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General Correspondence Page Number 8
Respondent No. 1 RESPONDENT: Richard, I heard about you at the same time that you appeared on [Mailing List ‘C’] from a fellow member who heard from ‘guru gossip’ via your mate Peter. Are you going to continue there? RICHARD: Only for as long as someone responds with interest in why being ‘divine’ fails to live up to the expectations set by various ‘Teachings’ throughout millennia. What happened was Mr. John De Ruiter recently came to the village where I live (Byron Bay, held by some to be the New Age Mecca, is a must on the guru circuit) and an acquaintance went to two of his meetings. Consequently, when she talked to me about him, and as I had not heard of him before, I sent the computer searching the Internet and among several other pages it came across ‘new age gossip’ and thus to [Mailing List ‘C’]. As the main topic of the then 104 E-Mails was about ‘Enlightened Beings’ failing to live up to their own standards (the morality/immorality thread) it seemed to be apropos to what I have discovered ... so I wrote a brief paragraph questioning the belief that ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (and ‘Truth’ itself) was amoral. I am also currently writing to a Mailing List set up to discuss the teachings of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti and to ‘The Actual
Freedom Mailing List’ from time-to-time ... all my current E-Mails are listed under ‘Richard’s Latest Writing And Correspondence’. RESPONDENT: I am trying to make sense of your set up and find your web-site boggling. OTOW you seem anti-guru OTOH you have all the sales pitch of a guru. RICHARD: I am not so much ‘guru-bashing’ per se but rather throwing light upon the deficiencies of ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ itself and ‘The Truth’ whence all ‘Teachings’ emanate ... it is inevitable that the names of various ‘Enlightened Beings’ come up in a discussion though. I am vigorously and rigorously explaining why it is imperative that not only the ‘Teachers’ and their ‘Teachings’ be examined ... but the source of the ‘Teachings’ as well. In the West, the nineteenth century was optimistically called the ‘Age of Enlightenment’ (knowledge enlightenment) until Eastern mystics came onto the world stage at the turn of the century with ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ ... busily being hell-bent on returning the burgeoning thoughtful part of humankind to the darkness of fallacy and fancy. Western civilisation, which has struggled to get out of superstition and medieval ignorance, is in danger of slipping back into the supernatural as the Eastern mystical thought and belief that is beginning to have its strangle-hold upon otherwise intelligent people is becoming more widespread. Prior to the recent influx of Eastern philosophy, if one realised that ‘I am God’, one would have been institutionalised ... and, to some degree, rightly so. One has stepped out of an illusion, only to wind up living in a delusion. However, the trouble with people who discard the god of Christianity and/or Judaism and/or Islam is that they do not realise that by turning to the Eastern spirituality they have effectively jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. Eastern spirituality is religion ... merely in a different form to what people in the West have been raised to believe in. Eastern philosophy sounds so convincing to the jaded Western mind which is desperately looking for answers that abstract logical speculation and analytic deduction just cannot provide. The Christian and/or Judaic and/or Islamic conditioning actually sets up the situation for a thinking person to be susceptible to the esoteric doctrines of the East. It is sobering to realise that the intelligentsia of the West are eagerly following the East down the slippery slope of striving to attain to a self-seeking divine immortality ... to the detriment of life on earth. ‘I am That’, for example, is simply another way of saying ‘I am God’ (aka ‘I am The Truth’). At the end of the line there is always a god of some description, lurking in disguise, wreaking its havoc with its ‘Teachings’. I have been to India to see for myself the results of what they claim are tens of thousands of years of devotional spiritual living ... and it is hideous. If it were not for the appalling suffering engendered it would all be highly amusing ... but it is practically and demonstrably deleterious to both individual and communal well-being. That is why one only needs to look at where this devotional spiritual living has been practiced for thousands of years to see how badly it has failed to live up to its implied promise of peace and harmony and prosperity for all. Thus both the spiritual and the secular methods of producing peace on earth have each failed miserably ... it is high time for a third alternative to hove into view; something new that has never been lived before in human history. Why repeat the mistakes of the past when the results of doing so are plain to view in all cultures? RESPONDENT: I roughly discern what you say, but could you give me a route through your web-pages or a way to learn more? RICHARD: The Actual Freedom Web Page is designed to allow one to meander ... experience has shown that peoples pick
