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Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’ with Respondent No. 12
RESPONDENT No. 33: ... what are space, time, and form sans perception? RICHARD: May I suggest? Find someone who has a relative or a friend in a coma – a person in a coma is a person ‘sans perception’ – and go and visit them ... and you will notice that space and time and form are still happening irregardless of their perception of it all. Or, go and be with someone in ‘Samadhi’ or ‘Dhyana’ or some similar cataleptic trance state and, though they will swear that time and space and form do not exist when they come out of their exalted state, you will notice that time and space and form was happening all the while. Or, be with somebody on their death-bed ... and afterwards you will notice that time and space and form keep on keeping on. Or, find someone with expertise in ancient rocks and fossils ... palaeontology shows that time and space and form existed long before human beings and their ‘perception’ appeared on the scene. RESPONDENT: Find someone who has a relative or a friend in a coma – a person in a coma is a person ‘sans perception’ – and go and visit them ... and you will notice that your perception of physical reality is still happening irregardless of their perception of it all. Or, go and be with someone in ‘Samadhi’ or ‘Dhyana’ and, though they will swear that time and space and form do not exist, you will notice that your perception of physical reality keeps happening all the while. Or, be with somebody on their death-bed ... and afterwards you will notice that your perception of physical reality keeps on keeping on. RICHARD: You do seem to have missed the point of doing what I suggested. As their perception of ‘physical reality’ is non-existent in all three instances – yet ‘physical reality’ keeps on keeping on irregardless – then the same applies to my perception of ‘physical reality’ in similar circumstances ... ergo: I am not necessary for the planet earth to exist; I am not necessary for the satellite moon to exist; I am not necessary for the central sun to exist; I am not necessary for the ‘Milky Way’ galaxy to exist; I am not necessary for the universe to exist. I am not necessary for time and space and form to exist. RESPONDENT: Or, find someone with expertise in ancient rocks and fossils ... palaeontology shows that from your perception of physical reality, time and space and form existed long before human beings and their ‘perception’ appeared on the scene. RICHARD: Again you seem to have missed the point of doing what I suggested. As the ancient rocks and fossils existed long before human beings and their perception appeared on the scene it shows that human beings are not needed for the planet earth to exist; it shows that human beings are not needed for the satellite moon to exist; it shows that human beings are not needed for the central sun to exist; it shows that human beings are not needed for the ‘Milky Way’ galaxy to exist; it shows that human beings are not needed for the universe to exist. Human beings are not necessary for time and space and form to exist. RESPONDENT: Thought creates the division of here and there ... RICHARD: Hmm ... the phrase ‘here and there’ relates to nothing more arcane than a perceptive reference point – a sensory body – orienting itself locally in limitless space. Whereas ‘there and there’ – distance anywhere in limitless space – exists independent of the referee (make allowance for the subject/predicate nature of sentence structure implicit in the word ‘there’). RESPONDENT: ... [thought creates] the division of past, present and future. RICHARD: Likewise the phrase ‘now and then’ (‘present and past’ and ‘present and future’) relates to nothing more arcane than a perceptive reference point – a sensory body – orienting itself locally in limitless time. Whereas ‘then and then’ – duration anywhen in limitless time – exists independent of the referee (make allowance for the subject/predicate nature of sentence structure implicit in the word ‘then’). RESPONDENT: Perception of time and space is a function of measurement and comparison. RICHARD: It depends upon what ‘perception’ you are referring to: sensory perception is immediate, direct and intimate (physical-on-physical) ... thought perception may or may not come into play milliseconds later to evaluate for practical human reasons (as in observe, reflect, remember, compare, plan and propose considered action) or simply for aesthetic reasons (reflective contemplation). Generally though, for most peoples, affective perception leaps into action milliseconds before thought perception and corrupts thought’s clarity ... leading to all manner of arrogant assumptions (sensory perception is primary; affective perception is secondary; thought perception is tertiary). Overarching all this is apperception (which becomes apparent when the affective faculty – ‘me’ and ‘my’ feelings – is not).
