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Richard’s Correspondence On The Actual Freedom Mailing List With Correspondent No. 74
RESPONDENT: It is certainly enjoyable to converse with you Richard. I will address other points later, but one I can address right now:
What I mean is: just because someone is living a celibate life does not mean he is enlightened. RICHARD: Indeed not ... the many and various monks and nuns, for instance. RESPONDENT: The opposite, that an enlightened man need not live a celibate life, might also be true. RICHARD: There are more than a few instances of enlightened/ awakened persons not being celibate ... which has, of course, raised questions about just what does constitute enlightenment/awakenment. RESPONDENT: But as I am conditioned to view sex as an indulgence in pleasure, I feel hesitant in saying so. RICHARD: I can recall, almost immediately following having had sex for the first time, after five years of spontaneous celibacy, of being (intuitively) conscious of the thousands of sages, saints, and seers in the astral dimension going tut-tut, as it were, so I can understand your hesitance. I can also recall thumbing my nose, so to speak, at their mild recriminations and they faded-out of consciousness ... apparently satisfied that, as I now knew full well the ramifications of my actions, all was okay. RESPONDENT: I think, I have been severely brainwashed by the eastern beliefs which consider sex as a fall. RICHARD: As a generalisation, so too in the west is sex considered a fall (as in a fall from grace). RESPONDENT: This dialogue has certainly opened my mind. RICHARD: Good ... the enlightened/ awakened state has been a well-shrouded mystery for far too long.
RESPONDENT No. 78: It is sensible not to be wasteful, you suggest otherwise Richard? RICHARD: As to not be wasteful is to be frugal, and as to suggest otherwise is to not advocate frugality, your query might be better addressed to a moralist, an ethicist, or a principlist. RESPONDENT: I think the question was clear enough. RICHARD: Aye ... and it can also be put another way, can it not? For an obvious example:
Also:
And:
Not that it makes any difference as the end result, no matter which way it is phrased, is that I am being asked to either agree or disagree with an all-embracing/ all-encompassing statement/ assertion. RESPONDENT: The reply is evasive. RICHARD: My response is direct and to the point ... if (note ‘if’) I were to be drawn into turning the silly/ sensible appraisal, of each and every situation or circumstance, each and every moment again, into an all-inclusive/across-the-board value-laden approach to life – as a matter of principle (or an ethic/a moral) to live life by – I would be doing my fellow human being no favour. In other words: I clearly and unambiguously decline to be sucked into participating in the corruption of a remarkably simple and effective moment-to moment way of appraising the vagaries of life. RESPONDENT: I had to read it twice to actually get the grammar straight. RICHARD: I was given a blanket statement/ assertion
RESPONDENT: The question, as I understand it, was whether being wasteful is a sensible attitude, given the limitations of natural resources etc. RICHARD: My co-respondent had prefaced their query with two evaluations I was in no position to assess for myself – that they know many [quote] ‘sensible human beings’ [endquote] who would consider themselves environmentalists and whom are [quote] ‘just acting sensibly’ [endquote] about environmental sustainability – and a sweeping statement/assertion (as in the ‘it is sensible not to be wasteful’ phrasing further above) so I responded to the only reference to sensibility I could meaningfully comment upon. As for your ‘given the limitations of natural resources’ comment: that is another subject entirely ... and one I was not asked about. RESPONDENT: He did not ask whether it is ‘ethical’ or ‘good’, etc., just whether it was sensible. RICHARD: The whole point of the silly/sensible appraisal of one’s thoughts/actions is to not fall into the trap of
living each moment with pre-digested beliefs/ factoids The problem with values – be they morals, ethics, principles (or cultural standards/mores in general) – is that they can,
and do on occasion, make one myopic What I have found, again and again, is that when one starts sincerely investigating something one soon finds that facts are remarkably thin on the ground.
