Actual Freedom – Mailing List ‘A’ Correspondence

RESPONDENT: [First paragraph] As for myself, I would not presume to know any more about the important inner workings of a bird or a fish than I would of the same workings in my next door neighbour. I see that as arrogance. Not many answers come easily in my experience. When I think I ‘know’ I am just starting to get into trouble.

RESPONDENT: [Another paragraph] I would argue that animals do have a history and an importance and plenty of lessons to bring to existence. From my knowledge of their functioning at this point I agree that they cannot do these things between themselves. This puts a tremendous responsibility on US though as we become the ones who must record the history and reap the value of the lessons they can teach us. Being higher on the intellectual chain means we ought to expect more out of ourselves. Not just to accept the blessing and hoard it but to take the next step and say: ‘now that I have this advantage, etc. what will I do with it?’

RICHARD: As the second paragraph demonstrates the lie of the first, I find it too incompatible to respond thoughtfully ... except to comment that by your own categorisation you must be arrogant.

*

RICHARD: Animals are not aware of their impending death nor talk about that with their compatriots in an effort to understand life, the universe and what it is to be an animal ... like humans do.

RESPONDENT: How much did your knowledge of your impending death affect the choices you made today? I am sad to say my choices were hardly affected at all.

RICHARD: I lived today in perfection and purity. For all of the twenty four hours I was happy and harmless. Because of my awareness of my impending death, I long ago eliminated the ego and soul – the self and the Self – completely from within this body, thus ending forever any trace of malice and sorrow. With no identity whatsoever, I am the universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being ... and the experience of the infinitude of this physical universe is ambrosial each moment again.

RESPONDENT: Doubt is a very strange thing. Once introduced it is so troublesome to get rid of.

RICHARD: Personally, I have no doubt at all. I saw the cause of it and eliminated it long ago.

*

RICHARD: There are so many people claiming to have knowledge of the ‘Real Jesus’ that I have personally lost interest entirely.

RESPONDENT: I am surprised at that. It sounds as if you have an explorers heart and I am deeply interested in many other things that hold no value to me in terms of what I actually believe and live out in daily life. I find a great amount of truth in others ideas / ways / trials / errors / beliefs. By losing interest do we make it convenient to stop considering that we do not have the answers we would like to believe we do. If Zen is wrong to me then I can dismiss it in its entirety and in the process lose out on much of its value. By losing interest I wonder if you had interest at one time or personal exposure to Christianity. Curious.

RICHARD: No, it is not all that curious, actually. I explored for years and exhausted all the possibilities ... until there was nothing left to explore ... which does not surprise me as Christianity has such a paucity of expression. I also studied Zen until it too exhausted its possibilities and promise ... so too with all other religions. I now have all the answers – and they are not a matter of belief.

RESPONDENT: Lets say that you are correct and it is all fraud. Have we gained or lost by our belief and our exposure. I would ask that you consider this in terms of the messages and beliefs as they were laid out originally ... not as we may have distorted and polluted them along the way. I wonder what a huge chunk would be missing from our lives without these ideas ... true or not ... it is strange to imagine them not being around for discussion. Hard to accept the inability to have facts the way we like them about these people. There seems to be enough evidence on both sides of the fence to make it essential to resort to something besides the mind to decide. Then again, how is one supposed to make rational statements about such things for long periods of time. I could explain my position better by hugging you or baking you some bread.

RICHARD: ‘Have we gained or lost by our belief?’ you ask ... I would unhesitatingly say lost. One has only to consider the countless tens of millions of lives lost in religious wars; one has only to consider the tens of millions of peoples tortured, maimed and raped due to religious belief and dogma; one has only to consider the tens of millions of peoples suffering unnecessary grief because of religions; one has only to consider the tens of millions of people’s guilt about sexuality because of religions and their imposition of unliveable tenets; one has only to consider the tens of millions of peoples ... shall I go on and on about it or is this short list sufficient?