RESPONDENT No. 33: ... what are space, time, and form sans perception? RICHARD: May I suggest? Find someone who has a relative or a friend in a coma – a person in a coma is a person ‘sans perception’ – and go and visit them ... and you will notice that space and time and form are still happening irregardless of their perception of it all. Or, go and be with someone in ‘Samadhi’ or ‘Dhyana’ or some similar cataleptic trance state and, though they will swear that time and space and form do not exist when they come out of their exalted state, you will notice that time and space and form was happening all the while. Or, be with somebody on their death-bed ... and afterwards you will notice that time and space and form keep on keeping on. Or, find someone with expertise in ancient rocks and fossils ... palaeontology shows that time and space and form existed long before human beings and their ‘perception’ appeared on the scene. RESPONDENT: Find someone who has a relative or a friend in a coma – a person in a coma is a person ‘sans perception’ – and go and visit them ... and you will notice that your perception of physical reality is still happening irregardless of their perception of it all. Or, go and be with someone in ‘Samadhi’ or ‘Dhyana’ and, though they will swear that time and space and form do not exist, you will notice that your perception of physical reality keeps happening all the while. Or, be with somebody on their death-bed ... and afterwards you will notice that your perception of physical reality keeps on keeping on. RICHARD: You do seem to have missed the point of doing what I suggested. As their perception of ‘physical reality’ is non-existent in all three instances – yet ‘physical reality’ keeps on keeping on irregardless – then the same applies to my perception of ‘physical reality’ in similar circumstances ... ergo: I am not necessary for the planet earth to exist; I am not necessary for the satellite moon to exist; I am not necessary for the central sun to exist; I am not necessary for the ‘Milky Way’ galaxy to exist; I am not necessary for the universe to exist. I am not necessary for time and space and form to exist. RESPONDENT: Reality as we know it is what we perceive it to be. RICHARD: Whereas actuality is what sensory perception directly experiences (physical-on-physical). RESPONDENT: Our view is limited by what we are ... RICHARD: Whereas sensory perception is not necessarily limited by who ‘I’ am/‘me’ is. RESPONDENT: ... [our view is limited] by the structure of the brain and the finite sensory apparatus available to us. RICHARD: Whereas sensory perception is not limited by the structure of the brain and the finite sensory apparatus, which perception the flesh and blood body intimately is, any more than any other actuality is necessarily limited by the present structure of the material and the current finite form it is. RESPONDENT: Thus, we perceive the world as human’s perceive it. RICHARD: Thus sensory perception perceives actuality directly (actual-on-actual) ... and overarching all the above is apperception (which is limitless). RESPONDENT: But our view is not only limited by human biology. RICHARD: Hmm ... in the main ‘our view’ is limited by ‘our’ very presence (‘our view’ being 6.0 billon ‘I’s and/or ‘me’s views). RESPONDENT: We are initiated at a young age into our culture’s description of reality. RICHARD: Indeed ... any society, being a grouping of ‘selves’, corroborates, supports and enhances the newest genetically inherited ‘self’s intuitive description (the blind initiating the blind). RESPONDENT: The cultural view is that on-going physical objects ‘exist’. RICHARD: Well now ... they do ‘get it right’ some of the time, you know. RESPONDENT: That view is perhaps essential to survival and functioning. RICHARD: Why ‘perhaps’ essential? As the physical-world does exist it is indeed essential. Just stop eating the ‘perhaps’ essential physical food for 5+ months and see what happens; just stop drinking the ‘perhaps’ essential physical water for 5+ days and see what happens; just stop breathing the ‘perhaps’ essential physical air for 5+ minutes and see what happens; just stop the ‘perhaps’ essential physical heart beating for 5+ seconds and see what happens. Either that or just stop writing drivel. RESPONDENT: But we are not taught to see energy directly, i.e. without the filter of ideation. RICHARD: Are you referring to the physical-world energy ... or the metaphysical-world ‘energy’ (and is there a prize for guessing correctly)? RESPONDENT: To see the world or so-called physical reality ... RICHARD: If I may interject? Just stop waiting for a gap to occur in the stream of ‘so-called physical’ cars, trucks, buses and trams on a highway before crossing and see what happens ... you will intimately experience what ‘so-called physical’ time (and motion), what ‘so-called physical’ space (and distance) and what ‘so-called physical’ form (and function) are in a practical and very demonstrable way. One experience is worth a thousand words. RESPONDENT: ... [to see the world] as immeasurable energy means that the stranglehold that the cultural view has over our perception has loosened its grip. RICHARD: Ha ... which culture? Because the eastern cultures, generally speaking, inculcate ‘the cultural view’ that physical reality is ‘immeasurable energy’ (God or Truth by whatever name) from the moment of parturition ... and their ‘cultural view’ is insidiously spreading through the western cultures (inasmuch as it is being force-fed to the newest recruits to the culture with the mother’s milk, as it were). I kid you not ... I live in an area where such is now the norm. RESPONDENT: It doesn’t mean that a tree only falls in the forest if we see it fall and all that nonsense. RICHARD: You may very well be surprised at the number of otherwise intelligent human beings who have either baldly trotted out that psittacism to me over the past twenty-odd years ... or ... RESPONDENT: It means that in absolute energetic terms, there is no tree apart from consciousness. RICHARD: ... or who have adroitly trotted out a sophisticated version of that psittacism to me over the past twenty-odd years. RESPONDENT: That is not to say that a particular brain’s thought process creates the tree. RICHARD: Let me guess ... it is the universal mind (by whatever name) that creates the tree? RESPONDENT: Seeing or perceiving no true division between mind and matter ... RICHARD: And of course you do not mean ‘mind’ as in the physical brain in action ... but, rather ‘mind’ as in the universal mind (by whatever name)? RESPONDENT: ... it can not rightly be said that separate things exist nor can it be said they are dreamed or imagined or that they are non-existent. RICHARD: If one has swallowed that eastern religious/spiritual/mystical package hook, line and sinker ... then of course it cannot ‘rightly be said that separate things exist nor can it be said they are dreamed or imagined or that they are non-existent’. The only thing that can ‘rightly be said’ then is either ‘I am That’ (if one is brazen) or ‘There is That’ (if one is coy). I would presume he who said ‘never the twain shall meet’ would never have envisaged such an abject sell-out, eh?
