Actual Freedom – The Actual Freedom Mailing List Correspondence

August 05 2003

RESPONDENT: Douglass Harding, Byron Katie, Maximillian Sandor, bunches of folks in the ex-scientology camp (put ‘freezone’ into your search engine) are all, in their various ways, about using INSIGHT to deconstruct to iron grip of ego-self without getting caught up in the big SELF spiritualist experience of Ramana Maharshi, Bernadette Roberts, et al.

RICHARD: The following quotes may very well throw some light upon the matter:

• [Mr. Douglas Harding]: ‘Unself-conscious: The principle of this meditation is: never lose sight of your Self in any circumstances, and your problems are taken care of – including, strange to say, the problem of self-consciousness. For finding the Self is losing the self’. (‘The Results of Seeing Who You Really Are’; an article by Douglas Harding from ‘The Toolkit for Testing the Incredible Hypothesis’; www.headless.org/English/reallyr.htm).

• [Ms. Sunny Massad]: ‘And how was your relationship with your husband’s body?
• [Ms. Byron Katie]: ‘Uhhhh. [Sighs.] First time we made love it was just amaaazing. It was radical! Cuz it was God with God. And it was the receiving of it and the giving ah, it was just amazing! (‘An Interview with Byron Katie’; reprinted from ‘The Noumenon Journal: Nondual Perspectives on Transformation’; www.realization.org/page/doc1/doc107b.htm).

• [Mr. Maximilian Sandor]: ‘He [Gotamo Siddharto] summarised his message in ‘Four Special Truths’: (...) 2. The truth about how a Being alienates itself and becomes trapped in a Universe’. (‘A Summary of Gotamo’s Principle in Today’s Language’; ©1998 by Maximilian J. Sandor, Ph.D.; http://orunla.org/pnohteftu/ch16.html).
• [Mr. Maximilian Sandor]: ‘Before a Being can withdraw from this Universe, every connection to it must be dissolved (which is tantamount to a complete integration of the Being)’. (The Buddha Paradox; ©1998 by Maximilian J. Sandor, Ph.D.; http://orunla.org/pnohteftu/ch441.html).

• [The Editors]: ‘The Beingness-by-itself, the free, un-detached beingness is a factor outside the ‘playground’ of our world – in a broader sense outside of ‘the physically measurable’. Beingness-by-itself is the creator of consciousness, and consciousness is the creator of the world. An Individual evolves out of the Beingness-by-itself and brings itself into a ‘form’ with the help of consciousness. It is then subjected to the laws of freedom and compulsion’. (‘Central Statement’, ‘The Free Zone’; www.scientologie.org/se_nsumm.htm).

August 06 2003

RESPONDENT: Douglass Harding, Byron Katie, Maximillian Sandor, bunches of folks in the ex-scientology camp (put ‘freezone’ into your search engine) are all, in their various ways, about using INSIGHT to deconstruct to iron grip of ego-self without getting caught up in the big SELF spiritualist experience of Ramana Maharshi, Bernadette Roberts, et al.

RICHARD: The following quotes may very well throw some light upon the matter: (snip quotes from Mr. Douglas Harding [Finding The Self], Ms. Byron Katie [God With God], Mr. Maximilian Sandor [Alienation/Integration Of The Being], and Free Zone [The Beingness-By-Itself] for reasons of space).

RESPONDENT: You’re a bit of a researcher ... so good on ya!

RICHARD: All I did was provide some referenced quotes which, for anyone with access to an internet search engine and ten minutes or so to spare, can easily be found ... for example:

1. Copy-paste ‘Douglas Harding’ into search engine box and press ‘Enter’: 5.00 seconds.
2. Search results page displayed: 3.19 seconds.
3. Left-click ‘www.headless.org’ URL ... home page loads: 9.00 seconds.
4. Left-click ‘English’ in the language choice buttons ... main page loads: 13.00 seconds.
5. Skim through ‘Introduction’ ... highlight and copy the following text: • ‘This experience [headlessness] corresponds to what in other traditions might be called Liberation, Enlightenment, seeing God, seeing the Void, being centred’. (www.headless.org/English/main.html) and paste text in word processor: 19.00 seconds.
6. Copy-paste URL for reference: 5.00 seconds.
7. Left-click ‘Articles’ button in menu ... page loads: 5.00 seconds.
8. Left-click ‘The Headless Way’ article because it is written by Mr. Douglas Harding ... page loads: 3.00 seconds.
9. Scan the article ... highlight and copy the following text: • ‘Over the past thirty years a truly contemporary and Western way of ‘seeing into one’s Nature’ or ‘Enlightenment’ has been developing. Though in essence the same as Zen, Sufism, and other spiritual disciplines, this way proceeds in an unusually down-to-earth fashion. It claims that modern man is more likely to see Who he really is in a minute of active experimentation than in years of reading, lecture-attending, thinking, ritual observances, and passive meditation of the traditional sort’. (www.headless.org/English/thw.htm) and paste text in word processor: 21.00 seconds.
10. Copy-paste URL for reference: 5.00 seconds.
11. Return to ‘Articles’ page and left-click ‘The Results of Seeing Who You Really Are’ article by Mr. Douglas Harding ... page loads: 11.00 seconds.
12. Skim through the article ... ... highlight and copy the following text: • ‘The principle of this meditation is: never lose sight of your Self in any circumstances, and your problems are taken care of – including, strange to say, the problem of self-consciousness. For finding the Self is losing the self’. (www.headless.org/English/reallyr.htm) and paste text in word processor: 23.00 seconds.
13. Copy-paste URL for reference: 5.00 seconds.
14. Delete first two copy-pasted quotes (the third quote being unambiguously self-explanatory): 2.00 seconds.
15. Total time taken: 129.19 seconds (2 minutes and 9.19 seconds).

If doing the above, and similar for the other three quotes, constitutes being ‘a bit of a researcher’ in your eyes – and somehow deserving of a ‘good on ya!’ commendation – then all I can say is that the Dean of Students at ‘The New Mexico Institute for Buddhist Studies’, an American institution of religious learning to provide an accessible means of providing a foundation in Pure Land Buddhism, is all-too-easily pleased ... seeing that you are using his e-mail address perhaps you could draw his attention to the following? Viz.:

• ‘As it is the objective of the practice of Buddhism to ultimately unite students with their Higher Self for the purpose of better serving humanity, so too does the the New Mexico Institute for Buddhist Studies hope to accomplish the same through its various curricula. Using a system of study, meditation, and ritual practice, students will acquire the knowledge to understand who they really are, and what creative powers exist within. Through the raising of his/her conscious awareness the student will begin to learn how to use the keys by which the doors of eternal life may be unlocked and opened. (NMIBS Purpose and Objectives; http://my.cybersoup.com/hongakujodo/nmibscat2.html).

I, for one, can easily see the words ‘their Higher Self’ and ‘who they really are’ and ‘eternal life’ in amongst that lot (add another 59.00 seconds).

RESPONDENT: I like your commitment to investigation, empiricism, pragmatism, ACTUAL FACTS.

RICHARD: It is one thing to like another’s commitment to ‘investigation, empiricism, pragmatism, ACTUAL FACTS’ ... and another thing entirely to emulate same.

In other words the commitment made by the identity parasitically inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago, a total dedication to global peace and harmony, took just under 12 years to bring about an actual freedom from the human condition ... and what do you have to show after 30+ years? Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘I’ve settled into a variant of Buddhism that doesn’t attempt to cross the fabled river to enlightenment in this lifetime, but rather assumes that for the vast majority it is simply not attainable. We don’t need to deconstruct it further (though I am not averse to doing so). (‘Re: Introduction – Clarifying Communication’; Fri 01 August 2003).

It would appear that deconstructionism has not delivered/does not deliver the goods in this lifetime ... but, then again, Amida Buddhism has it that enlightenment is much more accessible in the Pure Land – the ‘Amida Heaven’ as it were – provided one gets there after physical death, that is, and does not become side-tracked into contemplating the distinct possibility of living the pristine perfection of the peerless purity of such a mundane thing as peace-on-earth, in this lifetime as this flesh and blood body, and thus court descent into one of the many Buddhist hells.

Golly ... with the fate of one’s eternal life (aka eternal soul) at stake one will probably construct a wide range of facile intellectualisms, when reading what is on offer on The Actual Freedom Trust web site, in order to have something to deconstruct.

RESPONDENT: So ... I’m with you.

