Actual Freedom – A Request from Konrad Swart

September 25 1998:

RICHARD: I have briefly looked through your two responses that came in when I opened up just now. What immediately comes to mind is the following discrepancy.

• [Konrad]: ‘I am especially relieved to see, that this is completely explainable, and that therefore psychological tricks like those in Zen are not necessary to make this point clear. For everything that is rational, can be explained unambiguously’.
• [Konrad]: ‘Whenever I talk about your vision, and what I say to others, I maybe misrepresent some parts of it. I do this sometimes deliberately, because I want to make people to think as hard as they can. Therefore I make sometimes some extreme statements to shake people up. I have learnt this from the Objectivists that this is a good thing to do to make people more aware’.

KONRAD: When I wrote that [second statement], I had already answered the mail before that, and have worked for about 3 hours on it. I was tired. I wanted to adjust to your way of understanding, so that I can show at least part of my approach. Now that I am wide awake I can see this reason is just part of a far larger context. One that is at the heart of a very big difference between you and me, and that is far more impersonal.

RICHARD: Oh, I am well aware that you live in some abstract world and paste that metaphysicality over the world as-it-is. Whereas I live in this actual world of the senses ... and paste nothing over it. However, it is not impersonal – as you maintain – for people are consistently hurting each other in the ‘Land of Lament’. 160,000,000 people killed in wars this century alone ... all because they will not take the malice and sorrow of the human species personally.

KONRAD: May I ask you a question? Since you say this so often about this ‘160,000,000 people killed in wars this century alone ...’, since you make such a big thing about being without feelings, in what way can this fact be significant to you, if you have no feelings about this fact?

RICHARD: Quite simply: We are all fellow human beings and because I am free from malice and sorrow I can happily and harmlessly experience all of us people with undiminished enjoyment and unqualified delight. This ensures an on-going and uninhibited magnanimity and benevolence ... meaning that I can only wish the utter best for everyone and anyone. So I do not need feelings to consider it senseless that humans kill each other. However, in regard to feelings: back in June 1966 at aged nineteen in a foreign country – when there was an ‘I’ inhabiting this body complete with a full suite of feelings – a Buddhist monk killed himself in a most gruesome way. There was I, a callow youth dressed in a jungle-green uniform and with a loaded rifle in my hand, representing the secular way to peace. There was a fellow human being, dressed in religious robes dowsed with petrol and with a cigarette lighter in hand, representing the spiritual way to peace.

I was aghast at what we were both doing ... and I sought to find a third alternative to being either ‘human’ or ‘divine’.

This was to be the turning point of my life, for up until then, I was a typical western youth, raised to believe in God, Queen and Country. Humanity’s inhumanity to humankind – society’s treatment of its subject citizens – was driven home to me, there and then, in a way that left me appalled, horrified, terrified and repulsed to the core of my being with a sick revulsion. I saw that no one knew what was going on and – most importantly – that no one was ‘in charge’ of the world. There was nobody to ‘save’ the human race ... all gods were but a figment of a feverish imagination. Out of a despairing desperation, that was collectively shared by my fellow humans, I saw and understood that I was as ‘guilty’ as any one else. For in me – as is in everyone – was both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ ... it was that some people were better than others at controlling their ‘dark side’. However, in a war, there is no way anyone can consistently control any longer ... ‘evil’ ran rampant. I saw that fear and aggression and nurture and desire ruled the world ... and that these were instincts one was born with.

Thus started my search for freedom from the Human Condition ... and my attitude, all those years ago was this: I was only interested in changing myself fundamentally, radically, completely and utterly. Twenty six years later I found the third alternative ... and it is my delight to share this discovery with my fellow humans. What they do with this is entirely up to them.

What are you doing with it, Konrad?

*

RICHARD: And there is this following deception ... and you say that Zen-type tricks are not necessary?

• [Konrad]: ‘Much of this denial can already be found in Richard himself. He denies the moments when he suffers’ .
• [Richard]: ‘And what moments would these be?’
• [Konrad]: ‘I exaggerated here. To be honest, I wouldn’t know. I do not know enough of you’.

And the following trickery.

• [Konrad]: ‘He does not feel his psychological disturbances, not, because they are not there, but, because when they arise, he focuses his attention to something that gives him pleasure and delight’ .
• [Richard]: ‘Golly ... you seem to know more about me than I do. Is that really how I operate? Am I that befuddled?’
• [Konrad]: ‘Remember: I was talking to Alan. I wanted to let him pay very close attention to you. This is the intent of these statements’.

KONRAD: I do not know much about you. Not on a personal level. This is the limitation of e-mail. Consider therefore that none of the statements I have made contradicts anything I know about you, and some are even corroborated.

RICHARD: This statement does not make sense: ‘none of the statements I have made contradicts anything I know about you, and some are even corroborated’. It sounds as though you are continuing to maintain that you are right in your obviously wrong deliberations about me.

Any comment?

*

RICHARD: Also ... what is this slippery answer you give below?

• [Richard]: ‘Ah, so you do believe in life after death after all. I did ask you in an E-Mail months ago and you replied in the negative then. Is this another of your sudden insights ... or were you lying to me then?
• [Konrad]: ‘Oh no. I do NOT believe in life after death. Let me be clear about this. When you’re dead, you’re gone. To be more exact: there is no after life in the sense that when you close your eyes on your death bed at the moment of dying, there is a next moment wherein you open your eyes, and you then see that you still exist in another place, another form, or whatever’.

You are getting worse the more you write ... not better.

KONRAD: Well, concerning this statement. I cannot help it if reality is sometimes more complex than a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Let me try again. You cannot wake up in another body. When you fall asleep, you always wake up in your own body. So when you fall in a permanent ‘sleep’ like death, you do not wake up any more. Then you are permanently gone. Am I now clear enough?

RICHARD: You are ... and this is indeed a simple yes/no type of answer. It was not all that difficult to give a clear, clean answer now was it? And it saves a lot of confusion. Also, it is very important – in case it appears that I am unduly making a big thing of this – because if there is the slightest trace of a possibility of survival after physical death in a person, it throws a pall upon their chance of being happy and harmless, here on earth in this life-time, as this body living in the world as it is and with people as they are.

KONRAD: I agree at least that much, that the illusion of after death makes people do the most terrible things to each other, without them realizing what they are doing.

RICHARD: What I was rather getting at is that without death I could not be happy ... and therefore harmless. The sheer fact of the existence of death – with the irrevocable certainty that I am going to physically die someday – is what makes it possible for me to be free of the Human Condition. The ‘secret to life’ is revealed only by experiencing what death is whilst this body is alive and breathing ... through the irreversible extinction of self in its entirety.

Thus death itself makes apparent the perfection and purity of the utter stillness of the infinitude of this infinite and eternal universe ... which is what makes benevolence and benignity possible.

KONRAD: I often wonder: if people really understood, that killing somebody else is making them disappear, and also imagining what it is like if somebody did this to them, would they still be that cruel? I have the optimism to say that then they would not.

RICHARD: No way ... this ‘disappearing’ business is the very reason why they kill. And this is because people hate so much that they passionately wish the other to disappear.

Golly gosh ... and to think that hatred is one of those dratted emotions that you so fervently defend as being what makes you ‘human’. Remembering that this is your immovable stance makes your noble sentiments as mouthed above just empty rhetoric.

*

KONRAD: Consider also this: I know that reality can only be known indirectly. You do not accept this, for you talk from the position of naive realism. (You believe, that that what you observe is actually and exactly the way you observe it.) You have never been through a paradigm shift like that caused by a study of physics. This is why you have not experienced anything that casts doubt on this belief, while I have been through several of them, and therefore KNOW that this is a false belief.