RESPONDENT No. 78: It is sensible not to be wasteful, you suggest otherwise Richard? RICHARD: As to not be wasteful is to be frugal, and as to suggest otherwise is to not advocate frugality, your query might be better addressed to a moralist, an ethicist, or a principlist. RESPONDENT: I think the question was clear enough. RICHARD: Aye ... and it can also be put another way, can it not? For an obvious example:
Also:
And:
Not that it makes any difference as the end result, no matter which way it is phrased, is that I am being asked to either agree or disagree with an all-embracing/all-encompassing statement/assertion. RESPONDENT: Of course, the original questioner wanted to know your point of view in this matter. RICHARD: Perhaps if I were to put it this way? I was being asked to either agree or disagree with a blatantly-laundered societal/cultural precept – ‘a general instruction or rule for action, a maxim [a rule or principle of conduct]’ (Oxford Dictionary) – and, as I am not a moralist, an ethicist, or a principlist, I suggested that the query might be better addressed to such a person. RESPONDENT: You could just have said that it depends on the context whether being wasteful is harmful or not ... RICHARD: If I may point out? The question was specifically about whether being wasteful is sensible or not. RESPONDENT: ... [You could just have said that it depends on the context whether being wasteful is harmful or not], instead of completely side-stepping the question. RICHARD: My response is direct and to the point ... if (note ‘if’) I were to be drawn into turning the silly/sensible appraisal, each and every moment again, into a principled approach to each and every situation or circumstance, I would be doing my fellow human being no favour. RESPONDENT: Why do you take each question as a threat ... RICHARD: If I may interject? I do not take any question as a threat (let alone each one). RESPONDENT: ... [Why do you take each question as a threat], as in when you say that ‘such tactics don’t work on me’ and so on? RICHARD: I copy-pasted <such tactics don’t work on me> into the search function of this computer and sent it through everything I have ever written ... only to return nil hits; if you could provide the passage wherein you obtained the above quote from some light may be thrown upon the matter. RESPONDENT: Why don’t you just take the questions with ‘naiveté’ ... RICHARD: If I may point out? There is no need for naiveté – the closest approximation to innocence one can have whilst being a ‘self’ – in this actual world, the world of the senses, as there is only innocence here. RESPONDENT: ... [Why don’t you just take the questions with ‘naiveté’], and answer them as you would to a child? RICHARD: If a child were to ask me to either agree or disagree with an all-embracing/all-encompassing statement/assertion I would answer them the same way I did in this instance. RESPONDENT: Doesn’t sound very ‘innocent’ to me to be ‘tactical’ in one’s correspondence with one’s fellow humans. RICHARD: Again, if you could provide the passage wherein you obtained the (further above) quote from some light may be thrown upon the matter ... in the meanwhile the following might very well be of interest:
* RESPONDENT: The reply is evasive. RICHARD: My response is direct and to the point ... if (note ‘if’) I were to be drawn into turning the silly/ sensible appraisal, of each and every situation or circumstance, each and every moment again, into an all-inclusive/ across-the-board value-laden approach to life – as a matter of principle (or an ethic/a moral) to live life by – I would be doing my fellow human being no favour. In other words: I clearly and unambiguously decline to be sucked into participating in the corruption of a remarkably simple and effective moment-to moment way of appraising the vagaries of life. RESPONDENT: Simple, or ... simplistic. RICHARD: Ahh ... I always like it when someone says something like that as it shows that they are beginning to take notice that when I say naiveté I mean naiveté. Maybe its very simplicity is why its import escapes the notice of sophisticates RESPONDENT: You have a pension, your needs are taken care of. You don’t NEED to be sucked in. RICHARD: There are, essentially, five basic needs: air, water, food, shelter and clothing (if the weather be inclement) and I ensured that those needs – and those of five others when I was a husband and father – were met all throughout my working life ... just because I am now retired and on a pension has nothing to do with declining to be sucked into participating in the corruption of a remarkably simple and effective moment-to moment way of appraising the vagaries of life. And I say this because the silly/ sensible appraisal, of each and every situation or circumstance, each and every moment