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: To awake from the dream is but to be lucidly dreaming ... the ‘dreamer’ must become extinct. RESPONDENT: You miss the fact that the dreamer is the dream. RICHARD: How did I ‘miss the fact that the dreamer is the dream’ ? The discussions about the dreamer and the dream are, of course, not about night-time dreaming but discussions about an eastern mystical analogy (and in this case specifically the religio-spiritual philosophies of the Indian sub-continent) wherein the ‘Awakened One’ has awakened in the dream (samsara) and has found everything (all time and space and form) to be only apparently real and that everything is nothing but an illusion (maya) brought into being by a craving for spatial, temporal and material existence (karma). The ‘Awakened One’ then spends the remainder of their samsaric days (their dreamed days) burning off the remaining karma (the residual craving) that caused the maya (the illusion) in the first place ... until their karma runs out, samsara dries up, maya ends and they enter into (physically die) the ultimate reality (Mahasamadhi or Parinirvana). Therefore, to awake in the dream is indeed to be lucidly dreaming (in keeping with the analogy) ... the dreamer and the dream still keep on happening (now being happened by them rather than helplessly happening to them) until physical death releases them forever from physical existence (from repeated rebirth or reincarnation). The real dreamer of the dream is, of course, god (by whatever name). RESPONDENT: What never had any inherently true existence can not become extinct or anything else. RICHARD: If you are saying that god (by whatever name) cannot become extinct then of course you are correct (according to the mystical experience) ... which is, basically, why I have been diagnosed as suffering from a severe, and incurable, psychotic mental disorder. I am saying it is possible ... then there is peace on earth.
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: To awake from the dream is but to be lucidly dreaming ... the ‘dreamer’ must become extinct. RESPONDENT: You miss the fact that the dreamer is the dream. RICHARD: How did I ‘miss the fact that the dreamer is the dream’? The discussions about the dreamer and the dream are, of course, not about night-time dreaming but discussions about an eastern mystical analogy (and in this case specifically the religio-spiritual philosophies of the Indian sub-continent) wherein the ‘Awakened One’ has awakened in the dream (samsara) and has found everything (all time and space and form) to be only apparently real and that everything is nothing but an illusion (maya) brought into being by a craving for spatial, temporal and material existence (karma). The ‘Awakened One’ then spends the remainder of their samsaric days (their dreamed days) burning off the remaining karma (the residual craving) that caused the maya (the illusion) in the first place ... until their karma runs out, samsara dries up, maya ends and they enter into (physically die) the ultimate reality (Mahasamadhi or Parinirvana). RESPONDENT: When you read all that into a discussion, it works as a block to communication, not an aid. Am I interfacing only with the knowledge and conclusions you have accumulated? If karma, samsara, maya, and samadhi, etc are to mean anything, it is necessary to discover that directly and not get caught up in metaphysics which is after all just conceptualisation. It seems helpful to leave the metaphysical baggage behind and discuss in functional terms. RICHARD: First, I am somewhat puzzled as to why you would write this critique because this very ‘discussion’ we are having, this entire thread (Subject: Re: What ‘Grows’ the Universe?), is specifically about what you are calling ‘metaphysical baggage’ and was initiated by another taking my analogous comment to a co-respondent, that the universe ‘grows’ people, to mean the same-same as what Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti meant by the word ‘creation’ to [quote] describe the state of being not in time [endquote] ... thus I most certainly did not ‘read all that into a discussion’. The metaphysical experience is the ‘discussion’. Whereas I was exclusively writing about the genetically-inherited instinctual passions (the thread was titled ‘Re: The Instinctual Passions’). Viz.:
Do you see it for yourself? Nary a trace of what you are calling ‘metaphysical baggage’ is to be seen in what I was (initially) writing, eh? Therefore, I did indeed ‘leave the metaphysical baggage behind’ and I did indeed ‘discuss in functional terms’ long before you came along with your after-the-fact ‘it seems helpful to leave ... behind’ advice. Second, we are having a parallel discussion, you and I, on this very same thread (and your latest e-mail to me regarding it comes 1 hour and 34 minutes after you post this e-mail) wherein I am consistently referring to sensory perception (physical-on-physical and actual-on-actual) and providing practical examples such as being with people in comas, being with people in cataleptic trance states, being with people on their death-bed, examining ancient rocks and fossils, crossing busy streets, drinking physical water, eating physical food, breathing physical air and so on and so on, which surely must fit your classification requirement of ‘discuss in functional terms’. Third, no you are not ‘interfacing only with the knowledge and conclusions [I] have accumulated’ as what I write comes out of my living experience. None of what I am living is applied theory, concepts or beliefs ... there is this which is actually happening and what I write is an account, a report, a narrative, written as a direct experience as it is happening. In