Actual Freedom – A Request from Konrad Swart

November 06 1998:

KONRAD: Richard, sometimes it is a good thing to make a fresh start. Since you did not responded to this mail, I have decided to send it again, somewhat expanded, and also to your (ex) ‘followers’.

RICHARD: Someone infamous in western history said that a lie told once remains a lie, but a lie told often enough becomes the truth. Keep it up, Konrad, and you will start to believe that what you are saying is true ... if you are not doing so already.

KONRAD: With all of our discussions I did not fail to notice that there was something about you I did not understand. I am beginning to make more and more sense about your discovery of ‘actualism’, and what it implies. I think, I can formulate it now in words you might be able to recognise as true understanding, and therefore I think that I can make clear to you that there is a difference between you and me that is essential. A difference that does not need an admission of a denial of that what you see to be factual.

RICHARD: I do not need to make any ‘admission’ because there is no ‘denial’ on my part ... nor has there ever been. Incidentally, not having any feelings, I never suffer from ‘loss of face’ ... if I am wrong about something then I am able to acknowledge that freely.

KONRAD: For although I reproached you of not understanding me, I see now, that the converse also was the case.

RICHARD: What you see, Konrad, and what is actually happening, are rarely are the same thing.

KONRAD: Recently I have been thinking hard about consciousness, and what it exactly is. Some of this material you have received already, for I have sent my mail to No. 12 also to you. Now, let me explain what I have found. First of all, you talk about 2 identities, namely the ‘I’, and the ‘Self’. The first identity, the acting ‘I’, is the thought that controls the body.

RICHARD: Konrad, I have never said that ... it is you who says that the acting ‘I’ is the thought that controls the body ... not me. You tried to tell Vineeto in one of your posts to her that I did say so – and I asked you again and again to produce the evidence that I did until you told me that I was a ‘whining little boy’ – and here you are saying the same thing again. Do you see what I mean about ‘a lie told often enough becomes the truth’?

KONRAD: Its source is logic. In Dutch we use for the word ‘understanding’, ‘begrijpen’, which, when translated literally in English means: ‘To get a grip on’. So, the words ‘understanding something’ is in Dutch the same as ‘To get a grip on something’, while in English it is more like ‘standing under something’, which is more akin to that this something gets a grip on YOU. I find the Dutch equivalent better, for it shows that there is an intimate connection between understanding and control. In fact, it is considered to be totally equivalent. This means, that understanding is the basis of ethics. For ethics in general is (or should be) a science that involves itself with the question: ‘What should we, as human beings, and as long as we live, do with our lives’. And that is the same question as: ‘What should we, as human beings, and as long as we live, do IN our lives’. Doing always lead to consequences that should come back to us, for else our actions are considered to be senseless.

RICHARD: Aye ... my oft-repeated refrain is: ‘It is your life that you are living; as long as you comply with the legal laws and observe the social protocols you will be left alone to live your life as wisely or as foolishly as you choose; it is you who reaps the rewards or pays the consequences for any action or inaction you may or may not do’.

KONRAD: There are four basic areas every human being is confronted with. The first is EXISTENCE. The second is the fact that he not just exists as an existent like rocks, but that he exists in the form of a living being. The third is the fact that he lives as a member of some group of people, as a society. And the fourth is that he has a consciousness. So every person has to deal with existence, life, society, and his own consciousness. In all of these domains there is a duality. In the existence domain it is the duality between factuality and potentiality. In the ethical domain it is the duality between reality and the imaginary. In the social domain it is the duality between civilisation and barbarism. And in the consciousness domain it is the duality between happiness and pain, the domain we are, in essence, have our ‘dialogue’ about.

RICHARD: Not so ... it is amazing the number of people who jump only on the ‘happy’ part of my ‘happy and harmless’ phrase. The subject of what you called ‘barbarism’ is paramount in what I write. You may have noticed that I once or twice referred to the fact that 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone? One cannot be happy unless one is first harmless and one cannot be harmless unless one is first happy.

