Actual Freedom – Mailing List ‘A’ Correspondence

RICHARD: Yes, this is exactly the case. People can spend a life-time cleansing themself, purifying themself, abstaining from all kinds of things ... to no avail. The way to freedom is by removing oneself from the ‘real world’ and stepping swiftly into the actual world ... and leaving your ‘self’ behind where it belongs. Life is a grim business in the ‘real world’ with only scant moments of reprieve ... and it is ‘I’ who creates the ‘real world’ reality over the top of the actual world. In a valiant, but ultimately futile attempt to stay in existence, ‘I’ can realise ‘myself’ as being the ‘Transcendent Self’ existing for all ‘Eternity’ ... ‘Deathless’, ‘Unborn’, Undying’, ‘Timeless’, ‘Spaceless’, ‘Immortal’ ... and so on. This has been the way of humans for millennia: to escape from ‘reality’ by creating a ‘Greater Reality’ ... this is the wisdom of the Sages and the Saints, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours – and is but a delusion created out of an illusion. It is all predicated upon the persistence of an identity existing through into an ‘After-Life’.

RESPONDENT: I could hear the moving of the ripples, the glorious blue constantly wavering was somehow closer to my face than had I been an inch away from it. The light reflecting off the water was everywhere and I could see it was travelling, see its speed. The insects were audible in the minutest detail – as if I had acquired the hearing of a bat.

RICHARD: This is a very accurate description of what I call the actual world – the world of the sense organs unmediated by a ‘who’ within the body. For the sake of clarity, I call this apperception. Apperception – which the Oxford Dictionary defines as: ‘The mind’s perception of itself’ – is when ‘I’ temporarily vacate the scene and I experience myself as being these eyes seeing, these ears hearing ... and so on. All the senses are heightened and all is vivid, intense, vital and dynamic. Everywhere and everything is already perfect as-it-is and nothing more needs to be done other than to live this experience, every moment again, for the term of one’s natural life. There is no need for a sense of identity, a sense of self, a sense of ‘I’ ... in fact, ‘I’ have been standing in the way, all these years, of this actual world being apparent. It is actually as simple as this to be free. And with the ending of ‘I’, which was only an illusion, and by not falling prey to becoming the second ‘I’, which is a delusion (‘I am God’, ‘I am The Supreme’, I am That’, I am The Absolute’ – or even just ‘I am’), one has eliminated both sorrow and malice forever. There is no evil in the actual world; evil exists only in the human psyche ... and in the ‘real world’ which ‘I’ create. Likewise there is no sorrow in the actual world; suffering exists only in the human psyche also. The actual world is a world of benignity and benevolence.

RESPONDENT: The realisation that the ‘I’ that I employed to go about in the world was absent, a mere illusion, was quite a shock for obvious reasons. In a way I think I tried to invite it in as there was a fear about moving in the world without a distinct ‘I’.

RICHARD: It is usually fear which prevents one from entering into actuality, for after all, it means the end of ‘you’ ... which is everything that you think and feel yourself to be ... every single bit of ‘you’. It means extinction, the end of being anyone at all; it is the end of ‘being’ itself. ‘I’ do not exist in any way, shape or form. Fear can become terror – and terror can become dread. It requires nerves of steel to go all the way ... but the rewards for doing so are beyond price.

RESPONDENT: I remember looking at that ‘I’ just before I left this garden of Eden as something so alien to the real me, something with absolutely no connection to what I am, a completely lost, forsaken, deluded, ignorant false entity that had taken over my life for 22 years at that point and was about to conquer me again.

RICHARD: I have written elsewhere: ‘The way of becoming actually free is both simple and practical. One starts by dismantling the sense of identity that has been overlaid, from birth onward, over the innate self until one is virtually free from all the social mores and psittacisms. Virtually free from all the beliefs, ideas, values, theories, truths, customs, traditions, ideals, superstitions ... and all the other schemes and dreams. One can become aware of all the socialisation, of all the conditioning, of all the programming, of all the methods and techniques that were used to produce what one thinks and feels oneself to be – a wayward identity careering around in confusion and illusion. A ‘mature adult’ is actually a lost, lonely, frightened and very cunning entity. However, it is never too late to start in on uncovering and discovering what one actually is. One can become virtually free from all the insidious feelings – the emotions and passions – that fuel the mind and give credence to all the illusions and delusions and fantasies and hallucinations that masquerade as visions of The Truth. One can become virtually free of all that which has encumbered humans with misery and despair and live in a state of virtual freedom ... which is beyond normal human expectations anyway. Then, and only then, can the day of destiny dawn wherein one becomes actually free. One will have obtained release from one’s fate and achieved one’s birthright ... and the world will be all the better for it’.

RESPONDENT: Just before I took the final leap into this Realm (fully thinking I would find only death, once my inner world of samsara was extinguished) I actually heard within a rush of many what seemed to be spirits spurring me on to go for it, as if it was the only thing truly worth doing, which indeed it is.

RICHARD: This was my experience also, seventeen years ago. I have since ascertained that, of course, these spirits are born out of the Human Condition ... coming from what is coined ‘The Collective Unconscious’. It matters not, the main thing is that you were spurred on, because it is indeed the only thing worth doing. Just so long as you do not believe in the ‘spirits’ as actually existing you will be safe from the delusions that have beset other human beings in similar situations. If you make the mistake of believing in them you may very well fall into surrendering to some ‘Higher Power’, some ‘Ultimate Authority’ and miss out on the magnificence of living as a free and autonomous human being in this actual world of people, things and events.

