Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 14

Actual Freedom – Mailing List ‘B’ Correspondence

Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’

with Respondent No. 14

Some Of The Topics Covered

authentic mystical tradition – union – complementary poles – evil – Jalal Rumi – carefree – dark caves – direct experiencing – dead waters – seeking food – divided house – Good and Evil – perfection of the actual world – Good and Evil – perfection of the actual world – starvation – ‘incorrect thought’ – no ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ in the actual world – disassociation – Ludwig Wittgenstein – tortuous tautological treatises

December 08 2000:

RESPONDENT: When their is the realization that the same life flows through all that is and you are that life, you will love naturally and spontaneously.

RICHARD: Sure ... this is indeed what can happen when there is ‘the realisation that ...’ (you will have no demurral from me on that issue). However, what is being discussed (further above), in regards the total absence of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ here in this actual world, is that the initial sentence of mine is a description, a report, 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 – and not upon a realisation. Viz.: [Dictionary Definition]: realisation: the action or an act of realising; a thing produced by or resulting from realising. [Dictionary Definition]: realising: see realise. [Dictionary Definition]: realise: make real or realistic; conceive as real; apprehend with the clearness or detail of reality. In a pure consciousness experience (PCE) it is stunningly obvious that there is no ‘good’ or ‘evil’ here in this actual world ... and it is obvious as a direct experiencing and not as a ‘realisation’.

RESPONDENT: ‘In my world, nothing ever goes wrong’. – Nisargadatta Maharaj, when asked by an interviewer to speak about the problems in his life.

RICHARD: May I ask? Is this quote somehow supposed to show me that Mr. Nisargadatta Maharaj was talking about the total absence of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in this actual world ... the world of this body and that body; the world of the mountains and the streams; the world of the trees and the flowers; the world of the clouds in the sky by day and the stars in the firmament by night and so on ad infinitum? That is, is this quote somehow supposed to show me that Mr. Nisargadatta Maharaj had neither ‘good’ nor ‘evil’ in his life (and had not merely transcended via the ‘Tried and True’ sublimation practice)? If so ... it shows nothing of the sort. And I have already read enough of your tautological words over the last couple of years, in regards to ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in your own solipsistic world, to know where you are at. I am, of course, referring to the world which you take ‘Infinite Responsibility’ for.

RESPONDENT: The same life flows through all that is, love is natural and spontaneous. ‘Smoking, diet, and exercise affect a wide variety of illnesses, but no one has shown that quitting smoking, exercising, or changing diet can double the length of survival in women with metastasis breast cancer, where as the enhanced love and intimacy provided by weekly group support sessions has been shown to do just that’. – Pg. 3, Lover and Survival, the Scientific Basis For the Healing Power of Intimacy. Dean Ornish Harper Collins.

RICHARD: If I may point out? This has nothing whatsoever to do with what is being discussed. Viz.:

• [Richard]: ‘All is carefree in this actual world ... there is no ‘good’ or ‘evil’ here.
• [Respondent No. 52]: ‘Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.’ – Rumi.
• [Richard]: ‘Save those who return to truth and do righteous deeds. God will change their evil into good’. – Mr. Jalal Rumi
• [Respondent]: ‘When their is the realization that the same life flows through all that is and you are that life, you will love naturally and spontaneously.
• [Richard]: ‘In a pure consciousness experience (PCE) it is stunningly obvious that there is no ‘good’ or ‘evil’ here in this actual world ... and it is obvious as a direct experiencing and not as a ‘realisation’.
• [Respondent]: ‘In my world, nothing ever goes wrong’. – Nisargadatta Maharaj.
• [Richard]: ‘Is this quote somehow supposed to show me that Mr. Nisargadatta Maharaj had neither ‘good’ nor ‘evil’ in his life (and had not merely transcended via the ‘Tried and True’ sublimation practice)? If so ... it shows nothing of the sort.
• [Respondent]: ‘Smoking, diet, and exercise affect a wide variety of illnesses, but no one has shown that quitting smoking, exercising, or changing diet can double the length of survival in women with metastasis breast cancer, where as the enhanced love and intimacy provided by weekly group support sessions has been shown to do just that’

Whether someone or some people live longer or not – and whether this is because of whatever – it means nothing at all in regards to enabling peace-on-earth, in this life-time, when they live that longer life nursing malice and sorrow to their bosom.

The discussion is about ‘good’ and ‘evil’ ... and not your red-herrings seeking to maintain the status-quo.

December 09 2000:

RESPONDENT No. 12: Take care.

RICHARD: All is carefree in this actual world ... there is no ‘good’ or ‘evil’ here.

RICHARD: If I may point out? This has nothing whatsoever to do with what is being discussed. Whether someone or some people live longer or not – and whether this is because of whatever – it means nothing at all in regards to enabling peace-on-earth, in this life-time, when they live that longer life nursing malice and sorrow to their bosom. The discussion is about ‘good’ and ‘evil’ ... and not your red-herrings seeking to maintain the status-quo.

RESPONDENT: Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.

RICHARD: You do seem to be missing the point: there is neither ‘good’ nor ‘evil’ in this flesh and blood body.

RESPONDENT: For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?

RICHARD: This seems to be at least somewhat in accord with what I have been saying: ‘good’ cannot exist without ‘evil’ and ‘evil’ cannot exist without ‘good’ ... they co-exist; they go hand-in-hand. There is a well-known saying ‘the lotus blossom has its roots in mud (‘good’ has its roots in ‘evil’) ... it is a symbiotic relationship. There can never, ever be ‘a good that knows no evil’ or ‘a love that knows no hate’ and so on.

