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Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’ with Respondent No. 25
RESPONDENT No. 14: I cannot speak for No. 25, but it is likely that the reason he insists your offering is an image is because an image is: ‘A mental picture of something not real or present’ (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language) . Real, of course, meaning ‘being or occurring in fact or actuality, having a verifiable existence’ (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language) . Roaring laughter; this is like fish in a barrel!RESPONDENT: Thanks for your archaeological excavation (...) I forgot about the dance he did away from my question (it was acrobatic, was it not?). RICHARD: Methinks you will find that it was you who did an ‘acrobatic dance away from the question’ and not me. The sequence is as follows: Message Number One:
Message Number Two:
Message Number Three:
Are we together in just who did this ‘acrobatic dance’ business? If so, I will then attend to the second issue, regarding how a simple seeing of a certainty (that if each and every human being freed themselves from the human condition there would be a global peace on earth) can be a rational and sensible observation without such a reasonable and level-headed appraisal having to be an image (‘a mental picture of something not real or present’ – the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language) as both you and No. 14 seem to be insisting it must be. RESPONDENT: I suppose I was weary to have him [Richard] do a second dissertational dance, as it only widens the divide between us. RICHARD: You are still doing it (stock-standard grade-school retorts) in this sentence. There is no ‘dance’ coming from me at all – let alone a ‘dissertational dance’ – and the only divide between us is from yourself towards me. If your divide is widening, then maybe it is because you do not read what I write with both eyes. I am not ‘in a barrel dreaming of the ocean’, as you so quaintly put it, but already living the peace-on-earth that it always here, now. I have pointed this out to you before. Viz.:
Maybe it would help if you put your mind into gear before pushing the gas pedal.
RICHARD: Methinks you will find that it was you who did an ‘acrobatic dance away from the question’ and not me. RESPONDENT: Before we begin discussing my dance steps, I want you to give you the opportunity to clear up the perception that you are falsely claiming to be free of images. RICHARD: If you cannot see such a simple thing – even when I re-post the sequence of posts – then how on earth are you going to comprehend a more advanced topic such as ‘seeing without the image’? RESPONDENT: You talk of what peace on earth would be like – clearly that peace you envision / extrapolate is an image. RICHARD: Not so ... is a simple seeing of a certainty (that if each and every human being freed themselves from the human condition there would be a global peace on earth) which is a rational and sensible observation ... and such a reasonable and level-headed appraisal is not an image. RESPONDENT: Now it is clear that you do have images. RICHARD: No ... it is not clear that ‘Richard does have images’ at all. I do know what I experience each moment again. RESPONDENT: Why do you feel the need to stonewall and claim otherwise? RICHARD: Yet I am not ‘stonewalling and claiming otherwise’ ... why would I do that? RESPONDENT: If I am wrong, please directly address how it is you can talk of peace on earth when it is not a fact – given all the human conflict which you are so keen to point out (war, rapes, etc.). RICHARD: For starters, it is a simple seeing of a certainty that if each and every human being does not free themselves from the human condition, there will not be a global peace on earth, right? This is a rational and sensible observation ... and such a reasonable and level-headed appraisal is not an image, right? It is a fact that, currently, there is something like 29 wars are going on somewhere on this planet; there have been over 200 wars since the dropping of the atom bomb in 1945; there have been 160,000,000 peoples killed by their fellow human beings in wars this century alone ... and so on and so on as in regards to all the murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides. All this misery and mayhem is not an image, is it? Do you not see this for yourself? If you do see this for yourself, as a factual observation of what is currently happening now as a result of the human condition in each and every person alive on this verdant planet, without it being an image, then it is a simple seeing of a certainty (that if each and every human being freed themselves from the human condition there would be a global peace on earth) then this seeing is a rational and sensible observation ... and such a reasonable and level-headed appraisal is not an image. Is this not simple? * RICHARD: The sequence is as follows: Message Number One:
Message Number Two:
Message Number Three:
Are we together in just who did this ‘acrobatic dance’ business? RESPONDENT: No, we are not. RICHARD: Why not? Let me arrange the sequence simply. Viz.:
Now compare Number (2) with Number (4) and please point out to me how you can say ‘if peace is ‘nowhere to be found’ then is it just an image to you’ and then expect get away with saying ‘I was not saying you have an image of peace being ‘nowhere to be found’ ... and yet still persist in your huff and puff by saying that Richard ‘feels a need to be stonewalling’ even when the sequence is re-posted for your perusal? RESPONDENT: See my statements above in which I request you to explain the contradiction between your claim that you are image free and your image of ‘peace on earth’. RICHARD: Golly ... you do go on. Why are you doing this? Is this all too difficult to see as a simple cause and effect? * RICHARD: If so, I will then attend to the second issue, regarding how a simple seeing of a certainty (that if each and every human being freed themselves from the human condition there would be a global peace on earth) can be a rational and sensible observation without such a reasonable and level-headed appraisal having to be an image (‘a mental picture of something not real or present’ – the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language) as both you and No. 14 seem to be insisting it must be. RESPONDENT: You are now using the word image in a way that would not be common in a group of listeners familiar with Krishnamurti. RICHARD: No ... it was No. 14 who posted the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language definition of the word ‘image’ (at the top of this post) and to which post you responded with self-congratulatory preening. To now say that I am ‘using the word image in a way that would not be common in a group of listeners familiar with Krishnamurti’ is you being disingenuous, to say the least. RESPONDENT: What exactly then do you mean when you claim to be free of images? Are you (instead) claiming that you live completely ‘reasonably and level-headedly’? RICHARD: Yes. * RESPONDENT: I suppose I was weary to have him [Richard] do a second dissertational dance, as it only widens the divide between us. RICHARD: You are still doing it (stock-standard grade-school retorts) in this sentence. RESPONDENT: No, I am simply saying what the view is from here – it was not meant to be received as a retort, so much as a call for you to decrease the quantity of what you write while retaining (and thus increasing) the quality. RICHARD: Are you saying that you are not interested in what is being written unless it is pithy? I always include what is necessary to keep a continuity ... respondents seem to quickly forget the context and the thread meanders off into becoming a different thread entirely and the issue is never addressed to completion. But even if my quantity is such that it exceeds your attention span, it is because I am explaining what is a complex issue ... one that has baffled human beings for aeons. Do you really think it can be adequately covered by a few one-liners? If your example of ‘decreasing the quantity while retaining (and thus increasing) the quality’ is anything to go by, peoples will still be killing each other for the next 3,000 to 5,000 years. Viz.:
To this day you have still not given me a quality answer ... in fact you have not answered at all. But, if you wish to insist that your example of ‘decreasing the quantity while retaining (and thus increasing) the quality’ is evidence of quality, I can easily stop writing altogether ... another poster some time ago tried to dictate to me what to write – I was told to stop repeating myself verbatim – as he was being jaded. I simply stopped bothering him with my stuff ... nobody, but nobody who is still nursing malice and sorrow in their breast is anywhere near capable of deciding what I should or should not write. So, I really do not mind either way ... there being 6.0 billion people on this planet I can easily find someone else to correspond with. * RICHARD: There is no ‘dance’ coming from me at all – let alone a ‘dissertational dance’ – and the only divide between us is from yourself towards me. If your divide is widening, then maybe it is because you do not read what I write with both eyes. I am not ‘in a barrel dreaming of the ocean’, as you so quaintly put it, but already living the peace-on-earth that it always here, now. I have pointed this out to you before. Viz.: [Richard]: ‘It is obvious that if each and ever human being were to free themselves from the human condition then this unilateral action would result in (...<SNIP>...) but even if global peace was a long time coming – as is most probable due to stubbornly recalcitrant identities – the most appealing aspect of actual freedom is its instant bestowal of universal peace upon the individual daring enough to go all the way’. RESPONDENT: More images of what could be from the one free of images? RICHARD: Where are the images?
RESPONDENT: By the way, if the potential for freedom was not part of the human condition, given to us by your ‘blind’ nature, there would be no point to the goal which you concernedly point to, right? RICHARD: I have already covered this topic in a previous post to you. Viz.:
Blind nature is only concerned with the survival of the species – and any species will do as far as blind nature is concerned – blind nature does not care two-hoots about you or me or humankind ... but I do. I like people – I am a people myself – and many, many years ago it saddened me to see everybody – without exception – at some time or another quibbling, bickering, quarrelling, arguing and fighting ... and I saw that I was driven to do the same. It sickened me, many, many years ago, to be involved in a war wherein human beings wanted to seriously maim and kill their fellow human being ... and I saw that I was driven to do the same. 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. 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: Not that being goal driven is anything but a barrier to peace, mind you. RICHARD: Peace-on-earth is something that one has to want like one has never wanted anything before. One has to want it with all of one’s being ... one will never become free of the human condition by sitting around in a deck-chair on the patio sipping a drink and waiting for the ‘grace of god’ to descend whilst pretending not to be goal-driven. If one does not have the goal ‘peace-on-earth’ as a number one priority in one’s life – wherein everything else (husband/ wife, children, business, house, car, personal possessions and so on) becomes secondary – then another 160,000,000 will be killed in wars by their fellow human next century. RESPONDENT: As far as the ‘appealing peace that results from actual freedom’ – are you implying one can ‘attain’ it? RICHARD: I am stating loudly and clearly that ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul must become extinct so that the already always existing peace-on-earth can become apparent. You see, peace-on-earth already is here – here in this actual world – and no one needs to invent it. It is all a matter of entering into it; making it apparent; allowing it to emerge; watching it unfold ... or whatever description. Everyone is either rushing about trying to make an imitation peace ... or sitting back moaning and groaning about the inequity of it all. I did not devise, concoct or contrive this peace-on-earth ... it was already here ... as it always has been and always will be. I just happened to discover it, that is all ... and it being so perfect that I wished to inform my fellow human beings of its existence. What they do with this information is their business. * RICHARD: Maybe it would help if you put your mind into gear before pushing the gas pedal. RESPONDENT: That would receive a good grade if it was turned in for a grade-school retort assignment. RICHARD: No ... it was a colloquially-put suggestion that you actually read, with both eyes, what is written before tapping away at the keyboard and clicking ‘send’. You will find that what is written is a factual report that clearly explicates how the human condition came about and how to free oneself from it ... and clear description of life in this actual world where peace-on-earth already always is. It is unbelievably magical to live in a world without fear, for example ... just perfect peace twenty four hours a day. When I wake up in the morning I have nothing but perfection to ‘look forward to’ and when I go to bed at night I have had a perfect day. I take it for granted that when I wake up the following morning it will be the same perfection ... day after day ... after day after day. RESPONDENT: And thank you for the intention to elevate my level of play. RICHARD: You are very welcome ... this is fun, is it not, to be able to communicate sincerely with someone we have never met and are never likely to? To be able to compare notes, as it were, about how we are doing and what sense we have made, so far, about oneself, life, the universe and what it is to be living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are? Ain’t life grand!
