Actual Freedom – A Request from Konrad Swart

September 30 1998:

KONRAD: I assert that ... no ‘I’ separate from thought exists ... ... the reason why I make such a big fuss of exactly this point [is] as long as you talk in terms of the ‘I’ must be eliminated, you must free yourself from the ‘self’, or, as you do, stating that: [Richard] ‘What is central to my approach is the elimination of an identity in any way, shape or form’, it just betrays, that you are unable to see, that there is no identity to eliminate.

RICHARD: Oh, I get this ploy from many long-time spiritual seekers ... they get to a point where they fondly imagine that there is no problem. The ‘I’ is an illusion, they say, so nothing has to be done once this is realised. This is nothing but spiritual masturbation. And thus 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 go on ad infinitum.

KONRAD: Yes, Richard, your reaction is very predictable.

RICHARD: Oh? And just whereabouts did you predict this? And if you did not forecast it ... then it what way is it predictable? Do you mean to say that my reply is something that you could have expected given the nature of what has been discussed so far? If not, then just what, exactly, do you mean by this apparently useless comment? In what way does this statement add to your argument? Because it reads like sarcasm ... and to be sarcastic is to be contemptuous; it is pomposity thinly disguised as pointed wit.

Personally, I like to be trenchant in as jocose a way as is possible with the English language ... it is much more fun that way. Being facetious beats sarcasm hands down, any day, because it is waggish, droll ... it highlights the ludicrous. Besides, sarcasm is a subtle form of abuse ... verbal violence. To be sarcastic is to obtain amusement at another’s expense ... it is a particularly cutting form of teasing, with malicious undertones, and thus qualifies for the lowest rating on the humour scale (so too with irony ... just as sarcasm is designed to make the recipient feel ridiculed, irony is designed to make the recipient feel rueful). They are thus both pathetic wit, by definition. As the word ‘pathetic’ is derived from the root ‘pathos’ – which indicates sorrow – then the giver of either sarcasm or irony wishes the recipient to feel the incipient sorrow that is endemic among humans.

KONRAD: You are right, when you say that this insight does not end all murders, rapes, tortures, domestic violence and child abuses. Something else is required for that.

RICHARD: Aye ... and that something else is that the ‘I’ must be eliminated and not merely realised to be an illusion. This illusory ‘I’ must undergo an illusory death. This death, when it happens, is indistinguishable from physical death ... it is that startling in its intensity. This is a far cry from you ‘realising that this ‘I’, this identity, IS an illusion’ that you referred to in your previous post. Becoming free from this – at times very real – identity requires far more than the illusory nature of ‘I’ being merely ‘totally realized, in the sense that it is observed to be true’ ... as you so accurately described in your reporting of your own personal experience.

KONRAD: Still, this only shows that the pretences some people make about this transformation is wrong. Not the insight itself.

RICHARD: If you take the insight to be sufficient to release you from all human suffering, forever, then you are fooling yourself in a most particularly treacherous way.

KONRAD: But ... you show that you are incapable of seeing that this insight, this understanding is correct.

RICHARD: The insight that any ‘I’ is an illusion is correct ... but the insight requires action to actualise the understanding. This ‘I’ must die a psychological death ... its ending is commensurate to its pernicious existence.

KONRAD: Since this understanding is basic for enlightenment, in fact is its igniter, your claim that you have moved to something beyond it is clearly false.

RICHARD: Not so, Konrad ... I understood the implications of understanding this insight very well indeed. In fact, I have detailed this self-same matter to you before. Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘The continuous self-reference that is occurring makes it the solution of the ‘eye-problem’ .
• [Richard]: ‘You have referred to this ‘eye-problem’ before ... and any analogy eventually falls short of what it seeks to explain. I saw my ‘self’ back in 1980 and knew intimately what I had to be free of. So I was indeed able to see what is behind the ‘eye’ (to use your borrowed analogy). In 1980 I had a peak experience wherein I saw that everything was already perfect as-it-is and that ‘I’, the psychological entity, was standing in the way ... and no-one else was preventing me from achieving the ultimate goal of being a human. In that peak experience I saw ‘myself’. ‘I’ was the end product of society and nothing more. ‘I’ was an emotional construct of all of the beliefs, values, morals, ethics, mores, customs, traditions, doctrines, ideologies and so on. ‘I’ was nothing but an emotional-mental fabrication ... a sense of identity with its conscience. I also saw that ‘I’ was a lost, lonely, frightened – and a very, very cunning – entity. Just as those Christians who are said to be possessed by an evil entity and need to be exorcised, I saw that every human being had been endowed with a social entity ... and it was called being normal. To say that I was amazed rather fails to adequately describe the feeling of relief that after all there was a solution to the human situation here on earth’.