more up via snippets here and there over time and upon repeated visits. However, there is ‘An Introduction To Actual Freedom’ A more personal description is to be found in ‘A Brief Personal History’. RESPONDENT: Do you ever travel overseas. RICHARD: No. I travelled a lot in my youth, but these days I am entirely content with the one kilometre walk to the village centre. RESPONDENT: Do you ever give talks? Do you charge? RICHARD: No. There are approximately 1.5 million words on the ‘Actual Freedom Web Page’ available for free ... the only charge is for ‘Richard’s Journal’ and for the paper-back versions of any books. Words are words, whether they be thought, spoken, printed or appear as pixels on a screen. Ultimately it is what is being said or written, by the writer or the speaker that lives what is being expressed, that is important ... and facts and actuality then speak for themselves. Anyone who has met me face-to-face only gets verification that there is actually a flesh and blood body that lives what these words say. I am a fellow human being sans identity ... there is no ‘charisma’ nor any ‘energy-field’ here. I am not required for the process of understanding (as in a ‘personality cult’ that can grow around a ‘charismatic leader’). As facts and actuality can be commonsensically conveyed by the written word, this means that the third alternative can be accessed by anyone discriminating enough long after I am physically dead. Indeed, the written word is better as I tend to skip important aspects with the spoken word ... this computer generates all my stock-standard detailed phrases in an instant. RESPONDENT: Did you follow gurus or shrinks? RICHARD: No. By being born and raised in the West I was not steeped in the mystical religious tradition of the East and was thus able to escape the trap of centuries of eastern spiritual conditioning ... I had never heard the words ‘Enlightenment’ or ‘Nirvana’ and so on until 1982 when talking to a man about my breakthrough into freedom via the death of ‘myself’ in September 1981. He listened – he questioned me rigorously until well after midnight – and then declared me to be ‘Enlightened’. I had to ask him what that was, such was my ignorance of all things spiritual. He – being a nine-year spiritual seeker fresh from his latest trip to India – gave me a book to read by someone called Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti. That was to be the beginning of what was to become a long learning curve of all things religious, spiritual, mystical and metaphysical for me. I studied all this because I sought to understand what other peoples had made of such spontaneous experiences and to find out where human endeavour had been going wrong. I found out where I had been going wrong for eleven years ... self-aggrandisement is so seductive. As for the ‘shrinks’ ... given that sanity is defined as something like ‘a well-adjusted personality coping with the conflicting demands of both the inner and outer worlds’ then psychiatric medication and psychological counselling are designed to bring those who are suffering from any of three main psychotic categories (Bi-polar Disorder, Schizophrenia and Clinical Depression) and any psychotic/neurotic sub-categories, back to a state of as near-normal functioning as possible (and ‘normal’ is categorised by Mr. Sigmund Freud as ‘common human unhappiness’). No psychiatric or psychological treatment could meet what any ‘I’/‘me’ is wanting – and I was looking to go beyond both normal (‘human’) and abnormal (‘divine’) – thus I was seeking to find out, experientially (as I did in other fields) what was the extent and range of other human’s experience and solutions in the West. Psychology and psychiatry has failed just as dismally as theology and spirituality. Yet other humans – some of whom who are downright suspicious of me – have been unable to detect anything untoward at all despite the closest observation possible. There are people here in my daily life who observe me closely – very closely – for all of the waking hours of the day. This kind of scrutiny has been going on for eighteen years now ... and has been fruitless as in regards to finding a fault for the last eight years. No-one has been able to observe a discrepancy between what I say about myself and what they see in my behaviour. No one has been able to observe any trace of an identity or an affective feeling – an emotion or a passion or calenture – in me since 1992. I have been examined by two accredited psychiatrists (and by one of them every three months for more than three years) and also by a psychologist (who followed my condition at three-weekly intervals from March 1994 to January 1997) and I was found to have:
My condition is thus classified as a ‘severe psychotic condition’ in the DSM – IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders) which is the diagnostic criteria used by all psychiatrists and psychologists around the world for diagnosing mental disorders. I do find it so cute that an actual freedom from the human condition is considered to be a severe mental disorder.
