Actual Freedom – The Actual Freedom Mailing List Correspondence

August 05 1998

PETER: Sex such a direct experiencing of another – so direct and actual that it leaves what many attempt to obtain in Tantra for dead. I once had a very strong Tantric experience where, on reflection, I had an amazing orgasm accompanied by waves of Love and Bliss. I searched for years after for the same experience but it always eluded me. It appeared to be some elusive carrot on a string, forever to search for. Well, what I have and experience in sex now far exceeds an elusive mirage. It is actual, sensual, and freely available .

RICHARD: In Tantra, the aim is to transcend sex by using the sexual energy to produce Love and Bliss ... and thus an ineffable state of being wherein ‘The Truth’ becomes manifest. One ‘rises above’ the sexual centres and resides in the heart. Living from there, if this is carried out to completion, the seventh chakra opens at the top of the head and one realises one’s ‘True Nature’ ... one realises that ‘I am God’ or ‘I am That’ or whatever metaphysical name one cares to use.

Over the years I have read perhaps ninety of the books transcribed from Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain’s talks in order to find the core of his teachings ... he was a great one for being inconsistent. Page after page and book after book would I read wherein what was said today – as fact – was contradicted tomorrow ... or next week. He would boast about his inconsistency – and his sannyasins revel in its licence – but three things remained unchanged throughout all his works. A true sannyasin will end up being single, celibate and sitting in meditation. The Jain religion shines through ... for one who is at all observant. Thus sex for him was a means to an end and not equal to the end.

In actualism, the means and the end are one and the same thing.

PETER: And the senses being free of churning feelings and emotions such as fear, guilt, comparison, love, duty, etc., are on full alert if you like. Fully here, firing on all cylinders, absolutely no limits to the amount of pleasure shared. To have found an equally sexual other-sex human is indeed remarkable.

RICHARD: To have as a companion someone who shares the identical goal in life to oneself is occasion enough in itself for celebration. Then to have the success after success that you have had throughout your time together, is proof indeed of the benevolence and wisdom of a life being well-lived. And as success after success multiplies exponentially, one experiences that the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom delivers the goods right here and now ... not off into some indeterminate future. Plus the successes are repeatable – almost on demand – and thus satisfy the ‘scientific method’.

I am just amazed that this has never been discovered before.

Because of the utter proximity of the other in the sensate sexual embrace, a direct experience of the actuality of the other is almost inevitable. The ensuing actual intimacy can cause one to ‘slip through’ into this actual world – initially seen as another dimension from the real world – leaving one’s ‘self’ behind ... where it belongs. Then I am here, where I have always been, and it is always now. Here, I and my partner are perfection personified. Yet there is more ... everything appears to be magically transformed into a fairy tale-like paradise. However, I have always been here and it has always been like this ... nothing has been transformed at all. It was that ‘I’ was standing in the way of this clean and clear purity being apparent.

This experiencing is ambrosial to say the least.

PETER: That there exists a state that is beyond Enlightenment and includes the free delightful enjoyment of sex is indeed proof of the perfection of the universe – as I experience it actually, here now, right this moment ... and again and again.

RICHARD: Speaking personally, I have an active sex-life ... equalled only by gustatory delight. Yet there is no sex-drive whatsoever. There is no instinctual sexual desire operating here in this actual world ... thus the other gender are never viewed as sexual objects. With no aberrant urges to control one walks freely in the world of people, things and events ... a world wherein all people are fellow human beings. It is impossible to stray; to be tempted by an affair or to have a fling simply just does not happen. Without sexual stirrings, both the female and the male body are appreciated for aesthetic reasons alone ... without the natural seduction or abhorrence as felt in the real world.

Perfection is indeed already always here ... now.

November 27 1998

PETER: Richard, I mentioned the other day about radical thought so I thought I would send it to you. Let me know what you think of the definition. Thought: ‘The action or process of thinking; mental activity; formation and arrangement of ideas in the mind. Also, the capacity for this. An act or product of thinking; something that one thinks or has thought; an idea, a notion; specially one suggested or recalled to the mind, a reflection, a consideration’.

