Actual Freedom – Mailing List ‘B’ Correspondence

Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’

with Respondent No. 19

Some Of The Topics Covered

establishing whether the speaker is living the ‘Teachings’ he promulgates – not an ‘obsession’ – a clear and unambiguous agenda – No. 05 on anger/fear not ending completely – No. 10 on experiencing anguish – an aid to sensible discussion – it is enlightenment – the enlightened state does not deliver the goods – on being genuinely interested – something beyond enlightenment – feelings are merely an indicator of a ‘me’ – the absence of feelings is a side-effect and not the main event at all – observing what the world is doing – seeing the sanity – what you are not doing – what you are doing sane – transformation of a lie – sanity in action – you create the lie  – not observing what is as-it-is – transformation of sanity – the truth is but an institutionalised insanity – sanity sucks big-time – what the word sanity means – what the word insanity means – the sanity of blind nature’s passions – socialisation: a conditioned sanity – what the institutionalised insanity is exemplified as – a model to either live by, aspire to, become, or be – the powerful influence of such intense affection – fellowship regard epitomises an actual intimacy – actual intimacy operates unilaterally – example rather than just by precept – sanity is the norm – sanity is the problem – the state of being all over the world – the better aspiration/the best aspiration – the extinction of all states of being – living by/ aspiring to the model – the next buddha – a sense of mission/almost an imprint – the sorry state of affairs – all is salubrious and irreprehensible – permanent happiness and harmlessness – denying biology and experience – a peculiar myopia – a National Geographic article – how one is born does matter – approaching discussions as a debate – a long-winded exercise in word-meanings – intimate exploration – not all humans/imprinting query – starting with a lie – lying to be credible – being different and knowing it – a debate with oneself – another person’s report – many people know what apperception – immediately and transparently apparent – no room for love here – collected experience collated – another imprinting query – setting the record straight – smart-aleckry – no instinctual survival response – intelligence operates unimpeded – there is a third alternative – an arbitrary declaration of insanity – speaking nonsensically – an example of redefinition – a capricious decision – living a lie – being honest – to dare to care is to care to dare

May 07 2002:

RICHARD: ... it is such an obvious thing to do, to establish whether the speaker is living the ‘Teachings’ he promulgates, that I wonder why there is so much opposition to doing so.

RESPONDENT: And I wonder why there is so much obsession with proving that K did not live what he preached.

RICHARD: It is not an ‘obsession’ ... it is a simple, straightforward and obvious case of ascertaining whether the enlightened state is a worthwhile state to live in or not.

RESPONDENT: I see that you have resorted back to your full debate mode, replete with digging in the archives to bring forth the winning point. So be it.

RICHARD: If you see my providing of textual evidence to demonstrate a point I am making as being a ‘full debate mode’ – and not as an aid to sensible discussion – then that is your business.

*

RESPONDENT: I wonder what is the agenda in wanting to promulgate that concern.

RICHARD: My agenda is quite clear and unambiguous: spiritual enlightenment has been proposed by many peoples throughout human history as being the solution to all the ills of humankind – not just by Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti – and as it does not release the enlightened person from anger or anguish in toto it is therefore not worthwhile pursuing.

RESPONDENT: I have never read or heard (as far as I remember) K referring to the ‘transformed’ state as ‘enlightened’.

RICHARD: He did indeed ... for example, three years before his death he was very precise (when he was using the metaphor of light to explain how he saw himself). Viz.:

K: ‘You see, that’s the whole conception – that there are such people who help. Not guide, not tell you what to do, because that’s too silly. But, just like the sun, give light. And if you want to sit in the sun, you sit in it. If you don’t, you sit in the shadow.
S: ‘It’s that kind of enlightenment.
K: ‘It is enlightenment. (‘Krishnamurti – The Open Door’ by Mary Lutyens, page 69; Avon Books: New York, 1988).

*

RICHARD: I found the following observation to be quite explicit: (snip quotes from the archives) ... there are many examples of saints and sages and seers displaying varying degrees of those emotions I usually group under the ‘catch-all’ words malice and sorrow. Most commonly they were subject to anger and anguish (often disguised/designated as being ‘Divine Anger’ and ‘Divine Sorrow’ by themselves and their devotees/ followers/ readers).

RESPONDENT: It would seem to me that one have to ask the man point blank to know for sure what is was speaking from.

RICHARD: Well, as Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti is dead that is not an option but you could try asking No. 10 ... here is what he had to say, on this very mailing list some time ago, on the subject of experiencing anguish: (snip quotes from the archives).

RESPONDENT: And you used K’s quote about ‘living what you preach’ to prove your point of what – that you’re never supposed to feel anything ever again?

RICHARD: My point is that the enlightened state does not deliver the goods it (supposedly) promises ... for example:

• [quote]: ‘As we pointed out, if a few really understood what we have been telling about for the last fifty years, and are really deeply involved *and have brought about an end of fear, sorrow and so on*, then that will affect the whole of the consciousness of mankind’ [emphasis added]. (‘ The Network of Thought ’ by. J Krishnamurti, page 67; Harper & Row: San Francisco, 1982).

RESPONDENT: I think we’ve been down this road ad-infinitum with ‘feelings’ and ‘no feelings’ at all.

RICHARD: Aye, but you asked me what my interest was and I responded ... I had no intention of writing at length to this mailing list as I merely gave a brief reply to No. 33’s enquiry as to where Richard and No. 18 were and how they were doing.

Silly me kind of figured you were genuinely interested.

RESPONDENT: What are you trying to prove?

RICHARD: That there is something beyond enlightenment that does deliver the goods: peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body.

RESPONDENT: That No. 10 has feelings?

RICHARD: Not only feelings ... the presence of feelings are merely an indicator that a ‘me’ is still in situ (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself).

RESPONDENT: Well, No. 33 has feelings and so does everybody else. You are the only one I know of who claims to be totally without any feelings.

RICHARD: You keep missing the point I oft-times made in previous posts to this list ... the whole aim is to rid the body completely of any trace whatsoever of an ‘I’ and a ‘me’ (the absence of feelings is a side-effect and not the main event at all).

RESPONDENT: I don’t think that is anything to ascribe to.

RICHARD: If peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body is not something that you would aspire to then that is your choice.

At least we both now know where you stand.

May 08 2002:

RESPONDENT: ... you are the only one I know of who claims to be totally without any feelings.

RICHARD: You keep missing the point I oft-times made in previous posts to this list ... the whole aim is to rid the body completely of any trace whatsoever of an ‘I’ and a ‘me’ (the absence of feelings is a side-effect and not the main event at all).

RESPONDENT: And you say that is to be done by repeating the phrase, ‘how am I experiencing my life at this moment?’

RICHARD: The question to ask oneself, each moment again, is ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ This is because this moment is the only moment that one is ever alive ... only this moment is actual (the past, which was actual when it was happening, is no longer actual and the future, which will be actual when it is happening, is not actual yet).

It has a remarkable way of bringing one’s attention to this very moment wherein everything is happening.

RESPONDENT: Could you please, in detail, explain how that phrase is supposed to free the entity who is asking it from ‘being’?

RICHARD: Certainly ... so as to save space I will refer you to the following link:

Suffice is it to say for now, to enable the process to work its magic, is that it is vital to remember a pure consciousness experience (PCE) where one finds oneself walking through a world of veritable delight – the actual world of the senses – whereupon this ambrosial paradise called planet earth, with its sensuous quality of magical perfection and purity, comes alive in a truly wondrous way. Everything and everybody has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, scintillating vitality that makes everything vivid and sparkling ... even the very earth beneath one’s feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper ... literally everything is as if it were alive (a rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are). This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence ... the actualness of everything and everybody.