RICHARD: Yet it is possible to perceive the world about directly ... it is called seeing the world as-it-is. I also call it being apperceptively aware ... a condition wherein there is no ‘I’ or ‘me’ present in this flesh and blood body to mediate the experience. You keep on trying to make this ‘direct seeing’ (apperceptive awareness) mean ‘visual seeing’ despite my writing to you to correct this impression that you have seemed to have gained. The word ‘seeing’ has to serve two masters, you see?

There ... I have just used ‘see’ in its non-visual context.

KONRAD. It does not matter. In both meanings the seeing of the world is indirect. In the first sense, in direct seeing there is a lot of distortion going on. To give a simple example: In physics it is known that the difference of wavelength between red and blue coloured light is very small. Still, we see it as a vast difference.

RICHARD: Yes, but I had just written that I was not talking about visual seeing when I was referring to ‘seeing directly’ ... so what is this need in you for a scientific dissertation on something irrelevant to our discussion? Yet if you want to talk about visual seeing ... the eyes are not at all concerned about the size of the difference of wavelength ... for the eyes red is red and blue is blue. When the ‘I’ abdicates the throne, everything is visually seen clearly and brilliantly ... all is sparkling and vivacious. It is something akin to what the world is like after a sudden rain-storm in summer, when all is washed clean from the accumulated dust, except a hundred-fold better in that all is vital and intense ... very much ‘alive’. This ‘aliveness’ is why I use the word actualism ... I found that word in the Oxford Dictionary where it said:

• ‘Actualism: n. (now rare): The theory that nothing is merely passive’.

This actual world is vibrant and dynamic when there is no ‘me’ busily censoring and interpreting and condemning. And not only sight is enhanced ... the ears, the nose, the tongue, the skin ... all the senses are heightened. This is why I talk endlessly about sensorial delight ... whilst you drone on about physics proving the world to be the dull place that you apparently experience it to be (I say ‘apparently’ inasmuch as you do not write about how fantastic, how delicious, how luscious it is to be here on this verdant planet as this flesh and blood body).

KONRAD. But on the other hand, the difference between infrared radiation and x rays is vast, but we are not even able to observe either wave with our eyes. Although we ARE able to feel infra red radiation as warmth. So we do not even observe it in its quality as colour.

RICHARD: Aye ... and dogs, for example, can smell things that humans cannot. Bats, for another example, have some sort of sonar/radar type function. Just what, exactly, is the point you are endeavouring to make? None of the above prevents me from visually seeing things clearly as-they-are. It is the ‘I’ that blocks clear visual seeing by arrogating responsibility for bowderilising ... expurgating all data of its sensual delight. ‘I’ feel that ‘I’ am so important in the scheme of things that this body cannot operate and function without ‘me’ ... which is what your stance is. It is always fascinating discussing these matters with you, Konrad, especially when you drag in physics to prove your point that you think that an ‘I’ is essential to do the interpreting necessary to see what the eyes are quite capable of seeing of their own accord. You are defending the indefensible ... it is the brain that makes sense of data by comparison against stored information ... recognition, comprehension and all that.

No ‘I’ is needed ... end of story.

KONRAD: And in the second sense you mean with: ‘you see?’ understanding. Understanding even does not have to be about something that really exists. I can understand what a unicorn is, although I know that such a mythological beast does not exist. In the same way I can have a complete understanding of some abstract mathematical system, while NO implementation of this system in concrete terms has to exist. This is also why this type of seeing can be distinguished from agreement. I can understand somebody’s vision perfectly, and therefore ‘see’ his viewpoint. Still, this does not necessarily lead to agreement.

RICHARD: Unicorns? Abstract mathematics? Visions? Viewpoints? You understand these kind of things ... but you cannot understand individual peace-on-earth ... let alone global peace (‘understanding’ as in ‘actually seeing’). Can you not remember what understanding is like in a PCE? Here lies direct perception (which is called apperception) wherein everything is immediately – and therefore experientially – understood for being perfect as-it-is. Not only would it save all this cerebralism if you could remember it, it would mean that you become happy and harmless ... to be seeing everything as-it-is, is to be perfection personified. Which means, on a global scale, no more wars or tortures or domestic violence or child abuse or suicides and so on.

It sure beats understanding unicorns any day.

KONRAD: Therefore, I do not share your belief in naive realism. Since reality can only be known indirectly there is only ONE way to arrive at the truth, and that is by the use of fantasy in combination with corrections on them by confrontation with reality. This means, that I fantasize, and then confront reality with this fantasy.

RICHARD: If your first statement is correct then you can never ‘confront reality with this fantasy’ because for you reality is forever out of direct reach (as it has to be an indirect confrontation).

KONRAD: Oh yes I can. For I can deduce effects from my understanding by way of logic.

RICHARD: Oh no you cannot, because deduction is cerebalising, once again ... it is not a ‘confronting of reality’ at all. It is a fantasy within a fantasy ... but very satisfying to an ‘I’, no doubt.

KONRAD: And if the causes are then implemented, and they do not lead to these anticipated effects, I know the premises are false. Therefore, logic together with the principle of experimentation lead not only to understanding the truth and falsity of certain premises, but also to their domain of validity.

RICHARD: Yet logic – which has its uses in the technological area – has been around for thousands of years ... and there is still as much suffering now as then. What is so new and original about your proposal that logic can end suffering when it has not and does not and will not?

KONRAD: From the reaction of reality I can then see whether and in what way I am wrong.

RICHARD: Not so ... unless you delude yourself. This ‘reaction of reality’ has to be indirect also ... if you are at all consistent in your logic. Therefore, whenever you see ‘whether and in what way you are wrong’ ... your seeing, then, is also part of your fantasy.

KONRAD: Answered above.

RICHARD: Well, no ... it was not ‘answered above’ at all. Make use of your highly-valued logic to stick with the sensibility of this argument just for this once and see where it leads: you say that actuality can never be directly perceived. Therefore it has to be a fantasy that you perceive with your deducing from indirect empirical understanding ... and any observation of the reactions of this indirectly perceived reality must be filtered results only.

KONRAD: This is the basic approach of logic, popularised by Arthur Conan Doyle in his Sherlock Holmes figure. ‘Imagine all that is possible. Eliminate everything that is in contradiction with reality, and that what is left, however unlikely, however unimaginable, however strange and bizarre, is the truth’. This is what I am doing with you also. I do not know whether you can be irritated. But the above response suggests you can.

RICHARD: You have to be grasping at straws if you are going to deduce that my above response suggests that I am irritated, Konrad.

KONRAD: Very nice metaphor, Richard. Still, you are right in the implication. I cannot really know anything about you. Not by way of e-mail.

RICHARD: You can indeed know a lot about me ... if you wish to. Try reading what I write without intellectualising your understanding.

KONRAD: You respond with a personal judgement on my speculations that is clearly condemnative in nature about me, instead of showing in what way I am wrong as far as you can see.

RICHARD: This is a typical New Age/Spiritual kind of statement ... ‘Thou shalt not judge’:

• First, all my appraisals are always personal ... how can they be otherwise?
• Second, with all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides that go on in this world, anything that perpetuates this status-quo is to be clearly and firmly denounced ... and renounced.
• Third, I did show you what way you were wrong ... and not only ‘as far as I can see’ either. You are blatantly wrong.

KONRAD: Okay, okay. I accept that I cannot know anything about you. Not through e-mail.

RICHARD: Why do you ‘accept’ that you cannot know anything about me? This is denying the clarity of descriptive phrases and meticulous wording written to convey to another one’s own experience.

KONRAD: And maybe every means is suspect.

RICHARD: What other ‘means’ are you referring to? Tone of voice? Body language? Eye contact? If these are not what you are referring to then ... surely you do not mean intuition? Now that is most definitely suspect.

