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Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’ with Respondent No. 23
RESPONDENT: By what others say, it seems to me that they consider transformation as just a change in the way we see ourselves – that the person inhabiting the body is an idea while the body is not. What you are saying is that every human being consists of a separate body with its own brain that generates a separate mind. Now, if this is true, then every individual mind has to be debugged of this false notion of a self-identity that possesses the body. This is like fixing Windows 98. At the end of each day, there are 180,000 more babies born and this means 180,000 more brains to debug. This is a nightmare that even mighty Microsoft can’t deal with unless we stop production immediately and junk all those copies still wrapped in swaddling clothes. Then, there are the six billion flawed copies floating out there creating havoc in the world and they too must be fixed. Converting a world to a belief or debugging it of an idea is the same deal – working on each individual one by one. This is most depressing. We would still be working with fragments, one by one.RICHARD: Where you say ‘now if this is true’ (true as in actually happening) I must ask: Is it? Because otherwise your whole case is predicated upon a conditional premise ... and as such amounts to an intellectual exercise. For if it is true, then it is a fact. Be it initially depressing or not, a fact is actual. One cannot argue about a fact as one can about a belief or a truth ... one can only deny a fact and pretend that it is not there. So ... what is it? Then the question to ask is: ‘Why depression? Because when I see the fact of something ... the fact sets me free of choice. Is it not choice that causes the affective reaction ... in this case: depression? Now, if I am feeling depressed, can I see clearly? Would not this affective reaction be colouring my seeing? Yes? No? If yes, then there is something I can do – now – about my depression. Then – and only then – I will be able to see the ‘problem’ of the six billion plus 180,000 clearly. When I see clearly ... then I can proceed ... for then there is action. Seeing the fact – which is seeing without choice – then there is action ... and this action is not of ‘my’ doing. RESPONDENT: The drive behind my inquiry is human sorrow and its ending. I am not here to compare notes or to strike up a conversation. Krishnamurti had passed away for more than 18 years and we are still here talking about transformation. If I were concerned about the state of my life and the suffering that goes on out there in the world, I would be most interested in this total change that Krishnamurti talked about. Maybe there is no such thing but I would want to find out as a matter of urgency. If I don’t know what transformation is – the kind that takes the pain out of living completely not just for me but for all human beings – I would listen to what others have to say if they think they know. RICHARD: Again this is a conditional enquiry because you say ‘if I were concerned’ instead of ‘I am concerned’. If I am not concerned then I know that I am indulging in an intellectual exercise. Then you go on to say ‘maybe there is no such thing but I would want to find out’. Do you? Actually? Are you vitally interested? Is this ‘matter of urgency’ of such an intensity that it consumes the whole of your being – without exception – for the twenty four hours of every day? Because you do say at the beginning of the paragraph that the drive behind your enquiry is ‘human sorrow’. Can you look unconditionally – which is what ‘choicelessly’ means – into the face of human sorrow? If so ... what do you see? RESPONDENT: I would listen carefully like Socrates in his search for the wise man. He didn’t find any but discovered a lot of fools. That is why we are still stuck here talking about transformation. RICHARD: Once again you say that you ‘would’ listen carefully ... but will you? That is: Do you? As an actuality ... which means with the intensity of all of your being? RESPONDENT: So, the criterion is the ending of sorrow. If you know what transformation implies, then I want to listen to you with my whole being and to ask you everything about it. RICHARD: The criterion is not only the ending of sorrow but the ending of malice as well ... the two are inextricably linked. But again you say ‘I want to listen’ rather than ‘I will listen’ ... or even better: ‘I am listening’. For I do know what transformation implies ... it means that ‘I’ go on in a different guise as sorrow and malice transform into compassion and love. RESPONDENT: If you don’t know the truth about transformation, then you should be honest about it, shut up and listen to me in the same attentive way. We are talking about human sorrow, an all-important matter. Mankind is caught in sorrow, a predicament that is getting worse with each passing day. RICHARD: Not so ... there is as much sorrow now as then. Neither more nor less ... human sorrow is the same human sorrow in whatever era and in whatever age-group. RESPONDENT: We are like a group of people trapped in a sealed cave and the air is running out. Breaking out of our predicament is a matter of grave urgency. The one who knows the way out must tell the others. RICHARD: Indeed ... but will the others listen? Yet, more importantly than them listening, will you listen? Do you listen? Are you listening? RESPONDENT: And unless we all cooperate, there is no getting out. To waste each other’s time and energy bantering over nothing is to commit a heinous crime against everybody in the cave. RICHARD: This is intriguing ... why do you assume that the ending of sorrow is dependant upon the cooperation of the six billion plus 180,000? Does this not put you at the mercy of even just one person who is not going to cooperate? Look, the whole matter of the ending of sorrow appears to be a near-impossible endeavour anyway ... why unnecessarily complicate it by requiring the cooperation of everyone? Why not act unilaterally ... and then look back and see if the others will take notice of your results? Running around gingering up the laggard’s enthusiasm only serves to make it look like you are doing something about human sorrow ... it makes it appear that you really care. If you genuinely cared ... there would be action ... and now. RESPONDENT: Do you know that Christians believe that the good go to Heaven? It is a comforting thought. But the sad bug is no one ever gets to go to Heaven. Everyone just dies and disappears. It is a terribly sad thought. To live and die without ever coming upon the truth about what life is. RICHARD: This is worthy of reflection and fascinated contemplation, would you not say? Because if this observation does not strike deep into the core of your being and evoke action ... then what will? You are but a missed heart-beat or two away from death every moment again ... that is how urgent it is. RESPONDENT: I understand that it [a separate psychic entity that exists in memory] is an abstraction, that there is no separate psychic entity that exists. I see that, not logically and intellectually but actually. Is that what is meant by transformation? RICHARD: You may say that you see it ‘not logically and intellectually but actually’ ... but then go on to ask: Is this transformation? And there is your answer ... but it is not the answer to the question you asked. However, now that you have the answer there can be action ... wherein the illusory psychic entity dies an illusory death commensurate to its pernicious existence. There are no short-cuts ... the drama is to be played out to completion. RESPONDENT: A born again Christian sees himself as a separate psychic entity with a separate soul. A good many people in the world see the same thing as that Christian. But I don’t have that delusion. I see the abstraction as only a useful image. Am I transformed? Transformation is a radical change in consciousness, human consciousness. It is not the change in the way an individual perceives himself and the world. It is much more than just a point of view, no matter how profound. RICHARD: Is a transformation really the ending of ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety? If ‘I’ am transformed, then it is not an ending at all ... which is why sorrow and malice go on under a different disguise. Hence the persistence of human suffering – there being as much sorrow and malice now as then – after thousands of years of the Saints and Sages parading their stuff on the world’s stage.