other words, it is located in or based upon or drawn from actuality – factual experience – as peace-on-earth is already here, as it always has been, and always will be. Fourth, where you say ‘if karma, samsara, maya, and samadhi, etc., are to mean anything, it is necessary to discover that directly’ you can only come out with this profundity by completely overlooking or ignoring my repeated report that I lived that/was that ‘karma, samsara, maya, and samadhi, etc.,’ metaphysical experience night and day for eleven years ... thus I did indeed ‘discover that directly’ and thus it is certainly not ‘just conceptualisation’. Lastly, the quotes (yours and mine) which you have currently responded to (at the top of the page) come from a thread that you initiated by equating the method to become free of the human condition which I offer (which is the method that the identity inhabiting this body twenty-plus years ago used before I knew anything about eastern mysticism) with the Buddhist practice known as ‘mindfulness’ (arguably ‘metaphysical baggage’) ... and proposing the Advaitist practice known as ‘non-duality’ (arguably ‘metaphysical baggage’) instead. Viz.:
Surely you must see that if peoples such as yourself were to cease equating what I write, regarding the physical, to what many and various saints, sages and seers write, regarding the metaphysical, I would not be spending most of my time writing about the metaphysical? * RICHARD: Therefore, to awake in the dream is indeed to be lucidly dreaming (in keeping with the analogy) ... the dreamer and the dream still keep on happening (now being happened by them rather than helplessly happening to them) until physical death releases them forever from physical existence (from repeated rebirth or reincarnation). The real dreamer of the dream is, of course, god (by whatever name). RESPONDENT: There is only a dream when there is a dreamer. There is only a dreamer when there is a dream. They are one though they may seem to be separate. The observer is the observed, they each ‘exist’ but only in relationship. They are perceived as unitary by an attention that is free of the subject/object split. That is, this attention has a certain independence or freedom of observation that is not operating when the view is from an isolated centre. To understand the nature of this attention, it has to be actually operating or there has to have been at least moments of attention. RICHARD: Where you say ‘there is only a dream when there is a dreamer’ you have my full concurrence (the conclusion ‘there is only a dreamer when there is a dream’ is but a reversed tautology or an abstract deduction signifying nothing of substance) ... but where you go on to relate a metaphysical experience (‘the observer is the observed’ ) is where you and I diverge. Where the dreamer is extinct ... all the remainder which you write of does not occur, happen or exist in any way, shape or manner whatsoever. What is, then, is peace on earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body only.
RESPONDENT No. 33: ... what are space, time, and form sans perception? RICHARD: May I suggest? Find someone who has a relative or a friend in a coma – a person in a coma is a person ‘sans perception’ – and go and visit them ... and you will notice that space and time and form are still happening irregardless of their perception of it all. Or, go and be with someone in ‘Samadhi’ or ‘Dhyana’ or some similar cataleptic trance state and, though they will swear that time and space and form do not exist when they come out of their exalted state, you will notice that time and space and form was happening all the while. Or, be with somebody on their death-bed ... and afterwards you will notice that time and space and form keep on keeping on. Or, find someone with expertise in ancient rocks and fossils ... palaeontology shows that time and space and form existed long before human beings and their ‘perception’ appeared on the scene. RESPONDENT: Find someone who has a relative or a friend in a coma – a person in a coma is a person ‘sans perception’ – and go and visit them ... and you will notice that your perception of physical reality is still happening irregardless of their perception of it all. Or, go and be with someone in ‘Samadhi’ or ‘Dhyana’ and, though they will swear that time and space and form do not exist, you will notice that your perception of physical reality keeps happening all the while. Or, be with somebody on their death-bed ... and afterwards you will notice that your perception of physical reality keeps on keeping on. RICHARD: You do seem to have missed the point of doing what I suggested. As their perception of ‘physical reality’ is non-existent in all three instances – yet ‘physical reality’ keeps on keeping on irregardless – then the same applies to my perception of ‘physical reality’ in similar circumstances ... ergo: I am not necessary for the planet earth to exist; I am not necessary for the satellite moon to exist; I am not necessary for the central sun to exist; I am not necessary for the ‘Milky Way’ galaxy to exist; I am not necessary for the universe to exist. I am not necessary for time and space and form to exist. RESPONDENT: Reality as we know it is what we perceive it to be. RICHARD: Whereas actuality is what sensory perception directly experiences (physical-on-physical). RESPONDENT: It is still a limited view, an interpretation. RICHARD: How on earth can sensory perception be ‘a view’ ... let alone ‘an interpretation’ ? It is direct experiencing; it is an instant, unswerving, undeviating and straightforward apprehension (physical-on-physical). For example: the physical body is sitting in front of the computer monitor reading this sentence; the