Actual Freedom – The Actual Freedom Mailing List Correspondence

Richard’s Correspondence

On The Actual Freedom Mailing List

with Correspondent No. 25


October 26 2003

RESPONDENT: Reactions of the actual universe :)) to the human condition (both real and spiritual) is something to be watched with great interest.

RICHARD: ‘Tis just as well you put a smiley there as I have no notion as to what you are talking about ... this actual universe, not being sentient per se, does not react to anything. And, as the identity within is oblivious to all things actual, it cannot be watched anyway.

RESPONDENT: Yet, it manifests through yourself, does it not?

RICHARD: No ... what I am, as this flesh and blood body only (sans identity/ affections in toto), is this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe experiencing itself *as* an apperceptive human being (and not *through* a human being). I have written about this as/through distinction before ... for example:

• [Richard]: ‘The whole point of actualism is the direct experience of actuality: as this flesh and blood body only what one is (what not ‘who’) is these eyes seeing, these ears hearing, this tongue tasting, this skin touching and this nose smelling – and no separative identity (no ‘I’/‘me’) means no separation – whereas ‘I’/‘me’, a psychological/psychic entity, am inside the body busily creating an inner world and an outer world and looking out through ‘my’ eyes upon ‘my’ outer world as if looking out through a window, listening to ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ tongue, touching ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ skin and smelling ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ nose. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44b, 17 July 2003).

Hence my comment in the previous e-mail about the identity within being oblivious to all things actual ... there is no outer world in actuality.

RESPONDENT: You react to the posts on this mailing list and you make no secret from the fact that your words come directly from your moment-to-moment experiencing of the actual universe?

RICHARD: Oh, I see ... you were referring to my responses to what is written on this mailing list.

Okay then ... but while on the subject: the direct experiencing of actuality, as this flesh and blood body only (sans ‘being’ itself), simply means there is no separation whatsoever – the very stuff of this flesh and blood body is the very stuff of the universe – and if you were to reach forward and touch the glass, which is a few scant millimetres to the front of these words you are reading, then the very stuff of the universe, currently in a shape/form called finger-tip, is directly experiencing the very stuff of the universe, currently in the shape/form called glass.

The universe is not just the outer reaches of what is called ‘deep space’ as it is as much the room you are sitting in reading these words as it is anything else ... the universe is not just nebulae and stars and so on, it is as much the flesh and blood body you actually are, sitting in the room reading these words, as it is the pixels currently forming these words.

In short: there is nothing which is not this universe.

RESPONDENT: I was commenting in regard to the assumption (for me) that everyone (6.000.000.000 people - Richard) experiences his own universe, that everyone represents a different and unique world, as unique as the identity within.

RICHARD: Yes, whereas I was responding to you (seemingly) calling such a universe – an identity’s ‘own universe’ – the actual universe. Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘Reactions of the actual universe (...) is something to be watched with great interest.
• [Richard]: ‘As the identity within is oblivious to all things actual, it [the actual universe] cannot be watched [by an identity].

An identity, being but an illusion, is of course forever locked-out of the actual world by its very nature ... it cannot see what the eyes are seeing.

RESPONDENT: I haven’t met two similar persons or similar world-views as there are no two similar bodies.

RICHARD: At root everyone is not all that dissimilar – virtually all sentient beings are identical at the core of their being – as one person’s sorrow, for instance, is not all that different to another’s ... and so on through virtually all the emotions/passions.

It (the similarity of the affective feelings and thus the ‘being’ they automatically form themselves into) is what makes for empathy.

RESPONDENT: And your universe is the actual universe except from the fact that it’s not yours: it exists on its own accord.

RICHARD: Aye, this actual universe existed long before this flesh and blood body was born and will exist long after this flesh and blood body is dead ... only an identity can claim ownership of their own creation (the identity’s ‘own universe’ you referred to further above).

RESPONDENT: This is what actually fascinates me.

RICHARD: The identity, who used to inhabit this body all those years ago, was so fascinated by the wonder of it all ‘he’ voluntarily (willingly and cheerfully) pressed the button which would ensure ‘his’ demise so that this actual universe could become apparent ... and thus went blessedly into oblivion.

*

RESPONDENT: As for ‘the identity within is oblivious to all things actual, it cannot be watched anyway’ (it = the actual universe), then how can an identity be sensible to what you’re saying? Is it not the identity who writes on this mailing list?

RICHARD: This is the way I usually put it:

• [Richard]: ‘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. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 12d, 23 November 2000).

RESPONDENT: The great number of objections to what you convey is understandable, as for an identity to agree to what you’re saying it would have to contradict its very nature: survival at all costs and if it would be an experiential agreeing, it will disappear.

RICHARD: Ahh ... the word ‘altruism’, in the phrase ‘altruistic ‘self’-immolation’, refers to the more powerful survival instinct than the selfism survival instinct and is what ensures success (blind nature ensures that survival of the species takes precedence over survival of the individual by making the for-the-good-of-the-whole instinct the dominant survival instinct).

Thus it could be said I am appealing to what is sometimes called one’s ‘better nature’.

RESPONDENT: And how can anyone agree with you as there are so few PCE’s one experiences during life compared to the time spent busy being an identity?

RICHARD: As a pure consciousness experience (PCE) is a direct experience of the pristine perfection of the peerless purity this actual world is then even a momentary experience (quality) will stand out amongst years of normal experiencing (quantity).

RESPONDENT: It would be a very interesting report to read on this mailing list from someone who is experiencing a PCE while writing. Do you remember for such a thing to have happened in the past?

RICHARD: No ... any such descriptions have been written after the event.

RESPONDENT: Or do you have any links or descriptions of PCE’s that can be accessed off-site (as the actualist style of writing is quite -ism specific compared to umm … D. H. Lawrence for example).

RICHARD: As the suffix ‘-ism’ (from the Latin/Greek ‘ismus’/‘isma’ meaning ‘of action’/‘something done’) simply forms a noun expressing the characteristics of a person or a thing it would be a contradiction, not only in terms but in action, if the actualist style of writing were not specific to actuality ... whereas a romanticist’s style of writing, for example, is specific to the characteristics of romanticism.

RESPONDENT: For if it is such a global occurrence there would be many reports/descriptions of it, including on the internet.