RICHARD: If only you were ... for example:

• ‘Regardless of what others, or our own ego, would have us believe, there is only one reason for our present circumstance, and only one way to change it. That is to reconnect with Buddha ... which we call Amida: our source, our true self, our Original Nature. (...) Yet the reality is simple: You are the Door. Open it! Choose your Way, and be responsible for your choice. Then practice! Be loving and be compassionate towards others, regardless of their ‘form’, for as you think and do, so will your creations be. Most of all, be loving and compassionate with yourself. Everything begins and ends with you. This is the cultivation of ORIGINAL NATURE, the freeing up of ENDLESS LIGHT’. (©2003 Hongaku Jodo Pure Land Buddhist Association; www.hongaku.org/Dharma.htm).

I, for one, can easily see the words ‘our true self’ in amongst that lot (add another 71.00 seconds).

RESPONDENT: We can toss ALL these folks on the ancient spiritualist bone pile and keep moving on.

RICHARD: If only you would ... it is so easy to say ‘ALL those folks’ whilst simultaneously excluding one’s own spiritual guide, eh?

RESPONDENT: Now that we’re talking (more or less) I invite you to deal DIRECTLY with the heartwood of my questions ... as articulated in my last post to Respondent No. 59, et al. That’s a good place to shed some light, if indeed light is to be shed.

RICHARD: If I may point out? I am already doing just that ... I provided four quotes (plus two more in this e-mail) which make it patently clear that your ‘some places to look’ are, quite simply, nothing other than more of the same-old same-old tried and failed spiritual solution to all the ills of humankind. Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘I don’t yet accept that this is a ‘now for the first time’ kind of a deal. We’ve got some people exiting Plato’s Cave here, and claiming that ‘now for the first time’ the sun in shining. They haven’t yet made an exhaustive investigation of all the other places it might have been shining up until now (though they might THINK they have). I mentioned some places to look above, for starters’. (‘Conversation Continuing’; Monday, 04 August 2003).

As for your claim, that I have not yet made ‘an exhaustive investigation of all the other places’ an actual freedom from the human condition ‘might’ have been happening up until now, this may be an apposite moment to explain that, even though I have talked with many and varied peoples from all walks of life (I have both travelled the country and overseas), and watched television, videos, films (whatever media is available), plus read about other people’s experiences in books, journals, magazines, newspapers (and latterly on the internet), for more than two decades so as to find somebody else actually free from the human condition, but to no avail, I do not rely upon that kind of verification to be able to know that an actual freedom is something entirely new to human experience.

In 1985 I had the first of many experiences of going beyond spiritual enlightenment (as described in ‘A Brief Personal History’ on my part of The Actual Freedom Trust web site) and it had the character of the ‘Great Beyond’ – which I deliberately put in capitals because that is how it was experienced at the time – and it was of the nature of being ‘That’ which is attained to at physical death when an Enlightened One ‘quits the body’ ... which attainment is known as ‘Mahasamadhi’ (Hinduism) or ‘Parinirvana’ (Buddhism).

Thus I knew even before becoming actually free that this condition was entirely new to human experience while still alive ... furthermore, in the ensuing years, as I proceeded to penetrate deeper and deeper into the state of being known as spiritual enlightenment, the psychic footprints, as it were, of those who had explored some of the further reaches of ‘Being’ itself gradually became less and less in number and finally petered out altogether leaving only virgin territory wherever the (psychic) eye would look.

I was truly on my own ... no one had ventured into this terrain before.

August 09 2003

RICHARD: If doing the above [providing a referenced quote which, for anyone with access to an internet search engine and two or three minutes to spare, can easily be found], and similar for the other three quotes, constitutes being ‘a bit of a researcher’ in your eyes – and somehow deserving of a ‘good on ya!’ commendation – then all I can say is that the Dean of Students at ‘The New Mexico Institute for Buddhist Studies’, an American institution of religious learning to provide an accessible means of providing a foundation in Pure Land Buddhism, is all-too-easily pleased ... seeing that you are using his e-mail address perhaps you could draw his attention to the following? Viz.: (snip quote from the New Mexico Institute for Buddhist Studies containing the words ‘their Higher Self’ and ‘who they really are’ and ‘eternal life’).

RESPONDENT: You might have missed my introductory salutation to the group.

RICHARD: No, not at all ... I read it as soon as it came into my mail-box, and again after having copy-pasted it into a long document in my word processor, where it sits in its sequence with all the other posts you have written so as to be able to read what you write next in context, prior to responding, when I refresh my memory by re-reading what you previously had to say.

Just as I have done with this e-mail.

