Actual Freedom – Mailing List ‘A’ Correspondence

Meanwhile people thoughtlessly pursue the elusive chimera of Eastern Enlightenment.

RESPONDENT: Back in about 1980 I did a stint in the woods ... in the National Forests for a couple years. I spent almost all my time in the wilderness at that time. On a sunny afternoon, in the backyard of where I was living at the foot of a mountain ... I had a blanket out doing my yoga exercises when this happened ... the phenomenon of suddenly trembling and the mind spinning towards dizziness and potential unconsciousness ... I just stared at my hands. They kept vibrating and with a shimmery essence – and when I looked up – suddenly I could see every leaf on every tree, every blade of grass, all the bugs and grains of dirt, every bird on every single branch, in a 180 degree circumference all around my head, all at the same time, all at once. It was beyond incredible. At the time, I was not seeking that enlightenment; in fact it freaked me out forever. And – I do not know the ‘intellectual jargon’ either eastern or western; just that it gave me a unique perspective on this life. Now that I know the possibilities, how can I just ruminate on analysis?

RICHARD: I find your description above to be an accurate portrayal of what I have been calling a peak experience. At other times I have named it an actual intimacy, which I defined as: ‘the direct experience of the actuality of people, things and events’. It is a condition wherein the psychological distance disappears and everything is immediate and ultimate. In actual freedom everything and everybody stands out intense and vivid and dynamic and alive ... the physical world of the senses is experienced as having a magical – almost fairy-tale like – quality wherein the actuality of this corporeal world is indubitably verified and is seen, touched, tasted, smelt and heard to be substantial ... and perfect as-it-is.

Yet Hindu and Buddhist philosophy calls this physical world we all live in Maya ... they say it is unreal ... that it does not exist ... that only the ‘Greater Reality’ – a supernatural dimension beyond the senses – is real. This is why I write so vigorously as I do. We are already all always living in perfection, here-on-earth, if only we acted upon our seeing that this is so in a peak experience ... such as you described so well. They were actual leaves, actual trees, actual grasses, actual birds and actual branches, were they not? Perfection is already here ... all around us ... we are that perfection. And, of course, it is here in space and now in time – and is only able to be experienced as this body, in this life-time, on this fair planet of ours.

It matters not that you arrived at the experience via yoga ... other people have arrived via drugs, via sex, via art, via just washing the dishes, via just about anything at all. What matters is that one has the experience, remembers the experience and acts upon the experience. Unfortunately, because of acculturation, people ascribe it to ‘transcendence’ or whatever ‘god’ their society holds in esteem and go of searching for the ‘Greater Beyond’ that lies outside of time and space ... indeed, outside of this very universe we all live in.

It is possible to live the experience you had for the twenty four hours of every day. I call it being here. I have described it thus: ‘The real world, which ‘I’ had created out of imagination, is but a veneer pasted over the actual, and to go in search of a ‘Greater Reality’ is to go in the wrong direction. One arrives in the actual by becoming involved, totally involved in being here ... not by practicing detachment. Being here is to put your money where your mouth is, as it were. In being here one is completely immersed. Being here is total inclusion. One demonstrates one’s appreciation of life by partaking fully in existence ... by letting this moment live one. One dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here as the universe’s experience of itself.

It is unfortunate indeed to waste this precious moment of being alive by being somewhere else but here.

RICHARD: It is possible to live the experience you had for the twenty four hours of every day. I call it being here. I have described it thus: ‘The real world, which ‘I’ had created out of imagination, is but a veneer pasted over the actual, and to go in search of a ‘Greater Reality’ is to go in the wrong direction. One arrives in the actual by becoming involved, totally involved in being here ... not by practicing detachment. Being here is to put your money where your mouth is, as it were. In being here one is completely immersed. Being here is total inclusion. One demonstrates one’s appreciation of life by partaking fully in existence ... by letting this moment live one. One dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here as the universe’s experience of itself.

RESPONDENT: Something about needing to agree on some level on a material reality in order to manifest one (material reality) with 7.5 billion live beings speaking different languages, from different planes, different ages, past histories, different dreams of butterflies. Intellectual jargon provides structure for social interaction; not actual experience. I agree with what you say entirely. As long as a person does not insist that their dream is ‘the only true Truth’ and no one else’s ... I am (somewhat) tolerant of the various descriptions of methods of dreaming.

