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Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’ with Respondent No. 21
RICHARD: ... it is impossible for a flesh and blood body sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul to be or ‘become aggressive’. 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: You still have a brain. When a brain gets hungry and tired and someone is moving on it’s territory, the brain may get angry and attack. RICHARD: No ... it is impossible for a brain sans identity in toto to be or ‘get angry’. 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 anger and anger is ‘me’. * 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: Untrue ... love has no ill will at all, and cannot or it is not love. RICHARD: If that be the case then no person – and no god – has ever had or has ever been love. RESPONDENT: Love can be forceful if necessary if the situation calls for it but there is no malevolence at all. RICHARD: As a generalisation there are at least four varieties of love – Love Storge (the instinctual maternal, paternal or familial love), Love Eros (the passionate sexual, amorous or romantic love), Love Philios (the affectionate friendship, societal or humanitarian love) and Love Agapé (the supernatural godly, divine or sacred love) – and they all have their dark side, their not-so-hidden under belly. RESPONDENT: Love can kill if it is required without ill will. RICHARD: Love Agapé is (supposedly) unfailing, for those in whom God favours, yet wrath, damnation and/or eternal death will come to those who reject God ... in other words receive God’s love and not God’s judgment. RESPONDENT: The nature of the energy is the qualification. RICHARD: The ‘nature of the energy’ called love has two faces irregardless of the ‘qualification’. RESPONDENT: Crimes of passion are based on unhealthy attachments to other people. RICHARD: All ‘attachments’ are unhealthy ... including love’s attachment. RESPONDENT: When the dog’s dinner looks like it is going to another dog, the first dog gets angry. RICHARD: And here are some good examples: ‘I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation’ or ‘He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him’ ... and so on and so on * 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: [Love never rose out of hate]. That is your fictional version of it. RICHARD: Golly ... even the right-click thesaurus in ‘MS Word 2000’says: love: (antonym) hate. RESPONDENT: So? RICHARD: So the enlightened ones really mean it when they say that the lotus has its roots in mud. RESPONDENT: Love is the opposite of hate. If there is hate, there is no love. They are two different energy sources that do not mix. RICHARD: How is it then that love can turn into hate so readily? * RICHARD: 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: There is no sublimation involved in finding another source of energy. RICHARD: You are way, way out on your own with this theory. RESPONDENT: There is a giving up of anger and ill will so that it is no longer is there. That is all. RICHARD: This ‘giving up’ is called sublimation – and thence transcendence – otherwise you are talking of the extinction of ‘anger and ill-will’ ... whereupon love and compassion are simultaneously extinguished. RESPONDENT: Righteous anger is not of the same energy source as regular emotional anger. RICHARD: A profoundly felt anger, an indignant anger, has the same source (the instinctual passions) as ‘emotional anger’ ... only it is deeper, more primal. RESPONDENT: It is just an energy source from good in opposition to what is wrong. RICHARD: Where then is this ‘energy source’ (as in ‘righteous anger’) located? In the body? Outside the body? Is it physical or metaphysical in origin? RESPONDENT: There is no ordinary hate there at all. RICHARD: As it is not ordinary love we are discussing I would have considered it obvious that its corollary would not be ‘ordinary hate’. It takes an extraordinary hate to judge someone created as-is ... and to wrathfully consign them to damnation and/or eternal death (when the promise is blessedness and eternal life). * 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: Not a good translation ... I was not referring to Satan, but man. When men have been corrupted, their true nature has been changed into something dark, ugly, and unnatural. RICHARD: There never was an uncorrupted human: human beings have always been the way they are ... the way they are born. All this while, of course, peace-on-earth 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: This wrong nature is threatened by any kind of true innocence that shows it up in contrast. It is like a cross to a vampire. RICHARD: And is this ‘true innocence’ is the same-same innocence as the innocence that comes with guilt? Vis.:
May I ask? What is the connection betwixt ‘wrong nature’ and ‘guilt’ such as to ensure ‘true innocence’? Also, this truly innocent person would presumably be given to righteous anger when ‘in opposition to what is wrong’ (the ‘righteous anger’ that you say is sourced in ‘good’)? RESPONDENT: This is why there is so much child abuse out there. The light of innocence must be put out. RICHARD: As children are not innocent – they are simply ignorant and gullible (inexperienced and credulous) – it is no wonder you are not comprehending what I am saying. Innocence is totally new to human experience.
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: Untrue ... love has no ill will at all, and cannot or it is not love. RICHARD: If that be the case then no person – and no god – has ever had or has ever been love. RESPONDENT: When we are referring to good will, we are referring to good will for good and not for evil. RICHARD: Oh? Is this not at odds with your statement further above that ‘both of those are qualities are obviously essential elements of ‘love’’ (given that one of those qualities was detailed by yourself as being ‘good will toward all’) ... whereas you are now saying ‘good will for good and not for evil’? And what is with this ‘we’ business, anyway? Speaking personally, I cannot cease liking someone whatever mischief they get up to ... an actual intimacy cannot be switched off, ever, and goodwill (synonyms: benevolence, concern, care, helpfulness, amity) operates automatically irregardless of the person being ‘good’ or ‘evil’. Which means that when you are referring to ‘goodwill for good and not for evil’ you are referring to yourself having benevolence, concern, care, helpfulness and amity only for ‘good’ people and not for ‘evil’ people. RESPONDENT: Good will directed at good is bad will to evil just as bad will is in opposition to good. RICHARD: Okay ... would it then follow that bad will directed at good is good will to evil just as good will is in opposition to bad? That is, the bad will directed at good people would be void of benevolence, concern, care, helpfulness and amity just the same as it is in your lack of goodwill towards bad people If so, how do you tell the difference between what you do towards ‘evil’ people and what ‘evil’ people do towards you? RESPONDENT: Being against evil could not be considered to be ill will in general. RICHARD: Why not? It certainly is not goodwill ... and righteous anger, for an example, is not a dispassionate and/or impartial attitude, now is it? RESPONDENT: Goodness is a component of love also. RICHARD: Aye ... and so is badness (any anger, be it righteous or not, is an ill-will, a sickness). RESPONDENT: Whereas God is the legitimate judge and executioner of all, man is not. RICHARD: Ahh ... and just who is it that legitimises ‘God’ to be the ‘judge and executioner’? * RESPONDENT: Love can be forceful if necessary if the situation calls for it but there is no malevolence at all. RICHARD: As a generalisation there are at least four varieties of love – Love Storge (the instinctual maternal, paternal or familial love), Love Eros (the passionate sexual, amorous or romantic love), Love Philios (the affectionate friendship, societal or humanitarian love) and Love Agapé (the supernatural godly, divine or sacred love) – and they all have their dark side, their not-so-hidden under belly. RESPONDENT: Where is the bad side of love Agape’? RICHARD: It has its roots in evil (which is why it has not triumphed, can not triumph and will not ever triumph, over evil). RESPONDENT: In the fact that it is opposed to evil? RICHARD: Not as such, no ... more the way it goes about its business (righteous anger, for example) reveals its true nature. RESPONDENT: I would not consider that to be a dark side unless I was sympathetic to the evil itself. RICHARD: I am not sympathetic to either good or evil; to either love or hate, to either god or