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Actual Freedom – Mailing List ‘B’ Correspondence

Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’

with Respondent No. 12

Some Of The Topics Covered

duality and separation – difficulty in discussing in functional terms – speaking of what you know and not just looking – a focussed response – what the word ‘persuade’ literally means – taking or following advice – there is no ‘centre’ lurking about in actuality the – Truth, if it be not capricious, has a penchant for partiality – there is nothing other than the infinite, eternal and perpetual physical – a philosophical cop-out – there is nothing dualistic and/or divided here in actuality – a design concocted by thought – what people will do to avoid taking the first step – sincerely wanting to end the play – the ‘chicken or the egg’ theme – whatever happens concomitant to taking the first step happens of its own accord – deserting the sinking ship – the most soultistical belief of all – a ‘fantasy or belief’ requires assertion whereas matter is a tangibly observable fact – why is ‘the ground or energetic source’ arising maliciously and sorrowfully (thus requiring its antidotal love and compassion) rather than arising happily and harmlessly in the first place? – birds neither sing nor have a song – how can ecstasy, sorrow, malice and despair possibly be the action of intelligence? – a mockery of the very meaning of what the word ‘intelligence’ stands for – issues personally inquired into, relentlessly, for eleven years

June 30 2001:

RESPONDENT No. 19: Everything is *now*, inside; outside. It doesn’t matter where you start. I’m not talking about some discarnate, bodiless, incorporeal thing in some no-time-no-space sort of existence.

RESPONDENT: LOL – Richard is that you? That is a dualistic interpretation. What is corporeal is an aspect of what is incorporeal if you want to use that term. They are not separate.

RICHARD: Let me see if I comprehend: Richard has said repeatedly there is nothing other than the infinite, eternal and perpetual ‘corporeal’ and you say (in effect if not specifically) ‘that is a dualistic interpretation’. You then say ‘what is corporeal is an aspect of what is incorporeal’ (as if that is somehow not a dualistic interpretation) ... and then propose a solution to the dualistic dilemma you thus create by restating the eastern cultural truth that ‘they are not separate’ (which non-separative altered state of consciousness requires thoughtless meditation in order to have come into being)?

Have I understood you correctly?

July 02 2001:

RESPONDENT No. 19: Everything is *now*, inside; outside. It doesn’t matter where you start. I’m not talking about some discarnate, bodiless, incorporeal thing in some no-time-no-space sort of existence.

RESPONDENT: LOL – Richard is that you? That is a dualistic interpretation. What is corporeal is an aspect of what is incorporeal if you want to use that term. They are not separate.

RICHARD: Let me see if I comprehend: Richard has said repeatedly there is nothing other than the infinite, eternal and perpetual ‘corporeal’ and you say (in effect if not specifically) ‘that is a dualistic interpretation’. You then say ‘what is corporeal is an aspect of what is incorporeal’ (as if that is somehow not a dualistic interpretation) ... and then propose a solution to the dualistic dilemma you thus create by restating the eastern cultural truth that ‘they are not separate’ (which non-separative altered state of consciousness requires thoughtless meditation in order to have come into being)? Have I understood you correctly?

RESPONDENT: If we can understand the nature of the centre as time, it may be possible to understand the nature of what is centreless or timeless. When we say time in this context we mean the past as accumulated knowledge and experience that is moving toward a projected future. In this field of the known, there is a gap between here and there, between observing subject and the objects observed. And by separating from what is observed we say we are looking objectively at what we observe including the body we call our own. It is as if we are a localized awareness apart from the body looking at it. What is looking? One part of the brain that is the accumulated past is looking at phenomena that is divided into mine and not mine. It is as if we are an isolated centre that looks and controls. So we say I have a body, I have thoughts and feelings, etc. and there is always that duality of the separate subject apart from object. There is the thinker and the thought, the experiencer and the experience, the knower and the known, the mind and the body. Can we agree that although there are variations, this is the common human experience?

RICHARD: Let me see if I have grasped the import of your response:

First, I have said repeatedly there is nothing other than the infinite, eternal and perpetual ‘corporeal’ and you said (in effect if not specifically) ‘that is a dualistic interpretation’ ... yet in looking through your response I cannot see where you have addressed the subject at all (the very subject which you raised, amidst lots of laughter, that my oft-repeated report of directly experiencing actuality is a ‘dualistic interpretation’). So I will rephrase it: how can something wherein there is no other possibly be considered to be a ‘dualistic interpretation’?

Second, you then said ‘what is corporeal is an aspect of what is incorporeal’ as if that was somehow not a dualistic interpretation ... yet in looking through your response I cannot see where you have even begun to address this valid point I raised. So I will rephrase it: how can something wherein there is the other possibly be considered to be non-dualistic?