physical eyeballs see these words; the physical hand may reach for the words and touch the glass that is but a scant few millimetres to the front of the pixels; the physical fingertips touching physical glass (actual-on-actual) involves no ‘interpretation’ whatsoever to sensuously ascertain its elemental physicality (fingertips-on-glass) existing purely and cleanly as-it-is. Not even thought is required in this sensory perception ... touch is immediate and intimate. Thus it is not ‘a view’ but an experiencing ... of course, micro-seconds after the direct perception, the affective feelings (12-14 milliseconds) then thought (another 12-14 milliseconds) may or may not come into play ... with all that inheres with that activity. Which is why I always advise coming to one’s senses (both literally and figuratively). * RESPONDENT: Our view is limited by what we are ... RICHARD: Whereas sensory perception is not necessarily limited by who ‘I’ am/‘me’ is. RESPONDENT: I/me as memory of past experience plays a less dominant role. RICHARD: Whereas who ‘I’ am/‘me’ really is as the instinctual passionate ‘self’ can be totally absent when blown away with the amazement and wonder of the pristine actuality of sensuous experiencing. * RESPONDENT: ... [our view is limited] by the structure of the brain and the finite sensory apparatus available to us. RICHARD: Whereas sensory perception is not limited by the structure of the brain and the finite sensory apparatus, which perception the flesh and blood body intimately is, any more than any other actuality is necessarily limited by the present structure of the material and the current finite form it is. RESPONDENT: If the physical is limited and perception is not other than the physical, how does it follow it is not limited? RICHARD: But where ‘does it follow’ that sensory perception is ‘not limited’? I specifically wrote that it (the actuality which is perceiving) is not limited (by the structure of the brain and the finite sensory apparatus) any more than what any other actuality (what is being perceived) is necessarily limited (by the present structure of the material and its current finite form). For example: the finger-tip is not necessarily any more limited by form and function than the glass is necessarily limited by form and function ... being both made of the self-same stuff there is an equivalence. Whereas you are making the case that ‘our view is limited by what we are’ (by the structure of the brain and the finite sensory apparatus) only because you say there is a perception wherein (what you further below call ‘so-called physical reality’) can be viewed as ‘immeasurable energy’ which energy is, as you have previously conveyed, a non-physical energy known as intelligence, truth, otherness ... god (by whatever name). Viz.:
Maybe it is time that you make it clear what the word ‘perception’ means to you? Are you talking of a non-physical perception ... a psychic perception such as a sixth sense, a second sight, an extrasensory perception (ESP) such as clairvoyance or some other form of intuition? * RESPONDENT: Thus, we perceive the world as human’s perceive it. RICHARD: Thus sensory perception perceives actuality directly (actual-on-actual) ... and overarching all the above is apperception (which is limitless). RESPONDENT: Any view is just that – a view, limited. RICHARD: I can easily agree that ‘any view’ is ‘just that – a view’ (any view is indeed a view just as any rose is indeed a rose) ... but you surreptitiously add a further ingredient to your conclusion (‘limited’ ) as if the sentence makes sense to do so (rather than ‘a limited view is just that – a view, limited’). Do you see that it would be helpful to provide some relevant information as to how come ‘any view’ mysteriously becomes ‘a view, limited’ per favour of the abracadabra words ‘is just that’? RESPONDENT: Apperception is limited too but not distorted. RICHARD: In what way is apperception limited ... yet, conversely, not distorted? * RESPONDENT: But our view is not only limited by human biology. RICHARD: Hmm ... in the main ‘our view’ is limited by ‘our’ very presence (‘our view’ being 6.0 billon ‘I’s and/or ‘me’s views). RESPONDENT: That is a conclusion. RICHARD: Aye, I was responding to your conclusion (that not only is it human biology which provides limits) by providing another conclusion ... arguably a deeper and more accurate conclusion than your unexamined conclusion which followed (‘we are initiated at a young age into our culture’s description of reality ... the cultural view is that on-going physical objects ‘exist’ ... that view is perhaps essential to survival and functioning’). That is: in the main ‘our view’ is limited by ‘our’ very presence ... which ‘presence’ is the feeling of being a ‘self’. RESPONDENT: Another conclusion is that separation in thought is illusion. RICHARD: And yet another conclusion is that your conclusion that thought necessarily provides separation is an unexamined conclusion masquerading as a valid foundation upon which to base your resultant conclusion that ‘separation in thought is illusion’ . Or, to put it simply: an erroneous premise always results in a false conclusion. RESPONDENT: The physical body as we know it is also a thought, i.e. memory based. RICHARD: Yet, as thought is a function of the physical body (as is memory), to then say that the physical body is a product of thought is to be preposterous. RESPONDENT: Perception and conception are interrelated. RICHARD: Whereas sensory perception and ‘conception’ are not ‘interrelated’ at all. * RESPONDENT: We are initiated at a young age into our culture’s description of reality. RICHARD: Indeed ... any society, being a grouping of ‘selves’, corroborates, supports