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Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’ with Respondent No. 12
RICHARD (to No. 14): Thus, the ‘reality’ of the ‘real world’ is an illusion. The ‘Reality’ of the ‘Mystical World’ is a delusion. There is an actual world that lies under one’s very nose ... I interact with the same people, things and events that you do, yet it is as if I am in another dimension altogether. (Richard, List B, No. 14, 17 March 1998).
RESPONDENT: In the illusory ‘real’ world, the spiritual dimension is conceived and hence mystical. RICHARD: Agreed. RESPONDENT: But in seeing the actual, the spiritual dimension is not other than the world at hand. RICHARD: But in seeing the actual, the loving and compassionate spiritual dimension is seen to be a delusion born out of the illusion of the grim and glum reality of the real world ... which is the ‘world at hand’ to five point eight billion people. The real world is a veneer automatically pasted over the top of the actual simply by ‘my’ presence. The extinction of ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety – not just ‘I’ as ego – is the end of both the illusory real word and the mystical spiritual dimension. This is an actual freedom.
RICHARD: In seeing the actual, the loving and compassionate spiritual dimension is seen to be a delusion born out of the illusion of the grim and glum reality of the real world ... which is the ‘world at hand’ to five point eight billion people. The real world is a veneer automatically pasted over the top of the actual simply by ‘my’ presence. The extinction of ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety – not just ‘I’ as ego – is the end of both the illusory real word and the mystical spiritual dimension. This is an actual freedom. RESPONDENT: What I understand as love is not born out of thought or time. RICHARD: Agreed. It is a thoughtless state of being wherein the passions have overtaken intelligence. It cannot be ‘timeless’
because the sun still moves through the sky and day follows night as do the seasons follow each other. Enlightened people have a dickens of a job
convincing even the gullible When they can persuade them into to believing that ... then they will believe anything at all. RESPONDENT: There is a sensitivity that is without cause, without motive. It is effortless. RICHARD: Physical sensitivity as in tactile sensation ... yes. Sensitivity as in consideration for the other simply because the other is a fellow human being ... yes. Sensitivity as in pity, sympathy, empathy, compassion and love ... no. Such sensitivity is born out of mutual sorrow (etymologically the word ‘compassion’ means ‘suffer with’; ‘passio’ is Latin for the Greek ‘pathos’). Thus it has a cause ... it is not without motive and is thus not as effortless as it may seem to be. I cannot relate to a person in sorrow for I do not have the faculties – or the capacity – for pathos. Just consider the fact that where one has the ability to be able to feel pity, sympathy, empathy, compassion and love, then it is a case of the blind leading the blind. One must be totally free of sorrow – and malice – in order to be of substantive assistance to those who are trapped within the Human Condition. Life is wonderful where one is bereft of both sorrow and malice. All the terror, all the horror and all the dread are expunged when ‘I’ and ‘me’ become extinct. The slate is wiped clean, as if nothing untoward has happened. A faint intellectual memory, like a distant dream, is all that remains of distress and destructiveness. In this time and place where one is genuine, no mental or emotional or psychic scars are carried. Stress, so vividly experienced in reality, has no substance here in actuality. One has to be completely free from the grip of reality – the Land of Lament – to actually be of benefit to the one who is suffering. A person who is actually free does not offer a palliative. Such a person extends the possibility of ultimate release. RESPONDENT: It is ecstatic. Love and freedom are inseparable. RICHARD: Yes, they are inseparable ... if it is the freedom of enlightenment. Ecstasy is an interestingly revealing word: it is an affective state of being. Viz.:
RESPONDENT: The spiritual delusion that you speak of was not non-dualistic love because ‘you’ were there experiencing it. RICHARD: Yes, but in all ‘spiritual non-dualistic love’ there is a ‘you’ experiencing it ... that is the whole point I am making. This has been going on for century after century, to no avail. When will humans learn from the mistakes of their forebears? When?
RICHARD: [A woman from The Netherlands wrote]: ‘This perfect intimacy was everywhere at once, not generated somewhere specific and then diffused to other locations as is the case with love’. RESPONDENT: [Krishnamurti]: ‘Love is a state of mind that knows no separation’. If there is something generated here and diffused to other locations, there is clearly a sense of separation. Hence the emphasis that love is not what I do or have, it is when ‘I’ am not. RICHARD: But if ‘I’ am not, then who is here to generate Love? It is the ‘Me’ of ‘Being’, of course, because surely you are not referring to a disembodied Love that is floating around in the ether? * RICHARD: [A woman from The Netherlands wrote]: ‘The distance between me and others had miraculously vanished. Not only between me and other people but equally between me and the trees, me and the houses on the boulevard, even between me and the ocean. Nowhere was there a boundary. Another dimension had taken its place’. RESPONDENT: Yes, no separation between the observer and the observed. Another dimension is uncovered that is boundless, immeasurable. Any terms used to describe that state are inadequate and therefore may be misleading. RICHARD: When you say ‘no separation between the observer and the observed’, do you mean that literally ... as in another way of saying: ‘the observer is the observed’? You see, the woman from The Netherlands was saying that ‘me’ (the observer) had vanished, and that there was no distance between me (as a body only) and the observed. This is vastly different to saying ‘the observer is the observed’ ... or even what you wrote: ‘no separation between the observer and the observed’. The observer, having vanished – being extinct if it is a permanent condition – cannot possibly be the observed because there is no observer here to be ‘the observed’. Nor can there be ‘no separation’ here, because there is no observer to have ‘no separation’. I am rather tendentious, you will notice ... but the distinction is vital to having an ultimate understanding.