Which is why it is carefree here in this actual world ... there is neither ‘good’ nor ‘evil’ here.

RESPONDENT: Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts, it drinks even of dead waters.

RICHARD: Yes, and the ‘hunger’ and the ‘thirst’, of what you call a tortured ‘good’ (aka ‘evil’) is, as a broad generalised categorisation, best described as ‘malice’: the desire to hurt another person; active ill will, spite or hatred; a deep resentment or anger, hatred, rage, sadism and so on through all the variations such as abhorrence; acerbity; acrimony; aggression; anger; animosity; antagonism; antipathy; aversion; bad blood; temper; bellicosity; belligerence; bile; bitchiness; bitterness; cantankerousness; cattiness; crabbiness; crossness; defamation; despisal; detestation; disgust; dislike; dissatisfaction; enmity; envy; evil; execration; grievance; grudge; grudgingness; hard feelings; harm; hate; hatred; hostility; ill feeling; ill will; ill-nature; ill-temper; inimicalness; irascibility; irritability; loathing; malevolence; malignance; malignity; militancy; moodiness; murder; opposition; peevishness; petulance; pique; querulousness; rancour; repulsion; repugnance; resentment; snideness; spite; spitefulness; spleen; spoiling; stifling; sullenness; testiness; touchiness; umbrage; unfriendliness; unkindness; vengefulness; venom; vindictiveness; warlikeness; wrath and many more.

As for the food this tortured ‘good’ (aka ‘evil’) seeks in ‘dark caves’, and the ‘dead waters’ it drinks of ... human history reeks of its sinister nature: 160,000,000 people were killed in wars alone, in the last 100 years, by the pernicious effects of this tortured ‘good’ (aka ‘evil’). All the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and so on bear mute testimony to the ubiquitous spread of this tortured ‘good’ (aka ‘evil’) ... it has a global incidence. No era, no race, no country, no gender, no age group is exempt ... its spread is all-inclusive.

Beyond any doubt whatsoever is it that this tortured ‘good’ (aka ‘evil’) has a lot to answer for ... and all because, presumably, this ‘good’ is thirsting and hungering for union with ‘God’ (by Whatever Name)? Which means that what some people call ‘evil’ is nothing other than ‘good’ tortured by its inability to find ‘God’ (by Whatever Name)?

If so, then what you are saying is that the root cause, of what some people call ‘evil’, is inherent in the longing for ‘God’ (by Whatever Name).

RESPONDENT: You are good when you are one with yourself. Yet when you are not one with yourself you are not evil.

RICHARD: Hmm ... yet you do give a three-point definition of ‘evil’ (further above): ‘what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst’ and ‘when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves’ and ‘when it [good] thirsts, it drinks even of dead waters’. Therefore, what you are saying here, in effect, is ‘when you are not one with yourself you are not a tortured hungry ‘good’ (seeking food in dark caves) nor a tortured thirsty ‘good’ (drinking of dead waters) either. What are you, then, when you are not ‘good’ (being one with yourself) if not your definition of ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’)? This is how it would read according to your definition of ‘evil’:

• ‘Yet when you are not one with yourself you are not the tortured ‘good’’.

Thus your sentence does not make sense when written in alignment with your definition of ‘evil’ ... would you not agree that when you are not one with yourself you are, by your own definition, a tortured ‘good’ (what some people call ‘evil’)? If so, then you now have two definitions of ‘evil’:

1. ‘evil’ is but ‘good’ tortured by its own hunger and thirst (seeking food in dark caves and drinking of dead waters).
2. ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’) is when you are not one with yourself.

RESPONDENT: For a divided house is not a den of thieves; it is only a divided house.

RICHARD: I see ... when you are not ‘good’ (when you are not one with yourself) you are a divided house. You now have three definitions of ‘evil’:

1. ‘evil’ is but ‘good’ tortured by its own hunger and thirst (seeking food in dark caves and drinking of dead waters).
2. ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’) is when you are not one with yourself.
3. ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’) is a divided house.

RESPONDENT: And a ship without rudder may wander aimlessly among perilous isles yet sink not to the bottom.

RICHARD: Bearing in mind that this discussion is about ‘good’ and ‘evil’ then this analogy is extremely weak ... very, very few rudderless ships do not eventually sink. Very few indeed ... as is evidenced by ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’) running riot in the world. To wit: all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and so on.

RESPONDENT: You are good when you strive to give of yourself.

RICHARD: Okay ... you now have two definitions of ‘good’:

1. ‘you are good when you are one with yourself’.
2. ‘you are good when you strive to give of yourself’.

RESPONDENT: Yet you are not evil when you seek gain for yourself.

RICHARD: Ahh ... being selfish, eh? Okay: when you are not ‘good’ (when you do not strive to give of yourself) you are seeking gain for yourself ... you now have four definitions of ‘evil’:

1. ‘evil’ is but ‘good’ tortured by its own hunger and thirst (seeking food in dark caves and drinking of dead waters).
2. ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’) is when you are not one with yourself.
3. ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’) is a divided house.
4. ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’) is when you seek gain for yourself.

RESPONDENT: For when you strive for gain you are but a root that clings to the earth and sucks at her breast. Surely the fruit cannot say to the root, ‘Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance’. For to the fruit giving is a need, as receiving is a need to the root.