devil ... at their source they are both one and the same energy. * RESPONDENT: Love can kill if it is required without ill will. RICHARD: Love Agapé is (supposedly) unfailing, for those in whom God favours, yet wrath, damnation and/or eternal death will come to those who reject God ... in other words receive God’s love and not God’s judgment. RESPONDENT: Those who reject God have set their own course. RICHARD: Far better than ‘reject’ is to see good and evil, love and hate, god and devil for what they are with both eyes ... they all vanish of their own accord (no rejecting required). RESPONDENT: Whereas God is the legitimate judge, He judges. RICHARD: So you have already said ... my question still stands: whence comes the legitimation? RESPONDENT: Man is instructed to leave this job to God. RICHARD: Where are these instructions to be found? * RESPONDENT: The nature of the energy is the qualification. RICHARD: The ‘nature of the energy’ called love has two faces irregardless of the ‘qualification’. RESPONDENT: Only in regard to good or evil. RICHARD: Of course ... what else could it be in regard to? RESPONDENT: As was written somewhere, truth is a double edged sword; it cuts some down and raises some up. RICHARD: So much for equity and parity, eh? * RESPONDENT: Crimes of passion are based on unhealthy attachments to other people. RICHARD: All ‘attachments’ are unhealthy ... including love’s attachment. RESPONDENT: An attachment to God cannot be unhealthy unless it is just our own idea of God and not the real God. RICHARD: How does one tell the difference? Generally speaking, when those who purport to speak for a ‘real’ or a ‘true’ God disagree with one another, the astute person has no alternative than to be incredulous of such self-proclaimed prophets. * RESPONDENT: When the dog’s dinner looks like it is going to another dog, the first dog gets angry. RICHARD: And here are some good examples: ‘I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation’ or ‘He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him’ ... and so on and so on. RESPONDENT: We are talking about the love that man has ... not God. RICHARD: I have been speaking of Love Agapé all the way through ... this is how this exchange began:
RESPONDENT: We do not judge God. God judges us. RICHARD: So you say ... but by what criteria do you determine this? * 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: [Love never rose out of hate]. That is your fictional version of it. RICHARD: Golly ... even the right-click thesaurus in ‘MS Word 2000’says: love: (antonym) hate. RESPONDENT: So? RICHARD: So the enlightened ones really mean it when they say that the lotus has its roots in mud. RESPONDENT: Love can rise out of error, having learned the lesson of error. RICHARD: As you cannot possibly be saying that the source of love is ‘error’ perhaps you may be inclined to rethink your response? * RESPONDENT: Love is the opposite of hate. If there is hate, there is no love. They are two different energy sources that do not mix. RICHARD: How is it then that love can turn into hate so readily? RESPONDENT: The two horns on the same goat called love and hate have nothing to do with real love. Love does not turn into hate. False attachments do. RICHARD: If that be the case then no person – and no god – has ever had or has ever been ‘real love’. * RICHARD: 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: There is no sublimation involved in finding another source of energy. RICHARD: You are way, way out on your own with this theory. RESPONDENT: Could be ... what exactly do you mean by sublimation? RICHARD: Historically sourced in alchemy it is the transmutation of the base into the refined; the metamorphosis of the gross into the sublime; the transmogrification of the vulgar into the transcendent. Vis.:
Strangely enough, given all the religious wars and persecution, being aligned with, or in union with, one (or more) of the 1200-odd gods that the human race has hallucinated into being is considered socially acceptable. * RESPONDENT: There is a giving up of anger and ill will so that it is no longer is there. That is all. RICHARD: This ‘giving up’ is called sublimation – and thence transcendence – otherwise you are talking of the extinction of ‘anger and ill-will’ ... whereupon love and compassion are simultaneously extinguished. RESPONDENT: Righteous anger is not of the same energy source as regular emotional anger. RICHARD: A profoundly felt anger, an indignant anger, has the same source (the instinctual passions) as ‘emotional anger’ ... only it is deeper, more primal. RESPONDENT: This is untrue. RICHARD: I do realise it is not in accord with the truth ... but it is in accord with the fact. RESPONDENT: They are of two different sources and have a different nature behind them. RICHARD: So when you turn your righteous anger upon an evil person you are not drawing upon instinctual passions but your god’s passion, eh? * RESPONDENT: It is just an energy source from good in opposition to what is wrong. RICHARD: Where then is this ‘energy source’ (as in ‘righteous anger’) located? In the body? Outside the body? Is it physical or metaphysical in origin? RESPONDENT: Metaphysical. RICHARD: Hmm ... yet the metaphysical has no existence outside of the human psyche (there is no metaphysical ‘energy source’ here in this actual world). * RESPONDENT: There is no ordinary hate there at all. RICHARD: As it is not ordinary love we are discussing I would have considered it obvious that its corollary would not be ‘ordinary hate’. It takes an extraordinary hate to judge someone created as-is ... and to wrathfully consign them to damnation and/or eternal death (when the promise is blessedness and eternal life). RESPONDENT: That is your judgment of God ... RICHARD: Indeed it is ... first realised at six years of age (which was when I also first learned that I should keep my mouth shut lest I incur righteous anger and threats of eternal damnation from loving believers). Needless to say not much has changed in such a person’s attitude nearly half a century later. RESPONDENT: ... a big mistake since you are not in the same league. RICHARD: I am way, way past the ‘league’ of any god or goddess and not just the Judaic/Christian deity ... the actual is beyond anyone’s wildest dreams and schemes. RESPONDENT: This is the problem of man. He chronically and compulsively thinks he is more than he is. RICHARD: In other words: do not think for yourself; do not investigate; do not explore; do not discover ... do not find out, once and for all, the facts of the situation. RESPONDENT: We are not the judge of God; God is the judge of us. RICHARD: So you have mentioned ... how do you (or how did you) determine this to be true? * 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: Not a good translation ... I was not referring to Satan, but man. When men have been corrupted, their true nature has been changed into something dark, ugly, and unnatural. RICHARD: There never was an uncorrupted human: human beings have always been the way they are ... the way they are born. All this while, of course, peace-on-earth 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: This wrong nature is threatened by any kind of true innocence that shows it up in contrast. It is like a cross to a vampire. RICHARD: And is this ‘true innocence’ is the same-same innocence as the innocence that comes with guilt? Vis.: [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: I did not say that the innocent are guilty or that innocence came out of guilt. The word ‘innocent’ can mean nothing unless there is such a thing as guilt. RICHARD: If you wish for me to comprehend what you are saying here could you re-write it in a way that makes sense? For example: what ‘guilt’ are you speaking of? The ‘guilt’ of what ... the ‘guilt’ of being born (or created) as-is and then condemned for being just that? * RICHARD: May I ask? What is the connection betwixt ‘wrong nature’ and ‘guilt’ such as to ensure ‘true innocence’? Also, this truly innocent person would presumably be given to righteous anger when ‘in opposition to what is wrong’ (the ‘righteous anger’ that you say is sourced in ‘good’)? RESPONDENT: The connection between wrong nature and guilt is obvious. RICHARD: It is not obvious to me: human beings are born (or created) with what you call ‘wrong nature’ ... why should there be ‘guilt’ about that? RESPONDENT: True innocence is another thing unless guilt has been listened to and the will has been resigned and conformed to the intent of the source of the guilt. RICHARD: Are you really saying that built into the ‘guilt’ of being born (or created) as-is there is a pre-arranged ‘intent’? And that, furthermore, that pre-arranged ‘intent’ has as part of its built-in constitution the dictate that every person’s will has to be ‘resigned and conformed’? The religious solution has always struck me as being a rigged game from the start. * RESPONDENT: This is why there is so much child abuse out there. The light of innocence must be put out. RICHARD: As children are not innocent – they are simply ignorant and gullible (inexperienced and credulous) – it is no wonder you are not comprehending what I am saying. Innocence is totally new to human experience. RESPONDENT: Children may not be absolutely innocent ... RICHARD: Children are not even slightly innocent ... all babies are born alike in respect to the genetically-inherited instinctual passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire). RESPONDENT: [children may not be absolutely innocent] in that they tend to fall, they are innocent in comparison to adults, having not yet fallen to what is in the world. RICHARD: They are simply ignorant and gullible (inexperienced and credulous) in comparison to adults. RESPONDENT: The corrupt adult is threatened by the relative innocence of a child. RICHARD: Or, more accurately, the cynical adult is envious of the more commonly occurring naiveté of the child. However, the child is unable to distinguish between being naïve and being gullible (between being ingenuous and being trusting). An astute adult can readily separate out the two and re-connect with the long-buried naiveté ... the closest a self can come to being innocent). RESPONDENT: True innocence comes from the change over of a resigned will’s union with good, whereby we become a conduit for good. RICHARD: Possible translation: religious ‘innocence’ comes from submission and surrender so as to curry favour with an otherwise wrathful deity ... thus becoming a spokesperson for a good that supposedly has no evil in its nature, a love that supposedly has no hate in its nature, a god that supposedly has no devil in its nature. RESPONDENT: There is no innocence other than that ... none. RICHARD: Au contraire ... innocence is the perfection, of the infinitude of this universe, personified. In a word: purity. RESPONDENT: There is no innocence in ignorance or misconception in thought of any kind. RICHARD: Indeed not. RESPONDENT: We are guilty or we are innocent. There are no other choices. We are unable to make ourselves innocent, but we can be made innocent by what is already innocent. RICHARD: There is nothing ‘already innocent’ about any god or goddess. RESPONDENT: Our spirit is not one with the universe or God unless it has been made to be so. RICHARD: There is no ‘our spirit’ outside of the human psyche ... there are no spirits here in this actual world. RESPONDENT: There is no escape whatsoever from evil, except in God. There is no escape into the material world because on the other side of matter, evil is waiting. RICHARD: I am reporting that there is a third alternative ... something new to either materialism or spiritualism. RESPONDENT: We are not one with the universe or anything like that. RICHARD: I am this universe experiencing itself as an apperceptive human being: as such the universe is stunningly aware of its own infinitude. No need for oneness or union at all.
RESPONDENT: [Righteous anger is not of the same energy source as regular emotional anger. It is just an energy source from good in opposition to what is wrong.] There is no ordinary hate there at all. RICHARD: As it is not ordinary love we are discussing I would have considered it obvious that its corollary would not be ‘ordinary hate’. It takes an extraordinary hate to judge someone created as-is ... and to wrathfully consign them to damnation and/or eternal death (when the promise is blessedness and eternal life). RESPONDENT: That is your judgment of God ... RICHARD: Indeed it is ... first realised at six years of age (which was when I also first learned that I should keep my mouth shut lest I incur righteous anger and threats of eternal damnation from loving believers). Needless to say not much has changed in such a person’s attitude nearly half a century later. RESPONDENT: Was that the start of your belief? RICHARD: Goodness me, no ... it was the start of disbelief. I have oft-times explained it this way: as a toddler I believed in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy; as a child I disbelieved in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy; as an adult I know that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy have no existence outside of imagination. In a similar fashion as a toddler I believed in the Judaic/Christian God; as a child I disbelieved in the Judaic/Christian God ... and now, having been and gone beyond spiritual enlightenment I know that none of the 1200-odd gods and goddesses that the human race believes in have any existence outside of the human psyche. RESPONDENT: What kind of parents threaten anger and eternal damnation least a child keep his mouth shut? RICHARD: The biological parents of that six-year old boy were non-religious, non church-going people
(and still are to this day for as far as I know) ... it was the ‘loving believers’ in the small-town community that I was
referring to who turned their righteous anger upon that child And it is in ways such as this that the newest recruits to the human race all over the globe are inculcated with the cultural beliefs and traditions of the society they are born into: beliefs come in from other persons, starting virtually from day one as a new-born baby, as the society at large requires the child to conform to the already existing world of inherited realities. Through actions and words, carrots and sticks, the child is taught to believe until it is sufficiently educated, having made these beliefs their own ‘truths’. The child cannot compare these beliefs with anything outside of their environment, because they do not have the ability to have confidence in the certainty there is an alternative to the ‘real world’ reality as is evidenced in their pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s) ... so they have no reason not to swallow the entire package, this whole reality. This process of indoctrination is called socialisation and results in forming their social identity; a process which may take, perhaps, up to twelve years to complete. All this while the child has learned, by trial and error, reward and punishment, precept and example – with endless repetition – how to feel secure and insecure, loved and hated, unselfish and selfish and so on ... no matter what culture one is born into. Humankind is sufficiently programmed into believing that ‘human nature’ is what human beings are and it cannot be changed ... humanity’s wisdom says all humans are stuck with one’s lot in life. Such is the extent of believing. RESPONDENT: My family was not all that perfect but they never put out anything like that. RICHARD: The family I was born into and raised in were neither believers nor atheists ... religion was simply a non-event. The only religious instruction I received was the then-obligatory state-run religious instruction at the local government school I attended for ten years (from 5-15 years of age). RESPONDENT: Neither do I know of any others that threatened damnation to a child. RICHARD: It was the neighbours and the neighbouring children – the fundamentalist believers in the community at large – who took it upon themselves to try to brainwash an errant child with their fears and dreams ... all the bigotry that stems from that and their own conditioning as children. RESPONDENT: Did you come from an unusual family? RICHARD: No ... I was born and raised in a normal family; I was educated in a normal state-run school; I took a normal occupation at age fifteen (full-time farming) and joined the military at age seventeen. My parents were farmers ... pioneer settlers carving a farm by hand out of virgin forest (I personally used axes and hand saws to help cut down the trees to make pasture land). I was involved in the fencing and ploughing and sowing and harvesting; I hunted game in the forest and helped raise domesticated animals; I tended the gardens and orchards and crops; I assisted in building sheds (barns) and outhouses from forest timber and learned improvisation from the ingenuity required in ‘making do’ with minimal commercial supplies. There was no plumbing; no sewage, no telephone; no electricity ... I went to bed with a candle and to the outdoor latrine with a kerosene lamp. No computer; no television; no videos; no record players; no freezer; no electric kitchen gadgets ... and so on and so on. A regular rural childhood ... there was no ‘wounded child’ nor any ‘dysfunctional family’ background beyond the norm. * RESPONDENT: [There is no ordinary hate there at all. That is your judgment of God] ... a big mistake since you are not in the same league. RICHARD: I am way, way past the ‘league’ of any god or goddess and not just the Judaic/Christian deity ... the actual is beyond anyone’s wildest dreams and schemes. RESPONDENT: This is the problem of man. He chronically and compulsively thinks he is more than he is. RICHARD: In other words: do not think for yourself; do not investigate; do not explore; do not discover ... do not find out, once and for all, the facts of the situation. RESPONDENT: No. Do not be deceived by your own ego is more like it. RICHARD: More to the point is not to be deceived by one’s soul ... the ego-deceit is but surface stuff. To paraphrase/plagiarise from what you initially wrote: the problem of humans is that they chronically and compulsively feel that they are more than what they are ... when what they are is this flesh and blood body only. Thinking for oneself – investigating, exploring, observing, discovering – enables one to find out, once and for all, the facts of the situation. * RESPONDENT: We are not the judge of God; God is the judge of us. RICHARD: So you have mentioned ... how do you (or how did you) determine this to be true? RESPONDENT: I know it deeply. I would not even consider it. RICHARD: In other words: do not think for yourself; do not investigate; do not explore; do not discover ... do not find out, once and for all, the facts of the situation. Could you, or will you, respond the following so that I can be cognisant of what it is you ‘know deeply’ and where it is sourced? Vis.:
And:
* RESPONDENT: ... When men have been corrupted, their true nature has been changed into something dark, ugly, and unnatural. RICHARD: There never was an uncorrupted human: human beings have always been the way they are ... the way they are born. All this while, of course, peace-on-earth 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: This wrong nature is threatened by any kind of true innocence that shows it up in contrast. It is like a cross to a vampire. RICHARD: And is this ‘true innocence’ is the same-same innocence as the innocence that comes with guilt? Vis.: [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: I did not say that the innocent are guilty or that innocence came out of guilt. The word ‘innocent’ can mean nothing unless there is such a thing as guilt. RICHARD: If you wish for me to comprehend what you are saying here could you re-write it in a way that makes sense? For example: what ‘guilt’ are you speaking of? The ‘guilt’ of what ... the ‘guilt’ of being born (or created) as-is and then condemned for being just that? RESPONDENT: Guilt is from a disparity between what we are what we should be ... our potential calling to us. There is a higher awareness attending man that will not let him just do as he wishes without conflict. It is like a radar signal calling us back on course. RICHARD: Okay ... it was just a funny way of saying it (‘there can be no innocence without guilt’) for there is nary a trace of guilt in innocence. None whatsoever. * RICHARD: May I ask? What is the connection betwixt ‘wrong nature’ and ‘guilt’ such as to ensure ‘true innocence’? Also, this truly innocent person would presumably be given to righteous anger when ‘in opposition to what is wrong’ (the ‘righteous anger’ that you say is sourced in ‘good’)? RESPONDENT: The connection between wrong nature and guilt is obvious. RICHARD: It is not obvious to me: human beings are born (or created) with what you call ‘wrong nature’ ... why should there be ‘guilt’ about that? RESPONDENT: There is no guilt until a level of consciousness comes which causes it. RICHARD: Even so, the ‘level of consciousness’ cannot be a very advanced level if there is ‘guilt’ for being born (or created) with what you call ‘wrong nature’ ... no one is to blame: it is the human condition that is to blame and not the flesh and blood body called No. 21. RESPONDENT: That awareness can bring us back on course. RICHARD: Human beings were never ‘on course’ ... they have always been the way they are: innocence is new to human experience. RESPONDENT: If our ego is too big we would rather blame the messenger for the message. RICHARD: What ‘message’ and what ‘messenger’ would you be referring to? * RESPONDENT: True innocence is another thing unless guilt has been listened to and the will has been resigned and conformed to the intent of the source of the guilt. RICHARD: Are you really saying that built into the ‘guilt’ of being born (or created) as-is there is a pre-arranged ‘intent’? And that, furthermore, that pre-arranged ‘intent’ has as part of its built-in constitution the dictate that every person’s will has to be ‘resigned and conformed’? The religious solution has always struck me as being a rigged game from the start. RESPONDENT: There is no guilt in being born. RICHARD: Good ... I am glad we agree on this point. RESPONDENT: It is what happens after that that causes guilt. There is an element of choice in there. RICHARD: What ‘happens after’? All babies are born alike in respect to the genetically-inherited instinctual passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) ... therein lies the root cause of all the mayhem and misery which epitomises the human condition. And all the different types of socialisation (peer-group conditioning, parental conditioning and societal conditioning in general) are well-meant endeavours by countless peoples over innumerable aeons to seek to curb the instinctual animal passions. Now, while most people paddle around on the surface and re-arrange the conditioning to ease their lot somewhat, some people – seeking to be free of all human conditioning – fondly imagine that by putting on a face-mask and snorkel that they have gone deep-sea diving with a scuba outfit ... deep into the human condition. They have not ... they have gone deep only into the human conditioning. When they tip upon the instinctual passions – which are both savage (fear and aggression) and tender (nurture and desire) – they grab for the tender (the ‘good’ side) and blow them up all out of proportion as an antidote, as compensating pacifiers ... and the investigation ceases. It takes nerves of steel to don such an aqua-lung and plunge deep in the stygian depths of the human psyche ... it is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee. This is because below or behind the conditioning is the human condition itself ... that which necessitated the controls (conditioning) in the first place. Thus the conditioning can prevent the investigation of the human condition itself. * RESPONDENT: This is why there is so much child abuse out there. The light of innocence must be put out. RICHARD: As children are not innocent – they are simply ignorant and gullible (inexperienced and credulous) – it is no wonder you are not comprehending what I am saying. Innocence is totally new to human experience. RESPONDENT: Children may not be absolutely innocent ... RICHARD: Children are not even slightly innocent ... all babies are born alike in respect to the genetically-inherited instinctual passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire). RESPONDENT: There is nothing wrong with fear or aggression in a young child. RICHARD: Golly ... all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides and so on stem from blind nature’s instinctual ‘software package’, genetically-inherited as a rough and ready start to life, and all you can say is that ‘there is nothing wrong with fear or aggression in a young child’? Where is the (supposed) child-like innocence in such passions? RESPONDENT: The aggression is due to the mishandling of the parents. RICHARD: Not so ... it is the development of the already existing aggression that is encouraged by parents, peers and society at large. All peoples – not just ‘the parents’ – contribute to this ‘mishandling’. RESPONDENT: They are still innocent. RICHARD: You do seem to be vacillating on this issue. Vis.:
* RESPONDENT: [Children may not be absolutely innocent] in that they tend to fall, they are innocent in comparison to adults, having not yet fallen to what is in the world. RICHARD: They are simply ignorant and gullible (inexperienced and credulous) in comparison to adults. RESPONDENT: They have a simple innocence that can be easily seen. If you cannot see it, that is a problem you have. RICHARD: Not so. If you cannot see that children are ignorant and gullible (inexperienced and credulous) rather than innocent it is a problem that you have ... a problem that encourages you to seek solace in one of the 1200-odd gods that the human race has manifested in the human psyche. * RESPONDENT: The corrupt adult is threatened by the relative innocence of a child. RICHARD: Or, more accurately, the cynical adult is envious of the more commonly occurring naiveté of the child. However, the child is unable to distinguish between being naïve and being gullible (between being ingenuous and being trusting). An astute adult can readily separate out the two and re-connect with the long-buried naiveté ... the closest a self can come to being innocent). RESPONDENT: That is a distortion of reality, but that is your choice. RICHARD: There is no choice when it comes to a fact ... just where is this ‘distortion of reality’ you are alluding to? * RESPONDENT: True innocence comes from the change over of a resigned will’s union with good, whereby we become a conduit for good. RICHARD: Possible translation: religious ‘innocence’ comes from submission and surrender so as to curry favour with an otherwise wrathful deity ... thus becoming a spokesperson for a good that supposedly has no evil in its nature, a love that supposedly has no hate in its nature, a god that supposedly has no devil in its nature. RESPONDENT: The Deity is not wrathful unless it is fully deserved. RICHARD: Nobody, but nobody, ever deserves wrath ... let alone be ‘fully deserved’ of it. If a person – or a god – is so soultistical, so up themselves, as to feel deeply that someone is deserving of their wrath (their righteous anger) they have a lot of homework yet to do. You certainly do convey a warped version of what innocence actually is. * RESPONDENT: There is no innocence other than that ... none. RICHARD: Au contraire ... innocence is the perfection, of the infinitude of this universe, personified. In a word: purity. RESPONDENT: Pure what? RICHARD: The purity welling endlessly as the infinitude this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe is ... that which has no opposite, no duality, is consummate in and of itself. * RESPONDENT: There is no innocence in ignorance or misconception in thought of any kind. RICHARD: Indeed not. RESPONDENT: We are guilty or we are innocent. There are no other choices. We are unable to make ourselves innocent, but we can be made innocent by what is already innocent. RICHARD: There is nothing ‘already innocent’ about any god or goddess. RESPONDENT: Our spirit is not one with the universe or God unless it has been made to be so. RICHARD: There is no ‘our spirit’ outside of the human psyche ... there are no spirits here in this actual world. RESPONDENT: There is no escape whatsoever from evil, except in God. There is no escape into the material world because on the other side of matter, evil is waiting. RICHARD: I am reporting that there is a third alternative ... something new to either materialism or spiritualism. RESPONDENT: We are not one with the universe or anything like that. RICHARD: I am this universe experiencing itself as an apperceptive human being: as such the universe is stunningly aware of its own infinitude. No need for oneness or union at all. RESPONDENT: You are not the universe. RICHARD: I never said I was ... I said that I am this universe experiencing itself as an apperceptive human being. The universe also experiences itself as cats and dogs and so on and so on. RESPONDENT: You are just a small part of the universe. RICHARD: Not a ‘part’, no (let alone ‘just a small part’): the stuff of this flesh and blood body is the very stuff of the universe; the stuff of this flesh and blood body is as old as the universe is ... the stuff of this flesh and blood body has been virtually everywhere and everything at everywhen. I will say it again for emphasis: I am this universe experiencing itself as an apperceptive human being ... as such the universe is stunningly aware of its own infinitude. RESPONDENT: The rest falls into the category of delusions of grandeur. RICHARD: There are no ‘delusions of grandeur’ needed here ... this actual world is magnificent beyond anyone’s wildest dreams and schemes.
RICHARD: It takes an extraordinary hate to judge someone created as-is ... and to wrathfully consign them to damnation and/or eternal death (when the promise is blessedness and eternal life). RESPONDENT: That is your judgment of God ... RICHARD: Indeed it is ... first realised at six years of age (which was when I also first learned that I should keep my mouth shut lest I incur righteous anger and threats of eternal damnation from loving believers). Needless to say not much has changed in such a person’s attitude nearly half a century later. RESPONDENT: Was that the start of your belief? RICHARD: Goodness me, no ... it was the start of disbelief. I have oft-times explained it this way: as a toddler I believed in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy; as a child I disbelieved in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy; as an adult I know that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy have no existence outside of imagination. In a similar fashion as a toddler I believed in the Judaic/Christian God; as a child I disbelieved in the Judaic/Christian God ... and now, having been and gone beyond spiritual enlightenment I know that none of the 1200-odd gods and goddesses that the human race believes in have any existence outside of the human psyche. RESPONDENT: What kind of parents threaten anger and eternal damnation least a child keep his mouth shut? RICHARD: The biological parents of that six-year old boy were non-religious ... RESPONDENT: My family was the same. RICHARD: Then what made you immediately assume I was referring to my progenitors (‘what kind of parents threaten ...’) when I used the term ‘loving believers’? It is not only parents that influence children ... peer group pressure and public persuasion have at least equal impact upon a child’s eager mind. Almost to this very day I have been accosted in the street by the same-same type of loving believers – some Born-Again Christians for an instance of this – whose loving message soon turns to a hateful message when they realise their compassionate ploys do not work on a person that can think for themselves ... and I have seen the same thing happen to my own progeny a little more than a decade ago. And not only peoples from the Sumerian/Judaic/Christian tradition ... someone from the Vedic/Upanishadic/Shaivite lineage pulled a similar stunt on me only a few years ago (for just one other example) promising all manner of hellish realms awaited my demise. One of my now-adult daughters informed me that it is still currently happening (albeit four years ago) when she was working as a nanny in a large city. Plus what I read, see and hear about on the various media. * RICHARD: [The biological parents of that six-year old boy were non-religious], non church-going people (and still are to this day for as far as I know) ... it was the ‘loving believers’ in the small-town community that I was referring to who turned their righteous anger upon that child and threatened eternal damnation. RESPONDENT: I guess I lived in the big city where no one talks about things like that. RICHARD: Then your ‘guess’ is wide of the mark ... as I have already said it is still happening in at least one ‘big city’. As you would have to be living with your head in the sand to not be aware of the endemic religious/spiritual coercion my guess is that you are dissimulating. Especially so considering what you have written to me in this thread ... first came the loving message:
This was followed by the qualifying message:
Which was followed by the threatening message:
Which is followed by the condemning message (from further below in this e-mail):
As you thus do it yourself ... I am glad that I am not your children. * RESPONDENT: [There is no ordinary hate there at all. That is your judgment of God] ... a big mistake since you are not in the same league. RICHARD: I am way, way past the ‘league’ of any god or goddess and not just the Judaic/Christian deity ... the actual is beyond anyone’s wildest dreams and schemes. RESPONDENT: This is the problem of man. He chronically and compulsively thinks he is more than he is. RICHARD: In other words: do not think for yourself; do not investigate; do not explore; do not discover ... do not find out, once and for all, the facts of the situation. RESPONDENT: No. Do not be deceived by your own ego is more like it. RICHARD: More to the point is not to be deceived by one’s soul ... the ego-deceit is but surface stuff. To paraphrase/plagiarise from what you initially wrote: the problem of humans is that they chronically and compulsively feel that they are more than what they are ... when what they are is this flesh and blood body only. Thinking for oneself – investigating, exploring, observing, discovering – enables one to find out, once and for all, the facts of the situation. RESPONDENT: The problem is that we cannot think for ourselves. RICHARD: You would be better off speaking for yourself as I can indeed think for myself ... and so can several other people I know of. RESPONDENT: We just think and come to some conclusion that satisfies something in us. It all depends on what is in us that is satisfied. RICHARD: Ahh ... this brings the topic back to a previous query:
You never did answer ... now is your chance. * RESPONDENT: We are not the judge of God; God is the judge of us. RICHARD: So you have mentioned ... how do you (or how did you) determine this to be true? RESPONDENT: I know it deeply. I would not even consider it. RICHARD: In other words: do not think for yourself; do not investigate; do not explore; do not discover ... do not find out, once and for all, the facts of the situation. Could you, or will you, respond the following so that I can be cognisant of what it is you ‘know deeply’ and where it is sourced? Vis.: [Respondent]: ‘Whereas God is the legitimate judge, He judges’. [Richard]: ‘So you have already said ... my question still stands: whence comes the legitimation? [endquote]. And: [Respondent]: ‘Man is instructed to leave this job to God’. [Richard]: ‘Where are these instructions to be found? RESPONDENT: The answer is found within and without. RICHARD: I specifically asked where the legitimation and the instructions are to be found ... so whereabouts ‘within and without’ are the legitimation and instructions located? RESPONDENT: The more we judge, the more conflict we have and the more problems we have. The question is what are we in conflict with and why? RICHARD: No, the question is (or rather the questions are): whence comes the legitimation (that ‘God is the legitimate judge’) ... and where are these instructions (that ‘He judges’) to be found? RESPONDENT: The answer comes that we are in conflict with something higher than ourselves and we are trying to be it. RICHARD: The ‘answer’ comes from where ... from the ‘something higher’, perchance? RESPONDENT: If we leave the judgment to God and refrain from it, we don’t have the problem, nor the conflict. RICHARD: This smacks of washing one’s hands of the entire issue ... and handing the whole mess over to some metaphysical super-hero to deal with (imaginatively believed to be the one who created the sorry lot in the first place). RESPONDENT: We are in harmony with God. We do what we do and He does what He does ... no problem. RICHARD: Hmm ... ‘no problem’ provided that when ‘we do what we do’ it is in accordance with what ‘He’ who ‘does what He does’ says you should do, eh? In other words: a further dodging of dealing with the issue oneself. RESPONDENT: The principle is also in scripture ... ‘vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord’ ... RICHARD: Ahh ... here now is the real source of the instructions: dead people’s words in some ancient collection of books. I take it that you have judged these words to be true ... you who makes a big thing out of not judging? RESPONDENT: [The principle is also in scripture] ... ‘judge not least ye be judged’. RICHARD: Okay ... my question still stands (slightly modified): who legitimises some long-dead human beings’ words in some ancient collection of books? Is it not your judgement that is the very legitimation of those words? RESPONDENT: What does ‘judge not least ye be judged’ mean? It means that if we judge, we are in conflict with the real judge. We are judged by God when we judge others. RICHARD: But ... but you judge many and various peoples to be evil:
Not only do you judge good from evil, and right from wrong, you use righteous anger as a result of that judgement (unless all this you have written to me is just theory and you never put any of it into practice). RESPONDENT: Note, however, that there is such a thing as discernment or perception. RICHARD: Oh? Whence comes the legitimation for ‘discernment’? And further: who decides the difference between such discernment and (its close cousin) judgement? RESPONDENT: We can observe wrong in others as long as we don’t puff up over it. We don’t get a charge out of it. RICHARD: Are you saying that you never, ever get angry at wrong-doing in others ... nor ever love doing good? * RICHARD: What is the connection betwixt ‘wrong nature’ and ‘guilt’ such as to ensure ‘true innocence’? Also, this truly innocent person would presumably be given to righteous anger when ‘in opposition to what is wrong’ (the ‘righteous anger’ that you say is sourced in ‘good’)? RESPONDENT: The connection between wrong nature and guilt is obvious. RICHARD: It is not obvious to me: human beings are born (or created) with what you call ‘wrong nature’ ... why should there be ‘guilt’ about that? RESPONDENT: There is no guilt until a level of consciousness comes which causes it. RICHARD: Even so, the ‘level of consciousness’ cannot be a very advanced level if there is ‘guilt’ for being born (or created) with what you call ‘wrong nature’ ... no one is to blame: it is the human condition that is to blame and not the flesh and blood body called No. 21. RESPONDENT: Unless awareness is sufficient, there is no guilt. RICHARD: Au contraire ... with sufficient awareness all guilt disappears: no one is to blame as it is the human condition that is at fault and not the flesh and blood body called No. 21. RESPONDENT: There is an inherited tendency to react wrongly to the world with anger and hate when tempted severely enough. RICHARD: Aye ... this is blind nature’s rough and ready ‘software package’ in action. RESPONDENT: This reaction is a connection to the error in the world which causes it to come in. RICHARD: What ‘error in the world’ are you talking about? This actual world is pristine. RESPONDENT: It is the leak in our boat. RICHARD: Good ... this observation comes closer to the fact: the ‘error in the world’ really is ‘the leak in our boat’ projected out onto the physical. RESPONDENT: At first children just react negatively to the error in their parents and they are not guilty. RICHARD: Even though they have the same ‘error’ within themselves (just as yet unaware of it through ignorance and inexperience)? RESPONDENT: In time the guilt comes when they mature enough so that could know better. RICHARD: Only if they are sufficiently brainwashed by well-meaning adults and peers such as to disable the ability to think for themselves. * RESPONDENT: That awareness can bring us back on course. RICHARD: Human beings were never ‘on course’ ... they have always been the way they are: innocence is new to human experience. RESPONDENT: If our ego is too big we would rather blame the messenger for the message. RICHARD: What ‘message’ and what ‘messenger’ would you be referring to? * RESPONDENT: True innocence is another thing unless guilt has been listened to and the will has been resigned and conformed to the intent of the source of the guilt. RICHARD: Are you really saying that built into the ‘guilt’ of being born (or created) as-is there is a pre-arranged ‘intent’? And that, furthermore, that pre-arranged ‘intent’ has as part of its built-in constitution the dictate that every person’s will has to be ‘resigned and conformed’? The religious solution has always struck me as being a rigged game from the start. RESPONDENT: I don’t know what that means. Guilt is a product of conscience. RICHARD: Aye ... and conscience is something inculcated by parents, peers and peoples in general. It is called instilling values into children and its details vary from culture to culture but the basics have a world-wide correspondence. RESPONDENT: Our conscience should be our guide, as they say. RICHARD: That is what ‘they’ say, yes ... and the fact that it does not work, never has worked and never will work does not give you pause to even begin to think for yourself? RESPONDENT: We are getting into a theological area here. I am not sure what you mean by a ‘rigged game’. RICHARD: Using the Christian Theology as an example: one is given (created with) ‘free will’ ... and the choice is to accept their god and receive blessedness and eternal life or reject their god and receive damnation and eternal death. Some choice, eh? RESPONDENT: It is a very serious game. RICHARD: It is such a puerile game that if it were not for all the misery and mayhem engendered it would be a hilarious black comedy piece. RESPONDENT: Judaeo Christian writings say that man is a fallen being, coming down from something higher to something lower, and not from something lower to something higher. RICHARD: So? To be following and believing in the tried and failed Sumerian/Judaic/Christian tradition is to be living in the past. RESPONDENT: Although he has no more sight of the paradise that