Third, you then proposed a solution to the dualistic dilemma you thus created by restating the eastern cultural truth that ‘they are not separate’ (which non-separative altered state of consciousness requires thoughtless meditation in order to have come into being) ... yet what you come back with is a lot of dualistic metaphysical baggage that does not address the non-separative altered state of consciousness issue at all. For example:

• [Respondent]: ‘... understand the nature of the centre as time’.
• [Respondent]: ‘... understand the nature of what is centreless or timeless’.
• [Respondent]: ‘... the body we call our own’.
• [Respondent]: ‘... a localized awareness apart from the body looking at it’.
• [Respondent]: ‘... an isolated centre that looks and controls’.
• [Respondent]: ‘... the thinker and the thought’.
• [Respondent]: ‘... the experiencer and the experience’.
• [Respondent]: ‘... the knower and the known’.
• [Respondent]: ‘... the mind and the body’.

There is no ‘centre as time’ to have to understand in actuality; there is no ‘centreless or timeless’ in actuality to have to understand; there is no ‘body we call our own’ in actuality; there is no ‘localised awareness apart from the body’ in actuality; there is no ‘isolated centre that looks and controls’ in actuality; there is no ‘thinker’ in actuality; there is no ‘experiencer’ in actuality; there is no ‘knower’ in actuality; there is no ‘mind and body’ (no mind apart from the body) in actuality.

Do you have some difficulty in discussing in functional terms?

July 03 2001:

RESPONDENT No. 19: Everything is *now*, inside; outside. It doesn’t matter where you start. I’m not talking about some discarnate, bodiless, incorporeal thing in some no-time-no-space sort of existence.

RESPONDENT: LOL – Richard is that you? That is a dualistic interpretation. What is corporeal is an aspect of what is incorporeal if you want to use that term. They are not separate.

RICHARD: Let me see if I comprehend: Richard has said repeatedly there is nothing other than the infinite, eternal and perpetual ‘corporeal’ and you say (in effect if not specifically) ‘that is a dualistic interpretation’. You then say ‘what is corporeal is an aspect of what is incorporeal’ (as if that is somehow not a dualistic interpretation) ... and then propose a solution to the dualistic dilemma you thus create by restating the eastern cultural truth that ‘they are not separate’ (which non-separative altered state of consciousness requires thoughtless meditation in order to have come into being)? Have I understood you correctly?

RESPONDENT: If we can understand the nature of the centre as time, it may be possible to understand the nature of what is centreless or timeless. When we say time in this context we mean the past as accumulated knowledge and experience that is moving toward a projected future. In this field of the known, there is a gap between here and there, between observing subject and the objects observed. And by separating from what is observed we say we are looking objectively at what we observe including the body we call our own. It is as if we are a localized awareness apart from the body looking at it. What is looking? One part of the brain that is the accumulated past is looking at phenomena that is divided into mine and not mine. It is as if we are an isolated centre that looks and controls. So we say I have a body, I have thoughts and feelings, etc. and there is always that duality of the separate subject apart from object. There is the thinker and the thought, the experiencer and the experience, the knower and the known, the mind and the body. Can we agree that although there are variations, this is the common human experience?

RICHARD: Let me see if I have grasped the import of your response: First, I have said repeatedly there is nothing other than the infinite, eternal and perpetual ‘corporeal’ and you said (in effect if not specifically) ‘that is a dualistic interpretation’ ... yet in looking through your response I cannot see where you have addressed the subject at all (the very subject which you raised, amidst lots of laughter, that my oft-repeated report of directly experiencing actuality is a ‘dualistic interpretation’). So I will rephrase it: how can something wherein there is no other possibly be considered to be a ‘dualistic interpretation’? Second, you then said ‘what is corporeal is an aspect of what is incorporeal’ as if that was somehow not a dualistic interpretation ... yet in looking through your response I cannot see where you have even begun to address this valid point I raised. So I will rephrase it: how can something wherein there is the other possibly be considered to be non-dualistic? Third, you then proposed a solution to the dualistic dilemma you thus created by restating the eastern cultural truth that ‘they are not separate’ (which non-separative altered state of consciousness requires thoughtless meditation in order to have come into being) ... yet what you come back with is a lot of dualistic metaphysical baggage that does not address the non-separative altered state of consciousness issue at all.

RESPONDENT No. 19: The contradiction of No. 12’s argument is quite obvious when he gives credence to his own duality by saying ‘they’ are not separate.’ That’s is all that needs to be pointed out.

RESPONDENT: Argument? Is that a Freudian slip? What happened to your not speaking of what you know but just looking? That is a big part of the problem. People start out saying that don’t know but discussion reveals that they know way too much. Why did K refer to the observer being the observed if he says there is no separate observer? To listen you can’t get too caught up in the words.

RICHARD: If I may point out? It was your words which prompted this thread (where, amidst lots of laughter, you made it abundantly clear that you were ‘speaking of what you know and not just looking’). Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘LOL – Richard is that you? That is a dualistic interpretation. What is corporeal is an aspect of what is incorporeal if you want to use that term. They are not separate’.