again, was first devised in 1981 when I was a married man, with four children, running my own business, with a house mortgage to pay off and a car
on hire purchase, working twelve-fourteen hour days, six-seven days a week, and with a vested interest in no longer maintaining/ perpetuating a
social identity (aka a conscience) by living life according to all the beliefs, ideas, theories, concepts, maxims, dictums, truths, factoids,
philosophies, values, principles, ideals, standards, credos, doctrines, tenets, canons, morals, ethics, customs, traditions, psittacisms,
superstitions, myths, legends, folklores, imaginations, divinations RESPONDENT: But people whose habitats are being destroyed because the rich need more oak for their bed stands, RICHARD: As the remainder of your sentence was cut off I am unable to discern where you are going with this/what point it is you are making. * RESPONDENT: The question, as I understand it, was whether being wasteful is a sensible attitude, given the limitations of natural resources etc. RICHARD: My co-respondent had prefaced their query with two evaluations I was in no position to assess for myself – that they know many [quote] ‘sensible human beings’ [endquote] who would consider themselves environmentalists and whom are [quote] ‘just acting sensibly’ [endquote] about environmental sustainability – and a sweeping statement/assertion (as in the ‘it is sensible not to be wasteful’ phrasing further above) so I responded to the only reference to sensibility I could meaningfully comment upon. As for your ‘given the limitations of natural resources’ comment: that is another subject entirely ... and one I was not asked about. RESPONDENT: Isn’t it related? RICHARD: Only in the minds of those who have fallen into the trap of living each moment according to pap – with pre-digested beliefs/factoids as values – and are thus not open (to put it into the jargon) each moment again to what is actually the case (to what is factual) in each and every situation.
RESPONDENT No. 78: It is sensible not to be wasteful, you suggest otherwise Richard? RICHARD: As to not be wasteful is to be frugal, and as to suggest otherwise is to not advocate frugality, your query might be better addressed to a moralist, an ethicist, or a principlist. (...) RESPONDENT: Why do you take each question as a threat ... RICHARD: If I may interject? I do not take any question as a threat (let alone each one). RESPONDENT: ... [Why do you take each question as a threat], as in when you say that ‘such tactics don’t work on me’ and so on? RICHARD: I copy-pasted <such tactics don’t work on me> into the search function of this computer and sent it through everything I have ever written ... only to return nil hits; if you could provide the passage wherein you obtained the above quote from some light may be thrown upon the matter. RESPONDENT: I had no verbatim memory of your phrases, only an idea. RICHARD: If I might suggest? It would be handy to refrain from putting an idea of yours in quotes (and thus attributing it to another). RESPONDENT: The word I should have written should be ‘ploy’ or ‘ploys’, not ‘tactics’. RICHARD: I see ... your query now looks something like this, then:
Yet my response is the same ... I do not take any question as a threat (let alone each one). RESPONDENT: From the American Heritage dictionary: [quote] ‘tactic: an expedient for achieving a goal; a manoeuvre; ploy: an action calculated to frustrate an opponent or gain an advantage indirectly or deviously; a manoeuvre’. [endquote]. Seems like ploy is a stronger word than tactic. RICHARD: It makes no difference whether it be a stronger word or not ... I do not take any question as a threat (let alone each one). RESPONDENT: And more to the point in what I wanted to communicate. RICHARD: As I do not take any question as a threat – let alone each one – the point you wanted to communicate has no existence outside of your ideation. RESPONDENT: I searched google.com for site:www.actualfreedom.com.au ploy ‘does not work’
and it responded with 16 results, some of them are: [Respondent]: ‘A very interesting post to this point, Richard. The mistake is in believing
that anything is the figment of No. 14’s imagination’. [Richard]: ‘You never give up, do you? I tell you again, this ploy does not work on me’.