KONRAD: Now I have discovered recently, that consciousness itself is the activity of a response of a principle to awareness. I repeat, since it might be difficult to understand this sentence. So what I assert is that consciousness itself is the result of a principle being present. If there is awareness, this principle responds. And this response IS consciousness. So consciousness is a reaction of a principle to an awareness.

RICHARD: Why complicate things? why does consciousness have to be ‘a reaction of a principle to an awareness’? In a normal person consciousness is what is happening when one is alive and awake and is epitomised by three faculties ... the sensate, the cerebral and the affective. Unconsciousness is what is happening when alive and in deep sleep, concussed or anaesthetised and is epitomised by oblivion. A principle is an invention – usually by society – to guide people to act in a socially acceptable way. This is because their instinctual passions – the affective faculty – needs to be bought under control. In the abnormal person the affective faculty has disappeared and no principles are required ... hence I know by first-hand on-going experiencing that consciousness is not ‘a reaction of a principle to an awareness’. But you probably will not read this bit because you have a pre-conceived belief in ‘Tabula Rasa’. Hence the rest of what you write is based upon a false premise and will be fatally flawed no matter how convincing your argument appears to be in your own eyes.

KONRAD: To give an example that makes the difference between consciousness and awareness clear, if you are sleeping and dreaming, you are aware of your dream. But in the dream-state there is no principle reacting to this awareness.

RICHARD: Are you sure that you are not confusing the word ‘principle’ with ‘principal’ ... because principles still operate in the sleeping dream-state. For normal people in the sleeping dream-state, the awake dream-state ‘I’ (the principal) who interprets the extrinsic world – the sensible environment – and guides the body to undertake the chosen course of action according to the demands of the intrinsic world – one’s desires, urges, impulses, beliefs, truths, values, morals, ethics, principles and etcetera – has been replaced by a sleeping dream-state ‘I’ who is largely incompetent due to the pseudo-extrinsic world – the dream-environment – being but pseudo-sensible events drawn by random association from the brain’s affectively-corrupted memory banks. Without a sensible base to operate from, dreams are nonsensical ... but the sleeping dream-state ‘I’ still tries to apply the principles inherited from the awake dream-state ‘I’.

KONRAD: Therefore, when you are asleep, you are not conscious.

RICHARD: I am sure that this is common knowledge ... and gaining this knowledge did not require logical analysis and deduction.

KONRAD: Since there are 4 major fields of awareness, namely existence, life, society, and our own inner life, there are four types of consciousnesses. That is, only if there are also principles present in these four areas. These four types of consciousnesses can be given 4 different names. 2: If the principle of logic responds to observation, this response is that what we consider to be the experience of understanding. So understanding is a response of the principle of logic to awareness. This is also called, at least by me, a ‘sense of life’. This sometimes also goes by the name of ‘intuition’, if the understanding is not complete. It causes the principle of logic to try to respond with more hypothesis, to transform this intuition in more complete understanding.

RICHARD: As intuition is affective then this effort is somewhat akin to the efforts of Sisyphus and his boulder (in Australia it is called ‘pushing ordure uphill’).

KONRAD: 3: If a principle of society responds to observation, the result is the experience of emotion. So the social domain has one or several social principles responding, which is the same as the experience of emotions. The intellectual domain has one or several logical principles, or logic itself as a principle responding, and the result is the experience of understanding.

RICHARD: Hmm ... there are other ways of understanding something than logical understanding, you know.

KONRAD: Now there was one thing I did not see, and that made your words to be true, at least as a description of that what you see to be descriptions of what you see.

RICHARD: I am unsure as to whether this sentence is a compliment or a criticism ... or even if it makes sense. But to clarify: I am only ever interested in facts and actuality.

