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Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’ with Respondent No. 19
RICHARD: But I do not want you (or anybody) coming to me – for their own freedom – as I am having too much fun, living my life in the way I see fit, to clutter up my lifestyle with ‘guru-circuit’ peoples, who cannot think for themselves, trooping daily through my front door. The Internet is my chosen means of dissemination for the obvious reason of being interactive and rapid. The electronic copying and distribution capacity of a mailing list service – with it’s multiple feed-back capability – is second to none. Words are words, whether they be thought, spoken, printed or appear as pixels on a screen. Ultimately it is what is being said or written, by the writer or the speaker that lives what is being expressed, that is important ... and facts and actuality then speak for themselves. Anyone who has met me face-to-face only gets verification that there is actually a flesh and blood body that lives what these words say. I am a fellow human being sans identity ... there is no ‘charisma’ nor any ‘energy-field’ here. The affective faculty – the entire psyche itself – is eradicated: I have no ‘energies’ ... no power or powers whatsoever. There is no ‘good’ and ‘evil’ here in this actual world. RESPONDENT: Richard, you have said many times in the past that you are free of all feelings. RICHARD: Yes ... more specifically: free of the persistent identity (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’). It is impossible to be a stripped-down ‘self’ (divested of feelings) ... such a person who tries to do that absurdity has what is called by psychiatry ‘a sociopathic personality’ (commonly known as a psychopath). RESPONDENT: Is not this ‘fun’ you are having part and parcel of the feeling of enjoying what you are doing? RICHARD: Not the ‘feeling’ of enjoyment ... direct enjoyment: I have not felt happy for years and years. RESPONDENT: Could you even go so far as to say that you love what you are doing? RICHARD: No ... this is much, much more than ‘loving’ what I am doing. It is also much more than being in love and even more than being love. RESPONDENT: It is quite obvious that you take great delight in knowledge and your knowledge of words and are quite a showman with the English language. RICHARD: Yes ... words are vital; knowledge is vital; knowledge of words is vital. As for ‘showman’ ... I freely acknowledge that my writing is flowery – which is a polite way of saying ‘convoluted and over-ornamental’ as an editor once explained to me – but that is an idiosyncrasy which brings me great delight. I make no apologies for an extravagant exuberance with words ... I am conveying the lavish exhilaration of life itself. RESPONDENT: Are there ever times when there are absolutely no words, no movement of this knowledge inside the flesh and blood body that is you. RICHARD: Yes, large parts of my daily life are comprised of ‘absolutely no words, no movement of this knowledge’ ... thinking is an episodic event that occurs of its own accord as the situation and circumstances require. All the while however, thought or no thoughts, there is an apperceptive awareness, of being just here at this place in infinite space right now at this moment in eternal time, which is full, complete and utter ... neither thoughts nor no-thoughts, neither knowledge nor no-knowledge, neither showmanship nor non-showmanship can ever disturb this on-going experiencing of infinitude. Being just here right now is so fulfilling, so utterly satisfying in itself that to be doing something (including thinking) is but a bonus on top of this completeness. RESPONDENT: In other words, is there a freedom from knowledge that is as much a part of the human condition as the genetic makeup of instinctual passions? RICHARD: Yes ... most of what I write is a story or a description (an accurate story/description mind you) of why it is the pits to be in the ‘normal-world’ reality (where 6.0 billion people live) and why it sucks to be in the ‘abnormal-world’ Greater Reality (where 0.0000001 of the population live) ... and how one wound up being there in the first place. When there is nobody around none of this happens. And, despite my millions of words, I essentially have only one thing to say. Viz.: Step out of the ‘real world’ into this actual world of sensuous delight and leave your ‘self’ behind in the ‘Land Of Lament’ where ‘you’ belong.
RESPONDENT: In other words, is there a freedom from knowledge that is as much a part of the human condition as the genetic makeup of instinctual passions? RICHARD: Yes ... most of what I write is a story or a description (an accurate story/description mind you) of why it is the pits to be in the ‘normal-world’ reality (where 6.0 billion people live) and why it sucks to be in the ‘abnormal-world’ Greater Reality (where 0.0000001 of the population live) ... and how one wound up being there in the first place. When there is nobody around none of this happens. And, despite my millions of words, I essentially have only one thing to say. Viz.: Step out of the ‘real world’ into this actual world of sensuous delight and leave your ‘self’ behind in the ‘Land Of Lament’ where ‘you’ belong. RESPONDENT: Did you make a typo or a Freudian slip, Richard? RICHARD: No, it is neither ‘typo’ nor ‘Freudian slip’ ... I am not in the ‘abnormal-world’ Greater Reality (where 0.0000001 of the population live). I was for eleven years (which is why I know it so intimately) before moving on beyond it so as to actually be here. There are three worlds: normal (the grim and glum ‘real world’), abnormal (the ‘timeless and spaceless and formless’ realm) and actual (here in infinite space and now in eternal time). Similarly there are three I’s ... but only one is actual. RESPONDENT: Are you saying it sucks to be the actual world where you are? RICHARD: Definitely not ... the actual world is a world of factual splendour, based firmly upon sensate experience and sensuous delight. The candid and unabashed sensorial enjoyment of being this body in the world around is such a luscious and immediate experience that words like that never cross my mind. RESPONDENT: I don’t understand. RICHARD: Perhaps if I re-post something you wrote some time ago it may help:
To become enlightened is to stop half-way: to go all the way not only does the ego have to die (spiritual freedom), so too does the soul (actual freedom). To put it in the mystical terminology of the East (in terms recently resurrected and made popular by Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain), there is the ‘Known’, the ‘Unknown’ and the ‘Unknowable’. Thus the Eastern mystical wisdom holds the tenet that the ‘normal-world’ reality (where 6.0 billion people live) is the ‘Known’ and the ‘abnormal-world’ Greater Reality (where 0.0000001 of the population live) is the ‘Unknown’ ... and the ‘Unknowable’ lies beyond physical death (Mahasamadhi, Parinirvana and so on). Therefore, in those terms, the actual world (where Richard lives) is the ‘Unknowable’. One does not have to wait until physical death to be free of the human condition.
