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Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’ with Respondent No. 33
RICHARD: I will take this opportunity to provide a quote that may – just may – prise that firmly-shut door open a trifle: [quote]: ‘You can feel it in the room now. It is happening in this room now because we are touching something very, very serious and it comes pouring in (...) I don’t want to make a mystery: why can’t this happen to everyone? If you and Maria [Ms. Mary Lutyens and Ms. Mary Zimbalist] sat down and said ‘let us enquire’, I’m pretty sure you could find out. Or do it alone. I see something; what I said is true – I can never find out. Water can never find out what water is. That is quite right. If you find out I’ll corroborate it (...) somehow the body is protected to survive. Some element is watching over it. Something is protecting it. It would be speculating to say what. The Maitreya is too concrete, is not simple enough. But I can’t look behind the curtain. I can’t do it. I tried with Pupul [Ms. Pupul Jayakar] and various Indian scholars who pressed me’ . [endquote]. (‘Krishnamurti – His Life and Death’; Mary Lutyens p. 160. © Avon Books; New York 1991). The phrase ‘water can never find out what water is’ and ‘I can’t look behind the curtain’ is strikingly similar to your ‘the impossibility of ‘awareness being aware of itself’ and ‘the impossibility of ‘you’ being aware ‘of’ anything at all’ ... obviously some other process is required, non? Perhaps if I were to provide an analogy it may become clearer? You have written: [Respondent No. 4]: ‘A street sign points towards New York. The sign is just a sign. If somebody follows what was pointed to, and is willing to go through whatever is necessary to get to New York, he has done all the work. The sign, as a sign itself, is still useless’. There is another ‘street sign’ which you apparently are overlooking in your haste to get to ‘New York’. It reads: ‘Turn Around ... You Are Going The Wrong Way’. RESPONDENT No. 4: What on earth are you babbling about? I don’t care what Mrs. Lutyens or anybody else has said about this. You’re talking with me, not with Mary Lutyens, Krishnamurti, Pupul Jayakar or any of the rest of them. My statements are mine. Don’t you think it’s really cheap and whiney to try to associate my words with those of others merely to try to make them look like you want them to look? RICHARD: Not at all ... I associated the words because what the words point to is indeed strikingly similar. Am I to take it that the quote did not prise that firmly-shut door open even a trifle? RESPONDENT: Richard, a few comments, for whatever they are worth: Krishnamurti insisted that there is ‘goodness’ ‘otherness’ etc. that is not touched by evil. In his conception, goodness has a force of its own that is not subdued by evil. RICHARD: Yes ... he said there was a reservoir of goodness; he said that evil
My question, all those years ago, was this: is it possible for evil to cease to exist entirely (so that one no longer needed protection)? Or, to put it another way, if this ‘goodness’, this ‘otherness’, is so ... um ... good then why the deterioration ‘no matter who you are’ (which includes the saints, sages and seers)? RESPONDENT: I have some personal experience of how such goodness may operate. I was with K for very brief periods and I think I experienced what he talks about. Besides K, I have had similar experiences with my own father. The experience goes something like this: in the presence of the person who represents that goodness, my mind would become very quiet and the feeling will be one of purity and wholeness. It is like being face-to-face with the eternal. Now, that feeling is ever present, although the person who evoked such feelings may not be in a physical vicinity. When I asked my father about what is it that he has in him that makes me feel the way I do, he had no answer. He repeatedly tells me that he is a very ordinary person. I do not understand what do you mean by: ‘obviously some other process is required’ in your post. I think you also mention apperception as the agent to ‘prise open the door’. What door? Can you explain? RICHARD: Yes. If ‘water can never find out what water is’ (or if immaterial awareness cannot be aware of immaterial awareness), then what can? Obviously some other process is required – if the nature of ‘the otherness’ is to be revealed – so as to ascertain why it manifests (on this planet at least) maliciously and sorrowfully rather than happily and harmlessly. Vis.:
RESPONDENT: Also, is it really important to understand what or who the person is whose presence is holistic? RICHARD: Oh, yes ... why is it, that the saints, sages and seers, who said there was no ‘me’, no ‘self’, all display varying degrees of those emotions grouped under the ‘catch-all’ words malice and sorrow? Most commonly they were subject to anger and anguish (disguised/designated as being ‘Divine Anger’ and ‘Divine Sorrow’ by themselves and their devotees and/or followers and/or readers). RESPONDENT: Isn’t the importance of such a person’s presence just that that it helps one to become quiet and dwell upon the mystery within? RICHARD: In regard to dwelling upon ‘the mystery within’ the question I dwelled upon was this: Just what is it that is going on in regards the supposed innocence of the saints and sages and seers? RESPONDENT: My own feeling is that I can never fully fathom the depth of a person like K or my father. RICHARD: Why not? RESPONDENT: All that I can do is take their presence as a living proof of what they say and move on. RICHARD: Move on to what? RESPONDENT: I don’t know if what I wrote is pertinent to the thread, but I pitched in all the same. RICHARD: Well, I find it to be pertinent ... so keep on pitching in!
