Actual Freedom – Mailing List ‘B’ Correspondence

Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’

with Respondent No. 21

Some Of The Topics Covered

parading prejudices in public rather than addressing deeper issues – gasses from the internal combustion engine – life expectancy in the West – skewed statistical evidence – tobacco and coffee vilified by the Church – being born fully dressed – not getting drunk and disorderly on tobacco – back to the subject under discussion – are those statements true of themselves – an all-inclusive question – a description of the actual world – not caring is not desirable – exclusively equating soul and its conscience with harmlessness – is the ego tainted by the soul – no idea of how to altruistically ‘self’-sacrifice is required in advance – the ego is driven by the soul – the burgeoning of the development of the self can be observed in the chimpanzee – no other agenda than action for the benefit of this body and that body and every body – free of the demands of desire – this actual world is pristine, pure, unsullied, untainted – caring, consideration, forbearance, clemency, generosity and humaneness – one person’s death or abuse at the hands of another is too many – the drives, the impulses, the urges, the desires ... the root causes – conveniently ignoring the other half – drying the dishes with a wet tea-towel – innocence – the nature of actuality not value judgements – silly or sensible – goodwill and benevolence exist independently – infinitude cannot be measured – that which has no opposite is non-dualistic – no sorrow equals no compassion – the pure consciousness experience (PCE) – logic and evidence – experientially knowing for oneself – affective pleasure is hedonistic pleasure – innocence is incorrupt, incorruptible and incapable of corrupting – there is no good and evil in a tree or a flower – tried and tested in practical, down-to-earth, day-to-day matters – only ‘I’/‘me’ can be or become aggressive – a difference in kind – there never was a ‘fall’ – coming from the position of virtue – there is no other in infinitude – the Sumerian/Judaic/Christian scriptures have evil in their garden – the animalistic-type of conjecture – the perfection of the purity welling endlessly as infinitude – there are no gods or goddesses here in this actual world ... and never will be

September 03 2001:

RICHARD: ... there is neither love nor hate (neither good nor evil) here in the pristine perfection of this actual world.

RESPONDENT: There is neither love nor hate in the usual sense in what I am referring to either.

RICHARD: Whereas I am saying that there is neither love nor hate in any sense whatsoever in this actual world.

RESPONDENT: The emotions of love and hate are both ego centred.

RICHARD: Deeper than that are the passions of love and hate ... and passions are soul-centred.

RESPONDENT: Passions are just strong emotions.

RICHARD: Also deeper ... more primal.

RESPONDENT: What does that mean?

RICHARD: It means that, at their root, the passions are prehistoric, primordial, primeval, primitive, antediluvian, archaic. Both love and hate come out of the instinctual passions such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire (which are the genetically inherited animal passions)

RESPONDENT: They are just stronger feelings.

RICHARD: They are deeper feelings ... the emotions are more on the surface.

RESPONDENT: If I have a mild and momentary experience of anger, it is not the same as a long standing intense feeling of hatred toward the object and anything that reminds me of the object.

RICHARD: Yes ... nursing a grudge, seeking revenge, demanding retribution, wreaking vengeance and so on run far deeper than a ‘mild and momentary experience of anger’. It can rule a person’s life ... and thus a national psyche.

RESPONDENT: Everything is soul centred so I don’t know what you are referring to.

RICHARD: I am, as ever, endeavouring to move the discussion deeper than the usual ‘ego centred’ deliberations that pass for investigation on this Mailing List. Viz.: [Respondent]: ‘The emotions of love and hate are both ego centred.

RESPONDENT: What is deeper about calling it passion? The principle is the same. All emotions or passions are ego centred.

RICHARD: You do seem to be vacillating on this issue. Viz.: 1. [Respondent]: ‘The emotions of love and hate are both ego centred. 2. [Respondent]: ‘Everything is soul centred. 3. [Respondent]: ‘All emotions or passions are ego centred.

RESPONDENT: Where is the vacillation there?

RICHARD: First you say that the emotions of love and hate are ego centred and then, because you say that the passions of love and hate are ‘just strong emotions’ and ‘just stronger feelings’, you say that all emotions or passions are ego centred ... yet in the middle of it all you say that everything is soul centred.

RESPONDENT: All of those statement are true as I see it.

RICHARD: Ahh ... but are they true of themselves.

RESPONDENT: The soul is involved in every emotion; it is pejorative but it is involved.

RICHARD: Let me ask an all-inclusive question for the sake of clarity in communication: are the feelings and the stronger feelings (the passions) – same-same as the emotions and the strong emotions (the passions) – of love and hate soul-centred?

*

RESPONDENT: The actual world is not a place of peace and tranquillity.

RICHARD: It is not possible to experience this actual world whilst being an identity (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) inside the body looking out through the eyes as if looking out through a window ... what is seen from there is what is called the ‘real world’. And the ‘real world’ is a grim and glum place.

RESPONDENT: It is a place where the larger usurp the smaller and they become part of the food chain.

RICHARD: Animals do not live in the actual world ... they are run by their instinctual passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire).

RESPONDENT: Isn’t that the actual world for the animal?

RICHARD: No.

RESPONDENT: Are you saying there is a different actual world for man and animal?

RICHARD: No.

RESPONDENT: Why would that be?

RICHARD: What I am calling the actual world (as distinct from the ‘real world’ as already described above) is the physical world as-it-is ... which is where the physical world is experienced sans the affective reality imposed as a veneer over its pristine actuality by the ego/soul entity parasitically inhabiting the flesh and blood body.

Animals have a (albeit very rudimentary) self ... all sentient beings are born that way.

*

RESPONDENT: I do not see why it would be different for a man without a soul.

RICHARD: Are you interested in finding out?

RESPONDENT: A man without a soul would not care whether he was harming another or not.

RICHARD: How can you say such a thing when the evidence to date is that soul centred peoples are harming each other (and themselves) repeatedly?

RESPONDENT: He would work only for his own advantage ...

RICHARD: How can you know this ... or are you speculating?

RESPONDENT: ... and would be above good and evil.

RICHARD: Not ‘above’, no ... void of both good and evil. As I said (at the top of this post) there is neither love nor hate – thus neither good nor evil – here in this actual world. Viz.:

• [Richard]: ‘... there is neither love nor hate (neither good nor evil) here in the pristine perfection of this actual world.
• [Respondent]: ‘There is neither love nor hate in the usual sense in what I am referring to either.
• [Richard]: ‘Whereas I am saying that there is neither love nor hate in any sense whatsoever in this actual world.

RESPONDENT: This does not seem to be something desirable to me.

RICHARD: Aye ... not caring whether one was ‘harming another or not’ and working only for one’s ‘own advantage’ and being ‘above good and evil’ are not something desirable at all.

Whereas to be free of both ego and soul (which includes all their emotions and passions) is to be perfection personified.

*

RESPONDENT: Neither do I see the possibility of leaving the soul behind, assuming we know what a soul is.

RICHARD: Would you allow the possibility?

RESPONDENT: It would seem that we would have to die and leave the body ...

RICHARD: Now you are talking about the soul surviving the death of the body ... whereas I am speaking of the body surviving the death of the soul.

RESPONDENT: The body can survive the end of the soul, but I do not consider that something desirable.

RICHARD: Why is peace-on-earth not ‘something desirable’ for you?

