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Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’ with Respondent No. 12
RICHARD: People do not want to be free of the Human Condition anywhere near enough. Until one’s search becomes what others would call ‘obsessive’ it is but dabbling. Peace-on-earth is something to dedicate oneself to with the whole of one’s being ... it is what is called ‘commitment’.RESPONDENT: There may be genuine interest and passion for understanding what is. RICHARD: It depends upon which meaning you ascribe to the phrase ‘what is’. Taken literally it means what is physically happening now ... like all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicide, for example. However, when Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti used the phrase ‘what is’ he was referring to something metaphysical ... what the Buddhists call ‘Isness’ ... or ‘Suchness’ or ‘Thatness’. RESPONDENT: That is quite different from chasing after an ideal of an imagined state of ‘me’ free of the human condition. RICHARD: Oh yes ... seeking ‘Isness’ is wishing to replace an illusion with a delusion. Whereas wanting to be free of the Human Condition is eminently sensible. RESPONDENT: That seems as much an escape as seeking union with an imagined God, etc. RICHARD: What, peace-on-earth is escapism! Are you for real? RESPONDENT: The ideal state of being is just a projected image. That projection can never lead to seeing what is immeasurable, what is free of thought and time. RICHARD: Aye ... to envisage that which is ‘free of thought and time’ is obviously a projected image. Because thought is essential to operate and function in this world of people, things and events ... and time is actual. Anybody who fondly imagines that time does not exist and that one can dispense with thought is definitely dreaming. RESPONDENT: What is envisioned to be free of thought and time is a product of thought. RICHARD: To envision being free of thought and time is silly. Because thought is essential to operate and function in this world of people, things and events ... and time is actual. Anybody who fondly imagines that time does not exist and that one can dispense with thought is definitely dreaming. RESPONDENT: What is actually free of thought has nothing to do with projection. RICHARD: Indeed not ... one is then living out that foolish projection. I call such activity being nothing but a deluded soul living in an hallucination. RESPONDENT: Thought is necessary for functioning but identity structured in thought and psychological time is neither necessary nor actual. RICHARD: Indeed ... and it is the affective rudimentary animal self that creates this ‘identity structured in thought and psychological time’ . To dissolve the ego and realise that one is this original self is patently silly. RESPONDENT: What is the idea of being a someone that progresses, achieves, becomes better if not self-image which is psychological error? RICHARD: Who are you talking about? Speaking personally, I am not ‘progressing’ for I am already here ... now. I am not ‘achieving’ for I am always here ... now. I am not ‘becoming better’ ... I am already always the perfection of the infinitude of this material universe personified. RESPONDENT: Conditioning to an extent may be transcended or exposed as false through method and effort. RICHARD: Exposed as false and thus eliminated by exposure ... yes. Transcended ... no. Anything merely transcended stays in existence as a sub-strata supporting the transcendental state. RESPONDENT: But effort to progress fulfils or strengthens the ego or sense of being the user of the method. RICHARD: Awareness of the fact that it is ‘I’ that is progressing is essential. One must be scrupulously honest with oneself if one is to go all the way. With this constant awareness ‘I’ thus can proceed. RESPONDENT: At some point learning stops unless the sense of being the user of method is lost or seen as false. RICHARD: Seeing ‘I’ as false is not sufficient ... such learning only stops when ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul die completely. RESPONDENT: If that occurs, ‘you’ are not. Everything is part of the formless. RICHARD: When only the ‘I’ as ego dies ... then everything is ‘part of the formless’ , yes. It is called being enlightened. In fact, .000001 of the population have gone half-way into an actual freedom here on earth just like this. They then disseminate their wisdom for gullible aspirants to be persuaded to do like-wise. And so all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide go on for ever and a day. * RICHARD: Apperceptive awareness can only happen when there is no ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul to be aware. Awareness happens of itself (the word ‘undivided’ indicates a divided self now made into a whole self ... in a word: ‘wholeness’). Thus there is no identity ... therefore no identification is possible. Such an apperceptive awareness – which is the universe experiencing itself as a human being – is only possible when there is this physical body being alive and breathing. RESPONDENT: In fact the body and all other apparent objects in time are seen directly to be luminous and empty, lacking any true division. RICHARD: What you are describing here is a dream state wherein nothing is intrinsically genuine in itself ... all objects are only apparently existing and this ‘wholeness’ is all there is. You have already used the word ‘timeless’ ... what about ‘spaceless’? Then the next step is ‘Unborn’ and ‘Undying’ ... and away you go down the slippery-slope of Eastern Mysticism like Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti. RESPONDENT: A dream state is projection but attention that is not bounded by the psyche (which is memory) sees the illusion of becoming. RICHARD: The psyche is not memory RESPONDENT: I don’t understand why you claim there is only a flesh and blood body. RICHARD: Because ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul have become extinct, that is why. All that is left is what is actual ... this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. As time is eternal – just as space is infinite – to be here now as this flesh and blood body only is to be living an ongoing experiencing of this infinitude of this very material universe (I am using the word ‘infinitude in its ‘a boundless expanse and an unlimited time’ meaning). Therefore, infinitude – having no opposite and thus being perfection itself – is personified as me ... a flesh and blood body only. Hence my oft-repeated refrain: ‘I am the material universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being’. As me, the universe can be intelligent and observe and reflect upon itself. There is no ‘intelligence’ that is the source of this universe ... that is to commit the vulgar error of anthropomorphism. RESPONDENT: Krishnamurti as a youth said I am free and much later said that to assert that is an abomination. RICHARD: This ‘immature’ versus ‘mature’ Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti excuse is so trite. Anyway, by 1979, even you cannot call him a youth any more. Viz.:
And we all know what Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti meant by ‘water’ ... two years before his death, when asked to reflect upon the importance of his own life, he replied:
Now, I ask you: was he still a youth two years before his death? RESPONDENT: Krishnamurti made mistakes as do we all. RICHARD: Aye ... and his biggest mistake was the same mistake that .000001 of the population make. And you repeat rote fashion: ‘everything is part of the formless’. RESPONDENT: What intelligence is the human brain can not fully understand. RICHARD: Speaking personally, I have no problem understanding what intelligence is. RESPONDENT: But it is quite evident that it is not conditioned, not limited to past experiences stored in a brain. RICHARD: Intelligence is the ability of the human animal to think and reflect upon itself. When the flesh and blood body is freed from ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul this intelligence can operate cleanly and clearly. Past experiences stored in the brain are then seen for the asset they are and not the liability you take them to be. It is the affective component of memory that causes your problems. * RICHARD: Perception when the ‘perceiver’ is momentarily silent creates the illusion that the ‘thinker’ is but a product of thought and memory. It is not. ‘I’ am an emotional-mental construct and when the ‘feeler’ and its feelings are not then the ‘thinker’ is not. When ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul am not then thought can operate from memory to its heart’s content without getting told off by some interfering ‘self’ posing as a bona fide spiritual seeker. RESPONDENT: That silence is not in or of the body/brain. RICHARD: Well, Eastern spiritual mysticism does posit this silence that you are talking of as being ‘That’ which is beyond time and space now, does it not? And as they say that when the body physically dies they will cast it of as a suit of old clothes ... so it cannot be ‘in or of the body/brain’ at all. This is why I have been saying to you for months now that you are hooked into Eastern Mysticism ... just like Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti. RESPONDENT: I am looking at what is right now. RICHARD: Which ‘what is’ are you looking at? The literal (physical) one or the imaginative (metaphysical) one? That is: this physical world of people, things and events only, or the metaphysical ‘formlessness’ that gives rise to the material illusion ... what the Buddhists call ‘Isness’. RESPONDENT: I can understand healthy scepticism as to what Krishnamurti said if it is not seen to be so directly. RICHARD: And when what he says is ‘seen to be so directly’ then any scepticism immediately becomes unhealthy, eh? Bear in mind that when a devout Hindu sees a blue-skinned Mr. Krishna playing on a flute and when a devout Christian sees a pale-skinned Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene hanging on a cross ... they know that it is ‘seen to be so directly’ too. Is my scepticism about what the Hindu and the Christian are seeing healthy or unhealthy? RESPONDENT: It is enough to observe authentically and be open to the possibility of seeing something new and unexpected. RICHARD: But it is not something ‘new and unexpected’ at all ... it has been described ad nauseam by the Gurus and the God-men for thousands of years. Thus when you meditate you expect to see that which is ‘timeless and formless’. The only new thing about it is that it is you that is experiencing it ... and it is so flattering to be one of the few so graced. * RICHARD: If one does not become free, as this body in this life-time, one never will because physical death is the end. Finish. Not that it matters at all then because physical death is oblivion. RESPONDENT: There is death because there is belief in a ‘me’’ that has continuity. RICHARD: Not so ... physical death is a fact whether there is a continuous ‘me’ or not. RESPONDENT: Of course the body ends but there never was anyone living inside the body. If there is a thought and belief that I am this body in time, that thought is the ‘me’. RICHARD: Perhaps this is an opportune time to ask you a question: What happens to this ‘undivided awareness’ – that comes out of the ‘silence’ which you clearly say is not ‘in or of the body/brain’ – after the physical death of the body called No. 12? Does it also end along with the end of the body? RESPONDENT: What do you understand time to be? RICHARD: I understand that it is high time that you addressed yourself to the question. Which is: What happens to this ‘undivided awareness’ – that comes out of the ‘silence’ which you clearly say is not ‘in or of the body/brain’ – after the physical death of the body called No. 12? Does it also end along