RICHARD (to Respondent No. 12): It would be more conducive to a mutual understanding – and less repetitive – if you
could move past this ‘he who knows does not speak’ fixation. The man who you like to quote clearly made no secret that he knows ... and he
spoke for sixty-plus years (as did the man who first penned that pithy aphorism). RESPONDENT: It was Lao Tzu who originated: ‘those who know don’t speak; those who speak don’t know’. RICHARD: Yes, there are at least 48 translations into English, which have slight variations on your version. Viz.:
What I have always found amusing is: who first spoke these words of wisdom? Surely not ‘he who knows’ because ‘he who knows does not speak’. Therefore, these ‘words of wisdom’ were spoken by ‘he who speaks’ and as ‘he who speaks does not know’ these words are not worth anything because he knows not of what he speaks. RESPONDENT: Are you saying Lao Tzu spoke for sixty plus years – surely you are not (?). RICHARD: Why not? Mr Lao Tzu could easily have spoken for sixty plus years (if he lived at all) for legend has it that he was an old man when he penned what is now known as ‘The Tao Te Ching’. (One meaning of the words ‘Lao Tzu’ is ‘Old Man’ which, in the context of teaching and learning, also means ‘master’ or ‘scholar’ (compared with ‘pupil’ or ‘student’) and the same two characters which form the Chinese ‘Lao Tzu’, form the words ‘old scholar’ in Japanese and are pronounced as ‘Roshi’). To put it all in context, it helps to understand the origins of ‘The Tao Te Ching’: in its original form, ‘The Tao Te Ching’ consisted of eighty-one short chapters, these being arranged in two sections, known as the ‘Tao Ching’ and the ‘Te Ching’ (anybody who has read both the ‘I Ching’ and the ‘Tao Te Ching’ will readily appreciate from many of Mr. Lao Tzu’s statements that he was certainly well versed in the concepts of ‘I Ching’ (‘Book of Changes’) and accepted its major precept, that all things are always in a state or process of change). The first of these sections was comprised of thirty-seven chapters, and the second of forty-four chapters. The length of the original work was approximately five thousand characters written on bamboo strips or slats bound together to form two scrolls, somewhat like a venetian blind with vertical slats, which were a common form of ‘record’ in the period (‘The Period of the Warring States’) that Mr. Lao Tzu is said to have lived. However, it is not known with absolute certainty that Mr. Lao Tzu actually lived during the period of the warring states ... even the biography of Mr. Lao Tzu, which may be found in the ‘Historical Records’ (Shih-chi) of Ssu-ma Ch’ien (second century B.C.), is not without its inconsistencies. Be that as it may, this record describes Mr. Lao Tzu as having been an archivist of the Court of Chou, and further states that he is said to have personally instructed Mr. Kung Fu Tzu (Confucius). According to legend, it is said that on his retirement from public office, Mr. Lao Tzu headed west, and that the guardian of the pass to the state of Ch’in requested that he write a treatise on ‘The Tao’ before departing. It is then that Mr. Lao Tzu is supposed to have sat for two days, in which time he wrote the ‘Tao Te Ching’, after which he left, some writers stating that he was never heard of again, others describing his ascent to heaven in the form of a magnificent dragon. It is known that the keeper of the pass was a well known Taoist of the period named Mr. Yin Hsi (also referred to as ‘Mr. Kwan Yin’) and, as a Taoist, he was familiar with the teachings of Mr. Lao Tzu even though, as he himself is supposed to have told the old philosopher, because of the nature of his work he had not been able to avail himself of personal tuition from the master. Thus Mr. Lao Tzu was well known in his own province, if not nationally, else Mr. Yin Hsi would not have recognised the figure of Mr. Lao Tzu or his name and would not have made his request to that particular traveller. Therefore, ‘if’ he lived at all and ‘if’ he instructed Mr. Kung Fu Tzu and ‘if’ Mr. Yin Hsi knew of him and his
work and ‘if’ he were an old man when he retired then he certainly did disseminate his wisdom for many, many years ... and thus did not heed
his own advice – ‘he who knows does not speak’ RESPONDENT: My understanding is that K said: ‘you can be sure, if someone says ‘I know’, that they do not’. His point was that knowledge is always of the past, whereas Life is now, living and ungraspable (by knowledge), at least in what I read his statement to be saying). RICHARD: Yes, the ‘Truth’ cannot be known (according to mystics) because it is a mystery ... it is the ‘Unknowable’. Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain popularised the old wisdom that there is the ‘known’, the ‘unknown’ and the ‘unknowable’ and that one can cease living in the ‘known’ (where 6.0 billion peoples live) and reside in the ‘unknown’ (where 0.0000001 of the population live) but never in the ‘unknowable’ as it is forever inscrutable, unfathomable, immeasurable and so on. Thus anyone who says that they know (according to mystics) obviously is not living in the ‘unknown’ (it is one of those ‘tests’ of enlightenment). One cannot ‘live’ in the ‘unknowable’ (according to mystics) until after physical death (known as ‘Mahasamadhi’ for Hindus and ‘Parinirvana’ for Buddhists). Thus (according to mystics) the ‘Secret to Life’ or the ‘Riddle of Existence’, or whatever one’s quest is called, cannot be known until the ‘afterlife’ (by whatever name). However, this is not what is meant by ‘he who knows does not speak’ because nobody (according to mystics) can know the ‘unknowable’ until after death. The ‘he who knows does not speak’ is possibly a popular misunderstanding of the intent of the Chinese characters that Mr. Stan Rosenthal, UK possibly more correctly translates as: ‘Those who know the natural way have no need of boasting, whilst those who know but little, may be heard most frequently; thus, the sage says little, if anything at all’ (which boasting is what No. 12 is so insistent about, despite the fact that virtually all the sages had much to say, even if they covered up their ‘boasting’ with humility). I say ‘possibly’ because the origins of Taoism are so vague and Chinese pictograms are so open to a variety of equally valid conceptions that it will never be known for sure. Just by-the-by, there is a very intriguing conversation recorded by Ms. Mary Lutyens where Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti says: [quote]: ‘If you and Maria (Ms. Mary Lutyens and Ms. Mary Zimbalist) sat down and said ‘let us enquire’, I’m pretty sure you could find out. Or do it alone. I see something; what I said is true – I can never find out. Water can never find out what water is. That is quite right. If you find out I’ll corroborate it (... ...) somehow the body is protected to survive. Some element is watching over it. Something is protecting it. It would be speculating to say what. The Maitreya is too concrete, is not simple enough. But I can’t look behind the curtain. I can’t do it. I tried with Pupul (Ms. Pupul Jayakar) and various Indian scholars who pressed me’. [endquote]. (‘Krishnamurti – His Life and Death’; Mary Lutyens p. 160. © Avon Books; New York 1991.) RESPONDENT: What is your view of all this? RICHARD: I have posted it before so I will present a shortened version. Viz.: The blame for the continuation of human
misery lies squarely in the lap of those inspired people who, although having sufficient courage to proceed into the Unknown, stopped short of the
final goal ... the Unknowable. Notwithstanding the cessation of a personal ego operating, they were unwilling to relinquish the Self or Spirit ...
and an ego-less Self or Spirit is still an identity, nevertheless. In spite of the glamour and the glory of the Altered State Of Consciousness,
closer examination reveals that these ‘Great’ persons had – and have – feet of clay When the ego dies, the separated identity dissolves into Oneness ... I am Everything and Everything is Me. The eyes seeing is Me looking at Me. I am The Absolute and The Absolute is Me. But beyond Me – beyond The Absolute – lies the actual ... and the actual is already always here now. In actuality there is no ‘Me’ and/or ‘The Absolute’. When the soul dies the need for oneness – unitary perception – dissolves ... as does any ‘Otherness’. 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. One is now living in the infinitude of this fairy-tale-like actual world with its sensuous quality of magical perfection and purity where everything and everyone has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, wondrous, scintillating vitality that makes everything alive and sparkling ... even the very earth beneath one’s feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper ... literally everything is as if it were alive (a rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are). This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence ... the actualness of everything and everyone. Human beings do not live in an inert universe but ‘I’ am forever 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 Rapture 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. There are three I’s altogether, but only one is actual.
RICHARD: Are we together in just who did this ‘acrobatic dance’ business? RESPONDENT: No, we are not. RICHARD: Why not? Let me arrange the sequence simply and compare Number (2) with Number (4) and please point out to me how you can say ‘if peace is ‘nowhere to be found’ then is it just an image to you’ and then expect get away with saying ‘I was not saying you have an image of peace being ‘nowhere to be found’ ... and yet still persist in your huff and puff by saying that Richard ‘feels a need to be stonewalling’ even when the sequence is re-posted for your perusal? Viz.:
RESPONDENT: It is simply that the pronoun ‘it’ in my original question (‘if peace is ‘nowhere to be found’ then is it just an image to you’) stood for the word peace. You evidently took it to be standing for ‘peace [that is] nowhere to be found’. ... why is it hard for you to accept my honesty with regard to this? RICHARD: Okay, I will go with your honesty in this ... let us run with what you originally intended. Viz.:
* RESPONDENT: See my statements above in which I request you to explain the contradiction between your claim that you are image free and your image of ‘peace on earth’. RICHARD: Golly ... you do go on. Why are you doing this? Is this all too difficult to see as a simple cause and effect? RESPONDENT: Cause and effect are images superimposed onto the perceived world to make ‘sense’ out of it, are they not? RICHARD: Shall I put it this way?
