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Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’ with Respondent No. 25
KONRAD: Good luck! RICHARD: I neither need ‘good luck’ nor does ‘luck’ exist outside of passionate human imagination. What I am today is the result of eleven years of diligence, application, patience, perseverance, determination and much internal and external observation, investigation, uncovering and discovering. I know where I am at, where I came from and how I got here. RESPONDENT No. 12: Pay for View Special – $25.00; Richard knowledge vs. Konrad knowledge. Tonight at 9 P.M. RESPONDENT: Is there a web-site or 1-800 number where I can purchase a ‘Richard the cry-baby-crusher’ or a ‘Konrad the building-block-piler’ t-shirt? I should like to have both! P. S. You gotta problem with wrestling or something? RICHARD: It is obviously much easier to vilify from the peanut gallery, when presented with that which one does not understand (and without knowing that one does not understand or why), than thinking through the why’s and wherefore’s of the performance for oneself. Yet this is a Mailing List purportedly set-up to investigate and explore into the appalling mess that is the human condition.
RESPONDENT: Is there a web-site or 1-800 number where I can purchase a ‘Richard the cry-baby-crusher’ or a ‘Konrad the building-block-piler’ t-shirt? I should like to have both! P. S. You gotta problem with wrestling or something? RICHARD: It is obviously much easier to vilify from the peanut gallery, when presented with that which one does not understand (and without knowing that one does not understand or why), than thinking through the why’s and wherefore’s of the performance for oneself. Yet this is a Mailing List purportedly set-up to investigate and explore into the appalling mess that is the human condition. RESPONDENT: I agree with you. RICHARD: It is obviously much easier to be agreeable, from the peanut gallery, when presented with a reflection of one’s feelings and thoughts and actions than thinking through the why’s and wherefore’s of the feedback for oneself. RESPONDENT: But how do you know the comparative ease of heckling from the peanut gallery ‘when presented with that which one does not understand’? RICHARD: Because I was run by both an ‘ego’ and a ‘soul’ for thirty four years – and by a ‘soul’ only for another eleven years – and thus I know intimately what it is like to be cynical. The ‘I’ that I was then did not want to look at ‘my’ instinctual passions or ‘my’ sorrowful and malicious feelings or ‘my’ corrupted thoughts or identity-controlled actions and behaviour at all. ‘I’ was a normal man, well bought-up and educated, a decent and responsible citizen. ‘I’ was what is called ‘happily married’ with four ‘lovely children’ owning ‘my’ own house and running ‘my’ own business successfully. People who were into things like what is discussed on this Mailing List were the ‘lunatic fringe’ and were not worth even listening to. All that ‘Peace On Earth’ stuff was just ‘pie-in-the-sky’ idealism ... ‘I’ knew better than they. Which is: if only other people would stop doing ... [insert whatever complaint here ] ... then all would be well. Well ... ‘I’ had an experience that showed me what ‘I’ was. ‘I’ was nothing but a lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning entity inside this flesh and blood body. So ‘I’ acted upon this ... and here I am today. I am simply passing on to my fellow human beings my experience of life. What they do with this information is their business ... I simply explain how I ended suffering in myself. One of the triggers that started me on this voyage into my psyche was the realisation that human beings are driven to kill their fellow human beings ... and I was one of them. Now I am not ... and I can easily see when another is being a dilettante while they cannot. It is your life you are leading and I can only suggest ... what you do with my suggestions is entirely up to you. As long as you comply with the legal laws and observe the social protocol, you are left alone to live your life as wisely or as foolishly as you choose RESPONDENT: I take it humour is one of the things you’ve cut all attachments to? RICHARD: You see ... this comment demonstrates that what I am writing (above) is correct. We have corresponded before, you and I, and you show here once again that you have not taken the slightest notice of my report about how I experience being here: I have not ‘cut all attachments’ to anything ... let alone humour. I do not and never have, practiced detachment. To practice detachment is to be twice-removed from actuality. RESPONDENT: If so, please do not be dissuaded by my fool-hearty posts. I am listening ... RICHARD: Hmm ... ‘listening’ to what? Maybe your ‘listening’ is somewhat akin the ‘looking’ of Mr. Narcissus? RESPONDENT: ... even if the instrument which I am is not ‘quite-quite’. From one to another. RICHARD: Uh-huh ... but please include me out of your self-description.
RICHARD: It is obviously much easier to be agreeable, from the peanut gallery, when presented with a reflection of one’s feelings and thoughts and actions than thinking through the why’s and wherefore’s of the feedback for oneself. RESPONDENT: This list is whatever we make it. You appear to use it to discuss what you consider to be your unique arrival to a point of ascendance to which few, if any, other humans have gone before. RICHARD: In eighteen years of scouring the books and travelling overseas and discussing the matter with others, no one else, as far as I have been able to ascertain, experiences what I experience ... therefore it is unique, yes. The only person who comes close is Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti whom I found out about last year when I first came onto the Internet. But he does not know what happened to him and has no solutions to offer. He is simply a curiosity to those who go to see him. He states that he is a ‘never to be repeated sport of nature’. Whereas I know where I came from and where I am at and how I got here. Of course this is what I talk about ... given that this is a Mailing List purportedly set-up to investigate and explore into the appalling mess that is the human condition. Do you have some objection to me sharing my unique and on-going experiencing with my fellow human beings? RESPONDENT: You seem to use Krishnamurti as a stepping stone in your ‘spiritual’ ascent. RICHARD: Firstly, there is no religiosity, spirituality, mysticality or metaphysicality in me whatsoever ... an actual freedom from the human condition is a non-spiritual and down-to-earth freedom. Secondly, when I first came onto this Mailing List I said what I wanted to say ... my words clearly did not ‘use Krishnamurti as a stepping stone’. I wrote twenty eight posts describing my experiences before I mentioned his name or referred to him at all. Then I wrote this: Viz.:
I wrote seventy nine posts before the following exchange took place. Viz.:
Other posters quickly jumped in quoting words, phrases and whole paragraphs spoken or written by Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti. What was I to do? Agree with them? Pretend that they did not quote them? Or use them to substantiate my point? Since you seem to consider that I am ‘using Krishnamurti as a stepping stone’ you must know what I should have done and what I should be doing. Will you tell me what the suitable course of action should be? RESPONDENT: I responded to No. 12’s humorous post because to me what you contribute here smacks of delusion, of false and contradictory claims. RICHARD: So as to substantiate your statements, would you care to demonstrate where I am deluded; where I am false; where I am contradictory? Either that or withdraw your easy-to-say throwaway lines. RESPONDENT: I intuit in you no unique achievement, what is worse, I sense a person who takes a condescending approach to this list. RICHARD: As intuition has a well-documented track-record of being incorrect 50% of the time (the same odds as guessing) then I have no compelling necessity to take the slightest bit of notice of your intuitively-drawn conclusion that I ‘take a condescending approach to this list’. RESPONDENT: I may of course be completely wrong. RICHARD: There is no ‘may’ about it ... you are hopelessly wrong. RESPONDENT: I may have the sour grapes syndrome and envy your special status ... RICHARD: I have no opinion about what is happening internally for you ... only you can know your every thought and feeling and impulse. RESPONDENT: ... but all I hear in you are the psychologically-based ... RICHARD: No ... factually-based. RESPONDENT: ... ambitious ... RICHARD: I have no ambition whatsoever ... all desire is null and void. RESPONDENT: ... complex articulations ... RICHARD: No ... erudite expressiveness. RESPONDENT: ... of one who is eclipsing the connection with peace. RICHARD: Bingo! And because of this, finally there is a genuine chance for peace-on-earth ... not that spurious and self-centred after-death ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’ that is one’s post-mortem reward for humbling oneself in pathetic surrender to some passionately imagined ‘Higher Power’ and/or ‘Intelligence’. * RESPONDENT: But how do you know the comparative ease of heckling from the peanut gallery ‘when presented with that which one does not understand’? RICHARD: Because I was run by both an ‘ego’ and a ‘soul’ for thirty four years – and by a ‘soul’ only for another eleven years – and thus I know intimately what it is like to be cynical. The ‘I’ that I was then did not want to look at ‘my’ instinctual passions or ‘my’ sorrowful and malicious feelings or ‘my’ corrupted thoughts or identity-controlled actions and behaviour at all. ‘I’ was a normal man, well bought-up and educated, a decent and responsible citizen. ‘I’ was what is called ‘happily married’ with four ‘lovely children’ owning ‘my’ own house and running ‘my’ own business successfully. People who were into things like what is discussed on this Mailing List were the ‘lunatic fringe’ and were not worth even listening to. All that ‘Peace On Earth’ stuff was just ‘pie-in-the-sky’ idealism ... ‘I’ knew better than they. Which is: if only other people would stop doing ... [insert whatever complaint here ] ... then all would be well. Well ... ‘I’ had an experience that showed me what ‘I’ was. ‘I’ was nothing but a lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning entity inside this flesh and blood body. So ‘I’ acted upon this ... and here I am today. I am simply passing on to my fellow human beings my experience of life. What they do with this information is their business ... I simply explain how I ended suffering in myself. One of the triggers that started me on this voyage into my psyche was the realisation that human beings are driven to kill their fellow human beings ... and I was one of them. Now I am not ... and I can easily see when another is being a dilettante while they cannot. It is your life you are leading and I can only suggest ... what you do with my suggestions is entirely up to you. As long as you comply with the legal laws and observe the social protocol, you are left alone to live your life as wisely or as foolishly as you choose. RESPONDENT: It sounds as though you had an atypical experience in which the psychological division of the ‘me’ was seen as the illusion which it is. RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: But, that moment is gone. RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: Can we leave the past aside ... RICHARD: Why? RESPONDENT: ... and look at the situation anew? RICHARD: How? RESPONDENT: And do so in simple language as No. 31 has requested? RICHARD: Yet the English language has upwards of 650,000 words in it. Do you really suggest that I restrict myself to the usual 4,000 to 6,000 that is the extent of the vocabulary of the average person? If so, why? Must all peoples remain semi-illiterate just because peoples like yourself find linguistic expressiveness to be difficult for those lacking the gumption to flex their minds with accurate descriptions? RESPONDENT: Where would you, given that you feel you have something to share with those who would but listen, suggest we begin? RICHARD: Simple. I would begin where I began when I first came to this Mailing List. Viz.:
RESPONDENT: Above you mention that you acted upon the lonely, lost, frightened, cunning entity you were and that you acted upon it. Please, slowly – with patience – describe what you mean by ‘So ‘I’ acted upon this’. Who was the entity which acted upon this? RICHARD: The entity is known as ‘I’ as ego ... at the instant ‘I’ saw ‘myself’, an action that was not of ‘my’ doing occurred, and I was not that identity. It all happened of its own accord as a direct result of the ‘seeing’ ... and I was this very material universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. I was living in this fairy-tale-like actual world, that all carbon-based life-forms live in (and all peoples could be aware of if only they actualised it), which has the quality of a magical perfection and purity; everything and everyone has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, wondrous 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 – because we do not live in an inert universe. The infinitude that this very material universe is, is epitomised apperceptively as an immaculate consummation that has always been here, is always here and will always be here. Thus nothing is ‘going wrong’, has ever been ‘going wrong’ and will never be ‘going wrong’. This was what ‘I’ had been searching for – for 33 years – and the joke was that ‘I’ had not known that this is what ‘I’ had been searching for! Thus, when I reverted back to normal in the ‘real world’, ‘I’ knew, with the solid and irrefutable certainty of direct experience, that ‘I’ was standing in the way of the actual being apparent ... and ‘I’ had to go – become extinct – and not try to become something ‘better’. That is, ‘I’ just knew that ‘I’ could never, ever become perfect or be perfection. It was flagrantly evident that the only thing ‘I’ could do – the only thing ‘I’ had to do – was die (psychologically and psychically self-immolate) so that the already always existing perfection could become apparent. Which is what ‘I’ did. RESPONDENT: Could you give some examples of how your daily life changed (not in terms of how others saw you, but how you saw life and the ‘mess’ that is the human condition? RICHARD: I know by direct experiencing each moment again that all malice and sorrow are feelings and are not, therefore, actual. They may be real – very real at times – but they are not actual. The direct results of having these feelings – these emotions and passions and calentures – are acted out in this actual world in the form of wars, murders, rapes, domestic violence, child abuse, suicides and so on ... but all these actions are unnecessary. They all stem from feelings ... and emotions and passions and calentures are self-induced (‘I’ am passion and passion is ‘me’) and, as such, can be eliminated. Then there is peace-on-earth. Have you never been deep in a rain-forest ... or any wilderness, for that matter? Have you ever, as you have travelled deeper and deeper into this other world of natural delight, ever experienced an intensely hushed stillness that is vast and immense yet so simply here? I am not referring to a feeling of awe or reverence or great beauty – to have any emotion or passion at all is to miss the actuality of this moment – nor am I referring to any blissful or euphoric or rapturous state of being. It is a sensate experience, not an affective state. I am talking about the factual and simple actualness of earthy existence being experienced whilst ambling along without any particular thought in mind ... yet not being mindless either. And then, when a sparkling intimacy occurs, do not the woods take on a fairy-tale-like quality? Is one not in a paradisiacal environment that envelops yet leaves one free? This is the peace that I speak of. At this magical moment there is no ‘I’ in the head or ‘me’ in the heart ... there is this apperceptive awareness wherein thought can operate freely without the encumbrance of any feelings whatsoever. It is not my peace nor yours ... yet it is here for everyone and anyone for the asking ... for the daring to be here as this body only. One does this by stepping out of the real world into this actual world, as this flesh and blood body, leaving your ‘self’ behind where ‘you’ belong ... in the litigious ‘Land of Lament’. This peace-on-earth delivers the goods so longed for through aeons. RESPONDENT: By going into this action you took, you will present the opportunity for me to see how your words ‘I was run by an ego and soul’ strike a chord in my own experience of life on earth. RICHARD: Has this been of any assistance? * RESPONDENT: I take it humour is one of the things you’ve cut all attachments to? RICHARD: You see ... this comment demonstrates that what I am writing (above) is correct. We have corresponded before, you and I, and you show here once again that you have not taken the slightest notice of my report about how I experience being here: I have not ‘cut all attachments’ to anything ... let alone humour. I do not and never have, practiced detachment. To practice detachment is to be twice-removed from actuality. RESPONDENT: Forgive me for not bothering to ask my question specifically in your terminology. RICHARD: It is not a matter of merely re-arranging terminology ... it is what the terminology accurately describes that is important. Please, do not brush aside my report about how I experience being here as merely my ‘terminology’ ... because I most sincerely mean it when I say that I have not ‘cut all attachments’ to anything ... let alone humour. I do not and never have, practiced detachment. To practice detachment is to be twice-removed from actuality. I will say it again for emphasis (and it is not just a ‘terminology’ difference): To practice detachment is to be twice-removed from actuality. RESPONDENT: Your posts tend to be so full of words that I usually feel you are more self-absorbed than actually serious. RICHARD: I do not know how to be serious ... I have no sense of responsibility whatsoever. The utter reliability of being always happy and harmless replaces the galling burden of being serious ... actuality’s blithe sincerity dispenses with the onerous responsibility that epitomises adulthood. Life is fun. RESPONDENT: The gist of what I am asking is if you see humour as a waste of time? Do you laugh? What types of things do you laugh about? RICHARD: Humour is not a waste of time and I laugh a lot ... there is so much that is irrepressibly funny about life itself. Strangely enough I find that I enjoy black humour; whereas the ‘I’ that I was could not ... ‘he’ found it repulsive and sickening. Nevertheless, the humour I enjoy most is that which lampoons puffed-up power and its authority. For example:
Although it looks superficially to be a sexist joke it is not ... the reverse would hold true for a matriarchal society. Human frailty exposes the lie of power. What I do find funny – in a peculiar way – is that I often gain the impression when I speak to others, that I am spoiling their game-plan. It seems as if they wish to search forever ... some people consider arriving to be boring. How can unconditional peace and happiness, twenty-four-hours-a-day, possibly be boring? Is a carefree life all that difficult to comprehend? Why persist in a sick game ... and defend one’s right to do so? Why insist on suffering when blitheness is freely available here and now? Is a life of perennial gaiety something to be scorned? I have even had people say, accusingly, that I could not possibly be happy when there is so much suffering going on in the world. The logic of this defies credibility: Am I to wait until everybody else is happy before I am? If I was to wait, I would be waiting forever ... for under this twisted rationale, no one would dare to be the first to be happy. Their peculiar reasoning allows only for a mass happiness to occur globally; overnight success, as it were. Someone has to be intrepid enough to be first, to show what is possible to a benighted humanity ... one has to face the opprobrium of one’s ill-informed peers. Thus one definitely needs to have a keen sense of humour ... all that ‘being serious’ stuff actively works against peace-on-earth. Be totally sincere ... most definitely utterly sincere, as genuineness is essential. But serious ... no way. An actual freedom is all about having fun; about enjoying being here; about delighting in being alive. One has to want to be here on this planet ... most people resent being here and wish to escape. This business of becoming free is not – contrary to popular opinion – a serious business at all. RESPONDENT: My comment about the t-shirts was intended to be humorous, but you were evidently offended by them. RICHARD: I never take offence ... and perhaps you could point out the humour in a line that says ‘Is there a web-site or 1-800 number where I can purchase a ‘Richard the cry-baby-crusher’ or a ‘Konrad the building-block-piler’ t-shirt?’ RESPONDENT: I am sorry you found my words offensive, but I do not take you as seriously as you take yourself. RICHARD: All I said was a statement of fact: ‘It is obviously much easier to vilify from the peanut gallery, when presented with that which one does not understand (and without knowing that one does not understand or why), than thinking through the why’s and wherefore’s of the performance for oneself. Yet this is a Mailing List purportedly set-up to investigate and explore into the appalling mess that is the human condition’. * RESPONDENT: If so, please do not be dissuaded by my fool-hearty posts. I am listening ... RICHARD: Hmm ... ‘listening’ to what? Maybe your ‘listening’ is somewhat akin the ‘looking’ of Mr. Narcissus? RESPONDENT: Yes, and so is yours here. RICHARD: Ahh ... a sort of ‘tit for tat’ response, eh? A bit childish, non? RESPONDENT: Perhaps you should listen to the reflection of yourself going by the label No. 25? RICHARD: No way are you a reflection of me ... and when you have something original to say I will sit up and take notice. RESPONDENT: ... even if the instrument which I am is not ‘quite-quite’. From one to another. RICHARD: Uh-huh ... but please include me out of your self-description. RESPONDENT: Sorry, I did not know we were divided. RICHARD: Ha ... nice try, No. 25 ... nice try indeed.