with the end of the body? RESPONDENT: It is a measurement of thought is it not? RICHARD: What has this sentence got to do with the question: What happens to this ‘undivided awareness’ – that comes out of the ‘silence’ which you clearly say is not ‘in or of the body/brain’ – after the physical death of the body called No. 12? Does it also end along with the end of the body? RESPONDENT: If so, it is clear that understanding of the timeless is not possible through thought. RICHARD: What happens to this ‘undivided awareness’ – that comes out of the ‘silence’ which you clearly say is not ‘in or of the body/brain’ – after the physical death of the body called No. 12? Does it also end along with the end of the body? RESPONDENT: What seems to either continue or die is an illusion. RICHARD: At physical death this body dies ... this is no illusion. RESPONDENT: If ‘I’ am not, there is death or impermanence in each moment. RICHARD: We were not talking about ‘each moment’ where there is a body living and breathing at all. Shall we stick with the subject ... which is physical death? When I die – when this body called Richard being apperceptively aware physically dies – this apperceptive awareness dies right along with it ... for they are the one and the same thing. RESPONDENT: Life is not separate in time from death. RICHARD: Shall we stick with the subject ... which is physical death? When I die – when this body called Richard being apperceptively aware physically dies – this apperceptive awareness dies right along with it ... for they are the one and the same thing. What happens to this ‘undivided awareness’ – that comes out of the ‘silence’ which you clearly say is not ‘in or of the body/brain’ – after the physical death of the body called No. 12? Does it also end along with the end of the body? RESPONDENT: That separation is an illusion of memory and psychological time called ‘me’. RICHARD: Shall we stick with the subject ... which is physical death? When I die – when this body called Richard being apperceptively aware physically dies – this apperceptive awareness dies right along with it ... for they are the one and the same thing. What happens to this ‘undivided awareness’ – that comes out of the ‘silence’ which you clearly say is not ‘in or of the body/brain’ – after the physical death of the body called No. 12? Does it also end along with the end of the body? RESPONDENT: If there is thought to be a ‘me’ that is now but will not be later, there will be suffering, and effort to escape. RICHARD: Shall we stick with the subject ... which is physical death? When I die – when this body called Richard being apperceptively aware physically dies – this apperceptive awareness dies right along with it ... for they are the one and the same thing. What happens to this ‘undivided awareness’ – that comes out of the ‘silence’ which you clearly say is not ‘in or of the body/brain’ – after the physical death of the body called No. 12? Does it also end along with the end of the body? RESPONDENT: Yet what is timeless is also there each moment so it is not a problem. RICHARD: Does that which is perceiving ‘timeless’ cease to exist when the flesh and blood body called No. 12 physically dies? RESPONDENT: A wave does not die because it never was truly separate. RICHARD: This is that ‘I am everything and Everything is Me’ stuff again. Physical death is the end. Finish. RESPONDENT: If it is directly seen that in fact there is no separation, is there selfish concern about ‘my’ death? RICHARD: Whoa up there! You wish to survive physical death and live forever ... at the expense of peace-on-earth. How much more selfish can you get than that?
RICHARD: Seeing ‘I’ as false is not sufficient ... such learning only stops when ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul die completely. RESPONDENT: There never was any ego or soul entity. There is just conditioning, programming that includes those beliefs as well as the instinctive reactions. RICHARD: Aye ... yet the instinctive reactions have their energy base in the instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire that blind nature endows on all sentient beings. These passions are the very energy source of the rudimentary animal self ... the base consciousness of ‘self’ and ‘other’ that all sentient beings have. The human animal – with its unique ability to think and reflect upon its own death – transforms this ‘reptilian brain’ rudimentary ‘self’ into being a feeling ‘me’ (as soul in the heart) and from this core of ‘being’ this ‘feeler’ then infiltrates into thought to become a thinking ‘I’ (as ego in the head). No other animal can do this. This process is aided and abetted by the human beings who were already on this planet when one was born ... which, as you say, is conditioning and programming. It is part and parcel of the socialising process. Thus seeing the ‘I’ as false is not sufficient ... there is a ‘me’ lurking in the heart to take over the wheel. Then – and this is for all those intellectuals who fondly imagine that ‘seeing’ something as being false is sufficient – if the ‘me’ in the heart is also seen to be false ... there is still a matter of those pesky instinctive reactions to give lie to their claims of ‘there never was any ego or soul entity’. To put it bluntly: ‘you’ in ‘your’ totality, who are but an illusion, must die an illusory death commensurate to ‘your’ pernicious existence. The drama must be played out to the end ... there are no short-cuts here. The doorway to an actual freedom has the word ‘extinction’ written on it. This extinction is an irrevocable event that eliminates the psyche itself. There will be no ‘being’. * RICHARD: The psyche is not memory at all ... it is born of the instinctual passions. When ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul become extinct the psyche vanishes ... then memory is understood as being the asset that it is and not a liability. RESPONDENT: The so-called human ego-structure, human conditioning is memory-based. There is thought of me before enlightenment, me after enlightenment, me becoming free etc. There is an experience and with that energy, conditioning dissolves. Thought converts that into attainment by me. But actually the process is impersonal. RICHARD: As I am bodily constituted of various bits and pieces of this physical universe and I am bodily animated by the calorific content of food and the oxygen content of air and so on – which are also various bits and pieces of this physical universe – and that due to the process of inevitable physical entropy I will bodily cease being animated (which is another way of saying birth then living then death) it is entirely reasonable to say that the entire process of being alive anyway is already impersonal. Giving credence to any ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul as being somehow essential in any part or all of this in any personal way is simply illusionary and narcissistic self-centredness in action. Yet there is this rudimentary animal ‘self’ of the survival instincts endowed by blind nature as evidenced in animals ... and there is the rub. The presence of this base ‘self’ – which is ‘being’ itself – has nothing to do with conditioning and programming or thought and memory ... you were physically born this way. RESPONDENT: I can understand healthy scepticism as to what Krishnamurti said if it is not seen to be so directly. RICHARD: And when what he says is ‘seen to be so directly’ then any scepticism immediately becomes unhealthy, eh? Bear in mind that when a devout Hindu sees a blue-skinned Mr. Krishna playing on a flute and when a devout Christian sees a pale-skinned Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene hanging on a cross ... they know that it is ‘seen to be so directly’ too. Is my scepticism about what the Hindu and the Christian are seeing healthy or unhealthy? RESPONDENT: Direct seeing could not possibly involve projected images of Krishna or Jesus, etc. Seeing is from not-knowing, there are no images in it whatsoever. RICHARD: Hmm ... so ‘timeless’ and ‘formless’ are not images then, you would say? As I say to the devout Hindu and the devout Christian: show me your god. They say: our god is not physical ... but we understand your scepticism ... here is the holy book ... read it for yourself and you will see so directly. I say: oh, your god is not actual then? Are you saying that your god does not exist outside of imagination? Now, No. 12 says: there is that which is ‘timeless and formless’. I say: there is only eternal time and infinite space (which implies infinite particles of form eternally rearranging itself) ... show me your timeless and formless. You say: ‘I can understand healthy scepticism as to what Krishnamurti said if it is not seen to be so directly’. Now, as this physical universe’s time is eternal and its space is infinite ... just where is your ‘timeless’ and ‘formless’ located? If it has no existence outside of imagination then it must be imagery ... which is what images are. RESPONDENT: What do you understand time to be? RICHARD: I understand that it is high time that you addressed yourself to the question which is: What happens to this ‘undivided awareness’ – that comes out of the ‘silence’ which you clearly say is not ‘in or of the body/brain’ – after the physical death of the body called No. 12? Does it also end along with the end of the body?’ RESPONDENT: The question implies that something timeless can end. Since the question assumes a contradiction, it can not be sensibly answered. RICHARD: The question implies that something that is a particular physical arrangement living for a specific period in eternal time and infinite space does indeed end its particular configuration ... a flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. Thus the question does not assume a contradiction at all ... and can be sensibly answered. RESPONDENT: The body is like the movement of a wave. There is no static wave. There is a movement that has a appearance of a thing. RICHARD: The body is like a wave in that various bits and pieces of this infinite and eternal universe coalesce for a period of time as a particular recognisable form that is not actually separate from any other bits and pieces of the physical universe. In the infinitude of the physical universe there is no way that this process could be called static. This is a movement in the infinitude of time and space that is no mere ‘appearance of a thing’ ... it is actually happening. RESPONDENT: Attention that is identified with that movement, is the centre. RICHARD: Aye ... if this flesh and blood body is nothing but an ‘appearance of a thing’ for you ... then any identification with an ‘appearance’ could indeed be called a centre. May I ask? Why do you insist that this infinite and eternal universe is not actual despite massive amounts of evidence to the contrary? Like your eyes reading these words, for example, because if you reach out your hand you can touch the glass, which is but a few millimetres away from what this flesh and blood body called Richard has written, and your fingertips will verify that things like glass are more than an ‘appearance’. RESPONDENT: Centreless awareness has a different movement, direct perception free of the known. RICHARD: As this ‘centre-less awareness’ requires an ‘appearance of a thing’ (what I seem to mistakenly persist in calling an actual body) in order to sustain this awareness that has a ‘different movement’ ... what happens to this ability to have a ‘direct perception free of the known’ when this ‘appearance of a thing’ called No. 12 ceases being an ‘appearance of a thing’ when what I as a mortal called death happens? Does this ‘direct perception free of the known’ cease happening too? If not, what ‘appearance of a thing’ would support this ‘direct perception free of the known’ after the ‘appearance of a thing’ called No. 12 is no more?
