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Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’ with Respondent No. 12
RESPONDENT No. 34: And be responsible (as No. 14 says), or transcend fragmentation (the same). I wonder if you agree. RICHARD: You may stop wondering ... I do not agree. Nobody is responsible for being born with the
instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire ... it is nothing but a rather clumsy software package
genetically inherited by all sentient beings as a rough and ready start to life. If No. 14 wishes to self-aggrandise himself by
taking an obviously ineffective ‘infinite responsibility’ for what the blind forces of nature have produced ... then
that is his business. And if you wish to be equally ineffective in making apparent the already always existing peace-on-earth by ‘transcending
fragmentation (the same)’ then that is your business. RESPONDENT: Why isn’t it clear that any ideation of self-mastery (e.g. belief that ‘I’ am free of conditioning or ‘I’ am infinitely responsible or ‘I’ have transformed myself and this change is permanent or that ‘I’ have taken on the blind forces of nature and brought them to an end in this flesh and blood body) is self-aggrandizement, thought praising itself for purported accomplishments? RICHARD: Given that you say, in your example, that it is an ‘ideation of self-mastery’ and that, furthermore, it is a ‘belief that ‘I’ am free of conditioning or ‘I’ am infinitely responsible’ and so on, then that very ‘ideation’, that very ‘belief’ in itself would be preventing clarity that it is all ‘self-aggrandizement’. And, in your example, it would be feeling-fed thought that is ‘praising itself for purported accomplishments’ ... thought alone is not the source of all the ills of humankind. Thought is a very useful tool in undoing the well-meant but uninformed peer-group conditioning, parental conditioning and social conditioning that one receives from the moment one first emerges as a baby into the world as-it-is with people as-they-are. To be at all effectual one must dig deep into one’s affective feelings, deep down past the superficial emotions into the depths of one’s being and see that malice and sorrow antidotally generates love and compassion. Because if one does not, one may find oneself as malice and sorrow sublimating oneself into Love and Compassion – one will cease having one’s feelings happen to oneself and instead became those sublimated feelings as an on-going transcendent State Of Being – one will be Love Agapé and Divine Compassion. In other words: an infinitely expanded identity that is ‘Timeless’ and ‘Spaceless’ and ‘Formless’. To become free of the human condition requires the elimination of the instinctual passions ... not merely a transcendence of malice and sorrow. It does mean the end of ‘me’, however, as an identity in ‘my’ totality ... and not just ‘I’ as ego.
RESPONDENT: Why isn’t it clear that any ideation of self-mastery (e.g. belief that ‘I’ am free of conditioning or ‘I’ am infinitely responsible or ‘I’ have transformed myself and this change is permanent or that ‘I’ have taken on the blind forces of nature and brought them to an end in this flesh and blood body) is self-aggrandizement, thought praising itself for purported accomplishments? RICHARD: Given that you say, in your example, that it is an ‘ideation of self-mastery’ and that, furthermore, it is a ‘belief that ‘I’ am free of conditioning or ‘I’ am infinitely responsible’ and so on, then that very ‘ideation’, that very ‘belief’ in itself would be preventing clarity that it is all ‘self-aggrandizement’. RESPONDENT: Is there someone that seems to be there to take credit, to assert that I have attained? RICHARD: It would be more conducive to a mutual understanding – and less repetitive – if you could
move past this ‘he who knows does not speak’ fixation. The man who you like to quote made no secret that he knows ... and he
spoke for sixty-plus years (as did the man who first penned that pithy aphorism) RESPONDENT: The being in time that is added by thought inevitably leaves a trace doesn’t it? RICHARD: The ‘being’ that lives in the time of the ‘real world’ that 6.0 billion peoples inhabit is not ‘added by thought’ but is, primarily, a product of the instinctual passions ... the survival instincts of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. All sentient beings have this rudimentary feeling-sense of ‘self’. It is the human sentient being, however, with their ability to think and reflect upon their own mortality, that have transformed the rudimentary animal ‘self’ into an affectively felt ‘me’ – a feeling ‘being’ – whom I consistently call ‘me’ as soul for convenience. This ‘being’ – an (usually passive) identity in the heart – infiltrates thought and assumes an (usually active) identity in the head ... whom I consistently call ‘I’ as ego for convenience. ‘I’ as ego vaguely feels that it is trapped in extrinsic time, little realising that it is intrinsic time that is the culprit. This, in the jargon, is called: projection. It is called projection because the time of the ‘real world’ is not actual time ... it is psychological time pasted as a veneer over the actual time of this very material universe where one lives. Now, this universe’s actual time – having no beginning or ending – is eternal ... just as this universe’s actual space – having no beginning or ending – is infinite. And there is a word for this eternal infinity: infinitude. (I am using the word ‘infinitude’ in its ‘boundlessness’ meaning – an infinite extent, amount and duration – as in an immeasurable expanse and an unlimited time). An identity, seeking to escape the trap of ‘real world’ time, can sometimes spontaneously go into abeyance and the apperceptive awareness, of the infinitude that this very material universe is, ensues ... this is called a pure consciousness experience (PCE) and is epitomised as immaculate perfection that has always been here, is always here and will always be here. Thus nothing is ‘going wrong’, has ever been ‘going wrong’ and will never be ‘going wrong’. This relief from the vicissitudes of life in the grim and glum ‘reality’ of the ‘real world’ is so intense that a warm rush of gratitude surges forth from the heart where ‘me’ as soul has been passively waiting ... and ‘I’ as ego is nowhere to be found. So, rather than merely ‘leaving a trace’ one’s feeling-sense of identity shifts from the head to the heart and the clean, clear and pure perfection (an actual perfection) of the PCE devolves into the Glamorous and Glorious and Majestic Perfection (a mystical perfection) of an Altered State of Consciousness (ASC) called ‘Moksha’ or ‘Nirvana’ or ‘Samadhi’ or ‘Satori’ and so on in the East – popularised in the West as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ – and one is swept up into the Glamour, Glory and Glitz of the ‘Deathless State’. The material infinitude of this physical universe’s eternal time and infinite space is transmogrified into a ‘Formless Emptiness’ that is ‘Timeless and Spaceless’ ... and one is ‘Unborn’ and ‘Undying’ in a metaphysical ‘Greater Reality’ wherein reigns an ‘Unknowable and Immutable Presence’ which is an ‘Immortal and Ceaseless Being’ which bestows a vainglorious ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’. And the already always existing peace-on-earth of this actual world is nowhere to be found. * RICHARD: And, in your example, it would be feeling-fed thought that is ‘praising itself for purported accomplishments’ ... thought alone is not the source of all the ills of humankind. Thought is a very useful tool in undoing the well-meant but uninformed peer-group conditioning, parental conditioning and social conditioning that one receives from the moment one first emerges as a baby into the world as-it-is with people as-they-are. To be at all effectual one must dig deep into one’s affective feelings, deep down past the superficial emotions into the depths of one’s being and see that malice and sorrow antidotally generates love and compassion. RESPONDENT: It’s a fine line that keeps ‘me’ searching for a heart of gold. RICHARD: I would question whether Mr. Neil ‘SendEmToSleep’ Young would know what is spoken of here ... too much bewailing of needles and damages done, and so on, to be able to see what is going on in the human heart. RESPONDENT: Is it the good digger that finds? RICHARD: A ‘good’ digger can only find ‘The Good’ ... and narcissistically take ‘Ultimate Responsibility’ – or some-such twaddle – for all the suffering of humankind. Whereas an actual freedom from the human condition is the ending of responsibility.