[listbcorrespondence/listb14.htm RICHARD: My co-respondent made constant use of that undergraduate debating ploy on others ... here is where they first started employing it on me (I was writing to two other subscribers on that mailing list):
This one is a classic example of disingenuousness:
Needless is it to add that my co-respondent did not desist from utilising that slick debating trick in future e-mails (hence the 16+ instances such as you quoted but three of above)? * RESPONDENT: The reply [that the query might be better addressed to a moralist, an ethicist, or a principlist] is evasive. RICHARD: My response is direct and to the point ... if (note ‘if’) I were to be drawn into turning the silly/ sensible appraisal, of each and every situation or circumstance, each and every moment again, into an all-inclusive/across-the-board value-laden approach to life – as a matter of principle (or an ethic/a moral) to live life by – I would be doing my fellow human being no favour. In other words: I clearly and unambiguously decline to be sucked into participating in the corruption of a remarkably simple and effective moment-to moment way of appraising the vagaries of life. RESPONDENT: Simple, or ... simplistic. RICHARD: Ahh ... I always like it when someone says something like that as it shows that they are beginning to take notice that when I say naiveté I mean naiveté. Maybe its very simplicity is why its import escapes the notice of sophisticates? RESPONDENT: You have a pension, your needs are taken care of. You don’t NEED to be sucked in. RICHARD: There are, essentially, five basic needs: air, water, food, shelter and clothing (if the weather be inclement)
and I ensured that those needs – and those of five others when I was a husband and father – were met all throughout my working life ... just
because I am now retired and on a pension has nothing to do with declining to be sucked into participating in the corruption of a remarkably simple
and effective moment-to moment way of appraising the vagaries of life. And I say this because the silly/ sensible appraisal, of each and every
situation or circumstance, each and every moment again, was first devised in 1981 when I was a married man, with four children, running my own
business, with a house mortgage to pay off and a car on hire purchase, working twelve-fourteen hour days, six-seven days a week, and with a vested
interest in no longer maintaining/ perpetuating a social identity (aka a conscience) by living life according to all the beliefs, ideas, theories,
concepts, maxims, dictums, truths, factoids, philosophies, values, principles, ideals, standards, credos, doctrines, tenets, canons, morals,
ethics, customs, traditions, psittacisms, superstitions, myths, legends, folklores, imaginations, divinations RESPONDENT: But people whose habitats are being destroyed because the rich need more oak for their bed stands, ... RICHARD: As the remainder of your sentence was cut off I am unable to discern where you are going with this/what point it is you are making. RESPONDENT: (...) The ellipsis in the paragraph which you didn’t get, means the following: For people whose comfort is endangered by the wasteful ways of the rich and powerful, ‘getting sucked in’ or not into the debate about whether being wasteful is sensible or not is not a matter of choice, it is a matter of avoiding actual pain and misery, and hence, unavoidable. That was my statement. RICHARD: Let me see if I understand what you are wanting to communicate: I was asked whether I suggested otherwise to it being sensible not to be wasteful and, because I decline to be sucked into participating in the corruption of a remarkably simple and effective moment-to moment way of appraising the vagaries of life, you state that people whose comfort is endangered by the wasteful ways of the rich and powerful have no choice about [quote] ‘the debate’ [endquote] whether being wasteful is sensible or not as it is unavoidable (due to it being a matter of avoiding actual pain and misery). Whilst I appreciate you informing me of this I must ask what it has to do with me as I am not, repeat not, having a debate about whether being wasteful is sensible or not ... it is a matter of verifiable fact that I suggested such a topic might be better addressed to a moralist, an ethicist, or a principlist.