RESPONDENT: And unless we all cooperate, there is no getting out. To waste each other’s time and energy bantering over nothing is to commit a heinous crime against everybody in the cave. RICHARD: This is intriguing ... why do you assume that the ending of sorrow is dependant upon the cooperation of the six billion plus 180,000? Does this not put you at the mercy of even just one person who is not going to cooperate? Look, the whole matter of the ending of sorrow appears to be a near-impossible endeavour anyway ... why unnecessarily complicate it by requiring the cooperation of everyone? Why not act unilaterally ... and then look back and see if the others will take notice of your results? Running around gingering up the laggard’s enthusiasm only serves to make it look like you are doing something about human sorrow ... it makes it appear that you really care. If you genuinely cared ... there would be action ... and now. RESPONDENT: There is too much pain in our lives. RICHARD: Not so ... if there was too much pain in your life you would have committed suicide already. The fact that you are still here, writing in detail about your hesitation in regards to evoking action, shows that there is not too much. And what is this ‘our’ business? Why do you presume to speak for others so knowledgeably? How can you know how much pain – if any – any or all the peoples on this planet have? RESPONDENT: Where does it all lead us? RICHARD: It does not lead anywhere ... despite popular opinion that suffering is good for you, there is nothing good about suffering. The only good thing about suffering is when it ends ... permanently RESPONDENT: We are all broken up into pieces and incapable of coming together. RICHARD: Who says ‘we’ have to come together? Once again, can you not act unilaterally? Can you not stand on your own two feet? If you do not start with autonomy, you are dooming yourself to fail again and again. RESPONDENT: If there is just one person who does not cooperate, then there is no salvation for mankind. RICHARD: Is this an opinion ... or a fact? If it is a fact, then there is the evidence for you that this universe is indeed just a sick joke ... because you will never get the cooperation of the six billion plus 180,000. Is this what you wish to believe? That there is no possibility of freedom whatsoever? Yes? No? Therefore, is it not merely an opinion but – horror upon horrors – you discover that you are the victim of a belief? You see, where there is a belief then you are crazily putting impossible conditions upon what is necessary for freedom before you even start ... but thus you may justify your procrastination in a particularly self-indulgent manner. Look, you wrote recently about how you have seen through the Christian belief in an after-death reward (‘do you know that Christians believe that the good go to Heaven? It is a comforting thought. But the sad bug is no one ever gets to go to Heaven. Everyone just dies and disappears’) so why not apply some rigour in examining your statement above? What is stopping you? Is it the fear that you might actually have to personally do something about human suffering? That firing broadsides at others is revealed to be nothing but a pathetic cover-up for your own lack of contributing to the ingress of peace-on-earth? By clearing the dross out of the way, one can begin to see clearly.
RESPONDENT: The drive behind my inquiry is human sorrow and its ending ... we are like a group of people trapped in a sealed cave and the air is running out. Breaking out of our predicament is a matter of grave urgency. The one who knows the way out must tell the others ... and unless we all cooperate, there is no getting out ... if there is just one person who does not cooperate, then there is no salvation for mankind. RICHARD: Is this an opinion ... or a fact? If it is a fact, then there is the evidence for you that this universe is indeed just a sick joke ... because you will never get the cooperation of the six billion plus 180,000. Is this what you wish to believe? That there is no possibility of freedom whatsoever? RESPONDENT: There is no possibility of freedom for anyone unless everyone is free. The free person all by his lonesome is a deluded person. This is my position. RICHARD: If this were a fact, then the ending of sorrow and malice in everybody would have to be a simultaneous occurrence ... a miracle, in other words. All religions have this myth running through their fantasy. For example, Christianity has their saviour in the second coming of Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene; Buddhism has their Mr. Maitreya; Islam has their Mahdi; Hinduism has their Kalki; Judaism has their Messiah; Taoism has their Kilin and so on. The Christian myth is of particular poignancy because their god was to have came back on a cloud waving his magic wand and putting everything to rights nigh on two thousand years ago ... ‘before this generation passeth away’ spake he sagely. The moral of the story: All you get by waiting is more waiting. RESPONDENT: Let’s say you are right, and that I am a victim of a sick joke but don’t realise this. RICHARD: Aye ... and the ‘sick joke’ is nothing but a firmly held belief that it is not possible for unilateral action. This unilateral action is the total dissolution of ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety ... then there is an individual peace-on-earth. RESPONDENT: We shall pit our reasoning powers, not against each other, but in cooperation to show me why I am a fool. You and I against me. I will start with the opening question. You maintain that you are free. Free from what? We may have different meaning for the word ‘freedom’. RICHARD: Free from the ‘Human Condition’. Which means that sorrow and malice have ceased to exist – permanently – and have not been merely transcended as is the case in an altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’. You may recall these lines from two posts ago. Viz.:
The Human Condition is a well-established philosophical term that refers to the situation that all human beings find themselves in when they emerge here as babies. The term refers to the contrary and perverse nature of all peoples of all races and all cultures. There is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in everyone ... all humans have a ‘dark side’ to their nature and a ‘light side’. The battle betwixt ‘Good and Evil’ has raged down through the centuries and it requires constant vigilance lest evil gets the upper hand. Morals and ethics seek to control the wayward self that lurks deep within the human breast ... and some semblance of what is called ‘peace’ prevails for the main. Where morality and ethicality fails to curb the ‘savage beast’, law and order is maintained ... at the point of a gun. Peace-on-earth is possible only when there is freedom from the Human Condition. Freedom from the Human Condition is the ending of the ‘self’. The elimination of the ‘self’ is simultaneously the demise of both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ within oneself. Then ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ vanish forever along with the dissolution of the psyche itself ... which is the only place they can live in. Because there is no good or evil in the actual world of sensual delight – where I live as this flesh and blood body – one then lives freely in the magical paradise that this verdant earth floating in the infinitude of the universe actually is. Being here at this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space, as this infinitude’s perfection personified, is to be living in a fairy-tale-like ambience that is never-ending. No cooperation is required whatsoever ... one lives freely in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are. Now, a chain-letter effect may or may not occur in the fullness of time ... if it does, a global peace-on-earth would be possible. If it does not, then apart from the salubrity of living as perfection personified for the remainder of one’s life, one is no longer preventing the ingress of a global peace-on-earth by one’s very ‘being’. This is the adventure of a life-time!