RESPONDENT: People should not innately have to suffer the constant cyclic pain of attachments that forever bear no solid fruit, and thoughts that merely lead one in meaningless perpetual circles. I felt that me as a person was not deserving of that fate either now, before, or any longer, and I was prepared to sacrifice all I had if that’s what was required, even if it meant death, I wasn’t content to lead a dishonest life of subservience to unfulfilling desires.

RICHARD: I echo your sentiments: ‘I was prepared to sacrifice all I had if that is what is required – even if it meant death’ . Back in 1981 the ‘I’ that I was then was prepared to do whatever it took (provided it broke no legal law of society). I fondly call it the ‘boots and all’ approach; it was a task that ‘I’ dedicated ‘my’ life to.

I would like to finish of with something I wrote some time ago: ‘The peak experience provides an objective standpoint to view ‘I’ from. It is easily seen from here that ‘I’ stand in the way of ultimate fulfilment ... of ‘my’ destiny. Pure contemplation is the means to provide one with repeated opportunities to make this examination thorough; all doubt is removed and only surety remains. This is the only way one will be convinced that ‘I’ must vanish altogether. This is why I can say, confidently, that the ‘death of the ego’ is not sufficient, for it only means substituting an impersonal ‘I’ – now called ‘Being’ – for the personal ‘I’. ‘Being’, whether it goes with a capital to denote Divinity or not, means an ‘I’ is still in existence. Therefore the ‘death of the ego’ people’s ‘discoveries’ about the fate of humanity are questionable, to say the least, and their ‘solutions’ to life’s problems are equally suspect. Unless there is an end to ‘being’, which is what death is, one can not say one has penetrated into the ‘Mystery of Life’, one has not found ultimate fulfilment, one has not achieved peace-on-earth. One is only fooling oneself – and some other gullible people – if one is so easily satisfied.

‘This ‘death of the ego’ is only for the orthodox-minded people; it is for those who are easily seduced by the Glamour and the Glory and the Glitz of the much-touted Altered State. This is why pure intent is an essential prerequisite to ensure a guaranteed passage through the psychic maze. With pure intent one will not rest until one has gone all the way. One will not be bewitched by the psychic Power and Authority, either. All these allurements are but welcome food for the cunning ego, which wanting only its own survival, readily sublimates itself into the Spirit. With the clarity born of pure intent one can see this play for what it is and move on freely and willingly to what lies at the end of the wide and wondrous path ... the end of ‘being’. With pure intent one will not settle for second best, for it has been seen in the peak experiences that the very best is possible, here on earth. One sees that ‘I’ must disappear entirely. There will be no transcendence, no transmutation, no metamorphosis ... not any of these. For one who goes all the way, no phoenix will exist to arise from the ashes – nothing Metaphysical will remain. There will be no ‘being’ at all. ‘I’ will become extinct.

‘I use the word extinct deliberately for it carries a definitive meaning. Physically, death is the end of an individual member of the species, whilst extinction is the ending of the species itself. The psychological annihilation of ‘I’ – in its entirety – is the psychological ending of the species known as ‘humanity’. It is the end of ‘being’ and the end of an illusion. It is also the end of ‘Being’ and the end of delusion. The Human Condition, with all its appalling sorrow and malice, has come to an end in me. All those would-be wise people who state smugly: ‘You can’t change human nature’ are, fortunately, wrong. Because it is possible for ‘me’ to become extinct, thereby releasing the body from the ‘being’ within, I can walk freely in the world as-it-is – this actual world. I, as this body only, am living in that perfect purity twenty-four-hours-a-day. I live in a state of benignity, which means a kindly and harmless disposition. Life is a playful game and I am free to enjoy it all, every moment again.

‘‘Humanity’, which gave birth to ‘me’, was being sustained by ‘me’ remaining as a ‘being’. ‘I’ am forever fettered by the Human Condition. The species known as ‘humanity’ has searched for an Ultimate Fulfilment within the arena of the Human Condition for all of history. Such a search is endless and futile, for it is a search within an illusion. Only further illusions – further states of ‘being’ – can be found there ... or delusions. Becoming Divine is a delusion – a state of ‘Being’ that is an insult to intelligence. ‘I’ will never find the ultimate fulfilment for ‘I’ am standing in the way of the ‘Mystery of Life’ being revealed. There is no way out, ‘I’ am doomed. ‘I’ must, inevitably, cease to ‘be’. Instead of bemoaning ‘my’ fate and vainly searching for an escape, ‘I’ can see ‘myself’ for what ‘I’ am. This seeing is the beginning of the ending of ‘me’. The extinction of ‘me’ is the ultimate sacrifice ‘I’ can make to ensure the possibility of peace-on-earth for not only me but for all humankind.

‘I find myself here, in the world as-it-is. A vast stillness lies all around, abounding with purity. Beneficence, an active kindness, overflows in all directions, imbuing everything with unimaginable fairytale-like quality. For me to be able to be here at all was a blessing that only ‘I’ could grant, because nobody else could do it for me. I am full of admiration for the ‘me’ that dared to do such a thing. I owe all that I experience now to ‘me’. I salute ‘my’ audacity. And what an adventure it was ... and still is. These are the wondrous workings of the exquisite nature of life – who would have it any other way?’ (pages 103-104: ‘Richard’s Journal’, ©The Actual Freedom Trust 1997)