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Richard’s Correspondence On The Actual Freedom Mailing List With Correspondent No. 12
RESPONDENT: I have just brought online a new website on which I intend to publish my understanding of what it means to be free; and in particular my relationship with the entity or method or concept or mindset or viewpoint known as ‘Actual Freedom’. The vision I have for the new site is as if I were writing a book about the Actual Freedom ‘tried and tested way of being happy and harmless in the world as it actually is’ from a journalistic perspective. It is a perspective that I choose to take; in freedom. The site will grow over time. I wonder if my site – which represents my viewpoint – could have a link to it from the home page of the www.actualfreedom.com.au site. In the same block as the links to Richard’s personal collection and Peter and Vineeto’s personal collection would do fine. I suggest the following text: Respondent’s Viewpoint: ‘The viewpoint that is ours, that is correct and true, may not be the only correct and true viewpoint. The willingness to look through 360 degrees and live accordingly is essential to freedom’. Latest Writing and Correspondence www.xxx.com. RICHARD: I am very pleased to take you up on your request – I appreciate your on-going interest and exploration – and am only too happy to provide such a link. RESPONDENT: Thank you; I would like you to do it as I suggested ... can you? As above? RICHARD: I have ... plus more than what you suggested. RESPONDENT: Well I appreciate what have done in the way that you saw to do it. But you have not done as I suggested. I suggested a link from the www.actualfreedom.com.au home page to my home page. That you have not done. I am not bringing the matter up again to try to convince you to do it; no; I bring the matter up again for accuracy. You have not done it as I suggested so it is a little misleading on your part to write ‘I have ... plus more’. That is fine; we can leave it at that if you like. RICHARD: You say ‘we can leave it at that if you like’ but you do not ... you come back to this point further on in your response ... and then more in the same vein in another paragraph... and even a brief follow-up reference in another. Viz.:
So that this does not get any further out of hand, this is all that you suggested:
I not only put the text you suggested, in toto and complete with radio link ... I also put all of your request ‘as-is’ at the top of the page; I also put my initial reply to your request immediately beneath for consistency; I also put all of the correspondence you and I have had since you first wrote to this Mailing List for background information (so as to make some sort of sense to a reader ... albeit weird sense). Thus I did indeed do far more than you suggested. The other issue you mix into what you call ‘the facts’ that you present (‘I requested something big; that you put a link from the hone page – and you put a link from a subordinate page’ ) is between you and all of the directors of The Actual Freedom Trust ... not between you and just me. I am personally meeting your request on my own web page (I do not mind my page being ‘subordinate’ ) ... and am taking what you suggest to be on the page further than what you wanted. I would sincerely suggest a pause at this juncture ... you may want to take some time out to reconsider your current course of action. I say this, not just because of the rather trivial scenario above, but because the whole thrust of your case against me is based upon spurious reasoning drawn from a viewpoint which you hold to be ‘correct and true’ . * RESPONDENT: I love doing the publishing. That is why I publish my point of view at actualfreedom.com. RICHARD: Okay ... and what I do is present facts and actuality. To each his own, eh? RESPONDENT: Well; this is the sort of superior ‘I know and you don’t’ ‘I present facts and you don’t’ that we discussed yesterday. I trust that eventually you will see that. RICHARD: I already see that: you are not the first person to inform me that I am ‘superior’ (or I am arrogant or I am condescending or whatever) and I would refer you to the correspondence I had with the ‘General Semantics’ respondent except you said you were much more interested in your own writing than anyone else’s when I did so before ... so I will copy-paste my response here:
RESPONDENT: In saying I present my point of view I am not implying that I do not present facts and actuality. RICHARD: Neither was I implying that ... but your presentation of facts and actuality is remarkably thin on the ground. * RICHARD: I have already had such a request before and was delighted to set-up a ‘mini-web page’
for the express purpose of presenting that person’s response to the words reporting my experience of peace-on-earth and how I
got here. You may be inclined to access this page and see for yourself. RESPONDENT: I cannot access that link – I get an error message – but my internet connection has been erratic all day. I will look later and let you know if the words are to my liking. Thanks. RICHARD: Okay ... you are aware, of course, that I will not proceed to make a public link to the writing under your name on the ‘mini-web page’ I have set-up until I have your approval? RESPONDENT: It looks very nice Richard. I like it. You have my approval to make the public link as you suggest. RICHARD: Good. RESPONDENT: By the way; last time I referred to the fact that you were using my words on your website without seeking my permission first you retorted to the effect that if I did not want that then I should be not on the internet. Now your attitude seems to have softened. May I ask is there a reason for the softening? RICHARD: You must be referring to this exchange:
