... what to do indeed. RICHARD: War is indeed a most horrid thing ... along with all the murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides. It is all related: a war between two nations is not different in kind to an argument between two people ... it is only a difference in degree. When you throw a barbed insult at your wife – and vice versa – it is essentially no different to the USA throwing a ‘Cruise Missile’ into Bagdad and Iraq throwing a ‘Scud Missile’ in retaliation. It all stems from the genetically-inherited instinctual passions that all sentient beings are born with ... fear and aggression and nurture and desire are not your fault. No one is to blame ... you are born like this. In 1992 these instinctual passions – which is ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’ itself – were extinguished: ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul became extinct. Kaput. Finished. As dead as the dodo but with no skeletal remains ... there is no phoenix here to arise from the ashes. RESPONDENT: I want to do something – you always said to me that if I didn’t know what to do ... don’t do any thing. RICHARD: Yes ... except that I said that in the context that is epitomised by that joke: ‘when in doubt ... panic!’. If you do not know what to do in a particular situation it is better to do nothing if doing something only makes it worse. I never meant it as a ‘Life-Time Philosophy’. RESPONDENT: Mmm ... as the last 10 years (all my life) have shown me that, when I am by myself, I don’t do anything. RICHARD: Try watching/reading the news bulletins with whatever media you have access to and use your affective feelings – emotions and passions and calenture – to really, deeply, primally feel all the anguish and animosity inherent in all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides that parades across billions of TV screens daily. And try watching/reading the ‘animals in the wild’ programs so as to see where the human animal shares this common ancestry of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Your ‘do nothing’ inclination will soon turn into a ‘do something’ longing because unless one is vitally interested in peace on earth one will never even begin to free the crippled intelligence from the debilitating passions bestowed by blind nature. Yet becoming vitally interested is but the preliminary stage, because until one becomes curious as to whether what is being written here can be applied to themselves, only then does the first step begin. Because it is only when one becomes curious about the workings of oneself – what makes one tick – is that person participating in their search for freedom for the first time in their life. This is because people mostly look to rearranging their beliefs and truths as being sufficient effort ... ‘I’ am willing to be free as long as ‘I’ can remain ‘me’. In other words: their notion of freedom is a ‘clip-on’. Then curiosity becomes fascination ... and then the fun begins to gain a momentum of its own. One is drawn inexorably further and further towards one’s destiny ... fascination leads to commitment and one can know when one’s commitment is approaching a 100% commitment because others around one will classify one as ‘obsessed’ (in spite of all their rhetoric a 100% commitment to evoking peace-on-earth is actively discouraged by one’s peers). Eventually one realises that one is on one’s own in this, the adventure of a life-time, and a peculiar tenacity that enables one to proceed against all odds ensues. Then one takes the penultimate step ... one abandons ‘humanity’. Freedom then unfolds its inevitable destiny. RESPONDENT: Is this internet satsang? Ah yes, to be in the company of truth, one grows. RICHARD: I am no ‘Teacher’ and/or ‘Guru’ and/or ‘Whatever Name’ ... I am a fellow human being sans identity giving a report of my experiencing and the sense I have made out of it all. You will find that what is written is a factual report that clearly explicates how the human condition came about and how to free oneself from it ... and clear description of life in this actual world where peace-on-earth already always is. It is unbelievably magical to live in a world without fear, for example ... just perfect peace twenty four hours a day. When I wake up in the morning I have nothing but perfection to ‘look forward to’ and when I go to bed at night I have had a perfect day. I take it for granted that when I wake up the following morning it will be the same perfection ... day after day ... after day after day. It is yours for the daring to do it.