RICHARD: I first read Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti in 1983 and, after reading hundreds of other authors on this subject since then, his articulate expression of the mystical solution to the human condition stands unsurpassed, as far as I am concerned (and no one can ever say that I have an uncritical acceptance). I would go so far as to say that no one else contributed so much, so clearly, and so consistently about the subject in the twentieth century. Even if such a contribution were only measured by the prodigious output and the vast collection of letters, diaries, other people’s recollections and so on ... but the eloquent language, yes, reflects his preparedness and his ability to subjectively explore with scant regard for traditional icons. RESPONDENT: Don’t you mean ‘objectively explore’? If not, please explain. RICHARD: I definitely mean ‘subjectively explore’ because the spirit world is not the objective physical world (this body and that body and the mountains and the streams and the planets and the stars and any other physical object). Or, to put it another way, the spirit world is the ‘inner’ world and not the ‘outer’ world of matter. This spirit/ matter dichotomy is called the soul/body or sacred/ secular or divine/worldly split for a spiritualist and, being a subjective experience (no physical objects), can only be explored subjectively (because the inner, the spirit, the soul, the sacred and the divine, not being physical objects, cannot be ascertained with the eyes, ears, nostrils, taste-buds or skin). Conversely, if one is a materialist, the subjective/ objective dichotomy is called the inner/ outer split or brain/body or mind/matter dichotomy and the ‘outer’, the body and all matter, being physical objects, can be ascertained with the eyes, ears, nostrils, taste-buds and skin and are thus explored objectively. This is why materialists view mysticism sceptically ... being a subjective experience it cannot be verified objectively. RESPONDENT: A few questions Richard; was it after that you read Krishnamurti that you went to the island with only a loin cloth (or something of the sort) where you stayed x number of years before you finally experienced the ‘final death of the soul’? RICHARD: Of all the books I read, the one that was most informative for me was his pencil-written diary spanning six weeks, where profound ‘otherness’ events were happening for him. (‘Krishnamurti’s Journal’; J. Krishnamurti; Published by HarperCollins; ISBN: 0-06-064841-4; 100 pp). It was the only book I initially took with me when I went through a time I call my ‘puritan period’. I eventually whittled my worldly possessions down to three sarongs, three shirts, a cooking pot and bowl, a knife and a spoon, a bank book and a pair of nail scissors ... but for eight months or so that was my only reading material (I then gave the book to a ‘Krishnamurtiite’ I met along the way in the Himalayas). My experiences on an uninhabited island in the tropics off the north-eastern Australian seaboard came after being in India: there was a group of islands where I stayed for the best part of three months in total silence, on my own, speaking to no one at all and moving from island to island at whim. It was towards the end of the period when I was homeless, itinerant, celibate, vegan, (no spices; not even salt and pepper), no drugs (no tobacco, no alcohol; not even tea or coffee), no hair cut, no shaving, no washing other than a dip in a river or the ocean. I possessed nothing else anywhere in the world and had cut all family ties ... whatever I could eliminate from my life that was an encumbrance and an attachment, I had let go of. In other words: whatever was traditionally seen as an impediment to freedom I discarded. It was there I finally discovered that it was Spiritual Enlightenment that was at fault and that I could ‘purify’ myself via these ‘Tried and True’ means until the moon turned blue ... to no avail. The first of these experiences occurred at maybe three in the morning (I had no watch) and was accompanied by a sense of dread the likes of which I had never experienced even in a war-zone – made all the more acute because I had not experienced fear for four years (I was living in a state of Divine Compassion and Love Agapé which protected me from malice and the underlying fear). The condition I experienced was of the nature of some ‘Great Beyond’ (I have to put it in capitals because that is how I experienced it at the time) and it was of the nature of which has always been ascribed, in all the spiritual/mystical writings I had read, as being ‘That’ which one merges with at physical death when one ‘quits the body’. Sometimes known as ‘The Ocean of Oneness’ or ‘Mahasamadhi’ or ‘Parinirvana’. It seemed so extreme that the physical body must surely die for the attainment of it. To put it into a physical analogy, it was as if I were to gather up my meagre belongings, eradicate all marks of my stay on the island, and paddle away over the horizon, all the while not knowing whence I go ... and vanish without a trace, never to be seen again. As no one on the mainland knew where I was, no one would know where I had gone. In fact, I would become as extinct as the dodo and with no skeletal remains. The autological self by whatever name would cease to ‘be’, there would be no ‘spirit’, no ‘presence’, no ‘being’ at all. This was more than death of the ego, which is a major event by any definition; this was total annihilation. No ego, no soul – no self, no Self – no more Heavenly Rapture, Love Agapé, Divine Bliss and so on. Only oblivion. It was not at all attractive, not at all alluring, not at all desirable ... yet I knew I was going to do it, sooner or later, because it was the ultimate condition and herein lay the secret to the ‘Mystery of Life’. It was to take seven more years to eventuate ... but that is another story. RESPONDENT: I have distinct memory of a lot Krishnamurti’s general phrases, words, and meaning. One instance of a Krishnamurti statement was that most people just don’t want ‘it’ (freedom) enough ... to do what it takes to know that freedom. Did you ‘want’ that freedom more than anything else in the world; is that why you left civilization behind and went to the island? RICHARD: Yes, one has to want it like one has never wanted anything else before ... so much so that all the instinctual passionate energy of desire, normally frittered away on petty desires, is fuelling and impelling/propelling one into this thing and this thing only (‘impelling’ as in a pulling from the front and ‘propelling’ as in being pushed from behind). There is a ‘must’ to it (one must do it/it must happen) and a ‘will’ to it (one will do it/it will happen) and one is both driven and drawn until there is an inevitability that sets in. Now it is unstoppable and all the above ceases of its own accord ...one is unable to distinguish between ‘me’ doing it and it happening to ‘me’. One has escaped one’s fate and achieved one’s destiny. RESPONDENT: Was it your being alone on the island that lead to the death you experienced and of which you speak? RICHARD: Yes, I then experientially knew that the ultimate goal both existed here-on-earth and was possible here-on-earth ... as it was indelibly experienced on several occasions. This knowing works away on one at a non-conscious level. RESPONDENT: Do you feel that the sort of renouncement you made of the world is necessary to know the veritable paradise of which you also speak? RICHARD: No. An actual freedom from the human condition, here on earth in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body has now been discovered, demonstrated and described ... no one else need ever take that route again (and I would not wish upon anyone to have to follow in my footsteps for I had to run the full gamut of existential angst to break through to what lay beyond). I always liken it to the physical adventure that Mr. James Cook undertook to journey to Australia two hundred plus years ago. It took him over a year in a leaky wooden boat with hard tack for food and immense dangers along the way. Nowadays, one can fly to Australia in twenty-seven hours in air-conditioned comfort, eating hygienically prepared food and watching an in-flight movie into the bargain. No one has to go the path of the trail-blazer and forge along in another leaky wooden boat. As an actual freedom is peace-on-earth as this flesh and blood body it is here in the actual world – it is not an ‘inner freedom’ requiring withdrawal and detachment – and it is to be accessed in the market place, as one goes about one’s normal daily life, in the world of people, things and events. RESPONDENT: What was it exactly that brought about the death which lead to the ability to live in a veritable garden of eden? RICHARD: In late September 1992 a woman, who had been coming to see me on and off for some time, earnestly asked that she be taken on as a disciple ... she seriously wished me to be her master. I was astounded, for I had been at pains to explain that I was not interested in being anyone’s master, for I considered the entire system of the master-disciple relationship, with its attendant surrender, trust, worship and obedience, to be not only insidious, but pernicious as in regards to another person’s freedom. I declined, of course, yet I had to question just what I was ‘putting out’ to people to precipitate such a request. What was my part in all this? What was I doing – indeed what was I being – to encourage another to consider taking this step? I had been dismantling various aspects of the make-up of the Altered State Of Consciousness that I was living in – a state of Spiritual Enlightenment that I called Absolute Freedom – and had thought myself to be virtually free of all that hocus-pocus that goes on in the name of freedom. I asked myself what turned out to be a seminal question: ‘What am I in relation to other people?’ I asked the question in such a way so that I would not get a carefully thought-out and reasoned answer. I wanted an experiential result ... and I kept the question burning in the depths of my psyche, discarding any intellectual answers that inevitably popped-up in the course of the next five or six weeks. And then it happened as a direct result of keeping the question open – which is another story – thus these days I empirically know what I am in relation to other people: I am not an ‘Enlightened Master’ sitting in an exalted position ... and what a relief that is. I am a fellow human being, who happens to live in a condition of perfection and purity, offering my experience to whomsoever is interested. What they do with this information is their business. RESPONDENT: You often times say ‘step out of the time-honoured life of sorrow and strife, etc. into the joyous life of being actually alive here in the now.’ Well, Krishnamurti, said much of the same things as you do, but he also told us what was preventing ‘this stepping’ out in great detail – 60 years of detail. He never tired of trying to help see the way out, even though he did fail – but perhaps he did not fail. Maybe there was something he said or something in the way he said it that provided a final catalyst that helped you to step out of the stream of thought? RICHARD: Not the ‘stream of thought’, no ... thought was never an issue for me. But, to gain affirmation and confirmation that it was safe for me step out of the human condition, I read Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti (among others) with an open mind because I wanted to know, for myself, if ‘Love Agapé’, if ‘Divine Compassion’, if ‘Beauty’, if ‘Truth’, if ‘Goodness’, if ‘Intelligence’ and so on, were actually the Ultimate.