RICHARD: Most of the reports/ descriptions I have come across have either been interpreted according to the cultural norm after the event or have devolved into an altered state of consciousness (ASC) during the event when affective feelings enter into the experience ... for example:

• ‘I must have been six or seven, and I remembered lying in the grass in front of my house. My mind had become completely immersed in my own private world of grass and dirt and bugs. I examined each blade of grass, noticing the tiny striated segments, and could even see the various cells in each blade. The dirt was emanating a warm humid, earthy smell. The grass was fragrant, and I became ‘riveted’ in my little kingdom. My mind, utterly focussed, came to a complete standstill, and in that moment of absolute stillness it seemed as if time itself stood still. I found myself immersed in a bath of peace. The grass seemed to shimmer with an intense beauty. Everything scintillated and was bursting with life. It seemed as if only a moment had gone by when I heard my mother’s voice calling me in to dinner. As I got up I realised at least an hour must have slipped away as I had somehow ‘dropped into the gap’. My soul had quietly revealed itself to my innocent child-self’. (pages 48-49, ‘The Journey’, ©Brandon Bays 1999; published by Thorsons; ISBN 0 7225 3839 1).

The intense feeling of beauty, in such instances, is what reveals truth (or god/goddess): beauty is the affective substitute for the purity of the perfection of this actual world ... just as love is the affective surrogate for actual intimacy.

Here is non-affective report/ description:

• ‘One summer day, 40 years ago or so, I was walking along a residential street when an rich, earthy scent wafted my way and triggered, as smells are wont to do, a vivid recollection. Like Dorothy, stepping out of her front door into the Technicolor Land of Oz, I remembered another summer’s day when I was 4 years old, playing in a bank of warm, black dirt in the back yard of my home. I had a little red toy car for which I’d made a road slanting up the face of the dirt bank and, in my recollection, I was ‘driving’ the car up this mountain road while making motor noises. That’s all there was, no real action, yet the memory, in the few seconds before it faded away, was redolent with the smell and feel of the warm dirt, the bright colour of the toy, the hot sun – with simple but intensely pleasurable sensory experience. When I read Aldous Huxley’s account of his mescaline experience, of his feeling that the colours, shapes, and textures of his books on the shelves across the room were as intense an experience as he could bear and that he dared not look outside at the flowers in the garden, I thought of my brief revisitation of my childhood’. (Chapter 1, ‘Happiness: The Nature and Nurture of Joy and Contentment’; David Lykken).

Incidentally, that (a 40-year-old memory of a then-remembered experience from 4 years of age) is a classic example of a quality experience standing out amongst a quantity of experience.

RESPONDENT: Maybe this will trigger in my case some forgotten memories about forgotten PCE’s.

RICHARD: Mostly PCE’s happen for no demonstrable reason at all – as in being a serendipitous event – and quite often occur in everyday surroundings doing everyday things ... I can recall being on a farmhouse verandah at age eight, looking into the glistening white of a full glass of milk in the early morning sunshine, when it happened for the entity within.

Not being an affective experience they are not stored in the affective memory-banks (which is where the ASC is primarily located) and thus require a different type of recall to normal remembrance ... plus they are much more common in childhood and require further reach.

*

RESPONDENT: As for what impressed me about enlightenment is probably the very same thing that impressed you. The process of being catapulted in ‘That’ lasted 10 seconds, yet the Enlightened state lasted 3 hours so as to be no misunderstanding. In terms of experiences it was the most intense and wonderful experience of my life I remember til now. I’m not sure if That keeps me from remembering a PCE.

RICHARD: It could be ... consciously recalling a PCE means the beginning of the end of ‘me’ (whereas consciously recalling an ASC reinforces and perpetuates ‘me’ immortally) and, as such, one has a vested interest in not being able to locate the memory.

RESPONDENT: What still keeps me busy around here is that you say actual freedom is better then Enlightenment (a big wow! from my part) and realising with whom I’m dealing here; someone who has lived That for 11 years.

RICHARD: Aye, it is no little thing that is taking place on this mailing list ... those who are discussing these matters have before them a vital opportunity to partake in the precipitation of humankind’s long-awaited emergence from animosity/amorosity and sorrow/succour into benevolence and benignity.

RESPONDENT: It’s impossible for some folks on the list to imagine what this means and in my case with only this in mind I tend to be more appreciative to what you report.

RICHARD: Yes, it means that the current ‘Savage Ages’ will eventually become a thing of the dreadful past ... so much so that they will pass into the waste-bin of history like the ‘Dark Ages’ have.

RESPONDENT: I’ve said that it seems to me impossible to exit the Enlightened state on your own accord as that was All there was. Where to exit?

RICHARD: There is no ‘exit’ – there is no way out – only when ‘All That Is’ (aka ‘The Absolute’ which is ‘Being’ itself) ceased to exist, via altruistic ‘self’-immolation in toto, did the actual become apparent.

RESPONDENT: I was not referring to the help you received from your former partner or some other person but more to where you get the will from.

RICHARD: Ahh ... pure intent, born out of the PCE, is what ensured success: I could not, would not, and did not, continue to live a lie.

RESPONDENT: Just as a curiosity, in what specific way did she help you?

RICHARD: Put briefly: a pact was formed, in the first hour of meeting on a sunny beach, that we would stay true to the peerless purity of the PCE so as to ensure that man and woman could live together in peace and harmony.

RESPONDENT: And one more thing, if you were not to be enlightened prior to actual freedom, I would not be here and probably many others.

RICHARD: Ah, yes ... I have written of this before:

• [Richard]: ‘After the ‘something turning over in the base of the brain/nape of the neck’ event of September 1981 (as detailed in ‘A Brief Personal History’), and as the western-style mysticism I was experiencing moved deeper into being an eastern-style mysticism (I can recall telling my then wife at that time I was jumping out of the frying pan into the fire as somebody had to sort this mystery out), I just knew that, in order to be able to speak meaningfully about going beyond enlightenment I had to go through enlightenment so as to, not only understand it experientially for myself, but to be able to have insider information, so to speak, to pass on to my fellow human beings.
For what is the point of enabling peace-on-earth, and thus demonstrating the actual way to live life for a benighted humanity, if one cannot explain the how and why [and what for], of it? (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 47, 11 August 2003).

Thus being a whistle-blower was my express intention all those years ago as, and this is but a personal thing, a very close friend of many years standing went ‘stark staring mad’ in December 1980 – what I came to know of as ‘divine madness’ – and the event shook me to the core ... hence I was determined to put an end, once and for all, to all the religious, spiritual, mystical and metaphysical nonsense that has saturated and dominated both 5,000 years of recorded history and perhaps 50,000 years or more of pre-history.

Accordingly, I then resurrected the four-hour PCE of mid-1980 and, on the very first day of 1981, irrevocably set foot on the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition which fascinatingly opened up by taking such a step.

*

RICHARD: ... are there no hints about the properties of this universe also in those writings [the 4th way system]?