We do not live in an inert universe.

RESPONDENT: How long are you supposed to ask it?

RICHARD: Until it becomes an automatic approach to life or a wordless attitude to living. Initially it will be seen that how one is experiencing this moment of being alive is usually via a feeling or a belief (sometimes cunningly disguised as a ‘truth’) – and a belief is an emotion-backed thought anyway – thus effectively blocking the direct sense experience. And for as long as one is experiencing this moment through a feeling – no matter how deep or profound the feeling may be – one is cutting oneself off from the splendour of the actual.

There is an unimaginable and inconceivable purity right here at this place in infinite space just now at this moment in eternal time which far exceeds the most deepest, the most profound feeling of beauty or love – the actual is magnificent beyond ‘my’ wildest dreams and schemes – and this moment and this place is an ever-present ‘jumping-in’ point, as it were ... however it does mean the end of ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself).

This is because ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings’ are ‘me’.

RESPONDENT: Do you ever get an answer?

RICHARD: You get an experiential answer (the PCE) ... which is the only answer worth getting.

RESPONDENT: When you tire of asking that question do you die?

RICHARD: No ... altruistic ‘self’-immolation happens when a rather curious decision is made – a once-in-a-lifetime decision – to psychologically and psychically die for the benefit of this body and that body and every body.

All your childhood hurts and fears – in fact all your hurts and fears – die forever right along with the death of ‘I’/‘me’.

RESPONDENT: Do you still have to ask yourself that question?

RICHARD: No, only the entity asked that question ... it may help in your understanding to mention that I did nothing at all in order to be just here right now as it was the identity inhabiting this body that did the necessary work all those years ago.

I have been here all along, for 55 years, having a ball.

RESPONDENT: Do both the asker and the askee die?

RICHARD: Both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul become extinct – as dead as the dodo but with no skeletal remains – which means that reality also vanishes ... and the actual world becomes apparent.

It too has been here all along.

May 08 2002:

RESPONDENT: I don’t think that [being totally without any feelings] is anything to ascribe to.

RICHARD: If peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body is not something that you would aspire to then that is your choice. At least we both now know where you stand.

RESPONDENT: Just one last question (or two), Richard: If you see your mother hit by a Mac truck and her flesh and blood body smashed all over the pavement, you feel nothing? If your six year old daughter is brutally raped and murdered, you feel nothing? If you catch you wife making out on the couch with your best friend, you feel nothing? If your house burns down and you lose all of your possessions, you feel nothing? The world up around you is burning up, you feel nothing?

RICHARD: These are all hypothetical questions yet even so I can answer assuredly: there would be no feelings at all. It may be of interest to you that I have been asked questions of this nature before and you might like to access the following link:

In case you do not access the link it may be useful for me to explain that not only do I have no feelings about these scenarios you mention, but I have none about any more you might propose. I do not experience affective feelings per se because I do not have any anywhere in this body at all ... this body lost that faculty entirely when ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul became extinct. Thus, to use the jargon, no one can ‘press my buttons’ as I do not have any buttons – nor any feelings under them – to be activated. Literally I feel nothing at all. Even when, say, watching a magnificent sunrise where some lofty clouds are shot through with splendid rays of golden light, transforming the morning sky into a blaze of glory ... I feel nothing at all. These eyes seeing it delight in the array of colour, and this brain contemplating its visual splendour can revel in the wonder of it all ... but I cannot feel the beauty of it in the emotional and passionate sense of the word feel.

Just as when a person becomes physically blind all their other senses are heightened, so too is it when all affective feelings vanish entirely. This body is simply brimming with sense organs which celebrate in their own sensuous and sensual delight. Visually everything is intense, vivid and brilliant ... sensuously everything is dynamic, vital and scintillating with actuality ... sensuality is a matter-of-fact actualness. Everything is endowed with a purity that far exceeds the greatest or most profound feeling of beauty ... and an intimacy that surpasses the highest or deepest feeling of love possible.

An actual intimacy is the direct experience of the pristine actuality of people, things and events, unmediated by any ‘I’/‘me’ whatsoever.

RESPONDENT: What is the difference in saying ‘I feel’ for my mother, and ‘I care’? Main Entry: 2care: Function: verb: 1 a : to feel trouble or anxiety b : to feel interest or concern (care about freedom).

RICHARD: You have asked me before about this and I responded then by saying that one can actually care as contrasted to feeling that one cares ... and there is a world of difference between the two.

As for the dictionary meaning: dictionaries give alternate meanings to a particular word and different dictionaries can give differing meanings than in other dictionaries and I notice that you have selected two of the several meanings ascribed to the word ‘care’ in the Merriam-Webster ... whereas I would have chosen their [quote] ‘to be concerned about or to the extent of’ [endquote] meaning so as to convey what I personally mean by it. The Oxford also gives various meanings ... the ones that I would choose are [quote] ‘an object or matter of concern; a thing to be done or seen to; attention, heed, regard, inclination’ [endquote].

Regarding this word – and the other words I use to describe the qualities of experiencing life as this flesh and blood body only – it is sobering to come to understand that all of the 650,000 words in the English language were coined by peoples nursing malice and sorrow and love and compassion to their bosom ... hence most of the expressive words have an affective component. When I first began describing my on-going experience to my fellow human beings I chose words that had the least affective connotations ... coining too many new words would have been counter-productive.

Consequently, the etymology of words can be of assistance in most cases to locate a near-enough to being a non-affective base to start from ... taking the word ‘care’ as an example it will be seen that etymologically the word comes from the Old English ‘caru’ meaning ‘charge’ or ‘oversight’ (‘charge’ as in the Latin ‘carricare’ from ‘carrus’ meaning ‘wagon’ – thus ‘carry’ – and ‘oversight’ as in ‘overseeing’) and basically means ‘an object or matter of concern’ as in ‘a thing to be done or seen to’ or ‘protective overview’ or ‘guardianship’. The only way to make it a particular feeling is by linking it with the Gothic and Germanic word ‘kara’ meaning ‘grief’ or ‘lament’ (as derived from ‘karar’ meaning ‘bed of sickness’). In popular use it appears to mean worrying about the other.

Incidentally, the word ‘consideration’ is from the Latin ‘considerare’ meaning ‘examine’ (perhaps from the Latin ‘sider’ or ‘sidus’ meaning ‘constellation’ or ‘star’) and basically means ‘the action or fact of examining and taking into account of anything as a reason or motive with regard for the circumstances of another’ ... in popular use, however, it generally means ‘don’t hurt my feelings’.

It is pertinent to comprehend that dictionaries are descriptive (and not prescriptive as are scriptures) and reflect more about how words came about, how they have changed, and how they have expanded into other words, rather than what they should mean. I tend to provide dictionary definitions only so as to establish a starting-point for communication ... from this mutually agreed-upon base each co-respondent can apply their own specific nuance of meaning to words as are readily explainable and mutually understandable (such as I do with ‘real’ and ‘actual’ and with ‘truth’ and ‘fact’, for example). Generally I can suss out what the other means by a word via its context and both where they are coming from and what they are wanting to establish ... if not I ask what they are meaning to convey.

Ain’t life grand!

May 15 2002:

RESPONDENT: I learned that life is relationship, and that is constantly changing, so you might say that everything is always in question.

RICHARD: Okay ... let us start here then: are you prepared to question whether life is indeed relationship?

RESPONDENT: Sure. Where do we go from here?