KONRAD: There is both a logical identity and a social identity present in me. A logical identity, in the form of a logical principle, that is logic itself, that generates understanding. And a social identity in the form of a social principle, that generates emotions. The thoughts controlling the body have as their source ‘understanding’, which is the response of the principle of logic to existence. Therefore, the true ‘I’s are not these thoughts, what I believed, are but their source. Since a principle of logic is a principle of control, it is the true ‘controller of the body’. You can also formulate this as follows: ‘Truth controls the body’. Or, better, The distinguisher between truth and falsity lets truth control the body. This truth is then the thought, emerging from the principle of logic, that is the deepest source of action, although the action itself is done by a thought. Thinking is also a form of action. For, if this distinguisher has not complete information to make this distinction between truth and falsity, the response is ‘thinking’, and not a thought that controls the body, i.e., action in the usual sense. There is also a social principle. It tries to distinguish between ‘social’ and ‘barbaric’. It does that, not by actions in the sense of bodily movements, but by actions in the sense of communication. And it is also the generator of emotions, whose contents make a distinction between social and barbaric.

RICHARD: How on earth did you get all that from what you saw me saying ... as evidenced in your sentence ‘at least as a description of that what you see to be descriptions of what you see’?

KONRAD: So what I understand now is that which is called a ‘me’ by you.

RICHARD: Not so ... the ‘me’ that I talk of I consistently call ‘me’ as soul ... the ‘feeler’ in the heart. That is ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’.

KONRAD: [There is, to begin with, a social identity, which is called] a ‘self’ by me. And there is a generator of thoughts that, in their turn, control the body, which is called by me an ‘I’, and you at least agree that there is such an identity.

RICHARD: I call the ‘thinker’ in the head ‘I’ as ego. It is not the ‘generator of thoughts’, however.

KONRAD: So it is as you say. In almost everybody there are two identities operating.

RICHARD: Not so ... I say that there are two halves to the identity – ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul – not two identities.

KONRAD: An individual ethical ‘I’ that has as its source some form of understanding, or logic itself. Or, better, this identity IS the identity that is really the master. And there is a ‘self’, that is ‘social’ of character. It consists of a social principle, and, as such, it is an identity. These two identities are the two things that are ‘in control’ of the body, one of action, the other of speaking. They are both identities, operating in our mind.

RICHARD: Before you build a case about me ... remember that this is your understanding and not mine.

KONRAD: I disagree, however from you analysis of where they come from. Their origin is our culture, and they are therefore not innate.

RICHARD: And therein lies the rub. All sentient beings are born with the survival instincts. This creates a rudimentary animal ‘self’. Thus being an identity is because the only way into this world of people, things and events is via the human spermatozoa fertilising the human ova ... thus every human being is endowed, by blind nature, with the basic instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. These passions are the very energy source of the rudimentary animal self ... the base consciousness of ‘self’ and ‘other’ that all sentient beings have. The human animal – with its unique ability to think and reflect upon its own death – transforms this ‘reptilian brain’ rudimentary ‘self’ into being a feeling ‘me’ (as soul in the heart) and from this core of ‘being’ the ‘feeler’ then infiltrates into thought to become the ‘thinker’ ... a thinking ‘I’ (as ego in the head). No other animal can do this. This process is aided and abetted by the human beings who were already on this planet when one was born ... which conditioning and programming is part and parcel of the socialising process.