RESPONDENT: I fear that there are many bodies without souls walking around the earth right now causing a lot of trouble for others.

RICHARD: Never mind what you ‘fear’ ... what is the fact of the matter?

RESPONDENT: They are without conscience.

RICHARD: Unless you are exclusively equating soul and its conscience (synonyms: scruples, principles, ethics, values, morals, a knowledge of right and wrong) with being harmless it does not follow that a person sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul (which includes all their emotions and passions) is going to cause any trouble whatsoever ... either for themselves or others.

Tellingly enough 160,000,000 soul centred people were killed in wars alone, in the last 100 years, by their soul centred fellow human beings ... and an estimated 40,000,000 soul centred people suicided in the same 100 years.

*

RESPONDENT: What is the difference, by the way, between the ego and the soul ...

RICHARD: Generally speaking, ‘I’ as ego is the thinker (typically described as being in the head) and ‘me’ as soul is the feeler (typically described as being in the heart). Generally speaking ‘I’ as ego is believed to die with the body at physical death (small ‘s’ self) and ‘me’ as soul is believed to survive at physical death (capital ‘S’ Self). In other words: ‘I’ as ego is seen to be mortal ... and ‘me’ as soul as being immortal.

RESPONDENT: The problem is that the soul is tainted by what the ego accepts and does, so they are connected.

RICHARD: If I may point out? This is at odds with your definitive statement (further above) that everything is ‘soul centred’. Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘The emotions of love and hate are both ego centred.
• [Richard]: ‘Deeper than that are the passions of love and hate ... and passions are soul-centred.
• [Respondent]: ‘Everything is soul centred so I don’t know what you are referring to.

As a matter of interest ... would you allow that the ego is tainted by the soul?

RESPONDENT: When the ego dies with the body, the eternal soul ...

RICHARD: If I may point out? This ‘eternal soul’ statement of yours is at odds with your ‘fear’ (further above) that there are ‘many bodies without souls walking around the earth right now’. Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘I fear that there are many bodies without souls walking around the earth right now causing a lot of trouble for others.

If you are not vacillating in this section either ... then maybe there is some confusion operating?

RESPONDENT: [when the ego dies with the body, the eternal soul] is still warped by what it was, so the nature of the ego carries on.

RICHARD: Are you saying here that it is the nature of the ego that warps the soul (in contradistinction to your definitive statement that everything is soul centred)?

*

RESPONDENT: [what is the difference between the ego and the soul] and how would one go about giving them up?

RICHARD: Altruistic ‘self’-sacrifice ... a magnanimous ‘self’-immolation for the benefit of this body and that body and every body.

RESPONDENT: I wouldn’t have any idea of how to do such a thing.

RICHARD: The moment it is seen (experientially) as being desirable for the benefit of this body and that body and every body the ‘how’ of doing it becomes obvious of its own accord.

No ‘idea’ of how to do it is required in advance.

September 04 2001:

RICHARD: First you say that the emotions of love and hate are ego centred and then, because you say that the passions of love and hate are ‘just strong emotions’ and ‘just stronger feelings’, you say that all emotions or passions are ego centred ... yet in the middle of it all you say that everything is soul centred.

RESPONDENT: This is a complicated and deep subject and all is not so very clear.

RICHARD: So I have noticed ... which is why I said ‘vacillating’ (I could have said ‘uncertain’, I suppose)

RESPONDENT: The soul and the ego are inter-related.

RICHARD: Agreed.

RESPONDENT: The ego grows in accordance with the desire of the soul ...

RICHARD: What ‘desire’ are you referring to?

RESPONDENT: ... and the soul is tainted by what the ego does and is.

RICHARD: And vice versa? Or is the soul taintless?

RESPONDENT: The soul stands higher than the ego and is the determining factor which steers the ego.

RICHARD: What is the difference between you saying ‘higher’ and me saying ‘deeper’. Viz.:

• [Richard]: ‘I am, as ever, endeavouring to move the discussion deeper than the usual ‘ego centred’ deliberations that pass for investigation on this Mailing List. Viz.: [Respondent]: ‘The emotions of love and hate are both ego centred’.

I agree that the ego is steered by the soul (only I would say ‘driven’).

*

RESPONDENT: All of those statement are true as I see it.

RICHARD: Ahh ... but are they true of themselves.

RESPONDENT: That is the way I see it. You will have to make of it what you will. :))

RICHARD: Are you saying that you do not know if they be true statements in their own right?

*

RESPONDENT: The soul is involved in every emotion; it is pejorative but it is involved.

RICHARD: Let me ask an all-inclusive question for the sake of clarity in communication: are the feelings and the stronger feelings (the passions) – same-same as the emotions and the strong emotions (the passions) – of love and hate soul-centred?

RESPONDENT: Yes they are ... to satisfy the ego is to satisfy something in the soul.

RICHARD: Okay ... and to satisfy what in the soul?

*

RESPONDENT: The actual world is not a place of peace and tranquillity.

RICHARD: It is not possible to experience this actual world whilst being an identity (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) inside the body looking out through the eyes as if looking out through a window ... what is seen from there is what is called the ‘real world’. And the ‘real world’ is a grim and glum place.

RESPONDENT: It is a place where the larger usurp the smaller and they become part of the food chain.

RICHARD: Animals do not live in the actual world ... they are run by their instinctual passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire).

RESPONDENT: Isn’t that the actual world for the animal?

RICHARD: No.

RESPONDENT: That’s strange.

RICHARD: Why ‘strange’? Their instinctual passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) drive them to form an affective reality, imposed as a veneer over the physical world’s pristine actuality, in a similar fashion as in the human animal ... even though the animal self is but rudimentary and is in no way developed, cultivated, sophisticated, refined and honed the way the human self is.

The burgeoning of such development can be observed in the chimpanzee, for example.

RESPONDENT: Are you saying there is a different actual world for man and animal?

RICHARD: No.

RESPONDENT: Why would that be?

RICHARD: What I am calling the actual world (as distinct from the ‘real world’ as already described above) is the physical world as-it-is ... which is where the physical world is experienced sans the affective reality imposed as a veneer over its pristine actuality by the ego/soul entity parasitically inhabiting the flesh and blood body. Animals have a (albeit very rudimentary) self ... all sentient beings are born that way.

RESPONDENT: But animals have a self and live in an actual world, don’t they?

RICHARD: No ... no self can ever live in the actual world (only flesh and blood bodies do).

RESPONDENT: Why would that actual world be so different for animals and man?

RICHARD: But I never said it was different. Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘Are you saying there is a different actual world for man and animal?
• [Richard]: ‘No.

*

RESPONDENT: I do not see why it would be different for a man without a soul.

RICHARD: Are you interested in finding out?

RESPONDENT: A man without a soul would not care whether he was harming another or not.

RICHARD: How can you say such a thing when the evidence to date is that soul centred peoples are harming each other (and themselves) repeatedly?

RESPONDENT: Without a soul, man would be without mercy and it would be much worse than it is.

RICHARD: Why would a person freed of the soul (and therefore ego), and thus all of the dictates of its passion and desire, be without caring, consideration, forbearance and clemency ... of not being generous and humane?

RESPONDENT: In that world, very few people would survive.

