Actual Freedom – The Actual Freedom Mailing List Correspondence

June 22 2002

RESPONDENT: A wise man said of the mystical experience, ‘There is nothing you will not be able to know, but paradoxically there is nothing you will want to know’. It seems to me that marital bliss and the absence of malice and sorrow, as the aim is a serious limitation of the possibilities.

RICHARD: As an actual freedom from the human condition is epitomised by apperception – and apperception is unlimited – I rather fail to see the point you are making.

There is a catalogued entry for apperception on my web page:

Suffice is it to say here that this moment of soft, ungathered sensuosity – apperception – contains a vast understanding, an utter cognisance which has to be lived to be known.

The word apperception literally means consciousness being aware of being conscious (which is consciousness sans ‘self’ in toto) as distinct from ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious (the normal ‘self’-conscious way of perception) ... Viz.: apperception (n.): the mind’s perception of itself; also: apperceptive (adj.): of or pertaining to apperception. (Oxford Dictionary).

Put simply: apperception is where one is the universe being stunningly aware of its own infinitude.

Just for the record: what is the name of the ‘wise man’ you are quoting ... and could you provide the reference for the quote? Also, what is this ‘wise man’ able to know that other peoples are not able to know ... and why does he not want to know it? More importantly, was this ‘wise man’ able to live in marital peace and harmony (not to forget personal peace and harmony and communal peace and harmony) ... and was this ‘wise man’ free of malice and sorrow?

Lastly, are you aware that the ‘mystical experience’ being referred to is a dissociative experience (aka object estrangement) and that a person subject to this experience is thus not concerned about peace on earth – and planet earth is where all the misery and mayhem prevails – but is concerned instead about their (supposed) after-death state?

June 25 2002

RESPONDENT: The quote comes from: ‘Verses on the Faith Mind’ By Seng-ts’an, Third Zen Patriot (606AAD) and modified by David Ferguson. If you don’t know it I can send it you. It starts: ‘The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences’. Which brings me to your thesis. Absence of malice and sorrow are clearly preferences and as such a limitation to further experience. Achieving an aim makes one content with it and disinclined, or perhaps unable to go further.

RICHARD: Yet as it is the mystics who are content with their enlightened state and disinclined to go further (an actual freedom is beyond enlightenment) I find it a bit odd that you would take the words of a mystic, who said that the Great Way (aka spiritual enlightenment) is not difficult for those who have no preferences, and deduce that someone living 1500 years later who chooses to go further than enlightenment through the extinction of identity in toto – which extinction results in the total absence of malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion – is somehow limiting themselves to ‘further experience’ .

Besides which it is the pure consciousness experience (PCE) which reveals, and thus determines, that only the extinction of identity in toto enables the already always existing peace-on-earth into becoming apparent ... and once experienced there is no choice but to proceed.

Also, despite his claim that there was nothing he was not able to know it seems that Mr. Seng-ts’an was oblivious to an actual freedom from the human condition (else he would not have stayed stuck in the mystical experience but moved on and gone beyond enlightenment).

As for Mr. David Ferguson’s omniscience: it seems to be that he, whilst claiming that there is nothing he is not able to know, does not want to know about an actual freedom which lies beyond enlightenment (he added the ‘but paradoxically there is nothing you will want to know’ codicil to the original statement of Mr. Seng-ts’an that ‘there is nothing you will not be able to know’).

It looks as though he is but adducing a modern meaning to the ‘ignorance is bliss’ cliché.

RESPONDENT: Absence of malice and sorrow do not seem to be characteristics of the mystics we hear about. Rajneesh could be vindictive. Krishnamurti had a twenty year relationship with his manager’s wife, plus endless other women and occasional abortions. He spent years in court litigating with his own people. There are endless stories about the abuse of power, money and sex, by these revered sages. Many had difficult family lives. It seems that one’s life style has little to do with the mystical experience.

RICHARD: Indeed ... as I said in my previous e-mail the ‘mystical experience’ being referred to is a dissociative experience (aka object estrangement) and that a person subject to this experience is thus not concerned about peace on earth – and planet earth is where all the misery and mayhem prevails – but is concerned instead about their (supposed) after-death state.

RESPONDENT: Much of this is over my head, the result of moving with David Ferguson.

RICHARD: Okay.

RESPONDENT: [Name deleted] told me you had something different and I am trying to find out how and if I can relate to it.

RICHARD: It is certainly different ... and it helps a lot if one can clearly see the shortcomings of enlightenment.