RESPONDENT: What I understand as love is not born out of thought or time. RICHARD: Agreed. It is a thoughtless state of being wherein the passions have overtaken intelligence. It cannot be ‘timeless’ because the sun still moves through the sky and day follows night as do the seasons follow each other. Enlightened people have a dickens of a job convincing even the gullible that this physical world is not actual. When they can persuade them into to believing that ... then they will believe anything at all. RESPONDENT: No, you are throwing out the baby with the bath water. There is no denial of time operating in the physical world. You define what it is and then say that is false. I agree what you describe is false. The physical world of solid objects is real but it is not all that can be seen. RICHARD: Then what baby is it that I am throwing out? The baby that produces the delusion that it exists in a timeless realm, of course. There is no ‘timeless realm’ here, in actuality. Living here, at this moment in time, there is only this moment that is actual. As it is already always this moment, to the unaware it appears to be ‘timeless’. It is not. This moment is hanging in time like this planet is hanging in space. Just as the universe’s space is infinite, so too is this universe’s time eternal. There is no beginning or end to the infinitude of this universe’s space and time, therefore there is no middle, no centre. Thus, one is always here and it is already now. And here and now is nowhere in particular. This sure beats immortality any day. RESPONDENT: In the psychological realm there is real separation, no entities existing inside anything. RICHARD: I cannot make out what you are getting at here. RESPONDENT: There is a sensitivity that is without cause, without motive. It is effortless. RICHARD: Physical sensitivity as in tactile sensation ... yes. Sensitivity as in consideration for the other simply because the other is a fellow human being ... yes. Sensitivity as in pity, sympathy, empathy, compassion and love ... no. Such sensitivity is born out of mutual sorrow (etymologically the word ‘compassion’ means ‘suffer with’; ‘passio’ is Latin for the Greek ‘pathos’). Thus it has a cause ... it is not without motive and is thus not as effortless as it may seem to be. I can not relate to a person in sorrow for I do not have the faculties – or the capacity – for pathos. Just consider the fact that where one has the ability to be able to feel pity, sympathy, empathy, compassion and love, then it is a case of the blind leading the blind. One must be totally free of sorrow – and malice – in order to be of substantive assistance to those who are trapped within the Human Condition. Life is wonderful where one is bereft of both sorrow and malice. All the terror, all the horror and all the dread are expunged when ‘I’ and ‘me’ become extinct. The slate is wiped clean, as if nothing untoward has happened. A faint intellectual memory, like a distant dream, is all that remains of distress and destructiveness. In this time and place where one is genuine, no mental or emotional or psychic scars are carried. Stress, so vividly experienced in reality, has no substance here in actuality. One has to be completely free from the grip of reality – the Land of Lament – to actually be of benefit to the one who is suffering. A person who is actually free does not offer a palliative. Such a person extends the possibility of ultimate release. RESPONDENT: Again, you give dualistic definitions of love or compassion, and argue that they are false. Of course they are! What do you expect to find in dictionaries other than dualistic explanations of terms? That is all the authors could understand. If you will read Krishnamurti with an open mind, you will find that he uses ordinary terms like love or ecstasy or contentment but goes on to discuss that he does not mean something that has an opposite. If there is no freedom from sorrow, there is no genuine love, no compassion. This is precisely what Krishnamurti pointed to! RICHARD: If there is freedom from sorrow, there is freedom from love ... be it genuine or not. I have read Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti with an open mind ... because I wanted to know, for myself, if this ‘Love’, this ‘Compassion’, this ‘Beauty’, this ‘Truth’, this ‘Goodness’, this ‘Intelligence’, actually had no opposite.
Yes ... and I wanted to know for myself what was beyond all this. Viz.:
Speaking personally, I found it well worthwhile to investigate ... experientially.
RESPONDENT: This is a good example of what No. 16 speaks of as focusing on words rather than what they point to. You call it apperception and Krishnamurti called it at times seeing from wholeness. RICHARD: Goodness me, no ... we have discussed this before. The words point to a reality that is an unfragmented observer busily being the observed. RESPONDENT: If you understood Krishnamurti, you would not have conceived of an unfragmented observer. That is like saying that there is an unfragmented fragment. RICHARD: I know it sounds strange ... that is because it is strange. Fragmented means nothing more than consisting of fragments. If ‘the observer becomes the observed’, the fragments come together ... they are an integrated whole. The observer experiences unitary perception of ‘centre-less seeing’. There is still an observer in existence ... now at one with everything. That is why I wrote ‘unfragmented observer’. That is what ‘wholeness’ means, when all is said and done. If Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti had meant that the observer becomes extinct he would have said so ... he had a good grasp of the language. But he talked of a state wherein ‘the observer is the observed’. He called that state ‘wholeness’ and of being ‘holistic’ ... even to the point of explaining that ‘holistic’ means ‘holy’ ... as in ‘that which is sacred, holy ... that which is beyond thought ... timeless ... ineffable ... the absolute ... the supreme ... that which is the origin of everything ... of all nature ... of all humankind’. That is what ‘unfragmented observer’ means ... not, as you so quaintly put it: ‘unfragmented fragment’.