RICHARD: Surely you are but speculating? Such a person has no other agenda than action for the benefit of this body and that body and every body ... this is the whole point of being free of the psychological and psychic entity, parasitically inhabiting the flesh and blood body, who persistently imposes its impossible dictates and demands.

*

RESPONDENT: He would work only for his own advantage ...

RICHARD: How can you know this ... or are you speculating?

RESPONDENT: Why wouldn’t he?

RICHARD: Such a person is free of the demands of desire.

RESPONDENT: It is natural for the animal to merely do what increases it’s advantage or good without regard for other animals ...

RICHARD: Why do you jump from discussing a person free of the soul to discussing animals (who are run by a, albeit rudimentary, self just as the non-free human animal is)?

RESPONDENT: ... unless he has some instincts that say otherwise in order to promote the survival of the specie.

RICHARD: Yet I am talking of being free of the instincts, specifically the self-survival/group survival instinctual passions, so that intelligence can operate unimpeded for the benefit of this body and that body and every body.

Animals cannot think ... animals cannot observe, reflect, remember, plan or implement considered action for beneficial reasons.

RESPONDENT: Does man have an instinct to be good when he has no soul?

RICHARD: No ... nor an instinct to be bad (there is no good or bad – no love or hate – here in this actual world.

RESPONDENT: Is so, why in the world would this be so?

RICHARD: Because this actual world is pristine, pure, unsullied, untainted ... nothing ‘dirty’ can get in, as it were.

*

RESPONDENT: [A man without a soul (...) would work only for his own advantage] and would be above good and evil.

RICHARD: Not ‘above’, no ... void of both good and evil. As I said (at the top of this post) there is neither love nor hate – thus neither good nor evil – here in this actual world.

RESPONDENT: IF he is void of good and evil, I would think he would just do what would further his own advantage.

RICHARD: What on earth makes you think that?

RESPONDENT: I don’t see how anything else would make sense.

RICHARD: Do you want to see? Do you want to find out?

*

RESPONDENT: This does not seem to be something desirable to me.

RICHARD: Aye ... not caring whether one was ‘harming another or not’ and working only for one’s ‘own advantage’ and being ‘above good and evil’ are not something desirable at all. Whereas to be free of both ego and soul (which includes all their emotions and passions) is to be perfection personified.

RESPONDENT: I don’t see why this would be. You would still exist and have a physical body.

RICHARD: Not so ... ‘you’ would not ‘still exist’ (I specifically said free of both ego and soul): there is only the flesh and blood body (there is no ‘you’ to ‘have’ a physical body).

RESPONDENT: Why would you not just seek your own advantage since there is no good or evil nor love or hate and you have nothing to live up to?

RICHARD: Nor anything to live down to ... the need to have something ‘to live up to’ is only essential if there be that which drags one down. As I said in the earlier portion of this thread (now snipped off) good exists only to combat evil:

• [Respondent]: ‘It would seem that if you had love, you would not give it up unless you found something wrong with it. (...) What was it that was wrong with it?
• [Richard]: ‘Just for starters ... it has its roots in hate (good exists only to combat evil).
• [Respondent]: ‘It is just the reverse. Evil is dependent upon good to have something to exist for. Without good, evil would have nothing to oppose. It takes it’s content from good. Without the higher call for love and good, hate would not be a negative thing at all.
• [Richard]: ‘I am, of course, speaking from experience ... and not something I read in an ancient book. (...) Rather than become bogged down in a theological-type dispute I would prefer to highlight where you say ‘the existence of a principality of good is required or there is no real good or evil’ as that comes closest to what I am conveying ... for there is neither love nor hate (neither good nor evil) here in the pristine perfection of this actual world.

Nothing I report is to be found in any book ... and neither is it theory: it is all lived experiencing, night and day.

*

RESPONDENT: Neither do I see the possibility of leaving the soul behind, assuming we know what a soul is.

RICHARD: Would you allow the possibility?

RESPONDENT: It would seem that we would have to die and leave the body ...

RICHARD: Now you are talking about the soul surviving the death of the body ... whereas I am speaking of the body surviving the death of the soul.

RESPONDENT: The body can survive the end of the soul, but I do not consider that something desirable.

RICHARD: Why is peace-on-earth not ‘something desirable’ for you?

RESPONDENT: I don’t see why peace would result from getting rid of the ego and the soul.

RICHARD: Do you want to see? Do you want to find out?

RESPONDENT: I think there would be more war than ever.

RICHARD: What on earth makes you think that?

*

RESPONDENT: I fear that there are many bodies without souls walking around the earth right now causing a lot of trouble for others.

RICHARD: Never mind what you ‘fear’ ... what is the fact of the matter?

RESPONDENT: They are without conscience.

RICHARD: Unless you are exclusively equating soul and its conscience (synonyms: scruples, principles, ethics, values, morals, a knowledge of right and wrong) with being harmless it does not follow that a person sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul (which includes all their emotions and passions) is going to cause any trouble whatsoever ... either for themselves or others. Tellingly enough 160,000,000 soul centred people were killed in wars alone, in the last 100 years, by their soul centred fellow human beings ... and an estimated 40,000,000 soul centred people suicided in the same 100 years.

RESPONDENT: And you don’t think it could be worse?

RICHARD: I do not need to ‘think’ how it is vis-à-vis harmlessness ... I intimately know how it is: there is a total absence here in this actual world of all the drives, the impulses, the urges, the desires that are the root cause of the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides and so on.

RESPONDENT: It could be much worse. How many people lived in the last 100 years?

RICHARD: Golly .... misery and mayhem abounds in every land, in every era, in every race and all you can say is ‘it could be much worse’ (and then go on to compare how many died with how many lived).

One person’s death or abuse at the hands of another is too many.

*

RESPONDENT: What is the difference, by the way, between the ego and the soul ...

RICHARD: Generally speaking, ‘I’ as ego is the thinker (typically described as being in the head) and ‘me’ as soul is the feeler (typically described as being in the heart). Generally speaking ‘I’ as ego is believed to die with the body at physical death (small ‘s’ self) and ‘me’ as soul is believed to survive at physical death (capital ‘S’ Self). In other words: ‘I’ as ego is seen to be mortal ... and ‘me’ as soul as being immortal.

RESPONDENT: The problem is that the soul is tainted by what the ego accepts and does, so they are connected.

RICHARD: If I may point out? This is at odds with your definitive statement (further above) that everything is ‘soul centred’. Viz.: [Respondent]: ‘The emotions of love and hate are both ego centred. [Richard]: ‘Deeper than that are the passions of love and hate ... and passions are soul-centred. [Respondent]: ‘Everything is soul centred so I don’t know what you are referring to. [endquotes]. As a matter of interest ... would you allow that the ego is tainted by the soul?

RESPONDENT: The goal or direction of the ego is called up by the soul, but the acts and nature of the ego taint the soul.

RICHARD: Okay ... would you allow that the ego is tainted by the soul?

*

RESPONDENT: When the ego dies with the body, the eternal soul ...

RICHARD: If I may point out? This ‘eternal soul’ statement of yours is at odds with your ‘fear’ (further above) that there are ‘many bodies without souls walking around the earth right now’. Viz.: [Respondent]: ‘I fear that there are many bodies without souls walking around the earth right now causing a lot of trouble for others. [endquote].

RESPONDENT: Not at odds ... There are people here now without souls IMO.