RICHARD: Yet the fruit needs the root in the earth drawing nutrients for its very existence. Therefore, in this poetic analogy you are still saying what I am saying: ‘good’ depends upon ‘evil’ for its very existence. If the fruit is so haughty as to claim all the credit for being able to ‘give of its abundance’ without acknowledging the part the root plays (sucking at the breast of the earth) then it denies its own roots ... which is sometimes what happens in the real world as I have already indicated thus:

• ‘there is a good that knows no evil’.

Sound familiar? Yet, as I have already pointed out, there is another analogy: ‘the lotus blossom has its roots in mud’ (‘good’ has its roots in ‘evil’). I am curious to see which way you go in this venture of yours ... whether you will be in denial of your roots or in acknowledgement of your roots.

RESPONDENT: You are good when you are fully awake in your speech.

RICHARD: Here is your third definition of ‘good’:

1. ‘you are good when you are one with yourself’.
2. ‘you are good when you strive to give of yourself’.
3. ‘you are good when you are fully awake in your speech’.

RESPONDENT: Yet you are not evil when you sleep while your tongue staggers without purpose.

RICHARD: You now have five definitions of ‘evil’:

1. ‘evil’ is but ‘good’ tortured by its own hunger and thirst (seeking food in dark caves and drinking of dead waters).
2. ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’) is when you are not one with yourself.
3. ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’) is a divided house.
4. ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’) is when you seek gain for yourself.
5. ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’) is when you sleep while your tongue staggers without purpose.

RESPONDENT: And even stumbling speech may strengthen a weak tongue.

RICHARD: Hmm ... so there is some ‘good’ in ‘evil’, eh?

RESPONDENT: You are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps.

RICHARD: Here is your fourth definition of ‘good’:

1. ‘you are good when you are one with yourself’.
2. ‘you are good when you strive to give of yourself’.
3. ‘you are good when you are fully awake in your speech’.
4. ‘you are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps’.

RESPONDENT: Yet you are not evil when you go thither limping.

RICHARD: You now have six definitions of ‘evil’:

1. ‘evil’ is but ‘good’ tortured by its own hunger and thirst (seeking food in dark caves and drinking of dead waters).
2. ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’) is when you are not one with yourself.
3. ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’) is a divided house.
4. ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’) is when you seek gain for yourself.
5. ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’) is when you sleep while your tongue staggers without purpose.
6. ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’) is when you go thither limping.

RESPONDENT: Even those who limp go not backward.

RICHARD: Again there is some ‘good’ in ‘evil’ ... that makes two occasions:

1. stumbling speech may strengthen a weak tongue.
2. those who limp go not backward.

RESPONDENT: But you who are strong and swift, see that you do not limp before the lame, deeming it kindness.

RICHARD: Translation: you who are ‘good’ should make sure that you do no ‘evil’ (pretend to be a tortured ‘good’) in front of the ‘evil’ people (the tortured ‘good’ people) out of a misplaced feeling that this is a kind thing to do.

RESPONDENT: You are good in countless ways ...

RICHARD: Not really ‘countless’ ways, no ... I make it four ways, so far, by my count. Viz.:

1. ‘you are good when you are one with yourself’.
2. ‘you are good when you strive to give of yourself’.
3. ‘you are good when you are fully awake in your speech’.
4. ‘you are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps’.

RESPONDENT: ... and you are not evil when you are not good. You are only loitering and sluggard.

RICHARD: Okay, by my count (including the ‘selfish’ example) you have delineated seven ‘you are not evil’s, so far. Viz.:

1. ‘evil’ is but ‘good’ tortured by its own hunger and thirst (seeking food in dark caves and drinking of dead waters).
2. ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’) is when you are not one with yourself.
3. ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’) is a divided house.
4. ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’) is when you seek gain for yourself.
5. ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’) is when you sleep while your tongue staggers without purpose.
6. ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’) is when you go thither limping.
7. ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’) is when you are loitering and sluggard.

Thus the score is 7/4 in favour of ‘evil’ (the tortured ‘good’).

RESPONDENT: Pity that the stags cannot teach swiftness to the turtles.

RICHARD: Translation: pity that the saints cannot teach ‘goodness’ to the sinners.

RESPONDENT: In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness: and that longing is in all of you.

RICHARD: Translation: when the lower self (the small ‘s’ self) longs to be in union with the Higher Self (the capital ‘S’ Self) this counts as being evidence of your ‘goodness’.

RESPONDENT: But in some of you that longing is a torrent rushing with might to the sea, carrying the secrets of the hillsides and the songs of the forest. And in others it is a flat stream that loses itself in angles and bends and lingers before it reaches the shore.

RICHARD: Translation: there are some who yearn to be one with ‘God’ more than others do.

RESPONDENT: But let not him who longs much say to him who longs little, ‘Wherefore are you slow and halting?’

RICHARD: Translation: do not rub it in that you are more ‘good’ (doing much more longing for union) than the others.

RESPONDENT: For the truly good ask not the naked, ‘Where is your garment?’ nor the houseless, ‘What has befallen your house?’

RICHARD: Ahh ... and you abruptly finish by introducing a new definition: ‘truly good’ as distinct from ‘good’. Is there another instalment along the way, expanding on what a ‘truly good’ person does, as compared with what a ‘truly evil’ person does (presumably the ‘truly evil’ is the truly tortured ‘truly good’)? It does seem to get ever-more complicated ... yet all this while there never has ever been any ‘good’ or ‘evil’ here in this actual world.

No thirsting and hungering whatsoever ... all is carefree.

December 09 2000:

RESPONDENT No. 12: Take care.