I also have detailed the actualisation of this insight to you before as well. Viz.:

• [Richard]: ‘Due to my intense conviction that it was imperative that someone evince a final and complete condition that would ‘deliver the goods’ so longed for by humanity for millennia, ‘I’ paid exclusive attention to being alive right here and now only. This type of attention is best known as fascination. Fascination leads to reflective contemplation. This potent combination produces apperception, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself.
Apperception is an awareness of consciousness. It is not ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious; it is the mind’s awareness of itself. Apperception – a way of seeing that is arrived at by contemplative thought – is when ‘I’ cease thinking ... and thinking takes place of its own accord. Such a mind, being free of the thinker and the feeler – ‘I’ as ego and soul – is capable of immense clarity and purity. All this is born out of pure intent. Pure intent is derived from the PCE experienced during a peak experience, which all humans have had at some stage in their life. A peak experience is when ‘I’ spontaneously cease to ‘be’, temporarily, and this moment is. Everything is seen to be perfect as-it-is. Diligent attention paid to the peak experience gives rise to pure intent. With pure intent running as a ‘golden thread’ through one’s life, contemplation rapidly becomes pure. Pure contemplation is bare awareness ... bare of ‘me’ being aware. Apperception happens of itself.
With pure intent operating more or less continuously in ‘my’ day-to-day life, ‘I’ find it harder and harder to maintain credibility. ‘I’ am increasingly seen as the usurper, an alien entity inhabiting this body and taking on an identity of its own. Mercilessly exposed in the bright light of awareness – apperception casts no shadows – ‘I’ can no longer find ‘my’ position tenable. ‘I’ can only live in obscuration, where ‘I’ lurk about, creating all sorts of mischief. ‘My’ time is speedily coming to an end, ‘I’ can barely maintain ‘myself’ any longer.
The day finally dawns where the definitive moment of being here, right now, conclusively arrives; something irrevocable takes place and every thing and every body and every event is different, somehow, although the same physically; something immutable occurs and every thing and every body and every event is all-of-a-sudden undeniably actual, in and of itself, as a fact; something irreversible happens and an immaculate perfection and a pristine purity permeates every thing and every body and every event; something has changed forever, although it is as if nothing has happened, except that the entire world is a magical fairytale-like playground full of incredible gladness and a delight which is never-ending.

I have also detailed the actual moment of this actualisation of the insight to you before. May I quote from ‘A Brief Personal History’ which is to be found on my Web Page (and which I sent to you at the beginning of our correspondence)? Viz.:

• [Richard]: ‘About six weeks prior to the sixth of September 1981 I had a revelation that I was going to really die this time, not become catatonic again, and that I was to prepare myself for it. I mustered all of my faith and resolution, renewed all of my trust and dedication, and awaited the day. The night before I could hardly maintain myself as a thinking, functioning human being as a blistering hot and cold burning sensation crept up the back of my spine and entered into the base of my neck just under the brain itself. I went to bed in desperation and frustration at my apparent inability to be good enough to carry this ‘process’ through to its supreme conclusion.
The next morning I awoke and all was calm and quiet. Expressing relief at the cessation of the intensifying ‘process’ that had reached an unbearable level the night before, I lay back on my pillows to watch the rising sun (my bedroom faced east) through the large bedroom windows. All of a sudden I was gripped with the realisation that this was the moment! I was going to die! An intense fear raced throughout my body, rising in crescendo until I could scarcely take any more. As it reached a peak of stark terror, I realised that I had nothing to worry about and that I was to go with the ‘process’. In an instant all fear left me and I travelled deep into the depths of my very being. All of a sudden I was sitting bolt upright, laughing, as I realised that this that was IT! was such a simple thing ... all I had to do was die ... and that was the easiest thing in the world to do. Then the thought of leaving my family and friends overwhelmed me and I was thrust back on the bed sobbing. Then I was bolt upright once more laughing my head off ... then I was back on the pillows sobbing my heart out ... upright, laughing ... pillows sobbing ... upright laughing ... pillows sobbing. At the fifth or sixth time something turned over in the base of my brain at the top of the brain-stem. I likened it to turning over a L.P. record in order to play the other side ... with the vital exception that it would never, ever turn back again.
It was all over. I had arrived’.