This post will make it the third time I have drawn your attention to your very own words:

Question No. 1: how can something wherein there is no other possibly be considered to be a ‘dualistic interpretation’?
Question No. 2: how can something wherein there is the other possibly be considered to be non-dualistic?
Question No. 3: is not the solution to the dualistic dilemma you thus create (wherein you restate the eastern cultural truth that ‘they are not separate’) nothing other than a non-separative altered state of consciousness which requires thoughtless meditation in order to have come into being?

Plus your lack of focussed response raised a supplementary question:

Question No. 3 (a): Why do you come back with a lot of dualistic metaphysical baggage that does not address the non-separative altered state of consciousness issue at all?

‘Tis just as well that I am not holding my breath waiting for a ‘just looking’ response.

*

RICHARD: [... yet what you come back with is a lot of dualistic metaphysical baggage that does not address the non-separative altered state of consciousness issue at all]. For example: [Respondent]: ‘... understand the nature of the centre as time’; ‘... understand the nature of what is centreless or timeless’; ‘... the body we call our own’; ‘... a localized awareness apart from the body looking at it’; ‘... an isolated centre that looks and controls’; ‘... the thinker and the thought’; ‘... the experiencer and the experience’; ‘... the knower and the known’; ‘... the mind and the body’ [endquotes]. There is no ‘centre as time’ to have to understand in actuality; there is no ‘centreless or timeless’ in actuality to have to understand; there is no ‘body we call our own’ in actuality; there is no ‘localised awareness apart from the body’ in actuality; there is no ‘isolated centre that looks and controls’ in actuality; there is no ‘thinker’ in actuality; there is no ‘experiencer’ in actuality; there is no ‘knower’ in actuality; there is no ‘mind and body’ (no mind apart from the body) in actuality.

RESPONDENT: If your goal is persuasion ...

RICHARD: If I may interject so as to pre-empt you developing your thesis in even greater detail ... my current ‘goal’ (in this thread) is to have you satisfactorily explain (a) how something wherein there is no other can possibly be considered to be a ‘dualistic interpretation’ and (b) how something wherein there is the other can possibly be considered to be non-dualistic and (c) how it is that the solution you propose to the dualistic dilemma you create (wherein you restate the eastern cultural truth that ‘they are not separate’) is nothing other than a non-separative altered state of consciousness which requires thoughtless meditation in order to have come into being?

Until a focussed response occurs any endeavour on my part to persuade you to look at a third alternative to either materialism or spiritualism would only be falling upon deaf ears.

RESPONDENT: ... you have to do better than throw out a bunch of your conclusions without explaining what you mean or without asking what those that you speak with mean.

RICHARD: First, I was responding to a bunch of your conclusions (arranged around your core conclusion that my report of my on-going experiencing is a ‘dualistic interpretation’).

Second, as you had sensibly advised me earlier (in another thread) ‘to leave the metaphysical baggage behind’ I responded only with descriptions of what operates in actuality.

Lastly, after all the e-mails we have exchanged, surely it must be obvious that I already know what you mean without having to ask you again and again?

RESPONDENT: But what is the point in trying to persuade?

RICHARD: So as to facilitate and/or enable peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body?

RESPONDENT: Persuasion concerns belief, not truth.

RICHARD: Not necessarily ... the word ‘persuade’ literally means facilitating or enabling someone to see for themselves by, through or via advice (‘ad- + vise’=‘to see’) such as advising someone of an alternative to what is currently being seen. Speaking personally, I have no problems about taking advice on any subject I am deficient in ... or in following the advice provided by somebody that demonstrably knows of what they speak.

But I do understand that taking or following another’s advice is an anathema for a K-reader ... for did not Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti advise peoples to not take advice or follow another’s advice?

RESPONDENT: You assert that there is no centre in actuality.

RICHARD: Primarily, I am sharing my experience (as in advising my fellow human beings that there is an alternative to the tried and failed) ... what they do with this information is their own business, of course.

RESPONDENT: But in fact the centre has a physical basis and as such is actual as are the effects of acting from the centre.

RICHARD: Yet there is no ‘centre’ lurking about in actuality (cunningly cultivating an altered state of consciousness wherein there is, supposedly, an awareness without the centre).

RESPONDENT: These are facts that can be examined by anyone that is interested. Likewise awareness without the centre is realised where there is genuine interest.

RICHARD: Hmm ... a ‘genuine interest’ in what? Speaking personally, I have only ever been interested in peace-on-earth.

July 04 2001:

RESPONDENT No. 19: The contradiction of No. 12’s argument is quite obvious when he gives credence to his own duality by saying ‘they’ are not separate.’ That’s is all that needs to be pointed out.

RESPONDENT: Argument? Is that a Freudian slip? What happened to your not speaking of what you know but just looking? That is a big part of the problem. People start out saying that don’t know but discussion reveals that they know way too much. Why did K refer to the observer being the observed if he says there is no separate observer? To listen you can’t get too caught up in the words.