RESPONDENT: Yes, there are but they are viewed and conveyed from an ‘objective’ point of view, (that is experienced through the Absolute eyes and translated in ordinary language, my opinion) although it is stated that they are scientific facts yet to be discovered.

RICHARD: For the sake of clarity in communication: are you suggesting that these people experiencing the universe through ‘Absolute eyes’ have discerned the infinitude of this universe ... have discerned that it exists infinitely, eternally, and perpetually (which means it is not a creation)?

RESPONDENT: Ouspensky wrote a book ‘In search of ...’ in which he stated that the age of the Universe is somewhere like 10^120 years (ha-ha, I don’t remember exactly, anyway it was an enormous number), I guess this definite number means that the Universe is not infinite.

RICHARD: Okay ... that would explain why you initially said that you have not heard enlightened people saying a word about the infinitude of this universe. Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘... the confusion arrises that not the Universe is infinite but that I am, or that I’m the one immortal, not the Universe, etc. I haven’t heard enlightened people say a word about the infinity of this Universe, but instead the same old spiritual refrain: Me, Me and Me. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25c, 15 September 2003a).

RESPONDENT: I recently watched a documentary on TV about Hubble telescope and it was reported that the furthest images Hubble took were from a distance of 12 billion light years from Earth and these photos were of already fully formed galaxies. These images puzzled scientists as they expected very young star formations in that area.

RICHARD: Yes, the increasing reach of modern astronomy is making the ‘Big Bang’ theory look even sillier than it already did when it was first proposed, in 1927, by the French Abbé Mr. Georges Lemaitre (at the behest of the then pope Mr. Pius XI in a Conference on Cosmology, which was held in the Vatican, in the Pontificia Academia de Scienza di Roma).

In astronomical terms the universe is immense beyond human (earthly) comparison: the better the telescope the larger the known universe is ... the Next Generation Space Telescope (expected to be launched in 2009 when the Hubble Space Telescope ends its useful life) will collect light in the infrared band rather than the optical band and which may, by pushing the present boundaries past the range of current human visibility, drive the final nail into the coffin of that biblically-motivated ex-nihilo/ad-nihil (creation/destruction) science-fiction fantasy known as the ‘Big Bang’/‘Big Crunch’ theory which passes for wisdom in the vaulted halls of academia.

RESPONDENT: The human mind cannot accept infinity as a fact I guess.

RICHARD: Oh, this human mind could, back at age eight or nine when I was first made aware of the infinity of space by my then father, one night whilst gazing at the stars: I could not grasp the concept but could comprehend the existence of infinity when he gave me his version of the Ancient Greek ‘throwing a spear into what’ question regarding the supposed boundary to space (he asked me what lay at the end of the universe – a brick wall/wire fence/whatever – and if one leans on the brick wall and looks over what would one be looking at or into).

The actual knowing of this infinity (as opposed to intellectually knowing) lodged itself there and then in me as a demand to be met one day ... along with actually knowing the eternity of time and the perpetuity of matter (mass/energy) which I collectively refer to with the word ‘infinitude’ from the Oxford Dictionary ‘infinite extent, amount, duration, etc.; a boundless expanse; an unlimited time’ meaning.

RESPONDENT: And if it were to accept it as a fact, what would that imply for a human being?

RICHARD: Well, for this human being it implied that the timeless and spaceless and formless infinitude, which was subjectively experienced night and day for eleven years, was a delusory infinitude ... an affective/psychic hallucination.

RESPONDENT: Would it make any difference?

RICHARD: It made a difference for this human being – it being one of the numerous things which went towards enabling an actual freedom from the human condition – and thus, by extension, any other human being desirous of the same.

The history of science shows that fact always wins out over fantasy ... eventually.

January 14 2004

RESPONDENT: Richard, there are some questions I would like to ask you. Are there other ways for conveying a description of an actual freedom from the Human Condition apart from words? Let’s say in an artistic manner, like paintings, sculpture, film, dance or whatever.

RICHARD: No.

RESPONDENT: You say that Ugliness as well as Beauty disappeared out of your life. But if you were to travel to India and live for a few days on a ‘suburban’ huts-made street in Bombay, would that not be an ugly experience for your senses?

RICHARD: As both ugliness and beautifulness are affective experiences, and not sensate experiences, it is not possible for sense organs to experience anything as being either ugly or beautiful.

*

RESPONDENT: In what way differs the ‘living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are’ from the spiritual notion of acceptance?

RICHARD: Here is an example of what the word ‘acceptance’ can mean:

• acceptance: favourable reception (of persons, things, or ideas); approval; assent; (gen.) the act or fact of accepting [taking or receiving with consenting mind; receiving with favour or approval], whether as a pleasure, a satisfaction of claim, or a duty. (Oxford Dictionary).

As spirituality is all about not living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are, but living in a spiritual dimension (a non-material world) as a spirit being (a bodiless presence), so as to perpetuate the existence of identity forever and a day, spiritual acceptance of physicality can hardly be called a favourable reception, an approval, an assent, with consenting mind, of material existence but rather a tolerance, an allowance, a permittance ... or even, in some situations at least, a resignation.

RESPONDENT: Did you ever laugh when enlightened (I remember being unable to)?

RICHARD: Yes.

*

RESPONDENT: And about being the first to make it to an actual freedom (a permanent PCE), is your confidence generated by the being or psychic foot-prints of those who went before you, which gradually became more and more scarce as you moved further away from the Unknown into the Unknowable?

RICHARD: Yes ... although I already understood at the start of my journey (from the four-hour PCE which precipitated it all) that such a condition was entirely new to human experience it was proof-positive that the understanding was correct.

And some others that have had PCE’s also report the same understanding.

RESPONDENT: I remember in the terrifying state prior to enlightenment being influenced by many various ‘artists’, by their works and ‘spirits’, including Van Gogh’s ‘Sun Flower’, Turner’s paintings of Light, ‘La Gioconda’ (especially her smile) by Leonardo da Vinci, Lao Tse, Pink Floyd’s music & lyrics, etc. After That I myself became involved in some artistic expressions. Is Art mainly an expression of the refined affective faculty combined/or not with the other faculties?

RICHARD: Yes.

RESPONDENT: Do you still paint?

RICHARD: No.

RESPONDENT: Or is it the books and the magazines you read and the video-tapes you saw and other non-esoteric artefacts you came across that convinced you that you are the first to live an actual freedom?

RICHARD: No ... I only ever point to the dearth of information, about an actual freedom from the human condition, in the written and spoken word so as to prompt deeper self-enquiry than the norm (and thus have my fellow human beings ascertain for themselves experientially that it is so).

RESPONDENT: For if it is the case, it might be useful to know that Australia was first discovered by the Chinese 350 years before Mr. Cook arrived.