RICHARD (to No. 15): I consider this to be startlingly clear. Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti says, in effect: ‘I
am life. Love life. Life is truth. Love truth. Truth is God. Love God. I am God’. RESPONDENT: No that is all quite dualistic and not what I hear from Krishnamurti. Love or truth is when ‘I’ (the thought, emotion and image) am not. A mind free from time, innocent, without comparing, becoming, or arriving. RICHARD: Oh golly ... I was using the first person pronoun for convenience’s sake. Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti used it himself in the paragraph quoted ... viz.:
What you are saying, I can fully agree that is what he is saying ... it would read like this:
This is what Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti was on about all those sixty-odd years that he talked ... and such a mind, he says above, enables god to manifest itself in the very body that has such a mind. Only – he goes on to say – he prefers to use the word ‘life’ instead of ‘god’ ... so when he says ‘love life (god) and put this love before everything else’ he is being startlingly clear. I simply find it less long-winded to say that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti said: ‘I am life ... life is god ... I am god’. He then goes on to say: ‘I am everything, since I am life (god)’. Translated into your terminology it would be something like this:
To drive the point home he says: ‘Truth, the real God – the real God, not the God that man has made’. Therefore, ‘life’, ‘god’ and ‘truth’ are one and the same thing. In your terminology it would read something like this:
I simply find it less long-winded to say that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti said: ‘I am god ... god is truth ... I am truth’. Lastly – and just to clarify the point I have been pushing in numerous posts regarding the affective as being the source of love – he says:
Love, therefore, is an ‘intense feeling’ in the ‘full, rich, clear heart’. As he urges his listeners to ‘drink the pure water which I have’ – and it is a water that ‘purifies and heals wonderfully’ – then some considerable light is thrown on his oft-repeated statement about not being a teacher. By being in his presence and experiencing his love (god’s love) then whatever ails you will be cured ... especially if you know how to ‘listen’. As I said before, I simply find it less long-winded to say that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti said: ‘I am life. Love life. Life is truth. Love truth. Truth is God. Love God. I am God’. It is all so familiar ... Gurus and God-men have been saying and doing and being and urging this for millennia. All the Masters and Messiahs; all the Saints and the Sages; all the Saviours and the Avatars have failed to bring about their much-touted Peace On Earth. Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti was simply the latest in a long line of failures ... no matter how earnestly he tried to throw off his Theosophical background. He was an enlightened man and an enlightened person only becomes enlightened by surrendering to some metaphysical absolute power that lies unmanifest behind the throne. Why defend the indefensible?
RICHARD: [A woman from The Netherlands wrote]: ‘The distance between me and others had miraculously vanished. Not only between me and other people but equally between me and the trees, me and the houses on the boulevard, even between me and the ocean. Nowhere was there a boundary. Another dimension had taken its place’. RESPONDENT: Yes, no separation between the observer and the observed. Another dimension is uncovered that is boundless, immeasurable. Any terms used to describe that state are inadequate and therefore may be misleading. RICHARD: When you say ‘no separation between the observer and the observed’, do you mean that literally ... as in another way of saying: ‘the observer is the observed’? RESPONDENT: Yes. RICHARD: You see, the woman was saying that ‘me’ (the observer) had vanished, and that there was no distance between me (as-this-body only) and the observed. This is vastly different to saying ‘the observer is the observed’ ... or even what you wrote: ‘no separation between the observer and the observed’. RESPONDENT: I understand them as meaning the same thing. The observer is gone; fragmentation ends and seeing is direct ... of a different order entirely. RICHARD: This direct experience of the actual is what I call apperceptive awareness ... and it has nothing to do with wholeness whatsoever (which is what happens when fragmentation ends). There is no ‘I’ or ‘me’ to be the observer ... therefore this is entirely different to ‘the observer is the observed’. For who is the observer that is busy being the observed? As ‘the observer is the observed’ is usually described with words like ‘unitary perception’ or ‘at one with everything’, then it is an affective response ... an intuitive sense of ‘being’. Who is this being? Not ‘I’ in the head as ego – for ‘choiceless awareness’ is indeed an egoless state – but ‘me’ in the heart. She clearly states that there was no ‘oneness’:
* RICHARD: The observer, having vanished – being extinct if it is a permanent condition – cannot possibly be the observed because there is no observer here to be ‘the observed’. Nor can there be ‘no separation’ here, because there is no observer to have ‘no separation’. RESPONDENT No. 22: Yes. K’s ‘observer is the observed’ could be taken to suggest there is an observer that somehow unifies with the observed. RICHARD: Not ‘could be taken’ but is indeed to be taken this way ... that is what unitary perception is (not to be confused with identifying with the observed). RESPONDENT No. 22: It seems there was never some real observer to vanish or to unite with the observed. There is only a concept or a thought construction or an image of such a one that can be observed to come and go as it does. RICHARD: Of course ... silly me, eh? RESPONDENT: But saying there was never any observer does not transmit much to most listeners. From the framework of the observer, one stays with what is (with the observed) until a moment arises when division stops. Then the nature of observer-less awareness is revealed. RICHARD: However, the nature of the observer-less awareness you refer to is none other than unity with the observed ... simply by the sheer act of ‘staying with what is’. Who is staying with ‘what is’? Division actually stops only when both ‘I’ and ‘me’ disappear ... then awareness is actual. If only ‘I’ in the head cease, then the sense of identity – as pure feeling – attains an imitation of freedom through unification with the observed ... a ‘wholeness’. As the woman says: ‘The concept of bonding, belonging and relationship could simply not be applied, not even with my partner, as there was nobody inside to do the relating’. This is because apperceptive awareness can only happen when there is ‘me as-this-body’ only. And as one is not an ‘alone being’, no love is needed here ... simply ‘perfect intimacy everywhere at once’ . And I say ‘alone’ as per Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s own words:
Speaking personally, I am neither lonely nor alone.