RICHARD: If I may point out? It was your words which prompted this thread (where, amidst lots of laughter, you made it abundantly clear that you were ‘speaking of what you know and not just looking’). Viz.: [Respondent]: ‘LOL – Richard is that you? That is a dualistic interpretation. What is corporeal is an aspect of what is incorporeal if you want to use that term. They are not separate’ [endquote]. This post will make it the third time I have drawn your attention to your very own words: Question No. 1: how can something wherein there is no other possibly be considered to be a ‘dualistic interpretation’? Question No. 2: how can something wherein there is the other possibly be considered to be non-dualistic? Question No. 3: is not the solution to the dualistic dilemma you thus create (wherein you restate the eastern cultural truth that ‘they are not separate’) nothing other than a non-separative altered state of consciousness which requires thoughtless meditation in order to have come into being? Plus your lack of focussed response raised a supplementary question: Question No. 3 (a): Why do you come back with a lot of dualistic metaphysical baggage that does not address the non-separative altered state of consciousness issue at all? ‘Tis just as well that I am not holding my breath waiting for a ‘just looking’ response.

RESPONDENT: You can’t make what is undivided into something known.

RICHARD: Why not? To see is to apprehend that there is no division ... voila!

RESPONDENT: It can not be approached through logic and analysis.

RICHARD: Why be so parsimonious in your list of no-no’s ... it (‘what is undivided’) cannot be approached at all. All one can do is to prepare the ground and it may or may not come ... and if it comes, it comes uninvited.

Which indicates, if it be not capricious, a penchant for partiality.

RESPONDENT: When I say dualistic I simply mean that there is a division between image and actuality.

RICHARD: Let me see if I comprehend: you say that ‘what is corporeal is an aspect of what is incorporeal’ whereas I say that there is nothing other than the infinite, eternal and perpetual ‘corporeal’ ... whereupon you say that ‘that is a dualistic interpretation’. And when I ask (three times) for a focussed response regarding your ‘that is a dualistic interpretation’ statement you say that it simply means that there is ‘a division between image and actuality’?

Am I to take it that when you say ‘what is corporeal is an aspect of what is incorporeal’ there is no ‘division between image and actuality’ in that statement ... whereas when I say there is nothing other than the infinite, eternal and perpetual ‘corporeal’ there is indeed ‘a division between image and actuality’ in that statement?

Am I also to take it that this is the sum total of your ‘just looking’ response?

Perhaps if I were to re-phrase it (as a possible way through this impasse)? Viz.:

• [Person ‘A’]: ‘what is physical is an aspect of what is non-physical’.
• [Person ‘B’]: ‘there is nothing other than the infinite, eternal and perpetual physical’.

Or:

• [Person ‘A’]: ‘what is physical is an aspect of what is metaphysical’.
• [Person ‘B’]: ‘there is nothing other than the infinite, eternal and perpetual physical’.

Or:

• [Person ‘A’]: ‘what is physical is an aspect of what is sacred (aka otherness or truth or god)’.
• [Person ‘B’]: ‘there is nothing other than the infinite, eternal and perpetual physical’.

Does this throw some light upon what is being discussed?

RESPONDENT: To see is to apprehend that there is no division between the body and mind or between matter and consciousness.

RICHARD: Agreed.

RESPONDENT: Seeing is perceptual. It occurs when a veil of thought (which has a physical basis) has fallen away.

RICHARD: In other words, a perceptual seeing such as occurs in a non-separative altered state of consciousness (which required thoughtless meditation in order to have come into being), eh?

*

RESPONDENT: What is the point in trying to persuade?

RICHARD: So as to facilitate and/or enable peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body?

RESPONDENT: Persuasion concerns belief, not truth.

RICHARD: Not necessarily ... the word ‘persuade’ literally means facilitating or enabling someone to see for themselves by, through or via advice (‘ad- + vise’=‘to see’) such as advising someone of an alternative to what is currently being seen. Speaking personally, I have no problems about taking advice on any subject I am deficient in ... or in following the advice provided by somebody that demonstrably knows of what they speak. But I do understand that taking or following another’s advice is an anathema for a K-reader ... for did not Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti advise peoples to not take advice or follow another’s advice?

RESPONDENT: No that is not it.

RICHARD: Yes it is it.

RESPONDENT: To make an ideal of bringing about peace on earth in terms of what you are is not peace on earth.

RICHARD: Agreed.

RESPONDENT: It is struggle to be other than what you are.

RICHARD: Agreed.

RESPONDENT: What is not peaceful can not be made peaceful.

RICHARD: Agreed.

RESPONDENT: It is what it is.

RICHARD: Ahh ... a philosophical cop-out.

*

RESPONDENT: You assert that there is no centre in actuality.

RICHARD: Primarily, I am sharing my experience (as in advising my fellow human beings that there is an alternative to the tried and failed) ... what they do with this information is their own business, of course.