RICHARD: Just as a matter of interest: there is some evidence that Mr. James Cook had a copy of a secret map made by Portuguese explorers, who preceded him by a number of years, but could not publish their discoveries because of a prior agreement with Spain that that part of the globe be considered Spanish territory.

*

RESPONDENT: How can one say that a certain wished-for lifestyle (things to do and places to be) is part of somebody’s unique characteristics or bodily wants and not an identity imagined paradise? e.g. somebody likes and is attracted to the misty, cold and snowy Scotland Highlands yet he lives near the tropics or vice-versa.

RICHARD: As the entire globe is an actual paradise it is simply a matter of feasibility (availability of water, food, and shelter), ease of lifestyle (access to various creature comforts) and preference (the aesthetic appeal of particular scenic attributes for example) as to which part of paradise one lives in ... speaking personally it is a matter of sensibility to live in a warmer clime, rather than a colder one, and a matter of utility to live in the particular country of which I not only speak the language fluently but am very familiar with the legal laws and social protocols its citizens conduct and comport themselves by.

RESPONDENT: Where is the boundary between instinctive drives and bodily needs and desires?

RICHARD: The bodily needs – there are no bodily desires – can be summarised as follows:

(1) air;
(2) water;
(3) food;
(4) shelter;
(5) clothing (if the weather be inclement).

Virtually anything else deemed a need is an instinctive drive (an urge, an impulse, a compulsion) and being affective anything instinctual can be readily distinguished by its emotional/ passional nature ... desire, for instance.

RESPONDENT: Is the example above the outcome of one’s instinctive urge to desire or should it be considered a ‘sensible’ bodily desire?

RICHARD: A general rule of thumb is: if it is a preference it is a self-less inclination; if it is an urge it is a self-centred desire.

*

RESPONDENT: What do you think of the so-called Black Holes hanging around in the Universe?

RICHARD: I do not think of them – except in a discussion about such things – just as I do not think of unicorns.

RESPONDENT: What is the most refined form of matter, is it light, intergalactic ‘void’ or is it something else?

RICHARD: Such a question has no application in actuality – terms like ‘refined’ and ‘gross’ are spiritual terms, in discussions about the fundamental nature of everything, and say more about the elitist character of spirituality than anything else – as matter can be either mass or energy without any gain or loss of quality both phases of matter are equally elementary.

RESPONDENT: Does anti-matter exist as an actuality?

RICHARD: No ... it is a theoretical construct.

*

RESPONDENT: Sorry for the loose style of this email, I’m now in the process of sharpening my writing skills (I only wrote a few letters my entire life).

RICHARD: The number of letters I have ever written would probably be less than the number of years I have been on this planet ... interacting on the internet has honed my writings skills considerably.

RESPONDENT: P.S. This new millennium could be a non-spiritual one.

RICHARD: Given the self-glorification that spirituality indulges in (New-Age self-gratification has done wonders for the cause of full self-enquiry) it is only a matter of time before the already emerging post-spiritual epoch gains a wider embrace.

Once the cat is out of the bag it is well-nigh impossible to put it back.

January 19 2004

RESPONDENT: You say that Ugliness as well as Beauty disappeared out of your life. But if you were to travel to India and live for a few days on a ‘suburban’ huts-made street in Bombay, would that not be an ugly experience for your senses?

RICHARD: As both ugliness and beautifulness are affective experiences, and not sensate experiences, it is not possible for sense organs to experience anything as being either ugly or beautiful.

RESPONDENT: Ugliness was not the best chosen word for what I intended to convey. These sense organs can experience something as being ‘hideous’ or is it only a memory from your past travels to India and not an actuality?

RICHARD: You are presumably referring to this:

• [Richard]: ‘I have been to India to see for myself the results of what they claim are tens of thousands of years of devotional spiritual living ... and *it is hideous*. If it were not for the appalling suffering engendered it would all be highly amusing ... but it is practically and demonstrably deleterious to both individual and communal well-being. That is why one only needs to look at where this devotional spiritual living has been practiced for thousands of years to see how badly it has failed to live up to its implied promise of peace and harmony and prosperity for all. Thus both the spiritual and the secular methods of producing peace on earth have each failed miserably ... it is high time for a third alternative to hove into view; something new that has never been lived before in human history. Why repeat the mistakes of the past when the results of doing so are plain to view in all cultures? [emphasis added]. (Richard, General Correspondence, Page 8, 24 May 2000).

It would have been better to have written it as ‘it was hideous’ as that is more how it was experienced at the time ... perhaps it would be more helpful to say it is grotesque (as in its ‘ludicrous from incongruity; fantastically absurd, bizarre’ meaning).

RESPONDENT: For as far as I can ascertain there are pleasant and unpleasant sensations for one’s body (as in a bad smell, chill, very loud sounds, air & water pollution, filthy environment).

RICHARD: There is physical pleasure and pain (bodily pain is essential else one could be sitting on a hot-plate, for example, and not know that one’s bum was on fire until one saw the smoke rising) ... it is the affective pleasure and pain which has no existence here in this actual world.

RESPONDENT: How would you experience now the lifestyle of India?

RICHARD: The lifestyle of the Indian culture is more or less the same as the lifestyle of any culture ... only, perhaps, more obviously weird.

RESPONDENT: Okay, it’s not ugly or beautiful, but then how is it in actuality?

RICHARD: As you initially asked about the sensate experience of a ‘huts-made street in Bombay’ then essentially every thing on the Indian subcontinent is pristine – pure and perfect – as it is anywhere. Viz.:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘... do you have the discriminative ability still intact, the ability to see something as being of greater value then some other similar object/person (a value scale of some sort)?
• [Richard]: ‘Perhaps if I were to put it this way: if, upon ordering buttered toast at a café the waiter/waitress brings hot, golden-brown toast covered with butter just beginning to melt and drip, in contrast to bringing cold, charred-black toast covered with butter long-ago melted and now congealed, I would rate the former as being 10, on a scale of 1-10 and the latter as being 1 on the same scale ... howsoever that is a relative scale as the very stuff of both the former and the latter, being the very stuff of infinitude itself, is incomparable (peerless).
Thus, in the ultimate sense, everything is perfect here in this actual world. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25c, 15 September 2003).

RESPONDENT: I’ve never been to India and I don’t intend to but I’ve heard reports from those who went ... and they were shocked by the appalling poverty, misery, pollution and hardships endured by the majority of people there. And these reports came from people who are citizens of a ‘second world’ or developing country and are used to much lower standards of living compared to the West.

