Actual Freedom – Mailing List ‘A’ Correspondence

RESPONDENT: I don’t know why you bring up this after-life business when it has nothing to do with the topic. Just what are you trying to say or justify by this point. Remember you brought up this idea, not me.

RICHARD: I beg to differ. It was you who wrote extensively about a ‘Supreme Soul’ which is ‘Infinite and Eternal’ and ‘Unborn and Undying’ ... or words to that effect. This is pretty well much basic spirituality and anyone knows that the aim is to realise that one is ‘That’ by whatever name. Then one realises themselves to be Infinite and Eternal and Unborn and Undying etc. I simply use the words ‘After-Life’ for ease and convenience ... and to show people that by discarding the god of Western religion in favour of the god of Eastern religion (cunningly disguised as spirituality) that they have merely jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. The spirituality of the East is the East’s religion.

Some are so confused by it all that they call themselves atheists ... yet all the while quoting Mr. Gotama the Sakyan and Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene and so on!

*

RICHARD: Thus it is the sense of identity that is the root cause of suffering (sorrow and malice). Not just one half of the identity – the ego – but the other half – the soul – as well, is at fault.

RESPONDENT: Here clearly you recognise both ego and soul, albeit it in a very fractional half and half way (which is a peculiar sort of thing in itself).

RICHARD: I clearly recognise that it is the belief in both ego and soul as being one’s sense of identity – what other people call the reality of same – that is at fault ... but I have consistently stated that this identity is not actual. Sorry, your attempt to catch me out did not work, because their ‘reality’ is not actuality.

*

RICHARD: Thus not only must the self dissolve but the Self must psychologically self-immolate also.

RESPONDENT: Quaint, but what does it mean (re the second part).

RICHARD: ‘Self-immolation’ means the ending of the illusion of self and the ending of the delusion of Self. It means extinction. Annihilation. Extirpation. ‘Psychological’ means an emotional-mental construct that has no basis an actuality, hence the ending of identity is nothing more than the ending of an illusion and a delusion. Nothing substantial happens ... it is all a figment of a super-charged imagination.

The result of psychological self-immolation is ambrosial, nevertheless.

*

RICHARD: After all, the soul – along with the ego – is the culprit, for all sorrow and malice stem from the continued belief in their reality.

RESPONDENT: This reasoning is absurd. Firstly you say that there are two halves the ego and soul and both at fault – now this is a fundamental premise of your argument (it is right there above in the context you said it in). And then you say that a continued belief in their reality is the culprit. Yet clearly in the fundamental premise of your argument you believe in them as they are fundamental to identity and fundamental to your argument.

RICHARD: Yes, it is belief itself – the action of believing – that is at fault. Any ‘I’ – either self or Self (what you call ‘Supreme Soul’) is nothing but a belief. Your purview includes an I-feeling (ego-self) and a transcended I-feeling (soul-self). You only think it something different or special because you call it by some other name ... ‘Supreme Soul’ . It is still an identity.

None of this is actual – that is what is fundamental to my argument.

*

RICHARD: As for the ‘confuses mind and soul’ bit ... it is a confused mind that believes in a soul’s existence.

RESPONDENT: Yet that belief is the very opening of your own argument in trying to prove that identity = ego/2 + soul/2 is the cause of suffering. Now have you twisted yourself into a big knot or what?

RICHARD: I do not see the ‘big knot’ you are referring to ... I still maintain that, what you so cutely put as ‘identity = ego/2 + soul/2’ , is not actual. It is all belief. Do you know what belief is? Etymologically it means: ‘fervently wishing to be true’. Thus a believed thing is not even true ... let alone a fact. None of it is actual.

*

RICHARD: When the ego – the self – dissolves, one’s sense of identity remains intact. Instead of identifying as the ego – the self – one now as an Enlightened Being identifies as the soul – the Self.

RESPONDENT: Now come on make up your mind as to whether its a confused mind that believes in the soul’s existence or not.

RICHARD: It most assuredly is a confused mind that believes itself to be a soul ... what you call the ‘Supreme Soul’. It is a belief, not a fact.

*

RICHARD: This soul is held to be Eternal and pre-dates birth (the Zen people’s ‘Original face’) and post-dates death – in other words: Immortality. An ‘I’ still exists, transmogrified now into a super-natural ‘I’ (the second ‘I’ of Mr. Venkataraman Aiyer (aka Ramana) fame). Thus I asked myself the question: If ‘I’ as ego (the self) wreak havoc, could it be that ‘I’ as soul (the Self) am the cause the continued suffering?

RESPONDENT: The doer-ship of actions belongs to the ‘I’ as ego. I can follow that. If the doer-ship of actions belongs to the ‘I’ ego (presumably mind) then how can the cause of suffering be the soul (the Self) which is not the doer-ship of actions (because who already state that the ‘I’ ego is)?

RICHARD: But the doer-ship of actions after the transcendence of ‘I’ as ego (the self) is ‘I’ as soul (the Self). That is the nitty-gritty of the problem ... and it has kept humankind in thralldom for aeons. It has got you too.

For sure, ‘I’ as ego am no longer the doer-ship of actions ... now the ‘Supreme Soul’ is. But ‘I’ am the ‘Supreme Soul’, therefore ‘I’ (an identity) am the doer. No matter how godly ‘I’ am, ‘I’ am the problem.

RESPONDENT: But in the very last part you still equate I feeling with Soul?

RICHARD: Yes. Not only feelings but thoughts as well. The soul – and ‘Soul’ – are a psychological construct and exist only in imagination. They have no actuality whatsoever.

RESPONDENT: Yet it is fundamental to your whole argument above. I am fully capable of reasoning, but this jumping all over the place I must admit has me stumped in what exactly you are trying to say.

RICHARD: It is not ‘fundamental to [my] argument above’ ... you made it so.

*

RICHARD: Here in the actual world – and now in time – lies the perfection and purity that humankind is searching for.

RESPONDENT: The actual world being? And the identification of which comes about from what – please go back to square one above and recommence the dialogue.

RICHARD: The actual world being this physical world as-it-is in apperception. Not ‘reality’ – which is what ‘I’ make of the actual with ‘my’ likes and dislikes. What normal people call ‘reality’ is but a veneer pasted over the top of actuality. Actuality is what is here now when ‘I’ cease to exist, psychologically.

So, to go back to square one: Step out of the real world into the actual world and leave your ‘self’ behind ... where ‘you’ belong. Just make sure that you do not step into an imagined ‘Reality’ with a new psychological ‘you’ ... a psychic Self called the ‘Supreme Soul’.

After all, we do want peace-on-earth ... do you not?

No. 12

RICHARD: The actual world antedates the reality that humankind lives in and the Reality that Divinity lives in ... and is characterised by perfection and purity ... which you, however, immediately dismissed as being unreal because it is ‘relativistic’.

RESPONDENT: The actual world before humankind was as much a moving phenomenon as it is now. I think you forget that this earth might once have been a hot piece of molten followed by quite a number of large squid type animals and those things called dinosaurs living on it. In nature that may all have been the age of instinct – but that does not make it perfect or pure by any means. It is simply non-value laden nature. Perfect or pure is something you have attached to it as a label as a sense perception (or apperception) and as a partial perception that you wish to perceive for yourself, thereby limiting what it Actually is – thereby denying what it is also which is imperfection. Do you see imperfection as somehow unrelated to perfection. Does it annoy you that the imperfect is discernible (relatively) while at the same time part of the whole?