RESPONDENT: Richard, over months of reading your posts on this forum, I think I have read some of the most enlightening critiques of Krishnamurti, and I thank you for your thoughtful posts. I have a few questions for you, if you don’t mind answering them: 1. Do you think Krishnamurti was a charlatan – for example I consider Sai Baba to be a charlatan: he sells enlightenment / peace etc. to the gullible. RICHARD: Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti genuinely was an enlightened man (‘Self-Realised’ by whatever name). I have written of this before on this Mailing List:
That he was subject to feeling irritated or sorrowful, for example, from time-to-time does not make him a
fraud ... it comes with the territory (the enlightened state of being). RESPONDENT: 2. If K in your opinion was not a charlatan, what, if any thing, of essence do you find in his various writings and talks? RICHARD: His ‘question everything; doubt everything; including the speaker’ advice. RESPONDENT: 3. Do you think all the experiences that Krishnamurti had (as described in his various biographies) make him a possible charlatan? RICHARD: No ... such testimonials are of vital importance to determine what happens in the enlightened state. RESPONDENT: Also, what are your views on Krishnamurti’s staunchly decrying spiritual experiences of the very kind that he seems to have undergone? RICHARD: This is a subject in its own right – and dependent upon informed speculation – that is probably worth pursuing elsewhere. Sufficient for the purpose here is to observe that some individuals, throughout mystical history, have staunchly dismissed all that any other has had to say and insist that what they alone have to say is important ... Mr. Gotama the Sakyan (if he historically existed that is) is an obvious example of this. Be that as it may ... Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s ‘Awakening’ under the pepper-tree was set in motion six weeks (??) earlier with the intense desire to serve (the ‘Bhakti’ approach). The subsequent rejection of the occult ‘Masters’ has confounded that issue with the rejection of all traditional spiritual approaches. RESPONDENT: 4. What do you make of Krishnamurti’s dying statement that a great energy used his body and such an energy will not re-appear for many years? RICHARD: He was accurately and correctly reporting his experience. That Christianity has their Parousia; that Buddhism has their Maitreya; that Islam has their Mahdi; that Hinduism has their Kalki; that Judaism has their Messiah; that Taoism has their Kilin and so on all comes from the same type of experience. It is part and parcel of being enlightened (‘I Am That’ or ‘That Thou Art’). RESPONDENT: Was he delusional by any chance? RICHARD: All enlightened beings are deluded ... the altered state of consciousness (ASC) known as spiritual enlightenment is a delusional state. I am not ‘guru-bashing’ Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti per se ... it is the ASC itself I am targeting. I can use the accredited writings of virtually any enlightened being to demonstrate my points. RESPONDENT: 5. Do you think there is some similarity between your experiences and Krishnamurti’s experiences? RICHARD: None whatsoever (though for the eleven years between 1981-1992 there was a significant correspondence). RESPONDENT: Or, to be more accurate, is there any similarity between your conception of peace-on-earth and what K thought would usher peace-on-earth? RICHARD: Again ... none whatsoever: all what enlightenment promises is an after-death ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’. Despite the rhetoric, peace-on-earth is not even in its agenda. RESPONDENT: 6. Why do you choose to write on Krishnamurti mailing list? RICHARD: Partly because I have read a lot of him and have had extensive face-to-face discussions with ‘K-Readers’ (though I have read more of Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain plus I was married to an ex-Rajneeshee for eleven years) and mainly because ‘K-Readers’ still have some shreds of commonsense left ... Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti never denied that the physical world existed nor ever said it was only ‘apparently real’. Indeed, when I first read Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti I read of a ‘Nature Mystic’ describing his experiences of absorption in nature – in the love of beauty – and I still say that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti was, in part at least, somewhat tending more towards being primarily a ‘Nature Mystic’ than a ‘Jnani Mystic’ (he was certainly not a ‘Yoga Mystic’). And I only say ‘tending towards’ because of the whole ‘Bhakti Teachings’ business of the 1920’s (the rejection of the occult ‘Masters’ confuses the issue). To explain: for eleven years I was what is classified a ‘Nature Mystic’ (I am not asking anyone to believe me as I am simply telling my story) so I have intimate experience of having a total love affair with nature ... and being fully absorbed in beauty. After all, I had been a practicing artist – plus being a qualified art teacher for private schools – and thus had made my living out of beauty ... and an admiration of and a love for beauty are the primary requisites of being an independent artist. People bought my work because they loved it – literally they fell in love with its beauty – and not because it was ascetically agreeable or met some scholarly criterion for art (shape, form, texture, hue, proportion, balance and so on). With the death of ‘I’ as ego, in 1981, I abandoned my flourishing career, my alternate life-style, my self-sufficiency property in the country and commenced a barefooted, itinerant, homeless, celibate lifestyle of aimless wandering in nature: I lived and slept in forests; I lived and slept in the hills; I lived and slept in the valleys; I lived and slept beside streams; I lived and slept on the beaches; I lived and slept on uninhabited islands ... and so on. No woman could entice me as the allure of the love and beauty of nature was unsurpassable ... I had no need for a vow of celibacy. Just being in nature, totally, fully, completely, would transport me into the unknowable ... so I know full well what I talk of via personal experience as well as an, admittedly ad hoc, reading on the subject. There is a large hurdle to overcome to even begin to discuss peace-on-earth with someone who is adamant that ‘the world is not real; I am not the body’. RESPONDENT: 7. I notice that with some of the posters you enter into very same arguments. As an independent reader often I get the feeling that some of these people are quite incapable of understanding what you are saying. Still, you persist. Why? RICHARD: Anybody is (eventually) capable of understanding what I am saying ... and the challenge to have them acknowledge this is a fun challenge. I like my fellow human being ... and wish only the best for them.