RESPONDENT: Why isn’t it clear that any ideation of self-mastery (e.g. belief that ‘I’ am free of conditioning or ‘I’ am infinitely responsible or ‘I’ have transformed myself and this change is permanent or that ‘I’ have taken on the blind forces of nature and brought them to an end in this flesh and blood body) is self-aggrandizement, thought praising itself for purported accomplishments? RICHARD: Given that you say, in your example, that it is an ‘ideation of self-mastery’ and that, furthermore, it is a ‘belief that ‘I’ am free of conditioning or ‘I’ am infinitely responsible’ and so on, then that very ‘ideation’, that very ‘belief’ in itself would be preventing clarity that it is all ‘self-aggrandizement’. RESPONDENT: Is there someone that seems to be there to take credit, to assert that I have attained? RICHARD: It would be more conducive to a mutual understanding – and less repetitive – if you could move past this ‘he who knows does not speak’ fixation. The man who you like to quote made no secret that he knows ... and he spoke for sixty-plus years (as did the man who first penned that pithy aphorism). RESPONDENT: To say that ‘I’ know the state in which the knower is not is self-deception isn’t it? RICHARD: Given that you have put the first person pronoun in quotes – and are thus following the very sensible convention of indicating that it is the psychological and/or psychic entity – then I fully agree: it is ‘self-deception’. RESPONDENT: When there is the confidence of innocence, there is no one to acquire or move past anything. RICHARD: Aye ... innocence is when ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul am not. However, when ‘I’ as ego dissolves and thus ceases ‘becoming’ and starts being ‘me’ as soul (by whatever name) ... innocence is nowhere to be found. That is why they prattle on so much about humility ... ‘I’ as ego has disappeared in a quantum leap into the heart and is busily being as humble as all get-out in the hope that no one will notice that ‘I’ am still in existence as ‘me’ as soul (by whatever name). Mostly they are successful ... nobody does notice and thus the Gurus and the God-Men can – and do – get up to all manner of antics and yet still be revered and worshipped or otherwise respected as being the font of wisdom. RESPONDENT: The being in time that is added by thought inevitably leaves a trace doesn’t it? RICHARD: The ‘being’ that lives in the time of the ‘real world’ that 6.0 billion peoples inhabit is not ‘added by thought’ but is, primarily, a product of the instinctual passions ... the survival instincts of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. All sentient beings have this rudimentary feeling-sense of ‘self’. It is the human sentient being, however, with their ability to think and reflect upon their own mortality, that have transformed the rudimentary animal ‘self’ into an affectively felt ‘me’ – a feeling ‘being’ – whom I consistently call ‘me’ as soul for convenience. This ‘being’ – an (usually passive) identity in the heart – infiltrates thought and assumes an (usually active) identity in the head ... whom I consistently call ‘I’ as ego for convenience. ‘I’ as ego vaguely feels that it is trapped in extrinsic time, little realising that it is intrinsic time that is the culprit. This, in the jargon, is called: projection. It is called projection because the time of the ‘real world’ is not actual time ... it is psychological time pasted as a veneer over the actual time of this very material universe where one lives. Now, this universe’s actual time – having no beginning or ending – is eternal ... just as this universe’s actual space – having no beginning or ending – is infinite. And there is a word for this eternal infinity: infinitude. (I am using the word ‘infinitude’ in its ‘boundlessness’ meaning – an infinite extent, amount and duration – as in an immeasurable expanse and an unlimited time). An identity, seeking to escape the trap of ‘real world’ time, can sometimes spontaneously go into abeyance and the apperceptive awareness, of the infinitude that this very material universe is, ensues ... this is called a pure consciousness experience (PCE) and is epitomised as immaculate perfection that has always been here, is always here and will always be here. Thus nothing is ‘going wrong’, has ever been ‘going wrong’ and will never be ‘going wrong’. This relief from the vicissitudes of life in the grim and glum ‘reality’ of the ‘real world’ is so intense that a warm rush of gratitude surges forth from the heart where ‘me’ as soul has been passively waiting ... and ‘I’ as ego is nowhere to be found. So, rather than merely ‘leaving a trace’ one’s feeling-sense of identity shifts from the head to the heart and the clean, clear and pure perfection (an actual perfection) of the PCE devolves into the Glamorous and Glorious and Majestic Perfection (a mystical perfection) of an Altered State of Consciousness (ASC) called ‘Moksha’ or ‘Nirvana’ or ‘Samadhi’ or ‘Satori’ and so on in the East – popularised in the West as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ – and one is swept up into the Glamour, Glory and Glitz of the ‘Deathless State’. The material infinitude of this physical universe’s eternal time and infinite space is transmogrified into a ‘Formless Emptiness’ that is ‘Timeless and Spaceless’ ... and one is ‘Unborn’ and ‘Undying’ in a metaphysical ‘Greater Reality’ wherein reigns an ‘Unknowable and Immutable Presence’ which is an ‘Immortal and Ceaseless Being’ which bestows a vainglorious ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’. And the already always existing peace-on-earth of this actual world is nowhere to be found. RESPONDENT: When there is no thought or experience of being in time, is there concern about coming to an end? RICHARD: Indeed not ... given that one is then the ‘Timeless and Spaceless and Formless Void’, there is no concern. Particularly no concern about peace-on-earth. This is a very selfish and self-centred approach to life on earth ... something that all metaphysical peoples are guilty of. The quest to secure one’s ‘Immortality’ is unambiguously selfish ... peace-on-earth is readily sacrificed for the supposed continuation of the imagined soul (by whatever name) after physical death. So much for their humanitarian ideals of peace, goodness, altruism, philanthropy and humaneness. All religious and spiritual and mystical quests amount to nothing more than a self-centred urge to perpetuate oneself for ever and a day. All religious and spiritual and mystical leaders and teachers fall foul of this existential dilemma. They pay lip-service to the notion of self-sacrifice – weeping crocodile tears at noble martyrdom – whilst selfishly pursuing the ‘Eternal After-Life’ (by whatever name). The root cause of all the ills of humankind can be sheeted home to this single, basic fact: The overriding importance of the survival of ‘self’ (in whatever guise). RESPONDENT: Obviously not, there is no such clinging. RICHARD: Obviously not ... one has ceased ‘becoming’ and has become ‘being’. Then one is the ‘clinging’ as a state of being. It is called ‘immortality’ and comes from the survival instinct. One will stay in existence in any way, shape or form possible ... including a ridiculous ‘Nothingness’. Even the modern-day cosmogonists – the bright boys at Quantumville – are having difficulty detailing the ‘nothingness’ that they say this universe came out of. They have had to invent ‘virtual’ time and space and form as being the constituents of the primeval particle-that-is-not-a-particle that initiated their pet ‘Big Bang’. RESPONDENT: If there is PCE (or emptiness), is that which is ‘formed’ in consciousness from memory perceived to be separate from emptiness? Clearly not. RICHARD: First, if by ‘emptiness’ you mean the ‘emptiness that is not empty’ of eastern mystical delusion (Sunyata) then ‘emptiness’ is not synonymous with a PCE. However, if by ‘emptiness’ you mean that this flesh and blood body is devoid of identity in its totality (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul having become extinct), then whatever is ‘formed’ as consciousness (‘as’ consciousness not ‘in’ consciousness) from memory is perception itself in action as this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. This flesh and blood body, being the self-same stuff as the stuff of the universe, is not separate, never has been separate, and never will be separate. It was only the psychological and psychic identity who is permanently and unalterably separate ... eternally cut-off from the magnificence of the actual world of people, things and events. RESPONDENT: There is no one to seek or cling to formlessness or timelessness. RICHARD: If one has fallen for the blandishments of that eastern mystical delusion known as ‘Sunyata’ ... then I easily concur with your statement. Then one has become that which one used to seek and/or cling to ... as a state of being. That is, one is not ‘becoming’, one is ‘being’. RESPONDENT: To leave a trace is to chase after a projected image, rather than realizing true nature. RICHARD: Despite what the dictionaries say, there is a vast difference between ‘realising’ one’s ‘true nature’ and ‘actualising’ what one indeed is (given that one’s ‘true nature’ is the ‘Timeless and Spaceless and Formless Void’). How would you manifest (make apparent) the ‘Timeless and Spaceless and Formless Void’ here-on-earth? What would this phantasm look like? What would this phantasm taste like? What would this phantasm smell like? What would this phantasm feel like? What would this phantasm sound like? Or does it take faith and trust to see the manifestation of ‘That’ (by whatever name)?