RICHARD: Thought is a truly remarkable faculty. A clear description of what thought is seems to be desperately needed ... you may find the following exchange illuminating whereby I expand a trifle upon your definition. Viz.:

• [Respondent]: That which is alive can hardly breath without bringing harm or destruction to some aspect of the environment. The whole exercise of personal existence must be a heavy measure on the side of silliness when a larger view is taken toward its effect. Does it not seem silly that this body should eat while another starves? What is the criteria for that which is silly, and that which is sensible?
• [Richard]: The very fact that one is alive means consuming nutrients ... and staying alive means that something, somewhere, must die in order to supply these nutrients. This is a fact of life ... and the marvellous thing about a fact is that one can not argue with it. One can argue about a belief, an opinion, a theory, an ideal and so on ... but a fact: never. One can deny a fact – pretend that it is not there – but once seen, a fact brings freedom from choice and decision. Most people think and feel that choice implies freedom – having the freedom to choose – but this is not the case. Freedom lies in seeing the obvious, and in seeing the obvious there is no choice, no deliberation, no agonising over the ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ judgement. In the freedom of seeing the fact there is only action.
• [Respondent]: Is it silly to kill a bacteria so that a human body can live?
• [Richard]: I have already explained ... seeing the fact determines action.
• [Respondent]: Does the bacteria think it silly to do what it needs to survive?
• [Richard]: What kind of hallucination is it that you are living in? There is no Noddy and Big Ears here in this actual world ... bacteria cannot think.
• [Respondent]: So you believe that bacteria cannot think?
• [Richard]: I do not have to believe it ... it is obvious that they simply cannot think. However, if you can produce a bacteria for me that can conceive in – or exercise the mind with or have in the mind – an hypothesis, a theory, a supposition, a plan, a design, a notion, an idea, or can formulate of mentally as in meditate on, turn over in the mind, ponder, contemplate, deliberate or reflect on and come to the understanding – in a positive active way and form connected objectives – or otherwise have the capacity to cogitate and conjecture and choose mentally (as in form a clear mental impression of something actual) then I will acknowledge that you are correct and I am in error. (Richard, List B, No. 14a, 21 October 1998)

PETER: The human brain is the most sophisticated development of this extraordinary universe. Not only does it see, hear, smell, taste and touch with its nerve tentacles or stalks, but it can think, cognitise, reflect and communicate, and be aware of itself doing all these things. It also comes in a pretty neat package able to move freely and easily and perform an amazing amount of dexterous activities. The prime activity of human animals that sets them apart from other animals is their ability to think and reflect.

RICHARD: Which, of course, means the only intelligent carbon-based life-form on this planet. Intelligence is not only the faculty of the brain thinking with all its understanding (intellect) but the comprehension of itself in the world of people, things and events ... and the quickness or superiority (sagacity) of such comprehension is the measure of intelligence.

PETER: Unfortunately this same faculty is the source of so much suffering and angst.

RICHARD: I would say: ‘Unfortunately this same faculty cops most of the blame for being the source of so much suffering and angst’.

PETER: Given our sense of self and our social identity, so much of our thinking is self-centred producing a relentless avalanche of neurosis.

RICHARD: I would say: ‘Given our instinctual feeling of self – and the resultant social identity of instilled values – so much of our thinking is self-centred producing a relentless avalanche of neurosis’. A social identity is a psychological creation manufactured by society to act as a guardian over the wayward rudimentary self one was born with. All sentient beings are born with a biologically coded instinctive drive for physical survival which, when one is operating and functioning with a group of people, is potentially a danger to the survival of other group members. Hence the need for principles and morals and ethics to regulate the conduct of each person ... with appropriate rewards and punishments to ensure compliance. In a well-meant but ultimately short-sighted effort to prevent gaols from being filled to over-flowing, a social identity – a psychological guardian – is fabricated in an earnest endeavour to prevent the offences from happening in the first place. This ‘guardian’ is programmed with a set of values and charged with the role of acting as a conscience over the wayward self. A conscience is made up of a sure knowledge of what is Right or Wrong and Good or Bad ... as determined by each society. By and large this enterprise has proved to be effective – only a small minority of citizens fail to behave in a socially acceptable manner. Something can definitely be achieved in regards to this culturally-imposed social identity ... one can readily do something about it if one is suitably motivated to do so. One can bring about a benediction from the perfection and purity of the infinitude of this material universe by contacting and cultivating one’s original state of naiveté. Naiveté is that intimate aspect of oneself that is the nearest approximation that one can have of actual innocence – there is no innocence so long as there is a rudimentary self – and constant awareness of naive intimacy results in a continuing benediction. This blessing allows a connection to be made between oneself and that perfection and purity which is the essential character of infinity and eternity. This connection I call pure intent. Pure intent endows one with the ability to operate and function safely in society without the incumbent social identity with its ever-vigilant conscience. Thus reliably rendered virtually happy and relatively harmless by the benefaction of the infinitude, one can begin to dismantle the now-redundant social identity. To end the separative social identity, one can whittle away at all the social mores and psittacisms ... those mechanical repetitions of previously received ideas or images, reflecting neither apperception nor autonomous reasoning. One can examine all the beliefs, ideas, values, theories, truths, customs, traditions, ideals, superstitions ... and all the other schemes and dreams. One can become aware of all the socialisation, of all the conditioning, of all the programming, of all the methods and techniques that were used to control what one finds oneself to be ... a wayward ego and compliant soul careering around in confusion and illusion. A ‘mature adult’ is actually a lost, lonely, frightened and cunning psychological entity overlaying a psychic ‘being’.