RICHARD: You see, the woman was saying that ‘me’ (the observer) had vanished, and that there was no distance between me (as-this-body only) and the observed. This is vastly different to saying ‘the observer is the observed’ ... or even what you wrote: ‘no separation between the observer and the observed’. RESPONDENT: I understand them as meaning the same thing. The observer is gone; fragmentation ends and seeing is direct ... of a different order entirely. RICHARD: This direct experience of the actual is what I call apperceptive awareness ... and it has nothing to do with wholeness whatsoever (which is what happens when fragmentation ends). There is no ‘I’ or ‘me’ to be the observer ... therefore this is entirely different to ‘the observer is the observed’ . RESPONDENT: This is a good example of what No. 16 speaks of as focusing on words rather than what they point to. You call it apperception and Krishnamurti called it at times seeing from wholeness. RICHARD: Goodness me, no ... we have discussed this before. The words point to a reality that is an unfragmented observer busily being the observed: ‘seeing from wholeness’ is also called ‘choiceless awareness’. I explain the difference between ‘choiceless awareness’ and ‘apperceptive awareness’ thus:
RESPONDENT: To ask ‘who’ is seeing is to miss the point. There is no ‘who’. It may as easily be asked who is experiencing so-called apperception. RICHARD: It may be easily asked ... and it is just as easily answered. There is no ‘who’ in apperceptive awareness; what one is (‘what’ not ‘who’) is these sense organs in operation: this seeing is me, this hearing is me, this tasting is me, this touching is me, this smelling is me, and this thinking is me. Whereas ‘I’, the identity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, thinking through ‘my’ brain and feeling through ‘my’ feelings. Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the world as-it-is (the actual world) by ‘my’ very presence. Out of isolation, alienation and loneliness, ‘I’ shift ‘my’ identity from the cognitive to the affective and feel a ‘wholeness’, a ‘oneness’ ... a unitary perception. One is alone – not lonely – in the sense that ‘alone’ means ‘all one’. However, any identity whatsoever is a delusion. * RICHARD: For who is the observer that is busy being the observed? As ‘the observer is the observed’ is usually described with words like ‘unitary perception’ or ‘at one with everything’, then it is an affective response ... an intuitive sense of ‘being’. Who is this being? Not ‘I’ in the head as ego – for ‘choiceless awareness’ is indeed an egoless state – but ‘me’ in the heart. RESPONDENT: This is your interpretation, but not at all what Krishnamurti said. Where does he speak of a ‘me’ in the heart? If there is a me that is apart feeling, the perception is not unitary. RICHARD: We keep coming back to this sticking point again and again, unfortunately. I know full well that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti never spoke of a ‘me’ residing in the heart ... he was obviously so engrossed in being holistic that he did not comprehend that holism – or oneness, wholeness – comes out of shifting identification to the affective. As holism Then this ‘me’ would be as holistic as all get-out in the hope that no one would notice it sitting there – disguised as oneness – and still wreaking its mischief while waiting for physical death to release it into its true home beyond time and space ... for all eternity. An ex-follower of Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain wrote recently:
* RICHARD: She clearly states that there was no ‘oneness’: ‘Another dimension had taken its place, which I initially experienced as a closeness closer than my own heartbeat, yet it was certainly not love for all or oneness with everything. It was another paradigm than the one in which the opposites play their major role ... and to depict it I needed another vocabulary than words like distant and close, separation and oneness’, so we are not talking about ‘centre-less being’ ... we are talking of no ‘being’ at all. Simply this body only experiencing life as apperceptive awareness ... which means thinking can go on – as in appraising – or not. RESPONDENT: No being at all but just experiencing life as awareness is oneness or centre-less life. The idea of a centre-less ‘me’ is misconception. If there seems to be is a separate being, how could that be called wholeness? RICHARD: Hmm ... ‘seems’ is the operative word here, for there is indeed a separate being ... it is called the self. To say ‘seems’ does not rid the flesh and blood body of it ... such dismissal is ineffective. I could equally say: If there seems to be wholeness, how could that be called ‘pure being’? And you wrote in a post some time ago: ‘The opening of the heart is part of it, as the affective is closer to pure being’. The problem with wishing something away by pretending it does not exist in the first place is to do a disservice to one’s own salubrity ... and you did write in a previous post: ‘If there never was any being as you assert, why speak of a being that ceases to exist? What is it that you say comes to an end, once and for all?’ By living instinctually you are being ... this is a fact. The way it works for prevaricators is like this: to merely say that there ‘seems to be’ a self in the centre of this being can produce a realisation. By a time-honoured process called ‘realising the self is but an illusion’, one produces a feeling of oneness, of a wholeness ... of a ‘pure being’. That you choose to call this unitary living a ‘centre-less life’ rather than living life as a ‘centre-less being’ does not take away from the fact that ‘being’ continues (etymologically, ‘being’ is derived from ‘am’, ‘is’ or ‘dwell’). That ‘being’ I call ‘me’ as soul in the heart. * RICHARD: The observer, having vanished – being extinct if it is a permanent condition – cannot possibly be the observed because there is no observer here to be ‘the observed’. Nor can there be ‘no separation’ here, because there is no observer to have ‘no separation’. RESPONDENT No. 22: Yes. K’s ‘observer is the observed’ could be taken to suggest there is an observer that somehow unifies with the observed. RICHARD: Not ‘could be taken’ but is indeed to be taken this way ... that is what unitary perception is (not
to be confused with identifying with the observed). RESPONDENT: From the framework of the observer, one stays with what is (with the observed) until a moment arises when division stops. Then the nature of observer-less awareness is revealed. RICHARD: However, the nature of the observer-less awareness you refer to is none other than unity with the observed ... simply by the sheer act of ‘staying with what is’. Who is staying with ‘what is’? Division actually stops only when both ‘I’ and ‘me’ disappear ... then awareness is actual. RESPONDENT: Agreed. If there is no separate observer than there is no thought of staying with or escaping from. There is just what is. RICHARD: No, you are not agreeing with me. I did not say that there was ‘no separate observer’ ... I say: no observer at all. Do you see that you have to condition the nature of this observer by putting ‘no separate’ in front of it. You are saying that an observer is still there, only it is not separate any more ... which indeed it isn’t. For it has become whole. A holistic observer is still an observer, nevertheless. Perhaps another subscriber’s recent post unwittingly shows the absurdity of this ‘observer is the observed’ business: ‘the wilful mind must die and this death is when the observer is the observed ... here and now’ . Great stuff, is it not? ‘My’ mind ‘dies’ and ‘I’ become the ‘observed’! * RICHARD: If only ‘I’ in the head cease, then the sense of identity – as pure feeling – attains an imitation of freedom through unification with the observed ... a ‘wholeness’. As the woman says: ‘The concept of bonding, belonging and relationship could simply not be applied, not even with my partner, as there was nobody inside to do the relating’. This is because apperceptive awareness can only happen when there is ‘me as-this-body’ only. RESPONDENT: Identification with body drops away just as identification with thought and feeling. There is no separate body to be found. There is boundless awareness that encompasses all that is. RICHARD: When you say: ‘there is no separate body to be found’, do you actually mean that flesh and blood bodies merge together? Physical form is distinct in being one here and one there and another over there. There is physical distance betwixt this body typing and the monitor screen and the person sitting on the couch behind me. You say: ‘identification with ... drops away ...’. Identification with something may indeed drop away, but identity itself remains, however. This is the delusion that ‘wholeness’ or ‘oneness’ or ‘centre-less life’ can produce. One has expanded one’s boundaries and has merged with the all of everything, becoming more than the sum of the parts. This something that is more than the parts is something non-physical.