RICHARD: Simple ... in the pure consciousness experience (PCE) where there is no identity whatsoever – no emotional ‘being’ – it will be seen with startling clarity that there is no entity within the body to be connected, or to do the connecting, with life (which was previously seen as being outside the body) ... let alone have a connection which is ‘constantly changing’. In other words, as this flesh and blood body only one is never separate from life ... thus there is no relationship.

Where the separate self has ended so has relationship.

May 15 2002:

RICHARD: ... only a person that can stand on their own two feet and think for themselves is likely to be free of all the ills of humankind.

RESPONDENT: Only outside of thought is there no conditioning. We have lived in and acted from thought for umpteen million years, and the more we think, the worse are the ills of humankind. Logical and complete thought is necessary to understand why thought cannot be free.

RICHARD: As I never bought the ‘Teaching’ that thought was the problem (I questioned everything ... including the speaker) I was able to apply clear, rational and sensible thinking to the root cause of all the ills of humankind – the instinctual passionate ‘self’ which all sentient beings are born with – with a remarkable result.

As this flesh and blood body only (sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) thought is a delightful episodic event.

May 15 2002:

RESPONDENT: So, I am supposed to remember something (a PCE) from the past ...

RICHARD: Unless a PCE is occurring at the moment where else would such an experience of pure perfection come from?

RESPONDENT: ... and keep remembering it while I keep asking a certain memorized phrase over and over ...

RICHARD: No ... I specifically said that it was a question to be asked, each moment again, until it becomes [quote] an automatic approach to life or a wordless attitude to living [endquote].

RESPONDENT: ...in order to rid myself of the past.

RICHARD: No ... in order to rid the flesh and blood body of the parasitical entity who has taken up residence within (the instinctual passionate ‘self’).

I have no problem with the past – or the future – whatsoever.

RESPONDENT: And, this routine is supposed to render me as dead as the dodo.

RICHARD: It will render both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul as dead as the dodo ... but with no skeletal remains (no childhood hurts or fears and so on).

RESPONDENT: Sounds likely to me.

RICHARD: Aye ... very, very likely indeed (this is not theory or conjecture but a report born from practical experience).

May 15 2002:

RESPONDENT: After 11 years of being ‘enlightened’, you come across the writings of Krishnamurti who suggested that you observe everything, anguish and suffering, for starters, and in doing so you eventually go beyond enlightenment and experience the death of the ego.

RICHARD: If you had read what I wrote with both eyes open you would have seen that I explicitly stated that I came across the writings of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti six months after enlightenment (and not ‘11 years’ after) who suggested that I question everything ... including the speaker (and not that I ‘observe everything, anguish and suffering, for starters’ or any other issue you may invent) and by doing so I eventually went beyond enlightenment and experienced the death of the soul (and not ‘the death of the ego’ as the death of the ego only is how one becomes enlightened).

And by the word soul I mean ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself.

RESPONDENT: It sounds like to me that Krishnamurti’s writing did ‘deliver the goods’ for you.

RICHARD: Aye ... but not the ‘goods’ he proposed (spiritual enlightenment).

May 15 2002:

RICHARD: Before you become too effusive in your congratulations you may wish to view some quotes relevant to the topic. So as to save you wading through a rather long post I will supply the pertinent quotes here: (snip quotes from archives). It would appear that the ‘perspective’ he refers to is an ... um ... an all-embracing perspective where it concerns suffering.

RESPONDENT: You sure do like to bring up the past whilst advocating memorizing a certain phrase to free you from the past.

RICHARD: First, if you see my providing of textual evidence to demonstrate a point I am making as being something other than as an aid to sensible discussion then that is your business.

Second, if you see that I am ‘advocating memorizing a certain phrase’ then you are demonstrating that you cannot read what I have to say with both eyes open.

Last, I am not advocating, and never have advocated, freeing oneself from ‘the past’ ... I have consistently advocated freeing the body of its parasitical entity in toto (the instinctual passionate ‘being’).

RESPONDENT: You are truly a twisted individual.

RICHARD: No ... it is your misrepresentation, of what I clearly enunciate, that you are finding ‘twisted’.

May 15 2002:

RICHARD: ... I personally prefer the mailing list format as I can take time out to wander away and do something else halfway through and come back (the next day even) and carry on writing where I left of without missing anything.

RESPONDENT: Of course, that gives you time to perfect your thoughts in perfect format.

RICHARD: It does give me time to check for typos and spelling mistakes and change a word here and there upon a read-through before clicking ‘send’ ... the written word lends itself well to precision in sequential presentation. But the way I write is more or less the same as the way I speak: when I start a sentence I have no means of knowing in advance what will transpire, let alone how it will end. All I need to know is the topic and the subject matter unfolds of its own accord. I do have a reliable and repeatable format and style, which has developed over the years, so it is not an ad hoc or chaotic meandering.

It is all very easy ... and a delightful pastime.

May 15 2002:

RESPONDENT: When one is open minded and sensitive to what Krishnamurti is presenting, his words are like a bubbling brook on a warm peaceful day. They go directly into the reader’s heart and permeate the reader with instant beauty of simplicity and understanding.

RICHARD: And the words ‘directly into the reader’s heart’ are the key words in this paragraph (which is why thought cops all the blame and the feelings get off scot-free).

RESPONDENT: When I read what Richard writes, the words are so obtuse and the meaning so convoluted that what permeates the flesh and blood body is a discordant noise similar to finger nails scraping on metal.

RICHARD: What I am saying is so very simple: just as ‘I’ as ego dies in order to become enlightened so too does ‘me’ as soul die in order to go beyond enlightenment ... thus I would hazard a guess that the ‘discordant noise similar to finger nails scraping on metal’ which you are hearing is cognitive dissonance in action.

May 15 2002:

RESPONDENT: No. 33 was trying to discredit K by saying that K didn’t live by the words he spoke. Richard was trying to discredit the words that K spoke saying they don’t deliver the goods ...

RICHARD: Basically I am saying that spiritual enlightenment does not deliver the goods it (supposedly) promises ... freedom from suffering.

RESPONDENT: ... and the two of them came to an agreement that K was somehow a fraud.

RICHARD: Basically I am saying that spiritual enlightenment is a fraud ... if this was a Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain mailing list I would be using quotes of his to demonstrate my point.

RESPONDENT: The only thing that K ever said that he was, was ‘nothing’, so Richard and No. 33 are actually making something out of nothing.

RICHARD: Au contraire ... Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti said he was enlightened (I provided a quote of his to this effect to you only last week).

RESPONDENT: In other words, it’s all much ado about nothing.

RICHARD: Not so ... it is much ado about enlightenment (and rightly so).

May 15 2002:

RESPONDENT: I think I have hurt Richard’s feelings ...

RICHARD: Ha ... only in your dreams and schemes.

RESPONDENT: ... (yes, I know he says he doesn’t have any, but I don’t believe him) ...

RICHARD: I do not want any one to merely believe me. I oft-times stress to people how important it is that they see for themselves. If they were so foolish as to believe me then the most they would end up in is living in a dream state and thus miss out on the actual.

I do not wish this fate upon anyone ... I like my fellow human beings

RESPONDENT: ... and, so, I apologize, Richard.

RICHARD: As a suggestion only ... your apology would be far more fruitful if you offered it to yourself (I have had experts try to offend me and they have all failed in their self-appointed task).

RESPONDENT: From now on, I’m denying any urge to make remarks about the human being, and, instead, confine my remarks to the content of the post. (We’ll see how long that resolve lasts).

RICHARD: As another suggestion ... try reading ‘the content of the post’ first with both eyes open (then maybe you will find yourself responding intelligently without the need for a resolve).