It is never too late to start in on uncovering and discovering what one actually is.

PETER: These [self-centred] thoughts are often backed by emotional responses of past hurts, fears, doubts, aggression, etc. which produce chemical responses in the body, giving rise to deep feelings and passions further adding to our confusion. This self-centred neurosis is identified in the East as the problem with humans but they attempt to eradicate only half of the problem. Eastern religions aim to eradicate the ego (who we think we are), while ignoring the soul (who we feel we are). The resultant attack on, or repression of, all thoughts and thinking (not just the self-centred neurosis) results in the complete denial of intelligent thought such as can be readily seen by the East’s lack of technological progress, appalling poverty, repression of women, theocratic empires, etc.

RICHARD: The peoples who would have one believe the affective faculty – and not the cognitive faculty – to be the seat of intelligence are typified in the following exchange ... which starts quite reasonably. Viz.:

• [Respondent]: If the mind – that is, as you say, the physical brain in action – is perceiving itself, that brain, as well as its perceptions IS intelligence.
• [Richard]: All humans are intelligent to some degree ... however, the human brain – unhindered by the presence of an identity – operating as required by the circumstances is a freed intelligence. Intelligence is the faculty for understanding ... intellect, brain-power, mental capacity and aptitude, reason, comprehension, acumen, wit, cleverness, brightness, brilliance, sharpness, quickness of mind, alertness, discernment, perception, perspicacity, sagacity and nous.
• [Respondent]: Intelligence is not some concept of some vague void or vacuum ‘somewhere’.
• [Richard]: Indeed not ... it is the operation of a particular physical brain in the particular physical skull. It was born when the particular body was born and will die when the particular body dies. If there were no human beings alive on this earth there would be no intelligence.
• [Respondent]: It is the actual down-to-earth energy of life.
• [Richard]: It is certainly actual and it is certainly down-to-earth, yes ... but ‘energy of life’ is too general a term for intelligence. The word ‘life’ refers to all carbon-based life-forms – from single-celled amoebas to multi-celled animals – that are born, live for a period, and die. And all these creatures are energetic ... but only the human brain has the capacity to be intelligent. And even then this intelligence is crippled by an identity.
• [Respondent]: When the brain is not using its energy in self-centred abstraction, the brain is of that intelligent energy just as all other life is.
• [Richard]: No, the brain is not ‘of that intelligent energy’ at all ... the unhindered human brain in action is intelligence being able to operate freely. Intelligence does not exist outside of the human skull ... you are straying into positing that intelligence is present in all life-forms from single-celled amoebas to multi-celled animals. Only the human animal can think and reflect upon its situation.
• [Respondent]: Intelligence is where there is no ‘personality’ acting which can direct the body to do all sorts of irrelevant and energy wasting action. The body is not continually and ‘artificially animated’ as is usually the case.
• [Richard]: 5.8 billion human beings have intelligence ... yet they have a ‘personality’.
• [Respondent]: Meditation then, is ordinary living when that living is not entrapped in paralysing and debilitating self-centredness.
• [Richard]: As any ‘paralysing and debilitating self-centredness’ is caused by the presence of an identity, then when this identity self-immolates ordinary living is revealed to be always perfect. Nothing extra needs to be done as one is already doing what is happening ... no meditation is required at all.
• [Respondent]: Therefore, when the human body is cleared of selfishness, the compassion of nature operates through that body as it operates in all bodies and material systems.
• [Richard]: There is no such thing as ‘the compassion of nature’ ... that is a sentimental human invention as is epitomised by the phrase ‘Mother Nature’. Nature is blind ... it does not care two-hoots about you and me. It is only concerned with the survival of the species ... and any species will do as far as blind nature is concerned. Nature is indeed ‘red in tooth and claw’.
• [Respondent]: When the human mind is free of selfishness that impersonal compassion operates through that mind at the human level’.
• [Richard]: Compassion does not exist outside of the psyche.
• [Respondent]: It is the foundation of all manifestation. Manifestation is the activity of that energy AS the physical universe.
• [Richard]: And as this energy is affective it is – in other words – god by any name.
• [Respondent]: If it is happening why should it be labelled ‘affective’?
• [Richard]: Because you said that it was the ‘foundation of all manifestation’. You even went on to say that this ‘energy’ manifests ‘as the physical universe’ . You are positing an ‘it’ that is an energy that is fundamentally non-physical and yet powerful enough to produce such an enormous universe ... an energy that is commonly called ‘god’. Now, as this universe already is anyway, then any ‘energy’ posited to be a cause – of this universe that is always here now – is clearly an ignorant human invention based upon the dualistic need to explain anything and everything in terms of cause and effect. And what human energy is powerful enough to give birth to this imaginary god? Passionate human energy, of course. Hence the use of ‘affective’ ... it being the catch-all word for feelings like emotions, passions, calentures and so on. ‘Calenture’ is an incredibly useful word to describe this delirium that such a god exists.
• [Respondent]: It is the movement of life itself, that movement of life which maintains itself, which maintains order.
• [Richard]: When you say ‘the movement of life’ you have to be referring to carbon-based life-forms as there is no other form of life. What ‘moves’ these life-forms is the animating energy derived from the calorific content of food. This has nothing to do with an ‘impersonal compassion’. Compassion exists only in the psyche and is an affective energy.
• [Respondent]: When compassion is actual and is ‘speaking’ through the body, it prods people to discover for themselves’
• [Richard]: This sentence puts to lie what you wrote above. You have not seen the fact of compassion for yourself. Compassion is affective and you want yourself and others to be ruled by their feelings and not their native intelligence. Only you dress up this feeling called compassion by rashly calling it intelligence! This ‘intelligence’ is causing people to kill their fellow human beings.
• [Respondent]: It is just natural, not affective, to be compassionate when there is nothing which feels it is separate from everything else.
• [Richard]: Aye ... it is natural. It is also natural to kill one’s fellow human being. I did something very unnatural ... I eliminated the instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Thus I am free from the Human Condition. With no natural instincts dominating this body, this particular brain’s intelligence operates freely. When my fellow human being is in distress I can easily be of assistance – in whatever capacity I am skilful at – and as this care is free of sorrow on my part it has no strings attached. (Richard, List B, No. 4, 20 November 1998)