RICHARD: I was not talking about ‘needing to agree on some level on a material reality in order to manifest one (material reality)’ , in which you could then say ‘I agree with what you say entirely’ , because you then go on and demonstrate that you do not ‘agree with me entirely’ ... it is a conditional agreement only. A leaf on a tree is not a ‘dream’ ; it is not a ‘method of dreaming’ ; it is not a ‘different dream of butterflies’ ; it is not ‘intellectual jargon’ ; it is not that ‘[my] dream is ‘the only true Truth’ and no one else’s’ ... it is a matter-of-fact actuality.

I have written elsewhere: ‘for many years I mistakenly assumed that words carried a definitive meaning that was common to all peoples speaking the same language ... for example ‘real’ and ‘truth’. But, as different person’s told me things like: ‘That is only your truth’, or: ‘God is real’, I realised that unambiguous words are required. (To a child, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are ‘real’ and ‘true’). Correspondingly I abandoned ‘real’ and ‘true’ in favour of ‘actual’ and ‘fact’, as experience has demonstrated that no one has been able to tell me that their god is actual or that something is only my fact. Therefore this keyboard is actual (these finger-tips feeling it substantiate this) and it is a fact that these printed letters are forming words on the screen (these eyes seeing it validate this). These things are indisputable and verifiable by any body with the requisite sense-organs’.

Over the years, many, many people have told me that ‘this world is not real’ or that ‘we are only dreaming that we are here’ or that ‘it is a belief that this world exists’ or something similar. I usually invite them to walk through a wall to demonstrate that their statement is correct. When they decline, I have always found it useful to suggest that they put a peg firmly on their nose and a large piece of sticking-plaster over their mouth. This way, within less than two minutes – as they rip the plaster off and gasp for breath – they have a direct experience of the actuality of this very physical world that we all live in. Most people continue to live in a state of denial, however. Such is the strength of belief over fact.

It is unfortunate indeed to waste this precious moment of being alive by being somewhere else (in a belief) but here.

RICHARD: Time has no duration when the immediate is the ultimate. This moment takes no time at all to be here. It is as if nothing has occurred, for not only is the future not here, but the past does not exist either.

RESPONDENT: <snip>

RICHARD: Past and future are mental ‘products’. They have no independent existence of their own.

RESPONDENT: <smip>

RICHARD: ‘Step out of the real world into the actual world ... and leave yourself behind ... where ‘you’ belong’.

RESPONDENT: <bleep!>

RICHARD: This moment is always here – but it is a perennially moving moment, without duration, in eternal time.

RESPONDENT: <sneep>

RESPONDENT No. 3: The old Zen fogies talk about carrying water, chopping wood, eating when you are hungry, and sleeping when you are tired.

RESPONDENT: <snipe>

RICHARD: I am ever-fresh ... I am never boring ... I am ever-fresh. I have never been here before ... everything is happening for the very first time.

RESPONDENT: <snip>

RICHARD: I am happening for the very first time. A psychological entity that endures through psychological time. Whereas I have never been here before. ... and neither has this moment.

RESPONDENT: <snap> The wonder of moments spent thrashing through virtually priceless trivia seeking the kernel of truth like a ‘needle in a haystack’, when by stopping searching, why – here we are!

RICHARD: It is indeed unfortunate that you find all this to be ‘thrashing through virtually priceless trivia’ . You are missing out on the possibility of the most delicious actualisation of a perfect freedom. To be free from the self is to be free from malice and sorrow ... which is peace-on-earth in our time. If you have been following this thread you will have noticed by now that I am most definitely not interested in ‘The Truth’. I have written before: ‘Philosophical wisdom, Psychological knowledge and Spiritual enlightenment have had their day and are proving themselves to be inadequate to meet the requirements of this modern era. For thousands of years – maybe tens of thousands of years – humankind has known of no alternative manner of living life on this verdant planet. The passing parade of Philosophers and Preachers, Masters and Sages – geniuses and thinkers of all description – have failed abysmally to deliver their oft-promised ‘Peace On Earth’ ... in fact, instead of their much-vaunted love and virtue, they have left in their wake much hatred and bloodshed, the likes of which beggars description’.

So I wonder why you think that the snipped sentences you quoted are indications of ‘seeking the kernel of truth like a ‘needle in a haystack’’

Also, if one does what you recommend (‘by stopping searching, why – here we are!’) then all the wars, murders, tortures, rapes, domestic violence and corruption galore will continue to go on. If one diligently pursues the wide and wondrous path of an actual freedom all the way, one will find oneself here for the very first time ... not, as is popularly supposed, back where ‘we’ started from. One will be innocent and harmless; happy and carefree; salubrious and sagacious. As this is a far cry from your simplistic solution and cavalier dismissal of the reflective pursuit of understanding through the thoughtful discussion of the human condition, you might be well advised to cease snipping, sniping and snapping and listen with both ears.