RESPONDENT: So here it is again: [quote] ‘I’d like to introduce myself to this list. I’m intrigued by what I am reading on the AF site. Without going into a lot of boring details, I’ve been on the path for 30+ years. It has led into and out of several variants of what I am coming to see is a common ‘spiritualism’, whether eastern or western. Suffice it to say that it has not produced the results of being either happy or harmless in my own life ... not just yet, at any rate. I am open to the idea that perhaps Richard has uncovered an entirely new way of looking at things and doing things in this so-called ‘Third Alternative’. Naturally, I do have some questions I’d like to ask about it’. [endquote]. Now I don’t mind the least little bit that you have taken the time and the bother to do a write up on Pure Land Buddhism ...

RICHARD: Oh, it was no bother at all – and it hardly took any time as, having some familiarity with it already, no research was required – because I enjoy discussing the many and varied ways my fellow human beings have attempted to make sense of what it is to be a human being living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are.

Thus it never occurred to me that you would not mind thinking that you had caused me to do what you thought I did (having ‘taken the time and the bother to do a write up on Pure Land Buddhism’ that is) ... let alone the least little bit of minding.

RESPONDENT: ... which has been the admittedly spiritualist path that I have settled into. I have made no bones about saying that this had been the best I was able to come up with so far ...

RICHARD: Sure ... I read that the first time you said it: the whole point of doing a brief resumé of Pure Land Buddhism was to have it established in plain words that (a) it was the particular variant of Buddhism you were speaking of ... and (b) that it too was nothing other than the same-old same-old tried and failed spiritual solution to all the ills of humankind ... and (c) its teachings being the context for where an adherent of its tenets is coming from, currently at, and (supposedly) going to.

In short: I was addressing the ‘heartwood’ of your questions, as invited, whilst simultaneously situating it in its contextual background for clarity.

RESPONDENT: ... and that I was looking very seriously about the claims and statements being made about AF by you, Mr. Peter and Ms. Vineeto ... with (read carefully here) an open mind, suspending both belief and disbelief.

RICHARD: If I may point out? I always ‘read carefully’ what my fellow human being considers important enough to share with me (as evidenced by my responses being direct and relevant to the point under discussion) ... the question is: do you?

RESPONDENT: That suspension includes (read carefully here again) suspending belief and disbelief in spiritualism in general, and Pure Land Buddhism in particular. I am perfectly capable of doing that ... of looking at this topic sans calenture of any kind ... based on my own background experience of having PCE’s.

RICHARD: Ahh ... here is the nub of the issue: if, as you say, you are looking at this topic (of whether or not actualism is indeed the third alternative to materialism and spiritualism) based on your own background experience of having pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s) then where does the necessity to have ‘an open mind’ on top of such direct experience come from?

More to the point: the PCE, being self-evidentiary, does away with the intellectual approach of suspending ‘both belief and disbelief’ (which is why I stress its importance in the actualism practice).

RESPONDENT: In fact, just so you and all see the open hand I am entering this conversation with, I wrote the head of the organization I am affiliated with, letting him know that I was undertaking just such an investigation. Here’s the text of my note to him, which will perhaps relieve you of the burden of your judgements of me and my motives.

RICHARD: Just for the record: it is no ‘burden’ for me to make judgements as to where the other is coming from, currently at, or going to (each and every person already has a background, a frame of reference, an agenda, when they first come across actualism) when they discuss life, the universe, and what it is to be a human being, as the very character of what is actual brings what is not out into the open sooner or later ... the challenge is to have that occur sooner rather than later as I like my fellow human being and would rather their self-induced suffering cease as soon as possible. For example:

• [Richard]: ‘... I am always well-pleased, when somebody gets something from reading/hearing what I have to report, for I like my fellow human being no matter where they are coming from, where they are at, or where they are going to ... each person has a background, a frame of reference, an agenda, and the challenge of communication lies in engaging such a person in a sincere, frank, and honest discussion.
Which is precisely what is happening in this e-mail exchange’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 36, 29 June 2003).

I have been thoroughly enjoying this challenge for many years now ... and the secret to success in making such judgements lies in not taking them to be anything other than a current appraisal in the first place. Viz.:

• [Richard]: ‘As I have remarked before in our other thread, 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. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 12c, 21 November 2000).

 Put succinctly: I am having so much fun here at the keyboard.