RICHARD: All is carefree in this actual world ... there is no ‘good’ or ‘evil’ here.

RESPONDENT: Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.

RICHARD: You do seem to be missing the point: there is neither ‘good’ nor ‘evil’ in this flesh and blood body.

RESPONDENT: For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?

RESPONDENT: The truly good ask not the naked, ‘Where is your garment?’ nor the houseless, ‘What has befallen your house?’

RICHARD: And you abruptly finish by introducing a new definition: ‘truly good’ as distinct from ‘good’. Is there another instalment along the way, expanding on what a ‘truly good’ person does, as compared with what a ‘truly evil’ person does (presumably the ‘truly evil’ is the truly tortured ‘truly good’)? It does seem to get ever-more complicated ... yet all this while there never has ever been any ‘good’ or ‘evil’ here in this actual world. No thirsting and hungering whatsoever ... all is carefree.

RESPONDENT: ‘Thirst (noun): need for liquid: a desire or need to drink a liquid, or the feeling of dryness in the mouth and throat caused by a need for a liquid; thirsting, (3rd person present singular thirsts): experience thirst: to feel a thirst for a liquid. Hunger (noun): 1. need to eat: the need or desire for food; 2. craving: a great need or desire for something – a hunger for knowledge; hungering, (3rd person present singular hungers)’.

RICHARD: Oh? A definition for ‘hunger’ and ‘thirst’ eh? Okay, shall we apply it to your opening question (further above):? Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?

... now reads:

• [Translation]: ‘what is evil but good tortured by its own need or desire for food; its own craving, its great need or desire for something, its hunger for knowledge ... and its need for liquid, its desire or need to drink a liquid, its feeling of dryness in the mouth and throat caused by a need for a liquid, its thirsting, its feeling of a thirst for a liquid?

May I ask? What is it that you are wishing to convey to me? That all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and so on are caused by a lack of food and water and knowledge? If so, this latest offering of yours does seem to make the ever-more complicated even more convoluted. Yet all this while there never has ever been any complications and convolutions here in this actual world – let alone any ‘good’ or ‘evil’ – hence all is carefree.

Plus there is no lack of food, water and knowledge.

December 09 2000:

RESPONDENT No. 12: Take care.

RICHARD: All is carefree in this actual world ... there is no ‘good’ or ‘evil’ here.

RESPONDENT: Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.

RICHARD: You do seem to be missing the point: there is neither ‘good’ nor ‘evil’ in this flesh and blood body.

RESPONDENT: For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?

RESPONDENT: The truly good ask not the naked, ‘Where is your garment?’ nor the houseless, ‘What has befallen your house?’

RICHARD: Oh? A definition for ‘hunger’ and ‘thirst’ eh? Okay, shall we apply it to your opening question (further above):? Viz.: [Respondent]: ‘what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst? ... now reads: [Translation]: ‘what is evil but good tortured by its own need or desire for food; its own craving, its great need or desire for something, its hunger for knowledge ... and its need for liquid, its desire or need to drink a liquid, its feeling of dryness in the mouth and throat caused by a need for a liquid, its thirsting, its feeling of a thirst for a liquid? May I ask? What is it that you are wishing to convey to me?

RESPONDENT: No wish of anything.

RICHARD: Then why are you writing to me with this dictionary definition of ‘hunger’ and ‘thirst’? Have you nothing better to do than attempt to duck the issue, stray from the point, dodge the question and otherwise obfuscate with sophistry? The discussion is about ‘good’ and ‘evil’ ... and not your red-herrings seeking to maintain the status-quo.

RICHARD: [are you wishing to convey] that all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and so on are caused by a lack of food and water and knowledge?

RESPONDENT: That is a reasonable conclusion.

RICHARD: If I may point out? It is nothing other than the obvious conclusion your offering proposes ... and as you are now saying, in answer to my query as to the intent of your offering, that it is ‘a reasonable conclusion’ then you are tacitly endorsing the notion that all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and so on are caused by a lack of food and water and knowledge.

Never mind that they are actually caused by rampaging ‘good’ and ‘evil’, eh?

RICHARD: If so, this latest offering of yours does seem to make the ever-more complicated even more convoluted.

RESPONDENT: Not so.

RICHARD: I demur. Your poetic metaphors were an ever-more complicated way of disguising the fact that ‘good’ depends upon ‘evil’ ... to which I responded in full. Instead of meeting my response and engaging sincerely you snipped my very last sentence (‘no thirsting and hungering whatsoever ... all is carefree’) from the body of the E-Mail, or positioned it at the top of a blank page ... and provided a dictionary definition of ‘hunger’ and ‘thirst’ that stands in total contradistinction to your poetic and metaphoric ‘hungering’ and ‘thirsting’ meanings.

If it not be so that it be ‘even more convoluted’ ... then it be even more puerile, non?

RICHARD: Yet all this while there never has ever been any complications and convolutions here in this actual world – let alone any ‘good’ or ‘evil’ – hence all is carefree.

RESPONDENT: Well chosen.

RICHARD: Hmm ... what is being discussed (further above), in regards the total absence of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ here in this actual world, is that the initial sentence of mine is a description, a report, 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 – which means that the sentence you say ‘well chosen’ in response to is not ‘well chosen’ at all.

It is a fact ... and seeing the fact means there is no choice.

RICHARD: Plus there is no lack of food, water and knowledge.

RESPONDENT: Starving happens where?