RICHARD: Obviously I cannot speak for everyone – and ‘poverty, misery, pollution and hardships’ are not peculiar to India – yet I would not be going too far out on a limb to hazard a guess that at least some of the shock of the Indian culture reported by many peoples visiting there lies in the propaganda about it being a great spiritual culture ... for it is indeed shocking to view first-hand the results of what they claim are ‘tens of thousands of years’ of devotional spiritual living.

*

RESPONDENT: There are both pleasant and unpleasant qualities for the senses which arise out of the properties of some-thing, some person or some event. Actualism is about being as happy & harmless as one can be, enjoying one’s life here on Earth as much as it is possible, appraising these actual qualities, dismissing the fictional or ‘self’ generated ones and making sensible choices in regard to these qualities. One’s life here consists of meetings with people, partaking in the available pleasures offered by one’s environment and participating in various activities and events. But what if one’s environment is as polluted, as filthy, as ‘hideous’ as one can imagine? Should one get used to it and ‘make the best of a bad situation’ or just leave?

RICHARD: The following may be of assistance:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘I should like to see you in the middle of Manhattan working till the night and then I should like to see you philosophising about life.
• [Richard]: ‘When I read through the discussion (as delineated further above) I do not see any ‘philosophising about life’ ... what I see is an exchange of practical information, reminders, tips, hints, suggestions, clues, and so on, regarding what works and what does not.
As for ‘the middle of Manhattan working till the night’ ... I could be in solitary confinement in some insalubrious penitentiary living on bread and water and still be happy and harmless (free from malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion) as that is the target which the identity within all those years ago set as a criterion of success.
Of course I would have to be pretty silly to behave in such a manner as to occasion that life-style ... yet the validation-benchmark remains cogent to this very day.
It is all so simple here. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44, 13 May 2003).

And:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Because there is no ‘I’ in you, there is nobody to worry about anything or correct, improve anything?
• [Richard]: ‘There is no worry, no, but I am not too sure that this is because there is no ‘I’ ... it is simply silly to worry as worrying does nothing whatsoever to get an event changed. I correct – and thus improve – what can be corrected ... according to a preference for creature comforts and ease of life-style. For example: if I can sit upon a cushion instead of the brick pavers of the patio I will ... that is a preference. But if a cushion is not available it does not matter ... I thoroughly enjoy being alive at this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space irregardless of what is happening. I could be just as happy and harmless on bread and water in solitary confinement in some insalubrious penitentiary ... but I would be pretty silly to act or behave in such a way as to occasion that outcome!
The ‘I’ that used to inhabit this body did everything possible that ‘I’ could do to blatantly imitate the actual in that ‘I’ endeavoured to be happy and harmless for as much as is humanly possible. This was achieved by putting everything on a ‘it doesn’t really matter’ basis. That is, ‘I’ would prefer people, things and events to be a particular way, but if it did not turn out like that ... it did not really matter for it was only a preference. ‘I’ chose to no longer give other people – or the weather – the power to make ‘me’ angry ... or irritated ... or even peeved, if that was possible. It was great fun and very, very rewarding along the way. ‘My’ life became cleaner and clearer and more and more pure as each habitual way of living life was consciously eliminated through constant exposure.
Finally ‘I’ invited the actual by letting go of the controls and letting this moment live ‘me’. ‘I’ became the experience of the doing of this business of being alive ... no longer the ‘do-er’. Thus ‘my’ days were numbered ... ‘I’ could hardly maintain ‘myself’ ... soon ‘my’ time would come to an end. An inevitability set in and a thrilling momentum took over ... ‘my’ demise became imminent.
The moment of the death of ‘me’ was so real that it was experienced as being that one was going into the grave physically ... that is how real ‘I’ am.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘So, the world is perfect.
• [Richard]: ‘The clean and clear and pure perfection of peace-on-earth never goes away despite all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicide. There is the preference for the creature-comforts and ease of life-style, of course, but one takes the world of people, things and events as it is. Even if every single human being was happy and harmless, there would still be cyclones and earthquakes and tidal waves and fires and crocodiles and sharks and mosquitoes and so forth.
Life is an adventure, after all.
The physical world cannot ever be perfect, in the sense that nothing uncomfortable would happen, due to the finite nature of all spatial/temporal things – animal, vegetable and mineral – and events happen which some people welcome but others not (a farmer may want rain to germinate the crop whilst a builder may want clear skies to get the roof on). I cannot consider for a moment that people would want a nearby volcano to explode and engulf their village or town or city ... yet it happens. And there are the trivial matters of daily life – I spilt hot coffee only a couple of days ago – yet in the final analysis none of these events matter. Ultimately nothing is of utter importance because we are all going to die, some day.
Things are only as important as one makes them be. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 7, 27 January 1999).

And:

• [Richard]: ‘As a child, a youth and a young man ‘day-dreaming’ was a common occurrence ... it was a way of having time pass, for example, whilst working for wages in any job that required only mindless repetitive movements to achieve the desired result. Then one day I caught myself looking at the clock and thinking ‘damn, only 2.00 PM; three more hours to go’ and it dawned on me, with upsetting intelligibility, that I was wishing large parts of my life away. Many years were to pass spent in finding better jobs, better locations to live in, better lifestyles and so on before I finally faced the fact that, while changing the physical situation is not to be sneezed at, it was how I experienced this moment that was vital ... only this moment is actual.
The question I asked was this: could I be in solitary confinement, in some hypothetical penitentiary, and be so delighted with being just here right now that ‘day-dreaming’ never need occur? (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Gary, 28 January 2001).

RESPONDENT: I ask this as the central point of spirituality is ‘acceptance’ and separation. To be more precise, acceptance in the sense of dissociation: whatever happens ‘I’ cannot be affected by and if I am affected then it is not the real ‘me’ who suffers/enjoys. So, whatever happens with the world around doesn’t matter to ‘me’, it cannot have a real impact, ‘I’ can only ‘at best’ use it as a ‘shock’ for my spiritual development but I’m not interested in improving or developing my earthly life ... and on the other hand I must not try to change the circumstances as they are given to ‘me’ by God. No wonder these are unliveable teachings.

What I want to point out is that actualism is not ‘practice-able’ for a vast majority of people, especially in third world countries, where even the basic body requirements are not met. And even if these requirements are met, the lifestyle of that particular place makes it almost impossible for someone to actually start and do something about their condition.

RICHARD: Hmm ... actualism is ‘practice-able’ by anyone, anywhere, anytime, no matter the situation and circumstances (as expressed in the ‘living happily and harmlessly in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are’ phrase you quoted in your previous e-mail).

*

RESPONDENT: How can one say that a certain wished-for lifestyle (things to do and places to be) is part of somebody’s unique characteristics or bodily wants and not an identity imagined paradise? e.g. somebody likes and is attracted to the misty, cold and snowy Scotland Highlands yet he lives near the tropics or vice-versa.