RESPONDENT: Do you think Krishnamurti was a charlatan – for example I consider Sai Baba to be a charlatan: he sells enlightenment / peace etc. to the gullible. RICHARD: Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti genuinely was an enlightened man (‘Self-Realised’ by whatever name). That he was subject to feeing irritated or sorrowful, for example, from time-to-time does not make him a fraud ... it comes with the territory (the enlightened state of being). RESPONDENT: I don’t understand this. Krishnamurti repeatedly said that if someone found the root cause of sorrow, sorrow ends, completely, once and for all. He also said that irritation (anger) is violence and if you see the danger of it, it ends, completely, and for all time. Do you think he was talking about a theoretical ending of sorrow and violence? RICHARD: It is useful to bear in mind that primarily what he was talking about was stepping out of the stream so that it does not go on after physical death (just as all the saints, sages and seers have said in their own way throughout recorded history). Vis.:
Most of the ‘Teachings’, however, is discussion about clearing away all that prevents being out of the stream (aka ‘on the other shore’) where there is the timeless energy which is love, which is compassion, which is intelligence, which is the origin of all matter, of all nature, of all mankind: that which is sacred, holy ... as I have said before: despite the rhetoric, peace-on-earth is not on the enlightenment agenda. For example, the ‘answer’ is not to be found in the world:
And specifically regarding the mystic’s version of ‘peace on earth’ (aka ‘pacifism’
Aye, it is indeed ‘extraordinarily important to understand this’: although the bully-boys and feisty-femmes thus get to rule the world by force the committed mystic has a one-way ticket booked to the promised land ... physical death is a blessed release into ‘That’ (by Whatever Name). * RESPONDENT: If K in your opinion was not a charlatan, what, if any thing, of essence do you find in his various writings and talks? RICHARD: His ‘question everything; doubt everything; including the speaker’ advice. RESPONDENT: But he himself did not encourage such doubting and questioning. The atmosphere in his meetings used to be of him speaking and others passively listening. Do you think his advice was for others and not for himself? RICHARD: Neither ... the truth is unquestionable (‘water can never know what water is’) when all is said and done. His ‘question everything; doubt everything; including the speaker’ advice is a sop to the intellect; a paying of lip-service to reason. Vis.:
Speaking personally, I chose to be ‘too stupid’ ... with salubrious results. * RESPONDENT: Do you think all the experiences that Krishnamurti had (as described in his various biographies) make him a possible charlatan? RICHARD: No ... such testimonials are of vital importance to determine what happens in the enlightened state. RESPONDENT: But he himself stated that no testimonials are required. He repeatedly warned against tendencies of the mind to imagine higher beings, etc. If his hypothesis is correct that no testimonials are required and that people tend to believe in supernatural etc., he could have, at least not made his various forays in to astral planes public. RICHARD: More importantly, if the ‘people tend to imagine higher beings’ and ‘people tend to believe in the supernatural etc.’ type of statements were statements of fact for him he would not have had those ‘forays’ throughout his life ... those ‘higher beings, etc.’ and the ‘supernatural etc.’ would have ceased to exist. Which is why such testimonials are of vital importance ... to determine what happens in the enlightened state. * RESPONDENT: Also, what are your views on Krishnamurti’s staunchly decrying spiritual experiences of the very kind that he seems to have undergone? RICHARD: This is a subject in its own right – and dependent upon informed speculation – that is probably worth pursuing elsewhere. Sufficient for the purpose here is to observe that some individuals, throughout mystical history, have staunchly dismissed all that any other has had to say and insist that what they alone have to say is important ... Mr. Gotama the Sakyan (if he historically existed that is) is an obvious example of this. RESPONDENT: But then this goes against what you like in K: ‘question everything; doubt everything; including the speaker’ RICHARD: Of course it does ... you may have heard the worldly adage I learned from the saints, sages and seers ... but not just what they would have me learn. * RESPONDENT: What do you make of Krishnamurti’s dying statement that a great energy used his body and such an energy will not re-appear for many years? RICHARD: He was accurately and correctly reporting his experience. That Christianity has their Parousia; that Buddhism has their Maitreya; that Islam has their Mahdi; that Hinduism has their Kalki; that Judaism has their Messiah; that Taoism has their Kilin and so on all comes from the same type of experience. It is part and parcel of being enlightened (‘I Am That’ or ‘That Thou Art’). RESPONDENT: Someone who warned against the tendency of the human mind to be mesmerized by such experiences, don’t you think if was true to his grain, he would have at least refrained from making his experience public? RICHARD: Human vanity knows no bounds when one is specially chosen by ‘That’ to bring a message into the world. * RESPONDENT: Was he delusional by any chance? RICHARD: All enlightened beings are deluded ... the altered state of consciousness (ASC) known as spiritual enlightenment is a delusional state. I am not ‘guru-bashing’ Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti per se ... it is the ASC itself I am targeting. I can use the accredited writings of virtually any enlightened being to demonstrate my points. RESPONDENT: I don’t get this. Why is enlightened state a delusional state? Krishnamurti himself described his mental state as one of ‘clarity’ and made sure to record that he was neither delusional nor under the influence of any drugs (when he wrote his experiences as recorded in the ‘Notebook’ and the ‘Journal’). RICHARD: Just consider, for a moment, the fact that all the ills of humankind happen in time and space as form. Then consider, for another moment, the fiction that