RESPONDENT: Is there a web-site or 1-800 number where I can purchase a ‘Richard the cry-baby-crusher’ or a ‘Konrad the building-block-piler’ t-shirt? I should like to have both! P. S. You gotta problem with wrestling or something? RICHARD: It is obviously much easier to vilify from the peanut gallery, when presented with that which one does not understand (and without knowing that one does not understand or why), than thinking through the why’s and wherefore’s of the performance for oneself. Yet this is a Mailing List purportedly set-up to investigate and explore into the appalling mess that is the human condition. RESPONDENT: I agree with you. RICHARD: It is obviously much easier to be agreeable, from the peanut gallery, when presented with a reflection of one’s feelings and thoughts and actions than thinking through the why’s and wherefore’s of the feedback for oneself. RESPONDENT: This list is whatever we make it. You appear to use it to discuss what you consider to be your unique arrival to a point of ascendance to which few, if any, other humans have gone before. RICHARD: In eighteen years of scouring the books and travelling overseas and discussing the matter with others, no one else, as far as I have been able to ascertain, experiences what I experience ... therefore it is unique, yes. The only person who comes close is Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti whom I found out about last year when I first came onto the Internet. But he does not know what happened to him and has no solutions to offer. He is simply a curiosity to those who go to see him. He states that he is a ‘never to be repeated sport of nature’. Whereas I know where I came from and where I am at and how I got here. Of course this is what I talk about ... given that this is a Mailing List purportedly set-up to investigate and explore into the appalling mess that is the human condition. Do you have some objection to me sharing my unique and on-going experiencing with my fellow human beings? RESPONDENT: My problem is that you focus on the person Richard, or K, or X. RICHARD: No, I focus upon the person who goes by the name ‘No. 25’ ... it is ‘he’ who is the spanner in the works. RESPONDENT: Richard and No. 25 have no significance at all. RICHARD: If I may point out? Mentally dismissing ‘No. 25’ does nothing whatsoever to eliminate ‘his’ significance. RESPONDENT: If we are to really communicate in a way deeper than the typical ‘me’ behind my psychological ‘wall’ talking to you behind yours RICHARD: Why do you insist that I be like you? I am speaking directly; up-front; out-in-the-open; no psychological wall whatsoever; no psychic wall; no separation at all; utterly intimate. RESPONDENT: To talk of the person only tempts the discussion to dwell in images. RICHARD: The person (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) that lurks around inside the flesh and blood body that answers to the name <No. 25> is no mere ‘image’ to be dismissed so cavalierly ... ‘he’ is the spanner in the works. RESPONDENT: Why cannot we speak of life as it is for any human being? RICHARD: Why are ‘you’ avoiding scrutiny by duck-shoving the problem of onto other human beings (even if it be true for them too)? RESPONDENT: The advantage being that then the (psychological) divisions which have always divided humans and led to war can be left out so that we do not have to contend with the symptoms of ‘me’-focused living. RICHARD: Or, rather: ‘The advantage being that then the (psychological) division which has always divided ‘No. 25’ and led to malice and sorrow can be left out so that ‘No. 25’ does not have to contend with the symptoms of ‘No. 25’-focused living. RESPONDENT: Not that we cannot discuss personal experiences. RICHARD: Oh? Yet you do seem to be avoiding doing just that like all get-out? RESPONDENT: But let us not give past personal experience any authority whatsoever. RICHARD: Let me see if I have got this straight: am I to pretend that it never happened? Am I to pretend that the entity (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) is still lurking about in this body that answers to the name <Richard> ... just to satisfy your desire for an equal discussion? RESPONDENT: Otherwise it is a game of follow the leader in which we are all lost. RICHARD: You do seem to be big on this ‘we’ business ... why not speak for yourself? Which means it now reads like this: ‘let us not give past personal experience any authority whatsoever otherwise it is a game of follow the leader in which ‘No. 25’ is lost’ . Speaking personally, in 1981 the ‘I’ that was in this body gave that PCE the ultimate authority – it was a direct experiencing of the purity of the perfection of the actual – and thus, when I reverted back to normal in the ‘real world’, ‘I’ knew, with the solid and irrefutable certainty of direct experience, that ‘I’ was standing in the way of the actual being apparent ... and ‘I’ had to go – become extinct – and not try to become something ‘better’. That is, ‘I’ just knew that ‘I’ could never, ever become perfect or be perfection. It was flagrantly evident that the only thing ‘I’ could do – the only thing ‘I’ had to do – was die (psychologically and psychically self-immolate) so that the already always existing perfection could become apparent. Which is what ‘I’ did ... ‘I’ got lost; finished; kaput; finito; dead; extinct. Why would you rather follow the authority of a known ‘spanner in the works’ called ‘No. 25’ than the authority of direct experience? * RESPONDENT: You seem to use Krishnamurti as a stepping stone in your ‘spiritual’ ascent. RICHARD: Firstly, there is no religiosity, spirituality, mysticality or metaphysicality in me whatsoever ... an actual freedom from the human condition is a non-spiritual and down-to-earth freedom. Secondly, when I first came onto this Mailing List I said what I wanted to say ... my words clearly did not ‘use Krishnamurti as a stepping stone’. I wrote twenty eight posts describing my experiences before I mentioned his name or referred to him at all. Then I wrote this: Viz.: <SNIP> I wrote seventy nine posts before the following exchange took place. Viz.: <SNIP> Other posters quickly jumped in quoting words, phrases and whole paragraphs spoken or written by Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti. What was I to do? Agree with them? Pretend that they did not quote them? Or use them to substantiate my point? Since you seem to consider that I am ‘using Krishnamurti as a stepping stone’ you must know what I should have done and what I should be doing. Will you tell me what the suitable course of action should be? RESPONDENT: Let us leave K and Richard aside and discuss the topic of the mess we are in ... RICHARD: But I am not in a mess. RESPONDENT: ... or freedom (which is really the same discussion, right?) Who says something is immaterial. What the description is describing is the whole concern. RICHARD: Indeed ... I am describing the already always existing peace-on-earth ... whereas Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti is describing a metaphysical after-death Eternal Peace (by whatever name). Mr. Gotama the Sakyan called it the ‘Deathless’ ... surely that description gives you the clue as to which peace is actual and which peace is fantasy? * RESPONDENT: I responded to No. 12’s humorous post because to me what you contribute here smacks of delusion, of false and contradictory claims. RICHARD: So as to substantiate your statements, would you care to demonstrate where I am deluded; where I am false; where I am contradictory? Either that or withdraw your easy-to-say throwaway lines. RESPONDENT: This is not a court your honour (oops.) My statements must stand or fall on their own. RICHARD: Are you really saying that you can state any unsubstantiated thing that you like ... and there is to be no demonstration? No examination? No validation? No investigation? No exploration? And you fondly think that this is then a discussion? A dialogue? An exploration into the appalling mess that is the human condition? Are you for real? RESPONDENT: You are free to dismiss them. RICHARD: Why? RESPONDENT: It seems to me that you say you imply that you are free of pride, and yet most of your talks here are about you the person having achieved enlightenment or whatever. RICHARD: No, not ‘enlightenment’ ... an actual freedom; the genuine article; the real McCoy. And, yes, ‘me’ the person that was did all the work ... I did nothing. Therefore I can take no credit, nor preen myself in any way whatsoever, for what ‘he’ did. Because ‘he’ knew that ‘he’ would never find the ultimate fulfilment for ‘he’ was standing in the way of the ‘Mystery of Life’ being revealed. There was no way out, ‘he’ was doomed and ‘he’ knew ‘he’ must, inevitably, cease to ‘be’. Instead of bemoaning ‘his’ fate and vainly searching for an escape, ‘he’ saw ‘himself’ for what ‘he’ was. This seeing was the beginning of the ending of ‘him’. The extinction of ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul (which was ‘him’ as ‘being’) was the ultimate sacrifice ‘he’ could make to ensure the possibility of peace-on-earth for not only me but for all humankind. Thus, I find myself here, thanks to ‘him’, in the world as-it-is. A vast stillness lies all around, abounding with purity. Beneficence, an active kindness, overflows in all directions, imbuing everything with unimaginable fairytale-like quality. For me to be able to be here now at all was a blessing that only ‘he’ could grant, because nobody else could do it for me. I am full of admiration for ‘he’ that dared to do such a thing. I owe all that I experience now to ‘him’. I salute ‘his’ audacity. And what an adventure it was ... and still is. These are the wondrous workings of the exquisite quality of life. RESPONDENT: If you were really so aware, would you not be more interested in saying things in a way less adversarial? RICHARD: If you can show me how to publicly proclaim that everybody – all 6.0 billion now living and maybe 4.0 billion now dead – are and have been 180 degrees wrong for millennia, without it being adversarial, then you have gained my interest. I do so look forward to your input ... was your ‘Richard the cry-baby-crusher’ and ‘Konrad the building-block-piler’ line a shining example of how I should ‘say things in a way less adversarial’ , then? RESPONDENT: You do not seem interested in co-operation at all – evidently because of your insistence that you do not stoop to the level of others who are in what you claim to be your former state. RICHARD: How would it help for me to pretend that I experience life the same way as you and 6.0 billion other people do? * RESPONDENT: I intuit in you no unique achievement, what is worse, I sense a person who takes a condescending approach to this list. I may of course be completely wrong. RICHARD: There is no ‘may’ about it ... you are hopelessly wrong. RESPONDENT: And you are hopelessly certain. RICHARD: No ... completely certain; absolutely certain; utterly certain. This has been going-on, night and day; seven days a week; fifty two weeks a year; year after year. How much longer do you advise me to wait until it becomes obvious that you know better than I do how I experience my life each moment again? RESPONDENT: I may have the sour grapes syndrome and envy your special status ... but all I hear in you are the psychologically-based, ambitious, complex articulations ... RICHARD: No ... erudite expressiveness. RESPONDENT: Recently you changed the famous quote: ‘those who fail to learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them’ into the rather silly: [Richard]: ‘Whosoever scorns the lessons of history, with a mimicked disdain for knowledge, commit themselves to doggedly re-making the blunders of their illustrious predecessors’. This is text book bad writing because you lose your audience by being more concerned with showcasing the puffed-up importance you acquire through complex pontificating over using words as vehicles (rather than as side shows). RICHARD: But I do not hold that Post-Modernist belief (a legacy of Mr. Ludwig Wittgenstein) about words ... nor your borrowed belief. The words ‘computer monitor’, for example, descriptively refers to this actual glass and plastic object that performs certain prescribed functions throughout the world. It is strange how more than a few people get entranced – or hung-up – on words and sentences (linguistics) ... some fascination with the mode of description and the describer, I guess, instead of looking at what the word describes. A coffee cup, for another example, is precisely what the words say: a coffee cup. I cannot look at the object that the word describes without seeing that it is what it is. I was chatting with a chap the other day of the school that maintains that ‘the word was not the thing’ who looked surprised when I said that I cannot separate the two. After some rather fruitless discussion I settled the matter simply: I asked how his cup of tea was going ... would he like a re-fill? He said he would and as I was pouring it out I asked him if he would like a wheelbarrow to go with it ... and a ‘digestive wheelbarrow’ at that (I was referring to the plate of biscuits I was holding in my other hand, of course). He was caught off-balance because we were doing the ‘social niceties’ (or so he thought) and he had ceased investigating life, the universe and what it is to be a human being. He looked long and hard at the ‘wheelbarrow’ I was offering and saw something fundamental to perception. If you were to get your head out of those metaphysical clouds and come down-to-earth, you would find that the words ‘mimicked disdain for knowledge’ and ‘doggedly re-making the blunders of their illustrious predecessors’ are not ‘side shows’ at all. They are the main event on this Mailing List. RESPONDENT: [All I hear in you are the psychologically-based, ambitious, complex articulations] of one who is eclipsing the connection with peace. RICHARD: Bingo! And because of this, finally there is a genuine chance for peace-on-earth ... not that spurious and self-centred after-death ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’ that is one’s post-mortem reward for humbling oneself in pathetic surrender to some passionately imagined ‘Higher Power’ and/or ‘Intelligence’. RESPONDENT: Hello? (I am no ordinary fool – I am an extra-ordinary one). RICHARD: Yep ... no need to look so surprised as we have corresponded before, you and I, on this very matter. I am denouncing (being adversarial about) the highly revered religious and/or spiritual and/or mystical and/or metaphysical after-death peace. * RESPONDENT: But how do you know the comparative ease of heckling from the peanut gallery ‘when presented with that which one does not understand’? RICHARD: Because I was run by both an ‘ego’ and a ‘soul’ for thirty four years – and by a ‘soul’ only for another eleven years – and thus I know intimately what it is like to be cynical. The ‘I’ that I was then did not want to look at ‘my’ instinctual passions or ‘my’ sorrowful and malicious feelings or ‘my’ corrupted thoughts or identity-controlled actions and behaviour at all. ‘I’ was a normal man, well bought-up and educated, a decent and responsible citizen. ‘I’ was what is called ‘happily married’ with four ‘lovely children’ owning ‘my’ own house and running ‘my’ own business successfully. People who were into things like what is discussed on this Mailing List were the ‘lunatic fringe’ and were not worth even listening to. All that ‘Peace On Earth’ stuff was just ‘pie-in-the-sky’ idealism ... ‘I’ knew better than they. Which is: if only other people would stop doing ... [insert whatever complaint here ] ... then all would be well. Well ... ‘I’ had an experience that showed me what ‘I’ was. ‘I’ was nothing but a lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning entity inside this flesh and blood body. So ‘I’ acted upon this ... and here I am today. I am simply passing on to my fellow human beings my experience of life. What they do with this information is their business ... I simply explain how I ended suffering in myself. One of the triggers that started me on this voyage into my psyche was the realisation that human beings are driven to kill their fellow human beings ... and I was one of them. Now I am not ... and I can easily see when another is being a dilettante while they cannot. It is your life you are leading and I can only suggest ... what you do with my suggestions is entirely up to you. As long as you comply with the legal laws and observe the social protocol, you are left alone to live your life as wisely or as foolishly as you choose. RESPONDENT: It sounds as though you had an atypical experience in which the psychological division of the ‘me’ was seen as the illusion which it is. RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: But, that moment is gone. RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: Can we leave the past aside ... RICHARD: Why? RESPONDENT: So that we might look with fresh eyes. RICHARD: Ignore the evidence of history, you mean? RESPONDENT: Are you too attached to that ‘experience’ to stop clinging to it and identifying with it? RICHARD: Whoa-up there! You ask me to explain myself ... and when I do you tell me not to do it! On top of that you come out with your stock-standard grade school ‘you are attached’ meaningless put-down that you are so prone to apply. May I ask? What do you hope to achieve by such dead tactics? RESPONDENT: ... and look at the situation anew? RICHARD: How? RESPONDENT: By starting from scratch. RICHARD: Hokey-dokey ... over to you then. Will you please ‘start from scratch’ so as to show me how I can become free of the human condition (as evidenced in a PCE rather than a theoretical or hypothetical read-from-a-dead-man’s-book freedom) without me remembering that I had one or without me using this pristine experiencing of the perfection that is the infinitude of this very material universe as (shudder) the authority (shudder) over ‘me’ and ‘my’ mewlings? RESPONDENT: And do so in simple language as No. 31 has requested? RICHARD: Yet the English language has upwards of 650,000 words in it. Do you really suggest that I restrict myself to the usual 4,000 to 6,000 that is the extent of the vocabulary of the average person? If so, why? Must all peoples remain semi-illiterate just because peoples like yourself find linguistic expressiveness to be difficult for those lacking the gumption to flex their minds with accurate descriptions? RESPONDENT: Well, I am not interested in verbal acrobatics. You seem to be a verbal ‘hot-dog’ (show-off (?). RICHARD: I write as I do so as to attract attention ... and it works. I have your attention, do I not? * RESPONDENT: Above you mention that you acted upon the lonely, lost, frightened, cunning entity you were and that you acted upon it. Please, slowly – with patience – describe what you mean by ‘So ‘I’ acted upon this’. Who was the entity which acted upon this? RICHARD: The entity is known as ‘I’ as ego ... at the instant ‘I’ saw ‘myself’, an action that was not of ‘my’ doing occurred, and I was not that identity. It all happened of its own accord as a direct result of the ‘seeing’ ... and I was this very material universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. I was living in this fairy-tale-like actual world, that all carbon-based life-forms live in (and all peoples could be aware of if only they actualised it), which has the quality of a magical perfection and purity; everything and everyone has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, wondrous 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 – because we do not live in an inert universe. The infinitude that this very material universe is, is epitomised apperceptively as an immaculate consummation that has always been here, is always here and will always be here. Thus nothing is ‘going wrong’, has ever been ‘going wrong’ and will never be ‘going wrong’. This was what ‘I’ had been searching for – for 33 years – and the joke was that ‘I’ had not known that this is what ‘I’ had been searching for! RESPONDENT: This experience is far more common than you seem to be aware of. RICHARD: Oh yes ... everybody that I have spoken to at length has had at least one PCE in their life. It is truly global in its incidence. RESPONDENT: Could you give some examples of how your daily life changed (not in terms of how