RICHARD: By living instinctually you are ‘being’ ... this is a fact. The way it works for prevaricators is like this: to merely say that there ‘seems to be’ a self in the centre of this being can produce a realisation. By a time-honoured process called ‘realising the self is but an illusion’ , one produces a feeling of oneness, of a wholeness ... of a ‘pure being’. That you choose to call this unitary living a ‘centre-less life’ rather than living life as a ‘centre-less being’ does not take away from the fact that ‘being’ continues (etymologically, ‘being’ is derived from ‘am’, ‘is’ or ‘dwell’). That ‘being’ I call ‘me’ as soul in the heart. RESPONDENT: By calling something ‘non-being’ it does not change anything either. For a non-being, you write rather long posts. RICHARD: I like writing ... I am communicating my experience of life, the universe and what it is to be a human being to my fellow humans. Of course, if one merely calls ‘something’ non-being, it does not change a single thing (your use of the word ‘calling’ is but a variation on using the word ‘labelling’ pejoratively). But when that ‘something’ actually becomes extinct ... then there is an incredible change. Then there is peace-on-earth for one human being. RESPONDENT: Agreed. If there is no separate observer than there is no thought of staying with or escaping from. There is just what is. RICHARD: No, you are not agreeing with me. I did not say that there was ‘no separate observer’ ... I say: no observer at all. Do you see that you have to condition the nature of this observer by putting ‘no separate’ in front of it. You are saying that an ‘observer’ is still there, only it is not separate any more ... which indeed it is not. For it has become ‘whole’ ... and an ‘holistic observer’ is still an observer, nevertheless. RESPONDENT: These are just word games in my opinion. When you see an elm tree and I see an oak, there are two distinct observations. There may or may not be non-dualistic seeing in either observation. RICHARD: I do not indulge in words games ... I am utterly sincere. The observer, rather than becoming the observed, is extinguished. This does away with all that ‘holistic vision’ and ‘unitary perception’ business that has been plaguing the human species for millennia. When you see an oak tree with ‘choiceless awareness’, you are looking with rose-coloured glasses clipped on over the top of the grey-coloured glasses everybody normal wears. Thus the glum and grim physical reality (duality) becomes the loving and compassionate metaphysical Reality (non-duality). What I am – what not ‘who’ – is apperceptive awareness. I see – by which I mean that apperceptive awareness sees – the actual oak tree ... the oak tree as-it-is. RESPONDENT: Identification with body drops away just as identification with thought and feeling. There is no separate body to be found. There is boundless awareness that encompasses all that is. RICHARD: When you say: ‘there is no separate body to be found’, do you actually mean that flesh and blood bodies merge together? Physical form is distinct in being one here and one there and another over there. There is physical distance betwixt this body typing and the monitor screen and the person sitting on the couch behind me. RESPONDENT: Of course. But there is an undivided dimension, a spaciousness or empty-ness that is uncovered. RICHARD: Once again, ‘undivided’ means a ‘wholeness’. ‘I’, by becoming the affective ‘me’, am one with everything. Whereas in an actual freedom there is this flesh and blood body walking about in a magical world of sensual delight ... in a dimension that is neither divided nor undivided. There is no fragmented identity to create the fragmentation or division in the first place so that there needs to be the healing holiness of a whole identity applied. Incidentally, when you say: ‘there is no separate body to be found’, do you actually mean that flesh and blood bodies merge together? * RICHARD: You say: ‘identification with ... drops away ...’. Identification with something may indeed drop away, but identity itself remains, however. This is the delusion that ‘wholeness’ or ‘oneness’ or ‘centre-less life’ can produce. One has expanded one’s boundaries and has merged with the all of everything, becoming more than the sum of the parts. RESPONDENT: It may be delusion or not. Is it projected? Conceived? RICHARD: It is indeed a delusion. As to whether it is projected or conceived ... if one has glimpses of it, or moments of it, yes. If one is living it twenty four hours a day, no ... it has then become a reality being lived. Being more than the sum of the parts is, by definition, abstract ... in other words: metaphysical. Whereas apperceptive awareness is actual ... sensate.
RESPONDENT No. 28: I have two questions to both enlightened gentlemen: (a) Why is it [beyond enlightenment] so important, (b) How does one prove the validity of any answer to this question logically? Short and precise logical answers would be appreciated (below 5 KB’s). RESPONDENT: One word is too much. RICHARD: So, ‘one word is too much’, eh? This sounds suspiciously like a variation on that pithy aphorism:
‘He who knows does not speak’ This ‘ancient wisdom’ stuff is all so silly that it is puerile.