I must ask, at this point: Do you ever read what I write and send to you?

KONRAD: And, another thing, for somebody who is able to see the world directly, I take back that there are no infinities, for now I have encountered one. You stubbornness to keep up your misunderstanding is, indeed, infinite.

RICHARD: Maybe it is because I know what I talk of ... out of my on-going experience. Maybe – with your propensity for changing your mind – you cannot comprehend that someone, somewhere, can be consistent. Maybe you are confusing consistency for stubbornness.

KONRAD: I refer to this one: [Konrad]: ‘But you misunderstand me. You read my explanations backwards. You think, that because I define the ‘I’ as a thought that controls the body I am defending this as a necessity’. [Richard]: ‘I do not ‘think’ this ... you repeatedly tell me so. Are you going to change your mind again?’ [Konrad]: ‘I do not have to. For you are clearly either unwilling or unable to see that this is NOT what I am saying’.

RICHARD: Look, Konrad, I am not going to wade through all of your posts to me about this subject ... two quotes of yours is all that is needed. Now I ask you this: please read them this time – actually read them – and you will see that you say that an ‘I’ is a necessity. Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘I assert the following: If the process of decision, called by you ‘will’, is the same as the bodily process of intelligence, it cannot cause actions in a direct way, as you imply. (With acting I mean: make the body move, behave purposefully.) This process therefore must result in an action, a movement of the body indirectly. How? By resulting in a thought that is allowed by the body to make it move. Therefore I put it to you, that you are mistaken in your description of how action, purposeful behaviour arises in you. It is NOT by a direct connection between ‘will’ and body, but it is by an INDIRECT connection between ‘will’ and body, through an intermediary, namely a certain thought that controls the body. Your ‘will’ produces a conclusion, and this conclusion is then allowed to control your body. I assert, that this conclusion is a form of ‘I’ .

Do you see it there? You clearly say: ‘a certain thought ... controls the body ... your ‘will’ produces a conclusion and this conclusion is then allowed to control your body ... I assert that this conclusion is a form of ‘I’’ . And here is the second one. Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘Exactly at the moment whereby all thoughts are stopped by the ‘process’ inside of me, the thought that is ‘connected’ to my body, the ‘I’ of that moment is also stopped. This invariably causes a ‘pull’ in the muscles. For the ‘I’, the thought connected to the muscles, mostly performing the action of meditation, is at that moment disconnected from the body. This disconnecting it causes this ‘pull’, because the electrical energy that was in the ‘I’-thought is discharged completely in the muscles. Exactly after this moment, no trace of an ‘I’ is left inside of me. All thought is gone. But then there is no agent of action left either. However there IS witnessing of this fact. Witnessing, that happens not by an ‘I’, but by the intelligence of the body. In this witnessing, there is only the ‘process’. Everything else is gone. However, this witnessing is therefore not put into words. For this is only possible when an ‘I’ is formed. If all thought stops, the true nature of the ‘I’-ness of the I is revealed, but the action of speaking is then impossible, for there is no ‘I’ that can speak. For ALL action is then impossible, including speaking (and typing)’ .

Do you see it there? You clearly say: ‘in this witnessing, there is only the ‘process’ ... ... this witnessing is therefore not put into words ... for [speaking] is only possible when an ‘I’ is formed’ . You emphasise this impossibility of operating and functioning by following that statement with: ‘if all thought stops ... the action of speaking is then impossible ... for there is no ‘I’ that can speak ... ALL action is then impossible, including speaking (and typing)’ .