RESPONDENT: [Here’s the text of my note to him]: ‘I have been spending a good deal of time lately musing on the past 30+ years of my life. In particular, I have been challenged to take inventory of myself and my path because of the writings of some folks who speak of a ‘Third Alternative’, different than either the mundane realism of those who don’t know and don’t care, and the various forms of Spiritualism, eastern, western and ‘new age’ that I have looked into in search of answers to the fundamental questions of life itself.

At this point I am wondering if all I have done, and taught others as well (including my own children) is a well meaning mistake. As I look around, it seems to me that clearly our spiritualist directions haven’t fulfilled the mandate of bringing a state of being happy nor harmless to self or to others. That’s not a moral judgment, but rather a clinical one.

Here’s an excerpt of some of the material I’ve been reading and digesting. I’m not sure where I am going with this ... but I am open to what is being said. At the same time, I don’t want to disturb any of my other friends, in case this is a blind alley or a cul-de-sac.

I can give you a call some time to discuss, if you’d like. My intent isn’t to convince you (or anyone else) of anything, but merely to share with you, as a friend, what is rumbling around inside my skull right now.

Best as ever ... [endquote].

So we can, in good faith for the purposes of this exploration, throw Amida Buddhism (Pure Land Buddhism) on the bone pile with Ram Tzu, et al. No need to get distracted by deconstructing this further ... though of course you are free to do whatever you please.

RICHARD: Where do you gain the notion that I ‘get distracted’ ... or that I am into ‘deconstructing’ spiritualism for that matter? I did not go about ‘deconstructing’ spiritualism ... I lived it, night and day for eleven years, and *experientially* found it wanting.

Be that as it may ... seeing that deconstructionism is your modus operandi (you have used the word ‘deconstruct’ in one form or another 33 times in your e-mails thus far and are advising others to do the same) it may be pertinent to point out that this is the second time you have sought to deflect somebody else from applying your method. Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘I’ve settled into a variant of Buddhism that doesn’t attempt to cross the fabled river to enlightenment in this lifetime, but rather assumes that for the vast majority it is simply not attainable. *We don’t need to deconstruct it further* (though I am not averse to doing so)’. . [emphasis added] (‘Re: Introduction – Clarifying Communication’; Fri 01 August 2003).

And now:

• [Respondent]: ‘So we can, in good faith for the purposes of this exploration, throw Amida Buddhism (Pure Land Buddhism) on the bone pile with Ram Tzu, et al. *No need to get distracted by deconstructing this further* ... though of course you are free to do whatever you please’. [emphasis added].

All I did was to address the ‘heartwood’ of your questions as invited ... you claimed that Mr. Douglas Harding, Ms. Byron Katie, Mr. Maximilian Sandor, and bunches of folks in the ex-scientology camp (The Free Zone) were some places to look to see where an actual freedom from the human condition was already happening because Richard had not yet made an exhaustive investigation of all the other places it might have been happening up until now.

In other words I provided four quotes in my first response, and two more in my second, which make it patently clear that your claims of where what I have discovered is already happening are, quite simply, nothing other than more of the same-old same-old tried and failed spiritual solution to all the ills of humankind ... yet now you protest that you have said right from the beginning (quoting part of your initial e-mail and now a private e-mail to the head of the organisation you are affiliated with) that you have suspended both belief and disbelief and have an open mind.

Where is the evidence of this in your actions (actions such as having others go on a wild goose chase through spiritualist writings)?

RESPONDENT: I have already conceded (from the moment I arrived here) that in the context of actualist taxonomy, every path I have ever trodden personally would be described as a spiritualist one ... including Amidism.

RICHARD: Why do you add the qualifier ‘in the context of actualist taxonomy’ when it is well-known, for example, that Buddhism is spiritual and that Buddhists are spiritualists?

I neither invented the words spiritual/spiritualist nor placed Buddhism/Buddhists, for example, in those classifications as they already existed/were classified long before I was born ... but, apart from that, whilst you may now say that you have already conceded, from the moment you arrived here on this mailing list, that every path you have ever trodden personally would be described as a spiritual one your very first words were that those paths were what you are ‘coming to see’ as being spiritual paths. Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘I’d like to introduce myself to this list. I’m intrigued by what I am reading on the AF site. Without going into a lot of boring details, I’ve been on the path for 30+ years. It has led into and out of several variants of what *I am coming to see* is a common ‘spiritualism’, whether eastern or western. [emphasis added]. (‘Introduction’; Friday 25 July 2003).