April 12 2003:

RESPONDENT: I observe what the world is doing; what I am doing. I wonder at the observation. I wonder if we will ever see the insanity so completely that we will stop doing the insane. Do you ever wonder if that is possible?

RICHARD: If I may point out? You are not observing what the world is doing, what you are doing, at all ... if I may take the liberty of rewriting your paragraph as an example? Viz.:

• [Example]: I observe what the world is doing; what I am doing. I wonder at the observation. I wonder if we will ever see the sanity so completely that we will stop doing the sane. Do you ever wonder if that is possible?

Yes.

April 13 2003:

RESPONDENT: I observe what the world is doing; what I am doing. I wonder at the observation. I wonder if we will ever see the insanity so completely that we will stop doing the insane. Do you ever wonder if that is possible?

RICHARD: If I may point out? You are not observing what the world is doing, what you are doing, at all ... if I may take the liberty of rewriting your paragraph as an example? Viz.:

• [Example]: I observe what the world is doing; what I am doing. I wonder at the observation. I wonder if we will ever see the sanity so completely that we will stop doing the sane. Do you ever wonder if that is possible?

RESPONDENT: Thanks for the rewrite, Richard, but I wonder what you are saying.

RICHARD: You can not stop doing what you are not doing.

April 13 2003:

RESPONDENT: Thanks for the rewrite, Richard, but I wonder what you are saying.

RICHARD: You can not stop doing what you are not doing.

RESPONDENT: OK, I understand that part, but what about stopping doing the sane? I do not understand what you mean.

RICHARD: Just as the world (people in general) is not insane neither are you ... and just as what people in general are doing is sanity so too is what you are doing sane.

*

RESPONDENT: Something has been lost in your terseness - which is not one of your strong points. :)

RICHARD: Ha ... damned if I do and damned if I do not, eh? Okay, perhaps this will fill in what has been lost: if you start with a lie (not seeing what is as-it-is) what state will transformation of that result in?

April 13 2003:

RESPONDENT: ... I do not understand what you mean.

RICHARD: Just as the world (people in general) is not insane neither are you ... and just as what people in general are doing is sanity so too is what you are doing sane.

RESPONDENT: Richard, are you OK?

RICHARD: I am excellent, thank you ... how are you?

RESPONDENT: Are you telling me that when I see bombs dropping and people with their limbs blown off that what I am seeing is sane ...

RICHARD: Yes ... the bombs dropping, and people with their limbs blown off, is nothing other than sanity in action.

And sanity prevails all over the world: for instance an estimated 2.5 million sane peoples have been killed in the civil war in the Congo (aka Zaire) by their sane fellow human beings ... perhaps it is because it is not being displayed 24/7 on television screens there seems to be very little outrage.

Or maybe it is because without the good ol’ US of A to yet again mercilessly whip around the block there is no outlet for the outrage?

RESPONDENT: ... or are you telling me my eyes are lying?

RICHARD: No, it is you who creates the lie (eyes see what is as-it-is).

*

RESPONDENT: Something has been lost in your terseness - which is not one of your strong points. :)

RICHARD: Ha ... damned if I do and damned if I do not, eh? Okay, perhaps this will fill in what has been lost: if you start with a lie (not seeing what is as-it-is) what state will transformation of that result in?

RESPONDENT: Nope. It’s still lost.

RICHARD: If, in observing what the world (people in general) is doing, what you are doing, you see insanity (as in ‘I wonder if we will ever see the insanity so completely that we will stop doing the insane’) then you are not observing what is as-it-is.

In other words: if you start with the false (seeing sanity as being insanity) what state will transformation of sanity (what is as-it-is) result in?

April 14 2003:

RICHARD: If you start with the false (seeing sanity as being insanity) what state will transformation of sanity (what is as-it-is) result in?

RESPONDENT: Insanity? That is just a guess.

RICHARD: Aye, the truth is but an institutionalised insanity ... meanwhile back at the example:

• [Example]: I observe what the world is doing; what I am doing. I wonder at the observation. I wonder if we will ever see the sanity so completely that we will stop being sane. Do you ever wonder if that is possible?

Yes (I have not been sane for many, many years).

*

RESPONDENT: You are saying that insanity is the lie, and what we see is what we get?

RICHARD: Yes ... where the lie of seeing insanity, when observing people in general and oneself in particular, is no longer blocking observation then sanity can be seen for what it is ... one sees the fact of sanity.

It sucks big-time.

April 15 2003:

RESPONDENT: You are saying that insanity is the lie, and what we see is what we get?

RICHARD: Yes ... where the lie of seeing insanity, when observing people in general and oneself in particular, is no longer blocking observation then sanity can be seen for what it is ... one sees the fact of sanity.

It sucks big-time.

RESPONDENT: I take it that you mean ‘institutionalised sanity’ – what the world as-it-is now means by ‘sanity’.

RICHARD: No, what I mean by ‘sanity’ is the ordinary, normal, common, or everyday state of being sane, being of sound mind or in one’s right mind, or being in possession of one’s faculties, and not being in a state of mind that precludes normal perception and behaviour and which prevents ordinary social interaction (to be insane is to be suffering from psychosis, a severe mental illness, a derangement, a disorder, that involves a loss of contact with reality and is often marked by delusions, hallucinations, and altered thought processes).

RESPONDENT: In which case, yes, it sucks big-time, so by *your* definition ...

RICHARD: If I may interject? The definition ‘institutionalised sanity’ is *your* definition, not mine. The ordinary, normal, common, or everyday state of being sane is how people naturally are ... it is the state of being peoples everywhere are born already being and could be described as the sanity of blind nature’s genetically endowed instinctual survival passions (passions such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire).

You are talking of socialisation ... being made fit to live in a society, the process of adapting and forming or acquiring the necessary values and behaviour modifications necessary for the stability and cohesiveness of the social group of which a person is a member (what is generally known as conditioning on mailing lists such as this).

A conditioned sanity, in other words.

RESPONDENT: ... [so by *your* definition] looking at what it means to be sane, insanity is by far a better state of mind. You are only the second person who I have heard that took this view. My dad, finally after many years saying the world was insane, realized that the world was sane and he was insane (so he said). I neither thought that he was sane nor insane, but just ‘different’ and very vocal about it (maybe a little crazy, on second thought). Now, I just don’t know.

RICHARD: Speaking personally, for the first 34 years of my life I was sane (the ordinary, normal, common, or everyday sanity of people in general all over the world) and peace-on-earth was nowhere to be found; for the next 11 years I was in a transformed state of being (which I gradually came to realise was an institutionalised insanity) called The Absolute or Truth, God, Being, Presence, Self, and so on, which was exemplified by love – Love Agapé – compassion, bliss, rapture, ecstasy, euphoria, goodness, beauty, oneness, unity, wholeness and a timeless, spaceless, formless immortal otherness which was a peace that passeth all understanding ... yet all the while peace-on-earth was still nowhere to be found.

By ‘institutionalised’ I mean altered states of consciousness that have become institutions over the aeons: instituted as being states of consciousness which are universally accepted as the summum bonum of human existence ... a model to either live by, aspire to, become, or be.

RESPONDENT: It makes me sad to realize now that I didn’t know him very well at all, but, then, I was very frightened by him. To me, that was his biggest failing in life – not knowing how to treat children. How are you with children, after you became insane?

RICHARD: For most of the 11 years I was more than loving with children, more than compassionate, as I was love, I was compassion ... or, better put, there was only love, there was only compassion.