I only go on what you say, Konrad ... and you clearly say that without an ‘I’ that all action is impossible.

KONRAD: Your so-called ‘capability to see the world directly’ distorts it in such a way that you do not see that this is not at all what I am saying.

RICHARD: This is such a cheap shot that it is unbecoming of a person who teaches logic to other people as a profession ... and is patently untrue anyway. My reading of what you write has nothing to do with my condition. I have shown these words of yours to other people – who are not able to see the world directly – and they all tell me that you are clearly saying that without an ‘I’ you cannot operate in the world.

KONRAD: I repeat: you read it backwards, and therefore you do not understand. You do not see, that I deny that the ‘I’ has the identity most people, including you, say it has.

RICHARD: No, I understand all right. For example, you say that the nature of ‘I’ (what you call seeing the ‘I’-ness of ‘I’ ) is that no ‘I’ exists separate from thought. You explained this to me in another way only recently. Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘I assert, that without [‘the process’] you cannot become aware of the fact, that no ‘I’, separate from thought exists’ .

These are your words, Konrad, and this is exactly what the Krishnamurtiites say ... that ‘I’ is the product of thought. In what way do you justify saying that ‘I deny that the ‘I’ has the identity most people say it has’ . Now, what I ask people to look at is this: What about the sense of identity as feeling ... which in the enlightened state this identity as feeling becomes ‘Pure Being’?

People are so busy blaming only thought. This is the subterfuge that ‘me’ – busily ‘being’ and potentially becoming ‘Pure Being’ – throws up to remain in existence.

KONRAD: You are showing here that you are either unwilling or unable to understand abstract definitions. I think you are unable. An inability that might be the direct consequence of your ‘actualism’.

RICHARD: I can understand abstract definitions okay – to the degree that they are applicable – but what you are presenting is simply the same old stuff that has been handed out for ages by the great thinkers and sages of history. It is the ‘Tried and True’.

KONRAD: Let me give one example, in what way you misunderstand. (Sigh ...)

RICHARD: Why the ‘sigh’ comment? Are you becoming tired of your own verbiage? Speaking personally, I find all that you write to be such fascinating reading ... because I am amazed that you are able to get away with teaching logic as a profession. I always understood logicians to be consistent, clear and precise.

KONRAD: In astronomy there was an amateur astronomer, who wanted to find comets. I do not remember his name, I only remember it begins with an M. (Maelzel, perhaps? It is a long time ago that I studied astronomy). Now, when he chased after these comets, there were certain objects in the sky he frequently mistook for comets. It were ‘diffuse’ cloud-like, radiant objects. (Remember, that the light of a comet can be very weak, and therefore the mind can be distracted by any radiant object.) So he began to classify them on a map. Every such object he denoted with an M and a number. Now other astronomers became curious about these ‘clouds’. first they assumed that it were certain light emitting, gaseous objects. For that was, after all, what they saw through their telescopes. But when they began to take spectra of these clouds, they discovered that these spectra were very similar to the spectra of suns. If it were gases, the spectra would be different. So this ruled out this hypothesis. After closer examination, with far better equipment, they discovered, that one of these clouds, denoted by M 31 (andromeda nebula) consisted of very small ‘dots’ that HAD to be suns. (And there was more, the discovery of certain variable stars, called Cepheids. But I do not want to become too technical. The point is clear enough (I hope).) But this meant, that these clouds were far more distant than anyone had ever imagined. In fact, the light of M 31 takes no less than 2 million years to reach us. This explained why these ‘dots’ were so small. They were not small, but they were at a very large distance. To arrive at this understanding, they first had to face the fact that the universe was far larger than they previously imagined. Or, to say it in other words, as long as they are unable to imagine that the universe might be far greater than they believed it to be, they could not understand what these gaseous like clouds really were. Now the common understanding of these clouds, the ‘common sense’ of them were, that it were gaseous nebula. So in the minds of everybody they were observed as such. But later, with the emergence of better equipment, and also a revolution in their thinking, they discovered that it were complete star systems, and, consequently, it was discovered that our planet also was situated in one such system of which there turned out to be millions and millions in the universe. So these innocently looking clouds caused a mayor change in the observation of the universe, and our place in it. Now, what has this to do with your misunderstanding?’