Nowhere did I say that you ‘should be not on the internet’ and I hardly see that I ‘retorted’ when I gave the advice that I did about public domain mailing lists ... hence there is no ‘softening’ as there is no hard position for me to soften from. And in this current situation all the writing appears under your name, your web page URL and your E-Mail address – in sharp contrast to my made-anonymous correspondence archives – and I never, ever reveal these details without first seeking the other’s approval and consent. You will find I have been considerate all the way through. * RICHARD: I took note, where you wrote ‘my relationship with the entity or method or concept or mindset or viewpoint known as ‘Actual Freedom’’, that for you an actual freedom from the human condition is an entity or a method or a concept or a mindset or a viewpoint ... RESPONDENT: No. I did not say that. RICHARD: Okay ... I always take words at their face value. RESPONDENT: Then read them again and you will see that if you follow the grammatical structure of the sentence I wrote very carefully the face value that you perceive may alter. RICHARD: It does not alter at all ... and you yourself have pointed out (further below) a tendency to turn my descriptive words of an actual freedom from the human condition into viewpoints, concepts, mindsets or whatever. I will copy it up here to save you looking for it:
Therefore, you are clearly saying that, for you, an actual freedom from the human condition is an entity or a method or a concept or a mindset or a viewpoint that ‘exists autonomously and discretely’ in your mind (never mind about others just now). I do not present a ‘teaching’ – I am no Guru or God-Man – I am a fellow human being sans identity sharing my experience in descriptive words with my fellow human beings. * RESPONDENT: You seem to often assume that you know and the other does not and you read the words of the other accordingly. RICHARD: No, I read the words of the other at their face value. RESPONDENT: No; the fact is that you read words from your conditioned mind set. The difference between you and me is I acknowledge that in me and you deny it. That is a major difference. RICHARD: I am well aware that you are coming from the viewpoint that Richard is reading other’s words ‘from a conditioned mindset’ . Yet no matter how firmly a viewpoint is held, such holding does not miraculously turn it into a fact. This very subject we are examining is what you describe as ‘my relationship with the ... mindset known as ‘Actual Freedom’’ ... which ‘mindset’ exists only in your mind (never mind about other people just now). RESPONDENT: Read what I said again. RICHARD: Okay ... I have. RESPONDENT: Did you see that what I referred to in my sentence was an ‘entity known as actual freedom’ to shorten my expression a little. RICHARD: Yes, I see it ... an actual freedom is not an entity: it is a condition which ensues when the entity parasitically inhabiting the flesh and blood body (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) becomes extinct. The only entity which exists is a legal entity named ‘The Actual Freedom Trust’ ... created by an accountant in accord with the laws of this country for sensible commercial reasons (and it is the laws that describe such a legal body as being a ‘entity’). RESPONDENT: I refer to the writings and communications from you and others on this site and elsewhere. I refer to my relationship with those writings ... and those writings are known as the way to actual freedom, or in short actual freedom ... it is the actual freedom trust that I am referring to. I said nothing in my sentence about my relationship with actual freedom. RICHARD: Oh? See for yourself: here is your sentence: ‘my relationship with the entity or method or concept or mindset or viewpoint known as ‘Actual Freedom’’ . The words ‘actual freedom’, as used by me who coined the phrase, are a shortened way of saying ‘an actual freedom from the human condition, here on earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body’ ... for an example. If you would read what is on offer on The Actual Freedom Web Site you would see many examples of what the words ‘actual freedom’ represent. Again I say: the whole thrust of your case against me is based upon spurious reasoning drawn from a viewpoint which you hold to be ‘correct and true’ . RESPONDENT: Actual freedom entails a direct perception of this moment; and I did not mention that. RICHARD: If I may point out? An actual freedom from the human condition entails the extinction of identity (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) in toto – which means the entire affective faculty is extinguished as well – and not just ‘a direct perception of this moment’ . And I oft-times mention that ... that this is what the words ‘actual freedom’ mean (I ought to know what they mean as I coined the phrase). You are on a