and enhances the newest genetically inherited ‘self’s intuitive description (the blind initiating the blind). RESPONDENT: Maybe the idea of being separate selves is part of the programming. RICHARD: This is because the ‘idea’ of being separate selves arises out of the feeling of being a separate self (the affective feelings exist prior to thought). The feeling of ‘presence’, in other words. * RESPONDENT: The cultural view is that on-going physical objects ‘exist’. RICHARD: Well now ... they do ‘get it right’ some of the time, you know. RESPONDENT: A wave is actually a localized movement of water. RICHARD: Or, more accurately, a wave is a radiating movement *in* a body of water ... the water per se does not ‘move’ of itself. When the movement in the water meets the shelving beach, having nowhere else to go, it dissipates ... leaving the water raised-up by the shelving sea-bottom to crash due to gravity. That the movement in the water needs to contact an immovable object (a beach or rocks and so on) to unleash its power upon dissolution is demonstrated, for example, when a ship at sea is not only not affected by a tsunami (generated by an underwater explosion) but, most likely, it is not even noticed passing under the keel. This is something I learned as a child tossing stones into a pond and watching the ripples radiate outward (due to the energy released through displacement) ... floating a few twigs in appropriate positions and watching them bob up and down with/on the ripple (but not moving outward) clearly demonstrated that the water itself (the ripple) does not move outward (horizontally) at all. Which is what happens in the Southern Ocean when a massive ice-burg breaks free of the Continental Ice Shelf and falls into the ocean. RESPONDENT: That is the nature of all things – energy changing form. RICHARD: Do you really expect me to credulously accept an erroneous conclusion (a wave is ‘energy changing form’) drawn from an inaccurate premise (a wave is ‘a localised movement of water’) as being either the ‘nature of all things’ or even analogous to the ‘nature of all things’? A wave is water before it is a wave, is water whilst it is being a wave and remains water after it has ceased being a wave. ‘Tis nothing but a psittacism you present. * RESPONDENT: That view [the cultural view that on-going physical objects ‘exist’] is perhaps essential to survival and functioning. RICHARD: Why ‘perhaps essential’? As the physical-world does exist it is indeed essential. Just stop eating the ‘perhaps essential’ physical food for 5+ months and see what happens; just stop drinking the ‘perhaps essential’ physical water for 5+ days and see what happens; just stop breathing the ‘perhaps essential’ physical air for 5+ minutes and see what happens; just stop the ‘perhaps essential’ physical heart beating for 5+ seconds and see what happens. Either that or just stop writing drivel. RESPONDENT: How do you know there are not ways of being or existing entirely unknown to you? If we are going to work from assumptions, let us assume there is much we don’t know. RICHARD: Why would I assume there is much I do not know when (in this instance) there is so much that I do know? The ‘way of being or existing’ which you are promoting is not ‘entirely unknown’ to me at all ... I lived that/was that, night and day for eleven years. Thus I intimately know that the ‘I am not the body; the world is not real’ ... um ... ‘way of being or existing’ which the many and various saints, sages and seers promote is indeed drivel. * RESPONDENT: But we are not taught to see energy directly, i.e. without the filter of ideation. RICHARD: Are you referring to the physical-world energy ... or the metaphysical-world ‘energy’ (and is there a prize for guessing correctly)? RESPONDENT: Discussion of what we don’t understand we tend to label as metaphysical because to us it is just that. RICHARD: Whereas what I label as ‘metaphysical’ is that which is indeed metaphysical. * RESPONDENT: To see the world or so-called physical reality ... RICHARD: If I may interject? Just stop waiting for a gap to occur in the stream of ‘so-called physical’ cars, trucks, buses and trams on a highway before crossing and see what happens ... you will intimately experience what ‘so-called physical’ time (and motion), what ‘so-called physical’ space (and distance) and what ‘so-called physical’ form (and function) are in a practical and very demonstrable way. One experience is worth a thousand words. RESPONDENT: If perception of a dimension previously hidden is added, does it change the actual properties of what is perceived? RICHARD: Indeed it does not ... I find it so blatantly palteristic, when watching a video of some saint, sage or seer (discoursing on ‘Timelessness’ or ‘I am not the body; the world is not real’) where they look at their watch and say ‘enough for now; Evening Darshan will be at 6.00 PM’ and walk a physical body through physical space off the stage taking physical time to do so, that it amazes me they have got away with it for so long. RESPONDENT: Obviously not, but what is actually occurring is seen in a different way. RICHARD: And therein lies the rub ... they will not examine what their inner experience affectively tells them is primary, or prior to, time and space and form. None of them. * RESPONDENT: ... [to see the world] as immeasurable energy means that the stranglehold that the cultural view has over our perception has loosened its grip. RICHARD: Ha ... which culture? Because the eastern cultures, generally speaking, inculcate ‘the cultural view’ that physical reality is ‘immeasurable energy’ (God or Truth by whatever name) from the moment of parturition ... and their ‘cultural view’ is insidiously spreading through