Words are vital as our means of communicating our understanding to one another. It is marvellous that we are able to be discussing these matters of great momentousness ... and momentous not only the individual, but for all of the humans that are living on this verdant planet. It is an amazing thing that not only are we humans able to be here experiencing this business of being alive ... on top of that we can think about and reflect upon what is entailed in words. In addition to this ability, we can communicate our discoveries to one another – comparing notes as it were – and further our understanding with this communal input. One does not have to rely only upon one’s own findings; it is possible, as one man famous in history put it, to reach beyond the current knowledge by standing upon the shoulders of those that went before. It is silly to disregard the results of other person’s enterprising essays into the ‘mystery of life’ – unless it is obviously bombast and blather – for one would have to invent the wheel all over again. (However, it is only too possible to accept as set in concrete the accumulated ‘wisdom of the ages’ and remain stultified ... enfeebled by the insufferable psittacisms passed on from one generation to the next).

Please, do not scorn words.

*

KONRAD: This approach [Arthur Conan Doyle’s] makes me to speculate about a person, in this case about you. But I NEVER speculate about an individual WITHOUT presenting these speculations to the individual I am speculating about. And THAT is the real reason, why I sent you the mail too that I have sent to Alan. Indeed, I wanted you to react to them, because I knew that many things I said were of a speculative nature.

RICHARD: This ‘speculative nature’ business ... is it part of your fantasising? If so, then try observing directly ... it will save a lot of time and effort. Also, it will save you from both being and looking silly. For example:

• [Konrad]: ‘Much of this denial can already be found in Richard himself. He denies the moments when he suffers’.
• [Richard]: ‘And what moments would these be?’
• [Konrad]: ‘I exaggerated here. To be honest, I wouldn’t know. I do not know enough of you’.

You thus plainly put your credibility on the line – and not only for others – for yourself as well, surely?

KONRAD: Basically I see nothing wrong in sending these speculations. For then he has the same fantasy material to eliminate from. From this he can do his own elimination, by confronting you with them himself.

RICHARD: So if I were to fantasise that your writing suggests that you are a rapist and a murderer, and I give credence to this fantasy and call it a truth – in public if necessary – then you have to prove to me that you are not? Therefore I can come up with any kind of false accusation and present it to you as a truth and pounce on you when you respond in the negative? As I asked before: are you for real?

KONRAD: Again, you are right. I even generalize. I should refrain from ANY such speculation, and only restrict my communication to contents, and not make statements about somebody’s person. In the future I will not do this any more.

RICHARD: Good. Clarity gained about another person’s experience, through reading directly what is being so precisely said by them, beats speculation hands down ... any time.

KONRAD: THIS [Arthur Conan Doyle’s approach] is what I meant to say when I said that I want Alan to be thinking as hard as he can. So there is no ‘trick’ involved in me behaving in the way I do. Not really. My behaviour is completely understandable as being a consequence of taking the fact that reality can only be known indirectly into account.

RICHARD: Well then, may I suggest that you tell the other person that this material that you present to them is nothing but a fantasy ... it will clarify the situation no end.

Either that or simply stop fantasising?

KONRAD: Yes, yes. Stop fantasising altogether. That is what I accept as the solution to this problem.

RICHARD: Do you really mean this, or are you merely being agreeable? The reason I ask this is because you are still fantasising and/or speculating in the exchange immediately below.

KONRAD: The, also by you, observed fact that I change my mind easily can be used by you to let me change my mind about statements about you.

RICHARD: Huh? Try observing a fact ... seeing the world as-it-is will save all this mind-changing confusion.

KONRAD: Seeing the world as-it-is is impossible, Richard. That is your belief. I do not believe this. In fact, I KNOW not only that it is a belief, but I also know that it is a false belief.

RICHARD: Do you see this what is happening here ... if you cannot see the world as-it-is then you have no recourse but to speculate and/or fantasise.

What is your agreement to stop fantasising worth?

*

KONRAD: There is one thing, though. I am beginning to become more and more aware that the E-mail medium is too limited to apply this approach with success.

RICHARD: Also in face-to-face situations, I am sure. And while we are on the subject ... I noticed this in your recent E-Mail exchange with Vineeto: [Konrad]: ‘An ‘I’ is a thought that controls the body. Without such thoughts the body is not able to move. This is something even Richard could not deny when I really confronted him with it’ . Now, as this is such a outright misrepresentation of anything I have ever said, I would certainly appreciate you copying and pasting the quotes wherein you claim that I have stated that ‘I’ is a thought that controls the body and that without such thoughts the body is not able to move. I have consistently explained there is no ‘I’ extant in this body ... thoughts happen of their own accord and all the while there is an apperceptive awareness of being here now (and I specifically mean those writings where you ‘really confronted him with it’, Konrad, so that not only Vineeto but anyone at all reading this can see how the logic of your argument has persuaded me that you are right and that I am wrong. Goodness me, I have no idea what you hope to achieve by such dissimulation ... this goes beyond confronting another person with your fantasising in order to make them ‘think hard’. This is such straight-forward lying that it makes all of your arguments look pathetically weak in the reader’s eyes).

KONRAD: It was no lying. I really observed that much when you denied in one of your mails that you never have said that movement does not require thought.

RICHARD: I will repeat that I have never said that movement does not require thought – other than idle gestures or when running on automatic pilot – because purpose is involved and only thought can see a means to an end. Thought is obviously required ... that is not the issue. The issue is what you wrongly ascribed to me in the above exchange in that you claim that Richard said: ‘an ‘I’ is a thought that controls the body. Without such thoughts the body is not able to move’ . Do you see it written there? And can you also see where you say: ‘this is something even Richard could not deny when I really confronted him with it’ ? Now, I repeat again: I would certainly appreciate you copying and pasting the quotes wherein you claim that I have stated that ‘I’ is a thought that controls the body and that without such thoughts the body is not able to move.

In other words: back up your fantasies with facts ... if you want to be taken seriously.

KONRAD: But you were never really clear on this subject. Now, I ask you again. Do you think the body can move without a thought being in command? Answer this question, and settle it once and for all. I have settled the ‘life after death’ question. Now YOU settle this one. For, again, I found your answers to this question never to be too clear. So if I misunderstand, this is now your own fault, not mine. For you were never too clear on this matter. Even when I pressed it very hard.

RICHARD: Wow! You do go on. And all wrong, too. Look, if you have misunderstood me then perhaps you are not actually reading what I write. Here, let me copy and paste what I have already sent to you:

• [Richard]: ‘For the vast majority of my time there is no thoughts running at all ... none whatsoever. If thought is needed for a particular situation, it swings smoothly into action and effortlessly does its thing. All the while, there is this apperceptive awareness of being here ... of being alive at this moment in time and this place in space. No words occur ... it is a wordless appreciation of being able to be here. Consequently, I am always blithe and carefree, even if I am doing nothing. Doing something – and that includes thinking – is a bonus of happiness and pleasure on top of this on-going ambrosial experience of being alive and awake’.

In fact, I have already sent this several times ... to which you complained that I sent the same stuff over and over again. Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘I have tried to make many things clear to you, but your mind is too closed. Especially because you are endlessly repeating yourself, as is typical for a prophet, and not of a true human being trying to share what he has to offer with others, and to receive what others have to offer’.
• [Richard]: ‘I have been ‘endlessly repeating myself’ because when I send something to you – and you say you understand – then the next post from you shows that you have not. So I send it again ... and again ... until you do actually understand’.

But perhaps you will read it this time, no? And do not omit to copy and paste those quotes where you claim that I have stated that ‘I’ is a thought that controls the body and that without such thoughts the body is not able to move, eh?

KONRAD: This [the limitation of the E-Mail medium] is also why I left the Mailing group only yesterday. (I had joined to show them my new discovery.) So if I am wrong, I would very much like it if you correct me. Anything you have corrected will not show up in mails to others.

RICHARD: Why not? Is it because you do not want them to see where you were wrong? You are a strange fellow, Konrad.

KONRAD: From this mail you can clearly see, that I do not hesitate to show where I am wrong.

RICHARD: Ah, but do you understand – actually understand – where you are wrong? It does not show up in the above exchange now, does it?