RESPONDENT: Richard, I heard about you at the same time that you appeared on [Mailing List ‘C’] from a fellow member who heard from ‘guru gossip’ via your mate Peter. Are you going to continue there? RICHARD: Only for as long as someone responds with interest in why being ‘divine’ fails to live up to the expectations set by various ‘Teachings’ throughout millennia. RESPONDENT: It seems a person either accepts it or they don’t, i.e. why gurus fail. Do you think you have a solution for the world’s ailments, and are you unique in the state you describe? RICHARD: I do not just ‘think’ that I have discovered peace-on-earth ... I know it: it is my on-going experiencing each moment again. As for ‘unique’ ... I have been scouring the books and talking with many and varied peoples from all walks of life for nineteen years now ... I would be delighted to meet someone with a similar experience as we could compare notes, as it were, or to even read about such a person’s experience, if that person were to be now deceased, would be of immense interest to me. * RESPONDENT: I am trying to make sense of your set up and find your web-site boggling. OTOW you seem anti-guru OTOH you have all the sales pitch of a guru. RICHARD: I am not so much ‘guru-bashing’ per se but rather throwing light upon the deficiencies of ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ itself and ‘The Truth’ whence all ‘Teachings’ emanate ... it is inevitable that the names of various ‘Enlightened Beings’ come up in a discussion though. I am vigorously and rigorously explaining why it is imperative that not only the ‘Teachers’ and their ‘Teachings’ be examined ... but the source of the ‘Teachings’ as well. RESPONDENT: Are such teachers completely irrelevant as far as getting a good teaching goes? RICHARD: As the source of the ‘Teachings’ is a sickness, then so are both the ‘Teachings’ and the ‘Teachers’. * RICHARD: In the West, the nineteenth century was optimistically called the ‘Age of Enlightenment’ (knowledge enlightenment) until Eastern mystics came onto the world stage at the turn of the century with ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ ... busily being hell-bent on returning the burgeoning thoughtful part of humankind to the darkness of fallacy and fancy. Western civilisation, which has struggled to get out of superstition and medieval ignorance, is in danger of slipping back into the supernatural as the Eastern mystical thought and belief that is beginning to have its strangle-hold upon otherwise intelligent people is becoming more widespread. RESPONDENT: Sounds like you are putting a rationalist argument forward? RICHARD: I am not a ‘rationalist’. I am simply describing history ... setting the background to the remainder of what the paragraphs have to say. * RICHARD: Prior to the recent influx of Eastern philosophy, if one realised that ‘I am God’, one would have been institutionalised ... and, to some degree, rightly so. RESPONDENT: To what degree? RICHARD: It is a sickness. * RICHARD: One has stepped out of an illusion, only to wind up living in a delusion. However, the trouble with people who discard the god of Christianity and/or Judaism and/or Islam is that they do not realise that by turning to the Eastern spirituality they have effectively jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. Eastern spirituality is religion ... merely in a different form to what people in the West have been raised to believe in. RESPONDENT: It’s a valid point – however some would claim it is not all religion as we know it. RICHARD: Aye ... that is what I said: ‘they do not realise that by turning to ...’ . * RICHARD: Eastern philosophy sounds so convincing to the jaded Western mind which is desperately looking for answers that abstract logical speculation and analytic deduction just cannot provide. RESPONDENT: I agree but only when there is jadedness. RICHARD: Aye ... that is what I said: ‘... to the jaded Western mind which is desperately looking for answers’. RESPONDENT: Many Muslims seem unlikely to convert they are fixed on their arguments. RICHARD: I was speaking of the phenomenon of monotheism being discarded for pantheism ... I am not concerned with counting the numbers. * RICHARD: The Christian and/or Judaic and/or Islamic conditioning actually sets up the situation for a thinking person to be susceptible to the esoteric doctrines of the East. RESPONDENT: I think only some are. RICHARD: I was speaking of the phenomenon of thoughtful people discarding monotheism for pantheism ... I am not concerned with counting the numbers. * RICHARD: It is sobering to realise that the intelligentsia of the West are eagerly following the East down the slippery slope of striving to attain to a self-seeking divine immortality ... to the detriment of life on earth. RESPONDENT: I agree. Life on earth is not highest on the agenda. It is too much to deal with. Who can deal with it? RICHARD: It is not a matter of ‘dealing with it’ ... peace-on-earth only becomes apparent to the one who says !YES! to life on earth. * RICHARD: ‘I am That’, for example, is simply another way of saying ‘I am God’ (aka ‘I am The Truth’). At the end of the line there is always a god of some description, lurking in disguise, wreaking its havoc with its ‘Teachings’. I have been to India to see for myself the results of what they claim are tens of thousands of years of devotional spiritual living ... and it is hideous. If it were not for the appalling suffering engendered it would all be highly amusing ... but it is practically and demonstrably deleterious to both individual and communal well-being. RESPONDENT: I don’t know if this is completely fair. The West was a poor place too once. RICHARD: Indeed ... allow me to copy and paste (from above). Viz.: [Richard]: ‘In the West, the nineteenth century was optimistically called the ‘Age of Enlightenment’ (knowledge enlightenment) until Eastern mystics came onto the world stage at the turn of the century with ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ ... busily being hell-bent on returning the burgeoning thoughtful part of humankind to the darkness of fallacy and fancy. Western civilisation, which has struggled to get out of superstition and medieval ignorance, is in danger of slipping back into the supernatural as the Eastern mystical thought and belief that is beginning to have its strangle-hold upon otherwise intelligent people is becoming more widespread’ . * RICHARD: That is why one only needs to look at where this devotional spiritual living has been practiced for thousands of years to see how badly it has failed to live up to its implied promise of peace and harmony and prosperity for all. RESPONDENT: I agree. So another teacher comes and says ‘I have the correct solution’ e.g. like you RICHARD: I am not ‘another teacher’ ... I am a fellow human being sans identity in its totality (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul). A ‘Teacher’ has transcended the gross (the lotus has its roots in mud) not eliminated it. Evil still exists in ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ ... the diabolical underpins the divine. * RICHARD: Thus both the spiritual and the secular methods of producing peace on earth have each failed miserably ... it is high time for a third alternative to hove into view; something new that has never been lived before in human history. Why repeat the mistakes of the past when the results of doing so are plain to view in all cultures? RESPONDENT: Good point. RICHARD: Yes ... eventually one has no recourse but to face the facts and the actuality of the human situation squarely. Which is: if the ‘ancient wisdom’ is so worthwhile, why has it not worked? How long must one try something before abandoning it in favour of something more promising?’ There is as much animosity and anguish now as back then. The experiment has failed. Clear the work-bench and start fresh ... learn from those that have gone before and move on. * RESPONDENT: I roughly discern what you say, but could you give me a route through your web-pages or a way to learn more? RICHARD: The Actual Freedom Web Page is designed to allow one to meander ... experience has shown that peoples pick more up via snippets here and there over time and upon repeated visits. However, there is ‘An Introduction To Actual Freedom’ for a simple over-all explication and ‘A Précis Of Actual Freedom’ for a precise exposition. The nuts and bolts of the major differences betwixt spiritual freedom and actual freedom are to be found in ‘180 Degrees Opposite’. RESPONDENT: I found this all too technical to be easily digested. RICHARD: Then I would recommend ‘Peter’s Journal’. * RESPONDENT: Do you ever travel overseas. RICHARD: No. I travelled a lot in my youth, but these days I am entirely content with the one kilometre walk to the village centre. RESPONDENT: Isn’t it