RICHARD: If I may point out? I never, ever said that people are not starving ... I clearly said there is no lack of food, water and knowledge. That people are starving is the result of fiscal rationales, political expediency, economic embargoes and a myriad of other affairs of state that arise because this planet earth is arbitrarily divided into sovereign nations ... all with a hierarchical power structure intent on preserving its own power-base (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul).

This verdant and azure planet – the third from the sun – is eminently capable of watering, feeding, clothing and housing every man, woman and child at a (at the very least) healthy subsistence level ... and many more millions into the bargain. That there are peoples such as yourself intent on preserving the status-quo – the ‘Tried and True’ – instead of engaging in a discussion about the total absence of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in this actual world – then such denial and avoidance will ensure that all the starving goes on forever and a day. This is all in spite of the fact that there is no lack of food, water and knowledge here in this actual world – nor is there any ‘good’ and ‘evil’ here – as all mental and emotional sufferings and their pathetic ‘solutions’ only exist in the ‘inner world’ that is so cherished by one and all.

All is carefree and abundant out here.

December 10 2000:

RESPONDENT No. 12: Take care.

RICHARD: All is carefree in this actual world ... there is no ‘good’ or ‘evil’ here.

RESPONDENT: Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.

RICHARD: You do seem to be missing the point: there is neither ‘good’ nor ‘evil’ in this flesh and blood body.

RESPONDENT: For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?

RICHARD: Your poetic metaphors are an ever-more complicated way of disguising the fact that ‘good’ depends upon ‘evil’.

RESPONDENT: Good and evil depend on no-thing save for a choice to be either good, or to be evil.

RICHARD: Yet I never said that ‘good and evil depend on ...’ (which is what the fictitious question you are responding to would have to look like). I specifically said: ‘good’ depends upon ‘evil’ (and that your poetic metaphors are an ever-more complicated way of disguising that fact). This ‘straw-man’ answer of yours adroitly side-steps addressing the issue.

I am quite happy to discuss the whole question of choice at a later date ... in the meanwhile, however, the statement ‘your poetic metaphors are an ever-more complicated way of disguising the fact that ‘good’ depends upon ‘evil’’ still stands as being accurate.

RESPONDENT: Existence is good, non-existence is not evil.

RICHARD: But as ‘non-existence’ is nothing, zero, nil, zilch, it is not anything at all ... including not hot, not cold, not loving, not hating, not sorrowful, not compassionate, not good, ‘not evil’ and so on ad infinitum (there are no qualities whatsoever to consider and discuss). What has this nonsensical sentence got to do with my statement that your poetic metaphors are an ever-more complicated way of disguising the fact that ‘good’ depends upon ‘evil’ (other than it is another red-herring)?

RICHARD: Yet all this while there never has ever been any complications and convolutions here in this actual world – let alone any ‘good’ or ‘evil’ – hence all is carefree. Plus there is no lack of food, water and knowledge.

RESPONDENT: Starving happens where?

RESPONDENT: This is an incorrect thought.

RICHARD: As it is not a ‘thought’ but a fact then your assessment (as to whether it is either an ‘incorrect’ thought or a ‘correct’ thought) is irrelevant. Neither is it a belief, a theory, a speculation or an opinion (or whatever other way you have of dismissing some fact that pulls the rug from under your elaborate fantasy slyly dressed up as truth and masquerading as being genuine, authentic and valid). And that it is a fact is easy to ascertain: long gone is the epoch of the hunter-gatherer; long gone is the era wherein the human race was at the mercy of the elements for their physical survival; long gone are the times when humans had to eke out an animal-like existence; long gone are the days of full bellies in a time of plenty and starvation in a famine. Nowadays, when famine strikes one part of the world, aid in the form of basic provisions and medical assistance comes flooding in from other areas experiencing plenty (when they are not at war that is). It is patently obvious that this verdant and azure planet – the third from the sun – is eminently capable of watering, feeding, clothing and housing every man, woman and child at a (at the very least) healthy subsistence level ... and many more millions into the bargain.

Thus it is a fact that people are starving as the result of fiscal rationales, political expediency, economic embargoes and a myriad of other affairs of state that arise because this planet earth is arbitrarily divided into sovereign nations ... all with a hierarchical power structure intent on preserving its own power-base (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul).

RESPONDENT: Fiscal rationales, political expediency, economic embargoes and a myriad of other affairs of state are the effects of choices and cause no-thing. That people are starving is the result of a choice to let there be starvation and no-thing else. Fiscal rationales, political expediency, economic embargoes and a myriad of other affairs of state, do not arise from any-thing save the choice to be fiscal rationales, political expediencies, economic embargoes and a myriad of other affairs of state. This planet earth being arbitrarily divided into sovereign nations cause no-thing to arise, but is the effect of the choice to arbitrarily divided into sovereign nations this planet earth.

RICHARD: Hmm ... this ‘everything is the effect of choice’ theme that is running through all your current posts has such an obvious fatal flaw in it that I am somewhat surprised that you have not noticed it.

RESPONDENT: No, there is no intent or interest in preserving the way things are now, the condition or state of affairs that currently exists.

RICHARD: If this is truly the case then cease re-presenting the regurgitated same-old same-old that has been tried and tried for at least 3,000 to 5,000 years of recorded history ... and has failed and failed for at least 3,000 to 5,000 years of recorded history.

RESPONDENT: It is silly to imagine that it could be done.

RICHARD: Not at all. It has been ‘done’ for at least 3,000 to 5,000 years of recorded history, it is currently being ‘done’ ... and will continue to be ‘done’ for as long as there are peoples such as yourself intent on preserving the ‘Tried and True’ instead of engaging in a discussion about the total absence of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in this actual world.