the ‘solution’ to all the ills of humankind, as proposed by all the saints, sages and seers for millennia, is to be found in some timeless, spaceless and formless realm (and not in the world of time and space and form). If you do you will not even need to look up the word ‘delusion’ in a dictionary. * RESPONDENT: Do you think there is some similarity between your experiences and Krishnamurti’s experiences? RICHARD: None whatsoever (though for the eleven years between 1981-1992 there was a significant correspondence). RESPONDENT: What kind? Please elaborate. He died in 1987. RICHARD: The dates referred to me and not him ... I lived that/was that between 1981-1992 (love, compassion, beauty, truth, that which is absolute and so on) and the significant correspondence was between what I reading at the time and what I was experiencing at the time. I have intimate knowledge of all its nooks and crannies and I am providing a report for my fellow human beings to do what they will with ... insider information, as it were. A whistle-blower’s report
RICHARD: It is useful to bear in mind that primarily what he was talking about was stepping out of the stream so that it does not go on after physical death (just as all the saints, sages and seers have said in their own way throughout recorded history). Vis.: [K]: ‘When the organism dies it is finished. But wait a minute. If I don’t end the image, the stream of image-making goes on. <snip>. (pages 122-126, Dialogue VII; May 20 1976;’The Wholeness Of Life’; © 1979 by The Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd; Published by HarperCollins, New York). This is not an isolated quote about the stream going on after physical death ... in fact a co-respondent posted some quotes on this subject only a little while back: [quote]: ‘Then there is this problem that the vast majority of people, of human beings, never come to the freedom from death but are caught in a stream, the stream of human beings whose thoughts, whose anxieties, pain, suffering, the agony of everything that one has to go through, we are caught in that stream. And when a human being dies he is part of that stream. (...) And the Psychical Research Societies and other societies, when they, through mediums and all the rest of it, when they call upon the dead, they are calling people out of that stream’. (3rd Public Talk, Ojai, 14th April, 1973). [quote]: ‘When you die your thought of yourself goes on in that stream as it is going on now – as a Christian, Buddhist, whatever you please – greedy, envious, ambitious, frightened, pursuing pleasure – that is this human stream in which you are caught’. (Talks in Saanen 1974, 6th Public Talk). [quote]: ‘To step out of the stream is to step out of this whole structure. So, creation as we know it is in the stream. Mozart, Beethoven, you follow, the painters, they are all here’. (‘The Reluctant Messiah’). RESPONDENT: It is possible that Krishnamurti referred to ‘after death’ in his reference to ‘stepping out of the stream.’ But here is my interpretation of it, for whatever it is worth: Have you noticed how people are more or less the same across time and space? As you yourself mentioned, wars, brutality, etc. have been going on for a long time all over the world and seem to continue in more or less the same manner? I.e., there is a continuum of human sorrow and misery. Where does that continuation come from? What sustains human sorrow and misery across time and space? That source of sustenance of human sorrow is the ‘stream of sorrow.’ Stream in the sense that it has a continuity, a momentum, that remains largely unaffected by efforts to bring about peace and order in human affairs. In the language of psychology, there is a collective unconscious that sustains and maintains this stream. RICHARD: In the language of Mr. Carl Jung’s psychology, yes ... not psychology per se. RESPONDENT: As you have often mentioned, instinctual passions might be responsible for the behaviour of human beings and those instincts, though bereft of their usefulness, continue unabated. In fact, human instincts of violence riding an A-bomb become many more times dangerous. The continuance of instinctual passions in their archaic form is the stream of sorrow. RICHARD: Yes ... and the stream of malice as well. RESPONDENT: And this stream seems unaffected by individual (physical) death. RICHARD: Agreed. RESPONDENT: Therefore Krishnamurti talks about psychological death – which is what stepping out of the stream implies. RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: To die to thoughts, instinctual passions, to the ‘I’. RICHARD: Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti never said ‘die to instinctual passions’ ... on the contrary, he praised passion highly. RESPONDENT: In that death the stream of sorrow comes to a halt. RICHARD: Yet as the saints, sages and seers are still subject to feeling anger and sadness, for example, from time-to-time ... what is it that ‘comes to a halt’ in their case? RESPONDENT: Is there life after death? I don’t know. RICHARD: Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti knows (as evidenced by the quotes further above). I will copy/paste just one of them down to here:
He clearly says ‘your thought of yourself goes on’ (and not just other people’s thoughts of you goes on after your death) ... and that it will go on ‘as it is going on now’ (as a ‘Christian, Buddhist, whatever you please – greedy, envious, ambitious, frightened, pursuing pleasure ...’). Ergo: step out of the stream and it will not go on after death. RESPONDENT: The question is also not important because the death that Krishnamurti is talking about is psychological death, which is the death of the ego, death of the mechanism that perpetuates the stream of sorrow. RICHARD: It may not be ‘important’ to you – and if so then this be the end of discussion – but if this subject does pique some interest in you then these two URL’s will be most illuminating: http://flp.cs.tu-berlin.de:1895/listening-l/html/archive9403/msg00015.html I cannot see how anybody – anybody at all – can meaningfully discuss Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s ‘Teachings’, in relation to personal and communal well-being, if fundamental aspects of the ‘Teachings’ be shuffled-off into the ‘too hard’ basket. Otherwise all this be the stuff of dilettantism.