hiding to nowhere trying to re-define what my phrase means. RESPONDENT: Can you read my sentence yet again and acknowledge perhaps for the first time on this list that Richard has perceived some words via the expectation that Richard carries about what the other person is saying; and sees ‘face value’ from that VIEWPOINT; rather than from a direct perception, which is an impossibility when it comes to words anyway. RICHARD: I have never said that I have a ‘direct perception’ of other people’s words ... this is a ‘straw-man’ argument. RESPONDENT: Richard, it is so obvious you have a Viewpoint; I am intrigued why you go to such effort to deny it. RICHARD: I can assure you it is no effort whatsoever to write to you ... I have been challenged by experts. RESPONDENT: My experience is that having a viewpoint does not devalue or limit actual freedom ... RICHARD: Your experience (what you have related so far) can in no way be described as an actual freedom from the human condition. RESPONDENT: ... in fact acceptance of facts always is an indication that actual freedom is. RICHARD: Yet a fact is an actuality whether it be accepted or not: that which is actual is neither acceptable nor unacceptable: it simply sits there making your ‘acceptance’ (or non-acceptance) look silly. * RESPONDENT: The entity or method or concept or mindset or viewpoint known as ‘Actual Freedom’ I refer to is all the words and communication that is labelled ‘actual freedom’. RICHARD: Yet there is no ‘entity or method or concept or mindset or viewpoint known as ‘Actual Freedom’’ other than what exists in your mind. RESPONDENT: Not true; anther example of Richard pretending there is a fact when there is not. There are as many viewpoints into actual freedom as there are people who come in contact with the teaching you present. Each viewpoint exists autonomously and discretely in the mind of each person who comes into contact with your teaching. RICHARD: If some other person reads my description and likewise creates an ‘entity or method or concept or mindset or viewpoint known as ‘Actual Freedom’’ in their mind then that is their business ... I am talking about you and your viewpoint (the one which you hold to be ‘correct and true’ ). RESPONDENT: And the entity known as actual freedom exists in your mind also. RICHARD: Nothing I write or say about an actual freedom from the human condition is either an ‘entity’ or a viewpoint or a mindset or a world-view or a philosophy or a metaphysics or a thesis and so on as all that I write is a description which comes out of my direct and spontaneous experiencing at this moment in time at this place in space ... my words are an ‘after the event’ report, as it were. RESPONDENT: You have concepts and a viewpoint – that is clear. RICHARD: As I have remarked before, I do not have a viewpoint in regards to an actual freedom from the human condition. In other areas where I do have opinions, make estimations, find it reasonable to presume and so on, I never hold it to be ‘true and correct’ in the first place ... for I am well aware that it is only a current appraisal until further investigation shows otherwise. * RESPONDENT: So I was referring to my relationship with all that you and The Actual Freedom Trust puts out in the name of actual freedom. Of course; actual freedom is not that. Of course. RICHARD: In that case, then what you are referring to is your relationship with two million words (at a guess) appearing as pixels on a screen ... and those words explicate the workings of an actual freedom from the human condition and a virtual freedom in practice. Not that you have read all the words, of course. RESPONDENT: So; my relationship is with the words I have chosen to read. I make that choice in freedom. RICHARD: What you do is entirely your own business ... yet when you write to me about it you seek to engage me in what is going on for you. Therefore: nothing I have read from you indicates to me that the ‘freedom’ you are making your choice in relates in any way to my on-going experience twenty four hours of the day. RESPONDENT: I do not have a need to read more. I do not have a need for you or anyone to show me actual freedom. RICHARD: Well then ... why write to me? Get on with living your life the way you see fit. RESPONDENT: Why should I? Actual freedom entails direct perception of the moment. RICHARD: Again: an actual freedom from the human condition entails the extinction of identity (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) in toto – which means the entire affective faculty is extinguished as well – and not just ‘a direct perception of this moment’ . RESPONDENT: And I may as well eat pizza and be actually free as read more of your words. RICHARD: This makes no sense whatsoever. RESPONDENT: Not that your words have no value. That is not what I mean. They have value to me and I am sure to many others. But there is also a big problem with the way you present yourself; you present yourself as the only one who has reached actual freedom and that your teaching is the only way. RICHARD: In all my years of travelling, talking with people, reading, watching media and now the internet I am yet to come across someone who experiences life as I do. Hence, thus far, there is no one else and there is no other way ... not yet. RESPONDENT: That is dangerous