RICHARD: To put it bluntly: ‘you’ in ‘your’ totality, who are but an illusion, must die an illusory death commensurate to ‘your’ pernicious existence. The drama must be played out to the end ... there are no short-cuts here. The doorway to an actual freedom has the word ‘extinction’ written on it. This extinction is an irrevocable event that eliminates the psyche itself. There will be no ‘being’. RESPONDENT: It seems clearer to say that there is a dissolution of the conditioning that gives rise to the illusion of self. RICHARD: All the different types of conditioning are well-meant endeavours by countless peoples over countless aeons to seek to curb the instinctual passions. Now, while most people paddle around on the surface and re-arrange the conditioning to ease their lot somewhat, some people – seeking to be free of all human conditioning – fondly imagine that by putting on a face-mask and snorkel that they have gone deep-sea diving with a scuba outfit ... deep into the human condition. They have not ... they have gone deep only into the human conditioning. When they tip upon the instincts – which are both savage (fear and aggression) and tender (nurture and desire) – they grab for the tender (the ‘good’ side) and blow them up all out of proportion. If they succeed in this self-aggrandising hallucination they start talking twaddle dressed up as sagacity such as: ‘There is a good that knows no evil’ or ‘There is a love that knows no opposite’ or ‘There is a compassion that sorrow has never touched’ and so on. This is because it takes nerves of steel to don such an aqua-lung and plunge deep in the stygian depths of the human psyche ... it is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee. This is because past the conditioning is the Human Condition itself ... which caused the conditioning. To end this condition, the deletion of blind nature’s software package which gave rise to the rudimentary animal ‘self’ is required. This is the extinction of ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’. That is, ‘being’ itself expires. RESPONDENT: That [dissolution of the conditioning] means there are actual chemical or neuro-physiological changes, not the ‘death’ of an imagined psyche although it may seem like ‘me’ dying. RICHARD: One may call the ‘psyche’ imagined; one may call the ‘me’ imagined; one may call the ‘death’ imagined ... yet, whatever it is that dramatically ‘dies’ is but a playing-out of the tragedy of ‘being’ ... when the process that ‘I’ initiated with full intent wipes out all the instinctual passions one was born with. You see, there is this rudimentary animal ‘self’ of the survival instincts endowed by blind nature as evidenced in animals ... and there is the rub. The presence of this base ‘self’ – which is ‘being’ itself – has nothing to do with imagination – or with conditioning and programming or thought and memory – you were physically born this way. * RICHARD: The psyche is not memory at all ... it is born of the instinctual passions. When ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul become extinct the psyche vanishes ... then memory is understood as being the asset that it is and not a liability. RESPONDENT: Whether it is psychological programming or biological programming or both, it stems from accumulated past impressions. RICHARD: Not so ... biological programming, like the instinctive reactions, has its energy base in the instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire that blind nature endows on all sentient beings. Unless you profess a belief in the incredulous Eastern mystical concept of re-incarnation, with its spurious karma, these cannot be ‘accumulated past impressions’. It is these instinctual passions that are the very energy source of the rudimentary animal self ... the base consciousness of ‘self’ and ‘other’ that all sentient beings have. The human animal – with its unique ability to think and reflect upon its own death – transforms this ‘reptilian brain’ rudimentary ‘self’ into being a feeling ‘me’ (as soul in the heart) and from this core of ‘being’ this ‘feeler’ then infiltrates into thought to become a thinking ‘I’ (as ego in the head). No other animal can do this. This process is aided and abetted by the human beings who were already on this planet when one was born ... which, as you have said, is conditioning and programming and thought and memory and imagining. It is part and parcel of the socialising process. Biological programming, however, is different to psychological programming ... you were physically born already biologically programmed. How can that programming come from ‘accumulated past impressions’? If you are referring to ‘genetic memory’, then be aware that this is a misnomer ... as it is a description of a biological process that has nothing to do with thoughts’ memory. RESPONDENT: I can understand healthy scepticism as to what Krishnamurti said if it is not seen to be so directly. RICHARD: And when what he says is ‘seen to be so directly’ then any scepticism immediately becomes unhealthy, eh? Bear in mind that when a devout Hindu sees a blue-skinned Mr. Krishna playing on a flute and when a devout Christian sees a pale-skinned Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene hanging on a cross ... they know that it is ‘seen to be so directly’ too. Is my scepticism about what the Hindu and the Christian are seeing healthy or unhealthy? RESPONDENT: Direct seeing could not possibly involve projected images of Krishna or Jesus, etc. Seeing is from not-knowing, there are no images in it whatsoever. RICHARD: Hmm ... so ‘timeless’ and ‘formless’ are not images then, you would say? As I say to the devout Hindu and the devout Christian: show me your god. They say: our god is not physical ... but we understand your scepticism ... here is the holy book ... read it for yourself and you will see so directly. I say: oh, your god is not actual then? Are you saying that your god does not exist outside of imagination? RESPONDENT: Formless means imageless. RICHARD: It would be handy if you said ‘imageless’ ... in all eastern mystical literature and experience ‘formless’ means what it says: no form. That is, no body ... no objects at all. As in: no actual universe. RESPONDENT: Time as we conceive it is measurement through memory. RICHARD: A clock face divided into twelve or twenty-four segments is an arbitrary human agreement. The varying positions of the sun in the sky throughout the day and the varying positions of stars at night is not an arbitrary human agreement. Time – like space – is actual. Memory is essential to know the varying positions ... amnesiacs have the dickens of a job operating and functioning in the world of people, things and events. RESPONDENT: Timeless refers to what is not of thought and memory so obviously it can not possibly be pictured. RICHARD: If you are talking of the beginningless and endless duration in which physical bodies move through physical space then it would be handy if you used some other word ... like ‘eternal’. Eternity is the name for the infinitude of all time ... in all eastern mystical literature and experience the word ‘timeless’ means what it says: no time. That is, no movement of physical bodies through physical space ... no physical movement in any physical space at all. Meaning no actual time for any actual universe as in: no actual universe. * RICHARD: Now, No. 12 says: there is that which is ‘timeless and formless’. I say: there is only eternal time and infinite space (which implies infinite particles of form eternally rearranging itself) ... show me