RESPONDENT: Woe unto ‘father time’ for maintaining the linear mindset to such a degree that people have to think so much just to ‘keep up’ that they miss the ‘forest for the trees’.

RICHARD: It is all so easy to quote pithy aphorisms, is it not? Much easier than doing something about eliminating one’s malice and sorrow.

RESPONDENT: It is such a good habit to thank people, rather than rank on them and pick them to pieces like so much carrion! After all ... we are not all scavengers, but ‘Sensitive New Age Guy’s in here, are we not?

RICHARD: If you actually meant these sentiments sincerely, then what are you doing with ‘picking [us] to pieces like so much carrion’ ? I refer you to your own opening sentence above: Viz.: ‘the wonder of moments spent thrashing through virtually priceless trivia seeking the kernel of truth like a ‘needle in a haystack’’

If that is not ‘picking to pieces’ I would like to know what is.

RICHARD: I must acknowledge that I do not have the faintest notion as to how this [your last three posts] relates to our discussion about the possibility of perfection here on earth. <snip>

RESPONDENT: This ‘antler-butting’ against trees are doing the credibilities of many sensitive peoples a lot of incredulous and jaded harm. People think that they can just deny and invalidate large portions of reality, and it will just ‘go away’ to suit their personal needs? This is folly.

RICHARD: In what way is these ‘antler-butting’ doing harm? The ‘credibilities of many sensitive peoples’ are prone to be called into question when they are patently incorrect ... given that the self-same ‘credibilities’ create a ‘reality’ that has killed and maimed countless hundreds of millions (if not billions) of people over the centuries.

I would call believing in this abominable ‘reality’ a folly of the highest order.

RICHARD: I must acknowledge that I do not have the faintest notion as to how this [your last three posts] relates to our discussion about the possibility of perfection here on earth. <snip>

RESPONDENT: This ‘antler-butting’ against trees are doing the credibilities of many sensitive peoples a lot of incredulous and jaded harm. People think that they can just deny and invalidate large portions of reality, and it will just ‘go away’ to suit their personal needs? This is folly.

RICHARD: In what way is these ‘antler-butting’ doing harm? The ‘credibilities of many sensitive peoples’ are prone to be called into question when they are patently incorrect ... given that the self-same ‘credibilities’ create a ‘reality’ that has killed and maimed countless hundreds of millions (if not billions) of people over the centuries. I would call believing in this abominable ‘reality’ a folly of the highest order.

RESPONDENT: This is really a messy, messy post! For one thing, I did not say the first quote, as seems indicated. Did I say something about the antler-butting? Now – that sounds like something I would say ... all in all, it sounds like you and I are in total agreement and commenting upon the same tendencies.

RICHARD: Unless someone is sending me E-Mails in your name, address, format and style, then yes you did say the first quote. And you ask: ‘did I say something about antler-butting?’ How would I know whether you wrote something or not ... given that you do not even know what you wrote? A very strange business indeed.

I do, however, fail to see how it sounds like you and I are in total agreement ... your posts of late are all about each of us allowing other people to have their own ‘reality’ (belief) and to stop claiming that one knows the ultimate truth or whatever. This is similar to the line pushed by the United Nations, for example, that insists that peoples be allowed to practice their own religious belief – religious tolerance, it is called – and so all the wars go on ... and on ... and on.

I do not see how we are commenting on the same tendencies for I am very busy ‘antler-butting’ against each and everybody’s belief systems, wherever they pop up, in an earnest endeavour to bring some sensibility onto this fair planet we all live on ... and what fun it is into the bargain. You, too, are ‘antler-butting’ by telling everybody to stop doing it their way and to start doing it your way – which is not your way, anyhow, for you have merely adopted the principle of tolerance, as being your own wisdom, from other ‘Great Thinkers’ that have gone before us. It has all been tried before, to no avail.

Also, from memory, you seem to advocate love as being the cure-all for humanity’s ills ... which is another ‘tried and true’ principle that has been tried and tried again and again and failed and failed again and again. These time-honoured methods just do not work – it is high time they were ditched in favour of something that does. Or else the wars will go on and on.

I just thought that I would take this opportunity to point out that you are doing the same thing that you implore everyone else to stop doing ... imposing your ‘reality’ upon others to suit your own personal needs.