Richard; dangerous because the ones who come after you will really believe that and will create conflict and wars and pain and suffering in your name just as many other religions have discarded the purity of actual freedom ... RICHARD: To say ‘many other religions have discarded the purity of actual freedom’ is a pointless remark: they never had it in the first place. RESPONDENT: ... and became a political body. It is dangerous; counterproductive to your stated aims of alleviating suffering on earth ... and it is incredibly arrogant. RICHARD: Hmm ... and here is the almost-obligatory ‘arrogant’ remark. * RICHARD: ... rather than the experiential, moment-by-moment, direct experience of the actual. RESPONDENT: Obviously. Of course. I knew that is what I was saying; I am sorry that I did not communicate in a way that conveyed that to you. RICHARD: I am all in favour of clarity in expression, as is ‘General Semantics’ ... but we are discussing that topic in the other thread. RESPONDENT: But I suspect at least in part it is the fault of your filters ... RICHARD: You may, of course, suspect whatever you wish. RESPONDENT: You are incredibly defensive. RICHARD: I am meeting each of your claims and allegations squarely and sensibly ... if you call that being ‘incredibly defensive’ then stop making such claims and allegations and I will have nothing to be what you call ‘incredibly defensive’ about. RESPONDENT: The fact is you display defensive behaviour; and that fact may be an indication that your motivation is indeed one of self-denial and protection. All that I hear from you and that I read from you confirms this to me. That is my point of view. The facts seem to support my point of view. RICHARD: Shall I give an outrageously simple example to demonstrate a point? If I were to say to a female ‘you are a male; that is my viewpoint which I hold to be correct and true’ and if she then said to me ‘no I am not a male’ I could then rightfully say, according to your above rationale, ‘you are being incredibly defensive’ (if I kept on presenting my correct and true viewpoint to her and she kept on denying it, that is). Is this not silly? * RESPONDENT: ... the belief you have that you are somehow the only one who is actually free ... RICHARD: In all my years of travelling, talking with people, reading, watching media and now the internet I am yet to come across someone who experiences life as I do. Hence it is not a belief. RESPONDENT: Of course; I also have never met anyone who experiences life as I do. RICHARD: May I ask? Are you capable of following a discussion sequentially? This is a side-stepping response ... I was talking about experiencing life sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul (an actual freedom from the human condition) ... as well you know. RESPONDENT: But that does not make me the first to experience actual freedom anymore than it makes you. Simple really. RICHARD: This is a total waste of a sentence. * RESPONDENT: ... so everybody who writes to you is there to ‘explore’ and learn ... from you. RICHARD: A person would only wish to learn if they see value in what I write: it is the value which ensures that learning happens ... not me. RESPONDENT: As I said I see some value in your writing and clearly it has a anti-value also. RICHARD: You may, of course, ‘see’ whatever you wish. Generally speaking, a viewpoint that is held to be correct and true colours what one sees. RESPONDENT: Well of course we all are here to learn and explore ... but some of us are fulfilled autonomously. RICHARD: Okay. RESPONDENT: Yes; more than ok; delightful. RICHARD: I have accessed the URL’s you provided and read through your web pages and writings: according to your records, on Sunday 19 November 2000 (five days ago) you wrote to a respondent saying that you ‘feel sad’ , that you ‘have hate and love’ , that you are low on your ‘flow of energy ... out of fear’ and that ‘the fear arises when ...’ , and that ‘a deep level of fear activates in me’ , which is ‘the fear that comes from ...’ ... and so on and so on. If this is what you call being ‘fulfilled autonomously’ , if this is what you call ‘more than ok; delightful’ , then no wonder you cannot comprehend what I write. * RICHARD: Perhaps this explains why you quite rightly see me as not being ‘open-minded’ towards the multifarious philosophies (by whatever name) which abound in the ‘real world’. RESPONDENT: You so often misunderstand ... I was not referring to you being not open-minded to the ‘multifarious philosophies’. I was referring to you being less than open minded when a real and actual breathing experiencing human writes to you. RICHARD: Shall I put it this way? When a ‘real and actual breathing experiencing human’ writes to me, saying that they intend to publish their understanding of their relationship with ‘the entity or method or concept or mindset or viewpoint known as ‘Actual Freedom’’ , then I engage in a conversation designed to elucidate why they are busy turning two million words (at a guess) into an entity or method or concept or mindset or viewpoint in order to not only have a relationship with it ... but to also study ‘General Semantics’ so as to find out what the nature of their relationship is. To clarify: the only entity which exists is a legal entity named ‘The Actual Freedom Trust’ ... created by an accountant