RICHARD (to Respondent No. 25): Yet I do not have a ‘wholistic intelligence’ ... therefore I present
facts. The fact is that human suffering has at least a 3,000 to 5,000 year recorded history – and as peoples everywhere are
relying upon an ‘Ancient Wisdom’ that is 3,000 to 5,000 years old – all it takes is a simple observation to see that
everybody is going in the wrong direction. To wit: How come it has taken 3,000 to 5,000 years ... and peace on earth is nowhere to
be found? RESPONDENT: Look at the idea of people relying on an ‘Ancient Wisdom’. What is old is what is known, memorized, and conceptualised. RICHARD: Yes ... and what is more it has failed to deliver the goods. RESPONDENT: Wisdom is a readiness or openness to see what is ever-changing; a motiveless passion to understand through direct observation. RICHARD: Speaking personally, the ‘I’ that was inhabiting this body was motivated like all get-out to put an end to all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides inside this flesh and blood body ... and succeeded. Thus I thoroughly recommend motivation. How are you going with attempting to fool yourself that you have no motivation? RESPONDENT: Ancient Wisdom is a contradiction in terms. RICHARD: Only if one believes the ‘Ancient Wisdom’s’ denial of the actuality of this infinite universe’s eternal time ... surely you are not one of those who do deny time? RESPONDENT No. 34: Wisdom that has 3000 to 5000 years? That is clearly a
conceptualised wisdom. Wisdom never had, has not, and will never have an age. Real wisdom is to be free of any knowledge, recent
or old. Man of Wisdom never tried to save the world, only the delirious ones, for the human world is the summing up of the
individuals. Chain reaction of Wisdom (you mentioned somewhere)? What’s that? Do you think that individuals will become
conscious of the totality through osmosis? You must be joking. Or maybe you think you have invented a ‘system’ that will turn
people in the right direction. Expound it then!! There are books by the thousands with teachings about this. Ancient ones, modern
ones, you name it. This is not a mass ‘school’. Are you seriously conveying the idea that you have found an original and
revolutionary method to teach people to stop being fragmented? Show it!! You are unable to ‘show it’ to one single individual
from this list. You have also failed, brother!!!! You are worried with peace on earth? You propagate war every time you write
anything to anyone!!! You are the living example of the present mentality of man. You are not the saviour yet, brodi. RESPONDENT: Holistic intelligence is the aspect of mind that is already always free. RICHARD: By ‘holistic’ do you mean the theory or principle of a tendency in nature to form or produce organized wholes which are more than the mere sum of the component units ... as in comprising or involving all parts, aspects? RESPONDENT: The key, in my opinion, is to realize freedom in the beginning to observe. RICHARD: Hmm ... Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti had the same opinion, did he not? Have you anything to add to his advice that might aid someone in ‘realising freedom in the beginning’ so that they too can observe? You see, what has always amused me is that if one is ‘free from the beginning’ there is no need to observe (because the whole point of ‘observing’ is so that one can be free). Yet if one is not free, all the ‘observing’ in the world will be a waste of time because one has to be ‘free from the beginning’ in order to ‘observe’! But that is what wisdom (be it ancient or modern) looks like! RESPONDENT: When there is that centreless observation, there is no thought or perception of someone trying to get somewhere. If I am trying to get somewhere, is that peace? RICHARD: Of course not ... I would never advise anyone to try to get somewhere. I tend to say things like:
And ‘he’ did just that ... thus the already always existing peace-on-earth became apparent.
RICHARD (to Respondent No. 25): Are you aware of the word ‘anthropomorphism’. This universe, being magnificent beyond imagining, believing or conceptualising in all its infinitude, can never be described a merely intelligent. RESPONDENT No. 25: Yes. RICHARD: Golly ... intelligence cannot comprehend infinity and eternity. What hope would an
intelligence have in running the universe? RESPONDENT: But that is anthropomorphism, conceiving of ‘Intelligence’ as involving self-conscious comprehension and motivation. RICHARD: Not so ... it is the dictionary definition of intelligence. (Oxford Dictionary): ‘The faculty of understanding; intellect; quickness or superiority of understanding, sagacity; the action or fact of understanding something; knowledge, comprehension (of something)’. If you wish to make the word ‘intelligence’ mean something else you are free to do so. It will make communication somewhat more difficult, of course, so maybe it would be handy to call it ‘mystical intelligence’ so as to differentiate it from the genuine article ... as most peoples do not realise the metaphysical significance of your capitalisation of the word (‘Intelligence’ as above) and thus the delusion is wide-spread that god knows, understands and really cares. I do find it indicative, however, that you consider that your ‘Intelligence’ cannot comprehend and thus motivate itself. Maybe that is why all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides rage on forever and a day? Because you do seem to be saying that your ‘Intelligence’ cannot comprehend what human animosity and anguish feels like and is thus not motivated into action. Speaking personally, I am well pleased that the ‘I’ that was inhabiting this body could self-consciously comprehend and be motivated into an action that was not of ‘his’ doing. Otherwise I would not be here ... writing these words now.
RICHARD: Intelligence cannot comprehend infinity and eternity. What hope would an intelligence have in running the universe? RESPONDENT: But that is anthropomorphism, conceiving of ‘Intelligence’ as involving self-conscious comprehension and motivation. RICHARD: Not so ... it is the dictionary definition of intelligence. (Oxford Dictionary): ‘The faculty of understanding; intellect; quickness or superiority of understanding, sagacity; the action or fact of understanding something; knowledge, comprehension (of something)’. If you wish to make the word ‘intelligence’ mean something else you are free to do so. It will make communication somewhat more difficult, of course, so maybe it would be handy to call it ‘mystical intelligence’ so as to differentiate it from the genuine article ... as most peoples do not realise the metaphysical significance of your capitalisation of the word ( ‘Intelligence’ as above) and thus the delusion is wide-spread that god knows, understands and really cares. I do find it indicative, however, that you consider that your ‘Intelligence’ cannot comprehend and thus motivate itself. Maybe that is why all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides rage on forever and a day? Because you do seem to be saying that your ‘Intelligence’ cannot comprehend what human animosity and anguish feels like and is thus not motivated into action. Speaking personally, I am well pleased that the ‘I’ that was inhabiting this body could self-consciously comprehend and be motivated into an action that was not of ‘his’ doing. Otherwise I would not be here ... writing these words now. RESPONDENT: ?? there are no such God images here. RICHARD: We have been down this path before, you and I, and your denial rings as hollow now as then. And you have protested so, not only to me but to other posters. May I re-post an exchange you had with another poster last year wherein you describe your god (‘the other’) as being the ‘sacred’ that ‘calls to or silently contacts the ever-changing body/brain – the human being’? Viz.:
In other posts you have described ‘the other’ as being ‘Intelligence’ and it, too, being ‘not touched by thought’ is also ‘sacred’. I can re-post them if it would help with an honest and sincere discussion? RESPONDENT: Self-conscious motivation and comprehension is what is bringing about the suffering. RICHARD: Yes, and it is only ‘self-conscious motivation and comprehension’ that will bring about an end to suffering ... calling in a bodiless help will only perpetuate all the misery and mayhem. Only ‘you’ hold the key to freedom ... and this key is ‘your’ very human intelligence. RESPONDENT: Is that movement a solution? RICHARD: Yes ... only unilateral action – psychological and psychic self-immolation – will enable the already always existing peace-on-earth to become apparent. And only ‘I’ can sacrifice ‘myself’. RESPONDENT: The folly of humanity is that we believe our doings are more important than what is, as if we exist apart from the world. RICHARD: Aye ... yet there is one ‘doing’ that ‘you’ are yet to do: psychological and psychical self-immolation. Nevertheless, one cannot self-immolate just because it seems like a good idea at the time. It requires a rather curious decision to be made ... a decision the likes of which has never been made before nor will ever be made again. It is a once-in-a-lifetime determination and takes some considerable preparation because ‘I’, the aggressive psychological entity and ‘me’, the frightened psychic entity will both vanish forever. Then, finally, I am free to be here now.