RESPONDENT: You are saying that freedom means to be free of the Human Condition in which all human beings are caught the moment they are born. RICHARD: Aye ... but rather somewhere either at or between conception and birth. Blind nature endows all sentient beings – not just the human animal – with the instinct for survival. There are many and varied instincts – and it appears to depend upon which school of thought the biologist ascribes to – but in scouring the text-books one finds that there tends to be agreement that there are at least four fundamental instincts common to all. Namely fear and aggression and nurture and desire. These are located in what is popularly called the ‘reptilian brain’ which some biologists tentatively locate at the top of the brain-stem ... the thorough study of the brain has a long way to go, as yet. These instincts are common to all creatures regardless of whether a cerebral cortex has developed or not ... hence the term ‘reptilian brain’. RESPONDENT: The Human Condition as described by you appears to be another name for the human consciousness, the human psyche, the self that has knowledge of good and evil. Am I right? RICHARD: The human psyche in its totality, yes, and ‘human consciousness’ inasmuch as it is the consciousness that is recognised as being ‘human’ ... not consciousness as such. (That is, ‘human’ as in the oft-repeated excuse: ‘I am not perfect, I am only human’). However, the ‘self’ is good and evil ... it is not something that ‘you’ only have knowledge of. That is, ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are not accessories that ‘you’ have ... ‘you’ are them. RESPONDENT: You seem to be advancing the same position as the homosexual who contends that he is free of the blind dictates of morality. RICHARD: No ... nothing like that at all. Morality – and ethicality – seeks to control the animal ‘self’ that is formed out of those basic instincts of fear and aggression and nurture and desire ... a ‘self’ who is epitomised by malice and sorrow. It is the instincts that are blind ... blind in the sense that they serve only one purpose: the survival of the species ... and any species will do, as far as blind nature is concerned. RESPONDENT: In this way, the gay man gains his sexual freedom which is really where his focus is. He has no qualms about being a moral standard for boy scouts, sitting in a jury box, or dying for his country. The drive that set you free, however, extends beyond carnality. Am I right? RICHARD: Oh yes ... far beyond carnality. The sexual impulse is but one of the instincts that blind nature impresses on all creatures. However, the instincts are a software package – not hardware – and as such can be deleted. RESPONDENT: What motivated your liberation? RICHARD: My questioning of life, the universe and what it is to be a human being had all started in a war-torn country in June 1966 at age nineteen – when there was an identity inhabiting this body complete with a full suite of feelings – and a Buddhist monk killed himself in a most gruesome way. There was I, a callow youth dressed in a jungle-green uniform and with a loaded rifle in my hand, representing the secular way to peace. There was a fellow human being, dressed in religious robes dowsed with petrol and with a cigarette lighter in hand, representing the spiritual way to peace. I was aghast at what we were both doing ... and I sought to find a third alternative to being either ‘human’ or ‘divine’. This was to be the turning point of my life, for up until then, I was a typical western youth, raised to believe in God, Queen and Country. Humanity’s inhumanity to humankind – society’s treatment of its subject citizens – was driven home to me, there and then, in a way that left me appalled, horrified, terrified and repulsed to the core of my being with a sick revulsion. I saw that no one knew what was going on and – most importantly – that no one was ‘in charge’ of the world. There was nobody to ‘save’ the human race ... all gods were but a figment of a feverish imagination. Out of a despairing desperation, that was collectively shared by my fellow humans, I saw and understood that I was as ‘guilty’ as any one else. For in this body – as is in everyone – was both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ ... it was that some people were better than others at controlling their ‘dark side’. However, in a war, there is no way anyone can consistently control any longer ... ‘evil’ ran rampant. I saw that animal instincts – what I now know to be fear and aggression and nurture and desire – ruled the world ... and that these were instincts one was born with. Thus started my search for freedom from the Human Condition ... and my attitude, all those years ago was this: I was only interested in changing myself fundamentally, radically, completely and utterly. Twenty six years later I found the third alternative ... but only when ‘I’ ceased to exist in ‘my’ entirety. There was no change or transformation big enough or grandiose enough to cure ‘me’ ... only extirpation – annihilation, expunction, extinction – ensures peace-on-earth. RESPONDENT: And does your freedom entail the total and complete erasure of the human consciousness that moves the common herd or just only the moral conditioning – the sense of right and wrong, good and evil? RICHARD: Yes, the total and complete erasure of the ‘human’ consciousness ... not just conditioning. The moral conditioning – the sense of right and wrong and what you called the knowledge of good and evil – are well-meant endeavours by countless peoples over countless aeons to seek to curb the instinctual passions. By and large this enterprise has proved to be relatively effective ... only a minority of citizens fail to behave in a socially acceptable manner. And although well-meant, it is but an ultimately short-sighted effort to prevent gaols from being filled to over-flowing, because people are irked by the restraints imposed upon what they indulgently imagine is the freedom of the natural state. 