RESPONDENT No. 78: It is sensible not to be wasteful, you suggest otherwise Richard? RICHARD: As to not be wasteful is to be frugal, and as to suggest otherwise is to not advocate frugality, your query might be better addressed to a moralist, an ethicist, or a principlist. (...) RESPONDENT: The reply is evasive. RICHARD: My response is direct and to the point ... if (note ‘if’) I were to be drawn into turning the silly/sensible appraisal, of each and every situation or circumstance, each and every moment again, into an all-inclusive/across-the-board value-laden approach to life – as a matter of principle (or an ethic/a moral) to live life by – I would be doing my fellow human being no favour. In other words: I clearly and unambiguously decline to be sucked into participating in the corruption of a remarkably simple and effective moment-to moment way of appraising the vagaries of life. RESPONDENT: Simple, or ... simplistic. RICHARD: Ahh ... I always like it when someone says something like that as it shows that they are beginning to take
notice that when I say naiveté I mean naiveté. Maybe its very simplicity is why its import escapes the notice of sophisticates RESPONDENT: You have a pension, your needs are taken care of. You don’t NEED to be sucked in. RICHARD: There are, essentially, five basic needs: air, water, food, shelter and clothing (if the weather be inclement)
and I ensured that those needs – and those of five others when I was a husband and father – were met all throughout my working life ... just
because I am now retired and on a pension has nothing to do with declining to be sucked into participating in the corruption of a remarkably simple
and effective moment-to moment way of appraising the vagaries of life. And I say this because the silly/ sensible appraisal, of each and every
situation or circumstance, each and every moment again, was first devised in 1981 when I was a married man, with four children, running my own
business, with a house mortgage to pay off and a car on hire purchase, working twelve-fourteen hour days, six-seven days a week, and with a vested
interest in no longer maintaining/ perpetuating a social identity (aka a conscience) by living life according to all the beliefs, ideas, theories,
concepts, maxims, dictums, truths, factoids, philosophies, values, principles, ideals, standards, credos, doctrines, tenets, canons, morals,
ethics, customs, traditions, psittacisms, superstitions, myths, legends, folklores, imaginations, divinations RESPONDENT: But people whose habitats are being destroyed because the rich need more oak for their bed stands, ... RICHARD: As the remainder of your sentence was cut off I am unable to discern where you are going with this/what point it is you are making. RESPONDENT: (...) The ellipsis in the paragraph which you didn’t get, means the following: For people whose comfort is endangered by the wasteful ways of the rich and powerful, ‘getting sucked in’ or not into the debate about whether being wasteful is sensible or not is not a matter of choice, it is a matter of avoiding actual pain and misery, and hence, unavoidable. That was my statement. RICHARD: Let me see if I understand what you are wanting to communicate: I was asked whether I suggested otherwise to it being sensible not to be wasteful and, because I decline to be sucked into participating in the corruption of a remarkably simple and effective moment-to moment way of appraising the vagaries of life, you state that people whose comfort is endangered by the wasteful ways of the rich and powerful have no choice about [quote] ‘the debate’ [endquote] whether being wasteful is sensible or not as it is unavoidable (due to it being a matter of avoiding actual pain and misery). Whilst I appreciate you informing me of this I must ask what it has to do with me as I am not, repeat not, having a debate about whether being wasteful is sensible or not ... it is a matter of verifiable fact that I suggested such a topic might be better addressed to a moralist, an ethicist, or a principlist. RESPONDENT: If you see a debate about wastefulness and frugality to be a corruption of your happy state, then your happy state is quite fragile. RICHARD: I have used the word ‘corruption’ seven times in the three e-mails preceding this one – all in the same or similar sentence – and here is an example (from one of the two instances further above):
