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Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’ with Respondent No. 34
RESPONDENT: That [‘Ancient Wisdom’] is clearly a conceptualised wisdom. RICHARD: Well, yes and no ... the enlightened sages certainly lived their delusion as a reality and not as a concept (and most peoples would disagree with your description that Mr. Gotama the Sakyan, for example, lived a ‘conceptualised wisdom’). Yet, either way, their influence on gullible minds has been enormous ... just look at what is discussed on this Mailing List for starters. RESPONDENT: Could you indicate a List for ‘seniors’, and one for ‘veterans’, because I am not sure where do I fit ... ? RICHARD: Not that I am into grading people, but if I were to do so, then I would say that this Mailing List is the list par excellence for both ‘seniors’ and ‘veterans’ ... provided they be pursuing the mystical freedom (to become ‘divine’ instead of ‘human’). There is a third alternative ... an actual freedom. RESPONDENT: Which is the third alternative? With original words ... please. RICHARD: It is possible to live in this modern era, freed from out-dated philosophy and psychiatry, challenging every spiritual and metaphysical tenet and surpassing any of the Altered States Of Consciousness. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thraldom 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. It is now possible for any human being to be totally free from sorrow and malice; the two fundamental elements that prevent one from being happy and harmless. Gone now are the days of having to assiduously practice humility and pacifism in an ultimately futile attempt to become free by transcending the opposites ... the traditional and narrow path of denial and fantasy, negation and hallucination. A wide and wondrous path of blitheness and gaiety is now available for one who wishes to live the freedom of the actual. Actual freedom is a tried and tested way of being here now in the world as it actually is ... stripped of the veneer of reality or Greater Reality that is super-imposed by the psychological or psychic entity within the body. This entity is that sense of identity that inhibits any freedom and sabotages every well-meant endeavour. Thus far one has had only two choices: being ‘human’ or being ‘divine’. Now there is a third alternative ... and it supersedes any mystical Altered State. Philosophical wisdom, psychological knowledge and spiritual enlightenment have had their day and are proving themselves inadequate to meet the requirements of this modern era. For thousands of years – maybe tens of thousands of years – humankind has known of no alternative manner of living life on this verdant planet. The passing parade of Philosophers and Preachers, Masters and Sages – geniuses and thinkers of all description – have failed abysmally to deliver their oft-promised ‘Peace On Earth’ ... in fact, because of their much-vaunted love and compassion, they have left in their wake much hatred and bloodshed, the likes of which beggars description. Millions of well-meaning followers have diligently put their ‘Teachings’ into practice, prostrating and belittling themselves like all get-out in a hopeful attempt to live the unliveable. Yet no-one, it seems, dares to question the ‘Teachings’ themselves; instead the humiliated penitents obligingly blame themselves for failing to achieve release from the ‘Human Condition’. To seek freedom via profound and lofty thought or sublime and exalted feelings is to blindly perpetuate all the horrors and sufferings that have plagued humankind since time immemorial. The time has come to put to an end, once and for all, the blight that has encumbered this fair earth for far too long. It behoves one to question all of the received ‘wisdom’ of the centuries, all of the revealed ‘truths’ ... all of the half-baked inanities that pass for understanding. Then, and only then, there is a fair chance that one can come to an actual freedom ... a freedom the nature of which has never been before in human experience. The blame for the continuation of human misery lies squarely in the lap of those inspired people who, although having
sufficient courage to proceed into the ‘Unknown’, stopped short of the final goal ... the ‘Unknowable’. Notwithstanding the cessation of a
personal ego operating, they were unwilling to relinquish the Self or Spirit ... and an ego-less Self or Spirit is still an identity, nevertheless.