RICHARD: Intelligence cannot comprehend infinity and eternity. What hope would an intelligence have in running the universe? RESPONDENT: But that is anthropomorphism, conceiving of ‘Intelligence’ as involving self-conscious comprehension and motivation. RICHARD: Not so ... it is the dictionary definition of intelligence. (Oxford Dictionary): ‘The faculty of understanding; intellect; quickness or superiority of understanding, sagacity; the action or fact of understanding something; knowledge, comprehension (of something)’. If you wish to make the word ‘intelligence’ mean something else you are free to do so. It will make communication somewhat more difficult, of course, so maybe it would be handy to call it ‘mystical intelligence’ so as to differentiate it from the genuine article ... as most peoples do not realise the metaphysical significance of your capitalisation of the word ( ‘Intelligence’ as above) and thus the delusion is wide-spread that god knows, understands and really cares. I do find it indicative, however, that you consider that your ‘Intelligence’ cannot comprehend and thus motivate itself. Maybe that is why all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides rage on forever and a day? Because you do seem to be saying that your ‘Intelligence’ cannot comprehend what human animosity and anguish feels like and is thus not motivated into action. Speaking personally, I am well pleased that the ‘I’ that was inhabiting this body could self-consciously comprehend and be motivated into an action that was not of ‘his’ doing. Otherwise I would not be here ... writing these words now. RESPONDENT: ?? there are no such God images here. RICHARD: We have been down this path before, you and I, and your denial rings as hollow now as then. And you have protested so, not only to me but to other posters. May I re-post an exchange you had with another poster last year wherein you describe your god (‘the other’) as being the ‘sacred’ that ‘calls to or silently contacts the ever-changing body/ brain – the human being’? Viz.:
RESPONDENT: The image is not the actuality. RICHARD: Of course not ... but we are not talking of images. When I look back through this thread I do not see anything that could possibly prompt you to write this ... therefore this statement is irrelevant to our discussion. RESPONDENT: The otherness or spirit can not be imagined so there is no use in making it the subject of debate. RICHARD: Ahh ... so this is why you dragged in ‘the image is not the actuality’ , eh? You want to somehow justify making the ‘otherness or spirit’ exempt from discussion? In other words: the ‘otherness or spirit’ is sacrosanct? That is: the ‘otherness or spirit’ is not to be observed, examined, explored or otherwise put under scrutiny? It is to be indiscriminately and uncritically and mindlessly and injudiciously accepted as the be-all and end-all without question? Does this not amount to ... um ... blind faith? RESPONDENT: It is not yours or mine. RICHARD: Indeed not ... it belongs to ‘humanity’. RESPONDENT: It is when I am not, i.e.: when there is no experience of separation in thought. RICHARD: It is when the personal ‘I’ is not ... that is, when there is no experience of one being a separate ego-self busily ‘becoming’ but where one is being. Such ‘being’ (usually capitalised as ‘Being’) is where one is an impersonal or centreless whole self ... ‘holistic’. Or, as Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti put it:
RESPONDENT: Self-conscious motivation and comprehension is what is bringing about the suffering. RICHARD: Yes, and it is only ‘self-conscious motivation and comprehension’ that will bring about an end to suffering ... calling in a bodiless help will only perpetuate all the misery and mayhem. Only ‘you’ hold the key to freedom ... and this key is ‘your’ very human intelligence. RESPONDENT: If it is mine to control and direct, that is the movement of thought, not insight. RICHARD: Okay ... so you attempt to ‘control and direct’ consciousness so that an ‘insight’ ensures? What is the difference (apart from hypocrisy) between that and what the ‘Richard’ that was did? RESPONDENT: The grasping self phenomenon is the problem in my opinion, not the solution. RICHARD: I have never said that it is not the problem ... but what I am proposing (born out of personal experience) that this very self holds the key to freedom ... consciously and knowingly and with full intent aforethought there is action. RESPONDENT: Is that movement a solution? RICHARD: Yes ... only unilateral action – psychological and psychic self-immolation – will enable the already always existing peace-on-earth to become apparent. And only ‘I’ can sacrifice ‘myself’. RESPONDENT: Indeed peace is the actuality so there is no need for effort from a state of disturbance. RICHARD: But for 6.0 billion peoples, peace is not ‘the actuality’ ... so there is indeed a need for ‘effort from a state of disturbance’. The ‘state of disturbance’ is what is happening, is it not, and not peace as an actuality? Therefore, when you contrive, ‘from a state of disturbance’ to effect a motiveless passion to understand through direct observation, for example, you are just attempting to fool yourself that you have ‘no need for effort from a state of disturbance’ when you do. Incidentally, as the Mailing List is under the auspices of the teachings that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti bought into the world, it is tacitly assumed that anyone joining the List is familiar with at least some of his words on the matter ... and if they did not they soon would be, anyway. As it is public knowledge that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti had indeed effected effort from a state of disturbance in order to undergo some ‘process’, which resulted in experiencing living in a way somewhat different from the norm, to pretend that one has no need for some similar effort from a state of disturbance is to be disingenuous. However, you are not the only person adopting this stance of make-believe ignorance ... there are others on this List that like to think that by feigning effortlessness that they will achieve something. Just how this sleight-of-hand (or should I say sleight-of-mind) is going to be efficacious in bringing about the desired result remains to be seen. Nevertheless, such dissimulation is not unknown ... some Buddhists too, indulge in a similar craftiness. They pretend that they do not desire Nirvana ... in the hope that they will thus achieve it. Some Christians, maintaining that to be alive is to remain a sinner, manifest a spurious humility in order to be worthy of God’s Grace and admission into Heaven whilst all the while saying that they are not worthy. Some Hindus maintain that by not enjoying the fruits of their labour they will gain the ultimate fruit of such labour ... called Moksha. The same sort of sanctimony holds true for many other religions and disciplines. RESPONDENT: The folly of humanity is that we believe our doings are more important than what is, as if we exist apart from the world. RICHARD: Aye ... yet there is one ‘doing’ that ‘you’ are yet to do: psychological and psychical self-immolation. Nevertheless, one cannot self-immolate just because it seems like a good idea at the time. It requires a rather curious decision to be made ... a decision the likes of which has never been made before nor will ever be made again. It is a once-in-a-lifetime determination and takes some considerable preparation because ‘I’, the aggressive psychological entity and ‘me’, the frightened psychic entity will both vanish forever. Then, finally, I am free to be here now. RESPONDENT: If it is clear that my desires and motivations are bringing about conflict and suffering, they end immediately without any plan or decision. RICHARD: But have ‘you’ ended, permanently, via this method? If not, all this you promote is theory. What I say is not theoretical ... it is what ‘I’ did. RESPONDENT: When there is no such clarity then there may again be suffering, there is no guarantee. RICHARD: Whereas I experience clarity twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five days a year ... effortlessly. Yet this effortless clarity would not be happening if the ‘Richard’ that was had not got off his backside. Methinks you are confusing the result with the cause.
RICHARD: Intelligence cannot comprehend infinity and eternity. What hope would an intelligence have in running the universe? RESPONDENT: But that is anthropomorphism, conceiving of ‘Intelligence’ as involving self-conscious comprehension and motivation. RICHARD: Not so ... it is the dictionary definition of intelligence. (Oxford Dictionary): ‘The faculty of understanding; intellect; quickness or superiority of understanding, sagacity; the action or fact of understanding something; knowledge, comprehension (of something)’. If you wish to make the word ‘intelligence’ mean something else you are free to do so. It will make communication somewhat more difficult, of course, so maybe it would be handy to call it ‘mystical intelligence’ so as to differentiate it from the genuine article ... as most peoples do not realise the metaphysical significance of your capitalisation of the word (‘Intelligence’ as above) and thus the delusion is wide-spread that god knows, understands and really cares. I do find it indicative, however, that you consider that your ‘Intelligence’ cannot comprehend and thus motivate itself. Maybe that is why all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides rage on forever and a day? Because you do seem to be saying that your ‘Intelligence’ cannot comprehend what human animosity and anguish feels like and is thus not motivated into action. Speaking personally, I am well pleased that the ‘I’ that was inhabiting this body could self-consciously comprehend and be motivated into an action that was not of ‘his’ doing. Otherwise I would not be here ... writing these words now. RESPONDENT: ?? there are no such God images here. RICHARD: We have been down this path before, you and I, and your denial rings as hollow now as then. And you have protested so, not only to me but to other posters. May I re-post an exchange you had with another poster last year wherein you describe your god ( ‘the other’ ) as being the ‘sacred’ that ‘calls to or silently contacts the ever-changing body/brain – the human being’ ? Viz.:
RESPONDENT: The image is not the actuality. RICHARD: Of course not ... but we are not talking of images. When I look back through this thread I do not see anything that could possibly prompt you to write this ... therefore this statement is irrelevant to our discussion. RESPONDENT: Not so ... for example to say: ‘Intelligence cannot comprehend infinity and eternity’, implies belief that intelligence can be made into an object of observation. RICHARD: Why does it have to be a belief? Why do you say intelligence cannot be observed? Can you not observe, both in yourself and by verifying with others, that the faculty of understanding (as in intellect) which has the quickness or superiority of understanding (as in sagacity) and the capacity for the action or fact of understanding (as in knowledge and/or comprehension of something) cannot comprehend infinity and eternity? RESPONDENT: What is known objectively is but a projection, image, an idea. RICHARD: Surely not ... one sits in front of the computer monitor reading this sentence; the eyes see these words and the hand may reach for the words and touch the glass that is but a scant few millimetres to the front of them. It is obvious that the physical eye-balls and the physical hand are this flesh and blood body ... and that the computer monitor is a glass and plastic object that stays on the desk when the body gets up and walks away. I am not speaking of ‘a projection, image, an idea’ when I say that these fingertips, as an object (form), touching the glass of this computer monitor, touch another object (form). Knowing what the words ‘computer monitor’ and ‘glass’ and ‘eye-balls’ and ‘hand’ refer to does require recognition from thoughts’ memory – this is not under dispute – which could lead to ‘a projection, image, an idea’, but the fingertips touching form require no ‘projection, image, idea’ – any conceptualisation – to verify that form exists as an actuality. No thought is required at all in this verification ... touch is immediate and direct and factual. RESPONDENT: Obviously, the actuality is not that. RICHARD: What is the actuality (for you), then? That all these objects as form (the form pointed to by
the words ‘computer monitor’ and ‘glass’ and ‘eye-balls’ and ‘hand’) are but a dream? Is the actuality that this
body and that body and the mountains and streams and planets and stars are all non-existent outside of ‘No. 12-as-Consciousness’
perceiving? Is the actuality (for you) that nothing substantial, tangible, palpable, concrete, material, corporeal, physical and