RESPONDENT No. 34: Each time we remember our true identity and see through the deceptions of ego, that is a liberation – negativity, emotions and thoughts are purified, and we become stronger in our wisdom nature. RESPONDENT No. 20: It is not in the elimination of self that there is wholeness, or in the belief that there was never a self that must be eliminated, but in the integration within the totality. In that integration is the immediate transformation into something else. For the very nature of self is in that which is not integrated, which is separate. RICHARD: Thought has arrogated the ardent survival mechanism into a fervent ‘will to survive’, creating an
emotion-backed version of the self called ‘ego’ ... which is the ‘I’ that one believes one is. ‘I’ as ego am separated from ‘myself’
as ‘being’ and seek integration. Then, ‘I’ fondly imagine, ‘I’ will become ‘whole’. If successful, then ‘I’ will indeed be ‘something
else’ ... pure ‘Being’ ... pure ‘Soul’ ... pure ‘Spirit’ ... pure ‘Thatness’ ... pure ‘Isness’ ... pure ‘Whatever’. It is
all delusion born out of the illusion of self created by blind instincts. There is only this flesh and blood body here in actuality. RESPONDENT: Is integration becoming whole or is it seeing from wholeness? There may be the delusion of a part seeking to join with an image of wholeness. Then ‘I’ in here want to join with that out there. This is identification with an image of a separate body/mind. That is indeed self-centred activity. RICHARD: Even integration as ‘seeing from wholeness’ is self-centred ... any integration is self-serving.
There is integrity RESPONDENT: When there is no image created of ‘me’ in here, there is no division between flesh and blood bodies containing separate ‘me’s’. When the delusion of self is seen through, there is freedom not for me but from ‘the me’. RICHARD: ‘I’ am not only an image ... ‘I’ am also an emotional entity conjured up from the instinctual passions. When ‘I’ die a real psychological and psychic death then there is no separative entity to cause division between me as a flesh and blood body and other flesh and blood bodies. But they still are divided from me by the presence of their ‘me’ ... and can be loving or hateful, kind or cruel, generous or spiteful and so on as the mood strikes them. When the delusion of self is seen through – and ‘I’ and ‘me’ die a real psychological and psychic death – then there is indeed freedom for me. I have been here all along, it is just that ‘I’ and ‘me’ were so dominating and demanding that I could not get a word in edgeways ... except in a peak experience when ‘I’ and ‘me’ temporarily vacated the premises. And what an ambrosial freedom it is.
RICHARD (to Konrad): Pure observation of what is commonly called the ‘outside world’ without thought functioning is
indeed possible ... it is called apperceptive awareness. Apperception is only possible when ‘I’, in any way, shape or form, cease to exist ...
then there is no ‘inner’ or ‘outer’ world. It is ‘I’, believing in ‘my’ reality, that creates an ‘inner’ and an ‘outer’
world. There is only the world as-it-is, here in actuality. RESPONDENT: Yes, and what ceases to ‘exist’ is entirely subjective and dreamlike, lacking any inherently real existence. It is seen through and dissipates when exposed leaving transparency. RICHARD: Speaking personally, what ceased to exist was not dreamlike ... ‘I’ was very, very real indeed. So real that ‘I’ had to eventually die a real psychological and psychic death in order to be what I am today. When ‘I’ first saw ‘myself’ in a peak experience, ‘I’ saw a lost, lonely frightened and very, very cunning entity. The moment ‘I’ saw ‘myself’, I was immediately not that person any more ... I was this flesh and blood body only being apperceptively aware. Everything was already perfect, as it always had been and always would be. Yet I knew that I would revert back to being that entity – that ‘I’ – and work ‘my’ way through whatever stood in ‘my’ way to freedom. ‘I’ did not permanently ‘dissipate when seen through’ ... ‘I’ had to put in a lot of work before ‘my’ complete and final demise could eventuate. For ‘I’ was born out of the instinctual fear and aggression and nurture and desire that blind nature endows all sentient beings with at birth ... a rough and ready software package to give us all a start in life. There is nothing subjective about war and murder and rape and torture and domestic violence ... which is the inevitable outcome of blind nature’s gratuitous bestowal of the instinct for survival at any cost. ‘Transparency’? Yes ... there is something precious in living itself. Something beyond compare. Something more valuable than any ‘King’s Ransom’. It is not rare gemstones; it is not singular works of art; it is not the much-prized bags of money; it is not the treasured loving relationships; it is not the highly esteemed blissful and rapturous ‘States Of Being’ ... it is not any of these things usually considered precious. There is something ultimately precious that makes the ‘sacred’ a mere bauble. It is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe – which is the life-giving foundation of all that is apparent – as a physical actuality. The limpid and lucid purity and perfection of actually being here in infinite space and being here now at this moment in eternal time is akin to the crystalline perfection and purity seen in a dew-drop hanging from the tip of a leaf in the early-morning sunshine; the sunrise strikes the transparent bead of moisture with its warming rays, highlighting the flawless correctness of the tear-drop shape with its bellied form. One is left almost breathless with wonder at the immaculate simplicity so exemplified ... and everyone I have spoken with at length has experienced this impeccable integrity and excellence in some way or another at varying stages in their life. This preciosity is me as-I-am – me as I actually am as distinct from ‘me’ as ‘I’ really am – for I am the universe’s experience of itself.