others saw you, but how you saw life and the ‘mess’ that is the human condition? RICHARD: I know by direct experiencing each moment again that all malice and sorrow are feelings and are not, therefore, actual. They may be real – very real at times – but they are not actual. The direct results of having these feelings – these emotions and passions and calentures – are acted out in this actual world in the form of wars, murders, rapes, domestic violence, child abuse, suicides and so on ... but all these actions are unnecessary. They all stem from feelings ... and emotions and passions and calentures are self-induced (‘I’ am passion and passion is ‘me’) and, as such, can be eliminated. Then there is peace-on-earth. Have you never been deep in a rain-forest ... or any wilderness, for that matter? Have you ever, as you have travelled deeper and deeper into this other world of natural delight, ever experienced an intensely hushed stillness that is vast and immense yet so simply here? I am not referring to a feeling of awe or reverence or great beauty – to have any emotion or passion at all is to miss the actuality of this moment – nor am I referring to any blissful or euphoric or rapturous state of being. It is a sensate experience, not an affective state. I am talking about the factual and simple actualness of earthy existence being experienced whilst ambling along without any particular thought in mind ... yet not being mindless either. And then, when a sparkling intimacy occurs, do not the woods take on a fairy-tale-like quality? Is one not in a paradisiacal environment that envelops yet leaves one free? This is the peace that I speak of. At this magical moment there is no ‘I’ in the head or ‘me’ in the heart ... there is this apperceptive awareness wherein thought can operate freely without the encumbrance of any feelings whatsoever. It is not my peace nor yours ... yet it is here for everyone and anyone for the asking ... for the daring to be here as this body only. One does this by stepping out of the real world into this actual world, as this flesh and blood body, leaving your ‘self’ behind where ‘you’ belong ... in the litigious ‘Land of Lament’. This peace-on-earth delivers the goods so longed for through aeons. RESPONDENT: Of course, this is not at all uncommon. RICHARD: Indeed not ... everybody that I have spoken to at length has had at least one such experience in their life. It is truly global in its incidence. RESPONDENT: I would not say the goods are delivered as much as that the apparent conflict is seen in its utter pettiness and thereby dissolves (is resolved). RICHARD: Yes ‘dissolved’ is a very good choice of words ... too many people seek to resolve their problems (one-by-one and again-and-again ad infinitum) rather than dissolving the source of all problems. RESPONDENT: You do not think that is a unique experience, do you? RICHARD: The PCE is not unique, no ... but in eighteen years of scouring the books and travelling overseas and discussing the matter with others, no one else, as far as I have been able to ascertain, has acted upon the experience by stepping out of the real world into this actual world, as this flesh and blood body, leaving your ‘self’ behind where ‘you’ belong ... therefore the on-going experiencing is unique, yes. The only person who comes close is Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti whom I found out about last year when I first came onto the Internet. But he does not know what happened to him and has no solutions to offer. He is simply a curiosity to those who go to see him. He states that he is a ‘never to be repeated sport of nature’. Whereas I know where I came from and where I am at and how I got here. * RESPONDENT: By going into this action you took, you will present the opportunity for me to see how your words ‘I was run by an ego and soul’ strike a chord in my own experience of life on earth. RICHARD: Has this been of any assistance? RESPONDENT: It is nothing new. RICHARD: Ahh ... good. Can you put me into contact with these peoples who experience life as I do twenty four hours a day please? It would be such fun comparing notes ... and because in eighteen years of scouring the books and travelling overseas and discussing the matter with others, no one else, as far as I have been able to ascertain, has acted upon the PCE by stepping out of the real world into this actual world, as this flesh and blood body, leaving your ‘self’ behind where ‘you’ belong. The only person who comes close is Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti whom I found out about last year when I first came onto the Internet. But he does not know what happened to him and has no solutions to offer. He is simply a curiosity to those who go to see him. He states that he is a ‘never to be repeated sport of nature’. Whereas I know where I came from and where I am at and how I got here. Also, where is it written about? Could you provide me with a list of book-titles? Some URL’s perhaps. RESPONDENT: But it has its value in that at least you are describing it enough to establish some communication. RICHARD: Good ... perhaps we can get down to business? Now that we have got all of that mandatory verbal sparring (as per standard Internet protocol) out of the way, the way is now clear to do so. Shall we stop trying to score points of each other and attend to the subject at hand? To wit: how to enable the already always peace-on-earth to become apparent. RESPONDENT: Please do not be dissuaded by my fool-hearty posts. I am listening ... RICHARD: Hmm ... ‘listening’ to what? Maybe your ‘listening’ is somewhat akin the ‘looking’ of Mr. Narcissus? RESPONDENT: Yes, and so is yours here. RICHARD: Ahh ... a sort of ‘tit for tat’ response, eh? A bit childish, non? RESPONDENT: Perhaps you should listen to the reflection of yourself going by the label No. 25? RICHARD: No way are you a reflection of me ... and when you have something original to say I will sit up and take notice. RESPONDENT: ... even if the instrument which I am is not ‘quite-quite’. From one to another. RICHARD: Uh-huh ... but please include me out of your self-description. RESPONDENT: Sorry, I did not know we were divided. RICHARD: Ha ... nice try, No. 25 ... nice try indeed. RESPONDENT: Why do you insist on a false division? RICHARD: The facts speak for themselves.
RESPONDENT: My problem is that you focus on the person Richard, or K, or X. RICHARD: No, I focus upon the person who goes by the name ‘No. 25’ ... it is ‘he’ who is the spanner in the works. RESPONDENT: What proportion of your previous words have actually focused on No. 25? RICHARD: 99.9%. All I am interested in, in these discussions with you, is your freedom from the human condition ... I have no other reason to write. RESPONDENT: Could you explain the sentence ‘it is he who is the spanner in the works’ in simpler or other words for me? (I am ignorant of what that sentence means). RICHARD: It is an English expression with a fairly wide currency. Viz.: ‘a spanner in the works: a small but obdurate obstacle preventing the smooth operation of a mechanism’. Mr. John Lennon revitalised the expression with the publication of his satirical book ‘A Spaniard In The Works’ in the ’sixties. I prefer it to another expression (‘the ghost in the machine’) as it accurately conveys the impression of a more substantive entity (the ‘ghost in the machine’ expression leads to peoples believing that, as the ‘I’ is only mirage-like, one does not have to do anything but ‘merely observe’ as if that would make it go away). RESPONDENT: Richard and No. 25 have no significance at all. RICHARD: If I may point out? Mentally dismissing ‘No. 25’ does nothing whatsoever to eliminate ‘his’ significance. RESPONDENT: Why did you not include Richard in the above example? RICHARD: Because ‘Richard’ is no longer extant (and I am following the sensible convention of putting the entity in small quotes). RESPONDENT: If we are to really communicate in a way deeper than the typical ‘me’ behind my psychological ‘wall’ talking to you behind yours. RICHARD: Why do you insist that I be like you? I am speaking directly; up-front; out-in-the-open; no psychological wall whatsoever; no psychic wall; no separation at all; utterly intimate. RESPONDENT: I am not insisting anything upon you. RICHARD: Then what does ‘if we are to really communicate in a way deeper ...’ mean to you? To me it conveys that you are at least ‘suggesting’ that I stop being like you (‘the typical ‘me’ behind my psychological ‘wall’’ ) as you see me as being the same (‘talking to you behind yours’ ). I would be really interested to have it explained how to read it some other way. RESPONDENT: Earlier I related that I was not aware of any division between us, and you responded that there is. RICHARD: Indeed ... there is no typical ‘me’ here behind ‘my’ wall. The ‘Richard’ that was inhabiting this body is extinct. How you can have been corresponding with me, for as long as you have, and still not read these bits beggars belief. * RESPONDENT: To talk of the person only tempts the discussion to dwell in images. RICHARD: The person (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) that lurks around inside the flesh and blood body that answers to the name <No. 25> is no mere ‘image’ to be dismissed so cavalierly ... ‘he’ is the spanner in the works. RESPONDENT: Can we get beyond the spanner in the works? Do we need to discuss what the significance of the spanner in the works? If yes, please begin because I am not sure to what you are pointing with that terminology. RICHARD: I am talking of the autological entity inhabiting the flesh and blood body called <No. 25> who is stuffing things up. RESPONDENT: Why cannot we speak of life as it is for any human being? RICHARD: Why are ‘you’ avoiding scrutiny by duck-shoving the problem of onto other human beings (even if it be true for them too)? RESPONDENT: If we are speaking of life as it is for any human being, then that is the type of scrutiny which has true validity. If a human being ‘duck-shoves’ things onto others – then that act is the same whether done by ‘No. 25’, ‘Richard’, or ‘X’ (by the way, could you please explain what ‘duck-shoving’ means?) RICHARD: In this