RICHARD: Hmm ... a misunderstanding here ... by ‘antedates’ I was indicating ‘prior to’ or ‘before’ or ‘behind’ or ‘underneath’ ... in the sense that actuality is obscured by the reality that ‘I’ as an identity superimpose over the top of it ... here and now. I certainly was not referring to going back into antediluvian times.

As to me being annoyed ... no, not at all. I have no feelings – emotions and passions – at all. With the extinction of ‘I’ in its totality, its calenture also disappeared forever.

What you call imperfection is simply human beings acting out of the contents of their psyche ... all the horrors and terrors have no existence in the actual. However, the actions and behaviour stemming from people who still have their ‘I’ intact do have an impact in the physical realm ... which is why we do not have global peace-on-earth yet. Any imperfection can be remedied simply: By being here at this moment in time as a body only – bereft of any identity whatsoever.

This lack of global peace-on-earth in no way disturbs the perfection of me being here as this body only at this moment in time. I have an individual peace-on-earth and if there is never a global peace-on-earth it matters not ... such is the purity of the perfection. However, we can indeed improve upon blind nature and make things more comfortable for ourselves as we have done with so many things technologically so far ... and with animal breeding and plant cultivation and so on.

*

RICHARD: I do not get what point you are making regarding storms and sunsets and etcetera. Personally I find nature’s display to be magnificent ... but, as I gather you would rather be some place else than here on earth, I suppose you do not like it.

RESPONDENT: You gather quite wrong and could you stop making these additional assumptions at the end of every sentence which bear little relevance to the topic! In a sense its magnificent but also nature does not think whether it is magnificent or not – it is both beauty and destruction and it is also generation – birth, growth, decay. The usual spate of huge Australian bushfires is hardly magnificent to those finding themselves homeless – and there were plenty of bushfires before the white setters as well. Surely you are not expecting people to relish the pure sensual stimulation of a very, very hot fire creeping up on them as part of apperceptive enjoyment – no way the immediate task is to rescue children and women and then run like hell. In which case it makes it difficult to want to enjoy the moment – indeed what motivates is indeed the sense of martyrdom to rescue others (that type of moment as far more meaning). Note, if you were truly apperceptive I’d expect no labels as to nature being magnificent only or the hamburger being relished only as these are all partial perceptions and seem to contradict what you are saying. Now it seems in my honest opinion from the tone of your posts that you see apperception as being only a partial recognition, a sort of high to do with magnificence, relishing, etc. a type of denial that the opposite, e.g. destruction, awful tastes can also be experienced as part of the Whole apperceptive condition.

RICHARD: Why do I gather wrong? You are the one who keeps on talking about a ‘Supreme Soul’ etc., which we all know survives death ... immortality, in other words, in another dimension than this earthly one. From this I can only conclude that you do not like being here and look forward to release ... as is evidenced by your essay into bushfires, birth, growth, decay and destruction etc. So why is it that I should stop making these observations ‘at the end of every sentence’? And they do not ‘bear little relevance to the topic’ ... on the contrary, they are germane to it.

The perfection of experiencing this moment of being alive is not affected by whatever happens ... which does not take away the ability to do something about something uncomfortable happening. For example, I prefer to sit upon a cushion than on the hard floor ... but if a hard floor is all that is available, then I sit upon it with equanimity. I prefer to run away from a bushfire (without fear) than to stay and be burnt; I prefer to rescue people (without panicking) than leave them to suffer horribly ... and so on. I am not silly, you know, for it is sensible to be comfortable.

Apperception is not a ‘partial recognition’, it is total. It is yourself that does not see the whole. The displays of nature are magnificent – even with its destructiveness. Which does not mean that we can not do something about repairing the damage ... I am not into that New Age one about dumb acceptance of whatever happens!

*

RICHARD: As for you saying ‘when considering sense perception (which are fairly limited)’ you somehow miss that I was referring to the actual world that becomes apparent with apperception ... not perception.

RESPONDENT: Well, you were the one so engrossed in the hamburger – not thinking perhaps for one moment where that piece of pseudo-cultural Macdonaldisation came from and how many people’s sense of Nature was destroyed (for one of many hamburgers) in the process so you can enjoy an end product dished out automatically for mass consumption and standardisation the world over. i.e. without recognising that for you to relish someone else may have to have experienced a very different alienation of even their own culture.

RICHARD: Actually, I was not ‘engrossed with the hamburger’ ... it was No. 15’s hamburger ... I personally do not eat at Macdonald’s. It was an illustration, only, to describe how to precipitate apperception. Once apperception happens, one may very well spit out the remnants of that cultural icon because of the sensibility that apperception imbues one with.

RESPONDENT: The senses don’t record facts at all – we make the facts. They simply tell us what the vibration is that we touch, see, etc. The mind does the constructing for its very survival and evolution and expansion in the ever more complex world. The tendencies of mind are far more than the input of the 5 sensory organs. Is the sense of love an outward relishing experience or an inward content?

RICHARD: ‘We make the facts’ ... that is the very problem ... ‘we’ are an illusion and ‘we’ think and feel that ‘we’ make facts. With apperception, ‘we’ disappear and the facts are obvious to the senses. This computer screen that you are looking at exists in its own right, ‘you’ do not make it happen. Its existence is a fact ... it is actual. Precipitate apperception and you will experience what I am talking about – you are trying to understand me intellectually.

And the sense of love is an attempt by the self – and the Self – to put a gloss over its grottiness. ‘I’, being rotten to the core, wish to embellish my rottenness with something that appears to look good ... and it manifests love and then touts it as being the cure-all of humanity’s ills. It is not. Love exacerbates an already grim situation by distracting attention away from the root cause – ‘I’ in any way, shape or form. A loving self is still a self, nevertheless ... and so the wars etc. go on ... now in the name of love. I am not making all this up – history bears this out.

*

RICHARD: ‘Time just doesn’t make physical reality perfect’? Do you see just how set you are against what is actual?

RESPONDENT: Tell me anything in physical reality that can actually be grasped as a permanent sensation – and if not then is not the apperception simply the need to run from one hamburger to another. Is the high of a junkie apperception? Tell me, whether you would be equally sensuous as a young man touching a young woman as you would if you were an old man touching an old woman. Do you senses distinguish between so called beauty and so called ugliness (as many are conditioned to do). If not then maybe apperception has something going for it.

RICHARD: Simple. This moment is permanent ... it is always here. It is never not this moment ... and it is always now. If you will come into time – by leaving your ‘self’ behind – you will experience this permanence for yourself. Then you will see that it is not the ‘high of a junkie apperception’.

As for being ‘equally sensuous’ vis a vis young-young and old-old man-woman touching ... yes. And yes, I can distinguish between ‘so called beauty and so called ugliness’ and I am not at all encouraged or deterred by it. There is an aesthetic appreciation – which varies from culture to culture – but in the actual freedom which apperception evokes there is a purity which renders beauty obsolete. The feeling of beauty – with its attendant companion ugliness – has ceased to exist ... I no longer feel the pull of beauty enticing me into surrendering to Love and Truth. I am free of all that stuff.

*

RICHARD: You react quite strongly against any suggestion of the possibility of perfection being in an earthly domain.