PETER: If there is no God (a radical concept, I know) then humans’ only hope is intelligent, sensible, non-spirit-ridden, down-to-earth thought (another radical concept, I know). To date, most people have trouble considering two radical non-populist thoughts in a row – still it’s early days.

RICHARD: Yes. The problem is that to think autonomously – which is to dare to be without subjugation to some power – is deemed to be arrogance. One’s peers will go to great lengths to keep one trapped within ‘humanity’ ... where they are.

December 17 1998

PETER: Richard, thought you might like this one for an early morning chuckle:

• [Peter]: ‘So, one who is truly free is one who is not merely pretending, I take it. There are about 6,000 religions who all believe that they have the ‘true’ version of Truth, or Liberation, or Freedom’.
• [Respondent]: ‘The operative word is ‘believe’... one who knows has no belief’.
• [Peter]: ‘So the writer 2 (meaning me) takes it that the writer 1 ‘knows’. Maybe the writer 1 can tell the writer 2 what it is that the writer 1 knows. Or is it that it can’t be put into words? Knowing is such a woolly concept to writer 2. It seems that we (writer 1 and writer 2) cannot communicate at all then. I take it that you believe there is Divine Love, or are you saying that ‘The Divine’ (God) is a fact? I take it that you are saying you believe in God’.
• [Respondent]: ‘Why would your take it that one who knows would have a belief? It is illogical’.
• [Peter]: The writer 2 has got it at last ... a sudden realization. Whatever it is that the writer 1 ‘knows’ is a fact and not a belief. And whatever it is that writer 1 knows cannot be put into words ... and therefore the truth (sorry, what the writer 1 knows) cannot possibly be challenged, because it is a fact. [The dictionary meaning of] a Gnostic is one who claims to have ‘superior knowledge’ of spirit-ual things (Godly matters) and therefore believes in Gods and spirits’.
• [Respondent]: ‘Why do you continue to equate ‘knowledge’ with ‘belief’? Gnosis is not the same as belief at all. Do you know the experience of ‘sex’ or after having had it, do you believe in it?’
• [Peter]: As the writer 2 said above; the writer 2 has got it now: whatever writer 1 ‘knows’ is a fact and not a belief. It is getting really clear to the writer 2 by now. The writer 1 seems to have a different definition of ‘Gnosis’ from both the Britannica and the Oxford, but the writer 1 ‘knows’. Maybe the writer 1 should set Britannica and Oxford straight on his knowing’. (Actualism, Peter, List C, No. 11, #writer 2)

