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Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’ with Respondent No. 25
RICHARD: Okay ... let us run with what you originally intended. Viz.: ‘How come it has taken 3,000 to 5,000 years ... and peace on earth is nowhere to be found?’RESPONDENT: If peace is ‘nowhere to be found’ then is peace just an image to you? A belief? RICHARD: No, peace is not ‘just an image’ or ‘a belief’ for me because an individual peace-on-earth is my on-going experiencing twenty four hours a day, three hundred and sixty five days of the year. Thus I know, from this direct experiencing each moment again, that if each and every human being were to unilaterally free themselves from the human condition there would be a global peace on earth. This unilateral action would result in a free association of peoples world-wide; a utopian-like loose-knit affiliation of like-minded individuals. One would be a citizen of the world, not of a sovereign state. Countries, with their artificial borders would vanish along with the need for the military. As nationalism would expire, so too would patriotism with all its heroic evils. No police force would be needed anywhere on earth; no locks on the doors, no bars on the windows. Gaols, judges and juries would become a thing of the dreadful past. People would live together in peace and harmony, happiness and delight. Pollution and its cause – over-population – would be set to rights without effort, as competition would be replaced by cooperation. No longer need people lament the futility of trying to escape from the folly of the ‘Human Condition’. Never again would fear rule the earth; terror would stalk its prey no more ... and another 160,000,000 human beings would not be killed in wars by their fellow human next century. 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: The peace you experience is not an image. But when you project that peace onto the rest of the world, the resulting suppositional utopia is [just] an image (though perhaps a ‘reasonable and level-headed’ one). RICHARD: I have been having a lot of fun with this exchange ... but methinks we have milked it for as far as it can go. What it all boils down to is that you have adopted the intellectual stance that any words that are describing something that is not happening now is an ‘image’. Therefore, when you go to make a pot of tea (if you ever do), the moment you pick up the kettle to fill with water to boil, any description of the chain of events that must inevitably follow so as to effect the desired result – sitting on a deck-chair on the patio sipping your drink whilst waiting for the ‘grace of god’ to descend for example – is but an image (for you). How do you manage to get out of bed in the morning? * RICHARD: 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. RESPONDENT: Alas, I noticed. Is it not the opposite that is needed? Pats on the back generally make a creature full of him/herself. Are not we humans way too full of ourselves as it [already is]? RICHARD: No ... human beings deprecate and belittle themselves far too much (as per instructions from bodiless entities) and it is high-time that people take stock of what has been achieved so far so as to provide the requisite factually-based confidence to proceed. To strip someone of well-earned commendation is to strip them of dignity. And a person without dignity is pathetic. * RICHARD: 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. RESPONDENT: Yet you still use the pronoun ‘I’ – hmm. RICHARD: Yes ... I am this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. As such, I am alive and breathing and until the day I die I will continue to make use of the words that existed long before I was born ... words like <Richard> and <I> and <me> and <my> and so on. I am sure it has not missed your eagle eye that I follow the sensible convention of putting the identity pronoun (‘I’ and ‘me’ and ‘my’ and so on) in little quotes so as to forestall confusion. I could have said: ‘One has 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’. But, of course, when I do use the word <one> on this Mailing List there is often some clever person asking who this ‘one’ is ... so it does not really matter much which word I use. I suppose I could say: ‘The speaker has said, over and over again ...’ if that would please you. What was the point you were making? * RICHARD: 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: 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: Forgive me sir for being inattentive, but please define exactly what you mean by ‘images’ once again. (I ask this because the above sentence reads somewhat like an oxymoron). RICHARD: In the context being discussed, an image is any plan (a strategy contemplated for future activation with reflection on past experience so as to effect the optimum considered result) which is contaminated by an identity skulking about inside the body making it ‘real’ in imagination because of the influence of the entire affective faculty. In another context, an image is ‘who I think and feel I am’ as distinct from what I actually am. In another context, an image is a drawing, a painting, a photograph or any other pictorial representation of the world of people, things and events. In another context, an image is what is seen in a mirror, a sheet of still water, a burnished metal plate and so on. In another context, an image is an undesired radio signal whose frequency is as much above that of the local oscillator of a superheterodyne receiver as the signal sought is below it, and which therefore may cause interference. Which is a similar kind of ‘interference’ to the impediment ‘you’ are causing that prevents these words being read with both eyes. * 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? RESPONDENT: Yes, along with dogs, cats, dolphins, spiders, snakes, mountain lions, birds, plants, rivers, stones, earthquakes, and stars – I can and do (from time to timeless time). RICHARD: There is no such thing as ‘timeless time’ outside of human imagination ... what was that you were saying about an oxymoron? RESPONDENT: This is the magic of youth which many adults lose and then [we counterproductively] ‘seek’. RICHARD: There never was – or is – any youth that is experiencing the magic of being here now in infinite space and eternal time as the universe’s experience of its infinitude as a sensate and reflective human being as an on-going experiencing ... other than scattered PCE’s every now and then, youth is epitomised by a pseudo-innocence that comes from ignorance (lack of experience). * RICHARD: It will blow your mind away, man! RESPONDENT: Yes, but the damn thing re-incarnates and No. 25 is off posting, and ‘all the rest of it’. RICHARD: Why? 