RICHARD: Never mind your opinion ... what are the facts of the matter?

RESPONDENT: This is an ethereal subject. I don’t know what happens to them.

RICHARD: I see ... you do not know what you are talking about.

RESPONDENT: There are more people with souls.

RICHARD: Is this still ‘IMO’ (aka you still do not actually know)?

*

RICHARD: If you are not vacillating in this section either ... then maybe there is some confusion operating?

RESPONDENT: The vacillation was an assumption on your part. I see no vacillation. I believe there are soul-less people here on earth now as well as those with souls. Souls are eternal. Those without souls are self serving bodies only. I don’t know much about what happens to them.

RICHARD: It would appear that you do not know much about any of this stuff (it is either ‘I think’ or ‘I fear’ or ‘I believe’ or ‘IMO’ or ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I don’t see how’ or ‘the way I see it’ or ‘this is an ethereal subject’).

*

RESPONDENT: [When the ego dies with the body, the eternal soul] is still warped by what it was, so the nature of the ego carries on.

RICHARD: Are you saying here that it is the nature of the ego that warps the soul (in contradistinction to your definitive statement that everything is soul centred)?

RESPONDENT: The soul is warped by it’s own intent as well.

RICHARD: Good ... this is similar to what I have been saying all along.

RESPONDENT: The soul and the ego work together. Since the subject is ethereal and other worldly, I don’t have a lot of detailed knowledge on it. I do my best. As I see it, the world would be much worse without the soul.

RICHARD: Whereas my on-going experiencing, night and day, year after year, shows otherwise: here only perfection and purity abound.

RESPONDENT: It would be a cold heartless world with zombie like people preying on one another day and night. It would be like a world of mushroom people feeding in the dark with the strongest surviving the longest. It would not be wrong because there would be no wrong, and suffering would be of no matter to anyone but the individual being preyed upon. It would just be survive or die. Compassion would mean nothing as there would be no love as you have stated. Mercy would be seen as stupidity and hesitation before attack would be fatal.

RICHARD: And on and on you go (conveniently ignoring the other half of what I said regarding neither love nor hate; neither good nor evil; neither god nor devil) ... parading your fears, your beliefs, your opinions – your unconsidered prejudices – as if they be fact.

Having a discussion with you is like drying the dishes with a wet tea-towel.

September 05 2001:

RESPONDENT: [When the ego dies with the body, the eternal soul] is still warped by what it was, so the nature of the ego carries on.

RICHARD: Are you saying here that it is the nature of the ego that warps the soul (in contradistinction to your definitive statement that everything is soul centred)?

RESPONDENT: The soul is warped by it’s own intent as well.

RICHARD: Good ... this is similar to what I have been saying all along.

RESPONDENT: The soul and the ego work together. Since the subject is ethereal and other worldly, I don’t have a lot of detailed knowledge on it. I do my best. As I see it, the world would be much worse without the soul.

RICHARD: Whereas my on-going experiencing, night and day, year after year, shows otherwise: here only perfection and purity abound.

RESPONDENT: As I said before, I have no way of knowing what you are experiencing.

RICHARD: And as I also said before: I am simply telling my story ... what you make of it is your business, of course.

RESPONDENT: It may be a delusional psychotic state or it may not be.

RICHARD: Are you interested in finding out?

RESPONDENT: It is quite possible to be psychotic and feel elation.

RICHARD: Why do you say this to a person that reports no affective faculty (no feelings) extant whatsoever?

RESPONDENT: What is purity without impurity?

RICHARD: In a word: innocence.

RESPONDENT: Is not purity a good thing?

RICHARD: If you mean ‘good’ as used in its first-class, first-rate, superior, excellent type of meanings ... yes. If you mean ‘good’ as in it’s good or evil (god and devil) type of meanings ... no.

RESPONDENT: It is another value judgment on your part ...

RICHARD: I am talking of the nature of actuality ... not its value.

RESPONDENT: [It is another value judgment on your part] based on good and evil ...

RICHARD: As I said: I am simply telling my story and that what you make of it is your business ... which includes imputing a nonexistent ‘good and evil’ base to the supposed ‘value judgement’ you ascribe to what I am reporting, of course.

RESPONDENT: [It is another value judgment on your part based on good and evil] even though you claim to be above good and evil, love and hate.

RICHARD: This is why I said, in the previous post, that having a discussion with you is like drying the dishes with a wet tea-towel: I have never claimed to be ‘above’ good and evil/love and hate (they are nonexistent, not transcended) ... yet no amount of re-telling my story will wipe your version of what I report off the story.

RESPONDENT: IF there is neither good nor evil, love or hate, what does it matter whether you are benevolent or aggressive, pure or impure.

RICHARD: It matters in this way: peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body.

RESPONDENT: Those cannot be ‘good’ traits just as violence could not be bad.

RICHARD: I prefer to classify traits as being either silly or sensible (so as to obviate all the moral and/or ethical baggage): it is silly to be ‘impure’ and ‘aggressive’ and it is sensible to be ‘pure’ and ‘benevolent’.

RESPONDENT: What if someone in your world without an ego or soul would become aggressive and attacking?

RICHARD: First, it is not my world ... it is the actual world: the world of this body and that body and every body; the world of the mountains and the streams; the world of the trees and the flowers; the world of the clouds in the sky by day and the stars in the firmament by night and so on and so on ad infinitum.

Second, it is impossible for a flesh and blood body sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul to be or ‘become aggressive’.

RESPONDENT: Would it be bad?

RICHARD: As it is impossible for a flesh and blood body sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul to be or ‘become aggressive’ your question is a non-sequitur.

RESPONDENT: Your claim ... you say you do not have an ego or a soul and that there is no good nor evil, love nor hate in your world. Yet you claim good will toward all and a benevolent nature.

RICHARD: The word ‘goodwill’ means generosity of character, kindness, amity and the word ‘benevolent’ literally means well-wishing, humane ... neither of which require any ‘love’ (the antidote to hate) or any ‘good’ (the antidote to evil) for their existence.

Quite the contrary actually.

RESPONDENT: Those qualities are a value judgment in themselves.

RICHARD: If you want to speak of a ‘value judgement’ then it is, of course, silly to have ill-will toward all and equally silly to have a malevolent nature when goodwill and benevolence are already always right here just now for the living ... whereas it is sensible to be living in the already always existing peace-on-earth.

However, the ‘qualities’ of goodwill and benevolence exist independently of any ‘value judgement’ anyway.

RESPONDENT: You are claiming to have ‘good’ traits in a world which has no good or evil.

RICHARD: That is what you choose to make of it: I have consistently referred to ‘beneficial’ traits all the way through. Viz.:

• [Richard]: ‘I am talking of being free of the instincts, specifically the self-survival/group survival instinctual passions, so that intelligence can operate unimpeded *for the benefit* of this body and that body and every body. Animals cannot think ... animals cannot observe, reflect, remember, plan or implement considered action for *beneficial* reasons. [emphasis added].

RESPONDENT: As far as perfection ... what is perfection?

RICHARD: It is the very nature of the infinitude this infinite, eternal and perpetual universe actually is.

RESPONDENT: You have no good or evil standards to measure it by ...

RICHARD: Indeed not ... infinitude, having no opposite, cannot be measured: it is immeasurable.