RICHARD: ... this flesh and blood body is the air breathed, the water drunk, the food eaten and the sun’s energy absorbed. Just as the trees and the grasses and the flowers thrive without any instinctual passions so too is it eminently possible for a thinking, reflective human being to flourish, in pure delight and enjoyment on this magical paradise that this verdant and azure planet already is, sans the affective faculty. The living of this comes with the extinction of ‘self’ in its entirety (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself) which altruistic action enables this always existing purity and perfection into being apparent for the remainder of one’s life. And this is marvellous. RESPONDENT: Richard, what can one do to get there? RICHARD: As I said (above): this comes with the extinction of ‘self’ in its entirety (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself) which altruistic action enables this always existing purity and perfection into being apparent for the remainder of one’s life. Noble ‘self’-sacrifice, in other words ... a philanthropic gift to humankind. RESPONDENT: Can one really get there (i.e., be free of the affective faculties)? RICHARD: Yes, for it is one’s birthright and destiny ... but ‘I’/‘me’ can never, ever be here: actuality is so pristine that nothing ‘dirty’ can get in. ‘I’/‘me’ is forever locked-out of this always existing purity and perfection ... hence the ubiquitous sorrow which epitomises life in the ‘real world’. RESPONDENT: Don’t instinctive passions come in to play by themselves and even a ‘a thinking, reflective human being’ has no control over them? RICHARD: There are no instinctual passions whatsoever here in this actual world, the world of this body and that body and every body; the world of the mountains and the streams; the world of the trees and the flowers; the world of the clouds in the sky by day and the stars in the firmament by night and so on and so on ad infinitum. It is all so easy here ... probity and integrity are an effortless by-product, as it were.
RESPONDENT No. 14: If carefully read, the offering assures that there needs be no-thing done. More, there is in fact no-thing that can be done, for: ‘... it is one’s birthright and destiny (The inevitable or necessary fate to which a particular person or thing is destined; one’s lot. A predetermined course of events considered as something beyond human power or control. Synonym: fate)’. [A] Makes imagining it to be ‘Noble ‘self’-sacrifice, in other words ... a philanthropic gift to humankind’ [B] rather a load of self-aggrandizing egoism, yes? Perhaps Kismet has not finished its job in the case of the writer. RESPONDENT: You (indirectly) bring up an interesting point. I have marked two of Richard’s statements as [A] and [B]. I am wondering, if [A] is true, then can [B] be true as well? That is, if it is ‘natural’ for human beings to be sans instinctual passions, how can that which is ‘natural’ be also a ‘gift’ to mankind? May be dear friend Richard has an explanation for an apparent contradiction. RICHARD: I do have an explanation, yes: the quote ‘... it is one’s birthright and destiny (The inevitable or necessary fate to which a particular person or thing is destined; one’s lot. A predetermined course of events considered as something beyond human power or control. Synonym: fate)’ which you have marked with an ‘[A]’ is, of course, not one of ‘Richard’s statements’ at all. The word ‘destiny’ is not only yet another word for what the word ‘fate’ refers to ... the English language is a very expressive language with many variations of meaning. For example:
These definitions obviously do not refer to the same thing as what the ‘inevitable or necessary fate to which a particular person or thing is destined; one’s lot; a predetermined course of events considered as something beyond human power or control’ meaning refers to (I am somewhat surprised at you being so readily taken-in by a known aficionado of word-games). Further to the point, the ‘Ultra Lingua’ dictionary even makes a distinction between a lower-case ‘destiny’ and the upper-case ‘Destiny’:
The word ‘fate’ is derived from the Latin ‘fatum’: lit. ‘that which has been spoken’; neut. pa. pple of ‘fari’: ‘speak’. The word ‘destiny’ is derived from the Latin ‘destinaire’: meaning ‘make firm, establish’; hence ‘destination’. (The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology). Needless to say I have been asked about this before on this Mailing List:
Also, I have made full use of the etymological distinction between ‘destiny’ and ‘fate’ many, many times. Vis.:
Thus the word ‘fate’, in the context I am using it, refers to what is pre-determined by blind nature at conception (the instinctual passions) and my use of the word ‘destiny’, in this ‘self’-extinction context, refers to an exceptional event which transpires when a thinking, reflective ‘being’ (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) deliberately and consciously and with knowledge aforethought, voluntarily ‘self’-immolates for the good of this body and that body and every body ... which altruistic action enables this always existing purity and perfection into being apparent for the remainder of one’s life (noble ‘self’-sacrifice, in other words, a philanthropic gift to humankind). Your destiny is in your hands ... and your hands alone.
RICHARD: ... this flesh and blood body is the air breathed, the water drunk, the food eaten and the sun’s energy absorbed. Just as the trees and the grasses and the flowers thrive without any instinctual passions so too is it eminently possible for a thinking, reflective human being to flourish, in pure delight and enjoyment on this magical paradise that this verdant and azure planet already is, sans the affective faculty. The living of this comes with the extinction of ‘self’ in its entirety (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself) which altruistic action enables this always existing purity and perfection into being apparent for the remainder of one’s life. And this is marvellous. RESPONDENT: Richard, what can one do to get there? RICHARD: As I said (above): this comes with the extinction of ‘self’ in its entirety (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself) which altruistic action enables this always existing purity and perfection into being apparent for the remainder of one’s life. Noble ‘self’-sacrifice, in other words ... a philanthropic gift to humankind. RESPONDENT: My question is (was): what can one do to get there? RICHARD: And my answer is (was): via altruistic ‘self’-sacrifice ... furthermore, when ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul voluntarily ‘self’-immolates, what is seen as being ‘there’, when comprehended whilst living in the ‘real world’, turns out to be here ... eternally here now. ‘Tis an exquisite absurdity and, if it were not for all the misery and mayhem, bordering on being a farce. * RESPONDENT: Can one really get there (i.e., be free of the affective faculties)? RICHARD: Yes, for it is one’s birthright and destiny ... but ‘I’/‘me’ can never, ever be here: actuality is so pristine that nothing ‘dirty’ can get in. ‘I’/‘me’ is forever locked-out of this always existing purity and perfection ... hence the ubiquitous sorrow which epitomises life in the ‘real world’. RESPONDENT: So, how does that actuality come in to my life? What do I need to do? RICHARD: When it is seen with both eyes that ‘I’/‘me’ am standing in the way of the already existing peace-on-earth being apparent ... then what needs to be done will be patently obvious. * RICHARD: There are no instinctual passions whatsoever here in this actual
world, the world of this body and that body and every body; the world of the mountains and the streams; the world of the trees and
the flowers; the world of the clouds in the sky by day and the stars in the firmament by night and so on and so on ad infinitum.