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’ type 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: It is not oblivious to suffering. RICHARD: Then why is there not action? Why do you wish to remain involved in the ‘mutually beneficial harmonious relationship’ of ‘the predator and the prey’ type relationship that has resulted in 160,000,000 peoples being killed by their fellow human beings in wars this century alone? Is it not that you are ‘oblivious to suffering’ through a mental de-sensitisation process that categorises all the misery and mayhem as being a ‘mutually beneficial harmonious relationship’? RESPONDENT: Pain and anguish are part of life. RICHARD: Hmm ... it is helpful to draw a distinction betwixt physical pain and emotional and mental pain. Physical pain is essential, else one could be sitting on a hot-plate and not know that one’s bum was on fire until one saw the smoke rising. Emotional and mental pain (which is what I indicated by using ‘animosity and anguish’) are totally unnecessary. RESPONDENT: Because women suffer ‘pain and anguish’ during childbirth (modern drugs to thwart that naturalness not withstanding) women historically have been less prone to the organized murder known as war. RICHARD: Uh huh ... why fight when you have stupefied men to do the fighting for you, eh? And quite often the fighting is instinct-run men fighting over you anyway ... which is quite ego-boosting, would you not say? RESPONDENT: They intuitively and experientially are in touch with how much sacrifice goes into creating a life. RICHARD: Aye ... just like men intuitively and experientially are in touch with how much sacrifice goes into preserving kith and kin RESPONDENT: So they are thereby less likely to get lost in the ignorance of destroying life without compassion. RICHARD: I cannot resist (it is probably only sentence structure) but are you saying that ‘destroying life without compassion’ is worse than ‘destroying life with compassion’? Then again ... maybe you do mean that? 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. RESPONDENT: Generally animals only kill to eat. RICHARD: Dream on ... animals are instinctually-driven by territoriality, just as the human animal is; animals are instinctually-driven to defend their young, just as the human animal is; animals are instinctually-driven to compete to copulate, just as the human animal is. RESPONDENT: Animals don’t kill others of the same species except in rare instances. RICHARD: Oh, we have been down this same-same path before, you and I ... try watching the ‘National Geographic Channel’ for starters, and see what the chimpanzees get up to regularly. And try watching with both eyes and not take too much notice of what the narrators say. Watch rather than listen to pap. RESPONDENT: Wild animals do not abuse each other. RICHARD: Dream on ... I have seen a cat toying with a mouse in a manner that can only be dubbed cruel; I have seen magpies playing with a live cricket in a manner that can only be called mean; I have watched many animals exhibiting what must be specified as abuse. Once again, the ‘National Geographic Channel’ shows chimpanzees in their native habitat ... I see civil war, robbery, rage, infanticide, cannibalism, grief, group ostracism ... and so on. It is easily discerned by those with the eyes to see that animals do not have peace-on-earth by being natural. This insistence that the animal state being a natural state and therefore somehow desirable because human are ‘divided from nature’ that is held by many people is just nonsense ... I am glad that I am human and that we are living in a civilised society with all that technology can offer. We have already improved on nature so much in the areas of technology, animal breeding and plant cultivation, for instance. RESPONDENT: You may be projecting your own suppressed conflict onto ‘out there’(?) RICHARD: And you may be repeating yourself again soon ... can you not move on past your preconceived notions and actually look at the animal world as-it-is? Just because they do not have spears and bows and arrows and rifles and machine-guns and missiles does not mean that they would not if capable. They are as instinctually-driven with fear and aggression and nurture and desire as the human animal is. * RICHARD: 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? RESPONDENT: I hope you aren’t expecting a verbal answer. [But] let me try to offer one: To Live! RICHARD: Indeed ... but the genuine question is an open question (which is an on-going question until the experiential answer happens). Thus: why am I (No. 25) here? * 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: Does not Richard expect his ‘teachings’ to become the ‘Tried and Failed’? RICHARD: No, mainly because they are not ‘Teachings’ ... they are an accurate self-report from a fellow human being. You will find that what is written is a factual account 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. RESPONDENT: If not, why? RICHARD: Because this is actual ... not a fantasy. It is incredibly difficult to live in an hallucination twenty four hours a day ... which is why only 0.0000001 of the population have become enlightened. RESPONDENT: Isn’t the internet – where division/lack of contact creates a context thrice removed from actuality – a very unlikely place to transform things. RICHARD: No ... an actual freedom – unlike the ineffable ‘Truth’ – can be put into words. 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. Plus, being actual, no charismatic personality is required to keep it ‘alive’. RESPONDENT: Not that there is a likely ‘place’ other than within one’s heart, mind you. RICHARD: You will not find an actual freedom in your heart. RESPONDENT: I do not say the internet is necessarily not a place for such a thing to be facilitated, but I am interested in how you see this problem of the added division it causes/can cause. RICHARD: What problem (what ‘added division’) are you talking about? Words are words, whether they be thought, spoken, printed or appear as pixels on a screen. It is what is being said that is important, not the speaker. Anyone who has met me face-to-face only gets verification that there is actually a flesh and blood body that lives what these words say ... there is no ‘energy-field’ here. In fact, the written word is better as I tend to skip important detail with the spoken word ... this computer generates all my stock-standard phrases in an instant. 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. RESPONDENT: What is it that you are suggesting, sir? RICHARD: I am suggesting that 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: 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: Depends on how imaginative the image maker is, does it not? RICHARD: No ... no matter how imaginative one is, it would be a sheer impossibility to imagine this perfection day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. RESPONDENT: A real ‘spellbinder’ image maker can experience the joy of mock enlightenment (I hope no one suggests if I see it: I own it). RICHARD: I am not enlightened (be it ‘mock’ or ‘real’). An actual freedom lies beyond enlightenment. 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: I was speaking metaphorically [about the files in the closet]. RICHARD: I was not speaking metaphorically ... I mean it as an actuality. RESPONDENT: Death will process my dissolution quite well. RICHARD: Big deal ... physical death is too late to bring about peace on earth. RESPONDENT: But you are hinting at what K and others suggest: dying (psychologically) before physiological death. RICHARD: No ... I am not hinting, I am loud and clear and out in the open and up-front with stating clearly that psychological death (dissolution of the ego) is not sufficient. There must be a corresponding psychic death (dissolution of the soul) for the already always existing peace-on-earth to become apparent. If you were to do what ‘K and others suggest’ you would get the bodiless ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’ with its promise of a spurious post-mortem reward ... and all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides will continue unabated. RESPONDENT: Presently it is a theory, though there have been moments. RICHARD: No ... there is only one moment of death (unless you fondly imagine that you are dying in instalments). 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: You must be using miracle grow or something – your sprouts are very prolific. RICHARD: Yes ... the ‘miracle grow’ is called the ‘Seven O’clock News’ here in Australia. RESPONDENT: Thanks for your seriousness. RICHARD: I do not know how to be serious ... I have no sense of responsibility whatsoever. Life is fun.