in accord with the laws of this country. The only method offered is to run the question ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ until it becomes a non-verbal attitude or approach each moment again. As for the remainder of what you are busily having a relationship with – a concept or a mindset or a viewpoint – they do not exist outside of your mind. RESPONDENT: I think we have covered all this already. RICHARD: I would suggest that you think again. RESPONDENT: My response does not change at all. RICHARD: So I have noticed. RESPONDENT: You are a stubborn man. Just as I am. RICHARD: Shall I give a variation on my outrageously simple example to demonstrate a point? If I were to say to a male ‘you are a female; that is my viewpoint which I hold to be correct and true’ and if he then said to me ‘no I am not a female’ I could then rightfully say, according to your above rationale, ‘you are a stubborn man. Just as I am’ (if I kept on presenting my correct and true viewpoint to him and he kept on denying it, that is). Is this not also silly? * RESPONDENT: You tend to make a lot of incorrect assumptions with that person – in this case me – then the person gets tired of exploring with you. RICHARD: If you do not write to me informing me that you have set-up a web page in order to publish your understanding of the relationship you are having with the two million words (at a guess) which you experience as ‘the entity or method or concept or mindset or viewpoint known as ‘Actual Freedom’’ then I will not make what you call these ‘incorrect assumptions’ in the first place ... and then, maybe, you will not get tired of exploring with me. That is, exploring with me the issue of how malice and sorrow stand in the way of being happy and harmless. Which means: exploring with me the issue of why one nurses malice and sorrow to one’s bosom. Or, for example, exploring with me why someone would say, ‘I am human; I have love and hate’ and who then asks what makes me imagine they are any less in actual freedom than I am. RESPONDENT: Now am tired of writing with you; thank you for writing what you did; I may re-read what is below or may not; and then may respond further; or may not; RICHARD: May I make a suggestion? If you will not or cannot follow-through on a thread – a thread that you started with your request for a link to your new web page – then do not start one in the first place. You are not, of course, under any obligation to answer my paragraph (above) ... but not doing so leaves your motive wide open for guesses. Guesses such as ‘squibbing out’. I will repeat it here so that you do not inadvertently overlook it: ... and then, maybe, you will not get tired of exploring with me the issue of how malice and sorrow stand in the way of being happy and harmless. Which means: exploring with me the issue of why one nurses malice and sorrow to one’s bosom. Or, for example, exploring with me why someone would say: ‘I am human; I have love and hate’ and who then asks what makes me imagine they are any less in actual freedom than I am. RESPONDENT: ... but right now I will eat the hotpot I cooked ... with my wife ... on the terrace ... where I can hear peacocks calling and life is fine. I take the freedom to leave the conversation at that. RICHARD: You could, of course, also have not sent a half-finished reply and come back to it on a latter date ... and then have sent it with a full response. Especially a full response to this pertinent question:
RESPONDENT: Thanks for writing Richard; I may respond at a later time as I am busy and engaged elsewhere right now. Or perhaps I will prefer to close those threads and let them stand as they are. RICHARD: Okay. RESPONDENT: I am sure that the readers to come will be able to evaluate for themselves how much value or correspondence to reality our words jointly as a conversation; and individually as statements about the point of view we each maintain, have for them. And that is completely up to them. RICHARD: As I am cognisant of the fact that you ‘maintain’ a ‘point of view’ – one that you hold to be ‘correct and true’ – I am aware that from your ‘point of view’ you see that I have one too ... which is why you keep on slipping it in as if it were fact. But maybe you have not yet woken up to the obvious: that by continuing to do so you make it impossible for yourself to receive any kind of engaged response from me which relates meaningfully to your topic. Unless that is your topic, of course. RESPONDENT: Meanwhile; could you send me a photo of yourself for me to publish on my website. I am curious also how come you do not actually have a photo of yourself on your site. RICHARD: What this body physically looks like is neither here nor there. It is the words written that convey the information. RESPONDENT: And, also; what is your surname? I am sure that living on this very planet rather than in the spiritual realms where a lot of folk live you know that existing as a body at a particular location in time and space is a fact. I fail to see your willingness to show that aspect of yourself on the website. RICHARD: I am a fellow human being sans identity: the affective faculty – the entire psyche itself – is eradicated. There is no ‘charisma’ nor any ‘energy-field’ here as I have no ‘energies’ ... no power or powers whatsoever. Therefore it is