It is all so easy here ... probity and integrity RESPONDENT: But the world that you describe is not me – I am not what you describe. RICHARD: Indeed not ... nor was it the ‘me’ who inhabited this body for the first 34 years of my life: ‘he’ saw – cogently – that ‘he’ was all what was standing in the way betwixt peace-on-earth for one flesh and blood body and, by extension, global peace-on-earth. Such coherent seeing was all the catalyst ‘he’ needed ... then there was action of its own accord. RESPONDENT: What does one need to do to actualise what you are saying? RICHARD: What one does ‘need’ is to want it (peace-on-earth) like one has never wanted anything else before.
RICHARD: The very earth beneath our feet is our base ... this planet grows human beings just as it grows the trees and the grasses and the flowers (although in the final analysis, of course, it is the universe itself which is ‘our base’ as it ‘grows’ the suns and planets ... and I am putting ‘grows’ in scare quotes deliberately as it is an analogous term). RESPONDENT No. 19: ‘Creation’ is the word Krishnamurti used to describe the state of being not in time. RICHARD: Aye, he certainly did. Whereas, in actuality, this planet grows human beings in time (and space), just as it grows the trees and the grasses and the flowers in time (and space), although in the final analysis, of course, it is the universe itself which is our base as it ‘grows’ the suns and the planets in time (and space) ... and I am putting ‘grows’ in scare quotes deliberately as it is an analogous term. There is no ‘Creation’ here in time (and space) ... this universe is perpetuus mobilis. RESPONDENT: I don’t know how you get to this conclusion. RICHARD: Primarily the words ‘perpetuus mobilis’ refer to the direct experiencing of the actuality of infinitude at this moment in eternal time at this place in infinite space ... experienced as perpetual matter currently arranged into being a flesh and blood body replete with apperceptive awareness. It is an ‘I’/‘me’ who, as a centre of consciousness, intuitively creates a boundary, an edge, to awareness and thus superimposes it over the actual universe (thus positing a boundary, an edge, to the universe). So too is it with regards beginning and ending. RESPONDENT: From what I know of it (if the big bang theory is to be believed to be true) universe was created once upon a time and will cease to be once thence a time. RICHARD: The ‘Big Bang Theory’, first proposed by the French Abbé Mr. Georges Lemaitre in 1927 and strikingly similar to the Biblical Creation myth, is shot full of gaping holes ... which are progressively becoming more and more incapable of being forever plugged by mathematicians’ increasingly frantic coefficients. RESPONDENT: The older, steady state theory of the universe being in perpetual existence, doesn’t seem to have borne out by scientific observation, although scientists like Hoyle and Narlikar did advance convincing mathematics to support their view. RICHARD: Are you so sure that it is not ‘borne out by scientific observation’? Because, apart from the current passionate preoccupation by academia with Quantum Theory (which gets ever more frenetic due to the mathematicians who, having taken over physics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, are bemiring themselves more and more in their futile efforts to prove their god to be a mathematician) modern astronomy is showing the universe to be immensely vast. For example, in 1986 a huge conglomeration of galaxies that are 1,000,000,000 light years long, 300,000,000 light years wide and 100,000,000 light years thick were found (which finding was confirmed in 1990). This ‘wall of galaxies’, as it became known, would have taken 100,000,000,000 years to form under the workings of the ‘Big Bang’ theory ... which makes the mathematically estimated ‘age’ of the universe – 12 to 14 billion years – simply look sillier than it already did. I am no mathematician ... yet it is obvious, is it not, that a mathematical model of the universe is not the actual universe? RESPONDENT: So, is there something that ‘grows’ the universe? RICHARD: Contrary to popular belief, there is no ‘something’ or ‘someone’ in charge of the universe. It is perfectly capable of looking after itself. There is no disembodied ‘intelligence’ that is creating anything. This universe is already here ... and it is always here now.
RICHARD: Contrary to popular belief, there is no ‘something’ or ‘someone’ in charge of the universe. It is perfectly capable of looking after itself. There is no disembodied ‘intelligence’ that is creating anything. This universe is already here ... and it is always here now. RESPONDENT: Well, it can equally well be argued the other way around: that there never was anything, and what is ‘always here now’ is just an illusion, a myth. RICHARD: Yet it cannot ‘equally well be argued the other way around’ that ‘what is ‘always here now’ is just an illusion, a myth’ (although there are those who try to argue this). There is a simple experiment that will demonstrate the actualness of physicality in a way that a thousand words would not:
Now, as you rip the plaster from your mouth and gulp in that oh-so-sweet and patently actual air, I ask you: do you still say ‘it can equally well be argued the other way around’ that ‘what is ‘always here now’ is just an illusion, a myth’?