RESPONDENT: Richard, so there you are ... on the internet ... you have joined the 20th century’s world of technological wonderment ... not to mention myself. RICHARD: Aye ...’tis marvellous is it not, this direct access to information posted in the market-place of the global village? Here in Byron Bay, if one pins a notice for public consumption on the various notice-boards, there is room for one page at the most ... and if the wind does not blow it away; and if someone does not take it down (or pinch your drawing pins or blue-tack); or if another person does not pin their notice over yours then maybe 3,000 – 20,000 people (the local population) might walk by for one or two to stop and read. On the Internet, 80,000,000 people can ‘walk by’ ... which increases the odds dramatically of more than a few stopping to read! RESPONDENT: Great to hear from you via a number of different sources in recent times ... including [Respondent No. 1] and [names deleted]. Time does fly ... in this timeless world of timelessness and endless oneness. RICHARD: You will have noticed by now (if you have read any of what is on offer on the actual freedom web site) that it is possible to move past the ‘Tried and True’ experience of ‘this timeless world of timelessness and endless oneness’ ... you may recall me exploring ever deeper into the human psyche during the eighties and early nineties? My exploration culminated in the emergence of this actual sensate world in October/November 1992. RESPONDENT: I am at work at present in an internet cafe, but have just had a lovely little holiday visiting my various brothers and sisters who are scattered around the country-side in various stages of family life. Congratulations on becoming an internet author ... have not read any-thing yet but I assume it is in the typical Richard style? Should I look forward to spending many joyous hours in deep and shallow communications ... about life, the universe and everything ... or is all that in another life-time and another incarnation? RICHARD: If you read on you will see that it is a very deep communication about life, the universe ... and what it is to be a human being living in this world as it is with people as they are. All in all it is a fascinating story. RESPONDENT: Last year I studied Multimedia and now I’m quite literate with computers but know enough to know how fast everything is developing and changing. DVD and digital TV is quite exciting too as it all starts to merge together with sound and images and interactivity (...[personal details deleted] ...) I have just found: www.actualfreedom.com.au/ ... looks like I’ve got some catching up to do with my reading? RICHARD: You have indeed ... it is great to hear from you and I am interested to see what you make of it all.
RESPONDENT: Richard, would love to read your book. If I send $30 will that be enough? RICHARD: I am only to glad to send you a complimentary copy of both ‘Richard’s Journal’ and ‘Peter’s Journal’ (as I did with Respondent No. 1), which seeming gratuity is occasioned out of the salutary nature of our previous association all those years ago. If you can provide me with your full postal address I will dispatch them without delay ... and with much satisfaction in such a propitious ‘closure’ to the ups and downs of that era (‘Richard’s Journal’ seeks to explicate some of the – maybe puzzling – aspects of some of the events that transpired in my relationships back then). Good to hear from you again.
RESPONDENT: Richard, I’m enjoying the AF web-site very much. RICHARD: Good ... all I have ever wished is for the words and writings of an actual freedom and a virtual freedom to exist in the world so that they are available long after I am dead – and after those peoples writing here today are no longer – so that a third alternative to being either ‘human’ or ‘divine’ is available for anyone who comes across it, in any indeterminate future, to draw affirmation and confirmation from ... for anyone to avail themselves of if it be in accord with their own experience and/or aspirations. That is, it is an affirmation that their experience is not only valid but a confirmation in that a fellow human being has traversed this territory in an eminently satisfactory way. For eighteen years I scoured the books ... to no avail. Now the information exists – and has taken on a life of its own – and I am well content and having so much fun. RESPONDENT: I’ve been thinking, and wondering, what to write but words fail. I started to write one – a kind of book review addressing AF – but realise how difficult it is writing to one so perfect ... the ‘personification of perfection’ I think you now describe yourself? RICHARD: This material universe – being infinite and eternal – is already always perfect (infinitude has no opposite). One can realise – and then actualise – that one is this universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being. As such, one is perfection personified – it is this simple – which means that one is automatically happy and harmless; one is easily benign and benevolent; one is involuntarily carefree and considerate; one is effortlessly blithe and beneficent ... in a word: innocent. As a suggestion only: instead of merely ‘a kind of book review addressing AF’ why not write about what reading the words and writings of an actual freedom and a virtual freedom do for you in your daily life ... your moment-to-moment existence? How does it affect your outlook on life ... your purview on existence? Which means: in what way does it impinge