RESPONDENT: If it does not include the imperfect then it is not complete – it a denial of the Whole, it seems to me a partial and arbitrary choice of what you want rather than a true apperception. Apperception being mind’s perception of itself – which begs the question of what is mind. I think you will need to give me some indication of what is mind before you can truly tell me what is apperception as obviously apperception is linked to mind’s perception of itself and so far all I’ve seen from you is a type of semi-sensual awareness which does not seem to be real apperception. So I go back to the point raised before that unless the faculties of the mind are deflected towards greater apperception, they will keep themselves enmeshed in thoughts of petty enjoyment.

RICHARD: Golly, so far you have introduced ‘g/Greater apperception’, ‘true apperception’, ‘real apperception’, ‘false apperception’ and now ‘greater apperception’. What comes next? There is not all these different types of apperception that you keep on inventing ... I will bet that you had not even heard of the word before I introduced it several posts ago to another person on the list!

As to what is the mind ... it is not a ‘thing’ like the brain is ... it is a process. It is the process of the brain thinking, reflecting and being aware. Unfortunately for everybody, an ‘I’ has taken up a parasitical residence in there and has arrogated responsibility for doing the thinking, reflecting and awareness ... with disastrous results. ‘I’ am not needed at all ... in fact ‘I’ am a liability. The brain can think for itself – and it is very good at doing so without ‘me’ and all of ‘my’ petty demands.

*

RICHARD: Do you see how you are in denial of what is obvious? No wonder you wish to live in a mentally constructed dream-world.

RESPONDENT: Is language a mentally constructed dream world? Is art mentally constructed – where do ideas and visions come from? From senses of other ultra-sensuous faculties.

RICHARD: No, it all comes from ‘I’. There is nothing the matter with the senses when they are no longer encumbered with an ‘I’ misinterpreting and misunderstanding what is going on in this magnificent physical world. ‘I’ decide that ‘I’ do not like being here and concoct all types of fanciful dream-worlds and attempt to live in them. A rare few succeed and are called Enlightened ... and thousands of gullible sycophants gather at their feet in the vain hope that they too may become as deluded as their hero.

If it was not for the destructive results it would all be highly amusing.

No. 13

RICHARD: I live in a small village in Australia, not the USA. What are you trying to say? Why does it bother you that perfection is possible here on earth? Do you not wish to live a life of ease and enjoyment?

RESPONDENT: The village has to be Nimbin or Byron Bay or similar – this 60’s talk can only come from there.

RICHARD: Byron Bay, actually ... but why typecast someone because of their address? It would be like me looking at your E-mail address [Canberra, the political capital of Australia] and saying something like ‘typical political prevarication’, or ‘pollies double-talk’ and so on. Anyway, what 60’s talk? Perfection? Ease? Enjoyment? Peace-on-earth? If I remember it correctly, the sixties were about drugs, sex and rock and roll ... the whole ‘peace and love’ thing was predicated on a ‘turn on, tune in and drop out’ type mentality and led to many trekking eagerly and gullibly to the Himalayas and other exotic locations seeking the esoteric solution to life’s problems – with predictably disastrous results (their children wound up believing in ‘Supreme Souls’ and the such-like). I have no spirituality in me whatsoever, and apart from tea and coffee and tobacco, nor do I take drugs (not even alcohol), and I happen to be a married man with four adult children and seven grandchildren. I am retired and living on a hard-won pension in a brick veneered, three bedroom suburban house, in a mini-suburbia ... with a colour TV and VCR in the lounge room. Go ahead and typecast that lot!

No. 14

RICHARD: For indeed what I am saying is that the perceiver – the self – can not ever know that which is actual through the senses.

RESPONDENT: And right of the bottom of your previous post you stated: [Richard]: ‘Apperception is when ‘I’ cease perceiving and perception happens of itself ... which the brain with its sense organs is patently capable of doing ’. So can you please make up your mind as to which is which – i.e. senses or non-senses. First you say you can’t know actuality through the senses and then the reverse.

RICHARD: ‘First you say you can’t know actuality through the senses’ ... that is correct: ‘I’, the self, can never know actuality through the senses. All that ‘I’ can know through the senses is reality ... and reality is a purview ‘I’ paste over the top of actuality. ‘I’ perceive reality.

In apperception, ‘I’ cease to exist ... then the brain perceives actuality (which is the magical world as-it-is that lies hidden under or behind reality). The eyes, ears, etc., are not separate from the brain – they are the brain extended. (The brain has ‘eyes on stalks’, as it were). For me, there is no ‘I’ inside ‘my’ head looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window. I am these eyes seeing, and these eyes see directly ... unmediated by any ‘I’ within.

Why do you not understand this simple fact of the workings of apperception? I thought you were the expert on apperception ... what with your ready barrage of timely advice on the merits of ‘g/Greater apperception’, ‘true apperception’, ‘real apperception’, ‘false apperception’, ‘synthetic apperception’ and ‘greater apperception’. Does this mean that you actually do not know what you are talking about? Was that discourse on apperception you gave me over the last few posts – correcting my ‘gross’ and ‘relativistic’ misunderstanding – all guess-work?

*

RICHARD: Of course my PCE is not actual to anybody else ... nothing personally experienced is.

RESPONDENT: Weren’t you saying that it has nothing to do with subjectivity but all to do the actual sensate experience. So now there is a recognition that those sense experiences do have a subjective component. And previous you asserted that the I was nothing but something that got in the way. Now please tell me how one can have a ‘subjectivity experienced’ when your intention is to remove this aspect through ‘brain with its sense organs’ only type of experience?

RICHARD: This is so trite ... and it only reveals your inadequacy. By ‘subjective’ you know perfectly well that I was referring to individual experience – my experience, not someone else’s. Personal experience, if you will, not collective experience ... and so on. Please try to comprehend what is being said in order to understand, rather than these asinine attempts to pick holes in a straight-forward exposition.

As I said before, we can communicate our personal experience via language ... and other people who listen to my experience with both ears have their PCE validated as being within the normal realm of human sensate experience. This is what is called being objective. It is the contents of the PCE that are actual ... the trees, the houses, the peoples, the animals and so on. In a PCE these three dimensional objects are seen, with a startling clarity, to have an actual existence ... and by actual I mean tangible, touchable, substantial, material, corporeal, tactile and palpable.

*

RICHARD: This is why we communicate our experience via language.

RESPONDENT: And language is what? Subjective patterns of thought finding their form through the motor organ of the vocal chords. So subjective processes play a greater role than the motor organ/sense organs which are only the vehicle for outgoing and incoming expressions or inferences/waves/vibrations, i.e. senses are not the ultimate.

RICHARD: Well now, we can argue the toss as to what organ is the ‘ultimate’ if you like ... but what point would it serve? Apperception is the mind’s perception of itself, and the mind is a process engendered by the brain thinking and reflecting with awareness. Without senses this would not occur, for the brain and its sense organs are one and the same thing ... if one looks at a medical journal with those clever see-through pages of the body organs one will come across a picture of the brain with its eyes on stalks ... and it will become obvious that there is no separation between the brain and the five sense organs. The brain is these senses and the senses are the brain – literally.

*

RICHARD: Other people who listen to my experience with both ears have their PCE validated as being within the normal realm of human sensate experience ... this is what is called being objective

RESPONDENT: Which means your experiences are nothing unusual. The examples you give are fairly ordinary. I find nothing of PCE in them.