At least one of the children in my care, custody and control at the time (I was a single parent for a number of years) bears the legacy of that era to this very day due to the powerful influence of such intense affection.

RESPONDENT: If you are indeed insane, then you would by necessity relate to children as though were sane, unless, of course, they are insane, too. You couldn’t treat them any different than you would treat anybody else.

RICHARD: Ahh ... these days children are, like everybody else, my fellow human beings and fellowship regard epitomises all interaction: with the cessation of the institutionalised insanity, and its pathetic intimacy, an actual intimacy lies open all around.

It is impossible to not like somebody, whatever the mischief is they get up to, as an actual intimacy does not switch on and off and operates unilaterally in regards every man, woman and child without exception ... nobody is special because everybody is special simply by being alive as a flesh and blood body.

RESPONDENT: Today’s children are becoming even more indoctrinated than we were, as the world is more and more institutionalised every passing day. It really is them that we need to address. But how?

RICHARD: By example rather than just by precept ... in other words: when you observe what the world is doing (people in general) and what you are doing – and you wonder at the observation – do you wonder if you will ever see the sanity so completely that you will cease being sane?

Do you ever wonder if that is possible?

April 18 2003:

RICHARD: Where the lie of seeing insanity, when observing people in general and oneself in particular, is no longer blocking observation then sanity can be seen for what it is ... one sees the fact of sanity. It sucks big-time.

RESPONDENT: I take it that you mean ‘institutionalised sanity’ – what the world as-it-is now means by ‘sanity’.

RICHARD: No, what I mean by ‘sanity’ is the ordinary, normal, common, or everyday state of being sane, being of sound mind or in one’s right mind, or being in possession of one’s faculties, and not being in a state of mind that precludes normal perception and behaviour and which prevents ordinary social interaction (to be insane is to be suffering from psychosis, a severe mental illness, a derangement, a disorder, that involves a loss of contact with reality and is often marked by delusions, hallucinations, and altered thought processes).

RESPONDENT: In which case, yes, it sucks big-time, so by *your* definition ...

RICHARD: If I may interject? The definition ‘institutionalised sanity’ is *your* definition, not mine. The ordinary, normal, common, or everyday state of being sane is how people naturally are ... it is the state of being peoples everywhere are born already being and could be described as the sanity of blind nature’s genetically endowed instinctual survival passions (passions such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire).

RESPONDENT: It [sanity] is still *your* definition as there is no proof that nature endowed us with fear, aggression, and the desire to murder and maim.

RICHARD: How can it *still* be my definition when the first definition was *your* definition and not mine? Besides which, I based the ‘ordinary, normal, common, or everyday state of being sane’ definition on the Oxford Dictionary anyway (just as I did with the word psychosis) ... here is what I cobbled both definitions together from:

• ‘sanity (see sane): soundness of mind.
• ‘sane: in one’s right mind; in possession of one’s faculties.
• ‘insane: a state of mind that precludes normal perception and behaviour, and ordinary social interaction; psychotic.
• ‘psychotic: a person with a psychosis.
• ‘psychosis: a severe mental illness, derangement, or disorder involving a loss of contact with reality, freq. with hallucinations, delusions, or altered thought processes.. (Oxford Dictionary).

And, as other dictionaries have similar descriptions, they are certainly not *my* definitions – obviously peoples all over the world understand quite well what sanity and insanity (and psychosis) means – and, as sanity is the norm all over the world, it is self-evident that the vast majority of people are born sane.

It is sanity which is the problem world-wide ... it is what you are seeing when observing the world (peoples in general) and yourself.

RESPONDENT: It is still *your* definition to redefine the ‘insane’ as sane.

RICHARD: No, I did nothing of the sort ... you classified what you see, when observing the world (peoples in general) and yourself, as being [quote] ‘insanity’ [endquote] and all I did was point out that what was really going on was sanity in action (and, further to the point, that sanity sucks big-time).

*

RICHARD: You are talking of socialisation ... being made fit to live in a society, the process of adapting and forming or acquiring the necessary values and behaviour modifications necessary for the stability and cohesiveness of the social group of which a person is a member (what is generally known as conditioning on mailing lists such as this). A conditioned sanity, in other words.

RESPONDENT: Yes, and which on here is usually referred to as ‘insane’, with the exception of Respondent No. 21, Respondent No. 12, and Richard. You may call murder, war, and destruction ‘sane’ just because it is accepted by society; because that is the way people are, but you could just as easily call it ‘insane’ and make a case that way, also.

RICHARD: No, I could not ‘just as easily’ call it ‘insane’ as the ordinary, normal, common, or everyday usage of the word ‘insanity’ means a state of mind that precludes normal perception and behaviour, and ordinary social interaction, or to be suffering from psychosis, a severe mental illness, a derangement, a disorder, that involves a loss of contact with reality and is often marked by delusions, hallucinations, and altered thought processes ... which is not the state of being which peoples in general all over the world are living in.

No way am I going to buy it that every man, woman and child on this planet is in a state of mind that precludes normal perception and behaviour, and ordinary social interaction, or is suffering from psychosis, a severe mental illness, a derangement, a disorder, that involves a loss of contact with reality and is often marked by delusions, hallucinations, and altered thought processes ... and, going by what you ask (further below), as to whether I insist that a psychosis, a severe mental illness, a derangement, a disorder that involves a loss of contact with reality which is often marked by delusions, hallucinations, and altered thought processes, is a better aspiration than the institutionalised insanity of the altered states of consciousness which have become institutions over the aeons, neither do you.

You are not insane ... and what you are doing is not insanity.

*

RESPONDENT: ... [so by *your* definition] looking at what it means to be sane, insanity is by far a better state of mind. You are only the second person who I have heard that took this view. My dad, finally after many years saying the world was insane, realized that the world was sane and he was insane (so he said). I neither thought that he was sane nor insane, but just ‘different’ and very vocal about it (maybe a little crazy, on second thought). Now, I just don’t know.

RICHARD: Speaking personally, for the first 34 years of my life I was sane (the ordinary, normal, common, or everyday sanity of people in general all over the world) and peace-on-earth was nowhere to be found; for the next 11 years I was in a transformed state of being (which I gradually came to realise was an institutionalised insanity) called The Absolute or Truth, God, Being, Presence, Self, and so on, which was exemplified by love – Love Agapé – compassion, bliss, rapture, ecstasy, euphoria, goodness, beauty, oneness, unity, wholeness and a timeless, spaceless, formless immortal otherness which was a peace that passeth all understanding ... yet all the while peace-on-earth was still nowhere to be found. By ‘institutionalised’ I mean altered states of consciousness that have become institutions over the aeons: instituted as being states of consciousness which are universally accepted as the summum bonum of human existence ... a model to either live by, aspire to, become, or be.

RESPONDENT: And you insist that a better aspiration would be [‘to be insane is to be suffering from psychosis, a severe mental illness, a derangement, a disorder, that involves a loss of contact with reality and is often marked by delusions, hallucinations, and altered thought processes’]?

RICHARD: No ... the better aspiration would be being as happy and harmless as is humanly possible whilst being a ‘self’. The best aspiration, of course, is for ‘self’-immolation in toto so as to enable the already always existing peace-on-earth into being apparent ... to be living as a flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware in the pristine perfection of this actual world – the ambrosial world of sensory delight – where peerless purity lies open all around.

When ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself) becomes extinct all its states of being, ranging from sanity through to insanity, also cease to be ... there is no ‘presence’ whatsoever here in this actual world to be either sane or insane. I just find it cute that the solution to all the ills of humankind be considered insanity by sane people (most of whom live by, or aspire to become, the model provided by the insanity of the altered states of consciousness which have become institutionalised over the aeons by being universally accepted as the summum bonum of human existence anyway).