Yes there was ... and I wanted to know for myself what was beyond all this, so I read more:
As all this and more fitted my experience, I found it imperative to investigate ... experientially. By being born and raised in the West I was not steeped in the mystical religious tradition of the East and was thus able to escape the trap of centuries of eastern spiritual conditioning by going beyond Spiritual Enlightenment – which turned out to be an altered state of consciousness within the human condition – into the actuality of being here on earth in infinite space at this moment now in eternal time as this flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: Is there something more you could say; could you provide more detail about this ‘stepping out’? I would for one to like to know the details about what was in your mind; what went through your mind (or outside or your mind) while you were in total isolation on the island, and how that relates to what/where you are now, that is if you feel so inclined to share. RICHARD: Basically it was because of my intense urge to evince and demonstrate whatever was possible for this universe to manifest that I was looking into both Universal Compassion and Love Agapé to see what they are made up off. I was busy with these matters because I seemed to be driven by some force to spread ‘The Word’ and that had never been my intention all those years ago when I first had what is known as a pure consciousness experience (PCE). This peak experience initiated my incursion into all matters metaphysical, culminating in the ‘death’ of my ego and catapulting me into the sacred. My intent back then had been to cleanse myself of all that is detrimental to personal happiness and interpersonal harmony ... in other words: peace on earth in our life-time. Instead of that rather simple ambition, I found that I was impelled on an odyssey to be the latest ‘Saviour of Humankind’ in a long list of enlightened ‘Beings’ ... and this imposition did not sit well with me, as they have all failed in their ‘Divine Work’. After something like five thousand years of recorded history, ‘humanity’ was nowhere nearer to peace and harmony than before. Indeed, because of the much-touted Love and Compassion, much Hatred and Bloodshed had followed in their wake. This abysmal fate was something I wish to avoid repeating, whatever the personal cost in terms of losing the much-prized ‘State Of ‘Being’. My diagnosis was simple: If I am driven by some force – no matter how Good that force be – then I am not actually free.
RESPONDENT: Richard, thanks for jogging my memory. It’s just that I thought the 0.0000001 of the population in the world of reality was so rare that I thought that’s where you were (ten lashes for not remembering that where you are is even rarer). I wonder how you came up with the knowledge that only 0.0000001 of the people that live in the world of reality. RICHARD: Mr. Ken Wilber (writing in Mr. Andrew Cohen’s ‘What is Enlightenment’ magazine) claimed that only about a thousand ‘Enlightened Ones’ had emerged from 2,500 years of devout effort by millions of Buddhist monks. His estimate was, therefore, 0.0000001 of the population. RESPONDENT: You are saying that Krishnamurti is one of these out of 0.0000001 who were trapped in the world of reality, but that Mahasamadhi and Parinirvana are in the rare group where you are, the actual world? Not that I really care who is where and who is not, but I would be interested in knowing how you ascertained this. Are there 0.0000003 of the population in the actual world? RICHARD: No, as far as I have been able to ascertain I am on my own. Incidentally, just as the Christians have ‘Heaven’, the terms ‘Mahasamadhi’ and ‘Parinirvana’ are the Hindu and Buddhist names for their timeless and spaceless and formless after-life. RESPONDENT: After the many months that have passed since writing and reading what I wrote, I think I understand what you are talking about with the death of the soul. Because I am quite aware that there are spirits, and that there is a spirit world, which may be called the ‘soul’, it can be determined that there is not a total death if the spirit does not die while on earth. Is this correct? RICHARD: Yes ... put simply: to become free of the human condition one altruistically commits both psychological (ego death) suicide and psychic (soul death) suicide. This puts an end to the spirit world forever ... the entire psyche is extirpated. RESPONDENT: That the death of the ego and the death of the spirit leaves only the ‘one’ who is here and now in an actual ambrosial world? RICHARD: Yes ... this flesh and blood body (sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) being apperceptively aware. RESPONDENT: Now for your statement that you do not have to wait until physical death to be free of the human condition, Krishnamurti made a similar statement when he said that if you wait until you are dead to step out of the stream of thought, it is too late. I take this to mean that you will reincarnate into the stream of thought ... that you must leave it whilst you are still eating and breathing. RICHARD: Yes, for him, ‘to step out of the stream of thought’ during the current lifetime meant no more re-incarnation. It is somewhat similar terminology to Buddhism, which holds that there is no personal soul that reincarnates ... just ‘bundles’ of thoughts, memories, desires and so on that are reborn again and again. Eastern metaphysics has a different way of looking at the soul than in the West ... it is not a (subjectively) ‘solid’ ontological entity but rather an amorphous, vapourish, nebulous, unstructured, fluid and whirling movement ... and not a subjective ‘thing’. I could give the analogy (borrowed from Taoist thought) of the flow of water in a real world stream: eddies and whorls and whirlpools form of their own accord due to the dynamics of the flow of water. Various sages have likened the soul (by whatever name) to being but one of these whorls (hence ‘go with the flow’). There is an excellent description of what is possible to realise when one travels deeper and deeper into ‘the stream of thought’ in a book called: ‘The Wholeness Of Life’ (Published by The Krishnamurti Foundation). In Dialogue VII May 20 1976 – ‘Monday Afternoon’, the conversations between Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti, Mr David Bohm and Mr. David Shainburg are particularly illuminating in this respect. Viz.:
Where he says ‘if I don’t end the image, the stream of image-making goes on ... it is there, it manifests in people ... it is universal ... it is the effect of all the brains and it manifests itself in people as they are born’ he is echoing Buddhist thought (‘samsara’) but in his own way, of course. RESPONDENT: How, Richard, do you know that Krishnamurti did not die to the soul and the ego and all encumbrances of this physical world while he was still alive? RICHARD: Simple: he still had affective feelings. For example: [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘Truth, the real God
(...) wants a total, complete human being whose heart is full, rich, clear, capable of intense feeling ...’ RESPONDENT: I agree, Richard, that to be trapped in the normal world is the pits, and then even being trapped in the world of reality where the spirits might not be much better. So, that must indeed leave the world of actuality which is the here and now to be lived and enjoyed to its fullest. RICHARD: Yes ... herein lies the ‘secret to life’. If one does not find it in this lifetime, one never will. Physical death is the end, finish. Oblivion RESPONDENT: That, Krishnamurti said, is ‘the art of living’. I really am not defending that Krishnamurti was one of the rarer than rare in the actual world; I am just wondering how you can say that he was not entirely dead in ego and spirit? RICHARD: Again ... he still had affective feelings (if you have his writings in electronic form just type ‘feel’ or ‘feeling’ into the search function of your computer and see for yourself). It is this simple: while most people paddle around on the surface and re-arrange their conditioning to ease their lot somewhat, some people – seeking to be free of all human conditioning – fondly imagine that by putting on a face-mask and snorkel that they have gone deep-sea diving with a scuba outfit ... deep into the human condition. They have not ... they have gone deep only into the human conditioning. When they tip upon the instinctual passions – which are both savage (fear and aggression) and tender (nurture and desire) – they grab for the tender (the ‘good’ side) and blow them up all out of proportion. If they succeed in this self-aggrandising hallucination they start talking twaddle dressed up as sagacity such as: ‘There is a good that knows no evil’ or ‘There is a love that knows no opposite’ or ‘There is a compassion that sorrow has never touched’ and so on. This is because it takes nerves of steel to don such an aqua-lung and plunge deep in the stygian depths of the human psyche ... it is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee. Because the deletion of the software package is the extinction of ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’. That is, ‘being’ itself expires. One’s guerdon for so doing is immeasurable, however. RESPONDENT: You may quote some of his words in an attempt to prove that he was not entirely free, but I don’t see how his words can prove or disprove anything, anymore that yours or mine can. RICHARD: Then why are you reading, writing and talking with others? I do not buy your protestations at all ... as you will have noticed I provided a quote or two anyway (and interpreted them) as the words are very informative for those with the eyes that want to see. RESPONDENT: More than who is where and who is not, I am more interested in the total liberation of this entity that calls itself ‘No. 19’, that breaths and eats and thinks, and all you can say is that you don’t have to wait until death to be free of the human condition. RICHARD: What is with this dismissive ‘all you can say ...’ business? No Guru or God-Man or Master or Messiah or Avatar or Saviour or Saint or Sage has ever spoken of a total, complete and utter peace on earth. Virtually all disciplines – if not all – acknowledge ‘The Ultimate’ (by whatever name) as happening after physical death ... the Buddhist ‘Parinirvana’ and the Hindu ‘Mahasamadhi’ are but two of the most obvious examples. Yet your response to a fellow human being’s discovery of the already always existing peace-on-earth is ‘all you can say is that you don’t have to wait until death to be free of the human condition’, eh? RESPONDENT: What does await those who do not die a total death here on earth – is it the same as awaits you when you are dead? RICHARD: Yes ... ultimately it does not matter whether you or anybody else becomes free or not: physical death is the end, finish. Oblivion.
RESPONDENT No. 12: Extinguish the arising mind, but don’t extinguish the shining mind. RICHARD: Both the ‘arising mind’ and the ‘shining mind’ are not extant ... the free mind is already here. RESPONDENT No. 12: It is the arising mind that thinks in terms of time, i.e. before and after ‘the event’. RICHARD: And it is the ‘shining mind’ that thinks in terms of the timeless ... for the free mind there is only this event. RESPONDENT: What is the ‘free’ mind of which you speak? RICHARD: The free mind is the neuronal activity of a human brain in a human skull sans both the ‘arising mind’ (‘I’ as ego) and the ‘shining mind’ (‘me’ as soul). The free mind, which is already always just here right now, becomes apparent when ‘I’/‘me’ altruistically self-immolates for the benefit of this body and that body and every body. RESPONDENT: What does a ‘free’ mind do once it is freed? RICHARD: The free mind is the doing and the experiencing of the happening of this business called being alive here on this earth in this lifetime as this flesh and blood body now ... and it is all happening currently as only this moment is occurring wherein the doing of the event is happening of its own accord. And this is wonderful.
RESPONDENT No. 12: The otherness is everything. RICHARD: Well there you go, you see? What your ‘thou art nothing’ phrase points to is ‘thou art everything’. RESPONDENT No. 12: It is the claim that ‘the universe is experiencing itself as this flesh and blood body’ that smacks of self-aggrandisement. RICHARD: In what way? I make no claim to be ‘everything’ (aka ‘the otherness which is sacred, holy’). I am this flesh and blood body; I was born, I live for x-number of years, I die ... and death is the end, finish. Oblivion. I am mortal ... it is this universe which is immortal. RESPONDENT: There is a spirit that lives on after death that can effect actual events here on Earth. RICHARD: I have no use for such a hypothesis. RESPONDENT: Perhaps this spirit that lives on, lives in the cells that are passed from one generation to another and that accumulation of energy can effect events – I don’t know. RICHARD: What is passed on in the germ cells is deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), a self-replicating material in the chromosomes of living organisms, and is the carrier of genetic information ... this certainly affects events. RESPONDENT: When the flesh and blood body dies, does not that energy, which is never dying, revert to that from whence it came? RICHARD: As it is your hypothesis ... I will leave it to you to answer. RESPONDENT: In that sense, can the atoms and energy that are you now, and the stuff of which the universe is made, ever really be extinct? RICHARD: What I am is the air breathed, the water drunk, the food eaten and the sunlight absorbed ... thus I am nothing but ‘the stuff of which the universe is made’ (matter). The matter of the universe is both actual things (solid stuff) and active force (energetic stuff). The immeasurable amount of ‘stuff of the universe’ (either in its solid aspect or energetic phase) is perpetually arranging and rearranging itself in endless varieties of myriad form all over the boundless reaches of infinite space throughout the limitless extent of eternal time. This universe, being boundless and limitless (never beginning and never ending) is unborn and undying ... as I remarked (further above): it is this universe which is immortal. RESPONDENT: I watched a TV show about the origins of the humanoid. Scientists are saying that they can trace the origins of our being to a single female who lived in Africa over 3 million years ago. Do we not all have her living atoms in our bodies? RICHARD: All human beings stem from common ancestors ... archaeology and palaeontology is already pushing discovery of beginnings further back than the example you give here. I am following with interest the recent investigations into the life-forms in and around deep undersea volcanic vents and two miles deep in mine shafts ... they do not require photo-synthesis as does all other life-forms but are the result of chemo-synthesis. These are very early days in such research and speculation has it that this may be the origin of life ... self-generated out of the very bowels of the earth itself. RESPONDENT: And where did her atoms come from? The universe? RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: ‘I’ as an ego can die, but are not these living cells what we mean by ‘soul’? RICHARD: Living cells are not what I refer to when I say or write ‘‘me’ as soul’ ... I am referring to precisely what the religious, the spiritual, the mystical peoples are pointing to. RESPONDENT: I realize that your arguments make you an atheist which makes you all knowing – knowing that there is no ‘otherness’. RICHARD: It is my direct experience which produces atheism ... my ‘arguments’ are a story put together after the event, as it were, so as to describe my experience to my fellow human beings using their lingo. RESPONDENT: Who made you God to know it all? RICHARD: As it is your hypothesis ... I will leave it to you to answer. However, I am on record as oft-times saying that I am not an expert on everything – only on a freedom from the human condition – and any other knowledge that I have is what I call ‘encyclopaedic’ ... whatever is just enough information gleaned from other people’s explorations for me to get by on. RESPONDENT: That seems rather strange for a person whose belief in atheism holds that there is no ‘all knowing God’. RICHARD: But I have no ‘belief’ in atheism ... atheism is what is just here right now when one does not believe in gods and goddesses. Here is a useful working definition of what is actual (useful for a fledgling ex-believer): That which is actual is that which remains when one stops believing in it.