upon your experience of yourself – and your interactions with your fellow human beings – inasmuch as it effects permanent change for the better? Given that 160,000,000 people were killed by their fellow human beings in wars alone in the last century – and that 40,000,000 killed themselves in the depths of despair – a reasonable extrapolation into this present century means the same fate awaits (in excess of) 200,000,000 babies being born, not only now, but throughout the remaining 40-odd years of your life ... this is what the implications and the ramifications of an unchecked human condition are in action. It is high time that the random forces of blind nature lose their stranglehold on an otherwise intelligent species. RESPONDENT: You sound as though you have, and continue, to arrive at the same time in a constant PCE ... not unlike a constant mushroom trip? I remember asking you once if this kind of trip ‘was it’? You said, ‘no’. RICHARD: It is always fascinating to hear reports of what I said in the past ... and this one still holds true. No matter by what means it is induced, a PCE is the nearest one can have to an experience of an actual freedom from the human condition whilst still remaining an identity; it serves to experientially demonstrate what is possible ... rather than merely intellectually understanding what is written or (shudder) believing the words and thus trying to feel what freedom is like. Obviously a PCE is not an actual freedom ... a PCE does not bestow innocence in that a permanent extinction of identity (an extirpation of both the ‘self’ and the ‘Self’) does not take place. Psychological and psychic self-immolation requires a curious decision ... the likes of which one has never made before or ever will again. RESPONDENT: You certainly have me thinking and testing ... and others by the look of it? RICHARD: There are but a handful of people vitally interested in freeing themselves from the human condition ... the amount of objections received (to being happy and harmless) are staggering. However, I have never been interested in numbers: quality and not quantity is what actually counts ... rather a handful of dedicated actualists than a multitude of desultory dabblers. It is good for one to think – and by all means test – the ins and outs of an actual freedom ... and then it is excellent when such thinking and testing is put into action in one’s daily life. RESPONDENT: Very difficult to fault what you have written but the proof of any recipe is in the eating. RICHARD: The reason that it is very difficult to fault an actual freedom is because it is actual. This is because a fact is incontrovertible ... if I say: ‘Look, here is a computer monitor’ it is extremely difficult to fault that statement. All that I have to say comes from direct experience; this is not theory; this is not idealism; this is not philosophy; this is not romanticism; this is not theology ... this is actual. Most definitely ‘the proof of any recipe is in the eating’ ... and an actual freedom is a ‘magic pudding’ in that the more you eat the more you get. An actual freedom is having your cake and eating it at the same time; there is an inexhaustible supply of purity stemming from the perfection of the infinitude of this actual, physical universe. I do not want any one to merely believe me. I stress to people how vital it is that they see for themselves. If they were so foolish as to believe me then the most they would end up in is living in a dream state and thus miss out on the actual. I do not wish this fate upon anyone ... I like my fellow human beings. Therefore one can make a critical examination of all the words I advance so as to ascertain if they be intrinsically self-explanatory ... and when they are all seen to be inherently consistent with what is being spoken about, then the facts speak for themselves. Then one will have reason to remember a pure conscious experience, which all peoples I have spoken to at length have had, and thus verify by direct experience the facticity of what is written. The PCE occurs globally ... across cultures and down through the ages irregardless of gender, race or age. RESPONDENT: It has always tasted interesting ... but then the recipe has always changed. RICHARD: In 1981 the ‘I’ who was inhabiting this body underwent an ‘ego-death’; in 1992 the ‘me’ who was inhabiting this body underwent a ‘soul-death’ ... and in those intervening eleven years I never made a secret of the fact that I was investigating the altered state of consciousness (ASC) known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ from the inside. I started the investigation by examining what I called ‘the trap of compassion’ in 1984. I do recall discussing with yourself, in late 1986, that ‘Love Agapé’ was the next item on the agenda to be examined ... which I thoroughly did over the next few years (I will include some relevant articles with this E-Mail). The investigation culminated in 1992 with the ending of the psyche in its totality. Thus ‘the recipe’ has changed only the once – from an ‘Absolute Freedom’ to an ‘actual freedom’ – and now there is nothing to investigate and examine ... it is over. I am no longer ‘continuing to arrive’ ... I have arrived. RESPONDENT: I’ll write if I can come to anything worth saying ... in the meantime keep having harmless fun too (as well as me). Life is never dull, eh? Let me know when your next book is to come out, please? RICHARD: I have been signalling a ‘next book’ for about three years now ... so do not hold your breath waiting. The current project is to get a CD together containing ‘Richard’s Journal’ and ‘Peter’s Journal’ (both in electronic format) and ‘An Introduction To Actual Freedom’ (a slide-show presentation that Peter has authored) and the entire current ‘Actual Freedom Web Page’ (so as to obviate downloading megabytes of bandwidth). At the moment I am toying with organising an ‘Actual Freedom Screen Saver’ which has selected phrases and sentences appearing at random over a backdrop of scenic photographs that appear and disappear on the screen when the computer is idle ... a series of casual reminder notices, as it were. There is every intention of more books, however. Continued on The Actual Freedom Mailing List