KONRAD: Now if somebody succeeds to act totally from the ‘self’, and no longer from an ‘I’, the result is everything you describe. What then happens, is that the ‘self’ has gained domination over the ‘I’. People describe this by saying, that the emotions are too powerful for his mind to control. It results in actions to be totally from the emotional domain. It causes the feelings of self-aggrandising you described. Your remark, that almost all of the Gurus operate on this level is correct. And it is also correct, that they consider this a form of enlightenment, for there is no longer an ‘I’ that clouds the ‘issues’. Still, it is an illusion of self aggrandising, for the self has gotten himself rid of the ‘I’. But in actual fact, there is no real ‘getting rid of the ‘I’. No, the ‘Self’ has enslaved the source of ‘I’, so that only thoughts corresponding with this ‘self’ are coming up. This is a state, wherein it just looks like every action now emerging just from the ‘self’. These actions from this ‘Self’ are therefore very problematic. For everybody who bases his action solely on this ‘self’ is an impostor, a parasite, as has become recently clear by me. For such a person inevitably will use society, and therefore other people as ‘cattle’ for his own purposes. But for people outside he appears to submit his ‘I’ to society, which is, in a sense, exactly what happens. Only, since his society norms are usually not in a tautological form, he will fight for a particular form of society. And therefore he becomes a potential source of new conflicts. So you can stop acting from the ‘I’, and then you become a self-aggrandising parasite. Therefore this identity, that is at least your solution, should be eliminated, too. And then you see everything ‘exactly as it is’.

RICHARD: Aye ... when the identity in its totality becomes extinct – ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul – then there is only this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware.

KONRAD: I see that, as far as your observations are from your point of view, you are correct. When you achieve to eliminate both the ‘I’ and the ‘Self’, everything you say is indeed vindicated. But what is it, that can overcome this ‘self’?

RICHARD: Not, no, no ... it is not a matter of ‘overcoming’ anything. You are talking of control, here. Look, one’s identity becomes extinct at the core of one’s ‘being’. That is: ‘being’ itself ceases. No control is necessary ... this is freedom.

KONRAD: It cannot be the social domain, for this IS the self. It can also not be the understanding domain, for this IS the ‘I’. Therefore it must be the existential domain. So if existence takes over the Self, a new state is the result of this. This state is characterised by stating that the duality actuality/potentiality is the all-determining ruler. But, since consciousness in general can only be the result of a principle to awareness, this overcoming of the ‘self’ implies that there is a THIRD identity. This identity is not a ‘self’, and it is also not an ‘I’. I call this third identity a ‘BEING’. Recently I have searched the literature to see whether more people talk in forms of three beings. I found the Biblical description of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Son can be identified with the ‘I’, the Father can be identified with the ‘Self’, and the Holy Spirit with ‘Being’. In Freudian literature there is ‘Ich’ ‘I’, ‘Es’ ‘Being’ and ‘Uberich’ ‘Self’. And in Gestalt literature, especially that of Walther Kempler, there is even a literal description of these three identities. Walther Kempler speaks about emotional conflict as a conflict between ‘I’ and ‘Self’ that is ‘observed’ by a third entity he actually calls ‘Being’. His description is closest to what I am talking about here. So there are not TWO but THREE identities. So bear with me, please, for we now enter a field where you might have something to learn.

RICHARD: Konrad ... if you can tell me something that I do not already know then I am only too willing to learn. It does have to make sense, however and be based in fact and actuality. As your basic premise is ‘Tabula Rasa’ ... then whatever you write is based upon a false premise and will be fatally flawed no matter how convincing your argument appears to be in your own eyes.

KONRAD: There are four basic domains. One is the social, one is the ethical, and one is the ontological. All of these four domains have their own principle. In the social domain it usually is some form of altruistic principle, although some are beginning to experiment with individualistic principles, and begin to form totally different forms of selves, causing totally different kinds of emotions. The second domain is the ethical domain. It is the domain of human action. The most basic principle is that of ‘understanding’. This principle, in its most general form is tautological. I was wrong when I thought, that the self-referential nature of this principle is at the root of that what I called ‘the process’.

RICHARD: Oh? But you were so convinced about that ... even to the point of insisting that I did not know what I was talking about ... I did not ‘understand understanding’, you said. So ... this new thing that you have discovered: am I going to get a lecture about how I should understand this one too? Until you change your mind again, that is?