Given that rain falling/ ground wet and sun warming/ seeds germinating and vegetation growing/ animals eating and animals eating/ animals flourishing is an already existing process, do you still maintain that what humans call ‘cause and effect’ are just ‘images superimposed onto the perceived world to make ‘sense’ out of it’ or a description of an actuality that happens whether you imagine it, conceptualise it, believe it or in any other way concoct it out of ‘No. 25 as Consciousness’? What I am getting at is that all this stuff that is happening – this body and that body and mountains and streams and planets and stars – is happening independent of your superimpositions or lack of superimpositions. Plus I took the opportunity to slip in a little bit of much-needed patting-on-the-back for human intelligence. * RICHARD: I will attend to the second issue, regarding how a simple seeing of a certainty (that if each and every human being freed themselves from the human condition there would be a global peace on earth) can be a rational and sensible observation without such a reasonable and level-headed appraisal having to be an image (‘a mental picture of something not real or present’ – the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language) as both you and No. 14 seem to be insisting it must be. RESPONDENT: You are now using the word image in a way that would not be common in a group of listeners familiar with Krishnamurti. RICHARD: No ... it was No. 14 who posted the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language definition of the word ‘image’ (at the top of this post) and to which post you responded with self-congratulatory preening. To now say that I am ‘using the word image in a way that would not be common in a group of listeners familiar with Krishnamurti’ is you being disingenuous, to say the least. RESPONDENT: You are mistaken (about everything but the preening). No. 14 posted the definition of image (in my opinion) because it is you who are fond of dictionaries and because there was a contradiction between what you were writing and your claim to be without images. RICHARD: I always start a communication from an established agreement as to the meaning of a word – the general dictionary meaning – and then when we put a particular twist on a word (like I do with ‘actual’ and ‘real’ or ‘fact’ and ‘truth’ for example) we know where we started from. And I have no objection to the definition (as above) ... but I was responding to you saying that I was ‘using the word image in a way that would not be common in a group of listeners familiar with Krishnamurti’ where I was not doing that ... it was No. 14 who posted a definition to which you responded. As I have said, over and over again, that ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul (the ‘identity’ is the ‘image-maker’ in K-speak) is extinct and that the intuitive/imaginative faculty has vanished, I did not consider it necessary to say it again in the context that No. 14 and yourself were presenting. But so we do not get bogged down in what is/was meant in a sentence (like the ‘peace is nowhere to be found’ shemozzle) allow me to explain that I could not form a ‘mental picture of something not real or present’ if my life depended upon it. I literally cannot visualise, cannot make images ... whereas for the first 34 years ‘I’ could get a picture in ‘my mind’s eye’ of ‘my’ absent mother, wife, children and so on or the painting ‘I’ was going to paint or the coffee-table ‘I’ was going to build or the route ‘I’ was going to take in ‘my’ car and so on and so on. If I were to close my eyes and ‘visualise’, what happens is the same velvety-smooth darkness – as looking into the infinite and eternal space of the universe at night – that has been the case for eighteen years now. I cannot visualise, imagine, conceptualise ... when I recall my childhood, my young manhood, my middle ages or yesterday it is as if it were a documentary on television but with the picture turned off: words only. It is the affective content that makes memories ‘real’ ... and it is the self-same process that makes imagining a future ‘real’. RESPONDENT: If ‘peace’ is a deduction (however reasonable and level-headed) you are making then it is an image (both in K-speak and in the source No. 14 cited). You are dancing, and yet claiming you’re feet are not moving – so you are either mesmerizing my perceptive ‘faculties’ with your brilliance, or, alas, once again my attention span is waning. RICHARD: Shall I put it this way?
A practical example disposes of the need for images even if the image-maker is still extant. RESPONDENT: What exactly then do you mean when you claim to be free of images? Are you (instead) claiming that you live completely ‘reasonably and level-headedly’? RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: Then why say you are ‘free of image-making?’ RICHARD: Mainly because I am free of ‘image-making’. It is an accurate self-report. RESPONDENT: Don’t you see the false perception you cause in the listener who takes you at your word? RICHARD: No ... I see instead the ‘false perception’ that ‘the listener’ causes by not reading with both eyes. RESPONDENT: Why not simply say ‘I am completely reasonable and level-headed?’ RICHARD: Because there is much, much more to being free of ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul than being ‘completely reasonable and level-headed’ ... sensibility is a by-product, as it were. RESPONDENT: Though you would probably be responded to with ‘lots of laughter’. RICHARD: Aye ... if the ‘Richard’ that was for 33 years could have met me face-to-face (or read my words) ‘he’ would have dismissed me as being ‘off with the fairies’ or ‘up yourself’ ... ‘he’ was quite cynical and sarcastic. But ... one night ‘he’ had a PCE that made ‘him’ sit up and pay attention. Thus I am freed to be here ... now. * RESPONDENT: I suppose I was weary to have him [Richard] do a second dissertational dance, as it only widens the divide between us. RICHARD: You are still doing it (stock-standard grade-school retorts) in this sentence. RESPONDENT: No, I am simply saying what the view is from here – it was not meant to be received as a retort, so much as a call for you to decrease the quantity of what you write while retaining (and thus increasing) the quality. RICHARD: Are you saying that you are not interested in what is being written unless it is pithy? I always include what is necessary to keep a continuity ... respondents seem to quickly forget the context and the thread meanders off into becoming a different thread entirely and the issue is never addressed to completion. But even if my quantity is such that it exceeds your attention span, it is because I am explaining what is a complex issue ... one that has baffled human beings for aeons. Do you really think it can be adequately covered by a few one-liners? If your example of ‘decreasing the quantity while retaining (and thus increasing) the quality’ is anything to go by, peoples will still be killing each other for the next 3,000 to 5,000 years. Viz.:
To this day you have still not given me a quality answer ... in fact you have not answered at all. RESPONDENT: Try studying a tree, a butterfly, or a firefly ... look at a river, listen to the wind, go for a walk in the rain; feel the world around you with every cell of your being. Look at the way diseases attack the human immune system; look at the way the human immune system responds to such organisms. RICHARD: Aye ... ’tis marvellous, is it not, that all this is happening? Truly amazing ... wondrous ... why do you wish to make this magic small by insisting that it is all a product of something metaphysical ‘existing in/as the uni-verse’ having the faculty of understanding (as in intellect) and with the quickness or superiority of understanding (as in sagacity) or the action or fact of understanding something (as in knowledge and/or comprehension of something)? Can you not experience the magic that it all is and be here now in infinite space and eternal time as the universe’s experience of its infinitude as a sensate and reflective human being? It will blow your mind away, man! RESPONDENT: Look at the way death nourishes life and look at the way such ‘survival’ masters as T-Rex and the cockroach are contrasted by the butterfly-flower relationship or the way the wolf keeps the deer population strong and healthy. Look at the way the predator and the prey are involved in a mutually beneficial harmonious relationship from the larger perspective. RICHARD: Aye ... and look how ‘T-Rex’ and the ‘cockroach’ and the ‘butterfly’ and the ‘wolf’ and the ‘deer’ and so on are all unable to free themselves from their instinctual passions – and the sense of self bestowed – and thus be the universe’s experience of itself because the intelligence has not evolved in them yet that will enable then to be here, now, where peace-on-earth already always is. They have no intelligence yet to use ... whereas you have. What are you doing with it? Wishing to remain involved in the ‘mutually beneficial harmonious relationship’ of ‘the predator and the prey’ relationship that has resulted in 160,000,000 peoples being killed by their fellow human beings in wars this century alone? What ‘larger perspective’ does your metaphysical ‘intelligence existing in/as the uni-verse’ come from that makes it oblivious to such animosity and anguish on such a large scale? RESPONDENT: And look at how all the life-forms of Earth, in apparent conflict with one another when viewed from a narrow ‘survival of the fittest’ ‘grade school’ paradigm are in fact all mutually continuous with one another. RICHARD: There is no ‘apparent’ about their ‘conflict with one another’ at all ... it is actual conflict (just like the human animal’s conflict with one another). It matters not what ‘paradigm’ one views it through ... fear and aggression and nurture and desire run rampant in all sentient beings. And so what if all are ‘mutually continuous with one another’ (interdependent) ... why is all this interdependence happening? Which means: what are we here for? Which means: why am I (No. 25) here? * RICHARD: Peace-on-earth is something that one has to want like one has never wanted anything
before. One has to want it with all of one’s being ... one will never become free of the human condition by sitting around in a deck-chair on the
patio sipping a drink and waiting for the ‘grace of god’ to descend whilst pretending not to be goal-driven. If one does not have the goal ‘peace-on-earth’
as a number one priority in one’s life – wherein everything else (husband/wife, children, RESPONDENT: As far as the ‘appealing peace that results from actual freedom’ – are you implying one can ‘attain’ it? RICHARD: I am stating loudly and clearly that ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul must become extinct so that the already always existing peace-on-earth can become apparent. You see, peace-on-earth already is here – here in this actual world – and no one needs to invent it. It is all a matter of entering into it; making it apparent; allowing it to emerge; watching it unfold ... or whatever description. Everyone is either rushing about trying to make an imitation peace ... or sitting back moaning and groaning about the inequity of it all. I did not devise, concoct or contrive this peace-on-earth ... it was already here ... as it always has been and always will be. I just happened to discover it, that is all ... and it being so perfect that I wished to inform my fellow human beings of its existence. What they do with this information is their business. RESPONDENT: In other words: ‘the kingdom of the father is spread upon the Earth, and men see it not’. RICHARD: No ... that is a metaphysical peace (‘The Peace That Passeth All Understanding’) and is a selfish peace wherein one receives one’s post-mortem reward for humiliating and deprecating oneself like all get-out ... which is why it has failed to deliver the goods for two thousand years. RESPONDENT: The talk has been talked, may I see you walk the walk? RICHARD: But the ‘talk’ has not ‘been talked’ yet ... you are still equating what I say with the ‘Tried and Failed’ medicine that the quacks have been dishing out for aeons to those self-centred enough to be sucked into their hallucination. When you read what is being written with both eyes, you will be not only ‘talking the talk’ but ‘walking the walk’ yourself ... and the world will be better off for it. * RICHARD: Maybe it would help if you put your mind into gear before pushing the gas pedal. RESPONDENT: That would receive a good grade if it was turned in for a grade-school retort assignment. RICHARD: No ... it was a colloquially-put suggestion that you actually read, with both eyes, what is written before tapping away at the keyboard and clicking ‘send’. You will find that what is written is a factual report that clearly