objective genuinely exists? If so, this is solipsism Speaking personally, I prefer to have a dialogue with someone who will acknowledge, by the fact of these words appearing on a screen with a traceable E-Mail address, that ‘Richard’ is a living, breathing flesh and blood human being. RESPONDENT: The otherness or spirit can not be imagined so there is no use in making it the subject of debate. RICHARD: Ahh ... so this is why you dragged in ‘the image is not the actuality’ , eh? You want to somehow justify making the ‘otherness or spirit’ exempt from discussion? In other words: the ‘otherness or spirit’ is sacrosanct? That is: the ‘otherness or spirit’ is not to be observed, examined, explored or otherwise put under scrutiny? It is to be indiscriminately and uncritically and mindlessly and injudiciously accepted as the be-all and end-all without question? Does this not amount to ... um ... blind faith? RESPONDENT: No, it is not a matter of acceptance or faith. It is a matter of realizing the false as false. RICHARD: Okay ... thus ‘realizing the false as the false’ does not include (for you) realising that the ‘otherness or spirit’ , the ‘sacred that is not touched by thought’ is the false also? Is it exempt, sacrosanct? It is to be indiscriminately and mindlessly accepted as the be-all and end-all without question? If so does this not amount to ... um ... trust? RESPONDENT: How would what is beyond thought be put under the scrutiny of thought? RICHARD: But it does not necessarily have to be ‘put under the scrutiny of thought’ does it? Can one not have an insight into it? Can one not realise it in the same way as you advocate ‘realizing the false as the false’ ? Then, after the insight, after the realisation, can thought not operate so as to contemplate, consider and reflect ... and put it into words so as to communicate with one’s fellow human beings? Speaking personally, I had such an insight, such a realisation, into the nature of both love and Love Agapé in 1987 ... and there was instant action. The following eight months or so were oft-times occupied with contemplating, considering and reflecting upon this very factual ‘seeing’ that precipitated such action. RESPONDENT: When the false or identification with thought is not, the other is. RICHARD: This ‘the false or identification with thought’ is otherwise known as the fragmented identity, is it not ... the ‘I’ as ego? Thus when the fragmented identity ceases becoming and is now being (a centreless whole being as in ‘the observer is the observed’) then this holistic identity is. RESPONDENT: Whether this is so can only be verified in direct experience. RICHARD: Indeed ... and when I report my verification of ‘what is’, you dismiss my ‘direct experience’ as being invalid (a belief, image, concept and so on) and uphold and endorse your ‘direct experience’ as being valid. Have we arrived at a sort of ’tis/’tisn’t situation here? Is there a way to negotiate our way through this ‘Mexican Stand-off’, as it were? * RESPONDENT: It is not yours or mine. RICHARD: Indeed not ... it belongs to ‘humanity’. RESPONDENT: It is when I am not, i.e.: when there is no experience of separation in thought. RICHARD: It is when the personal ‘I’ is not ... that is, when there is no experience of one being a separate ego-self busily ‘becoming’ but where one is being. Such ‘being’ (usually capitalised as ‘Being’) is where one is an impersonal or centreless whole self ... ‘holistic’. Or, as Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti put it:
RESPONDENT: Decades later Krishnamurti said that to assert ‘I am free is an abomination’. RICHARD: Hmm ... a sort of ‘do as I say not do as I do’ situation, eh? He was declaring his status right through to the end of his life ... he reportedly said, nine days before his physical death:
Would you say then, that what this very mature Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti said then, is ‘an abomination’? RESPONDENT: And also said the idea of a Self or Being that is beyond corruption is projection of desire for power. RICHARD: Okay ... perhaps you are referring to when, in November 1979, Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti reported that ‘the momentum increased’ and that one night, in the strange stillness of Rishi Valley, with the silence undisturbed by the hoot of the owls, he woke up to find something totally different and new: ‘the movement had reached the source of all energy’. Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti then says:
Then, until the end of January 1980, every night he would wake up with this sense of the absolute:
RESPONDENT: It seems that to assert that ‘I’ am the actuality of an intelligent universe is a similar projection. RICHARD: Indeed ... anyone who asserted that ‘I’ am the actuality of an intelligent universe has missed the point of what Richard is saying entirely. This universe, being infinite and eternal, is much, much more than merely intelligent. Golly, intelligence cannot comprehend infinity and eternity, for starters. Secondly, an ‘I’ who so claims is not only ignorant but full-on into vainglorious narcissism into the bargain ... it is only when ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul become extinct that this flesh and blood body can, being apperceptively aware, correctly report: I am this very physical universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being; as me, this universe has produced the faculty of understanding (as in intellect) which has the quickness or superiority of understanding (as in sagacity) and the capacity for the action or fact of understanding (as in knowledge and/or comprehension of something), freed of any pernicious and insidious ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul. A freed intelligence, in other words. * RESPONDENT: Self-conscious motivation and comprehension is what is bringing about the suffering. RICHARD: Yes, and it is only ‘self-conscious motivation and comprehension’ that will bring about an end to suffering ... calling in a bodiless help will only perpetuate all the misery and mayhem. Only ‘you’ hold the key to freedom ... and this key is ‘your’ very human intelligence. RESPONDENT: If it is mine to control and direct, that is the movement of thought, not insight. RICHARD: Okay ... so you attempt to ‘control and direct’ consciousness so that an ‘insight’ ensures? What is the difference (apart from hypocrisy) between that and what the ‘Richard’ that was did? RESPONDENT: If in a dream a dreamed ‘me’ seems to realize that this is just a dream, and the dream ends, it doesn’t make sense to say that it was the dreamed self that awoke or did something to wake up. Anything ‘done’ in a dream is dreaming. If there is any freedom in a dream to observe, that observation is awake-ness from the very beginning. RICHARD: Goodness me ... to ‘awake’ from the ‘dream’ is but to be lucidly dreaming ... the ‘dreamer’ must become extinct. RESPONDENT: The grasping self phenomenon is the problem in my opinion, not the solution. RICHARD: I have never said that it is not the problem ... but what I am proposing (born out of personal experience) that this very self holds the key to freedom ... consciously and knowingly and with full intent aforethought there is action. RESPONDENT: Is that movement a solution? RICHARD: Yes ... only unilateral action – psychological and psychic self-immolation – will enable the already always existing peace-on-earth to become apparent. And only ‘I’ can sacrifice ‘myself’. RESPONDENT: Indeed peace is the actuality so there is no need for effort from a state of disturbance. RICHARD: But for 6.0 billion peoples, peace is not ‘the actuality’ ... so there is indeed a need for ‘effort from a state of disturbance’. The ‘state of disturbance’ is what is happening, is it not, and not peace as an actuality? Therefore, when you contrive, ‘from a state of disturbance’ to effect a motiveless passion to understand through direct observation, for example, you are just attempting to fool yourself that you have ‘no need for effort from a state of disturbance’ when you do. Incidentally, as the Mailing List is under the auspices of the teachings that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti bought into the world, it is tacitly assumed that anyone joining the List is familiar with at least some of his words on the matter ... and if they did not they soon would be, anyway. As it is public knowledge that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti had indeed effected effort from a state of disturbance in order to undergo some ‘process’, which resulted in experiencing living in a way somewhat different from the norm, to pretend that one has no need for some similar effort from a state of disturbance is to be disingenuous. RESPONDENT: Where did Krishnamurti say that the process can be solicited? RICHARD: I am not going to post it to you again and again ... you would only dismiss it as being the ‘immature’ Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti once again. RESPONDENT: To the contrary, he pointed to how time-based effort is what gives rise to conflict and that freedom to observe is without resistance because it is outside the merry-go-round of the grasping self. RICHARD: Hmm ... you are not the only person adopting this stance ... there are others on this List that like to think that by feigning timeless effortlessness that they will achieve something. Just how this sleight-of-hand (or should I say sleight-of-mind) is going to be efficacious in bringing about the desired result remains to be seen. Nevertheless, such dissimulation is not unknown ... some Buddhists too, indulge in a similar craftiness. They pretend that they do not desire Nirvana ... in the hope that they will thus achieve it. Some Christians, maintaining that to be alive is to remain a sinner, manifest a spurious humility in order to be worthy of God’s Grace and admission into Heaven whilst all the while saying that they are not worthy. Some Hindus maintain that by not enjoying the fruits of their labour they will gain the ultimate fruit of such labour ... called Moksha. The same sort of sanctimony holds true for many other religions and disciplines. * RESPONDENT: The folly of humanity is that we believe our doings are more important than what is, as if we exist apart from the world. RICHARD: Aye ... yet there is one ‘doing’ that ‘you’ are yet to do: psychological and psychical self-immolation. Nevertheless, one cannot self-immolate just because it seems like a good idea at the time. It requires a rather curious decision to be made ... a decision the likes of which has never been made before nor will ever be made again. It is a once-in-a-lifetime determination and takes some considerable preparation because ‘I’, the aggressive psychological entity and ‘me’, the frightened psychic entity will both vanish forever. Then, finally, I am free to be here now. RESPONDENT: If it is clear that my desires and motivations are bringing about conflict and suffering, they end immediately without any plan or decision. RICHARD: But have ‘you’ ended, permanently, via this method? If not, all this you promote is theory. What I say is not theoretical ... it is what ‘I’ did. RESPONDENT: It is the ‘you’ or being in time, the dreamed ‘me’, that is but theory, belief and image. The thinker is a thought, a central image. An image can not end itself and then take credit for its wonderful accomplishment. RICHARD: But have ‘you’ ended, permanently, via this method of fooling yourself that when you contrive, ‘from a state of disturbance’ to effect a motiveless passion to understand through direct observation, for example, that you have ‘no need for effort from a state of disturbance’ when you do? If not, all this you promote is theory ... even Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti did not do it that way. What I say is not theoretical ... it is what ‘I’ did. I did not do anything. And the ‘I’ that self-immolated is not here to take credit ... ‘he’ is extinct. For me to be able to be here now at all is a blessing that only ‘I’ could grant, because nobody else could do it for me. I am full of admiration for the ‘me’ that dared to do such a thing. I owe all that I experience now to ‘me’. I salute ‘my’ audacity. RESPONDENT: When there is no such clarity then there may again be suffering, there is no guarantee. RICHARD: Whereas I experience clarity twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five days a year ... effortlessly. Yet this effortless clarity would not be happening if the ‘Richard’ that was had not got off his backside. Methinks you are confusing the result with the cause. RESPONDENT: Sort of like going to Bally’s Total Fitness, just do it? RICHARD: Yes ... never a truer word spoken in jest. RESPONDENT: If I am doing it, I get bigger and stronger. RICHARD: Then you are not doing it properly ... it requires a rather curious decision to be made: a decision the likes of which has never been made before nor will ever be made again. It is a once-in-a-lifetime determination and takes some considerable preparation because ‘I’, the aggressive psychological entity and ‘me’, the frightened psychic entity will both vanish forever. Then, finally, I am freed to be here now ... where I have already always been for fifty two years.