your ‘timeless and formless’. You say: ‘I can understand healthy scepticism as to what Krishnamurti said if it is not seen to be so directly’. Now, as this physical universe’s time is eternal and its space is infinite ... just where is your ‘timeless’ and ‘formless’ located? If it has no existence outside of imagination then it must be imagery ... which is what images are. RESPONDENT: The ‘known’ physical universe is a construction of thought through memory. RICHARD: Unless you are indulging in solipsism, this physical universe was here before the physical body called No. 12 was physically born ... there are more people than just you on this planet. Unless one is paranoid about a gigantic conspiracy to deceive one then their report that this is so is valid. Thus this physical universe will be here after the physical body called No. 12 physically dies. Consequently, this planet – and other planets and stars – are not thought constructions based upon your memory. RESPONDENT: Strictly speaking, ‘what is’ is always unknown as it is occurring only now, and now. RICHARD: It depends upon which meaning you ascribe to the phrase ‘what is’. Taken literally it means what is physically happening now ... like all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicide, for example. However, when Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti used the phrase ‘what is’ he was referring to something metaphysical ... what the Buddhists call ‘Isness’ ... or ‘Suchness’ or ‘Thatness’. That ‘what is’ is indeed ‘timeless’ and ‘formless’ ... being an hallucination it can be whatever you want it to be. RESPONDENT: To observe from the known, is to see the world of apparent objects. RICHARD: This computer monitor is actually here whether you are observing from ‘the known’ or not. RESPONDENT: With observation from not knowing, there are no truly separate objects to be found. RICHARD: Yet this computer monitor is actually here whether it be ‘truly separate’ or not. All things are inter-related and inter-dependant ... this is not a problem to be ‘solved’ by denying actuality. RESPONDENT: This [observation from not knowing] is order, awareness not entangled with thought. RICHARD: Hmm ... ‘he who says he knows does not really know and he who does not know really knows’, eh? Why scorn thought and knowing ... it is what sets the human animal apart from other animals. Apperceptive awareness can have thought and knowing operating without it ceasing to be apperceptive. * RICHARD: May I ask? Why do you insist that this infinite and eternal universe is not actual despite massive amounts of evidence to the contrary? Like your eyes reading these words, for example, because if you reach out your hand you can touch the glass, which is but a few millimetres away from what this flesh and blood body called Richard has written, and your fingertips will verify that things like glass are more than an ‘appearance’. RESPONDENT: What is known is impermanent, finite, structured in time. RICHARD: Particular objects – both those already known to humans and those yet to be known to humans – are finite, yes. They exist over time in space for a period then re-arrange themselves into other objects ... over and over again ad infinitum. This glass on the monitor screen may very well revert to silica, given sufficient time and weathering, and if you were to live that long you could touch that silica with your finger-tips so as to verify that it is more than ‘mere appearance’ . RESPONDENT: There is no material’ thing’ that does not have a beginning and an end. RICHARD: The particular shape has a beginning and ending, yes ... the bits and pieces that the shapes form out of are beginningless and endless, however. RESPONDENT: The perceived physical universe is neither infinite nor eternal. RICHARD: In reality, the perceived universe can be whatever ‘I’ wants it to be as it is but an illusion pasted over actuality anyway. When only half of the identity dies – ‘I’ as ego – a delusion called the ‘Greater Reality’ hoves into view. The ‘Greater Reality’ is usually ‘Timeless’ and ‘Spaceless’ and the physical universe is seen to be not only finite and limited as some people in reality also believe ... but a now-grand illusion into the bargain! When the other half of the identity likewise dies – ‘me’ as soul – then the apperceived physical universe is not only known to be infinite and eternal, however ... it is also ascertained to be actual. It is ‘being’ itself that causes all the fuss. RESPONDENT: What is of time is a dying phenomenon. RICHARD: Objects in space coalesce at a particular time as a particular shape, exist for a period and break apart into their constituent bits and pieces only to re-arrange themselves with multitudinous other bits and pieces over and over again. A carbon-based life-form is physically born, exists for a period and physically dies. Its constituent bits and pieces re-arrange themselves with multitudinous other bits and pieces over and over again. That is: matter re-arranges itself ... matter cannot be destroyed. Thus ‘what is of time’ is not a ‘dying phenomenon’ at all ... unless one is so fearfully self-centred as to focus only on the particular and project from there an ‘undying’ and ‘unborn’ fantasy. RESPONDENT: Centreless awareness has a different movement, direct perception free of the known. RICHARD: As this ‘centre-less awareness’ requires an ‘appearance of a thing’ (what I seem to mistakenly persist in calling an actual body) in order to sustain this awareness that has a ‘different movement’ ... what happens to this ability to have a ‘direct perception free of the known’ when this ‘appearance of a thing’ called No. 12 ceases being an ‘appearance of a thing’ when what I as a mortal called death happens? Does this ‘direct perception free of the known’ cease happening too? If not, what ‘appearance of a thing’ would support this ‘direct perception free of the known’ after the ‘appearance of a thing’ called No. 12 is no more? RESPONDENT: The creative energy that enlivens the body is always renewing itself. RICHARD: The physical energy of this physical universe (which some scientists propose are ‘waves’ of energy and not ‘bits’ of energy as in minute objects) is infinite and eternal ... it does not need to ‘renew itself’. RESPONDENT: It does not depend on a particular body or brain. RICHARD: Of course not ... that was not the question. It is the particular body and brain called No. 12 that is experiencing a ‘direct perception free of the known’ that we are discussing. When the particular body and brain called No. 12 ceases happening, that ‘direct perception free of the known’ will also cease ... will it not? In other words, is physical death the end? Finish? Oblivion? The universe will go on without you – it will manage perfectly well without your ‘direct perception free of the known’ – just like it did before you were born. RESPONDENT: If there is no identification with the body which is memory, would such questions arise? RICHARD: No, such a question would not arise ... not when that identification has switched to identifying with the metaphysical ‘what is’. Because one then is that ‘timeless’ and ‘formless’ energy ... the energy that creates the ‘appearance’ of a universe of people, things and events. In truth – in that hallucination – there is only that. This is the central tenet of Advaita Vedanta – and of Buddhism in different words – and surely you and the man you quote so often have not fallen for that grandiose ‘Self is All’ (which is still self-centred) eastern mystical twaddle ... have you? Or have you?