has been lost, it calls to him as a kind of haunting or shame over his fallen nature. RICHARD: Yet all this while the ambrosial paradise I call the actual world is no further away than coming to your senses. RESPONDENT: Man longs for a return to the deathless state of paradise that his ancestors once lived in. RICHARD: There never was a ‘deathless state’ ... death is the end. Finish. RESPONDENT: The first man was separated from God through disbelief which led to disobedience. That which he was separated from calls him back to a state of obedience and belief instead of the inherited state of rebellion and division he finds himself in due to his lineage. RICHARD: Ahh ... so Love Agapé also demands ‘obedience and belief’, eh? And to think that the ‘sixties generation (and after) were sucked into what they believed to be was unconditional love. A little discussion such as this has shown it to be shot-full of conditions. RESPONDENT: Guilt calls us away from what we are to something else. RICHARD: Yet ‘what we are’ is this flesh and blood body ... are you not speaking rather of ‘who’ one is (the soul inside the body). RESPONDENT: It calls for a resigned will. Everything done without a resigned will to a higher authority, amounts to injustice due to the ego nature of that will. RICHARD: May I ask? Is the act of a ‘resigned will’ similar to the act of a ‘surrendered ego’? RESPONDENT: A wilful person is alienated to a higher will. RICHARD: Just as the eastern religions/eastern spirituality have it that their ego-self is alienated from a higher self? RESPONDENT: As they drop their pride and resign themselves to a higher will, they find peace and unity because that is their original home base. RICHARD: Just as the eastern religions/eastern spirituality have it that if they ‘drop their pride’ and surrender to a higher self they will find ‘peace and unity’? RESPONDENT: Guilt is a calling back to that. RICHARD: Again I ask: ‘guilt’ for what (seeing that you say that ‘there is no guilt in being born’)? Is it ‘guilt’ for not living in accord with the values instilled (inculcated as ‘our conscience’) by well-meaning adults and peers to curb the instinctual passions? Do you see why it has failed? Do you now see why it has never worked, does not work, and never will work? * RESPONDENT: There is no guilt in being born. RICHARD: Good ... I am glad we agree on this point. RESPONDENT: It is what happens after that that causes guilt. There is an element of choice in there. RICHARD: What ‘happens after’? All babies are born alike in respect to the genetically-inherited instinctual passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) ... therein lies the root cause of all the mayhem and misery which epitomises the human condition. And all the different types of socialisation (peer-group conditioning, parental conditioning and societal conditioning in general) are well-meant endeavours by countless peoples over innumerable aeons to seek to curb the instinctual animal passions. Now, while most people paddle around on the surface and re-arrange the conditioning to ease their lot somewhat, some people – seeking to be free of all human conditioning – fondly imagine that by putting on a face-mask and snorkel that they have gone deep-sea diving with a scuba outfit ... deep into the human condition. They have not ... they have gone deep only into the human conditioning. When they tip upon the instinctual passions – which are both savage (fear and aggression) and tender (nurture and desire) ... RESPONDENT: You are not looking at instinctual passions there. RICHARD: I am indeed ... and these basic instinctual passions can be observed in other animals (more easily recognised in what is called the ‘higher order’ animals). RESPONDENT: The savage is from a savage spirit. RICHARD: As you deny that it is the instinctual passions which I am speaking of then just what ‘savage spirit’ are you referring to? And further: where is it sourced? In the body? Outside of the body? Is it physical or metaphysical? RESPONDENT: The tender is from mom who nurtures the savage spirit without knowing it. RICHARD: Surely you are not saying that what I call the tender side (nurture and desire) is the province of the female of any species ... and that what I call the savage side (fear and aggression) is the domain of the male? Can you, will you, make it clear – and on what grounds – that you can factually dismiss my observation regarding the savage and tender instinctual passions, genetically-inherited by all sentient beings, and propose instead some vacuous ‘savage spirit’ ... plus the female tenderly nurturing it (unbeknownst to her)? Otherwise I cannot see what you are getting at ... or why. * RICHARD: [When they tip upon the instinctual passions] they grab for the tender (the ‘good’ side) and blow them up all out of proportion as an antidote, as compensating pacifiers ... and the investigation ceases. It takes nerves of steel to don such an aqua-lung and plunge deep in the stygian depths of the human psyche ... it is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee. This is because below or behind the conditioning is the human condition itself ... that which necessitated the controls (conditioning) in the first place. RESPONDENT: Different people have different degrees of the problem. RICHARD: A difference of degree is not a difference of kind, however, which is the impression you convey (a little further above) regarding the ‘savage spirit’ and that the female unknowingly ‘nurtures’ it). RESPONDENT: The monster that lives within has grown in a field of anger. RICHARD: Okay ... from whence comes the ‘anger’ such as to provide a ‘field’ for ‘the monster’ to grow in if it be not sourced in the instinctual passions? RESPONDENT: This is not the human condition. RICHARD: What then is the ‘human condition’ according to you (or according to wherever you get this information from)? RESPONDENT: It is an inhuman conditioned that has been seeded and fed and has grown to fruition. RICHARD: What? Where? When? How? Why? I would appreciate facts ... not more rhetoric. RESPONDENT: It is not man. It is an alien identity that has entered. RICHARD: What ‘alien entity’? From where does it come? When did it enter? How did it come about that this happens? Why does it exist in the first place? This is what I mean by facts. * RICHARD: Thus the conditioning can prevent the investigation of the human condition itself. RESPONDENT: The nature of the identity itself prevents the investigation. RICHARD: What is the ‘nature of the identity’ (if it is not, as you say, the human condition) which prevents the investigation? You should be able to find out, from a personal enquiry, as you yourself have previously said you would not even consider it (what I am reporting). Vis.:
RESPONDENT: It is poisoned by light. It is like the little creatures that scurry away when you pick up the rock. RICHARD: Except that by ‘light’ you mean your god and not physical light ... do you see that thus far you have talked about a ‘savage spirit’ (presumably non-physical) and an ‘energy source’ (which is metaphysical) and not very much at all about the physical (flesh and blood body)? Vis.:
Yet it is flesh and blood bodies which get murdered, tortured, raped, violated, abused, suicided and so on ... has it never occurred to you to consider a physical cause and a physical solution? * RESPONDENT: This is why there is so much child abuse out there. The light of innocence must be put out. RICHARD: As children are not innocent – they are simply ignorant and gullible (inexperienced and