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 instincts – which are both savage (fear and aggression) and tender (nurture and desire) – they grab for the tender (the ‘good’ side) and blow them up all out of proportion. If they succeed in this self-aggrandising hallucination they start talking twaddle dressed up as sagacity such as: ‘There is a good that knows no evil’ or ‘There is a love that knows no opposite’ or ‘There is a compassion that sorrow has never touched’ and so on. This is because it takes nerves of steel to don such an aqua-lung and plunge deep in the stygian depths of the human psyche ... it is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee. For the deletion of the software package is the extinction of ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’. That is, ‘being’ itself expires. The reward for so doing is immeasurable, however. The altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ needs to be talked about and exposed for what it is so that nobody need venture up that blind alley ever again. There is another way and another goal. The main trouble with enlightenment is that whilst the identity as ego dissolves, the identity as soul remains intact. No longer identifying as a personal ego-bound identity, one then identifies as an impersonal soul-bound identity ... ‘I am That’ or ‘I am God’ or ‘I am The Supreme’ or ‘I am The Absolute’ or ‘I am The Buddha’ and so on. This is the delusion, the mirage, the deception ... and it is extremely difficult to see it for oneself, for one is in an august state. This second identity – the second ‘I’ of Mr. Venkataraman Aiyer (aka Ramana) fame – is a difficult one to shake, maybe more difficult than the first; for who is brave enough to voluntarily give up fame and fortune, reverence and worship, status and security? One has to be scrupulously honest with oneself to go all the way and no longer be a someone, a somebody of importance. One faces extinction; ‘I’ will cease to be, there will be no ‘being’ whatsoever, no ‘presence’ at all. It is impossible to imagine, not only the complete and utter cessation of ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety, but the end of any ‘Ultimate Being’ or ‘Absolute Presence’ in any way, shape or form. It means that no one or no thing is in charge of the universe ... that there is no ‘Ultimate Authority’. It means that all values are but human values, with no absolute values at all to fall back upon. It is impossible for one to conceive that without a wayward ‘I’ there is no need for either a compliant ‘me’ or any values whatsoever ... or an ‘Ultimate Authority’. This is what freedom from the Human Condition is.
RESPONDENT No. 21: Do you drink, smoke, hunt for women, lie, cheat, or steal? Do you overeat, over-sex, or over intellectualise? RICHARD: I must acknowledge that I sat and stared nonplussed at this sentence for some time. As I see
no mention of all the genuinely terrible things that afflict human beings – like wars, rapes, murders, tortures, domestic
violence, child abuse, sadness, loneliness, grief, depression and suicide – I find it difficult to take this question sincerely.
Basically, you seem to have paraded your prejudices in public and are asking me if I believe in them too. RESPONDENT: I think it is a matter of degree. No. 21 feels that indulgence in sex is bad enough while you think only rape merits attention. RICHARD: Whilst you may complacently think it is only a ‘matter of degree’ ... try telling that to someone who has just been raped; try telling that to someone who is in a trench on the front-line; try telling that to someone being tortured; try telling that to the person on the receiving end of domestic violence; try telling that to the recipient of child abuse; try telling that to someone sliding down the slippery-slope of sadness to loneliness to grief to depression and then suicide. May I ask? What planet do you live on? RESPONDENT: Some people wondered if the act of adultery was wrong and Jesus told them that even the thought of it was wrong. RICHARD: Once again the focus is on only this adultery business ... what about all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide? And the point I am making is not only not doing these things, I am talking of not even having to suppress thinking the kind of thoughts that cause the doing of these things at all ... ever. RESPONDENT: I am a bread and butter man myself and like to deal with matters on simple terms, nothing grandiose. So, help me figure out how remarkable your freedom is. RICHARD: Sure can ... the reason why I am not impulsively thinking these terrible thoughts is that in an actual freedom I have no furious urges, no instinctive anger, no impulsive rages, no inveterate hostilities, no evil disposition ... no malicious or sorrowful tendencies whatsoever. The blind animal instinctual passions, which some neuro-scientists have tentatively located toward the top of the brain-stem in what is popularly called the ‘reptilian brain’, have under-gone a radical mutation. I am free to be me as-I-am; benign and benevolent and beneficial in character. I am able to be a model citizen, fulfilling all the intentions of the idealistic and unattainable moral strictures of ‘The Good’: being humane, being philanthropic, being altruistic, being magnanimous, being considerate and so on. All this is achieved in a manner ‘I’ could never foresee, for it comes effortlessly and spontaneously, doing away with the necessity for virtue completely. RESPONDENT: Are you free from hunger? You must eat and therefore you need money to buy food. RICHARD: I am indeed free from hunger ... if by ‘hunger’ you mean the desire to eat. I eat only once a day anyway and can easily skip doing that on occasion. RESPONDENT: Are you free from the need to empty your bowels? RICHARD: The heart beats itself; the lungs breathe themselves; the bladder empties itself; the bowels move themselves and so on. All these bodily functions are quite automatic and do not require a psychological ‘I’ or psychic ‘me’ to run the show. RESPONDENT: You must shit. Not anywhere, mind you, but in a proper toilet that you must pay for one way or another. RICHARD: Aye ... it is a matter of intelligence to bury one’s ordure – or dispose of it in some suitable manner – to help prevent the spread of pathogens. This is something that people in the world’s most spiritually advanced country seem to be oblivious of. Perhaps it says something about their belief that they are not the body. RESPONDENT: Are you free from slumber? You must sleep and that was why you had to go out on your bicycle to buy that mattress. RICHARD: I sleep maybe three-four hours a day ... and I did not have to bicycle; it was a delightful day and I chose to ride instead of taking a taxi. I did not have to buy a mattress for it was simply a matter of choosing a particular creature-comfort from the many available. RESPONDENT: I could go on and on but the bottom line is you need food, clothing, shelter, bicycle, computer, Windows 95, modem and Internet connection. RICHARD: There are basically five genuine needs: the air one breathes; the water one drinks; the food one eats; a roof over one’s head and the clothes on one’s back (in a cool climate). Pretty well anything else is a want ... a desire. When the ‘I’ as ego and the ‘me’ as soul are no more then what was previously the objects of ‘wants’ and ‘desires’ become – magically – delightful creature-comforts that one can easily do without ... and without turning a hair. RESPONDENT: All that make you as liberated as the average Joe who needs to go out and work to earn the money to pay for all those stuff. RICHARD: Before I retired onto a pension I found it a delight to work ... work is play when there is no ‘I’ as ego and the ‘me’ as soul within this body. All this writing I do on this computer is such fun. RESPONDENT: Even if you don’t have to work, you are still plugged into the economic system which – unless you are as well-heeled as me – gives you the