RICHARD: Goodness me, Konrad ... how on earth would I know? You are the one who is writing all this ... I would have thought that you, at least, should know why you are doing it. But, here goes ... I will give it my best shot. Let me see ... um ... you are trying to tell me that the universe is bigger than you thought it was?

I have always maintained that it is what it is: infinite and eternal. But, as you want me to believe that it is finite, so that you can demonstrate your mathematical prowess about what happened with time before the fictitious ‘Big Bang’, I can only assume that you are regressing and looking through the wrong end of the telescope. Maybe you could turn it around and look the other way? I have always maintained that my condition is 180 degrees opposite to the ‘Tried and True’.

KONRAD: It is this: In my eyes you look like somebody, who has looked through these early telescopes, and concludes, like those early astronomers, that you are looking at a gaseous, light emitting cloud. And then, when there are better instruments, you assert that your instrument is good enough. No, even worse, the instrument you use to look cannot be improved in any way. Therefore you refuse to look through them, and, besides, you are able to observe the world directly, so your first conclusion, that it is a gaseous nebula, is not an interpretation, but a statement of fact. Therefore you stick to it. (I hope you understand that all this is metaphorically. I do not say that you are defending any form of astronomy. Maybe you do, but that is not the issue here.)

RICHARD: Oh ... you want me to look through your telescope instead of mine? Why? What is so good about your life? Do you experience peace-on-earth, in this life-time, as this body? Are you free of the Human Condition? Are you blithesome and benign? Are you free from malice and sorrow? Are you happy and harmless? Are you free of fear and aggression? Are you carefree and considerate? Are you free from nurture and desire? Are you gay and benevolent? Are you free from anguish and animosity? Are you felicitous and friendly?

KONRAD: This is the same manner you stick to your ‘actualism’, and the observations it makes possible.

RICHARD: In case you do not understand what I have just written (above), let me put it this way: Do you ever get sad? Do you ever get lonely? Do you ever get sorrowful? Do you ever get depressed? Do you ever get angry? Do you ever get spiteful? Do you ever get envious? Do you ever get hateful? Do you ever get bored? Do you ever get peeved? Do you ever get irritable? Do you ever get anxious? Do you ever get afraid? Do you ever get guilty? Do you ever get resentful? Do you ever get ashamed? Do you ever get apprehensive? Do you ever get embarrassed? Do you ever get distressed? Do you ever get jealous? Do you ever get self-conscious? Do you ever get fearful? Do you ever get aggressive? Do you ever get ... I could go on and on, but do you get the point? Yes? No?

The point is that do you ever experience any of this list of feelings, emotions and passions (and the list is by no means exhaustive)? Because if you do not, and you can unequivocally declare that you will never, ever experience them again ... then you are free from the Human Condition.

But if you do, and you cannot unequivocally declare that you will never, ever experience them again ... then all your prose is intellectual masturbation.

KONRAD: This causes two things. 1: You deny that it is possible to look at things, (in our discussion the ‘I’) purely abstract, or you are unable to do so.

RICHARD: Yet I have already sent to you, many times, my description of me seeing this ‘I’ back in 1980. Do you wish for me to copy and paste it all over again?

KONRAD: Therefore you are unable to see, that I do not defend the continuous existence of ‘I’. I do nothing of the sort, for this is the same as defending an illusion.

RICHARD: Yet you do defend the necessity of ‘I’. Here, let me copy and paste your own words. Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘Witnessing is therefore not put into words. For this is only possible when an ‘I’ is formed. If all thought stops, the true nature of the ‘I’-ness of the I is revealed, but the action of speaking is then impossible, for there is no ‘I’ that can speak. For ALL action is then impossible, including speaking (and typing)’ .

KONRAD: What I AM saying is that it might appear that there is such a thing, but in reality it is not an identity, but something completely different. Its true identity I have shown in this robot metaphor.