the western cultures (inasmuch as it is being force-fed to the newest recruits to the culture with the mother’s milk, as it were). I kid you not ... I live in an area where such is now the norm. RESPONDENT: I can only speak to the dominant cultural view here which is the conventional view of physical reality that you seem to endorse. RICHARD: Whereas the ‘dominant cultural view’ where I live is the conventional (eastern) view of physical reality that you seem to endorse. May I ask what the rationale is behind replacing a particular culture’s conventual view with another culture’s conventional view? On what evidence do you base the wisdom of so doing? Does their cultural view eliminate the malice and sorrow which epitomises the human condition? Is their society released from the need for police, judges, juries and jails after the passage of thousands and thousands of years of inculcating their babies with their conventional cultural view? In other words: are they happy and harmless ... demonstrably living in peace and harmony? Incidentally, the Christian-based societies are a minority in regards the world’s population in numbers – it is the twenty-first century for maybe only one-sixth of the peoples on this planet – and there are as many, if not more, people of Indian ethnicity alone (just over 1,000,000,000) as there is nominal Christians (not to mention many more than a billion others on the Asian continent with a similar cultural view of the nature of physicality). Are you so sure it is indeed the ‘dominant cultural view’ ... and have you heard of the term ‘ethnocentricity’? * RESPONDENT: It doesn’t mean that a tree only falls in the forest if we see it fall and all that nonsense. RICHARD: You may very well be surprised at the number of otherwise intelligent human beings who have either baldly trotted out that psittacism to me over the past twenty-odd years ... or ... RESPONDENT: It means that in absolute energetic terms, there is no tree apart from consciousness. RICHARD: ... or who have adroitly trotted out a sophisticated version of that psittacism to me over the past twenty-odd years. RESPONDENT: What does the number of years have to do with anything? RICHARD: It has to do with how many years a large number of otherwise intelligent human beings have either baldly trotted out that psittacism to me or who have adroitly trotted out a sophisticated version ... you are simply yet another one of the many. RESPONDENT: Is there a competition as to the number of years of great peace you have under your belt? RICHARD: No, not at all ... I am simply relating how long that the tired old aphorism has been trotted out to me (before I started examining consciousness nobody came out with those kind of things to me). Such psittacisms come with the territory, it seems. RESPONDENT: All that time stuff is just ego and I’ve known that for an extremely long time. LOL RICHARD: But because ‘all that time stuff’ is not, in fact, ‘just ego’ then what you have known for ‘an extremely long time’ is an inaccurate and dishonest truth ... and, given all the misery and mayhem engendered, I am hard pushed to find it quite as hilarious as you do. Having learned to appreciate ‘black humour’ helps, though. * RESPONDENT: That is not to say that a particular brain’s thought process creates the tree. RICHARD: Let me guess ... it is the universal mind (by whatever name) that creates the tree? RESPONDENT: It is what it is whatever you and I think about it not withstanding. RICHARD: I was asking you what it is (seeing that you raised the subject as if that tired old aphorism was valid and related to this discussion) ... I was not asking for a philosophical cop-out such as this one you provide in place of an honest answer. * RESPONDENT: Seeing or perceiving no true division between mind and matter ... RICHARD: And of course you do not mean ‘mind’ as in the physical brain in action ... but, rather ‘mind’ as in the universal mind (by whatever name)? RESPONDENT: See the above. RICHARD: Yes I do ...and as I see a cop-out this one makes it two cop-outs in one e-mail. * RESPONDENT: ... it can not rightly be said that separate things exist nor can it be said they are dreamed or imagined or that they are non-existent. RICHARD: If one has swallowed that eastern religious/spiritual/mystical package hook, line and sinker ... then of course it cannot ‘rightly be said that separate things exist nor can it be said they are dreamed or imagined or that they are non-existent’ . The only thing that can ‘rightly be said’ then is either ‘I am That’ (if one is brazen) or ‘There is That’ (if one is coy). I would presume he who said ‘never the twain shall meet’ would never have envisaged such an abject sell-out, eh? RESPONDENT: Swallow implies belief. RICHARD: It certainly does ... but further than mere gullibility it also implies gullibility hand-in-glove with arrant self-centredness. RESPONDENT: Maybe you have swallowed your own beliefs? LOL RICHARD: And what beliefs are they that you discern (or else is this a meaningless comment masquerading under the appearance of you knowing something significant)? And whilst on the subject of meaninglessness: did you notice that your responses in this post started out pathetic, became dismal about mid-way ...and wound up being abysmal at the end? Maybe it is because the direct and intimate sensate feeling of those ‘so-called physical’ fingertips tapping on the ‘so-called physical’ keyboard belies your (adopted) eastern religious/spiritual/mystical ‘cultural view’ that ‘the on-going physical objects’ only seem to exist (insomuch that the word ‘exist’ needs to be put in scare quotes). Viz.:
If so, and if you keep on tapping on the keyboard, you may eventually come to your senses.