RESPONDENT: The same life flows through all that is I am that life, I am love naturally and spontaneously. I am the understanding that to maintain the illusion of any cause external to the life I am is synonymous and identical to pain, isolation and fear. I am the cause of all experience, here being Respondent and there being Richard, and no less everywhere being the behaviour called ‘the world’. There is one mind and many thoughts, and just as one thought can illumine an entire consciousness, bringing with it the dawn and fulfilment of knowledge, so too can one consciousness illumine the world to the fact that regardless of where it is said, ‘The same life flows through all that is I am that life, I am love naturally and spontaneously’ is always equally as true. Maintaining the illusion of any cause external to the life I am is synonymous and identical to pain, and is the isolation and fear that in turn is fiscal rationales, political expediency, economic embargoes and a myriad of other affairs of state and ‘personal’ life. The same life flows through all that is I am that life, I am love naturally and spontaneously. I am that knowledge that heals all separation and all fear. I am not in a body, out of a body, but recognize that in fact ‘body’ is behaviour and what I am doing. Body is an effect of the life I am, and regardless of where it is said, it is always equally as true. All bodies are an effect of the life I am. I am not in the world, I am not out of the world, but recognize that in fact the world is behaviour, it is what I am doing. It is not now, never has it been, nor will it ever be a matter of being ‘good’. It is now, has always been, and will always be a matter of being what I am, the life that flows through all that is, and not pretending to be any-thing else. It is not now, never has it been, nor will it ever be a matter of over coming ‘evil’. Evil only exists when I maintain the illusion that I am something separate from the world and that I can be harmed, denied, destroyed, or thwarted by the world from which I am separate. When I am the knowledge that the same life flows through all that is and I am in fact that life, the separation that was synonymous and identical to pain, isolation and fear and the evil I blamed for the pain, isolation and fear, is no longer and leaves no trace of itself to over-come, struggle with, defeat or otherwise consider. When the act is over, the stage and all its props are gone without effort. It is not now, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be a matter of killing the ego, dying to my-self, over coming opposites, emptying the observer, over-coming primal instincts, committing imagined suicides, removing the self, or becoming, or un becoming any-thing. It is now, has always been, and will always be a matter of being what I am, the life that flows through all that is, and not pretending to be any-thing else. When the act is over, the characters are gone without effort. There is no sacrifice, murder, manipulation, suicide or destruction necessary. No effort, no meditation, no rights of passage, no vision quest, drugs, PCE’s, NDE’s, dances, chants, prayers, or absolutions necessary. When the act is over, the pretending ends without effort. The same life flows through all that is I am that life, I am love naturally and spontaneously. This all in enlightenment can ever be. Death becomes a non-factor. That I am being Respondent, or that I am being Richard, that I am being a cave man 50,000 years ago, or that I am being a person who is a life on Mars 50,000 years hence, makes no difference, it is still the same life that flows through all that is, and I am that life. Existence is a behaviour I do, and being the knowledge of that fact, it matters not what existence I am being. Being healthy, giving, kind, open, considerate, attentive, thrifty, sensible, reasonable, and honest, is not only spontaneous but holds the benefit of assuring my most comfortable existence as ‘me’ and all the ‘me’s I am, and will be.

RICHARD: Yea verily ... as I said: you are re-presenting the regurgitated same-old same-old that has been tried and tried for at least 3,000 to 5,000 years of recorded history ... and has failed and failed for at least 3,000 to 5,000 years of recorded history. That there are peoples such as yourself intent on preserving the status-quo – the ‘Tried and True’ – instead of engaging in a discussion about the total absence of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in this actual world then such denial and avoidance will ensure that all the starving goes on forever and a day.

RESPONDENT: It is True that the same life flows through all that is, and I am that life, I am love naturally and spontaneously, and it is that it is True regardless of where or as whom it is spoken, however, it is not ‘Tried’ in any sense of the word.

RICHARD: Not at all. It has been ‘Tried’ for at least 3,000 to 5,000 years of recorded history, it is currently being ‘Tried’ ... and will continue to be ‘Tried’ for as long as there are peoples such as yourself intent on preserving the ‘Tried and True’ instead of engaging in a discussion about the total absence of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in this actual world.

RICHARD: That there are peoples such as yourself intent on preserving the status-quo – the ‘Tried and True’ – instead of engaging in a discussion about the total absence of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in this actual world – then such denial and avoidance will ensure that all the starving goes on forever and a day. This is all in spite of the fact that there is no lack of food, water and knowledge here in this actual world – nor is there any ‘good’ and ‘evil’ here – as all mental and emotional sufferings and their pathetic ‘solutions’ only exist in the ‘inner world’ that is so cherished by one and all. All is carefree and abundant out here.

RESPONDENT: Inner and outer – synonymous and identical to pain, isolation and fear.

RICHARD: There is no ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ in actuality ... it is only when I am talking with a flesh and blood body that is inhabited by an entity, who creates the ‘inner world’ which is so cherished by one and all, that I make references to how all is carefree and abundant ‘out here’. Your affective ‘inner’ world has expanded to be all-inclusive of the illusory ‘outer’ world (known as the ‘real world’) which the entity sees through the senses ... hence your accurate comment that ‘inner and outer’ is ‘synonymous and identical to pain, isolation and fear’. The ‘Tried and True’ resolution of this ‘inner and outer pain, isolation and fear’ is to transcend the whole damn’ lot – lock stock and barrel – and retreat into a dissociated and solipsistic state of consciousness blatantly epitomised as being such by it being a timeless and spaceless and formless realm.