RICHARD: That is because you are not listening with both ears ... you are too busy trying to find fault. Anybody who has had PCE’s would recognise the descriptions straight away. This actual world is extraordinary when compared to the ‘reality’ of secular normality and the ‘Reality’ of metaphysical abnormality. Everything and everyone and every event is magical, luminous, vivid, intense, brilliant, direct, immediate ... and perfect as-it-is. Remember it now?

*

RICHARD: It is the senses in operation without an ‘I’ and these sensate experiences include the brain coordinating all the data with the clarity born of the absence of this meddling and troublesome psychological entity.

RESPONDENT: In general that would be automatism. I mean it can be a defence to criminal actions but the idea is to prevent that through using intelligence and not merely instinctual. Getting down to basics. There are five sensory organs: eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin. There are also five motor organs: vocal chord, hands, feet, excretory and genital organs. The characteristic of the sensory organs is to run after external objects. Whenever any inferential vibration emanates from an object, the sensory organs immediately receive that vibration at the gates of the sensory organs and transmit it the mind. The characteristic of the motor organs is to act; to establish contact between the organs and external objects. The motor organs carry the idea with the help of nerves and finally give it an action-form. To be apperceptive one needs to expand the abilities of the mind not get engrossed in the senses. Therein lies the fundamental defect in your sense of apperception.

RICHARD: ‘Automatism’? ‘Criminal actions’? ‘Instinctual’? What are you talking about? I do not operate from instincts, for I have eliminated them; I commit no criminal acts, for I am happy and harmless; and I am certainly not a robot or a zombie, for I delight in being here and appreciate each moment again with a joyful freshness. Did you not experience this too in your numerous PCE’s?

It is the characteristic of ‘I’ to ‘run after external objects’. Not the sense organs. Why not stop blaming the senses – it is ‘you’ who is at fault.

And one does not have to ‘expand the abilities of the mind’ to be apperceptive, merely rid the mind of the ‘I’. Then the mind can operate perfectly.

You do not know what you are talking about ... therein lies the fundamental defect in your ‘sense of apperception’. I suggest that you go back to the drawing board and invent something that works, this time. Your inexperience and lack of expertise in the area of apperception, pure consciousness experiences and peak experiences is showing through with a vengeance the more you write.

This discussion is not a competition about which one of us knows the most or is the cleverest at putting words together. We are talking about the possibility of your peace and your happiness and your harmony coming about here on earth, as this body, in this lifetime. For you to personally experience the ultimate each moment again, twenty four hours a day, three hundred and sixty five days of the year ... for the remainder of your life.

Perfection is possible for anyone ... here and now.

No. 15

RICHARD: The soul is a psychological entity that has no substance whatsoever, but has a reality – in a Greater Reality – that keeps one spell-bound in its tenacious grip. It and its world is nothing but a psychic adumbration and has no actuality at all.

RESPONDENT: If it is a psychological entity then it is already a creation of the mind, and so is part of the mind – so you make no philosophical distinction here whatsoever. As the mind is bound up with the relativities of time and space (the three exist with each other only as relativities) then if you are talking about some supramental awareness then that means it can only come from or be the witness of the mind itself. That witness to be truly holistic and apperceptive in the Greater Sense (rather than the crude sense of immediate fun and relishment) must of necessity be beyond the mind itself and must be capable of being apperceptive to everything (not just the ‘fun’ and relishment). Your sense of fun is purely a relative phenomenon. True apperception would recognise the whole and all its expressions and not be bothered by fun or displeasure. It would be a timeless witness-ship of the mind and indeed every mind of this creation and indeed of every thought, word and action and of everything animate and inanimate – of ever consciousness dormant or active. True apperception (i.e. synthetic apperception – rather than analytic fun apperception – which is nothing but mental impressions) must be of the synthetic type given that for synthetic apperception to exist it must be capable of binding/synthesising all expressions of this universe, otherwise it is only partial reflection and not synthetic apperception, i.e. it would not be an understanding of the whole.

RICHARD: Yes, the psychological entity is a ‘creation of the mind’ – and the heart. Your precious ‘witness’ is also a creation – it is a delusion born out of the illusion of self.

Why do you label fun and relishing be ‘crude’? Are you a puritan? Why are you ‘bothered by fun’?

What on earth is ‘synthetic apperception’ ? Not to speak of ‘Analytic fun apperception’ – are you not getting a trifle carried away by your own enthusiasm in inventing words?

*

RICHARD: I advocate application and diligence born out of a pure intent ... which is the intent to actualise the perfection of the pure consciousness experience wherein apperception is experienced.

RESPONDENT: However, it needs to be added here that consciousness is both attributional and non-attributional. Attributional consciousness from a whole/synthetic/cosmic viewpoint (which you have to accept even under your assumptions – otherwise how can you know the whole) is this expressed universe. Non-attributional consciousness is what has given rise to this expressed universe – it is the true ‘pure’ consciousness. It is this pure non-attributional consciousness which has given its own ‘permission’ for its non-attributional nature to be reflected in attributional form. Only it can be perfect and to be perfect it must transcend and at the same time pervade everything. That in philosophical parlance is called soul. Any idea of a unit soul must therefore be one and the same Supreme Soul. It is only the covering of ‘analytical’ I-feeling that covers this true Reality. It is for this very reason that it has been said that the Soul is the Witnessing Consciousness, i.e. the witness-ship that lies quiescent in every entity is the God/Soul – it is omnitelepathic.

RICHARD: The ‘non-attributional consciousness’ that you speak of as being ‘true pure consciousness’ which has ‘given rise to this universe’ sounds suspiciously like a Creator God to me. And it gives ‘permission’, does it? Well, well, well ... that is big of it. And your ‘unit soul’ which is the ‘Supreme Soul’ is but another way of saying: ‘I am God’ ... which is delusions of grandeur in anyone’s language.

So you are ‘omnitelepathic’, eh? Are you also omnipotent and omnipresent and omniscient as well? Might as well go the whole hog, you know.

RESPONDENT: The physical sense of the body is telepathised on the mental plate. In other words the physical sense is awakened in the mental plate due to the reflection that follows the impact of the crude physical waves on the mental plate. Similarly the sense of every crude object is awakened in the mental plate as soon as the reflection takes place following the impact of the waves of the objects on the mental plate. Identical mental waves hit the soul entity, causing the reflection of those mental waves and this awakens in the unit a sense of its indivisibility from the soul. If, in the language of philosophy, mental waves, i.e., thought, be called thought-waves, then the reflection of the mental waves on the Soul-plate will have to be termed telepathic waves. An so in reference to the Soul-plate, we may say that it is telepathic to the mind. All mundane objects, crude, subtle or causal, consist in the mental waves or thought-waves and so in the fullest accord with reasoning and logic we may call the soul omnitelepathic. It is because of this omni-telepathic Atman/Supreme Soul that the existence of all mundane objects, visible or invisible, large or small, find their factual substantiation and recognition. Had there been no Atman, the existence of everything would have been in jeopardy. Knowing that is the true apperception.

RICHARD: Knowing this may be very well be ‘true apperception’ – since you have invented that phrase you can make it mean whatever you like. As for me, I will stick with the word apperception as defined in the Oxford dictionary: ‘the mind’s perception of itself’. It is a lot less convoluted than your elaborate belief system ... and it is not even yours, anyway, for you have borrowed it from the Hindus. It is not philosophy, it is religion.