RESPONDENT: [You have no good or evil standards to measure it by] nor a soul to recognize it.

RICHARD: A ‘soul’ can never, ever be aware of the infinitude that this universe is: a ‘soul’ is forever locked-out of actuality (nothing ‘dirty’ can get in, as it were) ... a ‘soul’ can only ever ‘recognise’ its own reflection, its own reflected grandiosity.

RESPONDENT: Perfection is another subjective value judgment on your part.

RICHARD: I am talking of the nature of actuality ... not its value.

RESPONDENT: Perfect by what standard?

RICHARD: Exactly ... there is no ‘standard’ to go by where the infinitude is concerned.

RESPONDENT: That which is perfect is free of imperfection.

RICHARD: That which is perfect is that which has no opposite (infinitude has no opposite) ... you are speaking of a relative perfection.

RESPONDENT: Imperfection and perfection take us back to the dualistic nature of things which you say you are beyond.

RICHARD: That which has no opposite is non-dualistic.

RESPONDENT: The whole thing seems to be very contradictory and strange.

RICHARD: Only to a logical mind (logic is dependent upon opposites).

*

RESPONDENT: It would be a cold heartless world with zombie like people preying on one another day and night. It would be like a world of mushroom people feeding in the dark with the strongest surviving the longest. It would not be wrong because there would be no wrong, and suffering would be of no matter to anyone but the individual being preyed upon. It would just be survive or die. Compassion would mean nothing as there would be no love as you have stated. Mercy would be seen as stupidity and hesitation before attack would be fatal.

RICHARD: And on and on you go (conveniently ignoring the other half of what I said regarding neither love nor hate; neither good nor evil; neither god nor devil) ... parading your fears, your beliefs, your opinions – your unconsidered prejudices – as if they be fact. Having a discussion with you is like drying the dishes with a wet tea-towel.

RESPONDENT: Are you trying to dry some dishes?

RICHARD: I am endeavouring to wipe off what you keep putting back onto my words: I say neither love nor hate; neither good nor evil; neither god nor devil ... and you say ‘compassion would mean nothing as there would be no love as you have stated’ as if it is (a) an accurate statement ... and (b) representative of what I say ... and (c) conducive to a mutual discussion.

Incidentally, as there is no sorrow here in this actual world there is no compassion.

RESPONDENT: You claim to present fact that cannot be seen by anyone but you.

RICHARD: Au contraire ... the pure consciousness experience (PCE) is an experience common to all peoples irregardless of age, gender or race.

RESPONDENT: Even if that is your experience, how would you know that everyone else would have the same experience?

RICHARD: I go by their reports, of course. Everybody I have spoken to at length remembers having had at least one PCE ... usually more. Plus I have been with people whilst a PCE was currently occurring for them.

RESPONDENT: And on and on you go claiming to be good and perfect in a world without good ...

RICHARD: You are mixing and blurring the distinction between the two differing meanings of the word ‘good’ again.

RESPONDENT: ... claiming benevolence and purity in a world where benevolence and purity mean nothing by your own definition.

RICHARD: Maybe it is becoming obvious by now that it is your definition you are railing against?

RESPONDENT: What is your logic or evidence?

RICHARD: I am no great fan of logic: male logic is as useless as female intuition when it comes to discovering the meaning of life.

The evidence is one’s own PCE, of course ... my words serve to jog one’s memory of such experiences (usually more common in childhood) or initiate and/or facilitate a current PCE through the reading of a fellow human being’s report.

RESPONDENT: You have experienced it ... end of claim.

RICHARD: Virtually the only thing different between my on-going experiencing of purity and perfection and another’s PCE is just that: it is on-going ... night and day, year after year.

RESPONDENT: Since it does not make sense ...

RICHARD: If I may point out? It ‘does not make sense’ to you ... but you are not the only person on this planet.

RESPONDENT: ... don’t be surprised that others do not seem eagerly inclined to just take your word for it.

RICHARD: As the ‘others’ who have listened to my report, with both ears, have their own PCE to go by they do not have to.

They know for themselves, experientially, which is the only proof worthy of the name.

September 07 2001:

RESPONDENT: As I see it, the world would be much worse without the soul.

RICHARD: Whereas my on-going experiencing, night and day, year after year, shows otherwise: here only perfection and purity abound.

RESPONDENT: As I said before, I have no way of knowing what you are experiencing.

RICHARD: And as I also said before: I am simply telling my story ... what you make of it is your business, of course.

RESPONDENT: It may be a delusional psychotic state or it may not be.

RICHARD: Are you interested in finding out?

RESPONDENT: It is quite possible to be psychotic and feel elation.

RICHARD: Why do you say this to a person that reports no affective faculty (no feelings) extant whatsoever?

RESPONDENT: Your description of the actual world as a ‘ambrosial paradise’ implies an experience in paradise which should be pleasurable.

RICHARD: It is indeed pleasurable ... sensately satisfying to the nth degree.

RESPONDENT: To say you have no feelings seems to go against the kind of words you use to describe it.

RICHARD: To feel pleasure affectively (hedonistically) is a far cry from the actual: here the retinas revel in the profusion of colour, texture and form; the eardrums carouse with the cavalcade of sound, resonance and timbre; the nostrils rejoice in the abundance of aromas, fragrances and scents; the tastebuds savour the plethora of tastes, flavours and zests; the epidermis delights to touch, caress and fondle ... a veritable cornucopia of luscious, sumptuous sensuosity.

All the while is the apperceptive wonder that this marvellous paradise actually exists in all its vast array.

*

RESPONDENT: What is purity without impurity?

RICHARD: In a word: innocence.

RESPONDENT: Innocence is a good thing.

RICHARD: Innocence is a pure thing ... it is perfection personified.

RESPONDENT: It is not outside of good or evil, love or hate.

RICHARD: Where there is good and evil, or love and hate, there can never be innocence.

RESPONDENT: There can be no innocence without guilt.

RICHARD: If there is guilt there is no innocence ... to be innocent is to be blameless; without guile; ingenuous; artless; naïve.

RESPONDENT: Innocence is freedom from corruption.

RICHARD: Aye ... innocence is incorrupt, incorruptible and incapable of corrupting.

*

RESPONDENT: Is not purity a good thing?

RICHARD: If you mean ‘good’ as used in its first-class, first-rate, superior, excellent type of meanings ... yes. If you mean ‘good’ as in it’s good or evil (god and devil) type of meanings ... no.

RESPONDENT: There are first class first rate superior things and second rate inferior things. ‘Superior’ has no meaning without the possibility of something inferior. What would it be superior to?

RICHARD: The ‘real world’ and its denizens, of course.

RESPONDENT: You have concluded that the actual world has only good and no evil ...

RICHARD: I have not ... that is your conclusion. This is what I have said (repeatedly):

• [Richard]: ‘... neither love nor hate; neither good nor evil; neither god nor devil’.

RESPONDENT: ... but you say there is no good nor evil. Your words imply and require the existence of good ...

RICHARD: Not at all ... that is what you make of it.

RESPONDENT: ... innocence, and purity exist in it.

RICHARD: They cannot, ever exist in ‘good’ ... ‘good’ has its roots in evil (the lotus has its roots in mud).

RESPONDENT: And that means that somewhere there is something less than good, something less than innocent and less than pure.