RICHARD: Except that it completely ignores one pertinent fact. Blind nature does not endow robots or computers with survival instincts like fear and aggression and nurture and desire. It is these instinctual passions that form the rudimentary self that all sentient being are ruled by. Now the human animal, with its ability to know its impending death, transforms the physical survival instinct into an emotion-driven will to survive as a psychological and psychic entity ... ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ a soul. In the Eastern Mystical Enlightenment process, ‘I’ as ego, desiring to perpetuate itself for ever and a day, passionately feels itself to really be ‘me’ as soul – and an immortal soul at that – and becomes ‘Pure Being’. It then identifies as being ‘I am everything and Everything is Me’ (this narcissistic self-aggrandisement is epitomised in the phrase ‘I am God’). No robot or computer does this.

KONRAD: I agree, that it has many shortcomings, and that it needs to be worked out more fully, but it shows clearly the essence of the true identity of the ‘I’.

RICHARD: But it does not at all ... the ‘true identity’ of the identity is affective, not cerebral. You came close to acknowledging this yourself in your last post. Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘I try to make people aware of the fact, that the ‘feeling’ they have that they are ‘I’s, persons, WHO do things, is a mistaken vision on themselves’.

Do you see the word ‘feeling’ in there?

KONRAD: 2: You deny that it is possible to go through a transformation of the nervous system that makes you capable to see that that what I say the true nature of the ‘I’ is, is not a theory, but a statement of fact.

RICHARD: I am not disputing that you have had something happen to your ‘nervous system’ that allows you to see the first layer of what the identity is made up of. And the fact that you have this ‘process’ going on shows me that you understand this experientially ... this puts you ahead of any Krishnamurtiite who understands this matter only intellectually. It is the deeper layer that I am endeavouring to get you to look at ... otherwise you will remain stuck at the level of the ‘Tried and True’. You may even become enlightened and therefore perpetuate all the suffering of humankind forever and a day ... just the same as all the Masters and Messiahs and the Saints and the Sages and the Avatars and the Saviours have done for millennia.

KONRAD: You assert blindly, that others, who HAVE gone through it, and see what I see, and the things they also say about it is their delusion.

RICHARD: Why do you say ‘blindly’ ? Do you not read what I write? For if you did, then how could you say that I am ‘blindly’ saying what I say? This does not make sense. You tell me that you have read my Web Page where I explain this matter thoroughly ... just what tiddly little bits did you read?

KONRAD: However, the only thing you can make clear to such a person is your own inability to see this, and therefore you clearly show that your pretences about actualism being better is simply false.

RICHARD: Yet it is obviously better ... I never get infuriated like you do. I never have to use the ‘good’ emotions to restrain myself from acting on my ‘bad’ emotions with principles, like you do. Principles – ethics and/or morality – are only necessary when there is a wayward ‘I’ creating havoc inside the body ... and these symptoms of an ‘I’ are occurring in you. For me, every moment again is a joy and a delight. So how is it false?

KONRAD: I can even go further. Your actuality even blinds you for seeing that it is an inability. For you believe that the world can be observed directly, without thought and thinking intervening.

RICHARD: Round and round we go again ... however, I can say it again: I say that the world can be observed directly only when there is no ‘I’ as ego or ‘me’ as soul extant in the body. Thinking may or may not occur ... but feelings have disappeared entirely. If purposeful action is required by the circumstances, thought swings into action. All the while there is an apperceptive awareness going on.

KONRAD: Therefore you take this misunderstanding as an observation.

RICHARD: No, Konrad, no ... it is not a misunderstanding at all. You say that ‘I’ is a product of thought, therefore there can never be an absence of ‘I’ without an absence of thought ... for you, this is. Therefore, you cannot comprehend that it is possible to be able to operate and function – do purposeful action – without an ‘I’. I am suggesting that you look deeper into the nature of identity ... deeper than Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti did; deeper than Mr. Gotama the Sakyan did; deeper than Mr. Rinzai did ... deeper than any of these revered peoples. Can you do this? If you do you will find that the identity – as ‘me’ as soul – is a product of feelings ... and at root the rudimentary self of the instinctual passions.

Will you do this?