In spite of the glamour and the glory of the Altered State Of Consciousness, closer examination reveals that these ‘Great’ persons had – and
have – feet of clay All through the ages and in all cultures, one basic predicament exemplifies the problem of human relationship: man and woman have never been able to live together in peace and harmony and delight for the twenty-four hours of every day. Each and every person alive today has entered this world the only possible way ... one is the progeny of man and woman and the quality of the start of life is in part dependent upon the quality of the relationship of one’s progenitors. The child can only blindly follow the example – and the precepts – bequeathed with love and compassion by the parents. What I have done has been an investigation and an exploration; an uncovering and a discovering of the problems which have tormented both genders ... difficulties which were seemingly set in concrete and not to be disputed. I could not and would not accept the status-quo. I started from a basic premise that if man and woman could not live together with nary a bicker – let alone a quarrel – then the universe was indeed a sick joke. This appalling prognosis I was patently incapable of believing. Everyone I have spoken to has experienced moments of perfection and purity in what is known as ‘pure consciousness experiences’ (PCE’s). In such a peak experience everything is seen, with unparalleled clarity, to be already always perfect ... that humans are all living in purity ... if only one would act upon one’s seeing. In these moments, good and bad, love and hate, fear and trust, generosity and parsimony ... all these and more, are simply irrelevant. Gods and Goddesses, Devils and Demons, all the battles that have raged throughout the ages are but a nightmare of passionate ‘human’ fantasy. There is a marked absence of hierarchy; no religious figure can match the matter-of-fact equality that pervades everything. A quality of kindly understanding prevails, dispensing forever with the need for Authority and Love and Truth and Power. And ... of course man and woman live together in peace and harmony. So one has good reason to try for the ‘impossible’ dream of complete harmony between man and woman. What I write is both heretical and iconoclastic ... a fact that I make no apology for. The wars and rapes and murders and tortures and corruptions and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides that afflict this globe are far too serious a matter to deal with for me to spend time in mincing words. The divine ‘Beings’ have been peddling their snake oil for centuries to no avail. Their time has come to either put up or shut up ... how much longer than these thousands of years do peoples need to further test the efficaciousness of their failed Divine Message? If Love Agapé and Divine Compassion, for example, were the way to go, then there would already be global peace, as they have had two to three thousand years to demonstrate their effectiveness as being the ultimate solution. There is no ‘Peace On Earth’ ... nor has there ever been; there has only ever been a truce from time to time between warring parties. To call these periods ‘peacetime’ is to misuse the word and make it mean something it does not. In actualism it is readily experienced and understood that Divine Compassion – which is born
out of sorrow – is but a paltry substitute for the over-arching benevolence of the actual world. Similarly, Love Agapé is seen and known to be a
pathetic surrogate for the actual intimacy The self is what one is born with – it equates with being born in Sin, or being on the wheel of Karma – and can be dispensed with by a curious irrevocable occurrence, which eliminates the entire psyche, was triggered by an intense urge to evince and demonstrate what the universe was evidently capable of manifesting: the utter best in purity and perfection which all humans could have ever longed for. Blind nature, which endows all creatures with the instinct for survival, has now been superseded, paving the way for a truly edified species of fellow human beings to live together in complete peace and harmony. The way of becoming actually free is both simple and practical. One starts by dismantling the sense of social identity One can become virtually free from all the insidious feelings – the emotions and passions – that fuel the mind and give credence to all the illusions and delusions and fantasies and hallucinations that masquerade as visions of ‘The Truth’. One can become virtually free of all that which has encumbered humans with misery and despair and live in a state of virtual freedom ... which is beyond ‘normal’ human expectations anyway. Then, and only then, can the day of destiny dawn wherein one becomes actually free. One will have obtained release from one’s fate and achieved one’s destiny ... and the world will be all the better for it. This, the third alternative, is now possible.