RICHARD: There is certainly something ‘less than innocent’ and ‘less than pure’ in the ‘real world’ (which has no existence outside of the human psyche) but ‘good’ certainly has its residence there.

Both good and evil exist only in the human psyche.

*

RESPONDENT: It is another value judgment on your part ...

RICHARD: I am talking of the nature of actuality ... not its value.

RESPONDENT: You are describing the nature of actuality with many words and the over all picture you are painting is that ‘good’ exists there ... whether you wish to admit it or not.

RICHARD: It is not a case of whether I ‘wish to admit it or not’ (if there was I would be the first to acknowledge it) ... it simply has no existence here in this actual world. Look, there is no good and evil in a tree or a flower; there is no good and evil in a mountain or a stream; there is no good and evil in the clouds by day and the stars by night ... and so on ad infinitum.

It is all so simple here.

*

RESPONDENT: [It is another value judgment on your part] based on good and evil ...

RICHARD: As I said: I am simply telling my story and that what you make of it is your business ... which includes imputing a nonexistent ‘good and evil’ base to the supposed ‘value judgement’ you ascribe to what I am reporting, of course.

RESPONDENT: [It is another value judgment on your part based on good and evil] even though you claim to be above good and evil, love and hate.

RICHARD: This is why I said, in the previous post, that having a discussion with you is like drying the dishes with a wet tea-towel: I have never claimed to be ‘above’ good and evil/love and hate (they are nonexistent, not transcended) ... yet no amount of re-telling my story will wipe your version of what I report off the story.

RESPONDENT: If they are nonexistent in your world you have found a world that is above those inferior responses, which is the way you see them.

RICHARD: It is how you see it ... how can anyone be ‘above’ a non-existent anything (let alone good and evil/love and hate)?

RESPONDENT: I had a conversation with you in which you said that you experienced pure love for a period of time and I said you found something wrong with it, and you agreed.

RICHARD: Indeed ... and that discovery was the end of it, forever, as this actual world then became apparent.

RESPONDENT: I am telling it as it is.

RICHARD: You are telling it as you see it.

RESPONDENT: You just don’t want to see it or admit it.

RICHARD: It is not the case that I ‘don’t want to see it or admit it’ (if it were I would be the first to acknowledge it) ... they just have no existence whatsoever here in this actual world.

*

RESPONDENT: IF there is neither good nor evil, love or hate, what does it matter whether you are benevolent or aggressive, pure or impure.

RICHARD: It matters in this way: peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body.

RESPONDENT: Side note: That reminds me of Neville Chamberlains statement after his peace talks with Hitler ... ‘peace in our time’.

RICHARD: Is this an ingenious way of saying that peace-on-earth, as this flesh and blood body, is not possible in this lifetime?

*

RESPONDENT: Those cannot be ‘good’ traits just as violence could not be bad.

RICHARD: I prefer to classify traits as being either silly or sensible (so as to obviate all the moral and/or ethical baggage): it is silly to be ‘impure’ and ‘aggressive’ and it is sensible to be ‘pure’ and ‘benevolent’.

RESPONDENT: You are just using your own code words for good and bad, right and wrong because those are no-no’s to you.

RICHARD: No ... I say what I mean and I mean what I say. Furthermore, I prefer to classify traits as being either silly or sensible because morality and ethicality have been tried and tried for hundreds of years ... and have failed and failed for hundreds of years.

They are not ‘no-no’s ... they do not work because they cannot work.

RESPONDENT: You prefer to call them silly or sensible.

RICHARD: I prefer to classify them as being either silly or sensible because it is indeed silly to be ‘impure’ and ‘aggressive’ and because it is certainly sensible to be ‘pure’ and ‘benevolent’.

Especially as it is all just here right now for the living of it.

*

RESPONDENT: What if someone in your world without an ego or soul would become aggressive and attacking?

RICHARD: First, it is not my world ... it is the actual world: the world of this body and that body and every body; the world of the mountains and the streams; the world of the trees and the flowers; the world of the clouds in the sky by day and the stars in the firmament by night and so on and so on ad infinitum. Second, it is impossible for a flesh and blood body sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul to be or ‘become aggressive’.

RESPONDENT: As I brought up earlier, nature has no problem with aggression or violence in animals.

RICHARD: Whereas I am not talking about being natural: nature is blind.

RESPONDENT: Why would nature have a problem with it in man?

RICHARD: It does not ... nature has no problem with it in human beings (it is human beings that have a problem with it).

RESPONDENT: You answer was not workable in common sense terms.

RICHARD: It has worked for me, night and day, for many years now ... it is tried and tested in practical, down-to-earth, day-to-day matters.

*

RESPONDENT: Would it be bad?

RICHARD: As it is impossible for a flesh and blood body sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul to be or ‘become aggressive’ your question is a non-sequitur.

RESPONDENT: Why would it be impossible?

RICHARD: Because when ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul (born of the rudimentary animal self) became extinct all of its instinctual passions – such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire – simultaneously became extinct.

In other words: ‘I’ am aggression and aggression is ‘me’.

RESPONDENT: A body needs food and water and space to live in and it competes with other bodies for those things.

RICHARD: Now that intelligence has developed in the human animal it can cooperate rather than compete ... and where there is a freed intelligence cooperation can operate unimpeded by ‘me’ and ‘my’ pitiful demands and pathetic desires.

RESPONDENT: A body can become aggressive.

RICHARD: No ... only ‘I’/‘me’ can be or ‘become aggressive’.

*

RESPONDENT: Your claim ... you say you do not have an ego or a soul and that there is no good nor evil, love nor hate in your world. Yet you claim good will toward all and a benevolent nature.

RICHARD: The word ‘goodwill’ means generosity of character, kindness, amity and the word ‘benevolent’ literally means well-wishing, humane ... neither of which require any ‘love’ (the antidote to hate) or any ‘good’ (the antidote to evil) for their existence. Quite the contrary actually.

RESPONDENT: Both of those are qualities are obviously essential elements of ‘love’.

RICHARD: Yet love does not have the corner on well-wishing, amity, cordiality, affability, amiability, bonhomie, geniality, congeniality, hospitality, kindliness, helpfulness and so on.

RESPONDENT: Without them there is no love. Love has good will and is benevolent.

RICHARD: Hmm ... love also has ill-will and malevolence. Have you not heard of the ‘crimes of passion’? Even the gods are not immune.

RESPONDENT: Love never rose out of hate.

RICHARD: The enlightened ones really mean it when they say that the lotus has its roots in mud.

RESPONDENT: That is your fictional version of it.

RICHARD: Golly ... even the right-click thesaurus in ‘MS Word 2000’says:

• love: (antonym) hate.

An essential part of transcendence is sublimation ... just because malice and sorrow are transmuted does not mean they go away (usually they manifest as Divine Anger, aka righteous anger, and Divine Anguish, aka merciful sorrow).

RESPONDENT: Hate comes out of an envy and inferiority to love. Having fallen from innocence to corruption and ugliness, love is seen as cruelty.

RICHARD: Possible translation: Satan (a fallen angel) became envious of God whilst an angelic being because of his/her/its created inferiority to God: being expelled from Heaven to Earth (the physical being synonymic to corruption and ugliness) God is seen as cruel ... demanding submission and/or surrender for re-entry.

Having no interest in becoming embroiled in a theological-type dispute I will make no further comment.