context it means ducking the issue by shifting the discussion off oneself and onto humanity at large. RESPONDENT: The advantage being that then the (psychological) divisions which have always divided humans and led to war can be left out so that we do not have to contend with the symptoms of ‘me’-focused living. RICHARD: Or, rather: ‘The advantage being that then the (psychological) division which has always divided ‘No. 25’ and led to malice and sorrow can be left out so that ‘No. 25’ does not have to contend with the symptoms of ‘No. 25’-focused living. RESPONDENT: If No. 25 (or ‘X’) avoids facing symptoms of ‘me’-focused living then No. 25 is still immersed in those symptoms (the avoidance of facing them being a symptom itself). RICHARD: Indeed. RESPONDENT: Not that we cannot discuss personal experiences. RICHARD: Oh? Yet you do seem to be avoiding doing just that like all get-out? RESPONDENT: ? – ‘just like that all get-out’? Perhaps a word is scrambled or left out in that typing? RICHARD: No, you seem to have transposed ‘that like’ into ‘like that’ ... look again and you will see that it reads correctly (‘like all get-out’ is a colloquialism meaning ‘as fast and as far as one can’ ... as in ‘armageddon outta here’) RESPONDENT: But let us not give past personal experience any authority whatsoever. RICHARD: Let me see if I have got this straight: am I to pretend that it never happened? Am I to pretend that the entity (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) is still lurking about in this body that answers to the name <Richard> ... just to satisfy your desire for an equal discussion? RESPONDENT: My point is that it would serve all of us better – in my opinion – if you would talk about your experience in terms of what happens to person ‘X’ when actions y, z, etc. happen that way you are not creating an unnecessary division which focuses on the achievements of Richard. For example, some white ‘settler’ is credited with ‘discovering’ the source of the Mississippi River. He was guided by Native American ‘Indian’ escorts. Indigenous Americans were did not base their history on who found something first. Isn’t associating a person’s name who with such discoveries arbitrary and misguided in that the focus is thereby taken off the issue at hand and placed it on the fictitious person? RICHARD: Not suffering from pride I have no need for humility ... especially false modesty. As I explained in a previous post (see much further below after ‘McCoy’) I did not do anything ... it was the ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul that did all the work (also see immediately below). RESPONDENT: Otherwise it is a game of follow the leader in which we are all lost. RICHARD: You do seem to be big on this ‘we’ business ... why not speak for yourself? Which means it now reads like this: ‘let us not give past personal experience any authority whatsoever otherwise it is a game of follow the leader in which ‘No. 25’ is lost’ . Speaking personally, in 1981 the ‘I’ that was in this body gave that PCE the ultimate authority – it was a direct experiencing of the purity of the perfection of the actual – and thus, when I reverted back to normal in the ‘real world’, ‘I’ knew, with the solid and irrefutable certainty of direct experience, that ‘I’ was standing in the way of the actual being apparent ... and ‘I’ had to go – become extinct – and not try to become something ‘better’. That is, ‘I’ just knew that ‘I’ could never, ever become perfect or be perfection. It was flagrantly evident that the only thing ‘I’ could do – the only thing ‘I’ had to do – was die (psychologically and psychically self-immolate) so that the already always existing perfection could become apparent. Which is what ‘I’ did ... ‘I’ got lost; finished; kaput; finito; dead; extinct. Why would you rather follow the authority of a known ‘spanner in the works’ called ‘No. 25’ than the authority of direct experience? RESPONDENT: I speak of we because it is ‘I’ based living which has created the mess, and it seems a co-operative endeavour is warranted. RICHARD: Nope ... unilateral action is the only key to success. RESPONDENT: Why are you here if we should each stay behind our wall of me-ness and seek private profit (whether ‘material’ or ‘spiritual’)? RICHARD: I am here to facilitate and/or support ‘No. 25’s search for freedom ... I am retired and on a pension, and instead of pottering around the garden I am currently pottering around the Internet sharing my experiencing of life with whosoever is interested. * RESPONDENT: Let us leave K and Richard aside and discuss the topic of the mess we are in ... RICHARD: But I am not in a mess. RESPONDENT: Pardon me, I was referring to your statement characterizing the purpose of this list as a cooperative enquiry into the appalling mess that is the human condition. I take then that you prefer to present yourself as absolutely divided from that human condition? RICHARD: I prefer to use the phrase ‘free from the human condition’ ... and especially in this instance knowing that you are fond of your ‘divided from the source’ expression! RESPONDENT: So basically, are you saying that all of us who are not also making such claims would do well to consider you as our Teacher and to feel quite fortunate for the opportunity your presence here presents? RICHARD: We have been down this path before, you and I, and I can only answer again as I answered then: I am no ‘Teacher’ and/or ‘Guru’ and/or ‘Whatever Name’ ... I am a fellow human being sans identity giving a report of my experiencing and the sense I have made out of it all. RESPONDENT: Who says something is immaterial. What the description is describing is the whole concern. RICHARD: Indeed ... I am describing the already always existing peace-on-earth ... whereas Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti is describing a metaphysical after-death Eternal Peace (by whatever name). Mr. Gotama the Sakyan called it the ‘Deathless’ ... surely that description gives you the clue as to which peace is actual and which peace is fantasy? RESPONDENT: Could you provide a quote of Krishnamurti where he says something even close to what you are attributing to him above? RICHARD: Yes ... several. But would that be of assistance? My experience on this Mailing List, when I do supply a quote upon request, is that the quote is dismissed for a wide range of – usually puerile – reasons (or ignored). RESPONDENT: And aren’t you talking about the always existing peace on Earth which is un-eclipsed through the death of the psychologically divided me? RICHARD: I am indeed talking of the already always existing physical before-death peace-on-earth which becomes apparent when ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul become extinct. Yet it is the universe that is ‘deathless’ ... not me. I was born, I live for a number of years, then I die ... and death is the end. Finish. * RESPONDENT: I responded to No. 12’s humorous post because to me what you contribute here smacks of delusion, of false and contradictory claims. RICHARD: So as to substantiate your statements, would you care to demonstrate where I am deluded; where I am false; where I am contradictory? Either that or withdraw your easy-to-say throwaway lines. RESPONDENT: This is not a court your honour (oops.) My statements must stand or fall on their own. RICHARD: Are you really saying that you can state any unsubstantiated thing that you like ... and there is to be no demonstration? No examination? No validation? No investigation? No exploration? And you fondly think that this is then a discussion? A dialogue? An exploration into the appalling mess that is the human condition? Are you for real? RESPONDENT: By all means, doubt, question and see for yourself before accepting a thing that I say. RICHARD: No ... many, many peoples say all kinds of things about me and I would have a full-time job if I did what you are suggesting. A person needs to demonstrate and substantiate their statement before I will consider it. RESPONDENT: I shall do the same. RICHARD: Suit yourself. RESPONDENT: Ultimately, whatever you or I say must stand or fall on its own. RICHARD: Thus far anything you have said has fallen on deaf ears because you will not demonstrate or substantiate your statements. RESPONDENT: If you or I are more willing to accept something because there is a plethora of substantiation, then perhaps we are not seeing the thing for ourselves but instead being mesmerized by the order of the symbolic building blocks used to convey the thing. RICHARD: No ... I do not operate like that. RESPONDENT: You are free to dismiss them. RICHARD: Why? RESPONDENT: Well, for example, the pay per view t-shirt comment was frustration turned into humour, if I were you I would laugh and dismiss them. RICHARD: What if – just what if – one day the frustration could not be turned into humour (as is usual when push comes to shove)? Thus 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 go on forever and a day. RESPONDENT: I am not you, so you are free to dismiss them or not. RICHARD: Aye, it is because I am not you that I chose to respond to your ‘frustration turned into humour’ instead of dismissing them ... and this dialogue is the result. RESPONDENT: And also because I place no conditions on you whatsoever. RICHARD: Why not? I do ... I keep on saying that this Mailing List is purportedly set up to investigate the appalling mess that is the human condition. RESPONDENT: And because even if I did, it would not really constrain you at all. RICHARD: If you were to say something original ... then I would sit up and take notice. * RESPONDENT: It seems to me that you say you imply that you are free of pride, and yet most of your talks here are about you the person having achieved enlightenment or whatever. RICHARD: No, not ‘enlightenment’ ... an actual freedom; the genuine article; the real McCoy. And, yes, ‘me’ the person that was did all the work ... I did nothing. Therefore I can take no credit, nor preen myself in any way whatsoever, for what ‘he’ did. RESPONDENT: Okay. Then let me ask you this. Can person x, y, or z equally experience what Richard has? RICHARD: Yes, in that every person that I have spoken to at length