KONRAD: And, another thing. Since my approach cannot be used with the same reliability as in normal life, I apologize for me misrepresenting you, without making clear to these others that this is what I possibly do. And now that I am aware of the danger of this, I shall confront you first with my speculations about you before I send them to others. I therefore offer you to give you the opportunity to correct them in advance.

RICHARD: Oh no, not again ... look, try this for size: I speculate that you are a rapist and a murderer ... and I hereby give you the opportunity to correct me.

KONRAD: Point already made clear.

RICHARD: Good.

*

RICHARD: I am having a dialogue with a fantasist. Dictionary Definition: fantasist n. [Orig. from: med. L from: Gk. Phantastes: boaster; later through Gk. Phantast.] 1. A visionary; one who lives in a world of fancy and imagination. 2. A dreamer; one who has ideas or conceives projects regarded as impractical. 3. a flighty impulsive person.

KONRAD: What a mistake to call me names, like Fantasist.

RICHARD: This is a typical New Age/Spiritual kind of statement ... ‘Thou shalt not label’. However, like with most of those idealistically perfectionistic commandments, it is impossible to act – or function at all – in everyday life if one tries to live in obedience to them ... it is simply impossible. In everyday life we all operate according to this epigram: ‘if it looks like a duck; if it waddles like a duck; if it quacks like a duck ... it is a duck’. I am not a pious hypocrite, Konrad, going around mouthing impracticable and unachievable decrees to all and sundry.

KONRAD: I have made so many mistakes with dialogues through the e-mail medium, and even through the normal mail, that I do not believe any more that a clear picture can be formed about who or what is at the other end. I observe, that not only I make mistakes about others, but I clearly see others making mistakes about me. This has convinced me, that the forming of pictures of persons, whether as a ‘who’ or a ‘what’, from material sent by the e-mail medium is simply impossible. I suggest you to investigate this yourself.

RICHARD: Whoa up there, Konrad, I am not ‘making mistakes about you’ ... you told me yourself that you fantasise about reality. Remember? That makes you a fantasist. Whereas I experience the actual world directly ... that makes me an actualist.

KONRAD: Every warning you give that my descriptions about you are wrong I therefore acknowledge. But I also warn you, that your descriptions of me are also wrong. I suggest, therefore, that we continue our conversation not about ourselves, and who or what we represent, but that we have conversations about subjects and contents.

RICHARD: If I am wrong about you being a fantasist then it is because you were wrong in telling me about your method of discerning reality indirectly by fantasising. I can only go on what you write.

KONRAD: Oh, yes. I apologize for calling you anything, and representing you in any way. All of those things you say are my fantasies about you are indeed that. Fantasies.

RICHARD: Well, then ... this makes you a fantasist, does it not? They are your words, not mine.

KONRAD: However, I do not think that this is just a flaw in me, but it is also due to a limitation of the e-mail system. It is simply impossible to form a clear picture from each other just by written communication.

RICHARD: Some other people who have read what I write have no difficulty whatsoever in understanding me

KONRAD: It might even be impossible by other means of communication, too. Maybe K was totally right, for he asserted that much. The forming of pictures is in every case incorrect, and should not be part of any communication.

RICHARD: But I am not ‘forming a picture’ ... you are telling me how you operate and function. You say: ‘I fantasise about reality’.

KONRAD: Still, I do not blame you for doing this. For it was indeed me who believed that such statements can be made. Therefore it deserves me well when others do that to me. I asked for it, and I got it.

RICHARD: My word, how grandiosely forgiving you are ... ‘I do not blame you for doing this’ ... you just do not get it, do you? I did not ‘do that to you’ ... you told me that you fantasise. You even explained why. You say that direct experience of actuality is impossible, therefore you fantasise about reality.

*

KONRAD: Now how about sensate beauty? Is it central in your approach, or is it not?

RICHARD: What is central to my approach is the elimination of an identity in any way, shape or form. So far you have argued the case for the necessity of the continued existence of the sense of identity as ‘I’ in the head thinking ... what is commonly called the ego. Now you are going to go into a spirited defence of the for the necessity of the continued existence of the sense of identity as ‘me’ in the heart feeling ... what is commonly called the soul.

KONRAD: Sorry, I do nothing of the sort

RICHARD: But you do ... only you call the soul the ‘SELF’ ... once you even called it the ‘BEING’ . Let me copy and paste for your edification. Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘The ‘I’ is the result of a certain calculation applied on the random generation or presence of thoughts that all have the potential to control the body, and the SELF reacting to all of these thoughts with emotions. The calculation uses as data these emotions, and consists of ordering them according to their potential ability to reduce pain, or to increase pleasure: to increase well being. This calculation is a deeper layer in us, what I call the BEING. It is where UNDERSTANDING takes place. It is able, or tries to see which thought results to actions that causes the greatest well-being. When this is seen, UNDERSTOOD by the BEING, as the outcome of the calculation, it is allowed to control the body. This whole process of calculation performed by the BEING is called: to decide. The ‘I’ is then nothing else than the thought of that what the action tries to achieve’ .

And, although you later backed away from this model, with your propensity for changing your mind who knows when the ‘BEING’ will be back on deck, eh? After all, the Enlightened Masters consistently talk about the ‘Ultimate State’ as being a ‘State of Being’ (this is where love ceases to be an emotion experienced by an ‘I’ and they identify with Love as Pure Being). And you do look to The Masters for validation of your position.

KONRAD: You try to understand me within your context of thinking.

RICHARD: I simply read what you write.

KONRAD: And that is simply impossible. Here is where YOUR picture forming is going wrong.

RICHARD: Au contraire. As I said, I simply read what you write ... and as they are your words that you use to describe yourself they are not my assumptions about you (assumptions are what is required to form a picture).

KONRAD: Only you have an added problem. For your belief in the direct observation of reality makes you probably believe that this interpretation is a direct observation.

RICHARD: I do not have to believe anything or interpret at all ... I simply read what you write. You argue the case for the necessity of the affective faculties. ‘Me’ is these feelings. Therefore you are defending ‘me’ in ‘my’ heart ... what is commonly called the soul (‘me’ at the core of ‘being’).

KONRAD: I am very curious about this [sensate beauty]. For, as I have already said, if it is not [discarded], your vision has the same orientation of that of Buddha, and I am totally and completely wrong about you.

RICHARD: It would appear, at this stage, that you are indeed ‘totally and completely wrong’ about me.

KONRAD: No argument here. But this applies to you, too.

RICHARD: Oh ... and in what way does it apply to me? Just how am I wrong about you?

KONRAD: But in my eyes this has also the consequence that it has become totally uninteresting, for Buddha then has done a better job than you.

RICHARD: It is your life that you are living, Konrad. It is entirely up to you how you live it ... I can only tell my story and suggest an alternative to the ‘Tried and True’ (which is clearly the ‘Tried and Failed’). Mr. Gotama the Sakyan has failed utterly in bringing about peace on earth. In fact, Buddhists disavow the possibility entirely ... they propose ‘Parinirvana’ – an after-death position – as being the ultimate state of being.

KONRAD: I am also not a Buddhist. The reason is that I do not believe in any ‘big bang’ total solutions.

RICHARD: So when you repeatedly state, emphatically, that your background is Zen Buddhism ... are you lying?

KONRAD: I think that the only way to eat an elephant, to cite Kevin Trudeau, to take it one bite at a time. There is no other way. The same applies to the problems Man has. They can only be solved one at a time, and not all together in one swoop. I even dare to go so far to assert, that anybody who pretends this to be possible is automatically a Guru. This includes Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti, and, if you think this possible, consider yourself to be included, too. For my definition of Guru is: ‘anybody who asserts that there is a single solution to all of the problems of Man’. It does not matter what this person considers this solution to be, whenever he asserts that there is such a solution, and he has found it, he is a Guru.