RICHARD: All the different types of conditioning are well-meant endeavours by countless peoples over countless aeons to seek to curb the instinctual passions. Now, while most people paddle around on the surface and re-arrange the conditioning to ease their lot somewhat, some people – seeking to be free of all human conditioning – fondly imagine that by putting on a face-mask and snorkel that they have gone deep-sea diving with a scuba outfit ... deep into the human condition. They have not ... they have gone deep only into the human conditioning. When they tip upon the instincts – which are both savage (fear and aggression) and tender (nurture and desire) – they grab for the tender (the ‘good’ side) and blow them up all out of proportion. If they succeed in this self-aggrandising hallucination they start talking twaddle dressed up as sagacity such as: ‘There is a good that knows no evil’ or ‘There is a love that knows no opposite’ or ‘There is a compassion that sorrow has never touched’ and so on. This is because it takes nerves of steel to don such an aqua-lung and plunge deep in the stygian depths of the human psyche ... it is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee. This is because past the conditioning is the Human Condition itself ... which caused the conditioning. To end this condition, the deletion of blind nature’s software package which gave rise to the rudimentary animal ‘self’ is required. This is the extinction of ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’. That is, ‘being’ itself expires. RESPONDENT: If there is someone there to dive deep there is division is there not? Choice between tender and savage implies a chooser, a thinker, self. RICHARD: Aye, this is why enlightened people still have an identity. RESPONDENT: When there is no such division, there is the existential ground and that has no name. RICHARD: It has a name alright ... when there is no identity whatsoever – which includes no ‘thinker’ and no ‘feeler’ – then there is this actual world ... the value-free sensate world. RESPONDENT: To call it love or goodness or compassion etc is misleading because those qualities can be personal whereas the ground is impersonal, without opposite, free of duality. RICHARD: Indeed, it impersonal to the point of any identity whatsoever being extinct ... that is why when people like Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti praise love and goodness and compassion and etcetera I immediately know that they have been misled. There is no love or hate; no goodness or badness; no sorrow or compassion here in this actual world ... as you say: no opposites at all. All duality has ceased. RESPONDENT: A dream state is projection but attention that is not bounded by the psyche (which is memory) sees the illusion of becoming. RICHARD: The psyche is not memory at all ... it is born of the instinctual passions. When ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul become extinct the psyche vanishes ... then memory is understood as being the asset that it is and not a liability. RESPONDENT: That [dissolution of the conditioning] means there are actual chemical or neuro-physiological changes, not the ‘death’ of an imagined psyche although it may seem like ‘me’ dying. RICHARD: One may call the ‘psyche’ imagined; one may call the ‘me’ imagined; one may call the ‘death’ imagined ... yet, whatever it is that dramatically ‘dies’ is but a playing-out of the tragedy of ‘being’ ... when the process that ‘I’ initiated with full intent wipes out all the instinctual passions one was born with. You see, there is this rudimentary animal ‘self’ of the survival instincts endowed by blind nature as evidenced in animals ... and there is the rub. The presence of this base ‘self’ – which is ‘being’ itself – has nothing to do with imagination – or with conditioning and programming or thought and memory – you were physically born this way. The psyche is not memory at all ... it is born of the instinctual passions. When ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul become extinct the psyche vanishes ... then memory is understood as being the asset that it is and not a liability. RESPONDENT: Whether it is psychological programming or biological programming or both, it stems from accumulated past impressions. RICHARD: Not so ... biological programming, like the instinctive reactions, has its energy base in the instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire that blind nature endows on all sentient beings. Unless you profess a belief in the incredulous Eastern mystical concept of re-incarnation, with its spurious karma, these cannot be ‘accumulated past impressions’. It is these instinctual passions that are the very energy source of the rudimentary animal self ... the base consciousness of ‘self’ and ‘other’ that all sentient beings have. The human animal – with its unique ability to think and reflect upon its own death – transforms this ‘reptilian brain’ rudimentary ‘self’ into being a feeling ‘me’ (as soul in the heart) and from this core of ‘being’ this ‘feeler’ then infiltrates into thought to become a thinking ‘I’ (as ego in the head). No other animal can do this. This process is aided and abetted by the human beings who were already on this planet when one was born ... which, as you have said, is conditioning and programming and thought and memory and imagining. It is part and parcel of the socialising process. Biological programming, however, is different to psychological programming ... you were physically born already biologically programmed. How can that programming come from ‘accumulated past impressions’? If you are referring to ‘genetic memory’, then be aware that this is a misnomer ... as it is a description of a biological process that has nothing to do with thoughts’ memory. RESPONDENT: If it is biological programming, that implies it arises from unconscious past impressions that have been stored in matter and operate now in a mechanical way. RICHARD: If I may point out? You are straying from the point? Psychological programming is stored in thoughts’ memory whereas the biological instincts are genetically imprinted as the affective faculty. You are blurring the distinction by using ‘unconscious past impressions’ to refer to both thought’s memory and biological imprinting. RESPONDENT: The so-called fight or flight mechanism is a good example. Doesn’t biological conditioning evolve from organic experience? Of course it does. RICHARD: Indeed ... but the instinctual passions are inherited via the joining of the spermatozoa and the ova. This biological heredity stretches back over many millennia of trial and error on the part of blind nature. This is a distinctly different process from parental or societal conditioning. Please look back (five of your sentences above) for the statement about the psyche that started this particular aspect of this thread. Let me copy and paste so there is no confusion:
I see that you clearly meant thought’s memory. RESPONDENT: I can understand healthy scepticism as to what Krishnamurti said if it is not seen to be so directly. RICHARD: And when what he says is ‘seen to be so directly’ then any scepticism immediately becomes unhealthy, eh? Bear in mind that when a devout Hindu sees a blue-skinned Mr. Krishna playing on a flute and when a devout Christian sees a pale-skinned Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene hanging on a cross ... they know that it is ‘seen to be so directly’ too. Is my scepticism about what the Hindu and the Christian are seeing healthy or unhealthy? RESPONDENT: Direct seeing could not possibly involve projected images of Krishna or Jesus, etc. Seeing is from not-knowing, there are no images in it whatsoever. RICHARD: Hmm ... so ‘timeless’ and ‘formless’ are not images then, you would say? As I say to the devout Hindu and the devout Christian: show me your god. They say: our god is not physical ... but we understand your scepticism ... here is the holy book ... read it for yourself and you will see so directly. I say: oh, your god is not actual then? Are you saying that your god does not exist outside of imagination? RESPONDENT: Formless means imageless. RICHARD: It would be handy if you said ‘imageless’ ... in all eastern mystical literature and experience ‘formless’ means what it says: no form. That is, no body ... no objects at all. As in: no actual universe. RESPONDENT: What is formless is of a different dimension then the material universe, it is not a denial of physical reality. RICHARD: All mysticism denies any ultimate reality to the material world. RESPONDENT: It is easiest to understand in terms of attention. Attention that is from memory recognises things conceptually and perceives them as having form. RICHARD: Yet I am not speaking of recognition when I say that these fingertips touching the glass of this computer monitor touch an object (form). Knowing what the words ‘computer monitor’ and ‘glass’ refer to do require recognition from thoughts’ memory – this is not under dispute – but the fingertips touching form require no recognition – or conceptualisation – to verify that form exists as an actuality. No thought is required at all in this verification ... touch is immediate and direct. RESPONDENT: Attention that is prior to thought (meditation) perceives a dimension that is empty of form. RICHARD: Aye ... such attention is called imagination and such a dimension is called an hallucination. Speaking personally, I lived like this for twenty four hours a day for eleven years, so I know it intimately. Just as an experiment, try substituting some less exotic terms and see what your sentence looks like. For example: ‘Attention that is prior to thought (prayer) perceives a kingdom that is not of this earth’. RESPONDENT: That [dimension] inter-penetrates what is perceived as the physical world. RICHARD: This formless dimension is called ‘noumenon’ RESPONDENT: Time as we conceive it is measurement through memory. RICHARD: A clock face divided into twelve or twenty-four segments is an arbitrary human agreement. The varying positions of the sun in the sky throughout the day and the varying positions of stars at night is not an arbitrary human agreement. Time – like space – is actual. Memory is essential to know the varying positions ... amnesiacs have the dickens of a job operating and functioning in the world of people, things and events. RESPONDENT: Physical time and space are not in question. RICHARD: I beg to differ ... you have just written (above) ‘what is perceived as