eventually remembers having a PCE ... and not yet in that I have been scouring the books and talking to peoples from all walks of life without finding anyone else living or dead who experiences the PCE twenty four hours a day, three hundred and sixty five days of the year, year after year. RESPONDENT: If so let us leave Richard aside and talk about what happens to person x given such and such conditions (which you will have to do because I am ignorant about what those conditions and that achievement are). RICHARD: How will we be able to do that if you will not allow me to remember ‘what happens to person x given such and such conditions’ ? RESPONDENT: Also who is this ‘he’ you are referring to above??? RICHARD: The psychological and/or psychic entity whom I call ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul ... the spanner in the works, in other words. * RESPONDENT: If you were really so aware, would you not be more interested in saying things in a way less adversarial? RICHARD: If you can show me how to publicly proclaim that everybody – all 6.0 billion now living and maybe 4.0 billion now dead – are and have been 180 degrees wrong for millennia, without it being adversarial, then you have gained my interest. I do so look forward to your input ... was your ‘Richard the cry-baby-crusher’ and ‘Konrad the building-block-piler’ line a shining example of how I should ‘say things in a way less adversarial’ , then? RESPONDENT: If someone is doing something silly, I can say your actions are silly, mine are not! RICHARD: Yep ... that is what I am doing. I would consider that stubbornly choosing to nurse malice and sorrow to one’s bosom when the already always existing peace-on-earth is freely available is pretty silly ... would you not agree? RESPONDENT: That approach focuses on the person(s) ... RICHARD: Indeed it does ... and very accurately too, I might add. RESPONDENT: ...and sets up an adversarial exchange. RICHARD: If I may point out? It is already adversarial ... ‘my’ very existence is at stake and ‘I’ will fight tooth and nail and defend ‘myself’ to the death, if necessary. RESPONDENT: On the other hand, if I say I see you doing this, and I say to you ‘I wonder if you have ever considered that it is silly – that when a person does so and so – it is silly because of such and such. Now, if this other so and so is allowed to happen, this other such and such results’. This latter example is a cooperative approach. RICHARD: Not so (unless the other is a gullible fool) because all you are doing is dressing-up the phrase ‘your actions are silly, mine are not’ in polite terminology. I speak frankly because I have regard for my fellow humans and will not treat them like that. RESPONDENT: You do not seem interested in co-operation at all – evidently because of your insistence that you do not stoop to the level of others who are in what you claim to be your former state. RICHARD: How would it help for me to pretend that I experience life the same way as you and 6.0 billion other people do? * RICHARD: I do not hold that Post-Modernist belief (a legacy of Mr. Ludwig Wittgenstein) about words. The words ‘computer monitor’, for example, descriptively refers to this actual glass and plastic object that performs certain prescribed functions throughout the world. It is strange how more than a few people get entranced – or hung-up – on words and sentences (linguistics) ... some fascination with the mode of description and the describer, I guess, instead of looking at what the word describes. A coffee cup, for another example, is precisely what the words say: a coffee cup. I cannot look at the object that the word describes without seeing that it is what it is. I was chatting with a chap the other day of the school that maintains that ‘the word was not the thing’ who looked surprised when I said that I cannot separate the two. After some rather fruitless discussion I settled the matter simply: I asked how his cup of tea was going ... would he like a re-fill? He said he would and as I was pouring it out I asked him if he would like a wheelbarrow to go with it ... and a ‘digestive wheelbarrow’ at that (I was referring to the plate of biscuits I was holding in my other hand, of course). He was caught off-balance because we were doing the ‘social niceties’ (or so he thought) and he had ceased investigating life, the universe and what it is to be a human being. He looked long and hard at the ‘wheelbarrow’ I was offering and saw something fundamental to perception. If you were to get your head out of those metaphysical clouds and come down-to-earth, you would find that the words ‘mimicked disdain for knowledge’ and ‘doggedly re-making the blunders of their illustrious predecessors’ are not ‘side shows’ at all. They are the main event on this Mailing List. RESPONDENT: Yes, but if I offer you the word ‘coffee cup’ to drink you are not going to be having any ‘coffee’ are you? RICHARD: Why on earth would you offer me the words ‘coffee cup’ ... good grief ... this is just silly. * RICHARD: Finally there is a genuine chance for peace-on-earth ... not that spurious and self-centred after-death ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’ that is one’s post-mortem reward for humbling oneself in pathetic surrender to some passionately imagined ‘Higher Power’ and/or ‘Intelligence’. RESPONDENT: Hello? (I am no ordinary fool – I am an extra-ordinary one). RICHARD: Yep ... no need to look so surprised as we have corresponded before, you and I, on this very matter. I am denouncing (being adversarial about) the highly revered religious and/or spiritual and/or mystical and/or metaphysical after-death peace. RESPONDENT: There is no need to denounce and/or be adversarial about something so silly, is there? RICHARD: On this Mailing List? Yes. * RESPONDENT: It sounds as though you had an atypical experience in which the psychological division of the ‘me’ was seen as the illusion which it is. RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: But, that moment is gone. RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: Can we leave the past aside ... RICHARD: Why? RESPONDENT: So that we might look with fresh eyes. RICHARD: Ignore the evidence of history, you mean? RESPONDENT: Well, set it aside at least – so as not to be hindered by it. RICHARD: How will remembering a PCE – a personal experiencing of peace-on-earth instead of reading a dead man’s words – hinder someone? Speaking personally, it was of utter benefit to the ‘I’ that was. * RESPONDENT: Are you too attached to that ‘experience’ to stop clinging to it and identifying with it? RICHARD: Whoa-up there! You ask me to explain myself ... and when I do you tell me not to do it! On top of that you come out with your stock-standard grade school ‘you are attached’ meaningless put-down that you are so prone to apply. May I ask? What do you hope to achieve by such dead tactics? RESPONDENT: ... and look at the situation anew? RICHARD: How? RESPONDENT: By starting from scratch. RICHARD: Hokey-dokey ... over to you then. Will you please ‘start from scratch’ so as to show me how I can become free of the human condition (as evidenced in a PCE rather than a theoretical or hypothetical read-from-a-dead-man’s-book freedom) without me remembering that I had one or without me using this pristine experiencing of the perfection that is the infinitude of this very material universe as (shudder) the authority (shudder) over ‘me’ and ‘my’ mewlings? RESPONDENT: I am not interested in showcasing any of my past. RICHARD: Okay ... then why not stop telling me how to do it and let me get on with doing it my way? RESPONDENT: You will have to start if you want to discuss PCE’s. RICHARD: But I have done nothing else but that since I first wrote to this list 750,000 words ago. RESPONDENT: I am just asking you to be very simple in your presentation so as not to have the messenger get in the way of the message. RICHARD: There is no ‘messenger’ outside of your projection. RESPONDENT: And do so in simple language as No. 31 has requested? RICHARD: Yet the English language has upwards of 650,000 words in it. Do you really suggest that I restrict myself to the usual 4,000 to 6,000 that is the extent of the vocabulary of the average person? If so, why? Must all peoples remain semi-illiterate just because peoples like yourself find linguistic expressiveness to be difficult for those lacking the gumption to flex their minds with accurate descriptions? RESPONDENT: Well, I am not interested in verbal acrobatics. You seem to be a verbal ‘hot-dog’ (show-off (?). RICHARD: I write as I do so as to attract attention ... and it works. I have your attention, do I not? RESPONDENT: Yes, but only to the strangeness of the pointing – and that is distracting us from whatever is being pointed to. RICHARD: Not if one reads with both eyes. I freely acknowledge that my writing is flowery – which is a polite way of saying ‘convoluted and over-ornamental’ as an editor once explained to me – but that is an idiosyncrasy that brings me great delight. I make no apologies for an extravagant exuberance with words ... I am conveying the lavish exhilaration of life itself. * RESPONDENT: At least you are describing [this action you took] enough to establish some communication. RICHARD: Good ... perhaps we can get down to business? Now that we have got all of that mandatory verbal sparring (as per standard Internet protocol) out of the way, the way is now clear to do so. Shall we stop trying to score points of each other and attend to the subject at hand? To wit: how to enable the already always peace-on-earth to become apparent. RESPONDENT: Well I have added a few last reflex spars to your previous ones above – perhaps you could dispense with them first ... and then for you to start a new thread beginning: [Richard]: Shall we attend to the subject at hand? To wit: how to enable the already always peace-on-earth to become apparent’ would be excellent, in my opinion. RICHARD: Okay. Yet we cannot begin such a thread unless something vital to mutual discussion is established. Viz.: are you aware – from a personal pure consciousness experience (PCE) and not from a book – that there is an already always existing peace-on-earth?