RESPONDENT: The way I’ve heard it is that Lao Tzu 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’ RESPONDENT: Why do you see being sick at heart over war, rape, greed and hatred being conducted in the name of ‘goodness’ as ‘crippled’ while you see it as quite intelligent for yourself to be disheartened over war, rape, etc.? RICHARD: Where have I ever said that I was ‘disheartened over war, rape, etc.’? In fact you have already expressly asked me about this before:
As for ‘in the name of ‘goodness’’ ... it is this simple: ‘good’ is the opposite of and depends upon ‘evil’ for its sustenance; ‘goodness’ draws its energy from ‘badness’ and so on. The diabolical (by whatever name) underpins the divine (by whatever name) and thus the battle for the triumph of ‘good’ over ‘evil’ that has raged down through the aeons is but a futile gesture ... the ‘Tried and True’ solution has no chance of ever succeeding. The ‘solution’ is only to be found in the dissolution of that what causes the problem in the first place ... then one lives in this actual world that I describe (further below) as being where no solution is needed. Viz.:
Life in this actual world is easy. RESPONDENT: In my reading of the thing [‘those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know’], 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: It is simply that the description is not the described and that the sage is aware of this simple truth. RICHARD: In other words: the Truth can be realised but it cannot be described because the nature, character, disposition or quality of the Truth is unintelligible in that it cannot be perceived, comprehended, understood, grasped and established distinctly and unambiguously in an unmistakeable manner? Which means that confusion reigns supreme? Which means that Mr Lao Tzu is revered by millions for being able to realise something – that which would ostensibly bring about peace on earth – but he could not perceive, comprehend, understand, grasp or establish it distinctly and unambiguously and in an unmistakeable manner so as to communicate it to his fellow human beings? Thus 2,500 years have rolled on by since he coalesced the vapours ... and countless millions have suffered because of his ineptitude? Or is it the ineffectiveness of ‘The Truth’ to bring about a liveable peace on earth? * 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: Are you trying to read with your intelligence awake, or are you only trying to be inteeligent with your responses? RICHARD: No ... I am remarkably sincere. Nobody – nobody whatsoever – can negate me (substitute an actual freedom for <me>) or diminish me in any way, shape or form. This freedom is actual ... not a fantasy. RESPONDENT: K was not being touchy. RICHARD: Are you for real?
Speaking personally, I have found:
I call this an actual freedom and yes, I was ‘astonished to find it’ but I am exceedingly happy to talk about it because the very talking cannot destroy an actual freedom. I communicate it very freely, to whomsoever is vitally interested in peace-on-earth in this life-time, and have no qualms whatsoever about it being organised. I have labelled it ‘actual freedom’ myself; I personally chose the labels ‘actualism’ and ‘actualist’ out of the dictionary as being the most apt words to describe what I experience twenty four hours a day and it is of no consequence whatsoever what other peoples label it as. Nobody – nobody whatsoever – can negate me and/or an actual freedom or diminish me and/or an actual freedom in any way, shape or form. This freedom is actual ... not a fantasy. And I will never be sorry that I ever told anyone about it. RESPONDENT: He was using ‘me’ as a universal example to show that labelling things can give the impression of wisdom if one is not aware of the superficial nature of the wisdom so held. RICHARD: You do seem to be missing the point that a touchy wisdom is a superficial wisdom. 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: Then you do have an interest in relationship? RICHARD: Only an identity has an interest in relationship ... all human beings are discrete (physically distinct) flesh and blood bodies which, being the very stuff that is this entire universe, are not separate from anything at all. It is the feeling of identity (which has its origins in the common ancestry of the animal instincts and takes on the feeling of being separate because of being manifest in individual flesh and blood bodies) that has the desire to regain ‘oneness’ with all sentient beings via relationship. ‘I’ am alone and lonely and long for the ‘connection’ that is evidenced in a relationship ... especially in a loving relationship. When ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ become extinct there is no need – and no capacity – for a relationship, for who is there to need to unite? Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti was hopelessly wrong in his oft-repeated ‘Teaching’ that ‘Life is a movement in relationship’. Only a psychological and/or psychic entity needs the connection of relationship in order to create a synthetic intimacy – usually via the bridge of love and compassion – and manifest the delusion that separation has ended. And if human relationship does not produce the desired result, then ‘I’ will project a god or a goddess – a ‘super-friend’ not dissimilar to the imaginary playmates of childhood – to love and be loved by. What I am interested in is my fellow human beings’ freedom from the human condition ... I like people because I am a people myself and I delight in their happiness and harmlessness and their enjoyment in being alive. I enjoy and appreciate being alive and being here in this amazing physical world ... and I take particular delight in spending time with my associate adventurers on this grand escapade we are all intimately involved in and fully appreciate their company each time again. I like being here and I like my fellow human being. We find ourselves here in the world as it was when we were born. We find war, murder, torture, rape, domestic violence and corruption to be endemic ... we notice that it is intrinsic to the human condition ... we set out to discover why this is so. We find sadness, loneliness, sorrow, grief, depression and suicide to be a global incidence ... and we gather that it is also inherent to the human condition ... and we want to know why. We report to each other as to the nature of our discoveries for we are all well-meaning and seek to find a way out of this mess that we have landed in. Whether one believes in re-incarnation or not, we are all living this particular life for the very first time, and we wish to make sense of it. It is a challenge and the adventure of a life-time to enquire and to uncover, to seek and to find, to explore and to discover. Thus, as each and every human being no longer nurses malice and sorrow to their bosom, there is a genuine opportunity for a unilateral breakthrough into this actual world for each and every individual human being. There is the possibility of a world-wide free association of like-minded people ... no relationships needed at all. * 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: Forgive me (as this will require the use of your extinct imagination), but if you could go back in time and counsel the old man (Lao Tzu), what would be your advice for him? RICHARD: I have no need of imagination to explore what would be said in the context of an hypothetical situation