RESPONDENT: There is only a dream when there is a dreamer. There is only a dreamer when there is a dream. They are one though they may seem to be separate. The observer is the observed, they each ‘exist’ but only in relationship. They are perceived as unitary by an attention that is free of the subject/object split. That is, this attention has a certain independence or freedom of observation that is not operating when the view is from an isolated centre. To understand the nature of this attention, it has to be actually operating or there has to have been at least moments of attention. RICHARD: Where you say ‘there is only a dream when there is a dreamer’ you have my full concurrence (the conclusion ‘there is only a dreamer when there is a dream’ is but a reversed tautology or an abstract deduction signifying nothing of substance) ... but where you go on to relate a metaphysical experience (‘the observer is the observed’) is where you and I diverge. Where the dreamer is extinct ... all the remainder which you write of does not occur, happen or exist in any way, shape or manner whatsoever. What is, then, is peace on earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body only. RESPONDENT: To experience oneself as flesh and blood body existing apart from its environment in time is a description that we learn. RICHARD: More than likely ... yet as that is neither the description I provide nor the on-going experiencing which is occurring here it has nothing to do with me or what I report. RESPONDENT: If one is just a flesh and blood body that begins at birth and ends at death there is no peace because you as flesh and blood body are always at risk of harm and destruction. RICHARD: I am but a missed heartbeat or two away from death each moment again ... or, to put it another way, the absolute imminence of death is an ever-present fact in my life. If it were not for death I could not be happy and harmless. RESPONDENT: You say that it is the universe that is experiencing a particular body. RICHARD: Yes. Or, rather, ‘experiencing [itself as] a particular body’ (I am this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe experiencing itself as an apperceptive flesh and blood body; as such this universe is stunningly aware of its own infinitude). The universe is also experiencing itself as this cat and that cat and this dog and that dog and so on ad infinitum. RESPONDENT: As that which is experiencing is aware or attends and is not bounded by anything or limited to a particular form or pattern, why say there is only the flesh and blood body? RICHARD: Because it is the fact that what I am is this flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: A perception/ description of form as flesh and blood body is one-sided. What is formed is shaped with the unformed. They are energetically one and the same. RICHARD: As you sensibly advised me earlier in this thread ‘to leave the metaphysical baggage
behind’
RESPONDENT: There is only a dream when there is a dreamer. There is only a dreamer when there is a dream. They are one though they may seem to be separate. The observer is the observed, they each ‘exist’ but only in relationship. They are perceived as unitary by an attention that is free of the subject/object split. That is, this attention has a certain independence or freedom of observation that is not operating when the view is from an isolated centre. To understand the nature of this attention, it has to be actually operating or there has to have been at least moments of attention. RICHARD: Where you say ‘there is only a dream when there is a dreamer’ you have my full concurrence (the conclusion ‘there is only a dreamer when there is a dream’ is but a reversed tautology or an abstract deduction signifying nothing of substance) ... but where you go on to relate a metaphysical experience (‘the observer is the observed’) is where you and I diverge. Where the dreamer is extinct ... all the remainder which you write of does not occur, happen or exist in any way, shape or manner whatsoever. What is, then, is peace on earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body only. RESPONDENT: To experience oneself as flesh and blood body existing apart from its environment in time is a description that we learn. RICHARD: More than likely ... yet as that is neither the description I provide nor the on-going experiencing which is occurring here it has nothing to do with me or what I report. RESPONDENT: Let’s see. You are experiencing and reporting what it is that you are experiencing but there is no one that is experiencing and reporting it? Hmm ... . RICHARD: Yet it is a straightforward response that I wrote: you said that to experience oneself as a flesh and blood body existing ‘apart from its environment in time’ is a learnt description and I agreed that this was more than likely (not wanting to digress at this point into other factors contributing to whatever it was which prompted your description). And, as I do not experience being apart from the environment (I am nothing else but this very stuff the environment is) I replied that as that is neither the description I provide nor the on-going experiencing which is occurring here it has nothing to do with me or what I report. There is nary a trace of anything paradoxical or arcane in what I said. * RESPONDENT: If one is just a flesh and blood body that begins at birth and ends at death there is no peace because you as flesh and blood body are always at risk of harm and destruction. RESPONDENT No. 39: I think what Richard is saying is very simple: ‘what’ I am is a flesh and blood body. There is no ‘who’. RESPONDENT: Yeah I have heard that repeated assertion for years now. He is a selfless self, a psyche reporting there is no psyche and having a grand time being without one too. LOL. RICHARD: I am indeed having a ‘grand time’ sans ‘self’/‘psyche’ ... yet as a ‘selfless self’ and ‘a psyche reporting there is no psyche’ is an oxymoronic intrapolation inserted into my description the remainder of what you write and find so hilarious has nothing to do with me or what I report. There is nothing contradictory or enigmatic here in this actual world.
CORRESPONDENT No. 12 (Part Twelve) 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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