RESPONDENT No. 33: I read this entire discussion very carefully. My humble suggestion to you will be to print the whole discussion and read it over and over again until all the cobwebs in your mind are cleared. What Richard has told you is invaluable. But if you choose to continue in your mindless folly and persist in posting those insipid and inane messages which have become your trade-mark over years, well, that will be quite a pity, to say the least. RESPONDENT: There is nothing new in the idea of using mindfulness as a methodical approach to awakening. If effort at self-mastery makes sense to you right now, so be it. The nondualistic approach is difficult to penetrate. RICHARD: Maybe you are correct and that he is ‘using mindfulness as a methodical approach to awakening’ (seeing that you two have been conversing for so long) or maybe you are incorrect (I do not know what approach he is using to ‘awakening’, if indeed any at all, as he may not have any interest in waking up in a dream). But I do know that I have never advocated ‘using mindfulness as a methodical approach to awakening’ because, first of all, I have explained to you that ‘to awake from a dream is but to be lucidly dreaming’ and that the ‘dreamer’ must become extinct and, secondly, ‘mindfulness’ is a Buddhist term that I never use and it involves a total withdrawal of self from the sensate world so as to realise the ‘timeless’ which is another term I never use and, thirdly, I speak of ‘self-immolation’ and not ‘self mastery’. I have never, ever said anything whatsoever that could possibly persuade you to make such inaccurate and unsubstantiated comments about what Richard is on about ... leaving me no option but to consider you ignorant (as in ignoring what I write) or ignorant (as in stupid). * RESPONDENT No. 33: At least we are getting somewhere now. Good. So, there are two approaches: (a) mindfulness as a methodical approach to awakening equals effort at self-mastery and (b) the nondualistic approach Please tell me (1) what are these approaches for and (2) how is (b) different and/or better than (a). RESPONDENT: Dualistic approach is effort to bring about a desired result of freedom for me. It starts with belief that I know what is and I know what I want, what should be, so I will work to get there. But that is like a fish trying to become water. Fish or form is the time aspect and water or emptiness is the timeless aspect. RICHARD: Indeed ... you are, more or less acceptably, describing the Buddhist approach, although the Buddhist Bhikkhu and Bhikkhuni starts with the attitude that they cannot know in advance ‘what is’ (‘Isness’) or ‘what they want’ (‘Nirvana’) or ‘what should be’ (‘Deathless’) really is like, but that Mr. Gotama the Sakyan does. Hence the necessity of ‘taking refuge’ in the Buddha (the awakened one), in the ‘Dhamma’ (the timeless law) and in the ‘Sangha’ (the community of perfected people). I would agree with you that all this is a belief as in faith (and, further, that the word ‘refuge’ is but a code-word for ‘surrender’) but Buddhists will shake their heads knowingly and tell me that I just do not understand. The word ‘emptiness’ as you use it is the Buddhist ‘Sunyata’ ... which is a ‘timeless an spaceless and formless absolute’. RESPONDENT: One does not become the other. They are two aspects of one actuality. So the interest in a non-dualistic approach is not becoming water or one with water but rather in understanding what is this fish that appears to be separate from the water? The issue is not how do I get what I want but rather, what is? RICHARD: Indeed ... you are, more or less acceptably, describing the Advaita Vedantist approach, (with ‘Brahma’ and ‘Maya’ being two aspects of ‘That’), and that the aim is not to ‘become’ but to ‘be’; to realise that one has never been separate from ‘what is’ (as ‘Brahma’) in the first place because ‘what is’ (as ‘Maya’) is seen to be the ‘what is’ known in Hinduism as being ‘That’ (as Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti describes so well in at the very end of seven dialogues over three days with Mr. David Bohm and Mr. David Shainburg). Viz.:
Funny how you described the ‘dualistic approach’ as ‘starting with a belief’ but were remarkably silent about the belief part of the ‘non-dualistic approach’ eh? Because ‘seeing in the false the truth’ is code-word for seeing in ‘what is’ as ‘Maya’ (the false) the ‘what is’ as ‘Brahma’ (the truth), and that ‘this seeing’ (that ‘Maya’ is ‘Brahma’) is a ‘state of meditation’ (which is another way of saying ‘one must start with freedom’) which is essential in order to come upon ‘the ultimate thing’ ... which is ‘That’ (the Hindu ‘timeless an spaceless and formless absolute). It is sobering to realise that the intelligentsia of the West are eagerly following the East down the slippery slope of striving to attain to a self-seeking divine immortality ... to the detriment of life on earth. At the end of the line there is always a god of some description (‘supreme intelligence’), lurking in disguise, wreaking its havoc with its ‘Teachings’. Have you ever been to India to see for yourself the results of what they claim are tens of thousands of years of devotional spiritual living? I have, and it is hideous. But, if it were not for the appalling suffering engendered it would all be highly amusing. Of course, it is possible to be actually free of the human condition ... but it is 180 degrees in the opposite direction to the ‘tried and true’.
RICHARD (to Respondent No 25): I have only the recorded scriptures to go by. Those multitudinous scriptures consistently point to a total withdrawal from this sensate physical world. Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s advice is for a total disassociation of self from the world of people, things and events. Mr. Gotama the Sakyan expressly states that the self is not to be found anywhere in phenomenal existence ... as he so clearly enunciates to compliant monks in the ‘Anatta-Lakkhana’ Sutta (The Discourse on the Not-self Characteristic, SN 22.59; PTS: SN iii.66). Viz.:
RESPONDENT: No, that is a misunderstanding. If there is no self in phenomenal existence there is no self to disassociate from it either. RICHARD: Upon closer examination, methinks you will find that it is not a ‘misunderstanding’ at all. Just look at the discourse quoted (above): [quote] ‘Form, monks, is not self. If form were the self, this form would not lend itself to dis-ease (...) But precisely because form is not self, form lends itself to dis-ease (...) ‘Feeling is not self (...) ‘Perception is not self (...) ‘Mental fabrications are not self (...) ‘Consciousness is not self. If consciousness were the self, this consciousness would not lend itself to dis-ease’. [endquote]. Note well it says ‘if form were the self, this form would not lend itself to dis-ease’ (and so on through feelings, perceptions, thoughts and consciousness), meaning that, as the self is not prone to dis-ease, then anything impermanent (this body and that body and the mountains and streams and stars and planets) cannot be the self. Then the discourse makes this point even clearer: [quote] ‘And is it fitting to regard what is inconstant, stressful, subject to change as: ‘This is mine. This is my self. This is what I am’? Thus, any body whatsoever that is past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near: every body is to be seen as it actually is with right discernment as: ‘This is not mine. This is not my self. This is not what I am’.’ [endquote]. Note well it says ‘This is not mine. This is not my self. This is not what I am’ regarding anything in or of the phenomenal world of the senses. Thus ‘What is mine. What is my self. What is what I am’ is to be found in ‘The Deathless’, accessible only upon ‘Parinirvana’, to an ‘Awakened One’ who has attained ‘Nirvana’ in this lifetime. If one does not achieve ‘Unbinding’ in this lifetime, one is going to be re-born again and again and again until one does. And to say that who is being re-born, as a personality again and again, is a ‘bundle of memories and desires’ and not a ‘self’ is to be disingenuous to say the least. Lastly, the discourse drives the point home by explaining that the instructed disciple is [quote] ‘disenchanted with the body, disenchanted with feeling, disenchanted with perception, disenchanted with fabrications, disenchanted with consciousness. Disenchanted, he becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion, he is fully released. With full release, there is the knowledge, ‘Fully released’. He discerns that ‘Birth is depleted, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world’.’ [endquote]. Note well it says ‘there is nothing further for this world’ ... if that is not a clear indication of a withdrawal from this sensate material world I would like to know what is. I have already posted Fundamentally, Buddhism does not deny the existence of self (nowhere in the Pali Canon is it denied) but what Buddhism does deny is everything else. Buddhism says: ‘absolute changeless permanent reality alone is’ and everything else has always been, is and always will be just make-believe fiction, a state of delusion worn like a costume with multiple fabricated points of view, and all that is created is impermanent, without essence and inherently a state of ill-being. But with perfect intuitive wisdom, it is realized that that which is ill it is not fitting to say that: ‘this is mine, this am I, this is my self’ because all sentient beings (and all worlds) are fiction and are without self, selfless. Thus, who ‘realises Nirvana’ is Nirvana itself realising itself. ‘Nirvana’, ‘Perfect Wisdom’, ‘The Deathless’, ‘The Unborn’, ‘The Uncreated’, ‘The Real’, ‘The Permanent’, ‘The Absolute Changeless Permanent Reality’ and ‘Self’ are all the same for Buddhists: that which is unfathomable, inconceivable, immutable, inscrutable, deep, boundless, unmeasurable, undefinable, incomprehensible and so on and so on. You really are flogging a dead horse with this one.