How you can even consider for one moment that the corruption of [quote] ‘a way of appraising the vagaries of life’ [endquote] could possibly mean ‘a corruption of your happy state’ has got me beat ... especially as the ‘in other words’ refers that sentence back to my immediately preceding explanation that if (note ‘if’) I were to be drawn into turning the silly/sensible appraisal, of each and every situation or circumstance, each and every moment again, into an all-inclusive/across-the-board value-laden approach to life – as a matter of principle (or an ethic/a moral) to live life by – I would be doing my fellow human being no favour. Incidentally, the happiness and harmlessness – a freedom from malice and sorrow and, thus, their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion – which ensues upon an actual freedom from the human condition is not a ‘state’ as there are no states here in this actual world ... the (affective) ‘being’ who has/is such states is extinct. RESPONDENT: Why can’t one talk about some issues that humanity is facing without being so threatened that this might corrupt one’s happiness? RICHARD: As your premise is invalid then your conclusion – albeit in the form of a question – has no substance ... apart from which that threat/threatened theme of yours has already reached its use-by date. Viz.:
And:
And:
And:
RESPONDENT: You don’t have to take a stand about frugality ... RICHARD: It is not a case of either not having to, or having to, ‘take a stand’ about frugality (vis-a-vis wastefulness) ... I am clearly and unambiguously declining to be sucked into participating in the corruption of a remarkably simple and effective moment-to moment way of appraising the vagaries of life. RESPONDENT: ... [You don’t have to take a stand about frugality], but as part of a fellowship, your comments were invited in a rather forthright way. RICHARD: I was given a blanket statement/assertion and invited to either agree or disagree ... and, as I am not a moralist, an ethicist, or a principlist, I suggested that the query might be better addressed to such a person. RESPONDENT: Your refusal to take a static stand based on some belief/conditioning is appreciable ... RICHARD: I have made no refusal to take a stand – be it static or otherwise – based on some belief/conditioning ... I have made it abundantly clear, with detailed explanations as to why, that I will not be a party to turning the silly/sensible appraisal, of each and every situation or circumstance, each and every moment again, into a principled approach to life. RESPONDENT: ... [Your refusal to take a static stand based on some belief/conditioning is appreciable] but it does zilch to throw some light on the matter at hand. RICHARD: This is the matter to hand:
This is a mailing list set up to discuss an actual and virtual freedom from the human condition and freeing oneself of the social identity prior to delving deep into the stygian depths of the human psyche is paramount to success: if my response (plus all these detailed explanations) has thrown zilch light, for you, upon the subject then I doubt that anything I say now is going to make much difference ... but I will give it a go, anyway. Do you understand the difference between a principled approach to life and a pragmatic approach? RESPONDENT: If anybody asks me what I think of something, I might say I refuse to participate in the discussion because I won’t take a stand based on my conditioning. But isn’t it up to me whether or not I take a stand based on my conditioning or whether I talk about the matter objectively without a pre-judice. RICHARD: How you conduct your interactions with others is, of course, your business ... my business is to provide a report/description/explanation of what life is like in this actual world (after all that is what I came onto the internet for). RESPONDENT: One might be harmful as in one’s attitude to others ... RICHARD: If one is nursing malice (and sorrow) to one’s bosom then ... yes; where there is no malice (and sorrow) then ... no. RESPONDENT: ... [One might be harmful as in one’s attitude to others], or harmful due to the unintentional or uninformed consequences of one’s actions. If one is informed that some of the things one does, or the wasteful way in one lives, has a verifiable and objectively perceptible detrimental effect on the quality of life of some people, shouldn’t a ‘sensible’ man try to find alternatives? RICHARD: Perhaps if I were to put it this way? Virtually anything other than going naked in the forest, without so much as a box of matches, a knife, or a packet of salt, and staying alive by gathering berries/fruit by hand and digging for roots/yams with a stick, can be construed as being wasteful of natural resources (even eating meat is considered by most, if not all, vegans/ vegetarians to be wasteful of resources as it takes about 10 kilos of vegetation to produce 1 kilo or so of animal protein) ... and if one were to develop appendicitis (for just one instance) one would just have to die of it as modern medical procedures are quite wasteful of natural resources. I could go on – I have not only lived the counter-culture/back-to-nature/alternate lifestyle, in my mid-twenties to early thirties, but have had, as a matter of course, wide-ranging discussions with all manner of people over many years on this very topic – but maybe that brief exposé will do for now? RESPONDENT: Altruism might be more than being harmless ... RICHARD: If I may interject? There is no altruism here in this actual world. Viz.:
To explain: the word altruism can be used in two distinctly different ways – in a virtuous sense (as in being an unselfish/selfless self) or in a zoological/biological sense (as in being diametrically opposite to selfism) – and it is the latter which is of particular interest to a person wanting to enable the already always existing peace-on-earth, in this lifetime as this flesh and blood body, into being apparent as it takes a powerful instinctive impulse (altruism) to overcome a powerful instinctive impulse (selfism) ... blind nature endows each and every human being with the selfish instinct for individual survival and the clannish instinct for group survival (be it the familial group, the tribal group, or the national group). By and large the instinct for survival of the group is the more powerful – as is epitomised in the honey-bee (when it stings to protect/defend the hive it dies) – and it is the utilisation of this once-in-a-lifetime gregarian action which is referred to in my oft-repeated ‘an altruistic ‘self’-sacrifice/‘self’-immolation, in toto, for the benefit of this body and that body and every body’. RESPONDENT: ... [Altruism might be more than being harmless], it might be actively seeking a way to minimise the misery one inflicts on others by way of being part of a consumerist society, for example. RICHARD: As this is a mailing list set up to discuss the elimination of misery (and mayhem) – not just the (theoretical) minimisation of it through becoming an advocate of frugality in a knee-jerk reaction to the religio-political ideologies/ religio-philosophical ideals of the latter-day luddites who have re-invented themselves in the form of environmentalists/ conservationists/ preservationists – your popularist concerns might very well be better attended to on an eco-activist forum. I cannot put it any more plainly than that.
RESPONDENT: From a conversation on Mailing List ‘B’: [Respondent]: ‘I hear him [Mr.
Jiddu Krishnamurti] saying that when there is actual observation of the entire movement of thought, thought, as a centre of selfishness, ends. Now
if that is so, what could be there BUT compassion?’ [Richard]: ‘Aye ... when thought stops the affective faculty rushes in to fill the gap. It
is but being ruled by one’s feelings ... albeit ‘good’ feelings’. RICHARD: Because that is the intent of the spiritual aspirant ... if the intent was to be a manifestation of evil then, when thought stops and the affective faculty rushes in to fill the gap, it is also to be but ruled by one’s feelings ... albeit ‘bad’ feelings. RESPONDENT: I asked a question related to this many months back but did not get a response. RICHARD: Presumably you are referring to the following:
If that is the related question you are referring to then you did indeed get a response ... and only a little over twelve hours later at that. Viz.:
RESPONDENT: The question is: Why is that when the mind is silent, the predominant feeling is that of love and compassion and gentleness? RICHARD: Because their polar opposites – malice and sorrow and aggressiveness – have been sublimated (refined/redirected); with sublimation there is transmutation, transformation ... hence transcended (risen above/gone beyond). RESPONDENT: What happens to the negative instincts in that state? RICHARD: The (affective) energy of the negative, or savage, instinctual passions, having no other outlet, is covertly fuelling the positive, or tender, instinctual passions. The following is quite explicit about how sorrow, when thoughtlessly and thus deeply felt with all of one’s being, is
energised into transforming itself into being a ‘strange flame of passion’
VINEETO: I know for a fact that there is no God because I know for a fact that God is a construct of ‘my’ fear and hope, of ‘my’ passionate imagination. No imagination – no God, no passion – no God. It is essential to go this far in order to become free of the human condition in toto. RESPONDENT No. 89: The only thing you know for fact is that ‘your’ version of ‘God’ doesn’t exist because that God was a construct of ‘your’ fear and hope, of ‘your’ passionate imagination. And now that construct is gone. If there is God s/he is certainly beyond of ‘our’ fears, hopes and passionate imaginations. So the question whether there is God or is not God and what kind of God etc can never be known for fact. You believed in an idol [’your’ version of God] and realized that this ideal doesn’t exist and now you conclude ‘God’ [the real one so to speak] doesn’t exist. VINEETO: You must be talking about *your* version of God then, the Principle