explicates how the human condition came about and how to free oneself from it ... and clear description of life in this actual world where peace-on-earth already always is. It is unbelievably magical to live in a world without fear, for example ... just perfect peace twenty four hours a day. When I wake up in the morning I have nothing but perfection to ‘look forward to’ and when I go to bed at night I have had a perfect day. I take it for granted that when I wake up the following morning it will be the same perfection ... day after day ... after day after day. RESPONDENT: You are sprouting images again, Richard: ‘I take it for granted that when I wake up the following morning it will be the same perfection ... day after day ... after day after day’. RICHARD: No ... it is no image, it actually happens ... day after day ... after day after day. As this has been my on-going experiencing each moment again for years and years now ... why would I not expect otherwise? Plus I know what ‘I’ did to be here now and I know why I am here, now ... thus I can rightfully take it for granted that I will be experiencing this on-going peace-on-earth when I wake up tomorrow morning. Besides, if it were but an image then I would wake up in the pits, would I not? RESPONDENT: May I suggest, that if you are experiencing peace but find that psychological time is still ticking then you are simply experiencing the magical power of thought and nothing more. RICHARD: What ‘psychological time’ are you talking of? This is actual time that I am living in ... when I wake up in the morning I wake up in actual time. The clock ‘ticks’ the actual time (in arbitrary human measurement) as evidenced in the sun moving through the sky. RESPONDENT: Sir, wake up. RICHARD: No ... to ‘wake up’ in a dream is to be but lucidly dreaming. Only psychological and psychic self-immolation will enable the already always existing peace-on-earth to become apparent. RESPONDENT: Either of us may not wake up tomorrow. RICHARD: Then none of this would matter ... death is the end. Finish. RESPONDENT: Which would be perfection without the name, would it not? RICHARD: No ... those who are left alive will get on with the business of living. And someone, somewhere, will respond to the challenge of being here now as the universe’s experience of itself. You and I are not the only fish in the ocean ... this universe has all of time and all of space to manifest itself as the living (carbon-based life-form) perfection that it is. RESPONDENT: And thank you for the intention to elevate my level of play. RICHARD: You are very welcome ... this is fun, is it not, to be able to communicate sincerely with someone we have never met and are never likely to? To be able to compare notes, as it were, about how we are doing and what sense we have made, so far, about oneself, life, the universe and what it is to be living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are? Ain’t life grand! RESPONDENT: But we have met, have we not? RICHARD: Not face-to-face. RESPONDENT: I am not trying to compare notes so much as get beyond the baggage of my files in the closet which will be a burden for whoever has to go through them once I die. RICHARD: Instead of passing your problem onto those who come after you ... why not pass on your dissolution? RESPONDENT: Life is grand, except in retrospect ... please forgive my hasty reply, should that bother you. RICHARD: It does not bother me in the least ... if your IQ (Interest Quotient) is such that a ‘hasty reply’ is the best that you can manage then that is your business not mine. I am having a great time ... you give me a vital opportunity to spout my stuff.
RESPONDENT: It was Lao Tzu who originated: ‘those who know don’t speak; those who speak don’t know’. RICHARD: Yes, there are at least 48 translations into English, which have slight variations on your version. RESPONDENT: The way I’ve heard it is that he was going off into the wilderness, sick at heart over the ways of man, and the gatekeeper influenced him to record his wisdom for prosperity. RICHARD: Hmm ... a person who is ‘sick at heart over the ways of man’ could hardly be said to be operating from clarity and purity, eh? An intelligence tethered by feelings of a nauseous sorrow is a crippled intelligence ... no wonder he penned such pithy aphorisms as ‘those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know’. He probably had nothing better to say. RESPONDENT: In my reading of the thing, he is saying it is not that one does not speak at all, but one speaks hesitantly, sceptically – because one is aware of the indescribable miraculousness of Life. RICHARD: Do you mean that one speaks tentatively because real knowledge is unobtainable (Pyrrhonic Scepticism) or that one speaks with diffidence because of a doubting disposition (Chronic Scepticism)? Or was the basis of his unspeakable wisdom – that which would ostensibly bring about peace on earth – a humble: ‘I don’t know’? RESPONDENT: K once said: ‘If you label me; you negate me’ (substitute any noun for ‘me’). RICHARD: Hmm ... I did not realise how touchy he was. When I was but a lad in grade-school I quickly learnt the lesson of that doggerel ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me’. These days, nobody – nobody whatsoever – can negate me or diminish me in any way, shape or form. RESPONDENT: How about: ‘if you label x, you negate x’. RICHARD: No way. I am not caught up in words ... when I label (which I do often) I label the image that the person is presenting and defending and thus send it to the trash bin where it belongs. I negate their image like all get-out ... then the actual person is freed to be here ... now. RESPONDENT: If you notice, Lao Tzu spoke poetically, with the heart and mind and not just the divided intellect. RICHARD: Aye ... and thus all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides roll on down through the centuries unabated. RESPONDENT: Are you saying Lao Tzu spoke for sixty plus years – surely you are not (?). RICHARD: Why not? Mr Lao Tzu could easily have spoken for sixty plus years (if he lived at all) for legend has it that he was an old man when he penned what is now known as ‘The Tao Te Ching’ ... <SNIP>... Therefore, ‘if’ he lived at all and ‘if’ he instructed Mr. Kung Fu Tzu and ‘if’ Mr. Yin Hsi knew of him and his work and ‘if’ he were an old man when he retired then he certainly did disseminate his wisdom for many, many years ... and thus did not