the words that convey ... words are words, whether they be spoken, printed or appear as pixels on a screen. Ultimately it is what is being said or written, by the writer or the speaker that lives what is being expressed, that is important ... and facts and actuality then speak for themselves. Now the words exist – as the actual freedom writings – and I am not necessary for the process at all. It is entirely possible that I will cease writing one day and go and live on a tropical island and watch the fish leap in the lagoon. RESPONDENT: You said once in reference to this that you value your privacy. RICHARD: Yes ... I am having too much fun, living my life in the way I see fit, to clutter up my lifestyle with ‘guru-circuit’ peoples, who cannot think for themselves, trooping daily through my front door. The Internet is my chosen means of dissemination for the obvious reason of being interactive and rapid. The electronic copying and distribution capacity of a mailing list service – with it’s multiple feed-back capability – is second to none. RESPONDENT: Might I suggest that if you valued your privacy you would not have been inclined to write your million words to start with. RICHARD: Are you really suggesting that anyone – anyone at all – who makes a discovery about anything at all relating to human life on this planet, which discovery advances human knowledge and improves the quality of human life, would keep that discovery to themselves because they value their privacy? Surely you are not an advocate of selfishness? RESPONDENT: And how does all your conceptualisation deriving from your one-line method that you announced yesterday was all that mattered ... RICHARD: What I write is not ‘conceptualisation’. And what I write is not derived from the ‘one-line method’ ... nor did I ‘announce yesterday’ that it ‘was all that mattered’ . RESPONDENT: ... how does all those million words connect up with an actual human being living in a village on the coast somewhere. RICHARD: The words ‘connect up’ with the person reading them with both eyes open ... I am not necessary for the process. RESPONDENT: I met you in Byron Bay ... is it a secret? RICHARD: How could that be a secret that I live in Byron Bay ... that information is scattered throughout the web site. RESPONDENT: I live in Bundeena. My photo is here <...> . There are many more photos of me on my websites but suddenly I realised you do not publish such. I imagine it is out of fear. RICHARD: There is no fear here in this actual world. RESPONDENT: My imagining could be wrong. RICHARD: It is. RESPONDENT: I am really wondering why in all your talk about ‘actual freedom’ you still present yourself as the one with a million words. RICHARD: Because it is the words that communicate what needs to be said and not me. Nor is the number of words presented ... I initially presented 114,000 words. Responding to people (including yourself) has increased the amount considerably. A lot of it is copy and paste, of course. RESPONDENT: Where is your body ...? RICHARD: As it is the words that express what a human being has discovered then where this body is means nothing at all. RESPONDENT: ... where is your face? RICHARD: If by ‘face’ you are alluding to the ‘original face’ of spiritual lore ... it is extinct. * RICHARD: So that this does not get any further out of hand, this is all that you suggested: [quote]: ‘I suggest the following text: Respondent’s Viewpoint: ‘The viewpoint that is ours, that is correct and true, may not be the only correct and true viewpoint. The willingness to look through 360 degrees and live accordingly is essential to freedom’. Latest Writing and Correspondence www.xxx.com’ [endquote]. I not only put the text you suggested, in toto and complete with radio link ... I also put all of your request ‘as-is’ at the top of the page; I also put my initial reply to your request immediately beneath for consistency; I also put all of the correspondence you and I have had since you first wrote to this Mailing List for background information (so as to make some sort of sense to a reader ... albeit weird sense). Thus I did indeed do far more than you suggested. The other issue you mix into what you call ‘the facts’ that you present (‘I requested something big; that you put a link from the hone page – and you put a link from a subordinate page’ ) is between you and all of the directors of The Actual Freedom Trust ... not between you and just me. I am personally meeting your request on my own web page (I do not mind my page being ‘subordinate’ ) ... and am taking what you suggest to be on the page further than what you wanted. RESPONDENT: I asked for x on y; you give me x on z. x = a link; y = on the home page; z = on ‘Richard’s Correspondence Page’ ... RICHARD: Agreed. RESPONDENT: ... that is fine. But how you can justify your point of view that you have given me more than I wanted? RICHARD: I have nothing to justify as it is not a point of view that the text you suggested was the text of ‘Respondent’s Viewpoint’. Viz.: [quote]: ‘I suggest the following text: Respondent’s Viewpoint: ‘The viewpoint that is ours, that is correct and true, may not be the only correct and true viewpoint. The willingness to look through 360 degrees and live accordingly is essential to freedom’. Latest Writing and Correspondence www.xxx.com’ [endquote]. If