How is doing a rewrite of history going to aid understanding?

RESPONDENT: Having dispensed with all that ...

RICHARD: And thus, after a digression through a topic which has nothing to do with the subject to hand, with a dismissive sweep of the pen my entire response to the ‘heartwood’ of your questions has been dispensed with (synonyms: done away with, got rid of, disposed of, brought to an end) ... and all without even an acknowledgement that you have been unable to provide any instance where an actual freedom from the human condition was already happening because Richard has not yet made an exhaustive investigation of all the other places it might have been happening up until now.

Do you see how easy it is to make an (intellectual) allegation yet how difficult it is to substantiate it?

Speaking personally, I have talked with many and varied peoples from all walks of life (I have both travelled the country and overseas), and watched television, videos, films (whatever media is available), plus read about other people’s experiences in books, journals, magazines, newspapers (and latterly on the internet), for more than two decades, to find somebody else actually free from the human condition, but to no avail ... obviously I have not done a door-to-door survey of every man, woman and child currently alive, or perused all the records of every man, woman and child that has ever lived, yet with the advent of mass communication, the accessibility of information on an unprecedented scale, such a course of action is hardly necessary (which is just as well as it is impossible to personally verify absolutely everything and everyone).

Howsoever, if you can demonstrably show where another human being has been, or currently is, actually free I would be most chuffed as we could compare notes, as it were, and thus advance human knowledge even further.

RESPONDENT: I invite you (yet again) to deal with the heartwood of my questions ... as you can read in my email to Respondent No. 59 entitled ‘Conversations Continuing’.

RICHARD: If I may point out (yet again)? I am already doing just that – I provided four quotes in my first response and two more in my second which make it patently clear that your ‘some places to look’ are, quite simply, nothing other than more of the same-old same-old tried and failed spiritual solution to all the ills of humankind (plus I added an apposite explanation as to how I know, irregardless of any face-to-face or media research, that an actual freedom from the human condition is entirely new to human experience) – yet you choose to ignore/dismiss my response, by dispensing with it through a side-tracking trail of protestations about having already suspended both belief and disbelief and thus being already open, along with associated comments about imagined bothers and burdens all this is for me, only to invite me (yet again) to ‘deal with the heartwood’ of your questions as if I were not already doing so.

Which is why I asked (further above) if you ‘read carefully’ what your fellow human being considers important enough to share with you. Viz.:

Nowhere in this e-mail do you even acknowledge, let alone make a response to, what I have to report/have to say, by way of description/ explanation, on this matter.

*

RESPONDENT: I’ll be reviewing and expanding upon my questions in my next email ...

RICHARD: As a suggestion only: why not stick with the ‘heartwood’ of your questions – instead of ‘expanding’ upon them – and review what your co-respondents have to say (as well as reviewing your own contributions of course)?

Surely you would find it far more fruitful than constructing yet more facile intellectualisms (see below) so as to have something to deconstruct?

RESPONDENT: ... [in my next email] back to Respondent No. 27, who has struck me as yet another person on this list (and I am seeing more and more of such folks as this conversation unfolds) who are willing to play the Diogenes Game even before the Actualist Game: in other words, regardless of our points of agreement or contention, wanting to have integrity at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the discussion ... being entirely unwilling to allow calenture and feverish defensiveness of any kind to carry the day as we examine together what is ‘on offer’.

RICHARD: Just so there is no misunderstanding here is how you have described what you are now calling ‘the Diogenes Game’ in an earlier e-mail:

• [Respondent]: ‘I’m just playing the role of Diogenes right now, in search of an honest man’. (‘Conversation Continuing’; Monday, 04 August 2003).

Tradition ascribes to Mr. Diogenes (a Greek Cynic philosopher circa 400-325 BCE) the famous search for an honest man conducted in broad daylight with a lighted lantern. As he wound up espousing an anarchist utopia, in which human beings lived ‘natural’ lives, it is a fair bet to say that he was not an honest man himself.

So as to keep with the analogy I would make the observation that your paragraph (above), as a generalisation, epitomises both the style and content of your posts to this mailing list ... in that it encapsulates the nature of the ‘lighted lantern’ you are carrying which makes it well-nigh impossible to see what you say you are searching for.