RICHARD (to Respondent No. 25): Yet the ‘me’ that ‘attaches to (‘identifies with’) titles, beliefs, agendas,
etc.’, pre-exists this attachment to and identification with ‘titles, beliefs, agendas, etc.’,. Therefore, to end attachment and
identification permanently, one can only self-immolate (psychologically and psychically) and it is this extinction of self in any way, shape or
form that does away with the need to practice detachment. As one’s very identity is felt and thought to be a ‘being’ inside this flesh and
blood body – busily identifying with people, things and events ‘outside’ the body – then to become detached from the superficial ‘outer’
identification (self-image as presented to self and others) only endorses and perpetuates the delusion that who ‘I’ feel and think ‘I’ am
is a psychological and psychic entity inhabiting this body. RESPONDENT: My question is: how, or through what, or in which way, or what method should be used by a human being to be permanently free from the self, you mention above. RICHARD: Through psychological and psychic self-immolation for the benefit of both this body and everybody. To explain: there is an intrinsic trait common to all sentient beings: self-sacrifice. This trait can be observed in almost all animals – it is especially easy to see in the ‘higher-order’ animals – mainly with the parental defending of the young to the point of fatal injury leading to death. Defending the group against another group is also simple to observe ... it manifests in humans in the way that one will passionately defend oneself and one’s group to the death if it is deemed necessary. Speaking personally, as a youth this self-sacrificing trait impelled me to go to war for ‘my’ country ... to ‘willingly lay down my life for kith and kin’. It is a very powerful passion indeed ... Christianity, to give just one example, values it very highly: ‘No greater love hath he that lay down his life for another’. However, all of ‘my’ instincts – the instinctive drive for biological survival – come to the fore when psychologically and psychically threatened, for ‘I’ am confused about ‘my’ presence, confounding ‘my’ survival and the body’s survival. Nevertheless, ‘my’ survival being paramount could not be further from the truth, for ‘I’ need play no part any more in perpetuating physical existence (which is the primal purpose of the instinctual animal ‘self’). ‘I’ am no longer necessary at all. In fact, ‘I’ am nowadays a hindrance. With all of ‘my’ beliefs, values, creeds, ethics and other doctrinaire disabilities, ‘I’ am a menace to the body. ‘I’ am ready to die (to allow the body to be killed) for a cause and ‘I’ will willingly sacrifice physical existence for a ‘Noble Ideal’ ... and reap ‘my’ post-mortem reward: immortality. This trait is called altruism ... albeit misplaced. To put it bluntly: ‘you’ in ‘your’ totality, who are but a passionate illusion, must die a dramatic illusory death commensurate to ‘your’ pernicious existence. The drama must be played out to the end ... there are no short-cuts here. The doorway to an actual freedom has the word ‘extinction’ written on it. This extinction is an irrevocable and psychic event, which eliminates the psyche itself. When this is all over there will be no ‘being’ at all. Thus when ‘I’ willingly self-immolate – psychologically and psychically – then ‘I’ am making the most noble sacrifice that ‘I’ can make for oneself and all humankind ... for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is ‘my’ moment of glory. It is ‘my’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘my’ petty life all worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... to physically die without having experienced what it is like to become dead is such a waste of a life. Now, it is ‘I’ that is responsible for an action that results in ‘my’ own demise ... without really doing the expunging itself (and I am not being tricky here). It is ‘I’ that is the cause of bringing about this sacrifice in that ‘I’ deliberately and consciously and with knowledge aforethought set in motion a ‘process’ that will ensure ‘my’ demise. (‘I’ do not really end ‘myself’ in that ‘I’ do not do the deed itself for an ‘I’ cannot end itself). What ‘I’ do, voluntarily and willingly, is to press the button which precipitates an oft-times alarming but always thrilling momentum that will result in ‘my’ inevitable self-immolation. What one does is that one dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here as the universe’s experience of itself ... now. Peace-on-earth is the inevitable result because it is already here ... it is always now. ‘I’ was merely standing in the way of this already always existing peace-on-earth from becoming apparent. The act of initiating this ‘process’ is altruism, pure and simple. RESPONDENT: Why did you succeed in self-immolate – in a permanent way – and some of us have succeeded only temporarily? What, or where is the basic difference? RICHARD: Why Richard? It stems from wanting to know, once and for all, just