credulous) – it is no wonder you are not comprehending what I am saying. Innocence RESPONDENT: Children may not be absolutely innocent ... RICHARD: Children are not even slightly innocent ... all babies are born alike in respect to the genetically-inherited instinctual passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire). RESPONDENT: There is nothing wrong with fear or aggression in a young child. RICHARD: Golly ... all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides and so on stem from blind nature’s instinctual ‘software package’, genetically-inherited as a rough and ready start to life, and all you can say is that ‘there is nothing wrong with fear or aggression in a young child’? Where is the (supposed) child-like innocence in such passions? RESPONDENT: The aggression is due to the mishandling of the parents. RICHARD: Not so ... it is the development of the already existing aggression that is encouraged by parents, peers and society at large. All peoples – not just ‘the parents’ – contribute to this ‘mishandling’. RESPONDENT: Not true. RICHARD: It is true ... it is in accord with the fact that it is the development of the already existing aggression that is encouraged by parents, peers and society at large. RESPONDENT: The parents both seed it and nourish it ... without even knowing it. RICHARD: When you say that the parents ‘seed it’ you are implying the ‘Tabula Rasa’ theory (the child is a clean slate). RESPONDENT: The child is only faulted by having a latent tendency to fall for what the parents are going to dish out. RICHARD: If there is a ‘latent tendency’ then the parents do not, by your own argument, ‘seed it’ at all ... ‘tis no wonder you are vacillating on this issue of innocence (aka ‘Tabula Rasa’) in regards children. * RESPONDENT: They are still innocent. RICHARD: You do seem to be vacillating on this issue. Vis.: 1. [Respondent]: ‘The light of [the child’s] innocence ...’. 2. [Respondent]: ‘Children may not be absolutely innocent ...’. 3. [Respondent]: ‘... they [children] are innocent in comparison to adults’. 4. [Respondent]: ‘... the relative innocence of a child’. 5. [Respondent]: ‘They [children] are still innocent’. 6. [Respondent]: ‘They [children] have a simple innocence that can be easily seen’. RESPONDENT: Children have a tendency to fall when overly tempted. RICHARD: Then they are neither innocent nor seeded by their parents ... it is a pre-existing condition (they are born with it). RESPONDENT: That is why I said they cannot be totally innocent because total innocence could not be corrupted. RICHARD: Exactly. RESPONDENT: They cannot hold on to what they have, which is innocence. RICHARD: Hmm ... you are still doing it (vacillating). They do not have innocence ... innocence is incorrupt, incorruptible and unable to corrupt. RESPONDENT: Once they react with hatred, the enemy has entered and innocence is lost. RICHARD: If they ‘react with hatred’ and if ‘the enemy’ can enter then they are not and have never been innocent. RESPONDENT: As the process continues, the enemy enters more fully and stands boldly where innocence once stood. RICHARD: Goodness me ... can you not see the blatant flaw in your very own argument? * RESPONDENT: [Children may not be absolutely innocent] in that they tend to fall, they are innocent in comparison to adults, having not yet fallen to what is in the world. RICHARD: They are simply ignorant and gullible (inexperienced and credulous) in comparison to adults. RESPONDENT: They have a simple innocence that can be easily seen. If you cannot see it, that is a problem you have. RICHARD: Not so. If you cannot see that children are ignorant and gullible (inexperienced and credulous) rather than innocent it is a problem that you have ... a problem that encourages you to seek solace in one of the 1200-odd gods that the human race has manifested in the human psyche. RESPONDENT: Children are ignorant of course, and gullible since they trust their parents. They are also innocent. RICHARD: The constant repetition of the ‘children are innocent’ phrase, in whatever phrasing your latest variation takes, will not alter the fact one iota. You use it like it is a mantra. * RESPONDENT: The corrupt adult is threatened by the relative innocence of a child. RICHARD: Or, more accurately, the cynical adult is envious of the more commonly occurring naiveté of the child. However, the child is unable to distinguish between being naïve and being gullible (between being ingenuous and being trusting). An astute adult can readily separate out the two and re-connect with the long-buried naiveté ... the closest a self can come to being innocent). RESPONDENT: That is a distortion of reality, but that is your choice. RICHARD: There is no choice when it comes to a fact ... just where is this ‘distortion of reality’ you are alluding to? * RESPONDENT: True innocence comes from the change over of a resigned will’s union with good, whereby we become a conduit for good. RICHARD: Possible translation: religious ‘innocence’ comes from submission and surrender so as to curry favour with an otherwise wrathful deity ... thus becoming a spokesperson for a good that supposedly has no evil in its nature, a love that supposedly has no hate in its nature, a god that supposedly has no devil in its nature. RESPONDENT: The Deity is not wrathful unless it is fully deserved. RICHARD: Nobody, but nobody, ever deserves wrath ... let alone be ‘fully deserved’ of it. If a person – or a god – is so soultistical, so up themselves, as to feel deeply that someone is deserving of their wrath (their righteous anger) they have a lot of homework yet to do. You certainly do convey a warped version of what innocence actually is. RESPONDENT: Why does no one deserve wrath? RICHARD: Are you for real? Do you really treat your fellow human being that way and still consider yourself to be a humane human being? What makes you turn upon your fellow human being like that ... in lieu of cooperating? So much for love’s supposed cure-all properties. RESPONDENT: Why not? RICHARD: Because we are all fellow human beings ... that is why not. RESPONDENT: God is a real judge. We are not. It is up to Him what He judges and the judgments are perfect. RICHARD: You also convey a warped version of what ‘perfect’ actually is ... just look at what you quoted (much further above) for just one example:
Since when has vengeance been ‘perfect’? RESPONDENT: If there is going to be a consequence for whatever wrong has been committed, it will be just. RICHARD: Again ... since when has vengeance been ‘just’? RESPONDENT: I don’t know much about it other than that. RICHARD: For a person who does not know much about it you certainly make a lot of noise about it. * RESPONDENT: There is no innocence other than that ... none. RICHARD: Au contraire ... innocence is the perfection, of the infinitude of this universe, personified. In a word: purity. RESPONDENT: Pure what? RICHARD: The purity welling endlessly as the infinitude this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe is ... that which has no opposite, no duality, is consummate in and of itself. RESPONDENT: So it is pure universe? RICHARD: Yes, not a trace of ... um ... of ‘vengeance’, for example, is to be found here in this actual world (let alone righteous anger, or wrath, and eternal damnation). It is all so simple here. * RESPONDENT: There is no escape whatsoever from evil, except in God. There is no escape into the material world because on the other side of matter, evil is waiting. RICHARD: I am reporting that there is a third alternative ... something new to either materialism or spiritualism. RESPONDENT: We are not one with the universe or anything like that. RICHARD: I am this universe experiencing itself as an apperceptive human being: as such the universe is stunningly aware of its own infinitude. No need for oneness or union at all. RESPONDENT: You are not the universe. RICHARD: I never said I was ... I said that I am this universe experiencing itself as an apperceptive human being. The universe also experiences itself as cats and dogs and so on and so on. RESPONDENT: The universe ‘experiences itself as cats and dogs’? RICHARD: Of course ... the universe is all time, all space and all matter: flesh and blood bodies do not come from outside the universe. RESPONDENT: You are a pantheist I guess. RICHARD: No ... I am an actualist: a ‘pantheist’ is a person who holds the belief that God and the universe are identical (implying a denial of the personality and transcendence of God) and pantheism is the identification of God with the forces of nature and natural substances. Pantheism can also mean worship that admits or tolerates all gods. * RESPONDENT: You are just a small part of the universe. RICHARD: Not a ‘part’, no (let alone ‘just a small part’): the stuff of this flesh and blood body is the very stuff of the universe; the stuff of this flesh and blood body is as old as the universe is ... the stuff of this flesh and blood body has been virtually everywhere and everything at everywhen. I will say it again for emphasis: I am this universe experiencing itself as an apperceptive human being ... as such the universe is stunningly aware of its own infinitude. RESPONDENT: The rest falls into the category of delusions of grandeur. RICHARD: There are no ‘delusions of grandeur’ needed here ... this actual world is magnificent beyond anyone’s wildest dreams and schemes. RESPONDENT: The universe may be magnificent ... but we are flawed. RICHARD: You would be better off speaking for yourself ... there is no ‘flawed’ flesh and blood body here.
RESPONDENT No. 21 (Part Eight) RETURN TO CORRESPONDENCE LIST ‘B’ INDEX RETURN TO RICHARD’S CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
Richard's Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust:
1997-. All Rights Reserved.
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