RICHARD: When ‘I’ first saw ‘myself’ in a peak experience, ‘I’ saw a lost, lonely frightened and very, very cunning entity. The moment ‘I’ saw ‘myself’, I was immediately not that person any more ... I was this flesh and blood body only being apperceptively aware. RESPONDENT: Of course that person was no more. There is immediate change because the controller is an image that drops off. RICHARD: Yes ... but ‘I’ am much, much more than an image. An image – although remarkably persistent – is relatively easy to see through ... getting down to the roots of ‘me’ requires a very deep concern about the utter necessity of personally putting and end to malice and sorrow once and for all. Not only for oneself, but for all humankind ... whether anyone else does it or not matters not at all. ‘I’ do this for myself and everyone anyway ... but ultimately for the universe itself. This is actually why one is here. Finally the universe will be able to experience itself as a sensate reflective human being. As me, the universe can look around and see itself in all its wondrous splendour and marvel at what is possible. * RICHARD: Everything was already perfect, as it always had been and always would be. Yet I knew that I would revert back to being that entity – that ‘I’ – and work ‘my’ way through whatever stood in ‘my’ way to freedom. ‘I’ did not permanently ‘dissipate when seen through’ ... ‘I’ had to put in a lot of work before ‘my’ complete and final demise could eventuate. For ‘I’ was born out of the instinctual fear and aggression and nurture and desire that blind nature endows all sentient beings with at birth ... a rough and ready software package to give us all a start in life. There is nothing subjective about war and murder and rape and torture and domestic violence ... which is the inevitable outcome of blind nature’s gratuitous bestowal of the instinct for survival at any cost. RESPONDENT: If by work you mean meditative life, seeing with full attention or apperception, yes. But when it is asserted that ‘I’ have arrived at a me-less state, there clearly is divisive self-image. RICHARD: Not a meditative life, no ... I have never meditated
It was great fun and very, very rewarding along the way. ‘My’ life became cleaner and clearer and more and more pure as each habitual way of living life was consciously eliminated through constant exposure.
Thus ‘my’ days were numbered ... ‘I’ could hardly maintain ‘myself’ ... soon ‘my’ time would come to an end. An inevitability set in and a thrilling momentum took over ... ‘my’ demise became imminent. The moment of the death of ‘me’ was so real that it was experienced as being that one was going into the grave physically. That is how real ‘I’ am. * RICHARD: There is something precious in living itself. Something beyond compare. Something more valuable than any ‘King’s Ransom’. It is not rare gemstones; it is not singular works of art; it is not the much-prized bags of money; it is not the treasured loving relationships; it is not the highly esteemed blissful states of ‘Being’ ... it is not any of these things usually considered precious. There is something ultimately precious. It is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe. RESPONDENT: So there is an ultimately precious infinitude of the universe that is when ‘I’ cease to exist. What are the qualities of the infinitude of the universe? Creativity? Timelessness? Bliss? Intelligence? Boundlessness? RICHARD: The qualities of the infinitude of the universe?
An actual freedom is an enormous freedom. RESPONDENT: What is ultimately precious is sacred. You are simply changing the words. RICHARD: I think not. This is the way the words ‘precious’ and ‘sacred’ differ for me:
RESPONDENT: Is there a need to be viewed as unique? RICHARD: An actual freedom is unique.
RESPONDENT No. 10: No. 12 and Richard, I have read this post [‘I’ Create The ‘Inner’
World And The ‘Outer’ World’] RESPONDENT: He seems to be saying that he knows the way and all others were and are deluded. RICHARD: Not just ‘seems’ to be saying ... is saying. RESPONDENT: Is that belief going to bring forth a new world ? RICHARD: This actual world that I live in easily qualifies as ‘a new world’ ... so it is already here. And it is not a belief ... it is an on-going actuality that has been extant for twenty four hours a day since 1992. That is a long time to maintain a belief that one is happy and harmless through being rid of malice and sorrow ... without once being angry or sad during that period. If it were indeed a belief, then it would be a belief well worth having! RESPONDENT: Or is it divisive? RICHARD: Oh, come on, please ... every one of the 5.8 billion people on this planet are already arguing and bickering and quarrelling and fighting – and worse – and you ask: ‘Is it divisive?’ Another correspondent wrote recently that my words were ‘intentionally alienating’. Now I ask, in all sincerity, what is one to do? Go along with what is currently the situation? All the wars and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides? And when one discovers something that wipes all this away – all this – is one to shut up and not inform one’s fellow human beings because they might have their cherished belief systems offended? Therefore, out of consideration for their precious feelings, one will not say anything about a totally new way to the ‘Tried and True’ (which is the tried and failed)? And all the animosity and anguish will continue? Do you really mean that their esteemed feelings – born out of their revered belief systems – will continue to rule the world? It is a lot to ask for.
RESPONDENT No. 20: Seeing through duality cannot be confused with seeing what is before duality. That is not possible to see, and so is speculation. RESPONDENT: Seeing is before duality and is a different view of what is that can not be understood in dualistic terms. It is non-rational. Richard’s explanation of apperception is as good as any in my opinion. RESPONDENT No. 20: Richard’s account of apperception also involved thought despite his disclaimers. RICHARD: Not so ... apperception is a self-less awareness that is on-going throughout the entire waking hours. Thought
may or may not operate as required by the circumstances ... apperception goes on regardless. Apperception is the perennial pure consciousness
experience of being alive; being awake – not asleep in bed – and being here now at this moment in time and this place in space. RESPONDENT: Agreed except that there is a contentment that is not of thought because there is direct seeing that there never has been any ‘me’ that is separate in time and space. RICHARD: Yes, a contentment and a satisfaction and a fulfilment – which is not of thought – that is incorruptible because it is prior to all becoming and being. It is already always here and now. RESPONDENT: ‘I’ am not separate in a flesh and blood body in time nor in a disembodied metaphysical state. There is nothing truly separate to cling to or cling with. RICHARD: Right on ... ‘to cling to or cling with’ is well said. ‘I’ do not exist in any way, shape or form. The first person pronoun is a term of reference used for convenience and does not refer to an identity or identification whatsoever.