the physical world’. In the previous post you wrote: ‘the body is like the movement of a wave ... [it] has a appearance of a thing’ . You are clearly saying that this physical world is not actual. RESPONDENT: But is psychological time and space actual? RICHARD: The everyday real-world affectively-created time and space is not actual, no (that is, the normal world that 5.8 billion people live in). RESPONDENT: There is a changing physical body but is that body ‘me’? RICHARD: No ... ‘me’ is a psychological/ psychic entity residing within the flesh and blood body creating an ‘inner’ world. Any identity is not this body. RESPONDENT: Or is identity in time just a projection of thought through memory, i.e.: programming? RICHARD: Yes ... but no just ‘thought through memory’ . Such an investigation is too shallow ... one needs to dive deeper. For starters, ‘I’ am an emotional-mental construct ... not just a mental construct. Why is there this reluctance to examine feelings? RESPONDENT: Timeless refers to what is not of thought and memory so obviously it can not possibly be pictured. RICHARD: If you are talking of the beginningless and endless duration in which physical bodies move through physical space then it would be handy if you used some other word ... like ‘eternal’. Eternity is the name for the infinitude of all time ... in all eastern mystical literature and experience the word ‘timeless’ means what it says: no time. That is, no movement of physical bodies through physical space ... no physical movement in any physical space at all. Meaning no actual time for any actual universe as in: no actual universe. RESPONDENT: The ‘known’ physical universe is a construction of thought through memory. RICHARD: Unless you are indulging in solipsism RESPONDENT: To observe from the known, is to see the world of apparent objects. RICHARD: This computer monitor is actually here whether you are observing from the ‘known’ or not. RESPONDENT: Yes, but there is an attention or awareness that is not bounded by a psyche that thinks I am here and the monitor is over there. RICHARD: Indeed, I call such awareness ‘apperceptive awareness’ ... wherein there is no ‘I’ or ‘me’ creating a separation from the computer monitor. But you are drifting from the point: you had said – once again – ‘the world of apparent objects’. The computer monitor is not ‘apparently’ here ... it is actually here. RESPONDENT: With observation from not knowing, there are no truly separate objects to be found. RICHARD: Yet this computer monitor is actually here whether it be ‘truly separate’ or not. All things are inter-related and inter-dependant ... this is not a problem to be ‘solved’ by denying actuality. RESPONDENT: This [observation from not knowing] is order, awareness not entangled with thought. RICHARD: Hmm ... ‘he who says he knows does not really know and he who does not know really knows’, eh? Why scorn thought and knowing ... it is what sets the human animal apart from other animals. Apperceptive awareness can have thought and knowing operating without it ceasing to be apperceptive. RESPONDENT: If apperceptive awareness is known objectively, it is a projection of thought. RICHARD: Apperceptive awareness simply cannot be projected by thought as it is the brain operating freely ... independently of thought. Apperception is only when the ‘thinker’ and ‘feeler’ – along with the feelings – are not. Thought and knowing can easily operate in apperception. Why this quibbling about thought and knowing? May I quote you from a recent post to another? Viz.:
RESPONDENT: What is of time is a dying phenomenon. RICHARD: Objects in space coalesce at a particular time as a particular shape, exist for a period and break apart into their constituent bits and pieces only to re-arrange themselves with multitudinous other bits and pieces over and over again. A carbon-based life-form is physically born, exists for a period and physically dies. Its constituent bits and pieces re-arrange themselves with multitudinous other bits and pieces over and over again. That is: matter re-arranges itself ... matter cannot be destroyed. Thus ‘what is of time’ is not a ‘dying phenomenon’ at all ... unless one is so fearfully self-centred as to focus only on the particular and project from there an ‘undying’ and ‘unborn’ fantasy. RESPONDENT: Any ‘arrangement’ is impermanent, i.e.: of time. RICHARD: Yes ... but the bits and pieces that the ‘arrangement’ is formed from are not impermanent ... they exist forever and a day in the eternal time of this infinite universe. RESPONDENT: Awareness that is creative intelligence is not limited by an arrangement in the field of changing matter. RICHARD: Given that by ‘creative intelligence’ you mean some anthropomorphic timeless and
formless noumenon RESPONDENT: Centreless awareness has a different movement, direct perception free of the known. RICHARD: As this ‘centre-less awareness’ requires an ‘appearance of a thing’ (what I seem to mistakenly persist in calling an actual body) in order to sustain this awareness that has a ‘different movement’ ... what happens to this ability to have a ‘direct perception free of the known’ when this ‘appearance of a thing’ called No. 12 ceases being an ‘appearance of a thing’ when what I as a mortal called death happens? Does this ‘direct perception free of the known’ cease happening too? If not, what ‘appearance of a thing’ would support this ‘direct perception free of the known’ after the ‘appearance of a thing’ called No. 12 is no more? RESPONDENT: The creative energy that enlivens the body is always renewing itself. RICHARD: The physical energy of this physical universe (which some scientists propose are ‘waves’ of energy and not ‘bits’ of energy as in minute objects) is infinite and eternal ... it does not need to ‘renew itself’. RESPONDENT: Eternity can not be understood in terms of continuity. RICHARD: Eternity is only here ... now. It does not exist in some other dimension before physical birth and after physical death. Hence it can only be known – experienced – whilst this flesh and blood body is alive and breathing. If you do not experience it now, you never will ... physical death is the end. Finish. RESPONDENT: What is eternal is an ever-new dimension and does not grow, accumulate, become, evolve or rearrange itself in time. RICHARD: Agreed ... the eternity of all time cannot be in time as it is time itself. RESPONDENT: It does not depend on a particular body or brain. RICHARD: Of course not ... that was not the question. It is the particular body and brain called No. 12 that is experiencing a ‘direct perception free of the known’ that we are discussing. When the particular body and brain called No. 12 ceases happening, that ‘direct perception free of the known’ will also cease ... will it not? In other words, is physical death the end? Finish? Oblivion? The universe will go on without you – it will manage perfectly well without your ‘direct perception free of the known’ – just like it did before you were born. RESPONDENT: The particular body ends. RICHARD: Yes ... but that was not the question. Does the ‘direct perception free of the known’ that is dependent upon the physical brain in the physical body called No. 12 end along with the body? RESPONDENT: The naming of an ever-changing body is a figment of thought as it assumes a separate entity lives therein. RICHARD: Yet it is the ‘ever-changing body’ that is actual ... whereas it is the unchanging entity cunningly disguised as an immortal soul (in western parlance) that is a figment of imagination. Religious, spiritual, mystical and metaphysical people have it 180 degrees wrong. RESPONDENT: The source of energy and awareness is eternal. RICHARD: The ultimate energy source – the infinitude of this material universe – is indeed eternal. However, the only awareness that the universe has is as carbon-based life-forms ... which are mortal. If there were no carbon-based life-forms there would be no awareness. RESPONDENT: If there is no identification with the body which is memory, would such questions arise? RICHARD: No, such a question would not arise ... not when that identification has switched to identifying with the metaphysical ‘what is’ . Because one then is that ‘timeless’ and ‘formless’ energy ... the energy that creates the ‘appearance’ of a universe of people, things and events. In truth – in that hallucination – there is only that. This is the central tenet of Advaita Vedanta – and of Buddhism in different words – and surely you and the man you quote so often have not fallen for that grandiose ‘Self is All’ (which is still self-centred) eastern mystical twaddle ... have you? RESPONDENT: What is self-centred is the idea that I am the centre of the universe. RICHARD: Aye ... that is indeed self-centred. However, there is no centre to the universe. As I have written before:
In other words: I am always here and it is already now. RESPONDENT: And [what is self-centred is] that by my effort I am free and now would teach others to be free if they can have nerves of steel, i.e.: have my fine qualities. RICHARD: What would you have me do? Keep my mouth shut? That is, I can discover something that no one else has found – as far as I have been able to ascertain – that eliminates the cause of all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide ... but I am not to pass this information on to my fellow human beings to do with as they will? Would it not be self-centred – selfish – to keep it to myself? RESPONDENT: That is self-aggrandisement isn’t it? RICHARD: I like people ... and I care for my fellow human being. I am simply passing on my experience of life. What they do with this information is their business. There is no need in me to do this because I have no problems whatsoever. Why I do it is because other people tell me that they are suffering so I explain how I ended suffering in myself. One of the triggers that started me on this voyage into the psyche was the realisation that human beings are driven to kill their fellow human beings ... and I was one of them. Now I am not ... and I share that what triggered me because it may trigger them. RESPONDENT: If there is an idea of a Self that is All, it is projection of thought. RICHARD: Aye ... but thought fuelled by the affective. All mystics – using but different words – manifest this delusion. But all this is straying from the question. Does the ‘direct perception free of the known’ that is dependent upon the physical brain in the physical body called No. 12 end along with the body?