Will you send your hug and bread as a zipped or unzipped attachment ... or will you send it in plain text? You must acknowledge that it is a pretty useless means to bring about peace-on-earth, eh?

RESPONDENT: I think that issues such as your example of the flat-ness of the earth became an issue which led to things such as: world development and government enlargement and pain and societies that are out of control ... I think Jesus Christ had some more important lessons to give. Like, ‘... once you get on the ship to find out if the world if flat ... go ahead and love your neighbour as yourself’. We got the big ideas on our own and we completely missed the basics that were handed right to us.

RICHARD: His ‘important lesson’ – ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ – is fatally flawed. Your ‘self’ is malicious and sorrowful and a loving and lovable self is still a self, nevertheless. And so all the suffering goes on ... and on ... and on.

We never did get any ‘big ideas of our own’ – we were stuffed full of other people’s ideas from birth onward. Just look at this list as an example: not an original thought in sight – which must be the definition of genius – they are all repeating the ‘tried and true’ ... little realising that they are the ‘tried and failed’. Wake up and smell the coffee.

RESPONDENT: Do we live in a civilised world?

RICHARD: Yes.

RESPONDENT: If you are not experiencing the negative effects of instincts and your neighbours / co-workers / fellow human beings are ... isn’t your life just as chaotic simply due to your interaction with them? Or do you feel as though you have carved out a place where you can exist that way and interact at the same time? Is a peaceful and harmonious existence what we are striving to have in our lives?

RICHARD: No, my life is not chaotic because of my ‘interaction with them’ for I have indeed ‘carved out a place where you can exist that way and interact at the same time’. I thoroughly recommend such a way of living, for I am not ‘striving to have a peaceful and harmonious existence’ – I already have that to the ultimate degree of purity and perfection.

RESPONDENT: Enjoy the rest of your day.

RICHARD: Thank you, I will ... in fact, I happen to know that I will enjoy the rest of my life.

RESPONDENT: I am a work in progress and I do not believe for a minute that my belief system is incompatible with the state you have reached. I happen to believe I am finite and will never be able to fully right myself with ‘God’ by my own works, finding ... I believe I know how to get there though. I do not see all these ideas as being so far apart. The roads to the destination are a bit different. In its unpolluted sense I do not see any dissonance between your description of your daily life and the goal I am striving for. Only the language changes. The path is different. The after life might better be described as the start of life.

RICHARD: There is more than a change of language required before a self-confessed ‘card carrying Christian’ can reach the destination that I write of, because not only are the roads different, but so too are the goals. For a start, no Christian I have heard of has as their goal the ambition to eliminate their ego and soul – their self and Self – because their ego is required in order to remain a sinner requiring repentance and forgiveness and their soul is required to get to ‘Heaven’ ... or at least it did the last time I looked at Christianity. Secondly, I am a thorough-going atheist through and through and I know for a fact that not only is any god a fantasy, but so too is any after-life. Thirdly, I do not need any compassion to co-exist with the bad because compassion – being born out of sorrow – has cruelty as its opposite and very necessary counter-part to support it. And to forestall any further suggestions of the application of the ‘tried and true’ methods of dealing with humanity’s ills – which are the ‘tried and failed’ methods – I have also dispensed with love which, being born out of loneliness, comes hand-in-hand with hatred ... its essential companion-in-arms.

*

RICHARD: I explored for years and exhausted all the possibilities ... until there was nothing left to explore ... which does not surprise me as Christianity has such a paucity of expression. I also studied Zen until it too exhausted its possibilities and promise ... so too with all other religions. I now have all the answers – and they are not a matter of belief.

RESPONDENT: What are your answers a matter of? How does one exhaust all the possibilities. Do you think you have been offered them all, or run across them all?