better to meet in person to progress? How can words be enough? RICHARD: Words are words, whether they be thought, spoken, printed or appear as pixels on a screen. Ultimately it is what is being said or written, by the writer or the speaker that lives what is being expressed, that is important ... and facts and actuality then speak for themselves. * RESPONDENT: Do you ever give talks? Do you charge? RICHARD: No. There are approximately 1.5 million words on the ‘Actual Freedom Web Page’ available for free ... the only charge is for ‘Richard’s Journal’ and for the paper-back versions of any books. Words are words, whether they be thought, spoken, printed or appear as pixels on a screen. Ultimately it is what is being said or written, by the writer or the speaker that lives what is being expressed, that is important ... and facts and actuality then speak for themselves. Anyone who has met me face-to-face only gets verification that there is actually a flesh and blood body that lives what these words say. I am a fellow human being sans identity ... there is no ‘charisma’ nor any ‘energy-field’ here. RESPONDENT: One would expect a certain energy field. RICHARD: The affective faculty – the entire psyche itself – is eradicated: I have no ‘energies’ ... no power or powers whatsoever. There is no ‘good’ and ‘evil’ here in this actual world. * RICHARD: I am not required for the process of understanding (as in a ‘personality cult’ that can grow around a ‘charismatic leader’). As facts and actuality can be commonsensically conveyed by the written word, this means that the third alternative can be accessed by anyone discriminating enough long after I am physically dead. RESPONDENT: This is heroic but perhaps difficult to achieve. RICHARD: As fear is non-existent in this flesh and blood body there is no way I can be either a hero or ‘heroic’. And it is not at all ‘difficult to achieve’ due to the ease of mass-communication outside of the traditional publishers (who self-censor books). Desk-top publishing and the rapid copying capacity of computers in combination with world-wide distribution via the Internet means that copies of the words on the ‘Actual Freedom Web Page’ are already tucked away on computers in different parts of the globe already. It will only increase and cannot be stopped. It will indeed be accessed by anyone discriminating enough long after I am physically dead. RESPONDENT: How do you measure your success so far? RICHARD: All I have ever wished for is for the words and writings of an actual freedom from the human condition to exist in the world so that they are available long after I am dead. This is 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 confirmation and affirmation from ... for anyone to avail themselves of if it be in accord with their own experience and/or aspirations. That is, it is a confirmation that their experience is not only valid but an affirmation in that a fellow human being has traversed this territory in an eminently satisfactory way. For nineteen years I have 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. And as I measure success by quality and not quantity it has exceeded my expectations already.
RESPONDENT: Richard, I quote from your recommended web pages so that you might clarify your position and deliver the ‘goods’. It made some sense, but practically what is one to do? RICHARD: First, I do not ‘deliver the goods’ ... an actual freedom from the human condition does that. I just happened to discover the already always existing peace-on-earth, the purity of which is so perfect that I am reporting my experience to my fellow human beings ... what they do with this information is their business. What one does to access this peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body is to ask oneself, each moment
again, ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ A brief explanation is to be found in the article ‘This Moment Of Being Alive’ * RICHARD: The primary cause of all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides and so on is the instinctual passions which give rise to malice and sorrow and the antidotally generated pacifiers of love and compassion which, if sublimated and transcended, give rise to Love Agapé and Divine Compassion. RESPONDENT: But the Universe is a harsh place even without humans. RICHARD: It is only when the universe is experienced with the ‘real world’ veneer pasted over it is it ‘harsh’.