*

RESPONDENT: Those qualities are a value judgment in themselves.

RICHARD: If you want to speak of a ‘value judgement’ then it is, of course, silly to have ill-will toward all and equally silly to have a malevolent nature when goodwill and benevolence are already always right here just now for the living ... whereas it is sensible to be living in the already always existing peace-on-earth. However, the ‘qualities’ of goodwill and benevolence exist independently of any ‘value judgement’ anyway.

RESPONDENT: Goodwill is revealed and contrasted to bad will (note the word ‘good’). Benevolence has no meaning without the existence of ill will. Without the negative, the positive means nothing.

RICHARD: Bearing in mind we are speaking of a ‘value judgement’ it may be apposite to remember that in order to do so I am contrasting, or comparing, life in the actual world with life in the ‘real world’ ... and there is no ill-will or malevolence here in this pristine actuality.

RESPONDENT: You are in reality just claiming that only good exists in the actual world and no bad. That is exactly what you are saying.

RICHARD: No ... that is what you are saying, because you are speaking in relative terms where everything has an opposite, whereas I am speaking of the perfection and purity of the actual.

This universe, being infinite, eternal and perpetual, has no opposite.

*

RESPONDENT: You are claiming to have ‘good’ traits in a world which has no good or evil.

RICHARD: That is what you choose to make of it: I have consistently referred to ‘beneficial’ traits all the way through. Viz.: [Richard]: ‘I am talking of being free of the instincts, specifically the self-survival/group survival instinctual passions, so that intelligence can operate unimpeded *for the benefit* of this body and that body and every body. Animals cannot think ... animals cannot observe, reflect, remember, plan or implement considered action for *beneficial* reasons. [emphasis added].

RESPONDENT: So you use different words for it .... meaning is meaning and words are words.

RICHARD: This is about as useful a comment as that trite ‘a rose is a rose’ saying. I do not ‘use different words for it’ ... when I say ‘beneficial’ I do not mean the ‘good’ of good and evil.

*

RESPONDENT: As far as perfection ... what is perfection?

RICHARD: It is the very nature of the infinitude this infinite, eternal and perpetual universe actually is.

RESPONDENT: You have no good or evil standards to measure it by ...

RICHARD: Indeed not ... infinitude, having no opposite, cannot be measured: it is immeasurable.

RESPONDENT: If infinitude has no opposite, was Adolph Hitler in sync with the infinite and an expression of it?

RICHARD: 6.0 billion people are out of sync (to utilise your expression) ... meaning that 6.0 billion sick people live in the ‘real world’, rather than living salubriously in the actual world, and you single out only one sick person?

I am not talking of a difference in degree ... I am speaking of a difference in kind.

*

RESPONDENT: [You have no good or evil standards to measure it by] nor a soul to recognize it.

RICHARD: A ‘soul’ can never, ever be aware of the infinitude that this universe is: a ‘soul’ is forever locked-out of actuality (nothing ‘dirty’ can get in, as it were) ... a ‘soul’ can only ever ‘recognise’ its own reflection, its own reflected grandiosity.

RESPONDENT: Perfection is another subjective value judgment on your part.

RICHARD: I am talking of the nature of actuality ... not its value.

RESPONDENT: You are saying that the nature of actuality is good.

RICHARD: No ... I am saying that the nature of actuality is pristine, pure and perfect.

RESPONDENT: It is the Garden of Eden ... paradise found again as it was before the fall.

RICHARD: There never was a ‘fall’ ... human beings have always been the way they are. All this while, of course, the ‘Garden of Eden’ (to temporarily use your expression in place of what I call an ‘ambrosial paradise’) has been just here right now all along for the living in it.

This verdant and azure planet is a paradisaical playground ... for those that dare to care and thus care to dare.

*

RESPONDENT: Perfect by what standard?

RICHARD: Exactly ... there is no ‘standard’ to go by where the infinitude is concerned.

RESPONDENT: There is always a standard when the word ‘perfect’ is used.

RICHARD: I will do it your way, then, for the sake of communication: a rule of the thumb ‘standard’ to judge perfection by is the pathetic standard of the ‘real world’ ... however it is an inadequate comparison as the perfection of the actual is beyond compare.

RESPONDENT: Unless it is possible to have error, perfect means nothing at all of any kind.

RICHARD: Ahh ... you are coming from the position of virtue, which states that one is not virtuous unless one has the capacity to be malicious and sorrowful (‘bad’) as well as loving and compassionate (‘good’) ... and chooses to be good (loving and compassionate). Mr. Bertrand Russell (as well as other peoples like Mr. Leo Tolstoy for example) have written extensively about this. Mr. Bertrand Russell stated that the ‘bad’ must of necessity exist in order for there to be free will.

Not only am I not religious, I am not virtuous either ... there is no need for morality or ethicality or values or principles whatsoever in an actual freedom from the human condition.

*

RESPONDENT: That which is perfect is free of imperfection.

RICHARD: That which is perfect is that which has no opposite (infinitude has no opposite) ... you are speaking of a relative perfection.

RESPONDENT: There is time and timelessness.

RICHARD: There is no such thing a ‘timelessness’ outside of the human psyche: time is eternal (never beginning and never ending it is already always now).

RESPONDENT: There is the finite and the infinite.

RICHARD: There is only infinite space ... the finite space (in a box or a fruit bowl and so on) is a local enclosure of the infinite.

RESPONDENT: There is perfection and imperfection.

RICHARD: There is only perfection here in the actual world ... there is no other when it comes to infinitude.

*

RESPONDENT: Imperfection and perfection take us back to the dualistic nature of things which you say you are beyond.

RICHARD: That which has no opposite is non-dualistic.

RESPONDENT: You say it has no opposite but you are constantly contrasting it to this imperfect world.

RICHARD: I am indeed (if by ‘this imperfect world’ you are referring to the ‘real world’) as I am talking to peoples who say they live in imperfection.

*

RESPONDENT: The whole thing seems to be very contradictory and strange.

RICHARD: Only to a logical mind (logic is dependent upon opposites).

RESPONDENT: Maybe we should just get rid of the mind and brain altogether as well as the body. Then there would definitely be nothing to have a problem.

RICHARD: Ha ... is this you as soul speaking?

*

RESPONDENT: It would be a cold heartless world with zombie like people preying on one another day and night. It would be like a world of mushroom people feeding in the dark with the strongest surviving the longest. It would not be wrong because there would be no wrong, and suffering would be of no matter to anyone but the individual being preyed upon. It would just be survive or die. Compassion would mean nothing as there would be no love as you have stated. Mercy would be seen as stupidity and hesitation before attack would be fatal.

RICHARD: And on and on you go (conveniently ignoring the other half of what I said regarding neither love nor hate; neither good nor evil; neither god nor devil) ... parading your fears, your beliefs, your opinions – your unconsidered prejudices – as if they be fact. Having a discussion with you is like drying the dishes with a wet tea-towel.

RESPONDENT: Are you trying to dry some dishes?

RICHARD: I am endeavouring to wipe off what you keep putting back onto my words: I say neither love nor hate; neither good nor evil; neither god nor devil ... and you say ‘compassion would mean nothing as there would be no love as you have stated’ as if it is (a) an accurate statement ... and (b) representative of what I say ... and (c) conducive to a mutual discussion. Incidentally, as there is no sorrow here in this actual world there is no compassion.