RESPONDENT: But in fact the centre has a physical basis and as such is actual as are the effects of acting from the centre.

RICHARD: Yet there is no ‘centre’ lurking about in actuality (cunningly cultivating an altered state of consciousness wherein there is, supposedly, an awareness without the centre).

RESPONDENT: That is your bias, your conclusion, your experience that is speaking.

RICHARD: Primarily, I am sharing my experience (as in advising my fellow human beings that there is an alternative to the tried and failed). What they do with this information is their own business, of course, which includes dismissing it as my ‘bias’, my ‘conclusion’, my ‘experience’ and so on.

By my estimate you have about 98 more stock-standard responses to work through before you scrape the bottom of the barrel.

RESPONDENT: Attention that is without the centre is something quite other than what you take it for.

RICHARD: Aye, that may very well be the case ... because how could I possibly apprehend just exactly what is going on inasmuch there is no ‘centre’ lurking about here in actuality (cunningly cultivating an altered state of consciousness wherein there is, supposedly, an attention that is without the centre) for me to personally investigate, examine or experience through perceptual seeing.

There is nothing dualistic and/or divided here in actuality.

July 06 2001:

RESPONDENT No. 20: ...I am reminded of Marcel Proust’s lines that we are trapped in acting out last week’s play.

RESPONDENT No. 10: Perfect, and last week you were also trapped in the same place, and the week before, on and on. Your parents were as well, so were theirs, when do we end the ‘play’.

RICHARD: The play ends whenever you sincerely want it to for no one is preventing you from bringing it to an end but yourself. Your freedom is in your hands and your hands only.

RESPONDENT: Freedom is the ending of the ‘me’. The ‘me’ can sincerely want to bring itself to an end, but at best, that only results in the actualisation of an idea, an idea that has many various versions and names. Living in the shadow of an idea is living in illusion, and that illusion survives and is fostered by the belief in its actuality.

RICHARD: I am listening to your insistence (‘but at best that only results in ...’) that any sincerity on the part of ‘me’ in wanting the play to end inevitably produces nothing other than illusion with the same total attention that I am listening to what you wrote to another only six minutes prior to this e-mail. Viz.: [No. 20]: ‘There is the hope, the wish, the desire that it will end, and that helps perpetuate it. That want projects the illusion that something can be done, or something has been done by ‘me’. Seeing the trap, the play in action, is living with the fact, and that brings about its own result’ [endquote]. I am also listening to the nature of what ‘its own result’ is when following the method of ‘living with the fact’ of ‘seeing the trap’ (of all manner of things) which you thoughtfully provided to this Mailing List yesterday: [No. 20]: ‘... we are trapped in acting out last week’s play’ [endquote]. And I will be listening to what you write next, in your several-years-long list of justifications, as to why you will not even contemplate taking the first step.

RESPONDENT No. 20: Listening to another requires moving beyond the limited, narrow images based on past interpretations.

RICHARD: Of course.

RESPONDENT No. 20: It is constant renewal, a fresh beginning.

RICHARD: It certainly is ... it is ever-fresh, novel, never-the-same.

RESPONDENT No. 20: Your point here is based on a confused reading.

RICHARD: Maybe ... or maybe it based upon listening with total attention to the way you shut the door (‘but at best that only results in ...’) with a thought-out conclusion that any sincerity on the part of ‘me’ in wanting the play to end inevitably produces nothing other than illusion.

RESPONDENT No. 20: I have never said that I do not contemplate taking the ‘first step’.

RICHARD: Indeed ... that is why I said it.

RESPONDENT No. 20: The point is that such contemplation cannot achieve non-fragmentation, nor can anything else that originates in ‘me’.

RESPONDENT: Taking the first step toward what you want is the only way to arrive at completion of anything in the physical world. To build a house for example, there is a plan and a step by step procedure. But a step by step approach ...

RICHARD: If I may interject? How is it that ‘taking the first step’ to ‘end the play’ has all-of-a-sudden become a ‘step by step approach’?

RESPONDENT: ... toward perceptual wholeness ...

RICHARD: If I may interject again? How is it that ‘taking the first step’ to ‘end the play’ has all-of-a-sudden become an ‘approach towards perceptual wholeness’?

RESPONDENT: ... can not work because the effort is itself fragmenting.

RICHARD: Yet is it not the case that the ‘fragmenting’ theory can only arise out of the pre-supposed ‘perceptual wholeness’ goal?

RESPONDENT: What is whole is timeless ...

RICHARD: If I may interject yet again? What has all this positing of that ‘what is whole’ and its supposed ‘timeless’ attribute have to do with ‘taking the first step’ to ‘end the play’?

RESPONDENT: ... in the sense that it is only now and not at the end of a process.

RICHARD: How is it that ‘taking the first step’ to ‘end the play’ has all-of-a-sudden become some sort of ‘a process’ ... such that this supposed ‘process’ can then be dismissed by you?

RESPONDENT: In awakening to this timeless dimension ...