RICHARD: And where is Truth to be found if not in beauty? Is Truth a product of thought?’ RESPONDENT No. 10: Truth cannot be found in beauty, nor thought for both are thought. RICHARD: Okay ... what do you make of this statement: [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘That state of mind which is no longer capable of striving is the true religious mind, and in that state of mind you may come upon this thing called truth or reality or bliss or God or beauty or love. (J. Krishnamurti; ‘Freedom From The Known’, © 1969 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd). The reason that I ask is that he is definitely saying that ‘truth or reality or bliss or God or beauty or love’ are all one and the same thing ... with no ifs, buts or maybes. Can all this (truth and/or god) be nothing a product of thought (love and/or beauty) for Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti then? Do you see why I wish to put love and compassion and beauty and truth and so on under the same scrutiny that this Mailing List gives to thought? There is quite some cloudiness around this issue which needs clarifying and, seeing that you are channelling this miraculous cure-all through to a benighted humanity, to remain ignorant of the constitution, disposition or nature of Love and Truth would indicate that you actually do not care about your fellow human. And surely you do care, eh?
RESPONDENT: Truth or beauty or love that is scrutinized is known; which is image, not actuality. RICHARD: Yea verily ... but No. 10 says that the ‘Love and/or Truth’ that he is an ‘empty vessel’ for is not an image. Therefore, is this not a vital opportunity to ascertain just what the nature, character or disposition of Love and Truth is? Why are you not interested in finding out? Then peoples like me will not be able to point out that, if you do not know what the nature, character and disposition is of Love and Truth (what you call ‘the other’ which, being ‘not touched by thought’, is ‘the sacred’) then you are operating on blind faith and/or trust? RESPONDENT: Truth is when I as observer am not. RICHARD: Yea verily ... truth is when ‘I as observer am not’ and the observer is the observed. Which is when the fragmented identity has stopped becoming and is being ... being a whole identity. The less coy mystics call this holistic identity by its given name: ‘I am God’ or ‘I am That’. The more coy mystics say: ‘There is only That’. RESPONDENT: What is sacred is that which is incorruptible, not graspable by thought, not yours or mine. RICHARD: Yea verily ... Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti says that what is sacred, holy is not the god of the churches, the temples, the synagogues and the mosques. Viz.:
Note well that he clearly and unambiguously says ‘To discover God or truth – and I say such a thing does exist, I have realised it – to recognise that, to realise that, mind must be free of all the hindrances which have been created throughout the ages’. Do you see where he says ‘I say such a thing does exist, I have realised it’? If so, can you stop this nonsense that you go on about such as ‘K said that to assert ‘I am free is an abomination’ or ‘isn’t it a religious nut that asserts that I have attained a state of perfection or sacredness?’ or ‘is there someone that seems to be there to take credit, to assert that I have attained?’ and so on? It would be more conducive to a mutual understanding – and less repetitive – if you could move past this ‘he who knows does not speak’ fixation. The man who you like to quote clearly made no secret that he knows ... and he spoke for sixty-plus years (as did the man who first penned that pithy aphorism). For the sake of the 160,000,000 fellow human beings who may very well be going to be killed by their fellow human beings this coming century, can we have – you and I – an honest and sincere discussion? Is this possible?
RESPONDENT: To say: ‘Intelligence cannot comprehend infinity and eternity’, implies belief that intelligence can be made into an object of observation. RICHARD: Why does it have to be a belief? Why do you say intelligence cannot be observed? Can you not observe, both in yourself and by verifying with others, that the faculty of understanding (as in intellect) which has the quickness or superiority of understanding (as in sagacity) and the capacity for the action or fact of understanding (as in knowledge and/or comprehension of something) cannot comprehend infinity and eternity? RESPONDENT: When there seems to be an observer that is separate from what is observed that attention is the movement of thought. I here observe a quality there and interpreting it from my accumulated knowledge I act. RICHARD: So what? What has this to do with being able to observe that both one’s own and others’ intelligence cannot comprehend infinity and eternity? The man you like to quote made it clear, that for him the observer was not separate from the observed, yet he said that he could not comprehend infinity and eternity either ... even though the ‘supreme intelligence’ was operating in him and would not be manifesting for ‘many hundred of years’! So whether it is your capitalised ‘Intelligence’ or the genuine article – human intelligence – neither can comprehend infinity and eternity. As I said at the beginning of this thread: what hope would an intelligence have in running the universe? RESPONDENT: But from another perspective the observer does not exist apart from the observed. The observer exists only in relationship. What is the nature of attention that sees the observer-observed phenomenon as a totality? That attention can not be made into an observed object. It operates when brain activity or thought is quiet. RICHARD: This ‘attention’ that you are talking of is otherwise known as ‘choiceless awareness’ ... and ‘choiceless awareness’ is not the faculty of understanding (as in intellect) which has the quickness or superiority of understanding (as in sagacity) and the capacity for the action or fact of understanding (as in knowledge and/or comprehension of something) at all for it is a thoughtless state. What has this to do with being able to observe that both one’s own and others’ intelligence cannot comprehend infinity and eternity? Why are you avoiding the question ... again? This universe is much, much more than merely intelligent. * RESPONDENT: What is known objectively is but a projection, image, an idea. RICHARD: Surely not ... one sits in front of the computer monitor reading this sentence; the eyes see these words and the hand may reach for the words and touch the glass that is but a scant few millimetres to the front of them. It is obvious that the physical eye-balls and the physical hand are this flesh and blood body ... and that the computer monitor is a glass and plastic object that stays on the desk when the body gets up and walks away. I am not speaking of ‘a projection, image, an idea’ when I say that these fingertips, as an object (form), touching the glass of this computer monitor, touch another object (form). Knowing what the words ‘computer monitor’ and ‘glass’ and ‘eye-balls’ and ‘hand’ refer to does require recognition from thoughts’ memory – this is not under dispute – which could lead to ‘a projection, image, an idea’ , but the fingertips touching form require no ‘projection, image, idea’ – any conceptualisation – to verify that form exists as an actuality. No thought is required at all in this verification ... touch is immediate and direct and factual. RESPONDENT: Perception of form is learned. RICHARD: No ... recognition of the perceived form is learned. Perception is immediate and direct and factual. At that fleeting instant of pure perception of sensum, just before one affectively identifies with all the feeling memories associated with its qualia (the qualities pertaining to the properties of the form) and also before one cognitively recognises the percept (the mental product or result of perception), and this ‘raw sense-datum’ stage of sensational perception is a direct experience of the actual. Pure perception is at that instant where one converges one’s eyes or ears or nose or tongue or skin on the thing. It is that moment just before one focuses one’s feeling-memory on the object. It is the split-second just as one hedonically subjectifies it ... which is just prior to clamping down on it viscerally and segregating it from pure, conscious existence. Pure perception takes place sensitively just before one starts feeling the percept – and thus thinking about it affectively – which takes place just before one’s feeling-fed mind says: ‘It’s a man’ or: ‘It’s a woman’ or: ‘It’s a steak-burger’ or: ‘It’s a tofu-burger’ ... with all that is implied in this identification and the ramifications that stem from that. This fluid, soft-focused moment of bare awareness, which is not learned, has never been learned, and never will be learned. RESPONDENT: The apparent world of thought is structured through memory. RICHARD: Thought operating with memory is the ability to reflect, plan and implement considered activity (which other animals cannot do) in the environment about for beneficial reasons. And 6.0 billion people can do this, with varying degrees of effectiveness, because intelligence is a human phenomenon. When this intelligence is crippled by the emotional-mental ‘self’ born of the instinctual passions, what is otherwise known as ‘making sense’ of what is happening in the very physical world of people, things and events becomes problematic ... to the point of some denying its actual existence. The physical world is not an ‘apparent world’ (‘seemingly so’) at all ... it actually exists outside of ‘No 12 as Consciousness’ and underneath the ‘reality’ that ‘he’ pastes as a veneer over the actual. This verdant planet was here long before I was born in 1947 and will be here long after I am dead (unless something physical – like a humungous comet impacting or whatever – happens). RESPONDENT: That is one layer. Added to that are other more superficial layers of projection in which minds or identities are thought to be in time. Because what is structured in thought as me is image, it may fall away. Because what is structured in thought as physical reality is also image, it too may be seen as empty, without true division. RICHARD: Hmm ... being here now, as a flesh and blood body in the physical world, is not where salvation exists (for you)? Because when someone uses words like ‘physical reality is an empty image’ and ‘without true division’ they mean, in other words, the ‘dependent origination’ of Buddhism. * RESPONDENT: The otherness or spirit can not be imagined so there is no use in making it the subject of debate. RICHARD: Ahh ... you want to somehow justify making the ‘otherness or spirit’ exempt from discussion? In other words: the ‘otherness or spirit’ is sacrosanct? That is: the ‘otherness or spirit’ is not to be observed, examined, explored or otherwise put under scrutiny? It is to be indiscriminately and uncritically and mindlessly and injudiciously accepted as the be-all and end-all without question? Does this not amount to ... um ... blind faith? RESPONDENT: No, it is not a matter of acceptance or faith. It is a matter of realizing the false as false. How would what is beyond thought be put under the scrutiny of thought? RICHARD: Okay ... thus ‘realizing the false as the false’ does not include (for you) realising that the ‘otherness or spirit’, the ‘sacred that is not touched by thought’ is the false also? Is it exempt, sacrosanct? It is to be indiscriminately and mindlessly accepted as the be-all and end-all without question? If so does this not amount to ... um ... trust? And it does not necessarily have to be ‘put under the scrutiny of thought’ does it? Can one not have an insight into it? Can one not realise it in the same way as you advocate ‘realizing the false as the false’? Then, after the insight, after the realisation, can thought not operate so as to contemplate, consider and reflect ... and put it into words so as to communicate with one’s fellow human beings? Speaking personally, I had such an insight, such a realisation, into the nature of both love and Love Agapé in 1987 ... and there was instant action. The following eight months or so were oft-times occupied with contemplating, considering and reflecting upon this very factual ‘seeing’ that precipitated such action. RESPONDENT: It may unfold that way but why conclude that it is something done from knowledge? RICHARD: Where did I say that this is ‘something done from knowledge’ ? I see the words ‘insight’ and ‘seeing’ and ‘realisation’ and ‘instant action’ in the paragraph above ... but not ‘knowledge’. Why are you avoiding the question ... again and again? RESPONDENT: If it is clear that the centre is the problem, there is an openness to the breaking up of the centre. But the energy that brings this about is not self-generated. RICHARD: What has this to do with the question as to why ‘realizing the false as the false’ does not include (for you) realising that the ‘otherness or spirit’, the ‘sacred that is not touched by thought’ is the false also? Is it because it is exempt, sacrosanct? It is to be indiscriminately and mindlessly accepted as the be-all and end-all without question? If so does this not amount to ... um ... hope? Why are you avoiding the question ... again and again and again? * RESPONDENT: When the false or identification with thought is not, the other is. RICHARD: This ‘the false or identification with thought’ is otherwise known as the fragmented identity, is it not ... the ‘I’ as ego? Thus when the fragmented identity ceases becoming and is now being (a centreless whole being as in ‘the observer is the observed’) then this holistic identity is. RESPONDENT: There may or may not be that kind of identification or division that occurs. RICHARD: There is no ‘there may be that kind of identification’ at all ... there always is that kind of identification. And there is no ‘there may not be that kind of identification’ so far in human history ... the less coy mystics call this holistic identity by its given name: ‘I am God’ or ‘I am That’. The more coy mystics say: ‘There is only That’ ... and look towards physical death’s release into completion. RESPONDENT: Whether this is so can only be verified in direct experience. RICHARD: Indeed ... and when I report my verification of ‘what is’, you dismiss my ‘direct experience’ as being invalid (a belief, image, concept and so on) and uphold and endorse your ‘direct experience’ as being valid. Have we arrived at a sort of ’tis/’tisn’t situation here? Is there a way to negotiate our way through this ‘Mexican Standoff’, as it were? RESPONDENT: Direct perception seems to be given a variety of interpretations and that is where bias comes in. RICHARD: Then it is not ‘direct experience’ ... direct experience of the actual has nothing to do with ‘a variety of interpretations’ whatsoever. Everything is being seen, with an unparalleled clearness and cleanliness and pureness, exactly and precisely as-it-is. No wonder, when I report my verification of ‘what is’, you dismiss my ‘direct experience’ as being invalid (a belief, image, concept and so on) and uphold and endorse your ‘direct experience’ as being valid! Now I know why we have arrived at a sort of ’tis/’tisn’t situation. RESPONDENT: My experience which is memory becomes the basis for judgment and authority. RICHARD: Indeed ... and therein lies the rub. My experience, which is an on-going direct experience of the actual, is the here and now basis of all appraisals and application of expertise. RESPONDENT: To go full circle is to return to beginner’s mind in which the bias or memory of past experience is not playing an active role in present moment perception. RICHARD: Hmm ... to try to return to the supposed ‘innocence’ (ignorance) of childhood, where some of the time things were seen fresh because of being new to experience (ignorance), is but a futile attempt to regain the past, eh? * RESPONDENT: K pointed to how time-based effort is what gives rise to conflict and that freedom to observe is without resistance because it is outside the merry-go-round of the grasping self. RICHARD: It is public knowledge that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti had indeed effected ‘time-based effort’ in order to undergo some ‘process’, which resulted in experiencing living in a way somewhat different from the norm, and to pretend that one has no need for some similar ‘time-based effort’ is to be disingenuous (...) But you are not the only person adopting this stance ... there are others on this List that like to think that by feigning timeless effortlessness that they will achieve something. Just how this sleight-of-hand (or should I say sleight-of-mind) is going to be efficacious in bringing about the desired result remains to be seen. Nevertheless, such dissimulation is not unknown ... some Buddhists too, indulge in a similar craftiness. They pretend that they do not desire Nirvana ... in the hope that they will thus achieve it. Some Christians, maintaining that to be alive is to remain a sinner, manifest a spurious humility in order to be worthy of God’s Grace and admission into Heaven whilst all the while saying that they are not worthy. Some Hindus maintain that by not enjoying the fruits of their labour they will gain the ultimate fruit of such labour ... called Moksha. The same sort of sanctimony holds true for many other religions and disciplines. RESPONDENT: The counterfeit does not prove or disprove the possibility of the authentic. RICHARD: But what is ‘the authentic’ for you? Have ‘you’ ended, permanently, via this ‘authentic method’ of fooling yourself that when you contrive, through ‘time-based effort’ to effect a timeless effortlessness, that you actually are being timelessly effortless without having used ‘time-based effort’? If not, all this ‘possibility of the authentic’ you promote is theory ... even Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti did not do it that way. And what I say is not theoretical – it is what ‘I’ did all those years ago – and, because ‘he’ unabashedly went for it boots and all, I experience clarity and purity twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five days a year ... effortlessly. Yet this effortless clarity would not be happening if the ‘Richard’ that was had not effected time-based effort ... it is a grave mistake to confuse the result with the cause. RESPONDENT: Whether what you say is a pretence or expression of actuality is a matter of concern only for you because only you can be a light to yourself. RICHARD: No, the ‘I’ that was had a PCE that was ‘his’ light ... thus I am freed to be here now where I have already always been for fifty two years. ‘I’ cannot be a light to ‘myself’ ... ‘I’ would go around and around in circles all the while fooling ‘myself’ that ‘I’ was being authentic. RESPONDENT: If that light or insight is missing, I would find out why. RICHARD: Is this not a case of ‘do not do as I do but do as I say?
CORRESPONDENT No. 12 (Part Six) 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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