KONRAD: You are unable to see that your mind is making an interpretation of what I say that is simply and flatly false, and you stick to it, for you cannot even imagine that this is a clear case of that what I have been telling you all along.

RICHARD: No, no, no ... not at all. I am not ‘making an interpretation’ . I read what you say ... I understand what you say ... I know what you say experientially ... I lived in the enlightened state for eleven years.

KONRAD: Reality can NOT be observed directly. If you believe that, you make such, sorry to say, stupid mistakes as you are making here.

RICHARD: I agree ... reality cannot be observed directly for it is an illusion just like the ‘I’. Only actuality can be directly experienced ... and only when any identity whatsoever becomes extinct.

KONRAD: If THAT is what Actualism does with the mind, then it is very, very dangerous.

RICHARD: Oh? And in what way is it dangerous? 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone ... with these normal minds steering the ship. Scientists – with their highly developed abstract thinking and ‘heavy mathematics’ – invented the atomic and nuclear bombs ... are these not dangerous?

What on earth are you talking about?

KONRAD: I have seen this same inability to follow arguments in their contents, and to change it in such a way that it becomes ‘personal’ in Vineeto.

RICHARD: Come now, Konrad ... it was you who had the incredible inability to follow an argument with Vineeto. You unnecessarily complicated what was an otherwise lucid E-Mail correspondence about human relationship and the utter failure of abstract logic to produce total peace and harmony, with involved, complex and convoluted cerebalisation. Indeed, you had to dress-up your native intelligence – commonsense is epitomised by sensible rationality and sensitive reason – with ‘extensive and thorough logical analysis and heavy mathematics’ in order to justify the way you avoided answering Vineeto’s very intelligible original question. Here, let me copy and paste for your edification. Viz.:

• [Vineeto]: ‘How do your concepts translate into action in your daily life? Logic is the male weapon to tackle life, but it has utterly failed – as you can see in the way human beings treat each other on the planet – whichever system of logic they follow’.

And your answer had nothing whatsoever to do with the question ... which was clearly about human relationship and not technological progress. Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘If you really understood the monstrosity of that remark of yours: ‘Logic is the male weapon to tackle life, but it has utterly failed’ ... in fact, there are countless specific problems logic has solved. Only if somebody is as stupid as to believe that there is such a thing as one solution to all of the problems you are blind to this solution. May I remind you, that the very computer you use to talk to me is a product of logic? And, does it fail? The house you live in, product of logic. Would you rather live in a cave, or, for the lack of it, in open space? So logic has solved the problem of communication and of housing. Logic has brought us houses, aeroplanes, roads, better food productions, computers, medicine, and on and on and on and on and on and on ... and on and on and on’ .

Make use of your memory course and see if you can remember doing this, Konrad. Because you have been trying this stunt with me for ages now ... and you just do not address the issue of the Human Condition and logic’s arrant failure in the area of human relationship. Nevertheless, Vineeto did try again. Viz.:

• [Vineeto]: ‘I have asked you how you are in your daily life, with your fellow human beings, with your wife. If your theory cannot even produce equity, then what possible value is it?’

And just who was it that felt attacked and felt it to be personal? Find out by reading your enlightened reply. Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘You know what? I stop here reading you. Probably the rest you write is just one huge attack on what I represent, and probably there is nothing good you can find in me, now that your mind is set. So I do not want to waste any more energy on you. Not again such a stupid exchange of misunderstanding upon misunderstanding’ .

Undeterred by such animosity, Vineeto tried again ... I considered these sentences of hers to you very reasonable. Viz.:

• [Vineeto]: ‘I did not mean to attack you when I said: ‘Logic is the male weapon to tackle life, but it has utterly failed’. It is simply my experience. In my life I have mainly come across men who were very good in finding excuses with abstract logic not to try something new. I have seen logic being used to wander from the subject, to build castles in the clouds, to create theories. My main question to you has been and still is: Does the concept that you are teaching change the person in his behaviour to other fellow human beings, or does it avoid exactly this frightening but so vital issue: neither logic nor the controlling of emotions has ever succeeded in eliminating malice and sorrow, wars and ‘domestics’, suicide and murder from the world. This is what I call using common sense instead of logic’.