RICHARD: If I may interject one more time? How is it that ‘taking the first step’ to ‘end the play’ has all-of-a-sudden become an ‘awakening to this timeless dimension’

RESPONDENT: ... there is equanimity as there is no effort to become. There is an on-going energetic process of change in physical time but what is occurring is a natural process.

RICHARD: If I may ask? What have all these supposed attributes (‘equanimity’, ‘no effort to become’, ‘an on-going energetic process’, ‘what is occurring is a natural process’) of some supposed ‘timeless dimension’ got to do with ‘taking the first step’ to ‘end the play’?

RESPONDENT: It is not brought about by thought, i.e. by my effort and design.

RICHARD: If I may comment? All that you have written above looks remarkably like being nothing but a design concocted by thought ... but I will grant that it took you no effort (other than reading some dead man’s books).

‘Tis fascinating what peoples will get up to so as to avoid taking the first step to end the play, eh?

July 06 2001:

RESPONDENT No. 20: Your point here is based on a confused reading.

RICHARD: Maybe ... or maybe it based upon listening with total attention to the way you shut the door (‘but at best that only results in ...’) with a thought-out conclusion that any sincerity on the part of ‘me’ in wanting the play to end inevitably produces nothing other than illusion.

RESPONDENT No. 20: I have never said that I do not contemplate taking the ‘first step’.

RICHARD: Indeed ... that is why I said it.

RESPONDENT No. 20: The point is that such contemplation cannot achieve non-fragmentation, nor can anything else that originates in ‘me’.

RESPONDENT: Taking the first step toward what you want is the only way to arrive at completion of anything in the physical world. To build a house for example, there is a plan and a step by step procedure. But a step by step approach ...

RICHARD: If I may interject? How is it that ‘taking the first step’ to ‘end the play’ has all-of-a-sudden become a ‘step by step approach’?

RESPONDENT: Taking a step implies that you have an image of what you are now and an idea of the state that you want and are making a calculated effort to bring about that result.

RICHARD: Or, alternatively, ‘taking the first step’ may be nothing more and nothing less mysterious than sincerely wanting to ‘end the play’?

*

RESPONDENT: [But a step by step approach] toward perceptual wholeness ...

RICHARD: If I may interject again? How is it that ‘taking the first step’ to ‘end the play’ has all-of-a-sudden become an ‘approach towards perceptual wholeness’?

RESPONDENT: ‘The play’ implies observation from accumulated knowledge of self which is fragmentation.

RICHARD: But where does this concept of self being ‘fragmentation’ come from?

*

RESPONDENT: [But a step by step approach toward perceptual wholeness] can not work because the effort is itself fragmenting.

RICHARD: Yet is it not the case that the ‘fragmenting’ theory can only arise out of the pre-supposed ‘perceptual wholeness’ goal?

RESPONDENT: A goal implies working toward something known.

RICHARD: Of course.

RESPONDENT: From the perspective of the centre, wholeness is utterly unknown.

RICHARD: Hmm ... how can you posit ‘wholeness’ as a valid goal then (let alone posit a ‘centre’)?

RESPONDENT: So if you are working toward something in the future, that is not it.

RICHARD: Shall we stay with this ‘chicken or the egg’ theme for now and not digress?

*

RESPONDENT: What is whole is timeless ...

RICHARD: If I may interject yet again? What has all this positing of that ‘what is whole’ and its supposed ‘timeless’ attribute have to do with ‘taking the first step’ to ‘end the play’?

RESPONDENT: Are you saying that the first step is the last?

RICHARD: ‘Tis the only step ‘I’/‘me’ can ever take.

RESPONDENT: In what way?

RICHARD: Whatever happens concomitant to taking the first step happens of its own accord.

*

RESPONDENT: [What is whole is timeless] in the sense that it is only now and not at the end of a process.

RICHARD: How is it that ‘taking the first step’ to ‘end the play’ has all-of-a-sudden become some sort of ‘a process’ ... such that this supposed ‘process’ can then be dismissed by you?

RESPONDENT: No, I don’t dismiss any actual process, just the illusory process of moving from the known to the known.

RICHARD: How can you be so sure that ‘what is whole’ and its supposed ‘timeless’ attribute is not an illusion?

*

RESPONDENT: In awakening to this timeless dimension ...

RICHARD: If I may interject one more time? How is it that ‘taking the first step’ to ‘end the play’ has all-of-a-sudden become an ‘awakening to this timeless dimension’.

RESPONDENT: The play is being in virtual time, lost in a masquerade of thought.

RICHARD: How can you be so sure that an ‘awakening to this timeless dimension’ is not to be lost in a masquerade of thoughtless feelings?

*

RESPONDENT: ... there is equanimity as there is no effort to become. There is an on-going energetic process of change in physical time but what is occurring is a natural process.

RICHARD: If I may ask? What have all these supposed attributes (‘equanimity’, ‘no effort to become’, ‘an on-going energetic process’, ‘what is occurring is a natural process’) of some supposed ‘timeless dimension’ got to do with ‘taking the first step’ to ‘end the play’?