RICHARD: My answers are a matter of fact and actuality only ... there is nary a belief necessary to live fully and completely here on earth. And one exhausts all the possibilities through application and diligence, patience and perseverance, determination and obsession ... which are born out of the pure intent to achieve a condition of perfection here on earth, as this body, in this lifetime. When one realises that one’s identity – what one thinks and feels to be who ‘I’ am – is but a psychological entity that has taken possession of this body and is standing in the way of peace and harmony and serenity, one willingly self-immolates, psychologically speaking. In the ensuring condition of innocence and probity one is both blithe and gay, happy and harmless, fulfilled and content. One has reached one’s destiny by having escaped one’s fate and nothing more needs to be done for the remainder of one’s life other than to live each moment again with the spontaneous enjoyment and appreciation that comes with being alive only at this moment in time and this place in space. Thus all possibilities have been offered, run across ... and exhausted for being the illusions and delusions that they are.

RESPONDENT: Many people would tell you they chose their beliefs with the full knowledge of the pain that would ensue. Not in a Stoic sense but in a ‘I will stand for what is right in a world which is wrong’ Death and torture and maiming would only matter to those who were attached to this place and these bodies ... yes? If you believe your life should run on specific guidelines that are laid out in a perfect plan—if there are things which you are instructed not to do ... guilt over the difference in what you say you believe and what you do sounds very reasonable. People who have no stake in these beliefs do not feel guilt. They are not involved. Suffering has a lot of value ... the least of which I believe is to show that suffering has no reality. Again this time and time illustrated in the Bible. Our bodies fall into the category of material things which are not coming with. They are a possession ... another thing to be chained to. We believe they are livable. Jesus Christ lived so that could be shown. We will never get it right though until we are done with all this here in this life. We are incomplete without the gift of perfection that frees us and allows us to align ourselves with ‘God’. Again, I see a lot easy outs by using examples of people who distorted their faith to bend to their lives. Not a good standard to look at. Jesus would be a better one to do a comparative study with. He is the only one I am called to do that with anyway. But if we have the capacity to be the universe then why is it necessary to include 10 million people in your example to drive your point home? Wouldn’t one persons suffering be enough? The numbers shouldn’t matter.

RICHARD: Do you see now where not only is our language different but the goal is too? You say: ‘Our bodies fall into the category of material things which are not coming with (us?). They are a possession ... another thing to be chained to’. I am this body only and I have already reached my destination – it was always here on earth. For you, it would appear, that ‘I’ am a soul which will eventually discard this body and go somewhere metaphysical when ‘we are done with all this here in this life’. Thus ‘I’ need to believe and have faith, whereas I have certainty and confidence born of the facts and actuality lying open and plain to view at all times.

And there are, at the latest count, 5.8 billion people suffering on this planet. All because of belief ... believing that perfection is not possible here on earth, in this life-time, as this body.

*

RESPONDENT: I could explain my position better by hugging you or baking you some bread.

RICHARD: Will you send your hug and bread as a zipped or unzipped attachment ... or will you send it in plain text? You must acknowledge that it is a pretty useless means to bring about peace-on-earth, eh?

RESPONDENT: Truth as well as peace is shared and reaped on a one to one basis. Do you have children or a spouse or a friend or Richard ... I dare not ask ... do you have an enemy? Try the hug (try the bread ... you might be surprised. It is not the ‘thing’ that is so important. The bread is life and the hug is love. They are gifts that can be exchanged. They are gifts that ought to be exchanged more often. Everyone Hug One! (bumper stickers?) Not the most frugal use of peaceful resources but it sure beats an automatic weapon or the balled up end of someone’s arm. If each one is the universe or the potential of the universe ... won’t you just have joined up with something pretty amazing with your peace and hope? How would you bring about peace on earth? Or in your home?