I kid you not: for just one example many years ago I went to see an accredited psychiatrist and established right from the beginning that he be an atheistic materialist – he said emphatically upon being questioned rather rigorously in this regard that everything was material and modifications of same including consciousness itself – because another psychiatrist I had previously seen was exigently talking about guardian angels looking after me within the first five minutes of our discussion ... yet when regaling this second psychiatrist of my on-going experiencing of life in this actual world his eyes opened in awe as the full import (of what he heard) struck home and he said ‘you may very well be the next buddha we have all been waiting for’.

Such is the grip that the ‘Tried and True’ has on people.

*

RESPONDENT: It makes me sad to realize now that I didn’t know him very well at all, but, then, I was very frightened by him. To me, that was his biggest failing in life – not knowing how to treat children. How are you with children, after you became insane?

RICHARD: For most of the 11 years I was more than loving with children, more than compassionate, as I was love, I was compassion ... or, better put, there was only love, there was only compassion. At least one of the children in my care, custody and control at the time (I was a single parent for a number of years) bears the legacy of that era to this very day due to the powerful influence of such intense affection.

RESPONDENT: And what might that legacy be?

RICHARD: A sense of mission to search for The Absolute (or Truth, God, Being, Presence, Self, and so on), which is exemplified by love – Love Agapé – compassion, bliss, rapture, ecstasy, euphoria, goodness, beauty, oneness, unity, wholeness and a timeless, spaceless, formless immortal otherness which is a peace that passeth all understanding, of course.

The powerful influence of such intense affection in a child’s formative years takes some shaking off ... it almost amounts to an imprinting.

*

RESPONDENT: Today’s children are becoming even more indoctrinated than we were, as the world is more and more institutionalised every passing day. It really is them that we need to address. But how?

RICHARD: By example rather than just by precept ... in other words: when you observe what the world is doing (people in general) and what you are doing – and you wonder at the observation – do you wonder if you will ever see the sanity so completely that you will cease being sane? Do you ever wonder if that is possible?

RESPONDENT: Right now, I’m wondering why I ever thought I could carry on a conversation with you. Just because the sorry state of affairs on this planet is insane is no reason for you to call it ‘sane’.

RICHARD: Yet I do not call insanity sanity ... the sorry state of affairs on this planet is sanity in action (otherwise you are saying that every man, woman and child on this planet is in a state of mind that precludes normal perception and behaviour, and ordinary social interaction, or is suffering from psychosis, a severe mental illness, a derangement, a disorder, that involves a loss of contact with reality and is often marked by delusions, hallucinations, and altered thought processes ... which is patently absurd).

RESPONDENT: I can understand your point of view: ‘if this is sanity, let me be insane ... let me go out of my mind’.

RICHARD: No, that is not what I have been saying at all: what I have been asking is whether it is possible for you to see sanity so completely that you will cease being sane ... end of story.

Here in this actual world all is salubrious and irreprehensible ... just consider, for a moment if you will, that it is only a sanity-based analysis which would determine that permanent happiness and harmlessness be insanity (it speaks volumes about the nature of sanity that it does so).

I know I have said it many times before but I will say it again for emphasis: I do find it cute that peace-on-earth, in this lifetime as this flesh and blood body, be considered a chronic and incurable psychotic mental disorder.

RESPONDENT: I can even sympathise with going out of one’s mind, as this mind is really ‘screwed’, but perhaps this mind has been made insane, which you call ‘sane’.

RICHARD: First of all, it is not only me that calls the ordinary, normal, common, or everyday state of mind sane ... as most of the peoples on this planet do I am merely following the convention for the sake of both consistency and clarity in communication.

But more to the point: as the ordinary, normal, common, or everyday state of mind is not insane it is pointless to speculate how something which does not exist came about.

RESPONDENT: Again, it really doesn’t matter if we were born or made ‘sane’ or ‘insane’, as the facts speak for themselves ...

RICHARD: If I may interject? What facts are you talking about? You deny both biology and the evidence of your own experience as a simple country girl from Arkansas. Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘... there is no proof that nature endowed us with fear, aggression, and the desire to murder and maim’.

It is blatantly obvious for those with the eyes to see that animals are born with instinctual survival passions such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire – it is particularly apparent in what is called the higher-order animals – such that it takes a peculiar myopia to hold fast to the antiquated Tabula Rasa theory.

A stubborn refusal to face the fact, in other words, of our animal heritage.

Having been born and raised on a farm being carved out of virgin forest I interacted with other animals – both domesticated and in the wild – from a very early age and have been able to observe, and have maintained a life-long interest in observing, the correspondence the basic instinctual passions in the human animal have with the basic instinctual passions in the other animals ... to see the self-same feelings of fear and aggression and nurture and desire, for example, in other sentient beings renders any notion of having been born a clean slate simply ridiculous.

And even in these days of my retirement, from my comfortable suburban living room, I can tune into documentaries on this very topic: only recently a television series was aired again about observations made of chimpanzees over many, many years in their native habitat and I was able to identify fear, aggression, territoriality, civil war, robbery, rage, infanticide, nurture, cannibalism, grief, group ostracism, bonding, desire, and so on, being displayed in full colour.

I have to hand a National Geographic article on chimpanzees in the wild in which Ms. Jane Goodall uses words such as ‘war and kidnapping, killing and cannibalism’ and ‘affectionate and supportive bonds’ and ‘pleasure, sadness, curiosity, alarm, rage’ and ‘chimpanzees are creatures of extremes: aggressive one moment, peaceful the next’ when describing what she observed over 20-plus years ... here is an excerpt describing cannibalism (she gave each chimpanzee a name):

• ‘Gilka had been sitting with her infant when suddenly Passion, another mother, had appeared and charged her. Gilka had fled, screaming, but Passion, chasing and attacking her, had seized and killed the baby. Passion had then begun to eat the flesh, sharing her gruesome meal with her own two offspring – adolescent daughter, Pom, and infant son, Prof. The following year Gilka gave birth for a third time. To our utter dismay, this baby met the same fate. The circumstances were more dreadful, for it seemed that Pom had learned from her mother: This time it was the daughter who seized and killed the infant. Again the family shared the flesh. A month later Melissa’s tiny new baby was killed, again by Pom, after a fierce fight between the two mothers. (...) In three years – 1974 to 1976 – only a single infant in the Kasakela community had lived more than one month’. (page 594ff: ‘Life and death at Gombe’ by Jane Goodall; National Geographic, May 1997).

The text for a photograph has this to say:

• ‘Meticulous records kept on the Gombe chimps have revealed a complex range of behaviour, including charging displays, sometimes triggered by a sudden downpour. Similarly excited by a waterfall, a male (right) assumes the upright stance and bristling hair characteristic of some displays. When angry, aroused, or frustrated, chimps also display by stamping, throwing things, and screaming. (page 600: ‘Life and death at Gombe’ by Jane Goodall; National Geographic, May 1997).

And another photograph depicting out-and-out war:

• ‘Warmongering apes mobilize on the southern border of their range in the Kasakela region of Gombe Park (left). The object of their hostility is a small number of chimpanzees who broke away from the Kasakela group to establish a separate territory in the park’s Kahama region. The warfare began in 1974 (...) By 1977 all adult males of the Kahama community had been killed or had disappeared, the first known extermination of one chimp community by another. (page 611: ‘Life and death at Gombe’ by Jane Goodall; National Geographic, May 1997).

I am only too happy to send you the full article if that would be of assistance.