RESPONDENT: If you were truly apperceptive (synthetic apperceptiveness rather than analytical apperceptiveness) then the question of I doing anything would not arise. The witness-ship/apperception would most truly be beyond the analytical I – otherwise it could not be true, pure, whole apperception. In fact you could not discern that your I-feeling is the cause of your apperception. Your attachment to your I only indicates that you need to chase more and more hamburgers to get more and more delights and give it the false name of apperception.

RICHARD: But I have said again and again that there is no ‘I-feeling’ (as you call it) in this body. No ego-self or soul-self ... no identity whatsoever. So why say that I am attached to my ‘I’ and that I need to ‘chase more and more hamburgers’? I do not. This is a ridiculous discussion ... and you know it is.

*

RICHARD: Like all ideals, their ideals of the ‘good’ have no basis in actuality and are merely the opposites to the ‘bad’.

RESPONDENT: In a relative sense there is some credence to this. But were you fall down is that everything exists within the ambit of evolution and that evolution is from crude to subtle (counter-evolution is admittedly a possibility), so that actions whose inner motive is crude will orient the mind to a similar like condition and cannot aid in apperception – as the mind becomes fragmentised into a matter oriented objectivity. In that sense, anything which halts the march of unit consciousness/one’s own mind towards true apperception (i.e. the acknowledgment of the Supreme Entity) is bad. Whereas the converse is good (i.e. it leads to the experience of wholeness with the ultimate merger/realisation of mind into/as Soul – which must be the case for true apperception is the witness-ship of everything which must be beyond the mind itself).

RICHARD: Oh, everything that halts acknowledgment of the ‘Supreme Entity’ is bad, is it? So I am now a bad, bad boy for being an atheist. Next you will be telling me that I will rot in hell for my hereticism.

RESPONDENT: Well, it can so happen that the bopping back hard enough may, depending on the person’s physique and health be enough to kill the person. And if your intent was not to kill it could certainly result in the crime of manslaughter because you did not care a hoot about what your actions were but nevertheless they resulted in death. Is this the magnanimity of your silly sense of apperception – of your distrust for moral well being. Control will be there all right. Control will be there under the moral law. At least lunatic asylums still serve some purpose as well. Any sense of irresponsibility means lack of knowledge and therefore lack of mental ability to discern the whole. It clearly indicates that the only creed behind such pseudo philosophy is self interest in its most crudest sense which is the desire and callousness of physical self-pleasure at the cost of anyone else’s welfare. Just because a person bopped you does that give you the right to play cat and mouse games to bob them back and with intensity to cause harm to them even though your automatist apperception cares little for other’s welfare.

RICHARD: Whose ‘moral law’ ? Culturally assigned morals – purportedly scribed from a god – are essential only for wayward egos and souls. I do not need controls at all, for I am happy and harmless ... I am totally without malice and sorrow. As for ‘playing cat and mouse’ ... that is your interpretation and bears no resemblance to what I said. It indicates what you feel about your self ... and has nothing to do with how I am at all. As for me ‘bopping back’ ... I am no ‘gentle Jesus meek and mild’; I do not ‘turn the other cheek’; I do not subscribe to that ‘oh look at me I am a noble martyr’ nonsense. If someone bops me, I have the option to bop them back ... even secular law advocates this very sensible arrangement. And bopping them back is to ‘care for the other’s welfare’ for it may very well give them pause to consider the result of their anti-social behaviour before they do it again to someone else. Under your system the bully-boys of this world run rampage.

*

RICHARD: This physical universe has no personality – no identity at all – to give thanks to.

RESPONDENT: And so where did it come from. Now if you had a proper sense of apperception this would not be difficult to answer.

RICHARD: It did not come from anywhere ... being infinite and eternal, this physical universe has always been here and always will. Kind of does away with the need for your Creator God, though, does it not?

*

RICHARD: A blissful self is still a self, nevertheless.

RESPONDENT: But it is not the ego-self. And a crude fun and relishing apperception is nothing but self turned into a materialist orientation which ultimately delimits the capabilities of the mind and the ability to know/apperceive. i.e. a rock cannot apperceive itself and any of automatist perceptions of freedom is at about the equivalent level of understanding.

RICHARD: No, you are right, it is not the ‘ego-self’ ... it is the soul-self. ‘I’ have survived the death of the ego only to wreak ‘my’ havoc on the divine level ... cunningly disguised as the ‘Supreme Soul’ ... who goes around allowing anti-social people to bop them on the nose.

No. 16

RICHARD: You give a greater importance to non-material sources as being a more real ‘reality’. Thus, for you, consciousness gives rise to matter ... not matter giving rise to consciousness.

RESPONDENT: Well its quite well know that E=mc2. And there are a number of eminent scientists who go for the consciousness viewpoint – its nothing unusual. Now from the other posts you should be able to discern that firstly Universal Consciousness gives rise to matter – it is simply an expansion of the Big Bang theory. Everything (including matter) therefore has this consciousness – but in matter it is dormant and inanimate as an individual expressive from (Eco-psychology and Ken Wilber tend to go toward this now as well). Due to clashes of various kinds life evolves from minutest particles e.g. viruses and so expands into complex human form and so in a sense matter gives rise to animate consciousness – no one seems to have explained the origins of life from the inanimate to the animate as yet. And this analysis is logically deductible.

RICHARD: But where you give capital letters to ‘Universal Consciousness’ you are indicating divinity in some form ... a ‘Creator God’ which requires a belief system. So it matters not how many scientists with their theories (not facts) you drag in to support your belief, or how much ‘logically deductible’ analysis people may play with, none of this is fact.

*

RICHARD: I am discussing a pure consciousness experience (PCE). In a PCE, the self – ‘I’ – is temporarily in abeyance so that apperception is operating.

RESPONDENT: So where is it temporarily if its in abeyance. You haven’t said that it is destroyed or annihilated only in suspension and when something is in suspension it still has the scope of expression just that it is not being activated.

RICHARD: ‘Where is it’? The self is not a thing to be put down somewhere (like on a table or a bench), it is a psychological entity ... that is, an emotional and mental belief. The belief is temporarily suspended, so it is not anywhere at all. Goodness me, surely this is so simple to understand.

*

RICHARD: This physical universe is both infinite in its extent and eternal in its scope, then the perfection of infinitude is present here in space and now in time ... for where else could it be. It is only that ‘I’ am preventing this ever-present fact being apparent to the mind’s awareness.

RESPONDENT: So for true liberation one needs to transcend the I permanently and the most your apperception could do is temporary abeyance. For permanent transcendence one has to go beyond the mind, time and form/person/frequency – that can’t possibly have anything to do with relativity and must have everything to do with an Absolute condition it being Soul and all unit souls must, to be truly an experience of synthetic apperception, be also within/as the Supreme Soul (as is every expression of this creation) – the only difference from our relative perception be the sugar coating of the I-feeling (which transgresses to I am doing –>I done –>sense experience).

RICHARD: The ‘temporary abeyance’ was what happens in a PCE as you well know ... you are becoming quite desperate to clutch at straws like this and think that you are still having an intelligent discussion. And the rest of this paragraph is a rant about some borrowed Hindu religious belief system which, like all belief systems, has no basis in fact and actuality.

*

RICHARD: It is but the infinitude of this very physical universe. So it is not a matter of ‘seeing through what looks like matter/actual and appertaining its essence’ but dissolving the ‘I’ for it all to be apparent here and now.