heed his own advice – ‘he who knows does not speak’ – like all the enlightened masters down through the ages. It is a case of ‘do as I say and not do as I do’ with virtually all Saints and Sages, Gurus and God-Men, Masters and Messiahs, Avatars and Saviours. RESPONDENT: I think you are trying to force Mr Lao Tzu into a classification in which his words really do not fit. RICHARD: Methinks you will find that I am not. I am taking those words you posted at face-value (‘those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know’) for that is the version which is publicly and popularly known and therefore is the ‘poetry’ that influences people the most (what I consider is the more correct translation I discuss later (see further below). What Mr Lao Tzu really wrote (if he lived at all) will never be known for sure (like all ‘Ancient Wisdom’) and what he really meant by whatever he wrote (if he wrote anything at all) will never be known either (not that it would be worth knowing). But the poetic image represented by ‘those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know’ lives on. Therefore it is eminently worthy of examination and breakthrough. RESPONDENT: Let us agree to disagree. RICHARD: Why do you wish to ‘agree to disagree’? Can you not join in on an exploration and discovery? Do you wish to but endlessly seek in a poetic waste-land ... and never find? RESPONDENT: My understanding is that K said: ‘you can be sure, if someone says ‘I know’, that they do not’. His point was that knowledge is always of the past, whereas Life is now, living and ungraspable (by knowledge), at least in what I read his statement to be saying). RICHARD: Yes, the ‘Truth’ cannot be known (according to mystics) because it is a mystery ... it is the ‘Unknowable’. Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain popularised the old wisdom that there is the ‘known’, the ‘unknown’ and the ‘unknowable’ and that one can cease living in the ‘known’ (where 6.0 billion peoples live) and reside in the ‘unknown’ (where 0.0000001 of the population live) but never in the ‘unknowable’ as it is forever inscrutable, unfathomable, immeasurable and so on. Thus anyone who says that they know (according to mystics) obviously is not living in the ‘unknown’ (it is one of those ‘tests’ of enlightenment). One cannot ‘live’ in the ‘unknowable’ (according to mystics) until after physical death (known as ‘Mahasamadhi’ for Hindus and ‘Parinirvana’ for Buddhists). Thus (according to mystics) the ‘Secret to Life’ or the ‘Riddle of Existence’, or whatever one’s quest is called, cannot be known until the ‘afterlife’ (by whatever name). However, this is not what is meant by ‘he who knows does not speak’ because nobody (according to mystics) can know the ‘unknowable’ until after death. The ‘he who knows does not speak’ is possibly a popular misunderstanding of the intent of the Chinese characters that Mr. Stan Rosenthal, UK possibly more correctly translates as: ‘Those who know the natural way have no need of boasting, whilst those who know but little, may be heard most frequently; thus, the sage says little, if anything at all’ (which boasting is what No. 12 is so insistent about, despite the fact that virtually all the sages had much to say, even if they covered up their ‘boasting’ with humility). I say ‘possibly’ because the origins of Taoism are so vague and Chinese pictograms are so open to a variety of equally valid conceptions that it will never be known for sure. RESPONDENT: ‘Mystics’ is an image. RICHARD: The word ‘mystic’ is not an image but what the word describes (points to) most certainly is. It is an apt word to describe the altered state of consciousness that is highly prized by millions and millions of otherwise intelligent peoples ... both those now living and those now long dead. RESPONDENT: There is no such thing/person as a ‘mystic’. RICHARD: Indeed not ... it is an institutionalised image that they are living out ... and millions revere and worship them, as if the mass hallucination that they are either in contact with god or are god on earth, is true! RESPONDENT: ‘Mystic’ is a category invented in which to pigeon hole certain types of thinking to try to make verbal sense out of it all. RICHARD: Not only ‘certain types of thinking’ ... ‘certain types of feeling’ too. It requires ‘deep feelings’ – aptly described by the word ‘calenture’ – to manifest the delirium that:
* RESPONDENT: What is your view of all this? RICHARD: I have posted it before so I will present a shortened version. Viz.: The blame for the continuation of human
misery lies squarely in the lap of those inspired people who, although having sufficient courage to proceed into the Unknown, stopped short of the
final goal ... the Unknowable. Notwithstanding the cessation of a personal ego operating, they were unwilling to relinquish the Self or Spirit ...
and an ego-less Self or Spirit is still an identity, nevertheless. In spite of the glamour and the glory of the Altered State Of Consciousness,
closer examination reveals that these ‘Great’ persons had – and have – feet of clay RESPONDENT: So this is what is meant by the ‘third eye’? RICHARD: No ... ‘the third eye’ is a mystical experience (when it opens) and is said to be just above and between the eyebrows (and some pseudo-scientists even try to link it with the pineal gland). Those peoples, whom you wish to have disappear from your consciousness with your blanket labelling of ‘it’s just an image’, oft-times spend vast amounts of time in a desperate attempt to ‘open’ it. And those rare few, that are ‘successful’ in this fantasy, are often revered and worshiped as if the mass hallucination that they are either in contact with god or are god on earth, is true. RESPONDENT: Aren’t you overlooking the fourth? RICHARD: There is no ‘Turiya’ outside of passionate human imagination. RESPONDENT: Glad that Richard’s ego is extinct. RICHARD: If you were to actually read what I write with both eyes you will find that I lay particular emphasis on the extinction of the soul and not only the dissolution of the ego. Some human beings’ life does not always fit into the preconceptions that you may have of it. RESPONDENT: So he will not be offended by my attempt to sprinkle some humour in the mix. RICHARD: I am never offended ... but could you make your humour funny?
CORRESPONDENT No. 25 (Part Four) 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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