RICHARD: I am this flesh and blood body; I was born, I live for x-number of years, I die ... and death is the end, finish. Oblivion. I am mortal ... it is this universe which is immortal. RESPONDENT: Written many years ago by moi: ‘Thank you (god) for the ability to feel the pain born upon the ancient sands of Africa. I remember’. Now considering this is the ‘soul’ remembering, can it ever die? RICHARD: Speaking personally, I do not revere pain: the only good thing about suffering is when it comes to an end ... permanently. RESPONDENT: Can ‘I’, as this fragment, be unfragmented. RICHARD: Where is it carved in stone tablets that ‘I’ as ego is a fragment? A false premise will give a faulty conclusion any day of the week. RESPONDENT: Does a fragment, which is part of the whole, but no longer in existence as a fragment, revert back to the whole, or does it become something new? I don’t know. RICHARD: As the entire concept of ‘fragmentation’ is but a belief you can pretty well make it into whatever you wish ... just be careful what you wish for. RESPONDENT: Do atoms, being the foundation of life, ever die, or do they just transform? RICHARD: The matter of the universe (either in its solid aspect or energetic phase) is perpetually arranging and rearranging itself in endless varieties of myriad form all over the boundless reaches of infinite space throughout the limitless extent of eternal time. RESPONDENT: Isn’t this an expanding universe, as scientists say? RICHARD: Apart from the current passionate preoccupation by academia with Quantum Theory (which gets ever more frantic due to the mathematicians who, having taken over physics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, are bemiring themselves more and more in their futile efforts to prove their god to be a mathematician) modern astronomy is showing the universe to be immensely vast. For example, in 1986 a huge conglomeration of galaxies that are 1,000,000,000 light years long, 300,000,000 light years wide and 100,000,000 light years thick were found (which finding was confirmed in 1990). This ‘wall of galaxies’, as it became known, would have taken 100,000,000,000 years to form under the workings of the ‘Big Bang’ theory ... which makes the mathematically estimated ‘age’ of the universe – 12 to 14 billion years – simply look sillier than it already did. RESPONDENT: Perhaps you can enlighten me about the chemistry of this. In one instance, I can see where you are coming from, and in another instance, I’m not sure. RICHARD: This universe’s space is infinite, its time is eternal and its matter is perpetual ... in a word: infinitude. It is possible to experience, each moment again, infinitude as an actuality: apperceptive awareness. There is no such thing as a finite, timed and depletable universe; it is ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ who creates the impression of ‘terminal’, ‘duration’ and ‘transience’ with ‘my’ instinct-driven feelings which cripple an otherwise intelligent mind ... ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ can only think in terms of duality (the centre in consciousness creates the boundary in awareness). To think logically is to think in terms of duality ... and logic is limited inasmuch as it cannot encompass infinitude (infinitude has no opposite). RESPONDENT: Of course, fear of oblivion makes us want to believe in something other than oblivion; and if oblivion is freedom, is not the universe oblivious too? RICHARD: This universe is boundless and limitless ... infinitude is freedom.
RICHARD: The only time when self-congratulatory mutual back-slapping is experientially deserved there is no ‘the thinker’ extant to take credit. RESPONDENT No. 12: Where there is self-congratulatory back-slapping, there is duality, the framework of time is back again. RICHARD: As the ‘self-congratulatory mutual back-slapping’ being discussed (above) is applicable only to where it is experientially deserved – to where there is no ‘the thinker’ extant – there is, of course, no duality. RESPONDENT: So, Richard, this ‘self’ of yours that has ‘self immolated’, ‘become extinct’, ‘kaput’, and ‘doesn’t exist in any form’ does make an occasional appearance to congratulate itself on a job well done? RICHARD: No ... the word extinction means what it says: the identity in toto (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) is no more and never will be ever again. And if it were not for ‘his’ voluntary ‘self’-immolation I would not be apparent today to be writing this E-Mail to you ... hence I am very pleased with ‘his’ sacrifice. I did explain all this to you in my response to the second E-Mail you wrote to me on this Mailing List – not that I expect you to remember that far back – so I will copy and paste a section from that post wherein I explain how I owe all that I experience now to ‘him’. Viz.:
To which you responded:
Ain’t life grand!
RICHARD: My experiences on an uninhabited island in the tropics off the north-eastern Australian seaboard was where I finally discovered that it was Spiritual Enlightenment that was at fault and that I could ‘purify’ myself via the ‘Tried and True’ means until the moon turned blue ... to no avail. The first of these experiences occurred at maybe three in the morning (I had no watch) and was accompanied by a sense of dread the likes of which I had never experienced even in a war-zone ... made all the more acute because I had not experienced fear for four years (I was living in a state of Divine Compassion and Love Agapé which protected me from malice and the underlying fear). The condition I experienced was of the nature of some ‘Great Beyond’ (I have to put it in capitals because that is how I experienced it at the time) and it was of the nature of which has always been ascribed, in all the spiritual/mystical writings I had read, as being ‘That’ which one merges with at physical death when one ‘quits the body’. Sometimes known as ‘The Ocean of Oneness’ or ‘Mahasamadhi’ or ‘Parinirvana’. It seemed so extreme that the physical body must surely die for the attainment of it. RESPONDENT: I’m not clear about what you are saying Richard when you say that the ultimate freedom is a state of ‘nothingness’. RICHARD: No ... it is not ‘a state of ‘nothingness’’ at all: an actual freedom from the human condition is when the identity is extinguished in its totality (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul). A spiritual freedom is when the personal identity/contracted identity (‘I’ as ego) dissolves into the impersonal identity/expanded identity (‘me’ as soul) and which is most often capitalised as ‘Me’ (‘I Am That’) or ‘Supreme Soul’ (‘That Thou Art’) and all those other names. What I was describing in the paragraph (further above) is how the condition which becomes apparent after the extinction of ‘me’
as soul occurs was temporarily experienced seven years before the pivotal event actually happened. Thus I was describing it in terms of the then
current human understanding ... there were no other terms of reference to use at the time. That paragraph is but one paragraph out of a general
description of the progression of events leading to where I am today It is not a description of an actual freedom. RESPONDENT: Are you talking about the individual ‘Richard’ that is annihilated ... RICHARD: If by ‘the individual ‘Richard’’ you mean the identity inhabiting the body being annihilated ... then yes. It does not refer to physical death ... it refers to everything that one thinks one is; everything that one feels one is; everything that one instinctually knows one is. The identity in its entirety, completely and without exception, vanishes ... as if it had never been. An illusion/delusion, in other words. RESPONDENT: ... or do you mean that ‘The Ocean of Oneness’ is annihilated ... RICHARD: It also vanishes ... for it is but a projection of ‘Me’ into ‘My’ spurious after-death timeless and spaceless and formless ... um ... [insert whatever cultural name ]. An illusory/delusory hallucination, in other words RESPONDENT: ... into the ‘great void of nothingness’ ... RICHARD: Another institutionalised hallucination. RESPONDENT: ... a blackness, nothing, ‘non’? RICHARD: Not ‘a blackness’ no. Nothing. Zilch. Zero. Does not exist; never did exist; never will exist. RESPONDENT: I will proceed after your response. RICHARD: Please do ... this seems to have become unnecessarily complicated where it is not at all complex. It may be because mysticism has rendered the conventional meaning of ‘nothing’ (not anything, non-existent, zero, nought, nil, zilch, naught, zip, nix) into being a mysterious ‘something that is not anything’ (a full emptiness, a great void, a vast abyss). Whereas what is here after the identity vanishes ‘in toto’ is a flesh and blood body having the time of its life!