RESPONDENT: Effort to become is inherent to the play of self is it not?

RICHARD: How does ‘taking the first step’ to ‘end the play’ all-of-a-sudden turn into ‘the effort to become’?

*

RESPONDENT: It is not brought about by thought, i.e. by my effort and design.

RICHARD: If I may comment? All that you have written above looks remarkably like being nothing but a design concocted by thought ... but I will grant that it took you no effort (other than reading some dead man’s books). ‘Tis fascinating what peoples will get up to so as to avoid taking the first step to end the play, eh?

RESPONDENT: If peace on earth is your only goal as you say, then the peace you claim to be yours has no real meaning as it has not impacted those that interact with you and then in turn those that interact with them.

RICHARD: May I suggest you look-up the word ‘unilateral’ in the dictionary?

RESPONDENT: We exist only in relationship.

RICHARD: Take it easy with this liberal use of the word ‘we’ ... you can include me out of your schemata.

RESPONDENT: If we see that this is so, we realize that we’re all in the same boat.

RICHARD: I deserted the sinking ship years ago.

July 07 2001:

RESPONDENT No. 19: [Richard to No. 10]: I have taken the liberty of snipping your disingenuous question [No. 19: when will we end it?] off the end of the quote so as to not confuse the latest issue [No. 19: which is?] with the previous one [No. 19: want?]. Plus it would appear that you are currently incapable of recognising insincerity [No. 10: As to sincerely wanting, that is almost a need, just at the edge between need and want, however it remains a want] even when it is looking you straight in the face anyway. [No. 19 getting lost]: Is the issue here ‘sincerity,’ or is the issue ‘want?’ Or, is the issue really that No. 10 not only saw that ‘want’ was in a need of a person to ‘want;’ or, even beyond that, is it that No. 10 saw that ‘sincerely wanting’ still remains a ‘want’ – demanding an ‘ego’ ‘wanting’ – even though it is ‘barely a want’? What is the actual issue Richard? Do you know the truth of it? Is it perhaps that No. 10’s ‘eagle eye’ may just see a little bit clearer than yours? Are you just interested in beating No. 10 in a debating contest, or might you just be interested in looking along with him to bring about your so desirable state of ‘peace on Earth in this lifetime?’

RICHARD: The actual issue is ending ‘the play’, of course (‘we are trapped in acting out last week’s play’) ... and it was when I proposed sincerely wanting it to end that it became obvious that the question (‘when will we end the play’) was not a sincere question in the first place. The rest is history. (Richard, List B, No. 19g, 6 July 2001).

RESPONDENT No. 10: So is the play, Richard, for me.

RESPONDENT: Those most caught up in the play are those acting out a role of being free. Thinking I am free of all that is probably the most egotistical belief of all.

RICHARD: Aye ... and feeling ‘I am free of all that’ is the most soultistical belief of all.

August 02 2001:

RESPONDENT No. 00: Throughout your simultaneous existences you expand your consciousness, your ideas, your perceptions, your values. You break away from self-adopted restrictions, and you grow.

RESPONDENT: What is the basis for the assertion that you are an entity that has simultaneous existences, is growing and has a series of lives? What can not be realized as fact in our daily life is either fantasy or belief in some outside authority and leads away from self-knowledge. The energy of insight is not caught up in belief in a self that is expanding. That is the movement of thought.

RICHARD: Maybe the title of this thread (‘The Observer Is There’) says it all ... that the ‘basis for the assertion’ has the same basis as your own basis for the saying (the asserting) that there is a ‘the ground’ into which ‘that universal which is material’ (all time and all space and all form) ‘dies to’? Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘Materialism concludes that matter is the ground. This seems to be Richard’s view. I have not made that assertion. To the contrary I have said that universal which is material dies to the ground. (www.escribe.com/religion/listening/m10931.html).

It is a ‘fantasy or belief’ which requires assertion ... whereas matter is a tangibly observable fact.

August 05 2001:

RESPONDENT No. 00: Throughout your simultaneous existences you expand your consciousness, your ideas, your perceptions, your values. You break away from self-adopted restrictions, and you grow.

RESPONDENT: What is the basis for the assertion that you are an entity that has simultaneous existences, is growing and has a series of lives? What can not be realized as fact in our daily life is either fantasy or belief in some outside authority and leads away from self-knowledge. The energy of insight is not caught up in belief in a self that is expanding. That is the movement of thought.

RICHARD: Maybe the title of this thread (‘The Observer Is There’) says it all ... that the ‘basis for the assertion’ has the same basis as your own basis for the saying (the asserting) that there is a ‘the ground’ into which ‘that universal which is material’ (all time and all space and all form) ‘dies to’? Viz.: [ Respondent]: ‘Materialism concludes that matter is the ground. This seems to be Richard’s view. I have not made that assertion. To the contrary I have said that universal which is material dies to the ground’. [endquote]. It is a ‘fantasy or belief’ which requires assertion ... whereas matter is a tangibly observable fact.