Seeing the fact will set you free to live in the actuality which is already here ... and which is always here now. RESPONDENT: Then, apperceptive awareness that you posit to be the key to experiencing the eternal here and now would be another illusion, another myth. Which probably goes back to the eternal argument of real vs. illusory. Since (at least logically) things can not be illusory with respect to another illusion ... RICHARD: If I may interject: intellectual rigour insists that for reasoning to be rational such reasoning must start from an established known (the basic premise) which, in this case, is time and space and form. To say that time and space and form are ‘illusory’ there must be an actual, or a non-illusory, ‘something’ to define them against as being ‘illusory’ ... and the reality of the non-illusory ‘something’ cannot be conceived of unless one acknowledges the reality of the established known so as to contrast it against in order to posit it in the first instance. Thus if someone says that the known – time and space and form – is an illusion then their ‘something’ – timeless and spaceless and formless – must also be an illusion (only I prefer to call it a delusion) otherwise reasoning falls flat ... which is what I take you to mean by ‘things can not be illusory with respect to another illusion’. RESPONDENT: ... there must be something that is not an illusion. May be that is where your apperceptive awareness fits in. RICHARD: No ... that is where the intimate experiencing of the physicality of the world comes in (as in the spring-clip-on-nose-large-plaster-over-mouth example I provide). Where apperceptive awareness fits in is when it comes to intimately experiencing this material universe’s infinitude (I am using the word ‘infinitude’ in its ‘boundless space and limitless time’ meaning). The absolute, in other words RESPONDENT: For Sankara it was Brahma, for someone else it could be God, for Krishnamurti it was choiceless awareness, otherness. Is this an accurate summary? RICHARD: It is an accurate-enough summary given its extreme brevity ... have you noticed that their ‘non-illusory’ reality, or absolute, is timeless and spaceless and formless? Furthermore, have you noticed that their ‘here and now’ is neither here in space nor now in time but, rather, ‘there and then’ (after physical death)? I find it indicative that there are peoples who will use physical-world terminology (such as ‘eternal’, ‘infinite’, ‘intelligence’, ‘here’, ‘now’ and so on) when referring to metaphysical-world realities when there is a whole raft of metaphysical-world words to use (such as ‘timeless’, ‘spaceless’, ‘god’, ‘there’, ‘then’ and so on). ‘Tis somewhat disingenuous to say the least.
RICHARD: Contrary to popular belief, there is no ‘something’ or ‘someone’ in charge of the universe. It is perfectly capable of looking after itself. There is no disembodied ‘intelligence’ that is creating anything. This universe is already here ... and it is always here now. RESPONDENT: Well, it can equally well be argued the other way around: that there never was anything, and what is ‘always here now’ is just an illusion, a myth. RICHARD: Yet it cannot ‘equally well be argued the other way around’ that ‘what is ‘always here now’ is just an illusion, a myth’ (although there are those who try to argue this). There is a simple experiment that will demonstrate the actualness of physicality in a way that a thousand words would not: 1. Place a large spring-clip upon your nose. 2. Place a large piece of sticking plaster over your mouth. 3. Wait five minutes. Now, as you rip the plaster from your mouth and gulp in that oh-so-sweet and patently actual air, I ask you: do you still say ‘it can equally well be argued the other way around’ that ‘what is ‘always here now’ is just an illusion, a myth’? Exit: abstract argumentation. Enter: facts and actuality. Seeing the fact will set you free to live in the actuality which is already here ... and which is always here now. RESPONDENT: Well, the eternal question still remains: who or what is the entity that gulps the air? RICHARD: Yet ‘the eternal question’ does not remain at all as it is the flesh and blood body that gulps the air (a non-physical ‘entity’ does not breathe physical air). If ‘the eternal question still remains’ for you it means that you chose for the ‘abstract argumentation’ option (further above) rather than the intimate actuality of the sensate feeling of the air moving into and through the mouth; into and through the trachea ... and thence to an inflating of the lungs and a swelling of the chest. ‘Tis your choice. RESPONDENT: If there is no one who gulps the air (and thus experiences it), is there any air at all? RICHARD: As there is a flesh and blood body gulping the air this is a pointless conceptual question and the inevitable result of the ‘abstract argumentation’ choice made. If (note ‘if’) there was no body, here in space and time as form, this question would not be happening ... and this conversation would be a non-event. And, as there is a body, here in space and time as form, this question (and this conversation) is happening ... as is the concomitant perception. It is a nonsense question – it may initially look valid logically – but it is nonsense nevertheless. Howsoever, I am sure that you will now be motivated enough to traipse out into the forest and set-up an experiment (next to the tree that does not fall unless you are there to observe it fall), with bell jars, hoses, vacuum pumps, gauges and ancillary paraphernalia and then (whilst watching out for snakes masquerading as ropes whilst traipsing through the forest) come back the next day and make the appropriate measurements of the air in the jars. Either that or look-up ‘self-centred’ in the dictionary. RESPONDENT: Isn’t all actuality, in one form or another, actualised through a perceiving mind? RICHARD: No. Look, it is this simple: the physical body is sitting in front of the computer monitor reading this sentence; the physical eyeballs see these words; the physical hand may reach for the words and touch the glass that is but a scant few millimetres to the front of the pixels; the physical fingertips touching physical glass (form-on-form) requires no ‘perceiving mind’ to sensuously ascertain that physical form (fingertips-on-glass) exists as an actuality. Not even thought is required in this sensate verification ... touch is immediate and direct. RESPONDENT: So, what is actual – the world or the perception? RICHARD: Both the physical world and sensory perception ... the spring-clip-on-nose-large-plaster-over-mouth example and the finger-tips-touching-glass example are instances of the direct immediacy of sensuous perception (actual-on-actual). Of course, micro-seconds afterwards the affective feelings then thought may or may not come into play ... with all that inheres with that activity. Put simply: sensory perception is primary; affective perception is secondary; thought perception is tertiary. RESPONDENT: I don’t think any conclusive answer to the above question has ever been found, or, could ever be found. RICHARD: I just did (and I copy-pasted most parts of it from previous E-Mails to this Mailing List). RESPONDENT: Hence my comment that argued another way, ‘here and now’ is an illusion. RICHARD: You cannot argue it rationally, though ... because if you argue that ‘all actuality ... is actualised through a perceiving mind’ (meaning that the actuality of ‘here and now’ cannot be reliably or accurately ascertained by a perceiving mind as objectively existing independent of that perceiving mind) then the definitive statement ‘‘here and now’ is an illusion’ is but a perception ‘actualised’ by that very-same perceiving mind which cannot reliably or accurately ascertain objectivity. You are presenting a doubly-illuded argument, in other words. Furthermore, you then present the argument to a body, which that ‘perceiving mind’ definitively states is ‘an illusion’ ... presumably for rational feedback. Which feedback (be it affirmative to your argument or negative to your argument) must, of the necessity your argument dictates, be non-objective whichever way it goes ... which is further evidence of the irrational nature of your ‘it can equally well be argued the other way around’ comment. Needless to say, there is way through the impasse ... there is a simple experiment that will demonstrate the actualness of physicality in a way that a thousand words would not:
Now, as you rip the plaster from your mouth and gulp in that oh-so-sweet and patently actual air, I ask you: do you still say ‘it can equally well be argued the other way around’ that ‘what is ‘always here now’ is just an illusion, a myth’?