RESPONDENT No. 10: No. 12 and Richard, I have read this post [‘I’ Create The ‘Inner’
World And The ‘Outer’ World’] RESPONDENT: He seems to be saying that he knows the way and all others were and are deluded. RICHARD: Not just ‘seems’ to be saying ... is saying. RESPONDENT: Is that belief going to bring forth a new world ? RICHARD: This actual world that I live in easily qualifies as ‘a new world’ ... so it is already here. And it is not a belief ... it is an on-going actuality that has been extant for twenty four hours a day since 1992. That is a long time to maintain a belief that one is happy and harmless through being rid of malice and sorrow ... without once being angry or sad during that period. If it were indeed a belief, then it would be a belief well worth having! RESPONDENT: The teaching that you can and should be like me and not as you are now seems like divisive self-image not so different from the ‘healthy ego’ trip you mentioned earlier. RICHARD: Only to the uninformed. Anyone who lives actualism understands only too well the pitfalls of developing a ‘healthy ego’ or an ‘integrated self’. The essence of actualism is to ask oneself, constantly:
Any self-image that an ego and a soul develops cannot survive such scrutiny with impunity, no matter how ‘healthy’ or ‘integrated’ they become, because the goal is to be happy and harmless here and now. A self-image is incapable of repressing malice and sorrow indefinitely ... any cockiness at having achieved something spurious receives short shrift from the very purity and perfection of the infinitude of this universe inasmuch as anything false is automatically ‘locked-out’ of freedom. RESPONDENT: Or is it divisive? RICHARD: Oh, come on, please ... every one of the 5.8 billion people on this planet are already arguing and bickering and quarrelling and fighting – and worse – and you ask: ‘Is it divisive?’ RESPONDENT: Isn’t the quarrelling about who is right or what is authoritative ... gods, beliefs, traditions, my special experience, or the authority of a guru, etc? RICHARD: Oh yes, indeed. I did not mean to convey the impression that it is not divisive ... I was pointing out that there already is divisiveness. There is already quarrelling, as you say, about who is right and so on. I simply take such dissension into a high art form until the other sees for themselves – not believing me – the actuality of being here now as this flesh and blood body. Either that or they pack their bags and go home. Humour is essential – it is inevitable in an actual freedom – and one has a lot of fun along the way. * RICHARD: Another poster wrote recently that my words were ‘intentionally alienating’. Now I ask, in all sincerity, what is one to do? Go along with what is currently the situation? All the wars and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides? And when one discovers something that wipes all this away – all this – is one to shut up and not inform one’s fellow human beings because they might have their cherished belief systems offended? Therefore, out of consideration for their precious feelings, one will not say anything about a totally new way to the ‘Tried and True’ (which is the tried and failed)? And all the animosity and anguish will continue? Do you really mean that their esteemed feelings – born out of their revered belief systems – will continue to rule the world? It is a lot to ask for. RESPONDENT: To imitate based on Richard’s description of a path is to turn it into the ‘tried and failed’ is it not? RICHARD: Not so according to those who do it ‘boots and all’. One man’s personal account may be found at under ‘Peter’s Journal’. Also, I received this in an E-mail from the U.K. only yesterday:
RESPONDENT: The concept of apperception is made into an image to chase after. RICHARD: Except that for those who understand it is not an image and never will be. They demand actuality for themselves ... and only the actual will provide ultimate satisfaction. RESPONDENT: This is even more the case with the image of egolessness that can be attained. That is why Krishnamurti’s pointing to freedom in the beginning seems wise. RICHARD: Which amounts to ‘instant freedom’. Unfortunately it does not work that way. Nobody, but nobody, has had ‘freedom in the beginning’ ... despite sixty plus years of this being pointed to. RESPONDENT: If there is sadness or anger or whatever, it is included in the field of perception and examined with great interest as ‘what is’ reveals itself. See what I mean? RICHARD: Yes, indeed I do. This is the essence of ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ The past – although being actual whilst it was happening – is not actual now. The future – although it will be actual when it happen – is not actual now. Only this moment is actual. If I am not happy and harmless here and now, then I am wasting this precious moment of being alive. Yesterday’s remembered happiness and harmlessness means nothing if one is not happy and harmless here and now ... and the same applies to tomorrow’s anticipated happiness and harmlessness. If one is not happy and harmless now, then one has something to look at to discover why not ... and one keeps on looking until one is back on track. Being ‘on track’ means a general sense of well-being ... a grumpy person has no chance whatsoever of becoming free. Once one has established this base, one up-levels the ‘feeling happy and harmless’ experience to ‘feeling the sheer perfection of being alive here and now’. It is possible to experience this for ninety-nine percent of the time ... and the other one percent provides very little trouble. I call this a virtual freedom. Virtual freedom far exceeds normal human expectations anyway, so if nothing else happened one would be light years ahead of normal. Virtual freedom is the essential springboard into an actual freedom. Through reflective thought and fascinated contemplation of the fact that one is already always here, one finds oneself stepping into the actual world of sensual delight ... leaving one’s ‘self’ behind in the ‘real’ world where it belongs. Fear – existential angst at finding oneself to be the contingent ‘being’ one always suspected oneself to be – is both the barrier and the way to freedom. Always included in fear is a thrilling aspect, and by focussing upon this and not fear itself, an energy gathers momentum which does the trick for one (thrilling as in a exciting sensation through the body, stirring, stimulating, electrifying, rousing, moving, gripping, hair-raising, riveting, joyful, pleasing. throbbing, trembling, tremulous, quivering, shivering, fluttering, shuddering and vibrating). ‘I’ cannot set ‘myself’ free ... but ‘I’ can set in motion a process that will lead to ‘my’ eventual demise.
CORRESPONDENT No. 12 (Part Three) RETURN TO CORRESPONDENCE LIST ‘B’ 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.
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