KONRAD: Something far more fundamental is going on. But I will return to that later. First I want to show what ‘the process’ is NOT, and how your and my position differ. The most deepest thing that can be reached in this domain of understanding is understanding of understanding itself. The understanding of understanding is the same as the principle of logic reacting to itself. And now we come at the point of our difference. There is a still deeper layer. This deeper layer is the ontological, or existential level. It is a level, that gives meaning to the word ‘Is’, ‘Being’. It also has a deepest principle, namely that of Parmenides, that was recently rediscovered by Ayn Rand. The Parmenidean formulation is: ‘That what is, is’. Rand formulates it as: ‘Existence exists’. This basic principle is responsible for our ability to become aware of our environment. Since consciousness itself is the activity of a response of a principle to observations, when this principle responds, the response is the experience of reality in the form of ‘IS’, of ‘BEING’. What does this mean? If this principle responds, reality is experienced in terms of ‘BEING’, of ‘IS’. Usually, the distinction between observation and understanding is exactly this distinction. The ontological principle gives us the experience of identity. It tells us, that something IS, something EXISTS. At this level there is no understanding of WHAT it is, but only awareness of the fact THAT it is. It makes, that the awareness of existence reveals itself in the form of ‘BEING’, of forms of ‘IS’. So this is not a form of intellectual understanding, in the sense of classifying and subclassing, but a form of existential awareness in terms of things and events, i.e., facts. This awareness of ‘BEING’ is therefore that what you call ‘observing facts’.

RICHARD: Not so ... but I see that this ‘BEING’ of yours is back on deck, eh? Before going further, may I copy and paste the following exchange for clarity? Viz.:

• [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’.
• [Richard]: ‘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: This existential awareness includes our own body. We experience, not on an intellectual, but on an existential level, ‘facts’. This includes the fact of our own understanding. And if this principle only is present, the world can be seen ‘as it is’. This is what you call ‘apperception’.

RICHARD: It is not apperception, Konrad, because there is still ‘being’.

KONRAD: This third identity is able to observe the other two identities, namely ‘I’ and ‘Self’ whenever they operate. But if it is totally dominant, it has integrated and incorporated the both the ‘I’ and the ‘Self’, for now every action comes from this Parmenidean principle. All this has become clear to me, now. Now that I have an understanding of consciousness itself, I can see where exactly you stand, and I can see what you see.

RICHARD: Are you so sure of that now that you have read what I have written?

KONRAD: This deepest ontological principle is itself a form of ‘Is’. It is an identity, like both the ‘I’ and the ‘Self’. Only, it is not an ‘I’, and it is also not an ‘Self’, but it is an identity in the form of an ‘IS’.

RICHARD: Aye ... the Buddhists call it ‘isness’. Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti called it ‘what is’. This is still in the state of being called enlightenment.

KONRAD: Its action consists of becoming conscious of existence in the form of ‘IS’ – awareness, and IS – awareness alone. Its action are responses to the senses, and making ‘sense’ of them in the form of ‘facts’, or, as Ayn Rand puts it, ‘percepts’. It is cognition in the form of identity, but without identification in the sense of subclassing. For identification is a form of understanding. And that is NOT what this principle results in. It only generates the material our thought and thinking can use, the other two identities, to ‘get a grip on’, or ‘to give meaning and use to’. Meaning being the response of the logical ‘I’, and ‘use’ being the response of the social ‘self’. This is also an explanation of your distinction between reality and actuality.

RICHARD: I very much doubt it as ‘isness’ and ‘what is’ is metaphysical and not physical ... but do go on, please.

KONRAD: Reality is the response of the principle of logic to awareness. And actuality is the response of the principle of existence to awareness.

RICHARD: Not so ... it cannot be actuality because for you the ‘principle of existence’ is ‘BEING’. Look, reality is an illusion pasted over actuality by ‘me’ busily ‘being’ (and ‘being’ is affective whereas logic is cerebral) and is not a product of logic (non-logical peoples experience reality too). Actuality is what becomes apparent when one’s identity in its totality ceases ‘being’ ... and logic can operate unimpeded as required by the circumstances.