RESPONDENT: All I’ve even seen in Richards writings is ...... an absolute belief that there is no such happening as God or other dimension besides the human body which he is. RICHARD: May I demonstrate something basic about egocentric Version 1:
Version 2:
It is not possible to proceed very deeply at all in a sensible discussion about human suffering with the person in version No. 1 (which is what this Mailing List is purportedly set up for) ... whereas it is possible with person No. 2 (who understands the basic principles operating in regards belief in the metaphysical and the faith required to maintain trust in that which is not physical) and is prepared to investigate. Many, many years ago, when I was but a tyro, a fledgling beginner in talking with my fellow human beings about being happy and harmless through the elimination of malice and sorrow, I was accosted by a self-professed ‘Born-Again Christian’ in a small town main street:
I have been talking about these matters for twenty-odd years now, and I have had to hone my skills as a wordsmith so as to pre-empt such sophistry, to such a degree that I am nowadays accused of ... um ... using an Oxford Dictionary for a pillow at night while I sleep, for example (or even that I absorb all the words and meanings which I then altruistically use to razzle-dazzle spiritualists into understanding me). Golly, someone even said recently, because they think I delight in being the only one of my kind in the world and of all time, that if another person was to understand me then I could no longer be the undisputed ruler and sole owner of all that I know and understand ... or some-such egocentric explanation to a fellow human being expressing an inability to comprehend what I am saying. However, these days I am not at all shocked into silence at the enormity of why mayhem and misery abounds in the religious/spiritual world. The enormity of why sunk home long ago ... which is why I write as I do.
RESPONDENT No. 40: Byron Bay is the funny farm town of Australia, famed for its crack pots and old hippy nutters. So whenever I tell my Aussie friends about Richard in Byron Bay they promptly turn off ‘He’s crazy!’ they laugh ‘Byron Bay is the Mecca for weirdo’s and cult members, there’s hundreds of people like him living there’ and refuse to discuss it further. Now one would think that if someone ‘Actually Cares’ about his fellow man – as much as Richard rubs in that he does compared to our lousy love – and really has found a third alternative, offering freedom from malice and sorrow, he need only move a few hours up the coast to Surfers Paradise or Brisbane to be free of Byron Bay’s stigma, and gain credibility. But perhaps his war pension can only afford Byron Bay’s dole bludger rents or he is emotionally attached to the hippy town. RESPONDENT: This is interesting information, about the conglomeration of old hippies in Byron Bay. RICHARD: If only it were ‘information’ that is. However, the ‘conglomeration of old hippies’ is not in Byron Bay but in an inland town called Nimbin in a neighbouring shire (‘shire’ is equivalent to ‘county’ in the US). Byron Bay is a seaside holiday destination for families in tents or caravans; for backpackers in youth hostels or bed-and-breakfast accommodation; for media personalities or business executives in up-market hotels or motels; for musicians and artists of all disciplines; for retirees seeking the warmer clime ... and for what the regular society call the ‘lunatic fringe’. What happened was that, whilst the ‘sixties generation of hippies headed for Nimbin and other places north and south throughout the lush hinterland, the surfies discovered Byron Bay ... thus putting it on the map and instigating the change-over from the sleepy backwater it was into the cosmopolitan playground it is today. What does give Byron Bay its ‘Mecca for weirdo’s and cult members’ reputation is that in the ‘seventies and ‘eighties New Age angelic beings, religious fanatics, spiritual seekers, mystical meditators and devotees of eastern gurus from all places on the globe inundated the village with all manner of esotericism: shamanistic, ritualistic, cultic, occult and arcane rehashes of the ‘Tried and True’ solutions to all the ills of humankind. As Byron Bay has a sub-tropical climate, it is a must on the guru circuit during the northern hemisphere winters: many a god and goddess has graced this village with their sacred presence this last decade. Now, of course some of these metaphysicalist’s were hippies before they saw the light – before they trekked eagerly to the Himalayas and other points east seeking the permanent high – but, by and large, an ageing hippie rarely resides here ... not to mention the next generation who has embraced the inexplicable so gullibly. Because, be they young or old, New Age or spiritual, feral or hippie, mostly they do not want to actually live here – generally they scorn Byron Bay for being ‘commercial’ or ‘a tourist trap’ or ‘over-developed’ and so on – and live in the hills and valleys away from the coast ... coming into town once a fortnight to hand in their social security forms (those who do not grow their money deep in the rain-forest) and to congregate at the latest brasserie for cocktails. It is also cheaper to live in the hills as the price of land, houses and rents in Byron Bay is very, very high due to the fact that the town is built between a headland and an encircling swampland that does not allow for expansion ... plus there is a total ban on any building being higher than three stories (there is a two-moratorium on new development approvals currently in force). RESPONDENT: I wonder if Richard has assumed the role of a cult leader there? RICHARD: Ha ... from the hippie viewpoint I have ‘sold-out’ on the ‘sixties dream of communal living on a commune in the wilderness: I live in a suburban three-bedroom brick-veneer duplex; I have a colour TV and VCR in the lounge room with a typical lounge-suite and trimmings (and dining suite and bedroom suite and so on) and, although I worked at many jobs throughout my life (my main career was as a practicing artist plus being a qualified art teacher) I am now retired and living on a hard-won pension. I stroll into the village centre for a bite to eat at the local restaurants and sup the froth off a cappuccino at one of the numerous sidewalk cafés maybe four or five times a week and generally lead what could be called a quiet domestic suburban life-style (I rarely socialise and weeks can go by without anyone visiting). I am a teetotaller (no mood-enhancing or mind-altering drugs whatsoever) and instead of pottering around in the garden I am currently pottering around the internet sharing my experience of life, the universe and what it is to be a human being in the way I see fit. Indeed, I have written before to this mailing list that I do not want anybody coming to me – for their own freedom – as I am having too much fun, living my life in the way I see fit, to clutter up my lifestyle with ‘guru-circuit’ peoples, who cannot think for themselves, trooping daily through my front door. The Internet is my chosen means of dissemination for the obvious reason of being interactive and rapid. The electronic copying and distribution capacity of a mailing list service – with it’s multiple feed-back capability – is second to none. Words are words, whether they be thought, spoken, printed or appear as pixels on a screen. Ultimately it is what is being said or written, by the writer or the speaker that lives what is being expressed, that is important ... and facts and actuality then speak for themselves. Anyone who has met me face-to-face only gets verification that there is actually a flesh and blood body that lives what these words say. I am a fellow human being sans identity ... there is no ‘charisma’ nor any ‘energy-field’ here. The affective faculty – the entire psyche itself – is eradicated: I have no ‘energies’ ... no power or powers whatsoever. There is no ‘good’ and ‘evil’ here in this actual world. RESPONDENT: He does seem to fit some of the profile of a cult leader described in a book by Madeleine Tobais and Janja Lalich. It’s a 1994 book on cults and abusive relationships by Ron Keller, www.skeptictank.org/what.htm: RICHARD: I accessed the URL you provided only to find nothing – absolutely nothing – that even remotely applies to anything I have ever written ... quite the obverse, in fact. Viz.:
I see that the author is targeting the metaphysical claims – with ‘scientific debunking’ – that can be tested whilst fully acknowledging that that the ‘factless’ metaphysical claims which cannot be tested can only be exposed by the publication of their ‘destructive ideology-driven activities’. As I am on record, over and again, of saying: [Richard]: ‘I am only ever interested in facts and actuality’; [Richard]: ‘this actual world of the senses is an ambrosial paradise’; [Richard]: ‘I am a thorough-going atheist through and through’; [Richard]: ‘All gods and goddesses are a figment of passionate human imagination’; [Richard]: ‘There is no ‘Intelligence’ running this universe’; [Richard]: ‘This universe has always been here and always will be ... it has no need for a creator’; [Richard]: ‘I am a fellow human being sans identity who is neither ‘normal’ nor ‘divine’ and so on, I cannot see how any of this applies to me. I pinpoint the instinctual passions and advocate unilateral action ... indeed the URL you provided goes on to acknowledge the animal heritage. Viz.:
Needless to say, the URL you provided goes on to present an ancient myth and/or legend as a possible ‘solution’ (if hope can be considered a valid solution) yet the following words are highlighted and underlined for emphasis:
Even so, after having read all that, you still considered it necessary to say that Richard ‘does seem to fit some of the profile of a cult leader’ ... and then proceed to provide a copy of all manner of things relating to [quote]: ‘the cult leader ... the psychopath ... who presents himself as the ‘Ultimate One’: enlightened, a vehicle of god, a genius, the leader of humankind, and sometimes the most humble of the humble ... the living embodiment of God’s love’ [endquote]. If I may point out? It was not me who said:
And, again, it was not me who said:
And, again, it was not me who said:
And, again, it was not me who said:
And, again, it was not me who said:
When you read that last, short sentence (‘the only authority then is intelligence’) he is clearly designating ‘intelligence’ (otherwise known as ‘god’ or ‘truth’ or ‘otherness’ or ‘that which is sacred, holy’ and so on) as being ‘the only authority’ is he not? Yet, despite all that you have read and exchanged E-Mails about over the years, you considered it necessary to say that Richard ‘does seem to fit some of the profile of a cult leader’ ... and then proceeded to provide a copy of all manner of things relating to [quote]: ‘the cult leader ... the psychopath ... who presents himself as the ‘Ultimate One’: enlightened, a vehicle of god, a genius, the leader of humankind, and sometimes the most humble of the humble ... the living embodiment of God’s love’ [endquote] ... even though Richard acknowledges no authority whatsoever other than the readily observable facts and actuality of the physical world. Upon sober reflection, perhaps you might care to reconsider your – maybe rash – allegations?
RESPONDENT: Richard does seem to fit some of the profile of a cult leader described in a book by Madeleine Tobais and Janja Lalich. It’s a 1994 book on cults and abusive relationships by Ron Keller, www.skeptictank.org/what.htm: RICHARD: I accessed the URL you provided only to find nothing – absolutely nothing – that even remotely applies to anything I have ever written ... quite the obverse, in fact. Viz.: <SNIP DETAILS> Despite all that you have read and exchanged E-Mails about over the years, you considered it necessary to say that Richard ‘does seem to fit some of the profile of a cult leader’ ... and then proceeded to provide a copy of all manner of things relating to [quote]: ‘the cult leader ... the psychopath ... who presents himself as the ‘Ultimate One’: enlightened, a vehicle of god, a genius, the leader of humankind, and sometimes the most humble of the humble ... the living embodiment of God’s love’ [endquote] ... even though Richard acknowledges no authority whatsoever other than the readily observable facts and actuality of the physical world. Upon sober reflection, perhaps you might care to reconsider your – maybe rash – allegations? RESPONDENT: Richard, the ‘allegations’ are just the facts that you do fit the profile of a cult leader as outlined in the summary of the profile of a cult leader by Ron Keller which is where I found the URL. RICHARD: In your initial post you said that Richard ‘does seem to fit some of the profile of a cult leader’ so I provided a detailed reply examining your allegations ... with the end result that you now say ‘the ‘allegations’ are just the facts that you do fit the profile of a cult leader as outlined’. I now ask how, as a result of my detailed reply, your ‘does seem to’ has become ‘you do’ and your ‘fit some of the profile’ has now become ‘you do fit the profile’? What I am getting at, in case it is not obvious, is that your allegations that I may be a psychopathic cult leader, an ‘enlightened vehicle of god and god’s love’ etc., are now not only being reaffirmed but you go further and are now stating that I am a psychopathic cult leader. RESPONDENT: Yes, I suppose you could say that Krishnamurti may fit that profile because he said that an immense energy used his body. No biggie. RICHARD: If I may point out? I was not saying that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti was a psychopathic cult leader at all ... that is what you make of it. I provided those quotes to demonstrate the central point, which both the 15 point quote from 1994 book on cults and abusive relationships you copy-pasted and the URL you provided were clearly saying, as to what is required for a cult and a cult leader. To wit: [quote]: ‘the cult leader ... the psychopath ... presents himself as the ‘Ultimate One’: enlightened, a vehicle of god, a genius, the leader of humankind, and sometimes the most humble of the humble ... the living embodiment of God’s love’ [endquote]. And I provided those quotes directly after quoting myself, as a contrast so that you may see for yourself, stating that I am on record, over and again, of saying: [Richard]: ‘I am only ever interested in facts and actuality’; [Richard]: ‘this actual world of the senses is an ambrosial paradise’; [Richard]: ‘I am a thorough-going atheist through and through’; [Richard]: ‘All gods and goddesses are a figment of passionate human imagination’; [Richard]: ‘There is no ‘Intelligence’ running this universe’; [Richard]: ‘This universe has always been here and always will be ... it has no need for a creator’; [Richard]: ‘I am a fellow human being sans identity who is neither ‘normal’ nor ‘divine’ ... and so on. I cannot see how any of this applies to me. I pinpoint the instinctual passions and advocate unilateral action. Apparently you still do not see it: as a supposed non-follower of a supposed non-guru – who required that you listen totally
to his words with all of your being RESPONDENT: I certainly didn’t mean you any harm, and I’m sorry if you felt any. RICHARD: I am not interested in apologies – apologies are worthless – as I am only interested in you soberly reflecting upon what you are saying and then possibly reconsidering not only your allegations that I may be a psychopathic cult leader, an ‘enlightened vehicle of god and god’s love’ etc., but your – perhaps rash – statement that I am a psychopathic cult leader.