It is the harshness of the ‘real world’ reality that is being experienced ... not the actuality of the universe. In actuality this universe is
beneficent, friendly * RICHARD: I am mortal in that I was born, I live for a period of years, then I die and death is the end, finish. RESPONDENT: How can you be so sure? RICHARD: As I am this flesh and blood body, I am mortal. I will die in due course ... this heart will stop beating, these lungs will cease breathing, this brain will quit thinking. The flesh will decompose, if buried, or will be dispersed, if burnt, as smoke and ash. There could be nothing more final, more conclusive, more complete, of an ending to me than this. It is this simple: there is no identity (neither ‘I’ as ego nor ‘me’ as soul), no ‘being’ whatsoever, extant in this flesh and blood body to survive the physical decomposition and/or combustion of this body upon death. * RICHARD: Spiritual Enlightenment has been around for some thousands of years ... and there is still no peace on earth. Nowadays I know, experientially, why Enlightenment does not deliver the goods. RESPONDENT: What are those ‘goods’? RICHARD: The end of human suffering, here on earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body. In other words: peace-on-earth. And if there were to be 6.0 billion outbreaks of peace-on-earth there would be global peace on earth. But do not hold your breath waiting for global peace on earth. * RICHARD: And, of course, I now know what does. RESPONDENT: How do you know? RICHARD: Because it is my on-going experiencing, each moment again ... and has been for many years now. I experience peace-on-earth twenty four hours a day, day after day. When I go to bed at night I have had a perfect day ... and I know that I will wake up to yet another day of perfection. This has been going on, day-after-day, for years now ... it is so normal that I take it for granted that there is only perfection. * RICHARD: We find war, murder, torture, rape, domestic violence and corruption to be endemic ... we notice that it is intrinsic to the human condition ... we set out to discover why this is so. RESPONDENT: Do you claim to have a workable way to end such crimes? RICHARD: Yes. * RICHARD: We find sadness, loneliness, sorrow, grief, depression and suicide to be a global incidence – we gather that it is also inherent to the human condition – and we want to know why. In spite of the fact that every single human being has had at least one pure consciousness experience (PCE). RESPONDENT: How do you know? RICHARD: The same way that I know anything about anybody and everybody ... I ask and I listen. Plus I read about other people’s experiences in books, journals, magazines, newspapers and on the internet. I watch TV, videos, films ... whatever media is available. Most people cannot initially remember a PCE and may need a lot of prompting to retrieve it from their memory ... I had the first PCE that I could consciously remember in 1980, thus triggering off memories of similar incidents in my child-hood. For example: I had one when I was eight years old and had locked it away, out of sight, for the next twenty six years. The 1980 PCE proved to be the turning point of my life ... and it can be for others as well. Everybody that I have spoken to at length over the last nineteen years – everybody – has had at least one PCE. For example, a woman from The Netherlands wrote:
It is a human experience common to all humans from all walks of life. Therefore it is impartially authentic, unlike religion and spirituality which require belief and faith, and is the genuine peace-on-earth that human beings say they have been looking for. It is what gives rise to such expressions as: ‘There must be more to life than this’. Nevertheless, as I said before, people do not usually remember them easily. This is because, in a PCE, there is no ‘me’ to record the memory on the affective ‘tape-recorder’, for the PCE is not a matter for the emotions and passions and calentures. All other (normal) memories have an affective component ... which is why there is nostalgia and sentimentality in people’s reveries. * RICHARD: All that is required is that one comes to one’s senses – both literally and metaphorically – and spend the rest of one’s life without malice and sorrow. One will then be blithe and benign. RESPONDENT: This is often said but how will it happen? RICHARD: You have my interest here: where is ‘this often said’ and by whom? I have been scouring the books and talking with people from all walks of life for nineteen years now ... to no avail. I would be delighted to hear of another human being’s experience of an actual freedom. * RICHARD: To have the requisite determination to apply oneself, with the diligence and perseverance born out of pure intent, to the patient dismantling of one’s accrued social identity indicates a strength of purpose unequalled in the annals of history. RESPONDENT: How do you know that it is unequalled? RICHARD: Because I have been scouring the books and talking with many and varied peoples from all walks of life for nineteen years now ... I would be delighted to meet someone with a similar experience as we could compare notes, as it were, or to even read about such a person’s experience, if that person were to be now deceased, would be of immense interest to me. * RICHARD: With an actualism spread like a chain-letter, in the due course of time, global freedom would revolutionise the concept of humanity. RESPONDENT: Would it spread and would it be effective? RICHARD: I used to jokingly say that global peace on earth would possibly take 5,000 years (a round figure plucked at random). Given the level of objections to being happy and harmless that I have received since I went public three years ago I would be inclined to say: never. As to whether it would be effective if it did spread? Yes. * RICHARD: Pollution and its cause – over-population – would be set to rights without effort, as competition would be replaced by cooperation. It would be the stuff of all the pipe-dreams come true. RESPONDENT: How would over-population be set to rights ... by ‘contraception for all’? Though you have decided to have no more children others have not. RICHARD: In an actual freedom from the human condition one actually cares – not merely feel that one cares – thus any of the environmental issues, that dominate the modern conscious, would cease to exist in a very short time as competition would automatically be replaced by actual cooperation. The result would, of course, be an increased prosperity for all – not just some – which would result in a world-wide occurrence of what is already happening of its own accord in the more developed countries: ZPG. Thus I am only observing an already-existing fact ... nowhere am I making speculative predictions. * RICHARD: But none of this matters much when one is already living freely in the actual world. RESPONDENT: That would mean nothing need be done. RICHARD: Indeed. Even if global peace on earth was a long time coming – as is most probable due to stubbornly recalcitrant egos and selfishly compliant souls – the most appealing aspect of actual freedom is its instant bestowal of universal peace upon the individual daring enough to go all the way. Thus the reward is immediate and nothing more needs to be done other than to joyfully participate in another person’s voyage of exploration and discovery – freely facilitating their personal quest – if that be mutually agreeable. * RICHARD: I am supremely content with life as-it-is, for perfection can be found in what others call imperfection ... and I have no desire to change anything. RESPONDENT: And no desires? RICHARD: None whatsoever. * RICHARD: To be here, intimately here at this moment in time, where this actual world is such a marvellous place to be alive in, is a satisfaction and fulfilment unparalleled in the chronicles of antiquity. RESPONDENT: If you have no desire to change anything then are you an observer and not a participant? RICHARD: As far as I have been able to ascertain, after nineteen years of scouring the books and talking with people from all walks of live, 6.0 billion peoples are ‘observers’ and I am the only ‘participator’. * RESPONDENT: I found your biography of enlightenment interesting in that it apparently corresponds with the path described by various gurus thus giving them validity, and then you take it that little bit further. RICHARD: Yes, to become enlightened is to stop half-way: to go all the way not only does the ego have to die (spiritual freedom), so to does the soul (actual freedom). To put it in the mystical terminology of the East (terminology recently resurrected and made popular by Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain), there is the ‘Known’, the ‘Unknown’ and the ‘Unknowable’. Thus the Eastern mystical wisdom hold the tenets that the ‘normal-world’ reality (where 6.0 billion people live) is the ‘Known’ and the ‘abnormal-world’ Greater Reality (where 0.0000001 of the population live) is the ‘Unknown’ ... and the ‘Unknowable’ lies beyond physical death (Mahasamadhi, Parinirvana and so on). Therefore, in those terms, the actual world (where Richard lives) is the ‘Unknowable’. Editorial note: A scant two months later (Friday the twenty-third of June 2000), the following mass-circulated e-mail arrived in my mail-box:
I accessed an appropriate URL and, sure enough, there was indeed one more massively deluded human being strutting the world stage, giving of their bronze age wisdom to a benighted humanity, and (unless something truly remarkable has happened in the meanwhile) is still suckering the gullible into their particular manifestation of a culturally-revered insanity to this very day.
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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