RESPONDENT: But you say the I is only in temporary abeyance (as above) and now you talk about its dissolution. If the mind dissolved so would all sense of fragmentary perceptions of time, place and form and in particular the ability of sensory perception would not exist and would simply be transcended because every vibration would be perceived as One Whole synthetic consciousness. This is because to achieve synthetic apperception there has to be something that binds everything together and that can only be consciousness (which may manifest itself as energy and matter). The senses themselves cannot bind things together in terms of a viewpoint or experience – mind does that and the more mind expands to encompass the whole the more is the experience of the infinite consciousness that pervades everything. As to the physical universe being infinite and its shape, see previous post.

RICHARD: The ‘temporary abeyance’ was in a PCE; the dissolution is when one acts upon what is understood as a result of this PCE and, realising the illusory nature of the self and the delusory nature of the Self, activate their dissolution. Then the actuality of this physical universe becomes apparent. None of this requires belief.

*

RICHARD: The point I am making is that the continuation of ‘I’ (identity) in another psychic form is the cause of all the problems.

RESPONDENT: The Atman/Soul has nothing to do with psychic form – it is timeless, endless and pervades everything. Form is only a relative expression as much as mind and time. Indeed is not all sensory expression simply another psychic form because the mind co-ordinates the experience?

RICHARD: The ‘Atman/Soul’ has everything to do with ‘psychic form’ for it is but a belief – and a Hindu religious belief at that. And, no, sensory experience is not ‘simply another psychic form’ ... this is silly.

*

RICHARD: I am not at all concerned about the range or extent of sense experience, for I am referring to the apperception of the ultimate in the immediate and the absolute in the relative. And this is done with whatever is present.

RESPONDENT: So no choices are being made at all – all sensory perception is acceptable and there is no question of like or dislike. As for your last point on the material world being all there is. Well E=mc2 answers that to a significant extent.

RICHARD: No, there is no ‘liker’ or ‘disliker’ ... any ‘I’ doing the liking and disliking is an illusion.

I rather fail to see the relevance of your throwaway remark about E=mc2 ... has that something to do with Mr. Einstein’s belief in a god?

As to the universe being infinite ... of course, for you, it can not be so because you believe in some metaphysical Creator God who is infinite ... and we can not have two infinities now can we? Therefore one of them must go ... so, for you, you discard the fact in favour of the belief.

No. 17

RESPONDENT: A rapist could just as easily explain away their behaviour in this way if they wanted to as well. It is a sensory delight to them as well – but there is something wrong in it is there not?

RICHARD: As I have repeatedly spoken of peace-on-earth; of eliminating malice and sorrow; of being happy and harmless and so on, I rather fail to see what point you are trying to make here. I am not – and never have been – advocating pleasure as being the bench-mark against which to judge behaviour and action as being sociable or anti-social. Where did you get that impression from? Not from what I have written ... so it must come from the hidden recesses of your being. Most people are afraid of pleasure for the simple reason that they can not (and quite rightly so) trust themselves.

The extinction of ‘I’ in any way, shape or form ensures the elimination of every single anti-social urge or impulse – let alone behaviour in action – thus freeing oneself to the enjoyment of the harmless pleasures of life. Like eating a hamburger – if that is one’s predilection. Rape is not harmless.

This is all pretty basic stuff ... can you raise your level of debate a bit, please?

RESPONDENT: Shouldn’t be difficult to raise the debate with this sort of view. Tell the above to the parents or victims and see what they think.

RICHARD: Are you for real? Tell what to the ‘parents or victims’? That rape is not harmless? And you want me to ‘see what they think’? I would presume they would agree with me. Rape is very harmful.

What was your point, exactly?

No. 18

RESPONDENT No. 14: ‘If I believe something is true it is true for me’. (see Richard on Perfection).

RESPONDENT: It seems Richard going to go through another psychosis with this useless philosophy.

RICHARD: As this quotation was wrongly attributed to me you may very well be excused for responding to it ... but you were very quick to jump in and assume that I did. You should know by now, after our long discussion over the last few weeks, that I do not have any beliefs whatsoever. Nor do I acknowledge anything to be either ‘true’ or ‘true for me’ . I am, as I am sure you must realise by now, only interested in facts and actuality ... a point that No. 14 foolishly overlooked when he engineered this ridiculous caper.

I have entirely finished with having psychotic episodes ... which is what believing oneself to be a ‘Supreme Soul’ results in.

*

RICHARD: Byron Bay, actually ... but why typecast someone because of their address?

RESPONDENT: Now you know I couldn’t have guessed that from your address – I got it from synthetic apperception, i.e. intuition. Which is something you wouldn’t understand as its got nothing to do with the all engrossing senses.

RICHARD: Oh, good ... now I know what ‘synthetic apperception’ is to you ... it is intuition, eh? Who would have guessed? And you are right, for I have no intuition at all, as that faculty disappeared along with the ego-self and the soul-self. Also, imagination vanished entirely, too. Thus I am free to see things, people and events as-they-are ... that is, without the blinkers of intuitive and imaginative ‘truths’.

And do not think that I fall for the blarney that you used ‘synthetic apperception’ to ascertain what village I lived in ... my address is on my web page, as being P.O. Box 1404, Byron Bay [now changed].

*

RESPONDENT: Something different ... because Richard’s sensate all devouring consumer of worldly passions is going to get someone killed soon.

RICHARD: ‘Going to get someone killed soon’? Are you serious? Did you know that over 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone? Not to mention all those countless millions maimed, tortured, raped and otherwise having their life’s work destroyed ... and this is after thousands of years of peoples believing in metaphysical entities – gods of some description – as being peace-loving models to follow.

Yet all the while, salubrity is freely available in the perfection and purity of being here and now ... for anyone who dares to dedicate their life to ensuring a peace-on-earth for themselves, as this body only, in this life-time.

RESPONDENT: Human beings have a fully reflected consciousness which makes them capable of independent action and also of distinguishing between good and bad. Good and bad is a relative idea, but nevertheless must be determined. The object of the creation is to liberate every unit and in this make human being emancipated in the same way as the Creator is already, i.e. beyond any limitation and thus Infinite Consciousness. It is with this intention that in the last stage of the evolutionary movement from crude to subtle, human beings representing a few units appear with a fully reflected unit consciousness. <SNIP>

RICHARD: And on and on you go with more of your borrowed Hindu religious belief system. Have you ever been to India to see for yourself the results of what they claim are tens of thousands of years of spiritual living? I have, and it is hideous ... and it is also sobering to realise that the intelligentsia of the West are eagerly following them down the slippery slope of striving to attain to a self-seeking Divine Immortality ... to the detriment of life on earth. ‘Supreme Soul’ is simply the Eastern term for ‘God’; thus any wisdom designated ‘True Wisdom’ translates easily as ‘God’s Word’. The trouble with people who discard the god of Christianity is that they do not realise that by turning to the Eastern spirituality they have effectively jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. Eastern spirituality is religion ... merely in a different form to what people in the West have been raised to believe in. Eastern philosophy sounds so convincing to the Western mind that is desperately looking for answers. The Christian conditioning actually sets up the situation for a thinking person to be susceptible to the insidious doctrines of the East. At the end of the line there is always a god of some description, lurking in disguise, wreaking its havoc with its ‘Teachings’.

If it were not for the appalling suffering engendered it would all be highly amusing.