Continued on from Mailing List B: No. 39 RESPONDENT: Richard, just a note to let you know that Actual Freedom has made a definite difference in my life. I lost a very large sum of money in the stock market this week and there has been virtually no suffering whereas in the recent past there would have been much suffering over an event like this. This is a clear indication to me that the instincts have at least been greatly diminished. RICHARD: Excellent ... I am always delighted whenever someone has gained benefit in their daily life from having read actual freedom writings and, as a consequence, can report changes (‘virtually no suffering ... over an event like this’) in the way they experience themselves living life. Because it is what actually happens in one’s life as a result of the reading that is important ... not how well someone can remember what the words look like. To me, upon having read something, the question always was: Does it work? Does it produce the goods? Is my life better for having read this? How am I experiencing this moment of being alive? After all, it is all about enjoying oneself moment-to-moment and appreciating each moment again and again ... for this moment is one’s only moment of being alive. And for you, it has made a definite difference in your life in that (among other things) it has passed the ‘acid test’ of the loss of a large sum of money ... and that is a test worthy of note! Also, the clarity of the intellect not crippled by suffering permits the acuity necessary for the next venture of capital in that gigantic poker-game called the stock market (where you really have to have your wits about you). I am well pleased to hear of your success ... thank you for your note.
RESPONDENT: Thanks for the reply. I have gotten a recharge by seeing that it is possible to eliminate suffering by eliminating the instincts. RICHARD: It is always a pleasure to read somebody saying this ... the amount of objections to being happy and harmless which I receive is somewhat staggering to contemplate. RESPONDENT: The reminder about asking the question ‘how am I’ was also helpful in that I have renewed the running of the question. RICHARD: Yes, to me it was so obvious, all those years ago, that if I was not experiencing the perfection of the direct experience (as evidenced in a PCE) of the purity which is already always here right now ... then why not? Who or what was preventing peace and harmony from happening? Who or what was standing in the way of peace-on-earth being apparent? Why was ‘I’ settling for second-best when excellence was already just here ... and always here right now? Why was ‘I’ depriving this body – and every body – of this wonderful, marvellous, amazing human destiny? Hence the effortless patience, perseverance and diligence with the on-going application of the question. RESPONDENT: I just read the ‘précis of actual freedom’ and found No. 8 to say it well: ‘There is a wide and wondrous path to actual freedom: one asks oneself, each moment again, ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’? This gives rise to apperception. Apperception is the outcome of the exclusive attention paid to being alive right here and now. Apperception is to be the senses as a bare awareness, a pure consciousness experience (PCE) of the world as-it-is, 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’. It does work and it is producing the goods. It is good to be running the question again and my life is better because of it. RICHARD: Indeed ... and not only will your life be better because of it: all of one’s interactions with others undergo a radical transformation. One sets them free of ‘my’ graceless demands ... ‘my’ endless neediness born out of being alone in the world. By being what one actually is one has no need for others ... one has no need to place the burden upon them to fulfil that what was lacking. Not only does free oneself from that perpetual pursuit, but one also frees others in one’s company from the task ‘I’ impose upon them. Living each moment again as this sensuous flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware is an actual fulfilment and a complete satisfaction in itself. Nevermore will one be needy, greedy and grasping. Nevermore will one plot and plan and manipulate others. Nevermore will one have to prostitute oneself to others to assuage those main attributes of the identity: being lost, lonely, frightened and cunning. Being what-one-is is to be free-and-easy, spontaneous, delighted ... and it is wonderful, for one can never be hurt again. This is all such fun. Continued on in Mailing List B: No. 39
RETURN TO GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE INDEX RETURN TO RICHARD’S CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
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