Seeing the fact will set you free to live in the actuality which is already here ... and which is always here now. * RESPONDENT: Then, apperceptive awareness that you posit to be the key to experiencing the eternal here and now would be another illusion, another myth. Which probably goes back to the eternal argument of real vs. illusory. Since (at least logically) things can not be illusory with respect to another illusion ... RICHARD: If I may interject: intellectual rigour insists that for reasoning to be rational such reasoning must start from an established known (the basic premise) which, in this case, is time and space and form. To say that time and space and form are ‘illusory’ there must be an actual, or a non-illusory, ‘something’ to define them against as being ‘illusory’ ... and the reality of the non-illusory ‘something’ cannot be conceived of unless one acknowledges the reality of the established known so as to contrast it against in order to posit it in the first instance. Thus if someone says that the known – time and space and form – is an illusion then their ‘something’ – timeless and spaceless and formless – must also be an illusion (only I prefer to call it a delusion) otherwise reasoning falls flat ... which is what I take you to mean by ‘things can not be illusory with respect to another illusion’. RESPONDENT: Once again, what are space, time, and form sans perception? RICHARD: May I suggest? Find someone who has a relative or a friend in a coma – a person in a coma is a person ‘sans perception’ – and go and visit them ... and you will notice that space and time and form are still happening irregardless of their perception of it all. Or, go and be with someone in ‘Samadhi’ or ‘Dhyana’ or some similar cataleptic trance state and, though they will swear that time and space and form do not exist when they come out of their exalted state, you will notice that time and space and form was happening all the while. Or, be with somebody on their death-bed ... and afterwards you will notice that time and space and form keep on keeping on. Or, find someone with expertise in ancient rocks and fossils ... palaeontology shows that time and space and form existed long before human beings and their perception appeared on the scene. RESPONDENT: Human mind can project and theorize absolute space, time, and form, but then those are, well yes, projections. RICHARD: If you ‘project’ something then, yes ... that ‘something’ is a ‘projection’. RESPONDENT: Hence what I said earlier: the only ‘proof’ of the Absolute is the word of a K, Sankara, Buddha, or Richard. RICHARD: Have you noticed that the ‘Absolute’ of ‘a K, Sankara, Buddha’ is timeless and spaceless and formless ... whilst I speak only of eternal time, infinite space and perpetual form? Just curious. RESPONDENT: I don’t think there is an argument against the above position. RICHARD: I just provided some (again). RESPONDENT: All three, K, S, and B, equated illusion with misery and equated realization of the Absolute with bliss. RICHARD: However, the saints and sages and seers, who said there was ‘realisation of the Absolute’, all displayed varying degrees of those emotions grouped under the ‘catch-all’ words malice and sorrow. Most commonly they were subject to anger and anguish (disguised/ designated as being ‘Divine Anger’ and ‘Divine Sorrow’ by themselves and their devotees/ followers/ readers). Therefore, even though they ‘equated illusion with misery’, seeing that they can still get irritated and sorrowful in this ‘bliss’, it speaks volumes regarding the illusory nature of their ‘Absolute’ ... only I prefer to call it ‘delusory’ as there is all manner of delusions of grandeur subjectively happening for them. RESPONDENT: You have said more or less the same thing. RICHARD: What I have said is not at all the same ... let alone ‘more or less’ the same. RESPONDENT: I am not doubting what you say: all that I am saying is that your Truth is, ultimately, your own. RICHARD: I do not have a ‘Truth’ to call my own ... I am talking of directly experiencing physical-world actuality. RESPONDENT: If I see it as you say, it is my Truth also. RICHARD: Not so ... it would mean you are directly experiencing physical-world actuality. RESPONDENT: That is about all by way of objectivity that is to it. If you notice, Krishnamurti says the same thing: ‘Sir, this is a fact. Don’t you see it?’ That is, the only proof of the pudding is in the eating. And that has to be the final answer. :-) RICHARD: If the word ‘objectivity’ has to mean seeing the metaphysical as a fact
CORRESPONDENT No. 33 (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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