financial room of a shoe box in which to make ends meet. RICHARD: I am swimming in largesse. RESPONDENT: So, tell me, how have you arrived, how does that Greater Reality fit into the basic reality of life that I have outlined? RICHARD: I would have thought that you would at least have read the basic thrust of what a person has written ... I am not in a ‘Greater Reality’. I was for eleven years ... and I found it wanting. Eastern ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ is commonly considered to be the Summum Bonum of human experience. It is not. By being born and raised in the West I was not steeped in the mystical religious tradition of the East and was thus able to escape the trap of centuries of eastern spiritual conditioning by going beyond enlightenment – which turned out to be an Altered State Of Consciousness – into the actuality of being here on earth and now in time as this flesh and blood body. For many years I sought genuine exploration and discovery of what it means to live a fully human life, and in October 1992 I discovered, once and for all, what I was looking for. Since then I have been consistently living an incomparable condition which I choose to call actual freedom – and I use the word ‘actual’ because this freedom is located here in this very world, this actual world of the senses. It is not an affective, cerebral or psychic state of being; it is a physical condition that ensues when one goes beyond spiritual enlightenment’s ‘Greater Reality’. Beyond the ‘Greater Reality’ lies the actual ... and the actual is already always here now. In actuality there is no ‘Greater Reality’. When the soul dies the need for transcendental realms disappears. Then I am this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. Now I am the sense organs: this seeing is me, this hearing is me, this tasting is me, this touching is me, this smelling is me, and this thinking is me. Whereas ‘I’, the identity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain. Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the actual world ... the world as-it-is. ‘I’ am eternally separate from the benignity of the actual, where the utter absence of any angst and anger at all is infinitely more rewarding than the deepest, the most profound, Divine Compassion and Love Agapé. The purity of the actual world owes its excellence to the fact that there is no sorrow and malice here ... hence no need for succour. The ‘everyday reality’ of the ‘real world’ is an illusion. The ‘Greater Reality’ of the ‘Mystical World’ is a delusion. There is an actual world that lies under one’s very nose ... I interact with the same kind of people, things and events that you do, yet it is as if I am in another dimension altogether. There is no good or evil here where I live. I live in a veritable paradise ... this very earth I live on is so vastly superior to any fabled Arcadian Utopia that it would be impossible to believe if I was not living it twenty four hours a day ... there is no use for belief here. It is so perfectly pure and clear here that there is no need for Love or Compassion or Bliss or Euphoria or Ecstasy or Truth or Goodness or Beauty or Oneness or Unity or Wholeness or ... or any of those baubles. They all pale into pathetic insignificance ... and I lived them for eleven years. It is remarkably easy to live in actuality.
RICHARD: If No. 21 were to eliminate malice and sorrow permanently, not only would he no longer consider my approach silly, but you would be living an individual peace-on-earth ... and as this body in this life-time. RESPONDENT No. 21: It is not at all something I would expect from a man that has found true freedom. RICHARD: Oh? What did you expect? Platitudes? That is ... yet more re-hashes of the ‘Tried and True’? RESPONDENT: I think we are all barking up wrong trees with respect to one another. While No. 21 and I can be forgiven, you – the only one among us who has transcended the silliness of selfhood – should have the awareness to see the error that has overtaken this discussion. RICHARD: The only error that has been trying to overtake this discussion is of your making ... in that you are conveniently digressing from the very issue, that you yourself brought up, which prompted me to cobble together four of your posts and write to you. Viz.:
RESPONDENT: Let me explain. You are talking about the total eradication of disorder including the most heinous tendencies in recorded history of human behaviour that has traumatised you as a war veteran. RICHARD: Surely there is no need to unnecessarily complicate an already complex issue. I am talking about peace-on-earth, as this body, in this life-time ... the only one you have. We are approaching that which is standing in the way of this perfection – ‘I’ as ego and the ‘me’ as soul – via what you avowed as having a willingness to listen to ... and with your ‘whole being’ you said. To wit: someone who knew about transformation. You said that the criterion was sorrow ... and I simply pointed out that sorrow and malice were inextricably linked. Thus, have we established that the ending of sorrow and malice is the ending of that which is preventing the already always existing perfection from being apparent or not? In other words: peace-on-earth is in your hands. RESPONDENT: Compared to what you have been through, the ‘moral transgressions’ cited by No. 21 must seem rather tame and distracted. Am I right? RICHARD: Look ... everybody on this planet knows sorrow and malice intimately. It is integral to the Human Condition. Some people have suffered more, and some people have suffered less, than others. Speaking personally, I did not have an abusive childhood, for example, whereas others that I speak to did. It is not necessary for anyone – I repeat anyone – to suffer what are officially classified as traumas in order to wish to be free of the human condition. As I say ... there is no need to unnecessarily complicate an already complex issue by dragging in degrees of hurt. The issue is the sorrow and malice that is in everyone. RESPONDENT: Not everyone has been exposed to the kind of violence that erupts in a wartime situation. For example, all the uncensored horror of Steven Spielberg’s documentary of Nazi atrocities in ‘Schindler’s List’ cannot drive home the real terror that must have gripped the Jews at Auschwitz. Probably, none here in this forum has even witnessed the violence of a bar-room brawl or street-gang stabbing. RICHARD: You see ... I gain the distinct impression that you are going to trot out the line that you do not feel the need to rid yourself of malice and sorrow because you have not experienced ... [insert as applicable] ... or whatever your excuse is going to be. Which means that only a traumatised person will be sufficiently motivated to do so ... and of course you will not have to listen to him with your ‘whole being’ because he has what is officially classified as a severe mental disorder. RESPONDENT: There are two kinds of losers in life – one who knows nothing