RESPONDENT: Richard, you may not know it but you are saying what I said you are saying. You are claiming to have found the Garden of Eden before they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They lived in a paradise with no knowledge of good or evil, but it was a good paradise, even though they did not recognize it because there was no evil to contrast it to and they had no choice in the matter.

RICHARD: If you say so then it is so ... for you, that is. I will keep my own counsel on the matter, however, as it is a living experiencing for me and not a theory about something I have read in some ancient book.

Talking of ancient books: the Sumerian/ Judaic/ Christian scriptures do have evil (despite your ‘there was no evil’ avowal) in their garden ... embodied as the serpent.

*

RESPONDENT: You claim to present fact that cannot be seen by anyone but you.

RICHARD: Au contraire ... the pure consciousness experience (PCE) is an experience common to all peoples irregardless of age, gender or race.

RESPONDENT: That would be a hard experience to define.

RICHARD: Not so ... I have had no troubles in describing it in many differing ways in many different e-mails. For example:

• [Richard]: ‘Being deep in a rain-forest goes some way towards making it all clearer ... or any wilderness, for that matter. As one travels deeper and deeper into this – initially ‘other’ – world of natural delight, one experiences an intensely hushed stillness that is vast and immense ... yet so simply here. I am not referring to a feeling of awe or reverence or great beauty – to have any emotion or passion at all is to miss the actuality of this moment – nor am I referring to any blissful or euphoric state of ‘being’. It is a sensate experience, not an affective state. I am talking about the factual and simple actualness of earthy existence being experienced whilst ambling along or sitting quietly without any particular thought in mind ... yet not being mindless either. And then, when a sparkling intimacy occurs, do not the woods take on a fairy-tale-like quality? Is one not in a paradisiacal environment that envelops yet leaves one free? This is the ambience that I speak of. At this magical moment there is no ‘I’ in the head or ‘me’ in the heart ... there is this apperceptive awareness wherein thought can operate freely without the encumbrance of any feelings whatsoever’.

It is not my ambience nor yours ... yet it is here for everybody and anybody for the asking ... for the daring to be here as this body only. One does this by stepping out of the real world into this actual world, as this flesh and blood body, leaving your ‘self’ behind where ‘you’ belong ... the reality of the real world being an illusion ‘I’ create by ‘my’ very ‘presence’.

This ambience delivers the goods so longed for through aeons.

RESPONDENT: Why knows what you are referring to?

RICHARD: Those who read with both eyes ... or those who listen with both ears. For example:

• ‘One of my peak experiences happened on the fore-shore. All of a sudden, unpremeditated, ‘I’ and ‘my’ world-view had disappeared and an immediate intimacy became apparent. Although I had lived in this village before and had grown very fond of it and its residents, there had always been a distance between me and other people, which had to be bridged by temporary feelings of love and affection which were never satisfying for long. Now a shift in seeing had occurred, and looking at the people around me, I noticed that the distance between me and others had miraculously vanished. Not only between me and other people but equally between me and the trees, me and the houses on the boulevard, even between me and the ocean. Nowhere was there a boundary. Another dimension had taken its place, which I initially experienced as a closeness closer than my own heartbeat, yet it was certainly not love for all or oneness with everything. It was another paradigm than the one in which the opposites play their major role ... and to depict it I needed another vocabulary than words like distant and close, separation and oneness. Opposites can only be used when there is a stationary benchmark to judge them by. When ‘I’, the standard from which everything was measured, ceased to be, a pure appraisal of the situation could take place. I saw everybody, including me as-this-body, and everything else, in its own proper place and nothing was wrong in any way. The concept of bonding, belonging and relationship could simply not be applied, not even with my partner, as there was nobody inside to do the relating. This perfect intimacy was everywhere at once, not generated somewhere specific and then diffused to other locations as is the case with love’.

*

RESPONDENT: Even if that is your experience, how would you know that everyone else would have the same experience?

RICHARD: I go by their reports, of course. Everybody I have spoken to at length remembers having had at least one PCE ... usually more. Plus I have been with people whilst a PCE was currently occurring for them.

RESPONDENT: I don’t know what you are referring to.

RICHARD: So I have noticed. However that does not prevent you from manufacturing all manner of responses ... most of which tend towards the animalistic-type of conjecture (as if it is axiomatic that intelligence does not operate in paradise).

*

RESPONDENT: And on and on you go claiming to be good and perfect in a world without good ...

RICHARD: You are mixing and blurring the distinction between the two differing meanings of the word ‘good’ again.

RESPONDENT: I am telling you that you are claiming to have a good experience which is good because it is free from evil, but you are calling it something else.

RICHARD: Indeed I am ... because it is free from both good and evil.

RESPONDENT: Good is good.

RICHARD: Again ... this is as useless a comment as that ‘a rose is a rose’ saying.

RESPONDENT: You are describing good things.

RICHARD: I am describing the perfection of the purity welling endlessly as the infinitude that this infinite, eternal and perpetual universe is.

*

RESPONDENT: ... claiming benevolence and purity in a world where benevolence and purity mean nothing by your own definition.

RICHARD: Maybe it is becoming obvious by now that it is your definition you are railing against?

RESPONDENT: No good or evil means no good or evil.

RICHARD: Aye ... none whatsoever.

RESPONDENT: Whatever would happen would just happen.

RICHARD: This entire universe is happening anyway ... and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it happening.

RESPONDENT: It would not be good or evil. Benevolence has no meaning other than good.

RICHARD: Only where you live.

*

RESPONDENT: What is your logic or evidence?

RICHARD: I am no great fan of logic: male logic is as useless as female intuition when it comes to discovering the meaning of life. The evidence is one’s own PCE, of course ... my words serve to jog one’s memory of such experiences (usually more common in childhood) or initiate and/or facilitate a current PCE through the reading of a fellow human being’s report.

RESPONDENT: You have experienced it ... end of claim.

RICHARD: Virtually the only thing different between my on-going experiencing of purity and perfection and another’s PCE is just that: it is on-going ... night and day, year after year.

RESPONDENT: Since it does not make sense ...

RICHARD: If I may point out? It ‘does not make sense’ to you ... but you are not the only person on this planet.

RESPONDENT: If anyone understands that there is good where there is no good or evil ... love where there is no love or hate ... and purity and innocence where those terms mean nothing ... good for them.

RICHARD: No ... that is what you make of it: quite rightly nobody would understand anything if I was to say what you are making out I say.

RESPONDENT: You are describing a heaven where God has not made an appearance as of yet. With such perfection He will show up sooner or later.

RICHARD: There are no gods or goddesses here in this actual world ... and never will be: it being so perfect nothing ‘dirty’ can get in, as it were.

*

RESPONDENT: [Since it does not make sense] don’t be surprised that others do not seem eagerly inclined to just take your word for it.

RICHARD: As the ‘others’ who have listened to my report, with both ears, have their own PCE to go by they do not have to. They know for themselves, experientially, which is the only proof worthy of the name.

RESPONDENT: I have experiences also. I am telling you that you are claiming to have found the good, while also claiming that there is no such thing.

RICHARD: I hear what you are saying. I am simply telling my story ... what you do with it is your business, of course.


RESPONDENT No. 21 (Part Seven)

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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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