I have had personal experience of the solipsistic state of consciousness that persuades the experiencer that ‘I Am All’ or ‘I Am That’ or Whatever Name ... as has many a guru and god-man, many a master and messiah, many an avatar and saviour, many a saint, sage or seer. It is but a fantastical illusion, a massive hallucination, a monstrous delusion. And all the mystics advise dissociation (wherein the painful reality of the ‘real world’ is transformed into a bad dream) as being the most effective means to deal with all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and the such-like. Just as a traumatised victim of an horrific and terrifying event makes the experience unreal in order to cope with the ordeal, all the gurus and the god-men, all the masters and the messiahs, all the avatars and the saviours, all the saints, sages and seers have desperately done precisely this thing (during what is sometimes called ‘the dark night of the soul’).

Mystics have been transmogrifying the ‘real world’s painful ‘reality’ into an unreal manifestation of the ‘True Reality’ via the epiphenomenal imaginative/intuitive facility born of the psyche (which is formed by the instinctual passions genetically endowed by blind nature for survival purposes) for millennia. Such dissociation is a psychotic sickness culturally institutionalised into a head-in-the-sand escapist ‘solution’ to all the ills of humankind ... hence the sacred perpetuation of all the misery and mayhem across the millennia through a belief in karma or samsara or some-such metaphysical reason being the cause of such aberrant behaviour. Mysticism is nothing more and nothing less than a frantic coping-mechanism, institutionalised into a cultural metaphysics over thousands and thousands of years ... especially if accompanied by dissociative states such as ‘derealisation’ and ‘alternate personality disorder’ and others.

It is also known as ‘disassociation’, or ‘disassociative identity disorder’ ... dissociative reactions are attempts to escape from excessive trauma tension and anxiety by separating off parts of personality function from the rest of cognition as an attempt to isolate something that arouses anxiety and gain distance from it. For example, in everyday life, mild and temporary dissociation, sometimes hard to distinguish from repression and isolation, is a relatively common and normal device used to escape from severe emotional tension and anxiety. Temporary episodes of transient estrangement, depersonalisation and derealisation are often experienced by normal persons when they first feel the initial impact of bad news, for instance. Everything suddenly looks strange and different; things seem unnatural and distant; events can be indistinct and vaporous; often the person feels that they themselves are unreal and everything takes on a dream-like quality.

Dissociation becomes abnormal when the once mild or transient expedient becomes too intense, lasts too long, or escapes from a person’s control ... and leads to a separation from the surroundings which seriously disturbs object relations. In object estrangement the once familiar world of ordinary objects – the world of people, things and events – seems to have undergone a disturbing and often indescribable change.

Thus I always urge peoples to come to their senses – both literally and figuratively – and thus live in this actual world ... leaving their ‘self’ and the ‘Self’ behind in the Land Of Lament (the ‘inner’ world) where it belongs.

All is carefree in this actual world ... there is no ‘good’ or ‘evil’ here.

December 13 2000:

RICHARD: Your poetic metaphors are an ever-more complicated way of disguising the fact that ‘good’ depends upon ‘evil’.

RESPONDENT: Good and evil depend on no-thing save for a choice to be either good, or to be evil.

RESPONDENT: Very good, thank you. If it is acceptable, may a discussion of ‘flesh and blood body’ also be pursued at a later date?

RICHARD: How could you? If you cannot even pursue the topic of ‘good’ depending upon ‘evil’ without ducking the issue, straying from the point, dodging the question and otherwise obfuscating with sophistry how can you contemplate even beginning to discuss flesh and blood bodies?

First things first, eh?

RICHARD: In the meanwhile, however, the statement ‘your poetic metaphors are an ever-more complicated way of disguising the fact that ‘good’ depends upon ‘evil’’ still stands as being accurate.

RESPONDENT: Thank you. Good does not depend on evil, nor does evil depend on good. Good depends on no-thing save the choice to be good, whatever good may mean as any particular moment. Evil depends on no-thing save the choice to be evil, whatever evil may mean as any particular moment.

RICHARD: Has it ever occurred to you, that in order to have this choice in the first place, there must be two (or more) things to choose from? Therefore, in your scenario (above), you tacitly acknowledge that both ‘good’ and ‘evil’ exist and then spend all of your time blathering on about choosing this one over that one ... and thence being a tortured ‘good’ as well.

I am not interested in rushing into choice (aka ‘Free Will’) and choosing this or that or whatever from a range of ‘Tried and True’ options. It must first be established that ‘good’ and ‘evil’ have any existence whatsoever outside of a fertile and imaginative ‘inner world’ (in order for the choice to have any meaning). And ‘tis a forced choice anyway ... like that puerile one so beloved of some Christians (‘God has given you ‘Free Will’ ... to choose between Him or Hell’).

Seeing the fact (that there is no ‘good’ or ‘evil’ here in this actual world) means no choice.

RESPONDENT: Existence is good, non-existence is not evil.

RESPONDENT: Correct.

RICHARD: Okay ... but did you notice that I also included ‘not good’ amongst what you are saying ‘correct’ to? As in:

• ‘Existence is good, non-existence is not good’.

... I could have said:

• ‘Existence is good, non-existence is not chewing-gum’.