No. 19

RICHARD: I can hardly wait to see how you react this time.

RESPONDENT No. 14: My reaction is ‘sorry’.

RESPONDENT: Strange, that happened to me the other night with our Richard and I recall I said the same thing. Seems quite normal.

RICHARD: Well, if you guys keep on making blatant mistakes then you will keep on feeling beholden to keep on apologising. Seems quite normal to me.

RESPONDENT No. 14: But then I guess you’d add the Coda that you mean ‘have a perfect soul or spirit’ or do you mean a perfect mechanic, C++ Coder.

RESPONDENT: I think he might mean ‘Object Oriented’ – seems to relate to this apperception business. (Joke in there somewhere). Although that may not be technically correct since ‘an object is a logical entity that encapsulates both data and the code that manipulates the data’ – Herbert Schildt. I guess that proves the fallacy of apperception because one has to manipulate the data anyway.

RICHARD: Sorry to disappoint you and your obscure quote but an object is something substantial that exists in its own right, independent of me as an observer. And I would not mean ‘Object Oriented’ ... I would mean being oriented to this moment and this place ... what is called being here and now. Apperception reveals that this moment in time and this place in space is permanently here, now ... and at no other time and place. Objects and people, of course, come and go. This physical universe, being infinite and eternal, was here long before your and my births and will be here long after our separate deaths. Forever, in fact. Its very existence and continued actuality has nothing to do with me and my observer status ... whereas your ‘Supreme Soul’ has no existence or reality outside of you and your imagination (and however many others like you that believe in this Hindu god that you have adopted as being true).

*

RESPONDENT: There is a world of difference between a cow and carrot in terms of its consciousness. There is also a vast difference in ecological impact in rearing either of these for food. Food has more to do than just with personal choice – food is political. ‘The vulture has no objection to eating rotten flesh, but the myna bird has much objection, and so does the dove’.

RICHARD: Of course there is a difference in consciousness between a cow and a carrot ... in fact I acknowledged that where I wrote: ‘some vegetarians maintain that as a carrot does not scream audibly when it is pulled from the ground there is no distress caused by the consumption of vegetables. Yet the carrot indubitably dies slowly by being extracted from its life-support system – the ground is its home – and is this not distressing on some level of a living, growing organism? It all depends upon the level, or degree, of ‘aliveness’ that one ascribes to things’. As for the ecological impact, I also acknowledged that, too, where I wrote: ‘when ‘I’ am no longer extant there is no ‘believer’ inside the mind and heart to have any beliefs or disbeliefs. As there is no ‘believer’, there is no ‘I’ to be harmful ... one is then free to not eat meat, or eat meat, as the circumstances permit. It is an act of freedom, based upon purely practical considerations such as the availability of sufficient resources on this planet to provide the acreage necessary to support the conversion of vegetation into animal protein. It has nothing whatsoever with sparing cattle’. It seems to me that you need to read what I write before jumping in to inform me of what I already know and have acknowledged.

And to a vulture, rotten flesh is as wholesome as freshly collected food is to us humans. The Indian Sage, whom you quoted from, is simply airing his ignorance in an anthropocentric manner ... this is not wisdom ... not by a long shot.

*

RICHARD: You can not have two infinities.

RESPONDENT No. 15: Here again surfaces the ‘can’t be two infinities’ claim, as if there need be to justify a spirit being, or two rays of light for that matter.

RESPONDENT: Now is this a way of saying that God is one infinity and the Devil is another. That absurdity can easily be squashed should the absurdity ever need debate – which I doubt it deserves.

RICHARD: As both ‘God’ and ‘Devil’ are both fictional, I would suppose they can both be as infinite as a believer can imagine them to be, for it is all the stuff of fantasy anyway. The absurdity that needs to be squashed is that any god is given any credence at all in this day and age. It is all such primitive superstition that I wonder why people dare to call themselves ‘modern’ ... what with holding such anachronistic beliefs about ‘Supreme Souls’ borrowed from another culture and another time. For what it is worth, whilst the Hindus do not have a ‘Devil’ as such, they do have demons ... infinite demons, perchance?

*

RICHARD: And on and on you go with more of your borrowed Hindu religious belief system. Have you ever been to India to see for yourself the results of what they claim are tens of thousands of years of spiritual living? I have.

RESPONDENT: Yes, and I didn’t think much of it. East and West is not that great an analysis really. It is just a historical fact that much spiritual science has come from the so called East. Of course there is the same in other cultures, e.g. Aboriginal, Maori, native American Indians – I don’t have any problems with that – but it hasn’t been brought to the front-line as much as it could in terms of global awareness, but probably will in due course – albeit much of it now changed with other influences – that’s fine – its not a problem either. it doesn’t matter where it comes from – that’s irrelevant – the point is whether its useful, intuitionally, scientific and practical.

RICHARD: The point is that it (‘spiritual science’) is not useful at all ... it is practically and demonstrably deleterious to both individual and communal well-being. That is why one only needs to look at where this ‘spiritual science’ has been practiced for thousands of years to see how badly it has failed to live up to its promise of peace and harmony and prosperity for all. India is an excellent example of this ... but if you wish to bring other cultures into the discussion, the same holds true for all native cultures such as the few you mentioned. The Australian Aborigines had their inter-tribal wars ... as did the New Zealand Maoris and the American Indians.

Spiritual science indeed! It is all clap-trap, hocus-pocus, mumbo-jumbo, superstitious religious stuff dressed up to appeal to the jaded Western mind desperate for some answers that abstract logical speculation and analytic deduction just can not provide. Both the spiritual and the secular methods of producing peace on earth have each failed miserably ... it is high time for a third alternative to hove into view ... something new that has never been tried before. Why repeat the mistakes of the past when the results of doing so are plain to view in such cultures as we have just discussed?

*

RESPONDENT: Mobility does not mean illusion. Illusion is utterly untenable pseudo-philosophy made up by some spaced out Leary followers trying to relive Woodstock (Peace on earth, Richard).

RICHARD: You just can not resist the temptation, can you? What with references to the 60’s generation and so on ... and now Woodstock for goodness sake! When will you give up this notion that I am some spaced-out hippie? What have you got going about peace here and now that gets up your nose anyway? Why does it bother you that perfection is possible here on earth? Do you not wish to live a life of ease and enjoyment? Apart from the obvious benefits of personal ease and enjoyment by eliminating sorrow in oneself, there is the social benefit of ridding oneself of malice. All the wars, murders, tortures, rapes, domestic violence and child abuse stem from this root cause. Did you know that over 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone? Not to mention all those countless millions maimed, tortured, raped and otherwise having their life’s work destroyed ... yet all the while perfection is freely available here and now for anyone who dares to dedicate their life to ensuring a peace-on-earth for themselves, as this body only, in this life-time.

Perfection is possible for anyone ... here and now.

No. 20

RICHARD: I thought you were the expert on apperception ... what with your ready barrage of timely advice on the merits of ‘g/Greater apperception’, ‘true apperception’, ‘real apperception’, ‘false apperception’, ‘synthetic apperception’ and ‘greater apperception’ . Does this mean that you actually do not know what you are talking about?

RESPONDENT: Generalisations are good for inspiration and broad brush understanding but in practical sphere it has to be scientifically understandable and workable. That’s why E=mc2 – makes it concrete and discernible. So distinguishing is a practical need to see how things work and where and when.