RESPONDENT: I certainly didn’t mean you any harm, and I’m sorry if you felt any. RICHARD: I am not interested in apologies – apologies are worthless – as I am only interested in you soberly reflecting upon what you are saying and then possibly reconsidering not only your allegations that I may be a psychopathic cult leader, an ‘enlightened vehicle of god and god’s love’ etc., but your – perhaps rash – statement that I am a psychopathic cult leader. RESPONDENT: You are the one who said I was ‘alleging.’ RICHARD: Yes ... this is because initially you said that Richard ‘does seem to fit some of the profile of a cult leader’ and your ‘does seem to’ makes it an allegation and not a statement of fact (and your ‘fit some of the profile’ is not a sweeping indictment). RESPONDENT: I said that the ‘allegations’ (your word) were the fact that I did say you fit the profile (as outlined by Ron Keller) of a cult leader. RICHARD: I am well aware that this was your second response ... what I was asking was: how could you possibly say that I fit the profile after reading my detailed response? RESPONDENT: You may or not be a cult leader. RICHARD: You are now prevaricating, hedging ... or being clever (sophistry). RESPONDENT: You say you are not. RICHARD: Indeed I am not ... and what is more I provided a detailed response as to why not. I provided reasons: concise, rational, reasonable, sensible and practical explanations. RESPONDENT: I have no problem accepting that ... RICHARD: I am not asking you to accept what I say ... I am looking for an understanding from you as to why I do not fit the profile of a cult leader and why I am not a cult leader. This ‘accepting’ business is like the apologising trick ... nothing changes, nothing is understood and !Lo! and !Behold! you pop up another day saying something similar in a different context. You have been doing this, off and on, for at least two years now ... sometimes you say were making a joke, or poking fun, or some other trite excuse. RESPONDENT: ... and fitting the profile of something does not make you that thing. RICHARD: Whether this wisdom is true or not is irrelevant at this point as I do not fit the profile. However, by saying this you now negate both your apology (supposedly acknowledging an error) and your acceptance (supposedly acknowledging the mistake) ... because you still consider I fit the profile. Nothing changes ... just a lot of words to-ing and fro-ing to no avail as is typical. RESPONDENT: As far as being a psychopath (mentally ill), the human race fits this profile. RICHARD: Hmm ... the popular word ‘psychopath’ (in psychiatric terms ‘sociopath’) is a particular form of mental illness and the human race does not fit that description. You are muddying the waters. RESPONDENT: I see no reason why you should be exempt from that classification. RICHARD: Simply because I do not fit that description ... I have provided a list of the psychiatric symptoms I do fit to you before. RESPONDENT: This shoe seems to be getting a little tight, huh? RICHARD: No ... I was exploring why it is impossible to have a rational, reasonable, sensible and practical discussion with you about such a simple thing. I have often considered that why you cannot comprehend the actual freedom I talk of is because it is too complex (which it is not) or too obscure (which it is not), or whatever extenuating circumstance I could dredge up to excuse you. Whereas I now see that it is nothing more complex than small-mindedness.
RESPONDENT: All I’ve even seen in Richards writings is ...... an absolute belief that there is no such happening as God or other dimension besides the human body which he is. RICHARD: May I demonstrate something basic about egocentric Version 1:
Version 2:
It is not possible to proceed very deeply at all in a sensible discussion about human suffering with the person in version No. 1 (which is what this Mailing List is purportedly set up for) ... whereas it is possible with person No. 2 (who understands the basic principles operating in regards belief in the metaphysical and the faith required to maintain trust in that which is not physical) and is prepared to investigate. RESPONDENT: Have it your way, Richard. Either way it still boils down to a belief, absolute or not. RICHARD: I was not endeavouring to have you remove the ‘absolute’ part of the ‘absolute belief’ phrase ... rather I was paving the way to pointing out the distinction between believing and knowing by using the Santa Claus example of an egocentric viewpoint (Version No. 1) blocking a sensible discussion. Because no mature adult believes that Santa Claus does not exist ... they know such a phantasm does not exist as a fact. RESPONDENT: As I’ve stated before, you have no proof that your brand of actuality is really all there is to life. RICHARD: I find variations of this line of debate on the Christian versus Rationalist discussion boards (where the Christians challenge the Rationalists to prove that their god does not exist). It is futile to take up a challenge wherein the challenger first proposes something (such as a god or a goddess or an other dimension) and then says: ‘prove me wrong’. Needless to say, I do know for myself that there are no gods or goddesses or an after-life outside of passionate imagination. RESPONDENT: You may be willing to accept your belief of atheism and actuality, but I’m not. RICHARD: If I may point out? You are doing it again here ... you persist in a turn of phrase (‘your belief’) that leads nowhere fruitful ... unless you find to-ing and fro-ing satisfying enough. RESPONDENT: I’m the one who truly has no beliefs, for I state that I just don’t know. RICHARD: This position is called ‘agnostic’ ... given that the definition of the word ‘agnostic’ is that such a person maintains that the subject under discussion can not be known one way or another (‘agnostic’ can also mean ‘undecided’). The people I have met personally, over many years that I have discussed these matters, who embrace this position have invariably been firmly convinced that this course of inaction is the intelligent approach. Mostly they have been academics or mystics ... maybe it is a variation on that hoary adage: ‘he who says he does not know really knows’. I guess it makes them feel intellectually comfortable. For something like twenty five years I was agnostic and it is an apparently satisfying position to be in ... until one day I realised just what I was doing to myself. I was cleverly shuffling all the ‘hard questions’ under the rug and going around deftly cutting the ‘believers’ down to size (which is all so easy to do). But I had nothing to offer in its place – other than ‘it is unknowable’ – and I puzzled as to why this was so. Finally, I ceased procrastinating and equivocating. I wanted to know. I wanted to find out – for myself – all about life, the universe and what it is to be a human being. I now know. RESPONDENT: I do know this flesh and blood body from moment to moment and all the pleasures of thereof. It is indeed spectacular in all that it can sense and enjoy ... RICHARD: So far so good ... there is a ‘but’ coming, however. RESPONDENT: ... but that is such just a small part of the infinite. RICHARD: ... and here you betray your own avowed ‘I just don’t know’ position by implying there is indeed something beyond the physical. RESPONDENT: You may be willing to accept ‘second best’, but I’m not. RICHARD: Again you betray your own avowed ‘I just don’t know’ position by categorising the physical as ‘second best’. It is extremely difficult to maintain an ‘I just don’t know’ stance consistently ... you would make yourself look very silly in your own eyes to maintain an ‘I’m the one who truly has no beliefs, for I state that I just don’t know if Santa Claus exists or not’ stance, eh? * RICHARD: I have been talking about these matters for twenty-odd years now, and I have had to hone my skills as a wordsmith so as to pre-empt such sophistry, to such a degree that I am nowadays accused of ... um ... using an Oxford Dictionary for a pillow at night while I sleep, for example (or even that I absorb all the words and meanings which I then altruistically use to razzle-dazzle spiritualists into understanding me). Golly, someone even said recently, because they think I delight in being the only one of my kind in the world and of all time, that if another person was to understand me then I could no longer be the undisputed ruler and sole owner of all that I know and understand ... or some-such egocentric explanation to a fellow human being expressing an inability to comprehend what I am saying. However, these days I am not at all shocked into silence at the enormity of why mayhem and misery abounds in the religious/spiritual world. The enormity of why sunk home long ago ... which is why I write as I do. RESPONDENT: Richard, I was poking a little fun at you. RICHARD: I am well aware of that – I have a keen sense of the ridiculous – and I do find it humorous (especially the ‘using the Oxford Dictionary for a pillow’ part). Yet even words spoken in jest can have an underlying issue to be explored – as these subsequent discussions are making clear – and thus it is all worthwhile ... this is what this Mailing List is here for. RESPONDENT: I’m sorry you took it so seriously. RICHARD: I did not take it ‘seriously’ at all ... I am taking the opportunity to explore the undertones with you (for as far as you are prepared to go). RESPONDENT: You must have some feelings, after all. RICHARD: A conclusion drawn from an egocentric premise (‘took it so seriously’) is bound to be false.
RETURN TO CORRESPONDENCE LIST ‘B’ INDEX RETURN TO RICHARD’S CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
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