Is this not your folly in action?

RICHARD: Unless someone is sending me E-Mails in your name, address, format and style, then yes you did say the first quote. And you ask: ‘Did I say something about antler-butting?’ How would I know whether you wrote something or not ... given that you do not even know what you wrote? A very strange business indeed.

RESPONDENT: I did not write the above phrase to you in any way shape or form. I have not even been in dialogue with you concerning ‘perfection on earth’ now, have I? No – I have not. If it looks somewhere like I said it, it is the result of messy posting accountability, and not on my part. My response to your whole last post, without seeing any reason to repost it, is thus: – I do not see what it furthers your cause to flame someone who is admonishing tolerance for your viewpoints, as well as everyone’s also.

RICHARD: If by ‘flame’ you mean ‘anger’, then your much-touted tolerance is not working, is it? You got angry ... and angry people are not peaceful people, no matter how much they may preach tolerance ... which is my point.

RESPONDENT: If it hurts another person, like all women, or directly aimed at another as a flame, like you did to me, it becomes personal.

RICHARD: Of course it is personal ... are you only interested in being impersonal? Writing a theoretical treatise? Doing abstract philosophy? Peace is a very personal thing. An angry person is not – and this is personal – a peaceful person.

RESPONDENT: I choose to overlook whatever caused you to suddenly turn your penny ante and picky-uney vengeful wrath on me; it doesn’t even interest me.

RICHARD: I wish it did interest you, as you might then do something about actually being a peaceful person, rather than preaching a philosophy that you are clearly demonstrating does not work in practice.

RESPONDENT: I choose to overlook the spirit it was written in as misplaced anger, or projection, and in that way not take it personal.

RICHARD: As I know how I felt when I wrote it I can assure you that there was not a trace of ‘misplaced anger or projection’ (or ‘penny-ante and picky-uney vengeful wrath’ ) in me. As you can not know this, I have looked back through my post to see where it sounds like this ... and for the life of me I do not see it. It reads very mildly, to me. I was simply pointing out facts and what the actual situation is – as opposed to the theoretical situation. So you are choosing to overlook something that does not exist ... outside of your angry imagination, that is.

RESPONDENT: But I certainly hope you were not expecting me to take what you just wrote me without a grain of salt, as if your points were somehow pertinent to my perceptions of the Truth, and actually defend my views from your attack on them from you in a reasonable manner???

RICHARD: Well, I rather was expecting you to, actually. Can you indeed be reasonable? Is that possible?

RESPONDENT: Because – if you did, the hostility and way you present yourself not only lacks any attempt to communicate with me, and not preach at me, but involved scurrilous hostility as well.

RICHARD: Well, well, well, so it would appear that I am not only ‘hostile’ but my ‘hostility’ is ‘scurrilous’ as well. You do have a problem, do you not, with all this? And all because I pointed out that your preaching tolerance does not work.

RESPONDENT: So if you could reword your questions more simply, without the hostility, perhaps I would not be obligated to take on your personal problems and pains, just to wade through the post.

RICHARD: I can guarantee for you that you do not have to take on my ‘personal problems and pains’ as I do not have any – it is only your anger that makes you think that I do. As you keep on using the word ‘hostility’ , it sounds to me like there is something worthwhile looking into there ... though that is just a suggestion, mind you.

RESPONDENT: I would very much appreciate it if you would start over and try again.

RICHARD: Sure can. Your posts of late are all about each of us allowing other people to have their own ‘reality’ (belief) and to stop claiming that one knows the ultimate truth or whatever. This is similar to the line pushed by the United Nations, for example, that insists that peoples be allowed to practice their own religious belief – religious tolerance, it is called – and so all the wars go on ... and on ... and on. You have merely adopted the principle of tolerance, as being your own wisdom, from other ‘Great Thinkers’ that have gone before us. It has all been tried before, to no avail.

Also, from memory, you seem to advocate love as being the cure-all for humanity’s ills ... which is another ‘tried and true’ principle that has been tried and tried again and again and failed and failed again and again. These time-honoured methods just do not work – it is high time they were ditched in favour of something that does. Or else the wars will go on and on.

RESPONDENT: Chill out and take five, or something! maybe you need some Tylenol.

RICHARD: But I do not need to ... I just thought that I would take the opportunity to point out that you are doing the same thing that you implore everyone else to stop doing ... imposing your ‘reality’ upon others to suit your own personal needs ... which you said was folly.

So I asked: Is this not your folly in action?