RICHARD: All the different types of conditioning are well-meant endeavours by countless peoples over countless aeons to seek to curb the instinctual passions. Now, while most people paddle around on the surface and re-arrange the conditioning to ease their lot somewhat, some people – seeking to be free of all human conditioning – fondly imagine that by putting on a face-mask and snorkel that they have gone deep-sea diving with a scuba outfit ... deep into the human condition. They have not ... they have gone deep only into the human conditioning. When they tip upon the instincts – which are both savage (fear and aggression) and tender (nurture and desire) – they grab for the tender (the ‘good’ side) and blow them up all out of proportion. If they succeed in this self-aggrandising hallucination they start talking twaddle dressed up as sagacity such as: ‘There is a good that knows no evil’ or ‘There is a love that knows no opposite’ or ‘There is a compassion that sorrow has never touched’ and so on. This is because it takes nerves of steel to don such an aqua-lung and plunge deep in the stygian depths of the human psyche ... it is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee. This is because past the conditioning is the Human Condition itself ... which caused the conditioning. To end this condition, the deletion of blind nature’s software package which gave rise to the rudimentary animal ‘self’ is required. This is the extinction of ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’. That is, ‘being’ itself expires. RESPONDENT: If there is someone there to dive deep there is division is there not? Choice between tender and savage implies a chooser, a thinker, self. RICHARD: Aye, this is why enlightened people still have an identity. RESPONDENT: The problem is the idea of being in time, becoming free, enlightened or whatever. RICHARD: No ... the problem is in the ‘grabbing for the tender (good) side’ of the instinctual passions and fondly imagining one has found a ‘compassion that has not known sorrow’ or a ‘love that knows no opposite’ and so on. This love and compassion are exalted as being that disembodied ‘intelligence’ which may be called ‘that which is sacred, holy’. Such a person does not consider for a moment that they are ‘being in time’ as you posit ... they rattle on about being ‘timeless’. RESPONDENT: When there is no such division, there is the existential ground and that has no name. RICHARD: It has a name alright ... when there is no identity whatsoever – which includes no ‘thinker’ and no ‘feeler’ – then there is this actual world ... the value-free sensate world. RESPONDENT: If it is labelled it is of thought, it is an image projected as separate from ‘me’. RICHARD: Why this reluctance to name the ‘existential ground’ ? You are happy to name everything else but ‘it’ ... are you of a Jewish background? RESPONDENT: It is possible for thought through repetition to generate a windowless centre and if that occurs there is belief that there is no freedom from the known. RICHARD: What is ‘the known’ for you? Reality? What is ‘the unknown’ for you? The ‘Greater Reality’? Can ‘the unknown’ ever be known? If you say no, then you are in the company of the mystics ... who revere ignorance and would have the west revert to superstition. Freedom from the real-world enables this actual world to be known ... and it is a joy and a delight to know this actual world. RESPONDENT: To call it love or goodness or compassion etc is misleading because those qualities can be personal whereas the ground is impersonal, without opposite, free of duality. RICHARD: Indeed, it impersonal to the point of any identity whatsoever being extinct ... that is why when people like Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti praise love and goodness and compassion and etcetera I immediately know that they have been misled. There is no love or hate; no goodness or badness; no sorrow or compassion here in this actual world ... as you say: no opposites at all. All duality has ceased. RESPONDENT: There is love, compassion, goodness etc., that is impersonal. RICHARD: But you just said (above) that ‘to call it love, goodness or compassion is misleading’! Are you now saying that one can call it ‘love, goodness and compassion’ without it being misleading? RESPONDENT: It is not of thought, not a reaction from the centre. RICHARD: What you are sucked into is certainly ‘not of thought’ ... it is a thoughtless state of being. And ‘being’ is affective. You are forsaking the only intelligence there is – the human brain in action – and pinning all your faith in feelings ... feelings transformed in to a state of ‘being’, that is. And ‘being’ is an impersonal entity ... those mystics not so prone to being coy call it ‘The Self’. RESPONDENT: The question as to what is the nature of the existential ground will not be answered through debate. RICHARD: Speaking personally, the nature of ‘the existential ground’ was experienced night and day for eleven years ... and I prattled on throughout this period about ‘not knowing’ and ‘that which is, is unknowable’ and ‘cease becoming and start being’ and ‘being is timeless and deathless’ and so on and so on. RESPONDENT: The experiencing here is that authentic mind is impersonal and not of the body or brain. RICHARD: I do not doubt that you are experiencing it ... and you report experiencing accurately. Indeed the experiencing of this ‘existential ground’ does not appear to be of the ‘body or brain’ ... yet without the flesh and blood body called No. 12 there would be no experiencing of that which is ‘impersonal’! RESPONDENT: It is not touched by thought and hence it has no opposite. RICHARD: Indeed ... when a would-be mystic tips upon the instincts – which are both savage (fear and aggression) and tender (nurture and desire) – one grabs for the tender (the ‘good’ side) and blows them up all out of proportion. If one succeeds in this self-aggrandising hallucination – epitomised by self-deprecating humility – one starts talking twaddle dressed up as sagacity such as: ‘There is a good that knows no evil’ or ‘There is a love that knows no opposite’ or ‘There is a compassion that sorrow has never touched’ and so on. It is a dream state born out of ‘being’. RESPONDENT: A dream state is projection but attention that is not bounded by the psyche (which is memory) sees the illusion of becoming. RICHARD: The psyche is not memory at all ... it is born of the instinctual passions. When ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul become extinct the psyche vanishes ... then memory is understood as being the asset that it is and not a liability. RESPONDENT: That [dissolution of the conditioning] means there are actual chemical or neuro-physiological changes, not the ‘death’ of an imagined psyche although it may seem like ‘me’ dying. RICHARD: One may call the ‘psyche’ imagined; one may call the ‘me’ imagined; one may call the ‘death’ imagined ... yet, whatever it is that dramatically ‘dies’ is but a playing-out of the tragedy of ‘being’ ... when the process that ‘I’ initiated with full intent wipes out all the instinctual passions one was born with. You see, there is this rudimentary animal ‘self’ of the survival instincts endowed by blind nature as evidenced in animals ... and there is the rub. The presence of this base ‘self’ – which is ‘being’ itself – has nothing to do with imagination – or with conditioning and programming or thought and memory – you were physically born this way. The psyche is not memory at all ... it is born of the instinctual passions. When ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul become extinct the psyche vanishes ... then memory is understood as being the asset that it is and not a liability. RESPONDENT: Whether it is psychological programming or biological programming or both, it stems from accumulated past impressions. RICHARD: Not so ... biological programming, like the instinctive reactions, has its energy base in the instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire that blind nature endows on all sentient beings. Unless you profess a belief in the incredulous Eastern mystical concept of re-incarnation, with its spurious karma, these cannot be ‘ accumulated past impressions’. It is these instinctual passions that are the very energy source of the rudimentary animal self ... the base consciousness of ‘self’ and ‘other’ that all sentient beings have. The human animal – with its unique ability to think and reflect upon its own death – transforms this ‘reptilian brain’ rudimentary ‘self’ into being a feeling ‘me’ (as soul in the heart) and from this core of ‘being’ this ‘feeler’ then infiltrates into thought to become a thinking ‘I’ (as ego in the head). No other animal can do this. This process is aided and abetted by the human beings who were already on this planet when one was born ... which, as you have said, is conditioning and programming and thought and memory and imagining. It is part and parcel of the socialising process. Biological programming, however, is different to psychological programming ... you were physically born already biologically programmed. How can that programming come from ‘accumulated past impressions’? If you are referring to ‘genetic memory’, then be aware that this is a misnomer ... as it is a description of a biological process that has nothing to do with thoughts’ memory. RESPONDENT: If it is biological programming, that implies it arises from unconscious past impressions that have been stored in matter and operate now in a mechanical way. RICHARD: If I may point out? You are straying from the point? Psychological programming is stored in thoughts’ memory whereas the biological instincts are genetically imprinted as the affective faculty. You are blurring the distinction by using ‘unconscious past impressions’ to refer to both thought’s memory and biological imprinting. RESPONDENT: The essential point is that insight is not from past impressions. RICHARD: An insight is a sudden seeing ... a flash of understanding that by-passes the regular process of thinking through an issue by scrolling through thought’s memory; sorting data collected; evaluating the new idea against the known; weighing the pros and cons and so on until arriving at a satisfactory conclusion. As such it can save hours of painstaking review and assessment. Yet without past impressions there could be no insight – an amnesiac has no ability for insight – and even when the insight happens, one then needs must use thought to place it in context in order for it to make sense or be useful. This denial of memory is silly ... and is typical of the mystic’s chicanery. RESPONDENT: It is seeing what is in the present moment from an impersonal, timeless perspective. RICHARD: It depends upon which meaning you ascribe to the phrase ‘what is’. Taken literally it means what is physically happening now ... like all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicide, for example. However, when Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti used the phrase ‘what is’ he was referring to something metaphysical ... what the Buddhists call ‘Isness’ ... or ‘Suchness’ or ‘Thatness’. In that delusion then it is indeed experienced as ‘timeless’. RESPONDENT: It starts out as quite small – like a mustard seed – but opens up into boundless