or Godhead or Atma or whatever name you want to call it. There are no gods of any kind in the actual world. RESPONDENT No. 89: That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever to me. VINEETO: Of course not – your God is preventing you from using common sense. RESPONDENT: (...) Hope/ fear can lead to belief, but absence of hope/ fear does not mean the absence of the thing believed in, it just means an absence of belief (at best). RICHARD: As what you are saying, in effect, is that the absence of what can lead to belief in a timeless, spaceless, formless – and thus odourless, tasteless, soundless, untouchable and unseeable – creative source, or creator ex nihilo, of all time and space and form (aka the universe) is not evidence of the absence of any such a creative source/creator ex nihilo but only, at best, an absence of belief in same would it not be apposite to enquire just what it is that would constitute the requisite evidence? In other words: what is the evidence, which gives credence to such a belief being valid, which has to be satisfactorily invalidated, so as to provide 100% certainty, if it be not the many and various testimonies (experiential reports), often codified in scriptures, from the many and various Masters and Messiahs, God-Men and Gurus, Sages and Seers, Avatars and Arahants, Saviours and Saints, and so on and so forth, over many aeons, plus the many and various affirmations from temporary experiences of same or similar, either induced or spontaneous, by countless numbers of peoples from all walks of life throughout the same period? Otherwise what you put forward is but a variation on that agnostic ‘absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’ (abstract) intellectualisation which invariably results in discussions, such as the above, devolving into futile arguments about unicorns, phlogiston, or any other such phantasms which feature on more than a few other mailing lists. RESPONDENT: Existence of something is independent of whether it is believed in or not. RICHARD: As the non-existence of any such a creative source/ creator ex nihilo is also independent of disbelieving or not you may find the following, which is of related interest, to be food for thought:
Further to the point, as the direct experience that this infinite and eternal and perdurable universe is a veritable perpetuus
mobilis Put simply: where there is direct experience neither absence of belief nor disbelief has any part to play.
RESPONDENT: Richard, on www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/listafcorrespondence/listaf44a.htm
Can you explain further? RICHARD: Sure ... I was responding an e-mail which started with the following question:
I do not read/ watch science fiction but as I get these type of questions from time to time, from peoples who either
conveniently overlook or are oblivious to what is known as ‘theory of mind’ To ask why not change companions every day, as if by having no affective feelings it makes no difference just who it is, is to cavalierly disregard the integrity (aka the soundness of character, the honesty, the sincerity) of, not only my current companion, but each and every one of those (365 per year) fellow human beings ... adroitly assuming, of course, as my co-respondent presumably did, that a steady stream of females would indeed be knocking on my door each morning wanting admission as soon as the previous day’s female-in-residence departed for places unknown (an instinctually-driven archetypal male-fantasy if there ever was). Not to mention, of course, the (presumed) total lack of integrity on my part ... but, then again, a robotic-like automaton would be devoid of same anyway, eh? RESPONDENT: In what way does her integrity suffer if you change your partner? RICHARD: It is not case of having another’s integrity suffer – it is a case of (presumably) having so little regard/ no regard at all for another’s integrity that they could be changed daily – and it speaks volumes for the parlous state of the human condition that such a scenario would even be entertained for a moment ... let alone typed-out and sent to me. RESPONDENT: Also, how would you changing your partner ‘toy’ with your fellow human being? RICHARD: The part of the exchange you quoted at the top of this page followed immediately on from this:
Here is what a dictionary has to say about flirting:
For one to actually care, rather than merely feel that one cares, means that one is incapable of toying with/ trifling with/ dallying with one’s fellow human being ... let alone one’s live-in companion.
CORRESPONDENT No. 74 (Part Five) RETURN TO THE ACTUAL FREEDOM MAILING LIST INDEX RETURN TO RICHARD’S CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
Richard's Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved.
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