and the other who knows everything. RICHARD: And how many kinds of winners are there in life ... according to you? RESPONDENT: While I could be ensconced in a cocoon of complacent ignorance, you could well be terror-driven over the edge. RICHARD: Look out folks ... here comes the cop-out. RESPONDENT: I say this because your posts communicate a weirdness that is quite palpable. RICHARD: If I may point out? What could be more weird than 5.8 billion people living on a planet that is swimming in the perfection of the infinitude of this very tangible universe ... and killing each other for whatever passionate reason that grips them at the time? RESPONDENT: You are argumentative, not objectively critical. RICHARD: Speaking personally, as I have been writing on the Internet for over a year now, I have honed my talents as a wordsmith with particular verve and vivacity as virtually everyone who wrote to me objected to being happy and harmless. In my first week of having my Web-Page up and running someone wrote in being ‘objectively critical’ of what I had to say. The writer quickly turned it into an ‘objectively critical’ discussion and was ‘objectively critical’ about my statement ‘I have no desire to argue’. So I wrote back: ‘I said that I have no desire to argue ... and I still have no desire to do so. But you seem bent upon having an argument, so I am obliging you. We can stop it at any time you wish and have a meaningful and fruitful discussion ... if you want it. I have no desire to argue for my experience has shown me that argumentation and disputation lead nowhere constructive ... as this current spate of correspondence betwixt you and me is amply demonstrating. But ‘having no desire to do so’ does not mean that I will not. It just means that I would prefer not to. The English language is quite clear and specific, when one gets into the subtleties of it’. The full exchange can be accessed on my Web Page under ‘Web Page Correspondence No. 3 RESPONDENT: This is a characteristic of emotional instability. RICHARD: Or so you wish ... then you could exit this thread gathering the shreds of an assumed dignity about your tail as you go. I suppose it would be redundant for me to observe that you have the invidious reputation of being the most argumentative poster to the list? Which means – by your own diagnosis – that you are emotionally unstable. If so ... how can you make an accurate value judgement about another? RESPONDENT: The other selfless buffs toy with the ‘no me’ game, which you are playing for broke. RICHARD: Yes indeed ... enter into a discussion with me with an argumentative attitude and the bovine faecal matter really comes into contact with the rapidly whirling blades. However, if you wish for a reasoned dialogue ... here is where you may be able to be what you actually are: perfection personified. RESPONDENT: You abolished the reviled ‘Human Condition’ and exited to become the actual flesh-and-blood body. RICHARD: Yes ... a new way to live life on this verdant planet has been discovered which eliminates the need to humble oneself in a degrading surrender and servitude to some imagined deity. One eliminates the sense of identity that has been overlaid – from birth to the present day – over the self. With cheerful diligence and application born out of pure intent, one whittles away at the persistent social identity, abandoning the desire for unity, until one arrives at a virtual freedom. In virtual freedom one is ninety nine percent free and the other one percent causes very little trouble – if any – and with virtual freedom operating in every human being there could be a global peace-on-earth. Finally the day of destiny dawns wherein one is catapulted into actual freedom ... one has escaped one’s fate and universal peace and tranquillity emerges. Being free from malice and sorrow, innocence and benignity are one’s constant condition. In consummate purity and perfection, which wells up from the utter stillness of the infinitude of this material universe, one is this very actual universe experiencing itself in all its magnificence as a sensate and reflective human being. RESPONDENT: Please discuss my views if they are not co-incident with your own. RICHARD: Oh, I consider that we are proceeding famously. I look forward to your considered response. May I leave you with this rational exchange to contemplate? Viz.:
RESPONDENT: There are two kinds of losers in life – one who knows nothing and the other who knows everything. RICHARD: And how many kinds of winners are there in life ... according to you? RESPONDENT: Ever since Adam was thrown out of Paradise, there have been no winners, just losers. I am the world and I am on a loosing streak. I am chaos everywhere. Does this mean that I am going to pieces? No. I am not going to break up and splinter into an actual flesh-and-blood body like an escape capsule catapulted into a verdant Paradise leaving the mother ship of 5.8 billion caught in sorrow and malice. I am the world and the world is me for better or for worse till death do all of us part. Until then, I hang in there. RICHARD: Oh really? Okay ... what are you going to do there? What is your plan? RESPONDENT: You are a product of fear. RICHARD: Au contraire ... there is no fear here in this actual world. RESPONDENT: You jabber. You cannot talk straight and to the point let alone think coherently. RICHARD: May I take this opportunity to demonstrate something? First something Richard wrote yesterday ... followed by something you wrote today. Shall we see just who jabbers? Shall we see just who cannot talk straight? Shall we see just who is to the point? Shall we see just who can think coherently? Viz.:
Now, as you state that both time and space are an illusion, then when you make an illusionary appointment for a doctor/ patient consultation and you get out of your car and walk through an illusionary car-park to enter your illusionary spacious consulting room to meet this patient at this illusionary time ... just what are you doing? Whereas I say that all this is actually happening. Then you rattle on about ‘timelessness’ and ‘spacelessness’ – which is to be talking about nothing – as if it means something profoundly real. Whereas I say there is only unlimited time and boundless space ... and nothing else. Who did you say is jabbering? Who did you say is not talking straight? Who did you say is not to the point? Who did you say cannot think clearly? RESPONDENT: Your transformation is based on selfishness, the root of human disorder. And all you can save is your miserable flesh-and blood body, that fathom long carcass that the Buddha discarded 2500 years ago in his quest of the deathless state. RICHARD: Well now ... this seems to be an appropriate place to bring in another example to see just who is selfish. Viz.:
Who is it that wishes to become something that can never die? And yet it was you who accused me of being ‘selfish’ ... and a ‘product of fear’ (further above). You are so selfish – and so afraid of death – that you will willingly forgo peace-on-earth in order to save your precious immortal soul. (And saving this ‘immortal soul’ – which is what finding the ‘deathless state’ means – is to be merely saving the ego in disguise). And so another 160,000,000 people will be killed next century in wars, eh? But, whatever the price in human suffering, you will be living forever. RESPONDENT: The arrow of human learning is pointing the other way, Richard. You are going backwards. RICHARD: Not so ... I do not quote the supposed words of supposed deities now long dead. You are 2,000 to 2,500 years out of date. May I ask: just who is going backwards? RESPONDENT: The idea is to move forward – not unilaterally but together – and away from the brink of destruction. Unless there is oneness in action, there is no salvation for anyone. There is only one harmonious human consciousness, not a mass of splintered minds striving for coordination. RICHARD: And just how are you going to achieve this remarkable feat? Are you personally going to whip 5.8 billion recalcitrant egotists into action, eh? How? What is your plan? RESPONDENT: This consciousness that moves all humans is either universally wholesome or globally disordered. RICHARD: Or it is a massive hallucination? RESPONDENT: The manifestation of sorrow and malice on the entire planet is a fact. RICHARD: Is this an opportune time to remind you as to what this thread is all about? Viz.:
RESPONDENT: Love and compassion are non-facts. RICHARD: It is very real for 5.8 billion people ... yet it is all nothing but feelings ... emotions, passions and calenture. RESPONDENT: You don’t have this, I don’t have this and nobody has this. RICHARD: Nobody has what? Malice and sorrow? Or love and compassion? Or both? Just what are you talking about? RESPONDENT: So, don’t go on ranting about love and compassion like a frightened old woman. RICHARD: I have never heard anybody – let alone a frightened old woman – talk about love and compassion like I do. RESPONDENT: A man’s work has to be done to turn the mother ship around despite impossible odds, against seemingly insurmountable difficulties. How about it, soldier? Pull yourself together, pick up your rifle and get back into battle. We have a world to conquer. RICHARD: Oh really? Okay then ... what is your plan?
RICHARD: Now, as you state that both time and space are an illusion, then when you make an illusionary appointment for a doctor/patient consultation and you get out of your car and walk through an illusionary car-park to enter your illusionary spacious consulting room to meet this patient at this illusionary time ... just what are you doing? Whereas I say that all this is actually happening. Whereas I say there is only unlimited time and boundless space ... and nothing else. Who did you say is jabbering? Who did you say is not talking straight? Who did you say is not to the point? Who did you say cannot think clearly? RESPONDENT: I say that you cannot think clearly. Unlimited time and boundless space – what are these? RICHARD: The infinitude of the very material universe, that is what. RESPONDENT: Time and space are perceivable and have measurable limits and boundaries. RICHARD: Oh? Pray tell me then, as you have perceived and measured both time and space, just how big the universe is ... and how long it has been here and how much longer will it be? Also, just where do you perceive the boundaries of the universe’s space are located ... and what lies beyond it? And just when do you perceive that the limits of the universe’s time are located ... and what was here when it was not? And please, do not tell me ‘nothing’ is or was – which is what you did before when you were rattling on about ‘timelessness’ and ‘spacelessness’ – as if it means something profoundly real. You cannot conceive of a ‘nothing’ unless you acknowledge the actuality of a ‘something’ first to contrast it against ... and you say that the ‘something’ – time and space – are an illusion. And last, but not least, how do you perceive and measure the limits and boundaries of an illusion? Who did you say cannot think clearly? RESPONDENT: Time is a discrete thing like money. To speak of time that has no limit is like telling your bank manager that you want to write out a check for a countless amount of money. RICHARD: Aye ... that is why being here now at this moment in eternal time is to be living a largesse that is impossible to believe. An actual freedom is unimaginable ... it has to be lived to be comprehended. It is temporarily experienced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) however ... which everybody has had at least once in their life. RESPONDENT: Space and time, like the self, are illusions – not your idea of illusion, nor the idea of spiritualists who profess understanding of what the Buddha or Krishnamurti meant by illusion. RICHARD: Let me see if I have got this straight ... space and time, self and body are all illusions, right? (You have told me previously that the body is an illusion. Viz.: [Respondent]: ‘And the body is not rid of anything either because even the body is illusory’. No space means that there are not only no bodies ... but no vegetation or minerals either. Obviously, there are no planets, no suns ... and no universe at all. Now, no time means that nothing is happening, has ever happened or ever will happen. Finally, no self and no body means nothing at all exists ... not mentally, not emotionally, not psychologically, not psychically, not mystically ... nothing at all. When all that is taken away then what you are left with is zilch. Am I understanding you correctly? RESPONDENT: Your understanding of life is non-existent. RICHARD: It would appear, from what you have just written above, that for you everything is non-existent ... which must include Richard and his understanding. So why are you blathering on about me for ... do you not heed your own wisdom? Richard – and these words you are reading – are but an illusion ... why are you arguing with an illusion? You are talking to an echo ... an echo ... an echo. RESPONDENT: You talk about transformation and insist that I listen to you with my whole being and to ask you everything about it as I said I would. RICHARD: I am not insisting at all ... you asked me to oblige you, remember? Viz.: [Respondent]: ‘We shall pit our reasoning powers, not against each other, but in cooperation to show me why I am a fool. You and I against me’. Anyway, you have never listened to anyone before with even half an ear – let alone ‘with all of your being’ – so why would you start now? I am retired and on a pension, and instead of pottering around in the garden I am pottering around the Internet ... I am simply having a lot of fun with a person who has felt quite safe to come out with a lot of bombast and blather about ‘stepping off the cliff together’ with other posters. It always fell flat in the past as neither you nor they could ever agree on the terms. This time however, when you were rash enough to try it on with someone who goes all the way, it appears that you have inadvertently shown your hand ... and ’tis naught but flatulence. RESPONDENT: I did listen but what I heard was an attempt at eloquence that is given incentive by pain. RICHARD: You did not listen ... and certainly not with ‘the whole of your being’. Viz.:
And again:
And you have never listened. Viz.:
And again:
And there is more:
And even more:
Do you still maintain that you listen? RESPONDENT: You have a desire to be heard and you field your evangelistic arguments without recognising the freight of fanaticism that they carry. RICHARD: As an evangelist has, by definition, a belief in a god ... then this statement is meaningless. You are talking to someone who is on record as saying: ‘I am a thorough-going atheist through and through’. To which you replied: [Respondent]: ‘You affirm that you are an atheist, and the Bible is book of crap to an atheist’. Do you remember now? RESPONDENT: The seer has no peer mainly because he is every other fragment and every fragment is he. RICHARD: Indeed ... except that I am no seer. I am a fellow human being ... sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul. RESPONDENT: It is only the deluded fool who has fellow men to be ministered to, by him, and reconfigured in the name of transformation. RICHARD: Aye, that is why I am not interested in any transformation ... remember? Viz.: [Richard]: ‘Is a transformation really the ending of ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety? If ‘I’ am transformed, then it is not an ending at all ... which is why sorrow and malice go on under a different disguise. Hence the persistence of human suffering – there being as much sorrow and malice now as then – after thousands of years of the Saints and Sages parading their stuff on the world’s stage’. Perhaps it might be clear now that you do not know how to listen? RESPONDENT: The individual person cannot be transformed because there is no personal consciousness to be changed. RICHARD: No ... nothing exists at all, according to you. And even here you go on with this ‘transformation’ bit again ... showing that you definitely do not listen. RESPONDENT: You don’t see this and that is the reason why you keep on acting like a fragment extraordinaire. What good is enlightenment when you are still a fragment manifesting the fractured consciousness of mankind? RICHARD: But I am not enlightened ... an actual freedom is beyond enlightenment. Are you listening? RESPONDENT: You are a lone sufferer. RICHARD: This just does not make sense ... but then again, nothing you have said so far does. RESPONDENT: Who, like the homosexual, would attempt to socialise his position by inducing others to repudiate the orientation painful to himself. RICHARD: Well, well, well ... you just could not finish without bringing in your pet subject, eh?
RESPONDENT: Time and space are perceivable and have measurable limits and boundaries. RICHARD: Oh? Pray tell me then, as you have perceived and measured both time and space, just how big the universe is ... and how long it has been here and how much longer will it be? Also, just where do you perceive the boundaries of the universe’s space are located ... and what lies beyond it? And just when do you perceive that the limits of the universe’s time are located ... and what was here when it was not? And please, do not tell me ‘nothing’ is or was – which is what you did before when you were rattling on about ‘timelessness’ and ‘spacelessness’ – as if it means something profoundly real. You cannot conceive of a ‘nothing’ unless you acknowledge the actuality of a ‘something’ first to contrast it against ... and you say that the ‘something’ – time and space – are an illusion. And last, but not least, how do you perceive and measure the limits and boundaries of an illusion? Who did you say cannot think clearly? RESPONDENT: I still say you cannot think clearly. What you have adopted as the actual universe is the product of the scientist’s speculation. RICHARD: Not so ... most of the scientific speculation these days is about a universe (with boundaries) expanding out of a ‘Big Bang’ some twelve to fifteen billion years ago. Before that, they theorise, time and space either did not exist or were contained in a particle so dense that it had to expand. They hypothesise that this expansion will go on for another ten to fourteen billion years and then there will be a ‘Big Crunch’. They think that this mathematically derived cosmogony is cosmology ... such is their religious-like faith in ‘The Truth’ of mathematics. (Indeed I watched one world-renowned mathematician solemnly saying to the television cameras that ‘God must be a mathematician’ ... it is a wonder that he and his wheelchair were not zapped on the spot with a bolt from above!). RESPONDENT: Ten feet is a fact, ten light-years is pure fiction. Ten hours is a long wait, ten thousand generations is ideation. RICHARD: Who are you criticising ... it was you who said ‘time and space are perceivable and have measurable limits and boundaries’ and not me? Are you so desperate for idiots to pounce upon that you are now reduced to finding fault with your own statements? RESPONDENT: The heat of boiling water is real pain, the heat of the sun is not. RICHARD: Obviously you have never sun-baked too long on a beach ... or trekked the burning sands of a desert. Who did you say cannot think clearly? RESPONDENT: This is how the boundaries of reality become extended through extrapolation from the limits of sensation to the reaches of imagination. RICHARD: Oh, well said ... only it was you – and not me – that stated that ‘time and space are perceivable and have measurable limits and boundaries’. So, you too are a victim of imagination, eh? RESPONDENT: Only the emptiness of no-mind can stop the speeding arrows of delusive thought. RICHARD: Whatever you personally do in life, one thing is becoming patently clear. You do not have to bother about trying to empty your own mind ... it would appear that it already is. Tell me: was it grace ... or were you born without a mind of your own? RESPONDENT: You still have far to go before you can sit with Buddhas. RICHARD: You just do not get it, do you? I have no intention or desire to ‘sit with the Buddhas’. They are but a bunch of narcissists. RESPONDENT: Getting rid of the ego and the soul is easy. RICHARD: Well, well, well ... this shows that you are beginning to actually read what I write. Good. RESPONDENT: The hard part is getting rid of a wooden head. RICHARD: Yes indeed ... first things first, eh? I do agree there is no use in your trying to tackle eliminating your ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul until you first get rid of your wooden head. May I suggest a possible line of approach to this problem? What you fondly think is a quaint necklace that you are wearing is actually a sphincter muscle.
RETURN TO CORRESPONDENCE LIST ‘B’ INDEX RETURN TO RICHARD’S CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
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