RESPONDENT: When mind is not caught in the movement of time (no separation of observer from observed) matter is directly seen to arise from and die to the ground or energetic source. The tangible is the intangible.

RICHARD: And when ‘mind is not caught in the movement of time’ is it also ‘directly seen’ why matter (all time and all space and all form) would be occasioned to ‘arise from ... the ground or energetic source’ anyway? Furthermore, is it ‘directly seen’ by this timeless mind why ‘the ground or energetic source’ is arising, as human beings, maliciously and sorrowfully (thus requiring its antidotal love and compassion) ... rather than arising happily and harmlessly in the first place?

After all, there is a lot of tangible (‘the tangible is the intangible’) wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides and so on happening because this ‘ground or energetic source’ is arising the way it currently is, eh?

August 14 2001:

RESPONDENT No. 00: Throughout your simultaneous existences you expand your consciousness, your ideas, your perceptions, your values. You break away from self-adopted restrictions, and you grow.

RESPONDENT: What is the basis for the assertion that you are an entity that has simultaneous existences, is growing and has a series of lives? What can not be realized as fact in our daily life is either fantasy or belief in some outside authority and leads away from self-knowledge. The energy of insight is not caught up in belief in a self that is expanding. That is the movement of thought.

RICHARD: Maybe the title of this thread (‘The Observer Is There’) says it all ... that the ‘basis for the assertion’ has the same basis as your own basis for the saying (the asserting) that there is a ‘the ground’ into which ‘that universal which is material’ (all time and all space and all form) ‘dies to’? Viz.: [Respondent]: ‘Materialism concludes that matter is the ground. This seems to be Richard’s view. I have not made that assertion. To the contrary I have said that universal which is material dies to the ground’. [endquote]. It is a ‘fantasy or belief’ which requires assertion ... whereas matter is a tangibly observable fact.

RESPONDENT: When mind is not caught in the movement of time (no separation of observer from observed) matter is directly seen to arise from and die to the ground or energetic source. The tangible is the intangible.

RICHARD: And when ‘mind is not caught in the movement of time’ is it also ‘directly seen’ why matter (all time and all space and all form) would be occasioned to ‘arise from ... the ground or energetic source’ anyway?

RESPONDENT: Why do the birds go on singing? Maybe the answer is the song itself.

RICHARD: Why do you reply with a question and a ‘maybe’ type of response (in lieu of a ‘matter is directly seen’ type of answer)? If you do not know (if it be not ‘directly seen’) why matter would be occasioned to arise ... then why not just say so?

Besides which ... birds neither sing nor have a song anyway.

*

RICHARD: Furthermore, is it ‘directly seen’ by this timeless mind why ‘the ground or energetic source’ is arising, as human beings, maliciously and sorrowfully (thus requiring its antidotal love and compassion) ... rather than arising happily and harmlessly in the first place?

RESPONDENT: Antidotal love and compassion is something false or contrived.

RICHARD: I am only too happy to re-phrase my query: is it ‘directly seen’ by this timeless mind why ‘the ground or energetic source’ is arising, as human beings, maliciously and sorrowfully (thus necessitating true or uncontrived love and compassion) ... rather than arising happily and harmlessly in the first place?

And may I remind you of your very own words to another (further above)? Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘What can not be realised as fact in our daily life is either fantasy or belief ...’.

RESPONDENT: If there is a possibility of ecstasy being realised in the particular, there is also the possibility of sorrow and malice and despair.

RICHARD: Is it ‘directly seen’ by this timeless mind why ‘the ground or energetic source’ is arising with the ‘possibility of ecstasy’ (irrevocably linked with ‘the possibility of sorrow and malice and despair’) ... rather than arising happily and harmlessly in the first place?

How can this possibly be the action of intelligence?

*

RICHARD: After all, there are a lot of tangible (‘the tangible is the intangible’) wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides and so on happening because this ‘ground or energetic source’ is arising the way it currently is, eh?

RESPONDENT: That occurs because of fear which means there is no direct contact, no sense of a living connection with the source of creative intelligence.

RICHARD: Is it ‘directly seen’ by this timeless mind why ‘the ground or energetic source’ (now seen to be ‘the source of creative intelligence’) is arising with (a) ‘fear’ ... and (b) ‘no direct contact’ with itself ... and (c) ‘no sense of a living connection’ with itself? As there are a lot of tangible (‘the tangible is the intangible’) wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides and so on happening because this ‘ground or energetic source’ is arising the way it currently is ... does it not make mockery of the very meaning of what the word ‘intelligence’ stands for?

And I am not being frivolous in asking these questions ... these are the type of issues I personally inquired into, relentlessly, for eleven years.

I just could not continue to live with such duplicity.


CORRESPONDENT No. 12 (Part Thirteen)

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