RICHARD: Konrad ... just completely ignore what I write and you will be able to keep your picture of me intact. However, in the interests of verity, consider the following dialogue. Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘It betrays your own naiveness. You believe in ONE solution for ALL of the problems of Man. That is simply naive’.
• [Richard]: ‘No, I do not. I am on record as saying that I am not an expert on everything ... and that I have no intention of becoming one. My expertise lies in the nature of consciousness and how to end malice and sorrow forever. I have the solution for things like wars, rapes, murders, tortures, domestic violence, child abuse, sadness, loneliness, grief, depression and suicide and so on ... not things like quantum physic’s sub-atomic particles and the such-like’.

Consequently, even according to your definition, I am not a Guru ... but then I have stated all along that I have not fallen for that state of narcissistic self-aggrandisement.

KONRAD: But if it [sensate beauty] IS a part of it, then you have something completely new to say.

RICHARD: Not so ... beauty has been extolled as the way to ‘The Truth’ for aeons. It is intrinsic to the human condition and is revered and defended at all costs.

KONRAD: Does this include sensate beauty?

RICHARD: Once again ... you simply ignore whatever I write. However, try reading this dialogue. Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘I know that you have excluded emotional beauty. But have you also excluded sensate beauty?’
• [Richard]: ‘There is no such thing as ‘sensate beauty’ ... beauty is affective. Beauty is a feeling-response of the emotional and passionate ‘me’ to sensorial delight’.

And if that is not enough to convince you that you have already asked me this question, then try this. Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘Again, I stress here, that I do NOT use the word beauty in the emotional meaning of the word, but in the sensate meaning’.
• [Richard]: ‘Again ... there is no such thing as ‘sensate beauty’. All beauty is an emotional/passionate response of the entity within the body’.

And if that is not enough for you to digest, this is an exchange you and I had four or five months ago. Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘I have given your assertion, that you do not meditate some thought. I have experimented with non-meditation, this afternoon. Guess what. The ‘process’ became so low in intensity, that I did barely feel it any more. The body now reacted completely spontaneous, making goal-directed movements, going to the computer shop to pick up my repaired computer. Also when there were sounds in my environment, the head moved to the source to look at it. And if there were no sounds, the head moved all by itself. The actions could well be described as being executed completely by the circumstances as such, and not being induced by a form of ‘person’. While this was happening, sensations much akin to the experience of beauty were also continuously present. It was, as if the process had transformed itself into these sensations’.
• [Richard]: ‘I am pleased to see that you are prepared to experiment with something new’.
• [Konrad]: ‘Is THIS what you mean by actions that do not emerge from either an ‘I’ or a Self? If that is so, then I am familiar with what you are talking about, and we could finally begin with a more significant exchange’.
• [Richard]: ‘It does seem that we might be able to move into a new phase in our correspondence. Where you write: ‘while this was happening, sensations much akin to the experience of beauty were also continuously present. It was, as if the process had transformed itself into these sensations’ , I am glad to note that you experienced them as sensations – that is, a sensate experience – and not as an affective experience. Beauty – like love – being affective, can so easily take one down that slippery-slope of illusion into experiencing that oceanic feeling of oneness (‘I am everything and everything is me’) that gives rise to the ‘I am God’ delusion so common in the East. There is still an identity operating for them, you see. It is such a shame that spiritual people are so down on pleasure – which is what sensate experience is – when it is so delicious and luscious. This body is simply brimming with sense organs ... it is so luxurious to be alive’.

KONRAD: What is wrong with listening to a piece of music and feeling the tintlings along your spine?

RICHARD: This is amazing ... and maybe we have discovered a new way to write to each other. I only have to copy and paste what I have already said to you before and you just rearrange your question and ask it again. Try this exchange. Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘Richard is the ultimate example of somebody who puts existence totally above consciousness. Experiences of informational integration causes the phenomenon of sensate beauty. (Chills along your spine because you hear beautiful music, etc.) These kinds of experiences is what Richard lives for’ .
• [Richard]: ‘This becomes more and more ridiculous as you go along, Konrad. You may get ‘chills along your spine’ but I do not. I am not interested in ‘beautiful music’ ... it is all about pathos. It is designed to ameliorate suffering; where there is no suffering there is no ‘beautiful music’ ... just a pathetic tugging on other people’s heart strings’.

And just in case you still do not understand, what I am saying is that music can evoke sorrow and malice by tugging on the heart strings.

KONRAD: So which of the two is it with you? Is happiness only the end of all suffering, and therefore only the ending of a negative, or is happiness an addition to life, that makes you forget all of suffering? It cannot be both.

RICHARD: Neither ... it is a third alternative, and it not only means the ending of suffering ... but the ending of malice too. And not only being supremely happy ... but being totally harmless into the bargain.

KONRAD: A total solution to everything?

RICHARD: No. A solution to suffering ... remember? Try this sentence. Viz.:

• [Richard] ‘I have the solution for things like wars, rapes, murders, tortures, domestic violence, child abuse, sadness, loneliness, grief, depression and suicide and so on ... not things like quantum theory sub-atomic particles and the such-like’.

KONRAD: This assertion makes you to be a Guru.

RICHARD: Round and round we go. I am not a Guru ... nothing so petty-minded for me. Try this answer. Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘As long as you do not look upon yourself as a saviour of mankind. But probably you do. For that is what ALL people up till now have done who believe in one single solution for the human condition’ .
• [Richard]: ‘I set my sights further than being a mere saviour of humankind, all those years ago when I was determined to be free of the human condition, and I am not likely to fall back into that position now that I have succeeded. Human beings need something else than re-hashes of the ‘Tried and True’ if there is to be global peace-on-earth’.

KONRAD: For both [the ending of a negative and the addition of happiness to make you forget suffering] can only be the result of allowing abstract thinking to function in your life, and ‘the process’ to be ignited. Both of which you deny.

RICHARD: The ‘process’ was the means whereby I became apparent ... ‘I’ and ‘me’ were extinguished by the ‘process’. It is an ‘I’ that has to indulge in abstract thinking in an effort to imitate the anonymity of living in this actual world of this flesh and blood body ... what you would call being impersonal.

KONRAD: There is, of course, a fourth possibility. It is neither. (Another speculation.) By going against everything that makes Man, Man, by going against his potential totally, you end up with a complete and total zero.

RICHARD: Bingo! You have hit the nail right on the head. ‘I’ have ceased to exist ... zero. This is what first attracted me to you, remember? You wrote describing an experience you had: [quote] ‘and then it happened. I had the attack I formerly had at the moment of falling asleep. But now I was wide awake! A tremendous pressure wave penetrated from below my spine into my skull. It was exactly at the moment whereby I understood (...) It was absolutely nothing!’ [endquote] And also: [quote] ‘But now, for the first time there was a new kind of certainty. An absolute certainty based on absolutely nothing. I do not assert that this is always so, but at the moment the process started this WAS so. Therefore there was NO doubt. Not because I had found all the answers, but because there was no ‘I’ present any more that needed answers to end its own insecurities’ [endquote].

Any comment, Konrad? These are your words, you know.

KONRAD: [It is] the ending of all suffering, but also the ending of that what can make emotions a delight to have. (Beauty, love, understanding, etc.)

RICHARD: If you are pleading the case for the continued existence of emotions then you are going to have to explain away anger, hatred, spitefulness, vindictiveness and so on and so on.

KONRAD: It is my position that this conclusion is too hastily drawn, especially when you consider the short time span Man is into existence.

RICHARD: Do you mean that you cannot explain away anger, hatred, spitefulness, vindictiveness and so on and so on? Is 60,000 years (or whatever it is) not a long enough time-span yet? Do we have to wait another 60,000 years to evolve? Are people still going to be killing each other for century upon century to come ... just because this is Konrad’s ‘position’ ?

KONRAD: In short, you cannot really know this. Especially, because logic, thinking, science has solved many problems already.