To be more specific: you are inclined towards a certain liberality of assumptive phraseology which makes it difficult to detect any sincerity in your words ... such as the ‘being entirely unwilling to allow calenture and feverish defensiveness of any kind to carry the day’ phraseology above, for instance, as I have not been reticent about having been closely examined, over a three-year period by both an accredited psychiatrist and psychologist, and found to be having the following symptoms:

1. Depersonalisation (no sense of identity) as in no ‘self’ by whatever name.
2. Derealisation (lost touch with reality) as in reality has vanished completely.
3. Alexithymia (inability to feel the affections) as in no affective feelings whatsoever.
4. Anhedonia (inability to feel pleasure/pain) as in no affective pleasure/pain facility.

If you can satisfactorily explain how a person sans the affective faculty (the emotional/ passional/ calentural faculty), and thus its epiphenomenal imaginative/ psychic facility, could possibly ‘allow’ something which does not exist – calentures (furious deliriums) and feverish defensiveness (excited ‘self’-protectiveness) – to happen, let alone be ‘entirely unwilling’ to allow those non-existent affective/ psychic reactions to happen, I will be most surprised ... so much so that at this point I would suggest taking pause and reflecting upon your modus operandi.

‘Tis only a suggestion, mind you.

*

RESPONDENT: I close with this, Richard, for your particular benefit: [Respondent]: ‘I like your commitment to investigation, empiricism, pragmatism, ACTUAL FACTS’. [Richard]: ‘It is one thing to like another’s commitment to ‘investigation, empiricism, pragmatism, ACTUAL FACTS’ ... and another thing entirely to emulate same’. [endquotes]. Have no fear about my emulating your commitment.

RICHARD: If you had not snipped what immediately followed you would see that it is not my commitment at all I am speaking of:

• [Richard]: ‘It is one thing to like another’s commitment to ‘investigation, empiricism, pragmatism, ACTUAL FACTS’ ... and another thing entirely to emulate same.
In other words the commitment made by the identity parasitically inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago, a total dedication to global peace and harmony, took just under 12 years to bring about an actual freedom from the human condition ...’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 6 August 2003).

I have no such commitment – and I did nothing at all as I have been here all along just having a ball – because the necessary altruism is, just as selfism is, a core feature of the passionate identity within ... and not the flesh and blood body.

RESPONDENT: I will do no such thing.

RICHARD: Suit yourself ... it is your life you are living, when all is said and done, and only you get to reap the rewards, or pay the consequences, of any action or inaction you may or may not do.

All I can do is offer suggestions ... what the other does with these suggestions is entirely up to them, of course.

RESPONDENT: I have my OWN commitment to integrity in this investigation, that depends not a whit upon yours.

RICHARD: If I may suggest? Sincerity is the key to unlock one’s innate naiveté, the nourishing of which is essential if the wondrous magic of life itself is to be apparent, which naiveté effortlessly provides the ‘integrity’ you say you have your own commitment to.

Speaking of which ... did you not notice that I said the commitment was a ‘total dedication to global peace and harmony’ (and not the ‘commitment to integrity’ you make it out to be)?

Just curious.

RESPONDENT: If, as time unfolds, your commitment, or anyone else’s should appear less that 100% ...

RICHARD: Again (and put differently for emphasis) my commitment is 0.00%.

RESPONDENT: ... my commitment to doing this investigation with integrity will be unaffected.

RICHARD: So be it ... you stay with your commitment to ‘doing this investigation with integrity’ then, and let other people, who have twigged to the fact that naïveté is the closest that one can come to innocence (which is where integrity lies) whilst remaining a ‘self’, proceed on their way so that the results of your experiment can be assessed for viability against this salient bench mark.

I might add, though, that naïveté does away with all that ‘heavy lifting’ you spoke of in an earlier e-mail. Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘From what I can glean so far, virtual freedom is a period of ‘heavy lifting’. (‘Introduction’; Friday, 27 July 2003).

Where you have gleaned this diaphoretic impression from has got me stumped ... here is but one of the many ways I describe the actualism practice:

• [Richard]: ‘... the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition is marked by enjoyment and appreciation – the sheer delight of being as happy and harmless as is humanly possible whilst remaining a ‘self’ – and the slightest diminishment of such felicity/ innocuity is a warning signal (a flashing red light as it were) that one has inadvertently wandered off the way.
One is thus soon back on track ... and all because of everyday events. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 38, 20 February 2003).

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