because I would say the self-same thing that I am saying now. 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 Of course I would phrase it in the terminology current in that era and in that culture ... I would speak the jargon. RESPONDENT: I think you are trying to force-t Mr Lao Tzu into a classification in which his words really do not fit. Let us agree to disagree. RICHARD: Methinks you will find that I am not ‘trying to force-t Mr Lao Tzu into a classification in which his words really do not fit’. 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 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. 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: Because I have not the prerequisite Interest Quotient. RICHARD: Try watching/ reading the news bulletins with whatever media you have access to and use your highly valued affective feelings – emotions and passions and calenture – to really, deeply, primally feel all the anguish and animosity inherent in all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides that parades across billions of T. V. screens daily. And try watching/reading the ‘animals in the wild’ programs so as to see where the human animal shares this common ancestry of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Your I. Q. (Intelligence Quotient) will increase in direct proportion to your I. Q. (Interest Quotient) because unless one is vitally interested in peace on earth one will never even begin to free the crippled intelligence from the debilitating passions bestowed by blind nature. But becoming vitally interested is but the preliminary stage, because until one becomes curious as to whether what is being written here can be applied to themselves, only then does the first step begin. Because it is only when one becomes curious about the workings of oneself – what makes one tick – is that person participating in their search for freedom for the first time in their life. This is because people mostly look to rearranging their beliefs and truths as being sufficient effort ... ‘I’ am willing to be free as long as ‘I’ can remain ‘me’. In other words: their notion of freedom is a ‘clip-on’. Then curiosity becomes fascination ... and then the fun begins to gain a momentum of its own. One is drawn inexorably further and further towards one’s destiny ... fascination leads to commitment and one can know when one’s commitment is approaching a 100% commitment because others around one will classify one as ‘obsessed’ (in spite of all their rhetoric a 100% commitment to evoking peace-on-earth is actively discouraged by one’s peers). Eventually one realises that one is on one’s own in this, the adventure of a life-time, and a peculiar tenacity that enables one to proceed against all odds ensues. Then one takes the penultimate step ... one abandons ‘humanity’. Freedom then unfolds its inevitable destiny. RESPONDENT: Let us say we are two ants on top of our respective anthills discussing the nature of our universe. RICHARD: No, let us say that we are two reasonably well-educated intelligent human beings discussing the origins of the human condition and thus find the way through the mess that is the current situation. Ants have no intelligence. RESPONDENT: Whether we (one or both of us) are right, wrong, or a combination thereof, the nature of the universe is what it is and we seem to be simply quibbling rather than communicating. Should that change, perhaps my interest will re-awaken. RICHARD: Shall I put it this way? I am not ‘simply quibbling rather than communicating’ ... I am presenting an accurate self-report that is a factual account 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. * 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 how does what never existed become extinct? RICHARD: Through an altruistic (for the benefit of both this body and everybody) self-sacrifice ... the psychological and psychic self-immolation of ‘me’ in ‘my’ totality. That is, ‘I’, who am but a passionate illusion, must die a dramatic illusory death commensurate to ‘my’ pernicious existence. The drama must be played out to the end ... there are no short-cuts here. The doorway to an actual freedom has the word ‘extinction’ written on it. This extinction is an irrevocable autological event which eliminates the psyche itself. When this is all over there will be no ‘being’ at all. Thus when ‘I’ willingly self-immolate – psychologically and psychically – then ‘I’ am making the most noble sacrifice that ‘I’ can make for oneself and all humankind ... for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is ‘my’ moment of glory. It is ‘my’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘my’ petty life all worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... to physically die without having experienced what it is like to become dead is such a waste of a life. There is a wide and wondrous path to actual freedom: One asks oneself, each moment again, ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’? This gives rise to apperception. Apperception is the outcome of the exclusive attention paid to being alive right here and now. Apperception is to be the senses as a bare awareness, a pure consciousness experience (PCE) of the world as-it-is, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. Apperception is an awareness of consciousness. It is not ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious; it is the mind’s awareness of itself. Apperception is a way of seeing that can be arrived at by pure contemplation. Pure contemplation is when ‘I’ cease thinking ... and thinking takes place of its own accord. Such a mind, being free of the thinker – ‘I’ as ego – is capable of clarity. With apperception operating more or less continuously, ‘I’ find it harder and harder to maintain credibility as ‘me’ feeling. ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul is increasingly seen as the usurper, an alien entity inhabiting this body and taking on an identity of its own. Mercilessly exposed in the bright light of awareness – apperception casts no shadows – ‘I’ can no longer find ‘my’ position tenable. ‘I’ can only live in ‘my’ obscuration, where ‘I’ lurk about as ‘me’, creating all sorts of mischief. ‘My’ time is speedily coming to an end; ‘I’ can barely maintain ‘myself’ any longer. The day finally dawns where the definitive moment of being here, right now, conclusively arrives; something irrevocable takes place and every thing and every body and every event is different, somehow, although the same physically; something immutable occurs and every thing and every body and every event is all-of-a-sudden undeniably actual, in and of itself, as a fact; something irreversible happens and an immaculate perfection and a pristine purity permeates every thing and every body and every event; something has changed forever, although it is as if nothing has happened, except that the entire world is a magical fairytale-like playground full of incredible gladness and a delight which is never-ending. RESPONDENT: Fortunately, life never fits into our preconceptions of it. RICHARD: May I suggest? Whenever you write – or think or talk – substitute ‘I’ or ‘me’ or ‘my’ or ‘mine’ for ‘you’ or ‘us’ or ‘our’ or ‘ours’ in any sentence that has the context wherein you are duck-shoving the personal onto the collective (even if it be true that all humans are identically stupefied). Thus your sentence now reads: ‘Fortunately, life never fits into my (No. 25’s) preconceptions of it’. This personalisation is called ‘taking responsibility’ for the perpetuation of all the anguish and animosity (you are not responsible for the cause of all the anguish and animosity). Nobody – but nobody – can set you free but yourself.