RICHARD: Peter ... oops ... Writer 2, with reference to the E-Mail that the Writer 2 sent to this flesh and blood body this morning, this flesh and blood body found the following exchange particularly insightful: [Peter]: ‘A Gnostic is one who claims to have ‘superior knowledge’ of spirit-ual things (Godly matters) and therefore believes in Gods and spirits’. [Respondent]: Why do you continue to equate ‘knowledge’ with ‘belief’? Gnosis is not the same as belief at all. Do you know the experience of ‘sex’ or after having had it, do you believe in it? [Peter]: ‘The writer 2 has got it now. Whatever writer 1 ‘knows’ is a fact and not a belief. It is getting really clear to the writer 2 by now. The writer 1 seems to have a different definition of Gnosis from both the Britannica and the Oxford, but the writer 1 ‘knows’. Maybe the writer 1 should set Britannica and Oxford straight on his knowing’.

The same trait as the Writer 2 noticed in the Writer 1 has been observed by this flesh and blood body on the Listening-l Mailing List. There are two or three ‘Speakers’ who are now talking about an ‘otherness’ that is an ‘experiential fact’ instead of an ‘otherness’ that is ‘The Truth’ like they used to say before this flesh and blood body started writing about the difference between ‘truth’ and ‘fact’. As for the use of ‘real’ and ‘actual’ ... they are now saying that the real ‘what is’ (which is Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s phrase for the Buddhist ‘Isness’ and the Hindu ‘Thatness’) is the actual ‘what is’.

When Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti was asked by someone ‘do you believe then that ...’ he cut them short and said: ‘I have no beliefs whatsoever’. You see, he ‘knows’ the ‘otherness’ ... which is ‘that which is sacred, holy’. This flesh and blood body would hazard a guess that pretty soon some of the writers on the sannyas-list will start co-opting the words of Writer 2. Long before the Writer 2 retires to his couch, the Writer 1 will be saying that he ‘knows’ the DIVINE to be a fact ... because, for the Writer 1, the DIVINE is existentially actual. Oh well, all in all it seems like a lot of hard work, eh?

It is a splendiferous morning over here ... and the weather is marvellous, too.

September 08 1999

PETER: No bleatings of ‘you’re being judgemental’ will work with me – it’s a furphy that’s been bandied around since morals and ethics were first chiselled in stone and devised to silence the sensible. ‘Judge ye not’ is a platitude invented by God-men and other charlatans in order that no one would question the rest of their inane platitudes. It is one of many dimwitticisms, passed off as Guru-wisdom, that have no other meaning or purpose than to keep their followers and disciples under control, humble, grateful, loyal and above all non-thinking.

RICHARD: Ha ... ‘dimwiticisms’, eh? Where will this all end ... the English language may never be the same again!

Also, I am reminded of something that you wrote on another Mailing List some time ago. Viz.:

• [Peter]: On the spiritual path you will be admonished to leave your mind at the door, surrender your will, and trust your feelings. (Actualism, Peter, List C, No 27, 30.1.1999).

I was sitting at the caff the other day, with a woman whom I have never met before, discussing life, the universe and what it is to be a human being living in the world as it is with people as they are. She listened intently and with interest to my story – she was not adversarial – and was seeking to comprehend what I was experiencing (she ran through a short list of the usual spiritual attributes to no avail) until she sat eyeing me reflectively.

‘I see’, she finally pronounced, ‘you don’t judge people’.

‘Goodness me’, quoth Richard, ‘I am as judgemental as all get-out ... surely you are not neutral on all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides are you? Do you not appraise people, things and events and come to a considered opinion as to what is a sensible course of action ... and what is silly?’

She sat a while longer, considering.

‘I feel there is no charge in you’, she said, ‘that is why it is okay to assess’.

‘What do you mean by ‘no charge’?’

‘No emotions’.

‘Aye ... but more importantly, no identity that needs constant protection by those highly respected feelings’.

‘Then this is indeed Enlightenment’, she concluded, somewhat triumphantly.

‘When I say I have no identity whatsoever I mean it ... I am not God on Earth’.

Puzzled silence.

‘I am a fellow human being ... with no instinctual passions nor the ‘self’ engendered thereby’.

Bewildered silence.

‘I am talking of the elimination of the instinctual animal ‘self’ that gives rise to the ‘we are all one’ psittacism’.

Astounded silence.

We may or may not meet again ... she works as a spiritual-group facilitator.