you did not want this text you would not have suggested it ... you would have suggested some other text. Therefore this is the text you wanted. Ergo: I gave you more text than you wanted ... much more. RESPONDENT: You have given me something else. RICHARD: No, I gave you the text you suggested ... plus more text. A lot more. RESPONDENT: Surely it is for me to judge whether the something different that you offered is less or more than I wanted. RICHARD: Not if you see the fact ... a fact needs no judgement. It is evident that there is more text than the text of ‘Respondent’s Viewpoint’ on the ‘mini-web page’ I set-up. RESPONDENT: You have given me a very good X, yes; but you give me not Y at all. RICHARD: As I am not in the position to either give or not give you Y this is quite beside the point. Only the directors of The Actual Freedom Trust can either give or not give you Y. RESPONDENT: Do you see that your idea of what I wanted was just that; your idea. RICHARD: Not so ... I have been well aware all along what you wanted: you wanted [quote]: ‘Respondent’s Viewpoint: ‘The viewpoint that is ours, that is correct and true, may not be the only correct and true viewpoint. The willingness to look through 360 degrees and live accordingly is essential to freedom’. Latest Writing and Correspondence www.xxx.com’ [endquote]. If you did not want this you would not have suggested it. RESPONDENT: That is the main point here; the main point I would like to make again and again; Richard you have a point of view; your taking people’s words at ‘FACE-Value’ is in actuality hindered by the ways that neurons connect up habitually in your brain. That is a fact. RICHARD: Hmm ... is it becoming clearer just what it is ‘a fact’ looks like when viewed through a viewpoint held to be ‘correct and true’ ? RESPONDENT: I am human also. The only difference is, I am free of the desire and pretence that I am anything other than human. RICHARD: This smacks of that ‘we are only human’ excuse that gets trotted out regularly by many, many peoples ... only dressed-up as that ‘I am being authentic’ sannyas justification. Speaking personally, I had enough of being a ‘I am human also’ type of person many, many years ago. RESPONDENT: You seem to want to deny your humanity. That makes you less than free. You make mistakes. You misunderstand. You see red when there is blue. You make the judgment that Y is not significant when it is significant. You use your discernment like everybody else. RICHARD: I only know that Y is significant for you if you tell me that it is significant for you ... I am not a mind reader. What I do know is that you did not get Y so I offered X. Sometimes what you want people to do for you and what people offer to do for you are two different things. Surely you learnt this at a young age ... or were you an only child? Incidentally, I have never said that I am infallible – and I do make mistakes from time-to-time – and I have pointed this out numerous times in print. RESPONDENT: You have a self. You are human. RICHARD: If you say so then it is so ... for you, that is. Apperception shows otherwise so I will decline to be guided by your understanding on this particular issue. RESPONDENT: My motivation for setting up this site is to examine the claim you make that you are somehow different or in ‘Actual Freedom’ or have discovered the way that will save the word. RICHARD: Good ... having one’s words ‘run the gauntlet’ of peer review always happens when someone comes out with something new and serves to weed out anything invalid – that which cannot stand the test of fire so to speak – and as such is beneficial. For are we not fellow human beings who find ourselves here in this world as it was when we arrived ... a mess? And do we not all seek to find a way through this mess ... and share our findings with one another? And if one has ‘got it wrong’ it is beneficial that someone else will point that out; one can benefit from such interaction as much as the other ... we all benefit. I make no secret of the fact that I have discovered the ‘Secret To Life’ and I welcome rigorous – and at times vigorous – discussion and invite people to either agree or disagree (those who are neutral on the subject will just ignore it). I have been doing this for many years now and have had the full gamut of scorn/ derision/ ridicule and flattery/ gratitude/ compliments ... and indifference. I would not be where I am now if I had kept it all to myself ... all those people who over those years pointed out flaws in my then ‘wisdom’ aided me immensely as far as I am concerned. RESPONDENT: Richard, you claim you were once enlightened. RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: You also claim that in that altered state of consciousness that you call enlightenment you imagined you could save the world. RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: Richard; my hearing is you were in psychosis. RICHARD: Yes ... ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ is a psychotic state of mind; a dissociated state of consciousness, replete with delusions of grandeur that are tempered only by it being a solipsistic state. A person who believes they are enlightened when they are not do not have this temperance ... hence out-of-control megalomania is both possible and probable. RESPONDENT: That is ok; many people move in and out of psychosis; but some recognise and acknowledge it. RICHARD: If only the ‘Enlightened Beings’ would ‘recognise and acknowledge it’, eh? RESPONDENT: Now you claim to be out of the state that you call enlightenment ... RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: ... and that was characterised by a belief that you could save the world, a state I would call psychosis ... RICHARD: Yes ... we are in agreement on this point. RESPONDENT: ... and you now claim that you are writing a million words that will help people to see that Richard is in actual freedom and they also can be if they follow Richard’s method. ... I do not have a problem with your method. RICHARD: Good. RESPONDENT: It is not new ... RICHARD: As an actual freedom from the human condition is new to human history then any method to enable this to come about is also new. RESPONDENT: ... it is not the only method that works but it is fine. RICHARD: As no one else is actually free from the human condition, as yet, then other methods are still in the experimental stage. Until one of them works then this method I offer – which worked for me – is the only one available. RESPONDENT: The problem I have is with you setting up an organisation that takes your claims and makes a system of belief from them. RICHARD: I am aware that this is your viewpoint ... these discussions serve to examine your viewpoint to see if it has validity. RESPONDENT: I know a system of belief is not actual freedom; you do also ... RICHARD: Yes ... I do not want any one to merely believe me. I stress to people how vital it is that they see for themselves. If they were so foolish as to believe me then the most they would end up in is living in a dream state and thus miss out on the actual. I do not wish this fate upon anyone ... I like my fellow human beings. What one can do is make a critical examination of all the words I advance so as to ascertain if they be intrinsically self-explanatory ... and only when they are seen to be inherently consistent with what is being spoken about, then the facts speak for themselves. Then one will have reason to remember a pure conscious experience (PCE), which all peoples I have spoken to at length have had, and thus verify by direct experience the facticity of what is written. Then it is the PCE that is one’s lodestone or guiding light ... not me or my words. My words then offer confirmation ... and affirmation in that a fellow human being has safely walked this wide and wondrous path. RESPONDENT: ... and I know that what you are creating is a new system of belief that superimposes itself on top of the actual freedom you seem to cherish. RICHARD: I am well aware that this is your viewpoint ... and, as I said, these discussion are serving to elucidate whether your viewpoint has validity. So far it has shown no validity whatsoever. RESPONDENT: You set up the system and everybody who comes along gets examined on the basis of that system. RICHARD: I did not individually set up The Actual Freedom Trust. The Actual Freedom Trust is a statutory legal body that five nominal directors established in order to operate under for sensible commercial reasons. The words and writings promulgated and promoted by The Actual Freedom Trust explicate the workings of an actual freedom from the human condition and a virtual freedom in practice in the market place. There is no meditating in silence or living in a monastery shut away from the world. There are no celibacy or obedience requirements. There are no dietary demands or daily regimes of exercise. No one is excluded by age or racial or gender origins. There are no prescribed books to study ... upwards of maybe two million words are available for free on The Actual Freedom Web Page. There are no courses to follow or therapies to undergo or workshops to endure. There are no fees to pay or any clique to join ... there are no rules at all. I have no plan whatsoever ... there is no authority here in charge of a hierarchical organisation. This is my position: we are all fellow human beings who find ourselves here in the world as it was when we were born. We find war, murder, torture, rape, domestic violence and corruption to be endemic ... we notice that it is intrinsic to the human condition ... we set out to discover why this is so. We find sadness, loneliness, sorrow, grief, depression and suicide to be a global incidence ... and we gather that it is also inherent to the human condition ... and we want to know why. We report to each other as to the nature of our discoveries for we are all well-meaning and seek to find a way out of this mess that we have landed in. Whether one believes in re-incarnation or not, we are all living this particular life for the very first time, and we wish to make sense of it. It is a challenge and the adventure of a life-time to enquire and to uncover, to seek and to find, to explore and to discover. All this being alive business is actually happening and we are totally involved in living it out ... whether we take the back seat or not, we are all still doing it. I, for one, am not taking the back seat.
CORRESPONDENT No 12 (Part Six) RETURN TO THE ACTUAL FREEDOM MAILING LIST INDEX RETURN TO RICHARD’S CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
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