RICHARD: I have two spouses, four children, seven grandchildren and 5.8 billion friends ... and as you did dare to ask ... not a single enemy. I tried the hug and the bread systems for years and years ... and I was not surprised when they just did not work. ‘I’ the ‘hugger’ and the ‘baker’ was the problem all along, and ‘I’ was trying to curry favour by being a ‘nice guy’ with all ‘my’ giving and loving and sharing ... all done so as to distract attention away from the fact that ‘I’ was rotten to the core. My parasitical ‘I’ bought about individual peace on earth for this body by the psychological self-immolation that I described above ... and I would bring about global peace on earth by encouraging anyone else to do the same.

Thus I already have peace in my home.

*

RICHARD: His ‘important lesson’ – ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ – is fatally flawed. Your ‘self’ is malicious and sorrowful and a loving and lovable self is still a self, nevertheless. And so all the suffering goes on ... and on ... and on.

RESPONDENT: I do not think this is flawed. As I spoke of earlier ... I take it as fact that the suffering will go on and on right up until the end. It has a purpose and its lesson. I think it shows how we simply cannot rid this place of these things on our own. We haven’t done it yet and I see no reason to believe it is an achievement on our horizon. Love your neighbour as yourself means to me ... acknowledge that self (because it exists in me too!) and become compassion so that others may become it to you. It is a rule for getting through ... for being family. I realise you do not subscribe to this but because you are alive and could be my neighbour I think it is relevant. I postulate that you could be deeply affected by my lack of compassion or from the fact that not enough people have taken the time to hug me.

RICHARD: On the contrary, I am not at all affected by either your surplus or your lack of compassion and love. And where you say that you do not think his ‘important lesson’ to be fatally flawed you are demonstrating again that not only is our language different – and our goals different – but that our methods of ‘getting there’ are also diametrically opposite. And suffering will go on up until what end? The end of the world? The end of your life? Furthermore, suffering serves no purpose whatsoever and has no lesson to give ... the only good thing about suffering is when it ceases, permanently. The annihilation of self – the ego and soul – is the cessation of suffering. Then one has achieved perfection ... here on earth, in this life-time, as this body.

We can indeed ‘rid this place of these things on our own’ ... but I am under no illusion that this will happen en masse.

*

RICHARD: Just look at this list as an example ... not an original thought in sight – which must be the definition of genius – they are all repeating the ‘tried and true’ ... little realising that they are the ‘tried and failed’. Wake up and smell the coffee.

RESPONDENT: Wake up and smell the coffee is pretty vague ... so I am now sitting here sipping my coffee wondering if you could expand on this a little. Do you have solutions in mind for this state of affairs you see things in? If not, why not?

RICHARD: Yes, I do have solutions ... I have been writing about nothing but the problem and the solution all along. ‘I’, in any way, shape or form, am the very problem and the solution lies in ‘my’ hands. ‘I’ must psychologically self-immolate ... and ... Hey Presto! ... peace on earth in our own life-time.

RESPONDENT: Do we live in a civilised world?

RICHARD: Yes.

RESPONDENT: I wholeheartedly disagree – but then again, you already know that don’t you! The whole we are as strong as our weakest link thing rings real true in my life. We are as civilised as our least civilised.

RICHARD: I gather you mean being civilised as in being humane ... civilised usually means domesticated, socialised, cultured, refined, tamed, etc. ... as in living in houses and towns and cities with electricity and suchlike. That is, no longer primitive as in living in caves and bough shelters whilst gnawing on a raw brontosaurus bone and covered with lice. After all, if you re-read what I wrote (which you cut and pasted above) I made it clear that I was talking of comparing living in the wild to being domesticated. Methinks you were just being disingenuous.

But since you raised the issue ... no, I can not agree. Forget about this pre-occupation with the whole, for the while, and focus on the one and most important culprit that you can lay your hands upon – yourself. Your actual freedom – which ensures personal peace on earth – has nothing to do with the whole and everything to do with the individual. ‘I’ stand in the way of me as-I-am being actually humane – and for twenty four hours of every day for the rest of my life. And the good news is that ‘my’ psychological demise is the first and only step necessary to usher in the beginning of a global peace on earth.

My individual peace is the best thing I can do for the whole.