RICHARD: Yet it has not solved one single aspect of humanity’s inhumanity to humankind ... there is as much suffering now as then.

KONRAD: To use the above metaphor of Kevin Trudeau, the elephant has already been half eaten, and there exists no evidence that the method of taking one bite at a time will not succeed in eating the rest of the elephant.

RICHARD: Ah ... as it has taken 60,000 years to eat half of the elephant, then it is going to be another 60,000 years before the other half is eaten ... and will people stop killing each other then? Will they have seen the role that ‘I’ and ‘my’ feelings play in all the misery and mayhem?

Will you?

*

RICHARD: There is much more involved in emotions than cultivating affection and eschewing enmity, you know. This positive/negative approach is indubitably the ‘Tried and Failed’.

KONRAD: It is an old trick you are using, Richard. Pointing at the problems that are not yet solved, while ignoring at the same time the problems that ARE solved.

RICHARD: Okay, you point out all of the solved problems that I am ignoring for me then ... and please do not list the problems solved in the technological field. We are speaking only of the problems in the area of human consciousness – as well you know – and I see that nothing has been solved there. What I see is 160,000,000 people killed this century in wars; 200 plus wars since the dropping of the atomic bomb; 27 wars currently occurring; all the murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides ... need I go on? And you – like all the thinkers and sages throughout history – come out with re-hashes of the ‘Tried and True’ ... which is the tried and failed.

Methinks it will be a very short list.

KONRAD: In this you suggest that in the past nothing has been achieved, while it is completely clear that this at least is wrong. Take, for example, this computer we are using to communicate. It works, so it has solved the problem of world wide communication at a fantastic rate. It is even possible to have a communication through Internet by directly responding.

RICHARD: This is technological progress ... this matter is not under dispute and never has been. We are discussing the Human Condition ... with its intrinsic animosity and anguish (I have an article on my Web Page extolling the virtues of technological progress ... it is called ‘Sample Article No. 2’).

KONRAD: Isn’t this what Actualism is all about: one huge attack on everything that is potential in Man, so that he changes completely in something actual, with no potential whatsoever left?

RICHARD: Yes ... living as perfection personified each moment again for the rest of one’s life. Being happy and harmless – being without malice and sorrow – because the cause of all the suffering is ‘me’.

KONRAD: Is that why you use the word ‘Actualism?’ At least this last hypothesis is consistent with everything you say about it. I hope you will clarify.

RICHARD: Aye ... ‘I’ have ceased to exist in ‘my’ entirety. As you wrote (as quoted above): ‘it was exactly at the moment whereby I understood (...) It was absolutely nothing! (...) Not because I had found all the answers, but because there was no ‘I’ present any more’ .

Any comment? They are your words, Konrad.

*

KONRAD: By describing the process as affective you show that you cannot really know that. For you are obviously not talking about the same thing

RICHARD: Are you so sure of that?

KONRAD: Well, I am absolutely sure of one thing. The process does not have ANY emotion in it whatsoever. No fear, as you suggested. No happiness. None.

RICHARD: I am suggesting that you look at the source of the ‘process’ ... it has to be affective if for no other reason than ‘I’ am affective at root. And the base emotion is fear ... fear rules the sentient world.

KONRAD: So a pianist who is using his feelings to express a piece of music, and even using these feelings to play the piece of music is at root using fear to express his music, and to play the piano skilfully? Come on, Richard. I do not buy that! This example alone proves that your vision on emotions is much too limited.

RICHARD: It is your vision that is limited ... if you take the time to dig down through the layers of emotions into the deeper feelings you will find, at root, the instinctual passions like fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Fear is the most powerful and over-riding passion there is ... hence fear rules the world of sentient beings.

Playing soothing music on a piano – listening to soothing music in general – is to assuage the feelings and, hopefully, make you feel that everything is all right. Playing a martial music on a piano – or listening to martial music in general – is to stir the soul into fighting for the country ... or some other ‘Noble Cause’. Playing blues music on a piano – or listening to blues music in general – is to wallow in self-pity. Playing ‘The Pathetiqué’ on the piano is to evoke the bitter/sweet beauty of pathos ... do you want me to go on?

KONRAD: Emotions can be a tool. Not only to play the piano, or another instrument. But it can be a tool in very surprising ways. In fact, Kevin Trudeau’s memory course, the course I am studying now, uses emotions as one of the steps to store information into your memory permanently. And his method works. Oh boy! Does his method work!

RICHARD: How come you do not remember my answers to your questions, then? I am having a great time copying and pasting the same answers to the same questions that you ask over and over again. So much for your memory course!

KONRAD: Let me be completely frank. I am not absolutely certain about the self-referential nature of the origin of the process either. However, if it is rational, it can only be rational in this way. It is the best description I have ever given of it, and on this account I leave some room of doubt. Still, it is as close as I can get to it.

RICHARD: Good ... this means that you allow the possibility that my observations – born out of my on-going experiencing of being here now – may be accurate. We can proceed, no?

KONRAD: I think not. You could wonder why I am now certain about something I was not certain about in my previous mail. This is, because in my previous mail I did not see that logic and group theory were both dual descriptions of thought, thinking and understanding in its most general form. They only differ in perspective. Logic stresses the differences in similarity, while group theory stresses the similarities in differences. Therefore logic is a description of the process of differentiation, while group theory is a description of the process of integration. Only when both these disciplines are understood well enough, and it is understood that they are dual in the sense that points and lines are dual in projective geometry, a clear understanding of the process and the source of it, (or, rather, the sourcelessness of it) can be made.

RICHARD: Okay ... the ‘sourcelessness’ of the ‘process’, you say. Is this ‘sourcelessness’ the same ‘nothingness’ that you claim the universe came out of before the ‘Big Bang’? Because ‘sourcelessness’ and ‘nothingness’ is Eastern Mystical gobbledegook for ‘God’ ... that ‘Unborn’ and ‘Undying’ and ‘Spaceless and ‘Timeless and ‘Formless’ source-less source that is the ‘Ground of Being’.

• Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain called it ‘The Ocean Of Oneness’, for example.
• Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti called it ‘That which is Sacred, Holy’, for another example.

KONRAD: To have real understanding of something it is not enough to see what it is. For if somebody points at a door, and he says it is a door, he can, in principle, after doing that point at a window, and also say that that is a door. By doing both things he proves that he can see what a door is, but he cannot see what a door is not. Only when he points at a window, and calls it window, he proves that he at least is aware of a difference between the two. And if he can point at every item in a room and call it by its correct name, he proves that he can distinguish all of these items from one another. This is why I say that understanding is the same as differentiation within a context. In other words, to be able to say what something is, is also the ability to distinguish it from everything else it is not.

RICHARD: This, along with your description of ‘the process of differentiation’ vis a vis ‘the process of integration’ , sounds like a variation on gestalt theory ... figure and background, subject and object and so on. Holistic vision, in other words.

What new book are you reading this week?

KONRAD: However, even if you can make a distinction from everything, and restricts this process of making distinctions only to things that actually exist this still does not represent complete understanding. For somebody can make a totally new type of door. This door can be so different from any other door anybody has seen, that it might not be immediately clear to others that it IS a door. This might be due to a new principle of containment applied. Say, a radiant field or something like it, causing the enclosing of the gap in the wall. Only when the understanding of what makes a door to be a door is so effective, that even types of doors that never existed before can be recognized as indeed being doors, the concept of ‘door’ is completely understood. Now my understanding of ‘the process’ was such, that I was able to understand it in terms of self-reference. Still, I did not understand it so thoroughly, that I could not see that it was the ONLY way this process could exist.

RICHARD: But – and this is a big but – you told me just recently that you ‘understood understanding’ completely ... and that, furthermore, Richard did not. Now you are telling me that you did not understand it thoroughly back then!

KONRAD: But now, since my new breakthrough insight in logic and group theory being each others duals, my understanding is so clear, that I see that the self-referential nature of understanding understanding even excludes it from everything that is not self-referential.