RESPONDENT: ... for the definitions are not the thing, and the definitions will not free us.

RICHARD: It may just be possible that, upon sober reflection, you will find it does matter how you were born after all.

April 18 2003:

RESPONDENT: Uh oh, the attack of the red ink. That’s the colour of full debating regalia.

RICHARD: I only switched to writing my response in the word processor as the previous post had became long and detailed because you initiated a word-meaning discussion by defining for me what I meant by sanity. Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘I take it that you mean ‘institutionalised sanity’ – what the world as-it-is now means by ‘sanity’. In which case, yes, it sucks big-time, so by *your* definition looking at what it means to be sane, insanity is by far a better state of mind.

You took the word I used – sanity – and defined it as meaning ‘institutionalised sanity’ (you even said ‘I take it that you mean ...’) and further defined it as what people in general mean (‘what the world as-it-is now means by ...’) and then proceeded to say that was my definition (‘so by *your* definition ...’) so as to come to *your* conclusion that insanity is preferable to sanity (‘insanity is by far a better state of mind’).

I started this thread being very succinct – to the point of being pithy – which pithiness you called terseness (commenting that it was not one of my strong points) and it was you who turned it into a long-winded exercise in word-meanings ... not me.

‘Tis unfortunate that you approach these discussions as if they were a debate ... but I can easily drop the red type-face.

*

RESPONDENT: This may be my last post, for we have been down this corridor before about the nature of nurture, etc. You insist that humans are born with fear, aggression, desire to murder and maim – based upon your observation that is what animals do.

RICHARD: When I say that the human animal, just like other animals, is genetically programmed at conception with the basic survival passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire), it is based upon not only a life-long observation of other animals but human beings in general and myself in particular ... plus some ad hoc reading of biologists’ and zoologists’ observations over the years (and watching documentaries of course).

The main basis for what I have to say, however, is my own intimate exploration – finding out for myself – which exploration is, obviously, impossible to ‘prove’ to others ... all I can do is report my discovery to my fellow human beings and invite them to similarly find out for themselves.

RESPONDENT: I say that is possible that when we are born we have none of those traits in our brain, or at least not all humans do.

RICHARD: Would you care to expand upon your ‘or at least not all humans do’ observation?

*

RESPONDENT: I say it is possible that humans, from the time they come out of the womb, have their brains imprinted with the inclination to kill, murder, and maim.

RICHARD: Hmm ... imprinted by whom?

RESPONDENT: I am not convinced that those traits are intrinsic in the human brain, and you cannot prove that they are simply by making analogies of human behaviour to chimps, lizards, tigers, or any other four-legged animal.

RICHARD: I am not out to ‘prove’ anything ... I detail my own experience – and current experiencing – for my fellow human being to do what they will with.

I only provide the evidence of biology, zoology and so on so that nobody has to take my word for it.

RESPONDENT: To me, what humans are doing on this planet is indeed insane because no one in their right mind, ‘right mind’ being a mind that doesn’t kill and murder, would do what we as a planet are doing.

RICHARD: Yet if you start with a lie (not seeing what is as-it-is) how can you ever be free?

*

RESPONDENT: You would have more credibility if you would admit that the rest of the world is just insane as you.

RICHARD: Why would you have me lie? I cannot pretend to be what I am not just so that you will then find me credible.

RESPONDENT: You think you are different than the rest of the world ...

RICHARD: If I may interject? I know that I am different to my fellow human beings ... it is an on-going experiencing, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, and thus easy to verify with peoples from all walks of life, race, age and gender.

RESPONDENT: ... and are now relying upon the definitions of words to prove it.

RICHARD: Not at all: you started defining for me what I meant by sanity and I simply provided some cobbled-together dictionary meanings to demonstrate that you were having a debate with yourself.

RESPONDENT: Just because you may not have ‘ordinary’ perception (or think you don’t), doesn’t prove that you are ‘one of a kind’ in this world, just as it doesn’t prove that you aren’t.

RICHARD: Yet another person’s report – anybody’s testimony – does not ‘prove’ anything ... its validity/invalidity is something to test out for yourself.

RESPONDENT: Nobody but you knows what your perception is, and since you are crazy, I’m not sure you do either.

RICHARD: If I may point out? Many, many people know what apperception is ... one of the things I did in the years before I went public was to ascertain whether people from all walks of life could recall having had a pure consciousness experience (PCE) – as distinct from an altered state of consciousness (ASC) – for obvious reasons. Sometimes it took a quite a while for them to remember – once it took over three hours of intensive description/discussion – as being sans any affective content whatsoever the PCE cannot be stored in the affective memory banks (which is where the ASC is primarily located) ... plus they are much more common in childhood and require further reach.

Everybody I spoke to at length – everybody – could recall at least one PCE, and usually more.

Furthermore, I have been with numerous people whilst they were having a PCE – varying from minutes to hours to a day and a night – and there is no doubt whatsoever they are experiencing apperceptive awareness ... it is immediately and transparently apparent. As a generalisation these peoples have tended to say that they now see what I have been saying all along for themselves; that everything I have ever said is correct; that they understand what I have been getting at; that they know why it is difficult for others to comprehend; that they can now talk on an equal footing with me; that life is indeed grand ... amazing, marvellous, and truly wondrous.

I usually ask pertinent questions ... for example very early in the piece I asked my current companion, once the PCE was indubitably happening, what she had to say now about love (always a hot topic):

‘Love?’ she said, ‘Why there is no room for love here!’

She went on to expand, saying there was no need for love as everything was already perfect, and there was no separation, and so on ... but she had said enough in her initial response to both satisfy and delight me.

*

RESPONDENT: *Your* definition of sanity is based upon what you think you aren’t – or are.

RICHARD: No, the definition of sanity which I provided is the ordinary, normal, common, or everyday meaning as per the five dictionaries I looked up the word in ... to keep on insisting that it is *my* definition adds nothing to the discussion and leads to unnecessary repetition.

RESPONDENT: What kind of reliable proof is that of anything?

RICHARD: How about the ‘proof’ of the collected experience of billions upon billions of peoples over the ages collated under the heading ‘sanity’ in, not only dictionaries, but encyclopaedias, scholarly books, academic treatises, peer-reviewed journals and so on?

Not only are you on a hiding to nowhere redefining sanity as meaning insanity ... you will never be free if you start with a lie.

April 19 2003:

RESPONDENT: I say that is possible that when we are born we have none of those traits in our brain, or at least not all humans do.

RICHARD: Would you care to expand upon your ‘or at least not all humans do’ observation?

RESPONDENT: Just that the debate of genetics vs. environment in the formation of human behaviour has been going on for decades with the conclusion that it is a combination of both – in other words, no body knows for sure what is behind human behaviour in toto.

RICHARD: It is your ‘or at least not all humans do’ observation that I am interested in.

*

RESPONDENT: I say it is possible that humans, from the time they come out of the womb, have their brains imprinted with the inclination to kill, murder, and maim.

RICHARD: Hmm ... imprinted by whom?

RESPONDENT: Well, you can start in the delivery room with the doctor and the nurse. You can take from there, can’t you?

RICHARD: And the doctor and the nurse ... who imprinted them?

*

RESPONDENT: To me, what humans are doing on this planet is indeed insane because no one in their right mind, ‘right mind’ being a mind that doesn’t kill and murder, would do what we as a planet are doing.

RICHARD: Yet if you start with a lie (not seeing what is as-it-is) how can you ever be free?

RESPONDENT: Well, you have not yet convinced me that what I see is a lie; that the insane are sane.