KONRAD: The first leads to truths, and the second leads to facts. So there is a defendable distinction between reality and actuality. If we are aware of existence in the form of facts, we observe percepts, identities. And if we are aware of existence in the form of logic, we observe concepts, identifications.

RICHARD: It is perception that leads to ‘observing percepts’, yes ... but it is apperception that reveals actuality.

KONRAD: Now what I want to tell you, is that you can even move beyond ‘Is’.

RICHARD: Oh, good ... now we are getting somewhere in these dialogues. An actual freedom lies beyond enlightenment.

KONRAD: And even to recognise this ontological ‘Is’ identificator. Beyond this ‘It is what it is’ sayer, this ‘existence exist’ principle, which is a itself a form of ‘IS’, albeit its most general form. And when your consciousness is able to become aware of the fact, that this ‘fact admitter’ itself is an identity, that what I call ‘the process’ becomes visible. What then happens, is that the fourth domain, that of consciousness, takes complete control. For consciousness itself has then become conscious, and it reacts to itself.

RICHARD: May I ask? Where you say ‘consciousness itself has then become conscious’ do you mean the brain being aware of itself being conscious? That is, not ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious ... but awareness of itself? A pure awareness? In other words: apperception?

KONRAD: How? Totally in the form of ‘process’. For when consciousness itself responds to itself, it no longer responds neither from an identity, a being, nor from an identificator, an ‘I’, nor from a social ‘Self’. No, there is only ‘total awareness’, ‘total, effortless awareness’, for it sustains itself. In other words, you can move beyond ‘IS’, beyond ‘apperception’, beyond ‘identity’. And if this happens, no identity is left any more, and the potentiality itself of us, human beings, becomes conscious. For what happens then is that consciousness itself becomes conscious. THAT is what ‘enlightenment’, ‘IS’ (forgive me the use of the word).

RICHARD: Sure ... look, I could not help but notice the throwaway line ‘beyond apperception’ in there. Are you sure that you do not mean ‘beyond perception’ (which requires a ‘perceiver’)? When the ‘perceiver’ is not ... there is apperception.

KONRAD: You probably will not believe me, for you believe that you already have achieved everything that is humanly possible. Still, consider this mail very carefully. For you will probably be aware of the fact, that my description of the ‘actual’ domain indeed does conform to your description, and even of your experience. And this was clearly not the case in the past. I also apologise if I have insulted you in any way. I simply did not understand your position. But this is something, you already knew, of course. Thanks for your efforts to make me see what you see, for you can see that I really have learnt from you. The above formulations would not have been possible, if I had not have such a very intensive dialogue with you. Since you did not respond to this mail before, I have decided to send it both to you and your (ex) followers, so that at least THEY can see, that your vision has some merit, but your claim that you really understand my position is wrong.

RICHARD: Konrad, I do not ‘claim’ to understand your position ... I can only go on what you write. And what you write changes daily ... sometimes even within the same E-Mail. I doubt that anyone can understand your position ... you do not have one!

KONRAD: I did not understand you, but now I do.

RICHARD: Let us wait and see about that, eh? After all, you have said before that you do understand me. But ... there is some chance of progress here.

KONRAD: You, however, clearly do not understand me. Are you able to do that now? Or, at least, to admit that there is something that escaped you up till now?

RICHARD: And what exactly is it ... this ‘something’ that has ‘escaped’ me, eh? This third identity that you call ‘BEING’? May I suggest that you look through my writing and see how many times the word ‘being’ (in small quotes) appears. You are still stuck in understanding the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’.

KONRAD: If that is so, you might go through a totally new transformation that enables you to see, that your act of excluding the potential is a violation of Man.