RICHARD: As the entire globe is an actual paradise it is simply a matter of feasibility (availability of water, food, and shelter), ease of lifestyle (access to various creature comforts) and preference (the aesthetic appeal of particular scenic attributes for example) as to which part of paradise one lives in ... speaking personally it is a matter of sensibility to live in a warmer clime, rather than a colder one, and a matter of utility to live in the particular country of which I not only speak the language fluently but am very familiar with the legal laws and social protocols its citizens conduct and comport themselves by.

RESPONDENT: ‘Preference (the aesthetic appeal of particular scenic attributes for example)’ – is this akin to enjoying more the sight of a palm tree compared to a pine or that of a mountain compared to a sea-view or the life in a city to that in a village? What’s the difference between ‘aesthetic appeal’ and beauty? Are there any preferences and bodily senses likes/dislikes that are common to all people and some that are character specific? The website is pleasurable to the eye, all these images of boats, stars, flowers, this is much better than just a black-and-white presentation. Is the website a good example of ‘aesthetic appeal’?

RICHARD: I have written on these matters before ... I would suggest accessing this URL: (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 28, 20 February 2003).

As the exchange extends through three e-mails it is too much to re-post here.

*

RESPONDENT: What do you think of the so-called Black Holes hanging around in the Universe?

RICHARD: I do not think of them – except in a discussion about such things – just as I do not think of unicorns.

RESPONDENT: Ha-ha ... am I to understand from your analogy that these black holes have no existence?

RICHARD: The Encyclopaedia Britannica has this to say:

• ‘Black holes *remain hypothetical*, but observations suggest that such phenomena may possibly exist in the star system Cygnus X-1 and at the centre of the Galaxy’. [emphasis added]. (Encyclopaedia Britannica).

RESPONDENT: I ask you this as one of the Next Generation Space Telescope objectives would be to take a better look at these black holes and if they are able to see them now, I guess that they exist.

RICHARD: You may find the following to be of interest:

• ‘Consider the following example: Dr. John A. Wheeler, emeritus professor of physics at Princeton University and originator of the concept of black holes, has said: ‘To me, the formation of a naked singularity is equivalent to jumping across the Gulf of Mexico. I would be willing to bet a million dollars that it can’t be done. But I can’t prove that it can’t be done’. What he is actually saying is – YOU can’t prove that black holes don’t exist, so I am free to use the concept as often as I like!
It is a non-falsifiable hypothesis.
When astrophysicists conjure up invisible entities, the existence of which no one can disprove (black holes, dark matter), they open themselves to accusations of being pseudo scientists. Why are invisible gnomes in my garden any less scientifically acceptable than the concept of ‘black holes’ that no one can see or measure?
It should be noted that the word ‘singularity’ as used by Wheeler (above) is directly stolen from pure mathematics. In mathematics it has a precise meaning. There are various types of mathematical ‘singularities’, e.g., ‘log-canonical singularities’, ‘removable singularities’, ‘essential singularities’, ‘poles’, etc. Each of these describes the anomalous behaviour of certain terms in mathematical equations. Wheeler just kidnaps this mathematical term and transforms it into being a real world entity. People would laugh if some theoretician announced that he had discovered a ‘partial fraction expansion’ sitting in some galaxy, or a ‘Riemann integral’ located inside some globular cluster. The same ridicule should have greeted Wheeler’s announcement that he had found a ‘naked singularity’ in deep space.
Recently astrophysicists have been invoking the existence of black holes at an ever increasing rate. They seem to ‘find’ them everywhere. They have become encouraged by our passive acceptance of their non-falsifiable ‘the invisible black-hole ghost did it’ explanations. They seem increasingly childlike in their enjoyment of using the zoo of invisible particles and other arcane entities they have gotten away with inventing. That this enlarging class of invisible gnomelike nonsense has long ago crossed the boundary into pseudo-science does not seem to occur to them.
(https://web.archive.org/web/20050206042450/http://electric-cosmos.org/introduction.htm).

RESPONDENT: Actualism states that physical matter in the form of mass and energy is all there is and as these unicorns eat a lot of it, I wondered where all that matter goes and what a black hole consists of, if not matter?

RICHARD: According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica the centre of a black hole consists of a point of zero volume and infinite density called the singularity (which is ‘a point or region of infinite mass density at which space and time are infinitely distorted by gravitational forces and which is held to be the final state of matter falling into a black hole’ according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary) the details of the structure of which are calculated from Mr. Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Viz.:

• ‘black hole: cosmic body of extremely intense gravity from which nothing, not even light, can escape. A black hole can be formed by the death of a massive star. When such a star has exhausted its internal thermonuclear fuels at the end of its life, it becomes unstable and gravitationally collapses inward upon itself. The crushing weight of constituent matter falling in from all sides compresses the dying star to a point of zero volume and infinite density called the singularity. Details of the structure of a black hole are calculated from Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. The singularity constitutes the centre of a black hole and is hidden by the object’s ‘surface’, the event horizon. Inside the event horizon the escape velocity (i.e., the velocity required for matter to escape from the gravitational field of a cosmic object) exceeds the speed of light, so that not even rays of light can escape into space’. (Encyclopaedia Britannica).

RESPONDENT: Let’s hope that matter doesn’t just disappear in the unicorn’s stomach. I’ve also heard that they like actualists baked in fine Swiss chocolate. ‘Tis only a rumour, mind you.

RICHARD: Ha ... you had better watch out, spreading rumours like that, for it may very well become a factoid one day.

January 31 2004

RESPONDENT: So ... here it is the AF site & mailing list, an opportunity. Who can make a satisfactory use of this opportunity?

RICHARD: Anybody who is vitally interested in finding out about life, the universe, and what it is to be a human being living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are.

RESPONDENT: Only those who can remember a PCE?

RICHARD: No ... I often put it that there is sufficient information on offer on The Actual Freedom Trust web site to establish a prima facie case worthy of further investigation ... and not capricious dismissal.

Furthermore I invite anyone to make a critical examination of all the words I advance so as to ascertain if they be intrinsically self-explanatory ... and if they are all 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 (which personal experiencing is the only proof worthy of the name). The PCE occurs globally ... across cultures and down through the ages irregardless of gender, race or age.

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.

I also make it clear that what I write is (mostly) expressive prose – it is not a thesis – as I am conveying the lavish exhilaration of life itself. My writing is not intended to stand literary scrutiny for scholarly style and grammatical form and so on – the academics would have a field-day with it – for it is an active catalyst which will catapult the reader, who reads with all their being, into this magical wonder-land that this verdant and azure planet is.