RESPONDENT: The peace you experience is not an image. But when you project that peace onto the rest of the world, the resulting suppositional utopia is [just] an image (though perhaps a ‘reasonable and level-headed’ one). RICHARD: I have been having a lot of fun with this exchange ... but methinks we have milked it for as far as it can go. What it all boils down to is that you have adopted the intellectual stance that any words that are describing something that is not happening now is an ‘image’. Therefore, when you go to make a pot of tea (if you ever do), the moment you pick up the kettle to fill with water to boil, any description of the chain of events that must inevitably follow so as to effect the desired result – sitting on a deck-chair on the patio sipping your drink whilst waiting for the ‘grace of god’ to descend for example – is but an image (for you). RESPONDENT: Yes, but that is a practical image which leads to something real. RICHARD: If you did not know that performing a sequence of events produces a desired result (turning a tap means water coming out; filling a kettle means something to boil; placing the kettle on a fire means heating the water; pouring boiling water onto prepared tea-leaves in a tea-pot means infusing the leaves; pouring the resultant brew into a cup means ease of sipping) then, if you were not cognisant of cause and effect, you would never, ever take the first step towards peace on earth. Just as there does not have to be an image of ‘sitting in a deck-chair on the patio sipping a drink’ for the above process to occur, there does not have to be an image ‘peace on earth’ for you to take the first step. RESPONDENT: Having an image of peace on earth in which humans cease our violence has been part of what you characterized as the ‘Tried and Failed’. RICHARD: I am not – and have never been – talking about ‘having an image of peace on earth in which humans cease their violence’ ... it is you who have been – and still are – turning everything I write into an image. Whether the ‘Tried and True’ is an image or not is beside the point ... the ‘Tried and True’ has failed and failed again and again for other, more fundamental reasons, than because ‘peace on earth’ is/was being an image. It is the persistence of self that has ham-strung the ‘Tried and True’. RESPONDENT: Mind you, there is a certain beauty to the image itself. RICHARD: If I may interject? Beauty is an affective feeling – even if a deep feeling – and is evidence of a self lurking about in the heart. If you get caught up in the beauty of the image – swooning over imaginative detail – instead of actually eliminating the malice and sorrow you nurse to your bosom (which nursing and nurturing is so as to be able to experience beauty, love, compassion and so on), then such romanticising will act as an acceptable substitute for an actual peace ... and ‘I’ will survive to wreak ‘my’ mischief another day. In fact, ‘I’ will probably accuse ‘my’ fellow human of being ‘divided from their source’ and tell them that not dumbly submitting to their fate is an indication of being ‘trained to see death as losing’ and so all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides will go on for ever and a day. RESPONDENT: But doesn’t it [an image of peace on earth] serve as an escape away from the very things which are preventing peace from being born? RICHARD: Yes ... which is why I stress the importance of remembering a PCE. This direct experience of the actuality of peace-on-earth disposes of the need to have an image of ‘peace on earth’. * RICHARD: [As you have adopted the intellectual stance that any words that are describing something that is not happening now is an ‘image’] how do you manage to get out of bed in the morning? RESPONDENT: My interest in continuing this thread with you propels me out of bed with a smile. RICHARD: Are you saying that the image of yourself sitting in front of a computer monitor is what gets you out of bed each day? RESPONDENT: By the way, do you not acknowledge that thinking about things can be a great obstacle to the art of living? RICHARD: No ... not thinking about things (things like why ‘I’ continue to nurse malice and sorrow to ‘my’ bosom) is the greatest obstacle to the art of living. * 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? Scenario one: some rain falls and makes the ground wet; the sun comes out and makes the ground warm; seeds germinate and green shoots head towards the sun whilst the roots head toward the centre of the earth; animals eat vegetation and flourish. Scenario two: no rain falls and the ground remains dry; the sun comes out and makes the ground warm; seeds do not germinate and no green shoots head towards the sun and no roots head toward the centre of the earth; animals have no vegetation to eat and languish. Scenario three: no rain falls and the ground remains dry; the sun comes out and makes the ground warm; No. 25 picks up a garden hose (per favour human intelligence) and makes the ground wet; seeds germinate and green shoots head towards the sun whilst the roots head toward the centre of the earth; human animal eats vegetation and flourishes. 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. RESPONDENT: Yes cause and effect is just a conceptually superimposed net/tool utilized to make verbal ‘sense’ out of ‘it’. RICHARD: If by ‘it’ you mean this body and that body and the mountains and streams and stars and planets and so on, all magically happening of their own accord irregardless of what ‘No. 25 as Consciousness’ imagines, conceptualises, believes or in any other way concocts it to be, then you would not be using the pejorative ‘just’ when talking of the amazing ability of the human animal to be able to ascertain the wonderful potential of cause and effect ... and thus do something about the human condition. What I do find amazing is your continued persistence in disparaging the only tool that would release you – and your fellow human – from anguish and animosity. RESPONDENT: And no, there is no world independent of my superimpositions or lack of superimpositions – this is a participatory universe in which there is no division thus no ‘independence’. RICHARD: This world called planet earth – and this entire infinite and eternal universe – was here long before you were born and will be here long after you are dead. It therefore irrefutably exists totally independent of you and your mewlings. RESPONDENT: In common stock sense though, what you say is true – my superimpositions or lack of superimpositions generally has no measurable ‘effects’ on mountains, streams, planets, and stars. RICHARD: I notice that you conveniently left ‘this body and that body’ out of the sentence in order to be able to make this statement. What I wrote was ‘this body and that body and mountains and streams and planets and stars’ in the paragraph above. Is this an oversight ... or fiddling the books? RESPONDENT: Except if you consider how man’s intellect has allowed him to blindly contaminate his own house: the Earth (capitalization is a term of respect for Grandmother Earth and is not meant to deify her). RICHARD: Good grief ... more NDA platitudes and yet more ‘intellect-bashing’. It is the instinctual passions that cripple the intellect ... and the instinctual passions are bestowed by ‘Grandmother Earth’s’ daughter ... ‘Mother Nature’. * RICHARD: Plus I took the opportunity to slip in a little bit of much-needed patting-on-the-back for human intelligence. RESPONDENT: Alas, I noticed. Is it not the opposite that is needed? Pats on the back generally make a creature full of him/herself. Are not we humans way too full of ourselves as it [already is]? RICHARD: No ... human beings deprecate and belittle themselves far too much (as per instructions from bodiless entities) and it is high-time that people take stock of what has been achieved so far so as to provide the requisite factually-based confidence to proceed. To strip someone of well-earned commendation is to strip them of dignity. And a person without dignity is pathetic. RESPONDENT: A person without dignity is relieved of a great burden. RICHARD: Given that the word ‘dignity’ indicates the quality of being worthy or honourable as in true worth and/or excellence then you are saying that it is a relief to be undignified, unworthy, dishonourable and mediocre to the point of being a pathetic excuse for a human being, eh? Just which goddess is it that you are bowing and scraping to? * RESPONDENT: You still use the pronoun ‘I’ – hmm. RICHARD: Yes ... I am this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. As such, I am alive and breathing and until the day I die I will continue to make use of the words that existed long before I was born ... words like <Richard> and <I> and <me> and <my> and so on. I am sure it has not missed your eagle eye that I follow the sensible convention of putting the identity pronoun (‘I’ and ‘me’ and ‘my’ and so on) in little quotes so as to forestall confusion. I could have said: ‘One has 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’. But, of course, when I do use the word <one> on this Mailing List there is often some clever person asking who this ‘one’ is ... so it does not really matter much which word I use. I suppose I could say: ‘The speaker has said, over and over again ...’ if that would please you. What was the point you were making? RESPONDENT: Simply that you are a walking – I mean talking – contradiction of terms. RICHARD: Where are the ‘contradiction of terms’? The word <Richard> is a convenient human agreement to refer to the flesh and blood body that the name appertains to. The word <I> is a convenient human agreement for the flesh and blood body called <Richard> to use when referring to the flesh and blood body that the name <Richard> appertains to. Would it be better to say: ‘Yes ... Richard is this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. As such, Richard is alive and breathing and until the day Richard dies Richard will continue to make use of the words that existed long before Richard was born ... words like <Richard> and <I> and <me> and <my> and so on. Richard is sure it has not missed your eagle eye that Richard follows the sensible convention of putting the identity pronoun (‘I’ and ‘me’ and ‘my’ and so on) in little quotes so as to forestall confusion. Richard could have said: ‘Richard has 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’? Is this, if not dim-witted, objection of yours a remonstration somehow linked to your re-write of the dictionaries, perchance? * RICHARD: Shall I put it this way? Scenario one (disregarding other peoples): No. 25 and Richard are neighbours; No. 25 nurses malice and sorrow to his breast and Richard nurses malice and sorrow to his breast; No. 25 has to have locks on his doors and bars on his windows and Richard has to have locks on his doors and bars on his windows. Scenario two (disregarding other peoples): No. 25 and Richard are neighbours; No. 25 has freed himself from the human condition and Richard nurses malice and sorrow to his breast; No. 25 has to have locks on his doors and bars on his windows but Richard does not need to have locks on his doors and bars on his windows. Scenario three (disregarding other peoples): No. 25 and Richard are neighbours; No. 25 has freed himself from the human condition and Richard has freed himself from the human condition; No. 25 does not need to have locks on his doors and bars on his windows and Richard does not need to have locks on his doors and bars on his windows. A practical example disposes of the need for images even if the image-maker is still extant. RESPONDENT: Forgive me sir for being inattentive, but please define exactly what you mean by ‘images’ once again. (I ask this because the above sentence reads somewhat like an oxymoron). RICHARD: In the context being discussed, an image is any plan (a strategy contemplated for future activation with reflection on past experience so as to effect the optimum considered result) which is contaminated by an identity skulking about inside the body making it ‘real’ in imagination because of the influence of the entire affective faculty. In another context, an image is ‘who I think and feel I am’ as distinct from what I actually am. In another context, an image is a drawing, a painting, a photograph or any other pictorial representation of the world of people, things and events. In another context, an image is what is seen in a mirror, a sheet of still water, a burnished metal plate and so on. In another context, an image is an undesired radio signal whose frequency is as much above that of the local oscillator of a superheterodyne receiver as the signal sought is below it, and which therefore may cause interference. Which is a similar kind of ‘interference’ to the impediment ‘you’ are causing that prevents these words being read with both eyes. RESPONDENT: I think you are over-modulating your signal, sir. RICHARD: Instead of rushing to the keyboard with only the last sentence impinging upon your consciousness, take the time to re-read the first sentence. It would have saved you from making your preposterous response a little further down this page. RESPONDENT: Not only that, but you are spending far more energy on the transmission of your carrier than you are on ensuring that the signal being carried is worthy of reception. RICHARD: Are you really saying that the communication of a fellow human being’s success in finding peace-on-earth is not worthy of reception? * 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? RESPONDENT: Along with dogs, cats, dolphins, spiders, snakes, mountain lions, birds, plants, rivers, stones, earthquakes, and stars – I can and do (from time to timeless time). RICHARD: There is no such thing as ‘timeless time’ outside of human imagination ... what was that you were saying about an oxymoron? RESPONDENT: I was asking if yours was intentional (mine is). RICHARD: I wrote no oxymoron (either intentionally or unintentionally) and provided a step-by-step explanation of what living without an image-maker can be like. Why did you intentionally use a contradiction in terms (timeless time’) ... given that you lambasted me for such an imagined faux-pas in the <I> versus ‘I’ nomenclature (further above)? * RESPONDENT: This is the magic of youth which many adults lose and then we counterproductively ‘seek’. RICHARD: There never was – or is – any youth that is experiencing the magic of being here now in infinite space and eternal time as the universe’s experience of its infinitude as a sensate and reflective human being as an on-going experiencing ... other than scattered PCE’s every now and then, youth is epitomised by a pseudo-innocence that comes from ignorance (lack of experience). RESPONDENT: Just how is it that you speak with such certainty about the nature of youth? RICHARD: Because:
Do they not care about their fellow human being? * RICHARD: It will blow your mind away, man! RESPONDENT: Yes, but the damn thing re-incarnates and No. 25 is off posting, and ‘all the rest of it’. RICHARD: Why? RESPONDENT: I ask myself that question a lot ... I suppose it (verbal thought) has a great deal of inertia. RICHARD: If your ‘get up and go’ is wanting of energy then try watching/ reading the news bulletins with whatever media you have access to and use your highly valued affective feelings – emotions and passions and calenture – to really, deeply, primally feel all the anguish and animosity inherent in all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides that parades across billions of T. V. screens daily. And try watching/ reading the ‘animals in the wild’ programs so as to see where the human animal shares the common ancestry of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Inertia will become a thing of the dreadful past. RESPONDENT: Also, we are conditioned to equate verbal thought as the ‘survival tool extraordinaire’ – are we not? RICHARD: No ... it is the survival instinct – a genetically inherited collection of instinctual passions – that drive survival. Thought is the only tool that can examine – and thus free one from – these passions in action. * 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’ type 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: It is not oblivious to suffering. RICHARD: Then why is there not action? Why do you wish to remain involved in the ‘mutually beneficial harmonious relationship’ of ‘the predator and the prey’ type relationship that has resulted in 160,000,000 peoples being killed by their fellow human beings in wars this century alone? Is it not that you are ‘oblivious to suffering’ through a mental de-sensitisation process that categorises all the misery and mayhem as being a ‘mutually beneficial harmonious relationship’? RESPONDENT: Again, predators kill prey to eat. RICHARD: Yes, the human animal outlawed cannibalism this century so as to deflect predation away from its own kind for obvious humanitarian reasons. There is progress. RESPONDENT: They kill the sickest and weakest of the prey. This makes the prey population stronger. RICHARD: Indeed ... but this instinctual trait shows up in the human bullying and exploitation of their weaker fellow human beings. Why do you not apply your ‘mutually beneficial harmonious relationship’ of ‘the predator and the prey’ type philosophy to all the wars and murders and so on and see that it is a ‘good thing’ that Mother Nature is doing in wiping out the undignified, the unworthy, the dishonourable and the mediocre to the point of being a pathetic excuse for a human being type of peoples? Like someone infamous in modern history tried to do this century ... he was doing what comes natural, eh? RESPONDENT: The millions of peoples who have died in wars have were not eaten by their killers. RICHARD: Maybe not ‘millions’ ... but the eating of one’s slain enemy was practised up until twenty to thirty years ago (or even later). The indigenous cultures flourishing in the Highlands of New Guinea immediately spring to mind (as this recent example was within my life-time and near-by) but there are many, many other examples. RESPONDENT: Their deaths were therefore pointless. If a predator over-kills a prey population, it thereby suffers by the lack of food. RICHARD: Aye ... and as animals have no intelligence they then starve to death. The human animal, with its ability to reflect, plan and implement considered action can circumvent this natural process and flourish. RESPONDENT: There is a balance here that simply is not present in the human example of war with which you are equating it. RICHARD: Methinks you will find that it is ... I am saying that the same-same instincts drive the human animal as drives the other animals. It is just that you admire these instinctual traits in animals but bemoan human behaviour (driven by these self-same instincts) and persistently blame thought, and the intellect in general, for human beings doing what otherwise comes natural. * RESPONDENT: Pain and anguish are part of life. RICHARD: Hmm ... it is helpful to draw a distinction betwixt physical pain and emotional and mental pain. Physical pain is essential, else one could be sitting on a hot-plate and not know that one’s bum was on fire until one saw the smoke rising. Emotional and mental pain (which is what I indicated by using ‘animosity and anguish’) are totally unnecessary. RESPONDENT: Physical, mental, and emotional pain are all inter-related; you experience such pain when you consider rape and war, although you prefer to call it apperceptive something or other. RICHARD: They are not inter-related at all. The only pain I ever experience is physical pain ... all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides do not mentally or emotionally pain me at all. Through not being a ‘self’ I have no feelings – no affective faculty whatsoever – and no ones’ animosity or anguish touches me at all (there being no ‘one’ to be touched). I do not feel sorry for you – or anyone – for I cannot. I have no compassion whatsoever. RESPONDENT: Because women suffer ‘pain and anguish’ during childbirth (modern drugs to thwart that naturalness not withstanding) women historically have been less prone to the organized murder known as war. RICHARD: Uh huh ... why fight when you have stupefied men to do the fighting for you, eh? And quite often the fighting is instinct-run men fighting over you anyway ... which is quite ego-boosting, would you not say? RESPONDENT: Perhaps it is in that way of looking at it, but isn’t the reason men have been more likely to engage in life threatening activities such as war and hunting due to the fact that males are biologically more expendable gender? RICHARD: Yet females engage in life-threatening activities such as child-birth and defending their young ... why do you wish to make the female more important than the male via dubious theorising? Simply put, an unfertilised ovum is as useless as a spermatozoa all dressed-up but with nowhere to go. Some radical feminists may claim to have at last dispensed with the need for men because of cloning and the dildo ... but the vocal out-pourings of a disgruntled and tiny minority group gaining media publicity because of their desperate philosophical stance does not make a fact go away. The female of any species is born with the same instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire as the male ... do not get sucked into the ‘feminine principle’ (like Mr. Lao Tzu did) through overlooking covert hostility in favour of castigating only the more obvious