I only point this out because what has this agreement of yours (‘correct’) got to do with any understanding of what is meant by ‘nothing, zero, nil, zilch, not anything at all’ when you go on to nonsensically repeat it (below)?

RICHARD: What has this nonsensical sentence got to do with my statement that your poetic metaphors are an ever-more complicated way of disguising the fact that ‘good’ depends upon ‘evil’ (other than it is another red-herring)?

RESPONDENT: Existence is good, non-existence is not evil.

RICHARD: You see? Your supposed agreement (further above) amounts to nothing substantial ... you are blindly repeating your mantra again (‘existence is good, non-existence is not evil’) as if it has some meaning outside of what is commonly called ‘word magic’ (being dazzled by the syntax of grammar and the semantics of sentence structure rather than the context and substance of what is being conveyed). There is many an academic that has fallen foul of this enchantment ... and the same bedazzlement happened in your poetic metaphor E-Mail (wherein you poetically and metaphorically disposed of ‘evil’).

Perhaps you may have missed the import of that exposition ... you did seem to rush to the bottom so as to snip off my very last sentence (‘no thirsting and hungering whatsoever ... all is carefree’) from the body of the E-Mail, or to position it at the top of a blank page in order to provide a dictionary definition of ‘hunger’ and ‘thirst’ that stood in total contradistinction to your poetic and metaphoric ‘hungering’ and ‘thirsting’ meanings (wherein the fully sinister nature of ‘evil’ is watered-down to being but ‘good’ tortured by its own hunger and thirst for union with God).

Yet in total disregard of what has already been discussed you now go on to re-propose these nonsensical ... um ... non-qualities to re-consider and re-discuss as if you are having a meaningful discussion.

RESPONDENT: Good exists and no evil is to be found for it to be dependent on.

RICHARD: Ahh ... this answers my query in your poetic metaphor E-Mail (wherein you poetically and metaphorically disposed of ‘evil’). Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘When you strive for gain you are but a root that clings to the earth and sucks at her breast. Surely the fruit cannot say to the root, ‘Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance’. For to the fruit giving is a need, as receiving is a need to the root.
• [Richard]: ‘Yet the fruit needs the root in the earth drawing nutrients for its very existence. Therefore, in this poetic analogy you are still saying what I am saying: ‘good’ depends upon ‘evil’ for its very existence. If the fruit is so haughty as to claim all the credit for being able to ‘give of its abundance’ without acknowledging the part the root plays (sucking at the breast of the earth) then it denies its own roots ... which is sometimes what happens in the real world as I have already indicated thus:
• ‘there is a good that knows no evil’.

Sound familiar? Yet, as I have already pointed out, there is another analogy: ‘the lotus blossom has its roots in mud’ (‘good’ has its roots in ‘evil’). I am curious to see which way you go in this venture of yours ... whether you will be in denial of your roots or in acknowledgement of your roots.

And indeed, for all of your fine-sounding rhetoric, poetic metaphors and tautological words you are certainly in denial of your roots (‘Good exists and no evil is to be found for it to be dependent on’). Next you may very well be telling me that there is ‘a love-that-knows-no-hate’ and ‘a compassion-that-sorrow-has-never-touched’ and ‘a beauty-wherein-there-is-no-ugliness’ and ‘a truth-that-has-no-false’ ... just as all the mystics do.

I see that your responses in the remainder of this post get ever-more complicated and even more convoluted ... for example where you say (much further below):

• [Richard]: ‘It has been ‘done’ for at least 3,000 to 5,000 years of recorded history, it is currently being ‘done’ ...and will continue to be ‘done’ for as long as there are peoples such as yourself intent on preserving the ‘Tried and True’ instead of engaging in a discussion about the total absence of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in this actual world.
• [Respondent]: ‘There is no-thing to discuss about the total absence of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in this actual world. There is no argument that good and evil are totally absent in this actual world. It is accepted as fact.

Allow me to juxtaposition your two sentences so that you may see for yourself:

• [Respondent]: ‘Good exists and no evil is to be found for it to be dependent on’.
• [Respondent]: ‘There is no argument that good and evil are totally absent in this actual world. It is accepted as fact’.

Might I point out that the sentence ‘There is no argument that good and evil are totally absent in this actual world’ means that good and evil are totally absent in actuality (and does not mean ‘good exists and no evil is to be found for it to be dependent on’)? Which also means that if you are to further pursue this subject with me it would be worthwhile to acknowledge some basic starting-point issues so that you do not get lost in your own world of words again ... after which it may be possible to discuss flesh and blood bodies:

• [Richard]: ‘All is carefree in this actual world ... there is no ‘good’ or ‘evil’ here.
• [Respondent]: ‘Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.
• [Richard]: ‘You do seem to be missing the point: there is neither ‘good’ nor ‘evil’ in this flesh and blood body.
• [Respondent]: ‘Good exists and no evil is to be found for it to be dependent on’.
• [Richard]: ‘Your poetic metaphors are an ever-more complicated way of disguising the fact that ‘good’ depends upon ‘evil’.
• [Respondent]: ‘Good and evil depend on no-thing save for a choice to be either good, or to be evil.
• [Richard]: ‘It must first be established that ‘good’ and ‘evil’ have any existence whatsoever outside of a fertile and imaginative ‘inner world’ (in order for the choice to have any meaning).
• [Respondent]: [you may insert your relevant response here].

Seeing the fact (that there is no ‘good’ or ‘evil’ here in this actual world) means no choice.

Continued on in the Actual Freedom Mailing List: No. 19

CORRESPONDENT No. 14 (Part Nine)

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