space. RICHARD: Aye ... and I would bet my bottom dollar you are not referring to the boundless space of this physical universe! This is where mystics deceive both themselves and their gullible listeners ... this blurring of distinction between the physical and the metaphysical. There is a lack intellectual rigour in all this. RESPONDENT: Attention that is prior to thought (meditation) perceives a dimension that is empty of form. RICHARD: Aye ... such attention is called imagination and such a dimension is called an hallucination. Speaking personally, I lived like this for twenty four hours a day for eleven years, so I know it intimately. Just as an experiment, try substituting some less exotic terms and see what your sentence looks like. For example: ‘Attention that is prior to thought (prayer) perceives a kingdom that is not of this earth’. RESPONDENT: If there was insight as to what that attention is, it couldn’t possibly be confused with ‘me’ here asking help from a projected deity. RICHARD: Too true ... it is an impersonal ‘me’ fondly imagining that the ‘nameless and imageless existential ground’ is not divine ... even though it is referred to it as ‘that which is sacred, holy’. It only fools those who wish to be fooled ... like a divided self wishing to be a whole self. RESPONDENT: On the other hand, if prayer means that I am not, it may be meaningful, i.e.: the other attention is. RICHARD: Any attention that ‘perceives a dimension that is empty of form’ or ‘timeless’ is nonsense – time and space are actual – be it meditative attention or prayerful attention. Such attention involves supplication and self-deprecation. RESPONDENT: That [dimension] inter-penetrates what is perceived as the physical world. RICHARD: This formless dimension is called ‘noumenon’ RESPONDENT: Time as we conceive it is measurement through memory. RICHARD: A clock face divided into twelve or twenty-four segments is an arbitrary human agreement. The varying positions of the sun in the sky throughout the day and the varying positions of stars at night is not an arbitrary human agreement. Time – like space – is actual. Memory is essential to know the varying positions ... amnesiacs have the dickens of a job operating and functioning in the world of people, things and events. RESPONDENT: Physical time and space are not in question. RICHARD: I beg to differ ... you have just written (above) ‘what is perceived as the physical world’. In the previous post you wrote: ‘the body is like the movement of a wave ... [it] has a appearance of a thing’. You are clearly saying that this physical world is not actual. RESPONDENT: The world as it is ordinarily seen is real but that is not all that it is. It is just a view. Some views are more narrow, more limited than others. RICHARD: Indeed ... the everyday reality as experienced by 6.0 billion people is an illusion pasted over actuality ... this is not under dispute (the estimated population count is now officially set at 6.0 billion according to the latest news). RESPONDENT: From a broader view, objects are apparently real and yet actuality is undivided, immeasurable. RICHARD: From an actual ‘broader view’ – apperception – objects are actual ... tangible as in touchable. What is the need for this ‘apparently real’ obfuscation? Actuality – which is this physical universe’s infinite space and its eternal time – is indeed immeasurable. As for ‘undivided’ ... time and space, being seamless, is neither divided or undivided ... it is only an entity that gets involved in that mind-game. RESPONDENT: But is psychological time and space actual? RICHARD: The everyday real-world affectively-created time and space is not actual, no (that is, the normal world that 5.8 billion people live in). RESPONDENT: There is a changing physical body but is that body ‘me’? RICHARD: No ... ‘me’ is a psychological/psychic entity residing within the flesh and blood body creating an ‘inner’ world. Any identity is not this body. RESPONDENT: Or is identity in time just a projection of thought through memory, i.e.: programming? RICHARD: Yes ... but no just ‘thought through memory’ . Such an investigation is too shallow ... one needs to dive deeper. For starters, ‘I’ am an emotional-mental construct ... not just a mental construct. Why is there this reluctance to examine feelings? RESPONDENT: The movement to exam feelings is the movement of thought/motive/consciousness. RICHARD: Aye ... motivated thought being conscious of all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide has an urgency that produces results. RESPONDENT: Is there a movement that is not of thought? RICHARD: Yes ... apperception. I would be hard-pushed to call it a movement, though. There is an immense stillness here. RESPONDENT: If there is, it is entirely unknown. RICHARD: There is no ‘if’ about it ... it is actual. And it is known each moment again. It is ever-fresh. It is a delight and a joy to be here, now. Any doing – which includes thinking – is a pleasurable bonus on top of this existential delight. RESPONDENT: That is hard to accept isn’t it? RICHARD: Acceptance indicates reluctance ... why is there this resistance to being here now in infinite space and eternal time? Is it not because physical death is the end? Finish? That is, the selfish desire for immortality precludes peace-on-earth? RESPONDENT: Timeless refers to what is not of thought and memory so obviously it can not possibly be pictured. RICHARD: If you are talking of the beginningless and endless duration in which physical bodies move through physical space then it would be handy if you used some other word ... like ‘eternal’. Eternity is the name for the infinitude of all time ... in all eastern mystical literature and experience the word ‘timeless’ means what it says: no time. That is, no movement of physical bodies through physical space ... no physical movement in any physical space at all. Meaning no actual time for any actual universe as in: no actual universe. RESPONDENT: I understand timeless and eternal as the same. RICHARD: Not so. The word ‘timeless’ is very explicit ... no time (just like ‘selfless’ means no self) as in not subject to time, not affected by the passage of time, out of time, without reference to time and independent of the passage of time. Eternal means ‘all time’, as in that which will always exist, that which has always existed, that which is without a beginning or an end in time, that which is everlasting, permanent, enduring, persistent, recurring, incessant, indestructible, imperishable, constant, continuous, continual, unbroken and thus interminable and valid for all time. However, just as there are those who corrupt ‘selfless’ into meaning ‘a not selfish self’, there are those who corrupt ‘timeless’ into meaning ageless, ceaseless, changeless ... which are time-words more applicable to ‘eternal’. Even dictionaries do this. However, when viewed honestly, the word ‘timeless’ selfishly means ‘undying and immutable’ as in ‘immortal and deathless’. Take the modern physicists, for an example of honesty, when they posit their ‘nothingness’ prior to their mathematical ‘Big Bang’. Even though influenced by the pervasive eastern mysticism, they still have enough intellectual rigour to mostly resist using the word ‘eternal’ to refer to that fantasy ... they usually say ‘timeless’. RESPONDENT: Time is linear, chronological movement. What is timeless or eternal is free of that movement. RICHARD: Time as measured on this planet – localised time – is chronological. Day becomes night which becomes day ... and spring becomes summer and so on. Hop into a rocket and move to what is popularly called ‘outer space’ or ‘deep space’ and leave your clocks behind ... you may then come closer to understanding eternity as meaning ‘all time’ (to actually understand you will have to leave your self behind with the clocks). RESPONDENT: It has nothing to do with infinite continuity. RICHARD: Actuality has everything to do with infinite continuity. Yet even modern physicists have fallen for this mystical cosmogony ... the ‘timeless and spaceless nothingness’ that the ‘Big Bang’ came out of. The nineteenth century was hopefully called the ‘Age of Enlightenment’ (knowledge enlightenment) until eastern mystics came onto the world stage with spiritual enlightenment busily being hell-bent on returning a burgeoning thoughtful part of humankind to the darkness of superstition. RESPONDENT: The ‘known’ physical universe is a construction of thought through memory. RICHARD: Unless you are indulging in solipsism RESPONDENT: Eternity can not be understood in terms of continuity. RICHARD: Eternity is only here ... now. It does not exist in some other dimension before physical birth and after physical death. Hence it can only be known – experienced – whilst this flesh and blood body is alive and breathing. If you do not experience it now, you never will ... physical death is the end. Finish. RESPONDENT: It does not depend on a particular body or brain. RICHARD: Of course not ... that was not the question. It is the particular body and brain called No. 12 that is experiencing a ‘direct perception free of the known’ that we are discussing. When the particular body and brain called No. 12 ceases happening, that ‘direct perception free of the known’ will also cease ... will it not? In other words, is physical death the end? Finish? Oblivion? The universe will go on without you – it will manage perfectly well without your ‘direct perception free of the known’ – just like it did before you were born. RESPONDENT: The particular body ends. RICHARD: Yes ... but that was not the question. Does the ‘direct perception free of the known’ that is dependent upon the physical brain in the physical body called No. 12 end along with the body? RESPONDENT: The naming of an ever-changing body is a figment of thought as it assumes a separate entity lives therein. RICHARD: Yet it is the ‘ever-changing body’ that is actual ... whereas it is the unchanging entity cunningly disguised as an immortal soul (in western parlance) that is a figment of imagination. Religious, spiritual, mystical and metaphysical people have it 180 degrees wrong. RESPONDENT: Observation from the centre is from inside a bubble of perception so to speak. RICHARD: Observation for 6.0 billion people is as an ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul ... which is a psychological and/or psychic entity – a ‘being’ – that has a reality but no actuality. Seeking to stay a ‘being’, such an entity gets up to all kinds of tricks to disguise itself. RESPONDENT: The genuinely religious mind sees from outside that bubble, from outside the circle of the known. RICHARD: Aye ... some peoples have ‘out-of-body’ experiences, too. The centre of perception can certainly shift its focal point. It is still ‘me’ busily ‘being’, however, whether ‘I’ am in the head or in the heart or in the body or out of the body ... or ‘outside the bubble’. But all this is straying from the question. Does the ‘direct perception free of the known’ that is dependent upon the physical brain in the physical body called No. 12 end along with the body? You appear to be having difficulty addressing yourself honestly to this question.
CORRESPONDENT No. 12 (Part Five) 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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