Now, having re-read this ... do you still maintain that ‘I have seen this same inability to follow arguments in their contents, and to change it in such a way that it becomes ‘personal’ in Vineeto’ , eh?

KONRAD: For she also took my pointing out to her that certain things can only be understood if the intellectual equipment is developed enough as a personal attack .

RICHARD: I think not ... she was clearly talking about human relationship. You ignored this completely and aired your knowledge of higher mathematics to demonstrate that she could not know what she was talking about if she could not understand certain formulae. Let me copy and paste it for you. Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘If you were a trained female, and really knew what I was talking about when I sent you the Maxwell equations, you would not have failed to notice that the last equation I sent you was false. I sent you the following set of formulas:
div E = q/eo
curl E = -dB/dt
c^2 curl B = dE/dt + j/eo
curl B = 0
The last equation if this set is false. It should read: div B = 0. It is a mathematical description of the impossibility of the occurrence of magnetic monopoles’.

Now, I ask you ... what has all that to do with human relationship? What has all that to do with peace and harmony? You made yourself look so silly, Konrad, and by bringing this gaffe up again here ... you make yourself look silly all over again.

KONRAD: She misunderstood it to be statements to the effect that I was telling her that she was not up to my standards, while this was not at all the point that I was making.

RICHARD: Okay ... here is your opportunity to explain. What was the point that you were making?

KONRAD: [Another respondent] was right, (remember him?) when he said that actualism is a dangerous vision.

RICHARD: I remember him, yes, he is a man who has apparently studied philosophy at the university level ... but what does he know about this particular discussion (anyway, he never said that actualism was a dangerous vision, to my recollection ... could you please copy and paste his comments so that we can all see what his reasons for saying this were)?

KONRAD: I did not believe it then, but now that I see it in operation, and see that it destroys the ability to think abstractly.

RICHARD: Yet I can think abstract thought as required ... I learnt algebra and trigonometry in high school, for example, and can appreciate their contribution to technological development. As for logical thought ... my problem solving rationality operates well in the technological field, as I have used it often throughout my life ... even in these latter years. Where is the difficulty?

KONRAD: I see it is dangerous.

RICHARD: Here is that ‘dangerous’ statement again ... could you please explain in what way it is dangerous to be utterly free from malice and sorrow ... so much so that I am completely happy and harmless? 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 have blighted this fair earth of ours for all these aeons that the Saints and Saviours and Masters and Messiahs and Gurus and God-Men having been setting the example to follow, do you not consider that the ‘Tried and True’ is the ‘Tried and Failed’? Is it not high time for something new?

How much longer are you going to go on defending the indefensible?

KONRAD: And that it is totally worthless.

RICHARD: And in what way is peace-on-earth totally worthless? Do you like seeing 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 being paraded onto your television screen or in your newspaper or on the cinema screen or wherever it is that you keep in touch with what is going on in this world of people, things and events? Do you want to preserve this dingy neighbourhood, that you live in, as it is for ever and a day?

Just what do you want for yourself and your fellow human beings?

KONRAD: So much for actualism.

RICHARD: And so sayest the erudite Konrad. Okay, I would like to draw your attention to the following point. Viz.:

• [Konrad]: ‘The most simple thing to save [a person’s] erroneous convictions is, of course, simply to ignore my argument. This is then probably done in the obvious way, by discrediting my person in [their] mind, and denying that my explanation deserves an answer ... I think you will encounter this same phenomenon when you explain your position’ .
• [Richard]: ‘If you mean by this, that have I noticed how you ignore the more difficult-to-answer parts of my E-Mails to you, then yes ... I have. For example, I have asked you 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. You know, those quotes that show that where you could see that ‘this is something even Richard could not deny when I really confronted him with it’? And you have not done this ... is this the kind of ignoring that you are referring to?’
• [Konrad]: ‘You accuse me of misrepresentation, and misunderstanding’ .
• [Richard]: ‘And if you continue to avoid copying and pasting 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, then it is no mere ‘accusation’ ... by default it is established as being an accurate reflection of your modus operandi ... because 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 told Vineeto that 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.

Still ... you would make a good engineer.