RICHARD: I make no secret that I have ceased being human ... if that is what you mean by ‘Man’. And given that ‘being human’ means being driven to kill one’s fellow human being ... then I am well-pleased to be no longer ‘human’. Being free from malice and sorrow means that I am automatically happy and harmless.

KONRAD: That [your act of excluding the potential] is inherently evil, because it goes against that what makes us a creative force in the universe.

RICHARD: This ‘creative force’ is killing people, Konrad ... 160,000,000 in ‘creative’ wars this century alone.

KONRAD: It is a form of evil, not because the things you say are wrong. But because they are only partial right. They are evil, because you deny that there is even something beyond that what you have found. Partial truths are often more destructive than total lies. Especially when they are not recognised as partial truths, but are mistaken for total truths.

RICHARD: But I am only ever interested in facts and actuality ... not truths. Truths – and especially ‘The Truth’ – is but beliefs masquerading as facts.

KONRAD: I know. The position you are now in, wherein you believe to have found something marvellous that beats anything others have found is very comfortable.

RICHARD: Very comfortable indeed, Konrad ... if I were to become more relaxed I would be but a smear of grease upon the floor.

KONRAD: I know from experience that the adoration of your followers is something you can really become a prisoner of.

RICHARD: And what adoration would that be? And what followers? I am no leader, no charismatic master. I am a fellow human being who – by actually doing something about his life – is living in the actual world of sensate delight. Mostly it is insecurity that necessitates one being a leader with adoring followers ... and insecurity is an outcome of fear. It is fear that prevents one from actually being here now ... what I did was face the fact of my mortality. ‘Life’ and ‘Death’ are not opposites ... there is only birth and death. Life is what happens in between. Before I was born, I was not. Now that I am alive, I am here ... now. After death I will not be ... just like before birth. Where is the problem? The problem was in the brain-stem, of course. It is the instinct to survive at any cost that was the problem ... backed up by the full gamut of the emotions born out of the four basic instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. The rudimentary self, transformed into an identity, must be extinguished in order for one to be here, in this actual world of the senses, bereft of this pernicious entity.

‘My’ extinction was the ending of not only fear, but of all of the affective faculties. As this flesh and blood body only, I am living in the paradisiacal garden that this planet earth is. We are all simply floating in the infinitude of this perfect and pure universe ... coming from nowhere and having nowhere to go to we find ourselves here ... now. Extinction releases one into actuality ... and this actual world is ambrosial, to say the least. Because there is no good or evil in the actual world of sensual delight one then lives freely in the magical paradise, which this verdant earth actually is. Being here at this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space is to be living in a fairy-tale-like ambience that is never-ending.

Peace-on-earth is possible only when there is freedom from the Human Condition. Freedom from the Human Condition is the ending of identity in its totality. The elimination of the ‘identity’ is simultaneously the demise of both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ within oneself. Then ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ vanish forever along with the dissolution of the psyche itself ... which is the only place they can live in. Because there is no good or evil in the actual world of sensual delight – where I live as this flesh and blood body – one lives freely in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are. No cooperation is required whatsoever. Now, a chain-letter effect may or may not occur in the fullness of time ... if it does, a global peace-on-earth would be possible. If it does not, then apart from the salubrity of living as perfection personified for the remainder of one’s life, one is no longer preventing the ingress of a global peace-on-earth by one’s very ‘being’.

This is the adventure of a life-time!

KONRAD: I hope, that you can break free from this self-created, pardon, I should say, being-created prison, and that you have the guts to do that. Are you able to do that?

RICHARD: As you might be becoming aware by now ... I did back in October/November 1992. You will find a description in ‘A Brief Personal History’ on my Web Page ... which I sent to you at the beginning of our correspondence. However, as you are on record as saying that you do not read much of what I write – if anything at all – this information has probably passed you by. And yes ... to go through the existential angst of discovering that you are indeed nothing but a contingent ‘being’ requires courage like you have never known before.

Yet it is possible.