RICHARD: I am indeed talking of the already always existing physical before-death peace-on-earth which becomes apparent when ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul become extinct. Yet it is the universe that is ‘deathless’ ... not me. I was born, I live for a number of years, then I die ... and death is the end. Finish. RESPONDENT: Okay. Let me see what the above sounds like when I translate it into language which makes sense to me (please correct any mistranslations and provide me with the benefit of your feedback): when the entity made up of past thoughts ... RICHARD: It matters not whether thoughts are about the past, the present or the future ... thoughts are not problematic unless they be emotion-backed thoughts protecting the instinct-born entity with beliefs, truths, values, principles and so on. Thus (if I am to be precise) it would read: ‘when the entity made up of emotion-backed past thoughts and emotion-backed present thoughts and emotion-backed future thoughts ...’. RESPONDENT: ... and feelings ... RICHARD: Feelings (emotions and passions and calentures), although they can be cultivated and refined by thought and triggered off by thought are not created by thought; feelings are born of the genetically encoded instincts. Thus (if I am to be precise) it would read: ‘... and instinctually-based feelings ...’. RESPONDENT: ... is not dragged into the present ... RICHARD: The entity has no existence in the past (nor in the future); the entity is generated by/as the instinctual passions which, of course, only exist now (the body is only alive now). Thus (if I am to be precise) it would read: ‘... is not present ...’. RESPONDENT: ... one is connected with the immeasurable ‘peace’ that is the living universe. RICHARD: When the entity is not present (either in abeyance if a PCE or extinct if an actual freedom) then one is this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. And as this flesh and blood body is the very stuff of this actual universe there is no separation at all (just as a hill or a mountain – although distinct – is the very earth it sits upon). And as this actual universe is infinite and eternal it is perfection (it has no opposite) and perfection is peace. Thus (if I am to be precise) it would read: ‘... one is this actual universe experiencing itself, as the immeasurable peace that it is, as a flesh and blood human being’. Thus: ‘when the entity made up of emotion-backed thoughts and instinctually-based feelings is not present one is this actual universe experiencing itself, as the immeasurable peace that it is, as a flesh and blood human being’. RESPONDENT: When the organism dies physically, the particular body and its associated thoughts and feelings ends there, fini. But the universe continues. RICHARD: Yes. * RESPONDENT: If you or I are more willing to accept something because there is a plethora of substantiation, then perhaps we are not seeing the thing for ourselves but instead being mesmerized by the order of the symbolic building blocks used to convey the thing. RICHARD: No ... I do not operate like that. RESPONDENT: I hear you, but I am sceptical. What makes you enjoy ‘flowery’ use of language, if not its capacity to mesmerize? RICHARD: My writing is flowery – which is a polite way of saying ‘convoluted and over-ornamental’ as an editor once explained to me – because it is an idiosyncrasy that brings me great delight. I make no apologies for an extravagant exuberance with words ... I am conveying the lavish exhilaration of life itself. Yet in a way you are correct ... I am fascinated by being alive. * RESPONDENT: At least you are describing [this action you took] enough to establish some communication. RICHARD: Good ... perhaps we can get down to business? Now that we have got all of that mandatory verbal sparring (as per standard Internet protocol) out of the way, the way is now clear to do so. Shall we stop trying to score points of each other and attend to the subject at hand? To wit: how to enable the already always peace-on-earth to become apparent. RESPONDENT: Well I have added a few last reflex spars to your previous ones above – perhaps you could dispense with them first ... and then for you to start a new thread beginning: [Richard]: Shall we attend to the subject at hand? To wit: how to enable the already always peace-on-earth to become apparent’ would be excellent, in my opinion. RICHARD: Okay. Yet we cannot begin such a thread unless something vital to mutual discussion is established. Viz.: are you aware – from a personal pure consciousness experience (PCE) and not from a book – that there is an already always existing peace-on-earth? RESPONDENT: Yes, there have been glimpses of that and I intuit it to be the case (at least as far as I understand what it is you are using those words to convey). RICHARD: Excellent. What is essential to success is to precipitate pure consciousness experiences (they are your personal verification that this is not all a matter of belief, trust, faith and hope) and they are your ‘guide’, your ‘teacher’, your ‘authority’ and so on ... not me. As peace-on-earth is already always here (it is only ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ that is standing in the way) then it is patently obvious that a PCE can only happen now. If one is not experiencing perfection at this moment then there is something one can look into so as to determine why not. Thus one asks oneself, each moment again: ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ It is also essential for success to grasp the fact that this is your only moment of being alive. The past, although it did happen, is not actual now. The future, though it will happen, is not actual now. Only now is actual. Yesterday’s happiness and harmlessness does not mean a thing if one is miserable and malicious now ... and a hoped-for happiness and harmlessness tomorrow is to but waste this moment of being alive in waiting. All you get by waiting is more waiting. Thus any ‘change’ can only happen now. The jumping in point is always here ... it is at this moment in time and this place in space. Thus, if you miss it this time around, hey presto ... you have another chance immediately. Life is excellent at providing opportunities like this. It takes some doing to start off with, but as success after success starts to multiply exponentially, it becomes automatic to have this question running as an on-going thing ... because it delivers the goods right here and now ... not off into some indeterminate future. Thus one asks oneself, each moment again: ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ As one knows that it is possible to experience this moment in time and this place in space as perfection personified, ‘I’ set the minimum standard of experience for myself: feeling good. If ‘I’ am not feeling good then ‘I’ have something to look at to find out why. What has happened, between the last time ‘I’ felt good and now? When did ‘I’ feel good last? Five minutes ago? Five hours ago? What happened to end that good feeling? Ah ... yes: ‘He said that and ...’. Or: ‘She didn’t do this and I ...’. Or: ‘What I wanted was ...’. Or: ‘I didn’t do ...’. And so on and so on ... one does not have to trace back into one’s childhood ... usually no more than yesterday afternoon at the most. Thus one asks oneself, each moment again: ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ By finding out what triggered off the loss of feeling good, one commences another period of enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive. It is all about being here at this moment in time and this place in space ... and if you are not feeling good you have no chance whatsoever of being here in this actual world (a glum and grumpy person locks themselves out of the perfect purity of this moment and place). Of course, once you get the knack of this, one up-levels ‘feeling good’, as a bottom line each moment again, to ‘feeling happy’. And after that: ‘feeling perfect’. These are all feelings, this is not perfection personified yet ... but then again, feeling perfect for twenty three hours and fifty nine minutes a day is way beyond normal human expectations anyway. Thus one asks oneself, each moment again: ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ Also, it is a very tricky way of both getting men fully into their feelings for the first time in their life and getting women to examine their feelings one by one instead of being run by a basketful of them all at once. One starts to feel ‘alive’ for the first time in one’s life. Being ‘alive’ is to be paying attention – exclusive attention – to this moment in time and this place in space. This attention becomes fascination ... and fascination leads to reflective contemplation. Then – and only then – apperception can occur ... 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 – a way of seeing that is arrived at by reflective and fascinated contemplative thought – is when ‘I’ cease thinking and thinking takes place of its own accord ... and ‘me’ disappears along with all the feelings. Such a mind, being free of the thinker and the feeler – ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul – is capable of immense clarity and purity. One is automatically benevolent and benign.
RICHARD: What is essential to success is to precipitate pure consciousness experiences (they are your personal verification that this is not all a matter of belief, trust, faith and hope) and they are your ‘guide’, your ‘teacher’, your ‘authority’ and so on ... not me. RESPONDENT: Thank you for the response Richard. I appreciate what you have written, and I have just one question about something you have said: of what possible service can you be given that the PCE itself is my guide – and not you? (I ask this since it occurs as a human question timelessly worthy of clarification and not to subject you to undue resistance). RICHARD: The PCE is the inerrant lodestone: all I have ever wanted is that the words and writings of an actual freedom from the human condition should exist in the world as a third alternative ... for anyone to avail themselves of if it be in accord with their own experience and/or aspirations. As such it is an affirmation that such experience is not only valid but a confirmation in that a fellow human being has traversed this territory in an eminently satisfactory way. For eighteen years I scoured the books ... to no avail. Now the information exists – and has taken on a life of its own – and I am well content and having so much fun. I offer tips, hints, suggestions, clues, inside information, anecdotal stories and so on. What the other does with it all is entirely up to them. In the final analysis only you get to live your life and only you have amenability ... it is you who reaps the rewards or pays the consequences for any action or inaction that you may or may not do. And it is the report and the description of my experiencing that is important, not me. Anyone who has met me face-to-face only gets verification that there actually is 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. As for service: the reward for going to the very end of illusion and delusion is to emerge, unscathed, as the actual. The benefits of doing so are beyond price; to remove oneself from the invidious position of being betwixt sycophants and traducers, being one among many. The immediate bestowal of universal peace upon oneself is the benefit worthiest of acknowledgment. Yet, rewards and benefits notwithstanding, to have reached one’s destiny is to be of the ultimate service possible ... the universe has been able to fulfil itself in a human being. Finally there is an intelligence operating unimpeded ... blind nature has been superseded. To live this is what service is.
CORRESPONDENT No. 25 (Part Six) 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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