RICHARD: And, I suppose, with this ‘new breakthrough’ that gives you such a ‘clear understanding’ about ‘understanding understanding’ you will be telling me once again that I do not understand, eh?

KONRAD: In other words, the self-referential nature of it is exactly the point, making it completely and literally self-contained.

RICHARD: Oh? Tell me something new ... this sounds so familiar, Konrad. Look, can you remember telling me before that you understood everything completely? Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘My vision is completely clear, and complete. Especially the connection between ‘the process’ and its structural origin is then clear’.
• [Richard]: ‘Hmmm ... ‘completely clear, and complete’ until the next time you change your mind, eh’?
• [Konrad]: ‘Well, Richard. Time will tell’.

I guess time has told, eh?

*

KONRAD: But on the matter whether it [the ‘process’] contains emotion in whatever form, whether affection, affective, or whatever term you use that has even the slightest reference to an emotion, when used to describe ‘the process’ and its origins, such a term is definitely the wrong term for it.

RICHARD: Your response helps to throw some light onto this communication difficulty because the difference between ‘affective’ and ‘affection’ is that ‘affection’ is related to any of the ‘good’ emotions, whereas ‘affective’ refers to all emotions ... which includes fear, hatred, anger, spite, jealousy, aggression and so on. You seem to be under the impression that I am talking about the ‘good’ emotions only.

KONRAD: Explain please. Have you not constantly said that ALL emotions are bad?

RICHARD: They are neither just good nor bad in my eyes ... to be run by emotions – either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ emotions – is imbecility in action, Konrad. And to be run by passion is to be run by the very disease of the Human Condition ... this is absurdity in motion. But to become calenture itself – as a State of Being – is to be that very sickness as narcissistic self-aggrandisement. And to then disseminate it to all and sundry as the cure-all for suffering is to perpetuate all the misery and mayhem for ever and a day.

Calenture is an incredibly useful word as it describes the delirious passion needed to manifest the delusion that:

1: There is a God ... and:
2: I am that God.

Calenture is not just ‘bad’ ... it is sick. It is ‘I’ being rotten to ‘my’ very core.

*

RICHARD: There is obviously confusion due to the similarity of the way the two entirely different words sound. ... apparently this ‘affective/affection’ business is too difficult to convey. English is such an expressive language with its nuances of meaning ... that it can all become too much (you have confused ‘feeling’ (touch) with ‘feeling’ (emotion) in the past). Perhaps this definition helps:

• affection: noun; 1: an emotion, a feeling.; especially feeling as opposed to reason; passion, lust. 2 disposition towards something, bent, inclination. 3 goodwill, kindly feeling, love.

When this is compared with the definition for ‘affective’ you may see the misunderstanding:

• affective: adjective; 1: arising from, relating to, or influencing feelings or emotions. 2: emotional disorders. 3: expressing emotion; affectivity: noun; emotional susceptibility.

Thus the three ways a person can experience the world is: cerebral (thoughts); 2: sensate (senses); 3. affective (feelings). The feelings include both the affectionate and desirable emotions/passions (those that are loving and trusting) and the antipathetical and invidious emotions/passions (those that are hateful and fearful). I am endeavouring to get you to look at the origin – the root – of this ‘process’ as my experience was that it was born out of fear ... existential angst. And fear is affective ... it is certainly not sensate.

Whereas you maintain that this ‘process’ is sensate only ... which I say is the effect it gives.

KONRAD: Again, I repeat, ‘the process’ as is present in me is free from any emotion. It is 100% sensate.

RICHARD: Is it 100% sensate at its root ... its origin? You say that its origin is sourcelessness ... how can sourcelessness be sensate? Sensate is material ... whereas your sourcelessness/ nothingness is prior to the universe coming into being in the ‘Big Bang’ and is thus non-material.

KONRAD: There are ‘moments’, sometimes even for hours, that only this ‘process’ is present, with its steady beat.

RICHARD: What is the nature of this ‘steady beat’ ... which you say is ‘twice the heart rate’ ?

KONRAD: In those ‘moments’ there is complete inner rest, peace of mind .And, maybe strange that I say it, in those ‘moments’ there is NO clarity.

RICHARD: I would suggest that this is because the ‘process’ is means to an end and not an end in itself. If it were ... it would be perfect (complete with clarity).

KONRAD: For clarity, in whatever form, is a form of understanding, and therefore there is still ‘some’ unrest in the form of the need for clarity itself.

RICHARD: Ah, you mean clarity as in abstract thinking.

KONRAD: Yes. [Yet] when only ‘the process’ is present, the matter whether everything is clear or not is unimportant. I even dare to say that importance itself has vanished. For importance still has some unrest in it. Importance implies that something still ‘has to be done’, however weak.

RICHARD: Yet you berate me for having no capacity for ‘abstract thinking’ !

KONRAD: I do not any more. Only you deny its significance, and I do not.

RICHARD: What significance? I do not deny the technological significance of abstract thinking when it is used as applied science. You say that when the ‘process’ is operating there is ‘complete inner rest, peace of mind’ ... and no abstract thinking. If your abstract thinking prevents complete inner rest and peace of mind, what significance can logic have for freeing human beings from suffering?

KONRAD: When I am in daily life, and therefore performing actions, and I think back about this ‘state’ wherein only ‘the process’ is present, I see that I like to be in it. (So, in contrast, the term ‘bliss’ may be applicable, as long as no emotion in whatever form is implied with the use of this term.) Only, when I am in this state, I remember, that the term ‘like’ has lost its significance, too, because that is STILL an emotion. And, as I said, in this state wherein only this ‘process’ is present, there is NO emotion present whatsoever. Not even ‘like’ or ‘dislike’, or whatever other product of judgement. (Every judgement has still some emotion in it.)

RICHARD: Then why do you criticise me for not having any feelings?

KONRAD: Emotions can be a tremendous tool. Without it, principles do not function, abstract thinking does not function, and we cannot reap the benefits of technology and other products of thinking. Therefore it must have its place, and it must not be totally denied.

RICHARD: Yet I have no principles whatsoever ... because there is no wayward ‘I’ in there to need controlling. I have no feelings at all ... yet I can think technological thoughts. My problem solving rationality operates well in the technological field ... I learnt algebra and trigonometry in high school, for example, and can appreciate their contribution to technological development.

Where is the difficulty?

KONRAD: It can be that every theory, speculation, description, approach I use to describe it misses the point somewhere. But the absence of emotion aspect of it [the ‘process’] is beyond any doubt whatsoever. I would even dare to say this. If you do not accept this statement of fact of me, and think that I am deluding myself on this particular point, then this is the same as saying that I am incapable of making any statement of fact whatsoever.

RICHARD: No, no ... I am asking about the origin of the ‘process’. Not what the result it produces as in being non-emotional.

KONRAD: Concerning your question about what is the origin of this ‘process’, I recently have found that it is indeed that what I strongly suspected. It is totally self-referential. Therefore it is its own origin. It is ‘solitonic’ in nature.

RICHARD: Ah, so you now equate the ‘process’ with a quantum particle from contemporary physics theory, eh? I am aware that the discovery that a quasiparticle being propagated as a solitary wave – even as a coherent entity – has stimulated much interest among mathematicians and physicists ... and that their understanding of solitons is expanding rapidly. Although it is now generally recognized that many of the non-linear differential equations that appear in diverse branches of physics have solutions of large amplitude corresponding to solitons – and that the remarkable capacity of solitons for surviving encounters with other solitons is considered universal – it is still only speculative theory, you know?

KONRAD: In my previous mail I had still some doubt about it. For I considered it to be possible that the whole idea of self referentiability would not be powerful enough to describe it. But, fortunately, I see now clearly that it is not the only possibility left, but it is actually so. Therefore it is a by-effect of understanding understanding. This discovery has made clear to me, why Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti talked so much about thought, thinking, conflict, etc. And why he made so few definite statements, and why most of his statements are in the form of questions. This is, because understanding itself is a process.