RICHARD: I am not saying that the insane are sane at all ... instead of observing the world as-it-is and people as-they-are you see insanity and object to me setting the record straight.

*

RESPONDENT: You would have more credibility if you would admit that the rest of the world is just insane as you.

RICHARD: Why would you have me lie? I cannot pretend to be what I am not just so that you will then find me credible.

RESPONDENT: I am not asking you to lie say you are not insane.

RICHARD: I am well aware that is not what you are asking ... smart-aleckry does not become you.

RESPONDENT: I’m just suggesting that the world is also insane. Just as insane as you.

RICHARD: So, if I take your suggestion, and tell a lie by agreeing with you, then you will find me credible?

April 19 2003:

RESPONDENT No. 12: Insanity is to see danger where there is none or fail to see an actual threat when it is clearly present. Fear where there is no actual threat to life and limb suggests aberration. But fear as response to a real threat to physical security is not deluded or confused. You seem to be saying that the natural fight or flight reaction in all sentient beings is a disorder. There is disorder where there is a block to intelligent action. But where conditions are life-threatening, to have all or most of the energy of the organism available to respond is exactly what is needed isn't it?

RICHARD: I am not saying that the natural fright-freeze-fight-flight reaction is a disorder (aka insanity) ... on the contrary: [Richard]: ‘The ordinary, normal, common, or everyday state of being sane is how people naturally are ... it is the state of being peoples everywhere are born already being and could be described as the sanity of blind nature’s genetically endowed instinctual survival passions (passions such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire)’. [endquote]. The ‘energy of the organism’ response you are talking of is the instinctual survival response.

RESPONDENT: ... of which you say you are free.

RICHARD: Yes.

RESPONDENT: You have no instinct whatsoever to save yourself in the face of danger?

RICHARD: There are no instinctual survival passions whatsoever in this flesh and blood body ... intelligence operates unimpeded.

April 20 2003:

RICHARD: I am not saying that the natural fright-freeze-fight-flight reaction is a disorder (aka insanity) ... on the contrary: [Richard]: ‘The ordinary, normal, common, or everyday state of being sane is how people naturally are ... it is the state of being peoples everywhere are born already being and could be described as the sanity of blind nature’s genetically endowed instinctual survival passions (passions such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire)’. [endquote]. The ‘energy of the organism’ response you are talking of is the instinctual survival response.

RESPONDENT No. 12: So you are saying there are disorders we call insanity and there is also the disorder of what we consider sanity. But you have not demonstrated how an instinctive survival response is connected to the disorder of so-called ‘sanity’. Isn’t the problem that in man the survival response gets carried over into the psychological realm? Otherwise, when an actual physical threat is over, the survival response subsides as well.

RICHARD: I am not talking about ‘so-called’ sanity – I am talking about sanity – and I am not saying that sanity is a disorder (thus there is no such connection you speak of the demonstrate). There is no carry-over of the survival passions into the psyche ... the psyche is the survival passions (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’). The problem with sanity is that intelligence is crippled by the survival passions.

RESPONDENT No. 12: Why the nit-picking about sanity not being disorder, but being a crippling of intelligence? Crippling implies disorder, no? Likewise to say that I am ‘my’ feelings is exactly what is meant in saying that the survival response is carried over into the psychological realm. It means that identity gets structured in the known which is a thought-feeling complex. A threat to the known or the background gets misinterpreted as a threat to the organism. So there is psychological fear or anger related to a threat to self-image, etc.

RICHARD: I never implied that sanity is a ‘disorder’ (hence no nit-picking) as I clearly said that the survival passions cripple intelligence ... the word sanity describes a state of being (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is ‘being’ itself) which is not a disorder whereas the word insanity describes a state of being (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is ‘being’ itself) which is a disorder. I am, of course, using the word disorder in the psychiatric sense ... psychiatric disorders. How can there be a carry-over of the instinctual passions (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’) into the psyche when the psyche is the instinctual passions (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’)? Or, to put that another way, how can ‘me’ get carried-over into ‘me’? It really does not matter whether ‘I’ am sane or whether ‘I’ am insane as ‘my’ very presence cripples intelligence ... ‘me’ being insane means ‘I’ cripple intelligence much more than normal (sometimes much, much more). As for ‘a threat’ ... everything is a threat to ‘me’. ‘I’ am doomed.

RESPONDENT: If Richard were arguing in a court of law, I wouldn’t know if he were arguing ‘for’ or ‘against’.

RICHARD: Neither. I have always said there is a third alternative ... even only recently I made this clear:

• [Richard to Respondent]: ‘... the better aspiration would be being as happy and harmless as is humanly possible whilst being a ‘self’. The best aspiration, of course, is for ‘self’-immolation in toto so as to enable the already always existing peace-on-earth into being apparent ... to be living as a flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware in the pristine perfection of this actual world – the ambrosial world of sensory delight – where peerless purity lies open all around. When ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself) becomes extinct all its states of being, ranging from sanity through to insanity, also cease to be ... there is no ‘presence’ whatsoever here in this actual world to be either sane or insane’.

RESPONDENT: You’d probably have a hung jury every time.

RICHARD: You have taken the sane ‘me’, arbitrarily declared ‘me’ to be insane by redefining what ‘in one’s right mind’ means, and are attempting to make this sane ‘me’ sane ... which is nonsensical.

Because when a sane ‘me’ transforms (upon seeing itself to be insane so completely as you would have it do) you will wind up being an insane ‘me’ ... albeit in an institutionalised insanity revered by many.

You then get to speak nonsensically – such as both the opposites being true – and bow humbly at all the applause.

April 21 2003:

RESPONDENT: If Richard were arguing in a court of law, I wouldn’t know if he were arguing ‘for’ or ‘against’.

RICHARD: Neither. I have always said there is a third alternative ... even only recently I made this clear:

• [Richard to Respondent]: ‘... the better aspiration would be being as happy and harmless as is humanly possible whilst being a ‘self’. The best aspiration, of course, is for ‘self’-immolation in toto so as to enable the already always existing peace-on-earth into being apparent ... to be living as a flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware in the pristine perfection of this actual world – the ambrosial world of sensory delight – where peerless purity lies open all around. When ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself) becomes extinct all its states of being, ranging from sanity through to insanity, also cease to be ... there is no ‘presence’ whatsoever here in this actual world to be either sane or insane’.

RESPONDENT: You’d probably have a hung jury every time.

RICHARD: You have taken the sane ‘me’, arbitrarily declared ‘me’ to be insane by redefining what ‘in one’s right mind’ means, and are attempting to make this sane ‘me’ sane ... which is nonsensical. Because when a sane ‘me’ transforms (upon seeing itself to be insane so completely as you would have it do) you will wind up being an insane ‘me’ ... albeit in an institutionalised insanity revered by many. You then get to speak nonsensically – such as both the opposites being true – and bow humbly at all the applause.

Here is an example of redefinition:

[Respondent to Richard]: ‘To me, what humans are doing on this planet is indeed insane because no one in their right mind, *‘right mind’ being a mind that doesn’t kill* and murder, would do what we as a planet are doing. [emphasis added]. You have capriciously decided, for whatever reason, that sanity does not include killing ... ergo sane people are insane, according to you. Start with a lie and you will end up living a lie (if transformation happens that is).

RESPONDENT: I have no idea what the hell you are talking about ... any of it, and furthermore, I don’t care.

RICHARD: Well, at the very least, that is being honest ... it is just as well there was someone that did care, though, all those years ago (else there would be no way out of all the misery and mayhem for those that currently dare to care).

For to dare to care is to care to dare.


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