RICHARD: A lovely response I am sure, in scientific circles, but tell me: what has it to do with apperception?

*

RICHARD: That is because you are not listening with both ears ... you are too busy trying to find fault.

RESPONDENT: Just trying to work out what you’re saying that all. Normally it doesn’t take me that long with but this one’s proving difficult.

RICHARD: Something entirely new always is difficult to comprehend straight away. One’s existing mind-set rather gets in the way ... and raises objections. It is worth persevering with, however.

*

RICHARD: Anybody who has had PCE’s would recognise the descriptions straight away. This actual world is extraordinary when compared to the ‘reality’ of secular normality and the ‘Reality’ of metaphysical normality. Everything and everyone and every event is magical, luminous, vivid, intense, brilliant, direct, immediate ... and perfect as-it-is. Remember it now?

RESPONDENT: Magical is quite a metaphor in itself. now if we’re going to be sensate lets steer away from magic. I mean what I discern is that most of the things your saying is dependent to a great degree on how you interpret things after they pass through the senses, rather than they being your true sensate experience – do you get what I mean?

RICHARD: No, I do not ‘get what you mean’, for I have repeatedly said that they do not ‘pass through the senses’ for there is no ‘I’ inside to receive and interpret them. Without an ‘I’ inside, the brain is the senses ... there is no-one for something to ‘come through’ to any more.

Then everything and everyone and every event is magical, luminous, vivid, intense, brilliant, direct, immediate ... and perfect as-it-is. ‘Magical’ is a descriptive expression and I do not mean witches and spells and things like that ... I mean it in the sense that ‘miraculous’ would convey if it was not such a religiously oriented word.

*

RICHARD: ‘Automatism’? ‘Criminal actions’? ‘Instinctual’? What are you talking about? I do not operate from instincts, for I have eliminated them.

RESPONDENT: Okay, I’m a mere mortal and you’re not.

RICHARD: ‘Okay, I’m a mere mortal and you’re not.’ Thus all the wars, murders, rapes, domestic violence and child abuse go on ... not to mention all the loneliness, sadness, grief, depression, despair and suicide ... all this is the result of remaining a ‘mere mortal’ . So many people have said: ‘I’m only human’, or: ‘So I’ve made a mistake, nobody’s perfect’, or: ‘In an ideal world this wouldn’t happen’. These excuses for misdemeanours are readily forthcoming whenever someone’s integrity is questioned. It is generally accepted that all humans have an inherent fault, a ‘dark side’ to their nature. Consequently: ‘You just have to accept people as they are’.

I do not ‘just have to accept people as they are’ because I know, from personal experience, that it is possible to change – and change radically, fundamentally. I have never accepted that I am condemned to remain as I was and I have enquired into myself and into the ‘Human Condition’, with gratifying results. I have been without an ego for fifteen years and without a soul for the last four ... thus I am at peace and in harmony with myself and with others. So I know what I talk of; it is not theory, it is not idealistic, it is not a ‘pie in the sky’.

It is possible for one human being to state, honestly and factually, that perfection is not only highly desirable but it is essential. I am not ‘merely human’ for I am, in fact, no longer normal. I do not have a ‘dark side’ ... nor do I have a ‘good side’. There is no battle betwixt Good and Evil raging inside this body, for there is simply purity abounding in all directions. The ego that died all those years ago has never reappeared and the extirpation of the soul that persisted for another eleven years after that event, made the extinction of the entity final.

I have never been here before, I am perpetually new. I appear as this moment appears. As each moment is fresh, new, so too am I novel, artless and innocent. I can never gather dust, as it were, for I cast no shadow. I have no presence, no being. I do not exist, psychologically speaking. With no entity within to mess things up, I am actually perfection personified, pure and simple, through no effort at all. I can take no credit for my unimpeachable character, it all happens of itself as the universe intends it to.

*

RICHARD: I delight in being here and appreciate each moment again with a joyful freshness. Did you not experience this too in your numerous PCE’s?

RESPONDENT: I’m not making an big claims about having experienced such things.

RICHARD: How come you are such an expert on apperception then? Apperception only occurs in a PCE. And as for ‘not making an big claims’ ... here are some of your big claims: ‘g/Greater apperception’, ‘true apperception’, ‘real apperception’, ‘false apperception’, ‘synthetic apperception’ and ‘analytical apperception’.

*

RICHARD: This discussion is not a competition about which one of us knows the most or is the cleverest at putting words together. We are talking about the possibility of your peace and your happiness and your harmony coming about here on earth, as this body, in this lifetime. For you to personally experience the ultimate each moment again, twenty four hours a day, three hundred and sixty five days of the year ... for the remainder of your life.

RESPONDENT: Actually doesn’t sound that appealing – I don’t mind a bit of suffering – its good for the soul.

RICHARD: Peace and happiness and harmony does not ‘sound that appealing’? Are you for real? Do you mean to say that you condone wars, murders, tortures, rapes, domestic violence incidents and child abuse ... not to forget all the sadness, loneliness, grief, depression, despair and suicides? Do you really mean it when you say: ‘I don’t mind a bit of suffering’? If it was not so serious, I would be rolling about the floor laughing by now, at what you have just written ... for it is ludicrous. Read it again and see for yourself what nonsense it is.

As for: ‘its good for the soul’ ... the only good thing about suffering is when it stops, period. The soul – along with the ego – is the root cause of all the ills of humankind ... and prevents peace on earth.

*

RICHARD: Perfection is possible for anyone ... here and now.

RESPONDENT: You’ve told me that before.

RICHARD: And I will say it again and again ... until it sinks in as an actuality. In spite of all the jokes about 60’s generation stuff ... I actually mean it. Peace on earth is possible now, in this life-time, as this body.

No. 21

RESPONDENT: Richard, I think I’ll have to conclude that your posts are merely what may be called trolling on the Internet, i.e. come in to interrupt and hassle and annoy for your own pleasure. I won’t be responding to any more of your posts.

RICHARD: Oh, good ... does that mean that I do not have to answer your last five or six posts? I have quite a back-log to catch up on and I could do with a reprieve.

RESPONDENT: Firstly because I can’t understand them and the contradictions.

RICHARD: I know that you can not understand them because your belief system creates a mind-set that blocks receptivity ... but what contradictions? I have been very clear and consistent ... and with nary a contradiction in sight.

RESPONDENT: Secondly its from a troll.

RICHARD: Actually, this List is the only Mailing List I write to, for one at a time is enough. I only came onto the Internet about six months ago ... maybe next year I will start ‘trolling’, but I have yet to finish cutting my teeth here. Besides, it all depends upon the level of intelligence that I find.

RESPONDENT: And thirdly I’m going on holidays soon – up your way by the way in the rainforests of Lismore. But I don’t intend visiting.

RICHARD: If you do not intend visiting, then why go to the trouble of telling me your travel plans? Methinks that you would like to have a meeting, but do not dare suggest it yourself ... so you throw out some bait for me to nibble on. If so ... I will bite, for I know that I can stand personal scrutiny. Send me a telephone number (by private E-Mail) where you can be reached in Lismore – and when – and we can have a coffee at a café and chew the fat. There is a rather nice Italian restaurant with a shady courtyard just off the main street that does a spectacular Veal Scaloppine – unless you are a vegetarian – that is well worth a visit even if you do not take me up on my offer.

If you do, who knows, you may discover that I am living what I say I am living.