RICHARD: Actually, Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti – like so many of his peers – made very few definite statements because he did not actually know what was going on. Those people make a virtue out of not knowing, remember? ‘The Truth is Unknowable’ or ‘The Truth is Ineffable’ or ‘He who speaks does not know; He who knows does not speak’ or ‘Words are merely pointers’ or ‘The Tao that can be described is not The Tao’ and so on and so on.

It is all so trite, Konrad.

KONRAD: Not only [if you do not accept this statement] about this ‘process’, but [if you do not accept these statements of me] about anything at all, and that I am plain stupid. I even dare to go further than this. If this observation is wrong, it is better not to continue your dialogue with me, not that I do not want to do this any more, and also not because any other emotional resistance on my part, but plain and simply because I understand that in this case I am so confused, that I am beyond the reach of anybody. Or, to put it as simple as possible. If this observation is incorrect, I am completely and utterly insane.

RICHARD: Whoa up there Konrad ... there is a way through all this, you know. All is not lost.

KONRAD: However, if my description of the state wherein only ‘the process’ is present corresponds to your actuality, then we have found exactly the same thing.

RICHARD: No, the ‘process’ leads to actuality ... the state wherein only the ‘process’ is present does not correspond to actuality. It approximates the actual inasmuch as it can whilst an ‘I’ is extant.

KONRAD: Not so in the ‘process’ I am talking about.

RICHARD: Okay, so let us say that your ‘process’ is distinguished, then, in that it keeps your ‘potentiality’ open and your ‘actuality’ forever unreachable. Tell me, please, what use is it? Are you devoid of malice and sorrow? Can you rely upon yourself totally and absolutely to never, ever get ... um ... infuriated? Can you rely upon yourself so completely and utterly that you never need to control yourself with principles ... just like 5.8 billion other human beings have to do? Put simply: what has this ‘process’ of yours done to unconditionally and wholly end your own suffering ... let alone be of substantive assistance to anyone else?

KONRAD: The only difference between you and me is then, that I do not want to be 100% in it, but like it to go out of it, and then use my abstract thinking.

RICHARD: This is the seduction of power ... in this case the power of abstract thinking to imagine worlds that do not exist in actuality. It is akin to your description of fantasising.

KONRAD: We, human beings, need this power to live. For it is our method of survival.

RICHARD: What? Fantasising about imaginary worlds is essential for survival? You have to be kidding yourself.

KONRAD: Especially, because the return back into this ‘state’ is then even more ‘pleasant’ because of the contrast.

RICHARD: Hmm ... I have no need of a contrast whatsoever. The perfection of this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space is so pleasurable that people who call me a hedonist are missing the mark ... hedonism is nowhere near as pleasurable as this that is my on-going experiencing.

KONRAD: Maybe. But when it leads to abstaining from our survival method, it is not for me.

RICHARD: To be free from the Human Condition – which is to be free from sorrow and malice – is to enhance survival so much so that it leaves the animal instinct for survival dead in the water. Let alone promoting abstract thinking as a survival tool. If, as you say, the atomic bomb is the result of abstract thinking, then how does that enhance survival? Do you not think that something else has to happen, other than logic, to bring about individual peace ... let alone global peace? What about the malice and the sorrow that is endemic to humanity? The rudimentary survival instincts of fear and aggression and nurture and desire that blind nature endows all sentient beings with at birth is now threatening human survival ... now that your much-prized abstract thought has led to the development of weapons of mass destruction.

KONRAD: So, to return to your question. ‘What is the origin of this ‘process’? I can answer it now. It is its own origin. It is both its own cause and its own effect.

RICHARD: This ‘sourceless source’, eh?

KONRAD: Therefore, it is something you cannot go beyond. For going beyond it leads to ending within it.

RICHARD: Or are you afraid to explore further into the stygian depths of the human psyche? This voyage of discovery into the Human Condition is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee. It requires nerves of steel to go all the way into what Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain called ‘The Unknowable’. It means the extinction of ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety ... not just the ego-death so beloved of the mystics.

It means the end of ‘being’ ... and the end of ‘Being’.

KONRAD: Therefore, your suggestion that I look deeper into the matter, and then I will find your actualism beyond it makes me suspect, that what you talk about, and what you understand this ‘process’ to be is not the same process you have gone through.

RICHARD: Apparently not, Konrad ... according to your present understanding (because you did say some months ago that you recognised this ‘process’ to be the same as what Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti went through ... and that I can relate to). Oh well ... c’est la vie, I guess.

KONRAD: For, clearly, your ‘process’ had this actualism as its origin. So it HAD an origin outside of it.

RICHARD: Not so ... I have already explained that it was affective in origin. I guess you did not read that bit, though.

KONRAD: Therefore your ‘process’ was probably a side effect of a paradigm shift, as I have explained before to you

RICHARD: What ‘paradigm shift’ would that be? What you said about me (above) was that I had not undergone a paradigm shift ... and that this is what my problem is. Are you that confused in your analysis of me? Here, let me copy and paste your considered opinion of me for your edification. Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘You have never been through a paradigm shift like that caused by a study of physics’ .

If you are at all interested in what I have to say about what happened to me – and just maybe I do know something about it – was that my ‘process’ was as the result of a PCE wherein I personally experienced the perfection of this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space ... as a here and now experiencing. Details can be found on my web page under ‘A Brief Personal History’ (a copy of which I sent to you at the beginning of our correspondence).

KONRAD: But this process that is going on within me is of another type, having no other origin than itself. Or, better, it can be described as a continuous, on-going paradigm shift. A continuous movement from actuality to ever new potentialities becoming actualities.

RICHARD: No, really? From ‘actuality to ever new potentialities becoming actualities’ ? Yet you wrote that being actual was not your thing. Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘I accept that I am a being that grows continuously. I am not, as you think you are, a life form that is perfect. For perfectness means that everything that was potentially present has now become actual’ .
• [Richard]: ‘That is correct ... it is completion, utter fulfilment and ultimate satisfaction. It is what all human being yearn for’.
• [Konrad]: ‘But this denies the essence of Man, namely that he is between potentiality and actuality’ .
• [Richard]: ‘If you say so, Konrad ... yet that is not my experience. For me, the essence of being a human being is an actual perfection here and now ... otherwise you are always becoming and never arriving. And so the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides go on and on. Is this what you wish upon both yourself and your fellow human being. There has been 160,000,000 people killed in wars this century ... is that what you want to give to the residents of the next century?’

KONRAD: And, I want to add, as a side effect it causes me to see the limitations of things I believed in the past. You see me changing all the time. And that is exactly what I am. A continuous movement from actuality to potential to new actualities etc.

RICHARD: Here is that ‘from actuality to potential to new actualities’ thing of yours again ... is it another new breakthrough you have just had? If so, then just what does it mean to go from actuality to potentiality to new actualities? This which is actual is already always actual, Konrad, it has no need of fantasy to become ‘new actualities’. It is ever-new because it is happening here and now ... of its own accord. No ‘I’ is needed whatsoever to ‘become’ something else. Do you genuinely know what ‘actuality’ means ... or have you just grabbed the word and added it to your repertoire of stock-standard phrases to make it look like you know what you speak of?

Just to finish off, I would like to post this observation of yours from months ago for reflection. Who knows, it may jog something in you. Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘Maybe there are many people, even the majority who thought that to be enlightened is the same as being in a state where the illusionary nature of ‘I’ had been exposed, but that they were unaware of the fact that there exist a deeper SELF that has to be exposed too. And maybe you are right, that being dominated by the SELF is the only condition that deserves the term enlightenment ... but granting all this, the only thing the condition you are talking about solves, is the problem of the suffering of Man, which it indeed does’ .

At the time that you wrote that, I considered it to be very well said, Konrad.