overt hostility. RESPONDENT: Perhaps it is the unconscious recognition of this fact that make divided from life males prone to violence against the more biologically important gender? RICHARD: Why complicate things with unnecessary theories ... is it not simply the physically stronger bullying the physically weaker? There were official statistics published here in Australia a couple of years ago that showed that while in 94% of the domestic violence cases occasioning bodily harm males were the perpetrators, in 64% of the child abuse cases occasioning bodily harm females were the perpetrators which, whilst still leaving the male overall occasioning much more physical abuse, does point to physical violence being endemic irregardless of gender). But, statistics aside, as the female of any species is born with the same instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire, no female has any greater or easier access to peace-on-earth than males. Also, I do realise that this ‘divided from life’ phrase that you use refers to anyone who will not dumbly submit to their fate ... thus every time that you use it you demonstrate your main objection to being happy and harmless once again. RESPONDENT: They intuitively and experientially are in touch with how much sacrifice goes into creating a life. RICHARD: Aye ... just like men intuitively and experientially are in touch with how much sacrifice goes into preserving kith and kin. RESPONDENT: Males cannot historically compete with females when it comes to sacrifice to preserve kin. RICHARD: If you wish to make that claim then you need to produce the historical evidence and, as I have no intention of gathering the statistics to prove this one way or the other, until you do this impossible feat I will sensibly take it to be 50/50. Besides, are you aware that you have just shot down your own elaborate theory (‘the reason men have been more likely to engage in life threatening activities is that males are biologically more expendable gender’) in your rush to abase yourself before the feminine principle? Tugging the forelock has been a ‘survival tool extraordinaire’ since ancient times. RESPONDENT: So they are thereby less likely to get lost in the ignorance of destroying life without compassion. RICHARD: I cannot resist (it is probably only sentence structure) but are you saying that ‘destroying life without compassion’ is worse than ‘destroying life with compassion’? Then again ... maybe you do mean that? RESPONDENT: See what low denominator we have been sinking too? RICHARD: No ... I have no problem about speaking frankly. 160,000,000 peoples have been killed by their fellow human beings this century in wars alone ... that is what a ‘low denominator’ looks like. I have never made a secret of what is involved in conducting an honest investigation into the human psyche ... it is a situation which calls for a rigorous and vigorous appraisal of the Human Condition. Only a robust discussion will winkle out that which is causing all the animosity and anguish that characterises the human species as being in a parlous state. The 160,000,000 deaths points to the fact that we cannot afford to pussy-foot around in our best parlour manner of polite interest in what motivates the other. Human beings are noted for the horrific suffering that they are capable of inflicting upon one another ... about every conceivable atrocity imaginable has been tried at some place in the world and at some time in history. And yet you see the above exchange as a ‘sinking to a low denominator’? Are you vitally interested in eliminating malice and sorrow and, becoming thus happy and harmless, living in peace and harmony for the remainder of your life? If so, then you will be willing to tell me where you are coming from ... then there will be no more ‘sinking to a low denominator’. Then we may have a genuine discussion. RESPONDENT: What point is there in going on? I am equally guilty here of course. RICHARD: There is plenty of point ... peace-on-earth for starters. What we are engaged in is winkling out your adopted modus operandi so that it can be placed on the table and examined for its obvious flaws. So, are you saying that ‘destroying life without compassion’ (as you say males are more prone to) is worse than ‘destroying life with compassion’ (as you infer females are more likely to)? * RESPONDENT: Generally animals only kill to eat. RICHARD: Dream on ... animals are instinctually-driven by territoriality, just as the human animal is; animals are instinctually-driven to defend their young, just as the human animal is; animals are instinctually-driven to compete to copulate, just as the human animal is. RESPONDENT: Do you not discern between competing and killing? RICHARD: What has this comment got to do with instinctually killing to defend territory; instinctually killing to defend young; and instinctually killing to copulate? RESPONDENT: You may be projecting your own suppressed conflict onto ‘out there’(?) RICHARD: And you may be repeating yourself again soon ... can you not move on past your preconceived notions and actually look at the animal world as-it-is? Just because they do not have spears and bows and arrows and rifles and machine-guns and missiles does not mean that they would not if capable. They are as instinctually-driven with fear and aggression and nurture and desire as the human animal is. RESPONDENT: Haven’t you noticed that thought has exasperated the violence exponentially when it comes to humans? RICHARD: Aye ... but have you noticed that thought cops all the blame whilst the emotions and feelings born of the instinctual passions get either over-looked or exonerated as being ‘natural’? * RESPONDENT: Does not Richard expect his ‘teachings’ to become the ‘Tried and Failed’? If not, why? RICHARD: No, mainly because they are not ‘Teachings’ ... they are an accurate self-report from a fellow human being. You will find that what is written is a factual account 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. And because this is actual ... not a fantasy. It is incredibly difficult to live in an hallucination twenty four hours a day ... which is why only 0.0000001 of the population have become enlightened. An actual freedom – unlike the ineffable ‘Truth’ – can be put into words. Plus, being actual, no charismatic personality is required to keep it ‘alive’. RESPONDENT: Great, then I suspect that Life on Earth is headed to Utopia thanks to Richard (?) RICHARD: No ... it depends entirely on persons like you. At the moment Richard is a freak. * RESPONDENT: Thanks for your seriousness. RICHARD: I do not know how to be serious ... I have no sense of responsibility whatsoever. Life is fun. RESPONDENT: Then play on! (words borrowed from Fleetwood Mac/Peter Green). RICHARD: I will ... and all this while you will carry on ‘being serious’ (words borrowed from Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti), eh?
CORRESPONDENT No. 25 (Part Five) RETURN TO CORRESPONDENCE LIST ‘B’ INDEX RETURN TO RICHARD’S CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
Richard's Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved.
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