Then actuality speaks for itself.

RESPONDENT: I cannot recall a PCE in the sense that I cannot look into the past and say with absolute certainty ‘that was a PCE’ using actualist description as a standard. On the other hand, I can remember an ASC and I can definitely say ‘that was an out-of-the-ordinary consciousness experience’ and it was an ASC by actualist standards.

Where are the PCE’s stored?

RICHARD: Presumably you are referring to this:

• [Respondent]: ‘... it is hard to relate actualism to anything one has encountered in terms of knowledge and experience.
• [Richard]: ‘... one of the many things I did, in the years before I went public, was to ascertain whether people from all walks of life could recall having had a pure consciousness experience (PCE) – as distinct from an altered state of consciousness (ASC) – for obvious reasons. Sometimes it took a quite a while for them to remember – once it took over three hours of intensive description/ discussion – as *being sans any affective content whatsoever the PCE cannot be stored in the affective memory banks* (which is where the ASC is primarily located) ... plus they are much more common in childhood and require further reach.
Everybody I spoke to at length – everybody – could recall at least one PCE ... and usually more. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25a, 16 February 2003).

And this:

• [Respondent]: ‘Maybe this will trigger in my case some forgotten memories about forgotten PCE’s.
• [Richard]: ‘Mostly PCE’s happen for no demonstrable reason at all – as in being a serendipitous event – and quite often occur in everyday surroundings doing everyday things ... I can recall being on a farmhouse verandah at age eight, looking into the glistening white of a full glass of milk in the early morning sunshine, when it happened for the entity within.
*Not being an affective experience they are not stored in the affective memory-banks* (which is where the ASC is primarily located) and thus require a different type of recall to normal remembrance ... plus they are much more common in childhood and require further reach. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25d, 26 October 2003).

It would appear that your (affective) memory of the ASC is blocking access to (cognitive) memory of a PCE ... experience with other people over the years has shown that ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being – which is ‘being’ itself – has, more often than not, both a vested interest in remembering an ASC and in being amnestic about a PCE. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25d, 31 January 2004).

*

RESPONDENT: In my case and other participants on the mailing list it’s not easy to remember one.

RICHARD: This could very well be because if ‘I’ were to actively remember a PCE it could be the beginning of the end of ‘me’.

RESPONDENT: I ask this as I don’t want to fool myself practicing a method without knowing where it leads. I guess it leads to a PCE, but what’s that?

RICHARD: Presumably you are speaking of experientially knowing where it leads ... intellectually knowing cannot provide the fatal attraction, so to speak, which experiential knowledge provides and which is essential for success.

I am, of course, referring to pure intent.

RESPONDENT: As a consequence of all this, I set my aim to be happy & harmless and not to live in a PCE (I don’t know how it’s like).

RICHARD: A very sensible approach indeed ... being sorrowful and malicious (and thus antidotally loving and compassionate) is not at all conducive to a PCE occurring.

RESPONDENT: What’s on offer here, is both valuable and sensible in my view and it reflects, explains my personal experiences and observations in a very satisfactory and comprehensive way. But these words (aka thoughts) are derived from PCE’s. They can provide guidance, direction and assistance in the DIY process of dismantling the identity and help one assess which are the facts and which are the beliefs. But they cannot induce/produce a PCE ...

RICHARD: If I may interject? More than a few persons have had a PCE occur whilst listening to me/reading my words ... which is why I explained (further above) that my expressive writing is an active catalyst which will catapult the reader, who reads with all their being, into this magical wonder-land that this verdant and azure planet is.

‘Tis the ‘all of their being’ which is the key.

RESPONDENT: ... as this experience escapes any reference frame of thought, it’s pure consciousness as experienced by an individual.

RICHARD: Hmm ... are you so sure that it does indeed escape ‘any’ reference frame of thought?

RESPONDENT: The results derived by practicing this method is that I’m cleaner day-by-day, but a ‘pure’ individual does not necessarily mean pure consciousness, eh?

RICHARD: There is no such thing as a pure identity (if that is what you mean).

RESPONDENT: I fully engaged myself on the spiritual path as a consequence of an ASC. Is it vital to remember/live a PCE in order to successfully practice actualism?

RICHARD: Eventually ... yes; in the interim ... I would say not (going by another’s report).

February 12 2004

RESPONDENT: So ... here it is the AF site & mailing list, an opportunity. Who can make a satisfactory use of this opportunity?

RICHARD: Anybody who is vitally interested in finding out about life, the universe, and what it is to be a human being living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are.

RESPONDENT: What do you mean by ‘world’, the world of people interactions – ‘society’ or something else?

RICHARD: The physical world ... the world of this body and that body and every body; the world of the mountains and the streams; the world of the trees and the flowers; the world of the clouds in the sky by day and the stars in the firmament by night and so on and so on ad infinitum.

Even if every human being was happy and harmless there would still be cyclones and earthquakes and tidal waves and fires and crocodiles and sharks and mosquitoes and so forth.

Life is an adventure, after all.

*

RICHARD: It would appear that your (affective) memory of the ASC is blocking access to (cognitive) memory of a PCE ... experience with other people over the years has shown that ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being – which is ‘being’ itself – has, more often than not, both a vested interest in remembering an ASC and in being amnestic about a PCE.

RESPONDENT: I understand that it is a cognitive memory, but what type of memory is that?

RICHARD: A non-affective memory ... a memory sans feeling-tones.

RESPONDENT: What other memories are stored there?

RICHARD: The following may throw some light on the subject:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘... I take it though, from my vantage point, that one still has memories of the past which can be accessed when thought is used practically.
• [Richard]: ‘Yes. I have been here for 53 years and have all my own memories ... I have always been here like this: I have been having a wonderful, marvellous and amazing life for 53 years. It is this simple: the slate was wiped clean because ‘my’ memories disappeared along with ‘me’ when ‘I’ disappeared.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘It would be easy to misread this as you saying that you as a psychological self-image is living so fully. But, what I hear you saying is the approach of ‘controls-as-separate-thought-made-image-at-the-controls’ has come full stop and you are living fully. That thought operates practically, but not detrimentally. And you use the term ‘I’ to refer to the organism, not the separate self. Could you comment about this?
• [Richard]: ‘Certainly. There are three I’s altogether but only one is actual: I am this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. When both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul disappeared I became apparent. I have been here all along ... it was just that there was this loudmouth inhabiting this body, for the first 33 years (‘I’ as ego) plus the next 11 years (‘me’ as soul), who dominated so totally that I could not get a word in edgeways. And, when ‘he’ ‘self’-immolated for the benefit of this body and every body, all of ‘his’ memories were also immolated (‘the slate was wiped clean’).
I have no childhood hurts whatsoever. (Richard, List B, 25f, 25 June 2000).

And:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘When you say ‘there are no childhood hurts extant in this flesh and blood body ...’, are you saying the memories of hurt have been extinguished?
• [Richard]: ‘The passionate memory of all emotional hurts (indeed all the affections) was extinguished when the passionate memory faculty was extirpated ... the intellectual memory operates with the clarity enabled by the absence of the instinctual passions which normally cloud the remembrance with attractions and repulsions; likes and dislikes; shoulds and should nots and so on. In other words: free of malice and sorrow. The brain has two ‘memory banks’ and the passionate memory is both non-conscious and primal. (...). (Richard, List B, 37, 26 March 2000).

RESPONDENT: I can only relate ‘cognitive’ with the ability to know something, does a PCE allows you a different type of knowledge?

RICHARD: No (unless untainted knowledge can be classified as a different type of knowledge).

RESPONDENT: And there is the memory of the ASC, of course ... how could it not be?.... but I cannot detect emotionality when remembering it and it cannot be represented anyhow. Could you represent in your mind a PCE when living an ASC?

RICHARD: Not ‘represent’ ... it can be intellectually remembered (indeed such a memory of the pure consciousness experience (PCE) is what helped me escape from a lifetime of being stuck in the permanent altered state of consciousness (ASC) known as spiritual enlightenment).

*

RESPONDENT: In my case and other participants on the mailing list it’s not easy to remember one.

RICHARD: This could very well be because if ‘I’ were to actively remember a PCE it could be the beginning of the end of ‘me’.

RESPONDENT: Hmm ... the end of ‘me’?

RICHARD: Yep ... everything one instinctively knows oneself to be – what one deeply feels and thus intuitively thinks oneself to be – can and will vanish in an instant ... never to ‘be’ again.

Never, ever.

RESPONDENT: I have always thought that this universe is infinite (even as a child when watching TV documentaries) simply because all the other explanations seemed so silly. And I spoke to other non-scientific & non-spiritual people and surprisingly they also said that they believe it to be infinite. But when asked to explain why they think so, they couldn’t say it.

I wrote this as you explained that it’s the connection between this infinity and myself that eliminates ‘me’ and delivers the goods. That this connection is an active force (‘pure intent’). I sense this is the missing link ... to live each moment fully realizing that I live in an infinite and perfect universe. I don’t think remembering a PCE creates ‘the fatal attraction’ ...

RICHARD: The following may elucidate what I mean by a connection with the peerless purity of infinitude:

• [Richard]: ‘Just to set the record straight: altruism (in its biological sense) is only the key to the process of ‘self’-immolation – going into blessed oblivion – and has nothing to do with living everyday life happily and harmlessly ... the appearance of benevolence ensures that all interactions (including with oneself) are benign and beneficial. (...) Life is truly this simple: the pure intent to have the already always existing peace-on-earth become apparent, as evidenced in the pure consciousness experience (PCE), is activated with the nourishment of one’s innate naiveté via ‘the wonder of it all’ ... whereupon an intimate connection, a golden thread or clew as it were, is thus established whereby one is sensitive to and receptive of the over-arching benignity and benevolence of the ‘another world’ of the PCE – which is already always just here right now anyway – and one is not on one’s own, in this, the adventure of a lifetime.
And sincerity works to awaken one’s dormant naiveté. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25d, 6 December 2002.

RESPONDENT: ... how many people you spoke to at length who remembered a PCE haven’t continued with their life as usual, even though they aware of an opportunity?

RICHARD: I have never kept count ... it would be the minority of them, though.

RESPONDENT: If presented with the choice of 10 million dollars reward/ seeing God/ living in a PCE, how many would choose $64.000?

RICHARD: Presumably ... the minority.

*

RICHARD: More than a few persons have had a PCE occur whilst listening to me/reading my words ... which is why I explained (further above) that my expressive writing is an active catalyst which will catapult the reader, who reads with all their being, into this magical wonder-land that this verdant and azure planet is. ‘Tis the ‘all of their being’ which is the key.

RESPONDENT: Well, I’ve read your writings extensively and intensively ... I intellectually agree with them, but you know that there is a world of difference between intellectual and experiential understanding. And no PCE’s occurred, although there were many realizations.

RICHARD: Okay ... a realisation is not to be sneezed at, of course, where it sets one free of a habit of a lifetime.

*

RESPONDENT: ... this experience escapes any reference frame of thought, it’s pure consciousness as experienced by an individual.

RICHARD: Hmm ... are you so sure that it does indeed escape ‘any’ reference frame of thought?

RESPONDENT: You can easily and accurately describe how good it was last time you had sex with your partner. But these are only thoughts, they convey something ... but of what use they would be to me if I wouldn’t have any sexperiences?

RICHARD: I was questioning your ‘escapes any reference frame of thought’ statement ... am I to take it that your analogy with the sexual experience indicates it does not escape ‘any’ reference frame of thought after all (as in thoughts which convey something)?

As for what use a description is: everybody I have spoken to at length on this matter – everybody – eventually remembered having had a PCE.

RESPONDENT: By the way, why doesn’t your current partner write on the mailing list?

RICHARD: My companion of the last seven years has no interest in writing, period ... just as I have no interest in, for instance, playing the piano (or any other musical instrument).

*

RESPONDENT: I fully engaged myself on the spiritual path as a consequence of an ASC. Is it vital to remember/live a PCE in order to successfully practice actualism?

RICHARD: Eventually ... yes; in the interim ... I would say not (going by another’s report).

RESPONDENT: I would say it is essential to live a PCE otherwise all these discussions will degenerate sooner then later into intellectualisations rather then conveying individual experiences.

RICHARD: Not while there are some that do recall a PCE ... even one such person could keep a discussion on track (keep it in accord with what this mailing list is set-up for).

RESPONDENT: This is already happening on the mailing list, circles in a circus.

RICHARD: Speaking personally I find the input from peoples of a religio-spiritual/ mystico-metaphysical persuasion (if that is what you are referring to by your ‘circles in a circus’ phrasing) to be a salutary example – a real-life practical illustration – that the ‘Tried and True’ is indeed the ‘Tried and Failed’.

There is nothing like a practical demonstration to drive the point home.

RESPONDENT: What I’m doing right now is to sensibly use the information supplied here for daily use, see if it can stand practical life exposure and eventually create the favourable circumstances for a different CE to occur.

RICHARD: A very sensible approach indeed ... intellectualising is not at all conducive to a PCE occurring.


CORRESPONDENT No. 25 (Part Six)

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