what was going on ... wanting to find out just what this entire business called living was. This mutation, which eliminated the entire psyche, was triggered by an intense urge to evince and demonstrate what the universe was evidently capable of manifesting: the utter best in purity and perfection which all humans could have ever longed for as evidenced in a PCE. There was also an congenital integrity – not being susceptible to blandishment and flattery – and dignity which became apparent with a certain quandary in ‘My’ dealings with others when it came time to reveal ‘My’ divine status so as to effect the desired result ... self-deception did not sit too well when it came to the nitty-gritty of interaction. Somehow ‘He’ knew that ‘He’ had intentionally chosen for apotheosis – cunningly disguised as being chosen – over the actual back in 1981. In hindsight, I would say that I was living out the fantasy of greatness partly out of curiosity. By doing so I discovered that it was humanity’s fantasy ... and I have always had a strong sense of individualism and the drive for autonomy. One other reason lies in my personal history where, being in a war, my life became a living nightmare ... literally. I was
trapped in an horrific world of revulsion, dread and foreboding There are three world’s altogether ... the natural ‘reality’ that 6.0 billion people live in and the super-natural ‘Reality’ that .000001 of the population live in ... and this actual world. I call it actual because it is the world of this body and these sense organs only ... and nary a god or goddess to be found. Both the grim and glum ‘real world’ and the Glamorous and Glorious ‘Greater Reality’ vanished when ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul became extinct. I would not – and could not – live a lie.
RESPONDENT: Why did you succeed in self-immolate – in a permanent way – and some of us have succeeded only temporarily? What, or where is the basic difference? RICHARD: Why Richard? It stems from wanting to know, once and for all, just what was going on ... wanting to find out just what this entire business called living was. This mutation, which eliminated the entire psyche, was triggered by an intense urge to evince and demonstrate what the universe was evidently capable of manifesting: the utter best in purity and perfection which all humans could have ever longed for as evidenced in a PCE. There was also an congenital integrity – not being susceptible to blandishment and flattery – and dignity which became apparent with a certain quandary in ‘My’ dealings with others when it came time to reveal ‘My’ divine status so as to effect the desired result ... self-deception did not sit too well when it came to the nitty-gritty of interaction. Somehow ‘He’ knew that ‘He’ had intentionally chosen for apotheosis – cunningly disguised as being chosen – over the actual back in 1981. In hindsight, I would say that I was living out the fantasy of greatness partly out of curiosity. By doing so I discovered that it was humanity’s fantasy ... and I have always had a strong sense of individualism and the drive for autonomy. One other reason lies in my personal history where, being in a war, my life became a living nightmare ... literally. I was
trapped in an horrific world of revulsion, dread and foreboding There are three world’s altogether ... the natural ‘reality’ that 6.0 billion people live in and the super-natural ‘Reality’ that .000001 of the population live in ... and this actual world. I call it actual because it is the world of this body and these sense organs only ... and nary a god or goddess to be found. Both the grim and glum ‘real world’ and the Glamorous and Glorious ‘Greater Reality’ vanished when ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul became extinct. I would not – and could not – live a lie. RESPONDENT: What is the difference between the state you described (that lasted 4 hours, and changed your being) and the permanent state you are in now? RICHARD: Apart from the obvious quantitative difference (on-going for the remainder of one’s natural life) there is a qualitative difference that is more than the outcome of permanence. In a PCE, the identity is merely in abeyance – not extinct – and this abeyant ‘me’ casts an ever-so-faint shadow over the purity of the perfection made apparent. This ever-so-slight pall is of little or no account, however, given the vast differentiation betwixt ‘reality’ and the actuality being evidenced and what one sees is, more or less, what one gets. The actual is so perfect, you see, that nothing ‘dirty’ can get in, as it were ... thus it needs no protection whatsoever. Consequently, the actual freedom is qualitatively different in that there is a safety and security here that has to be lived to be known ... in a PCE one will inevitably revert to ‘normal’ where menace and insecurity prevail. In an actual freedom – as distinct from a PCE – one is pristine, immaculate, impeccable, unimpeachable, unassailable, untouchable and so on as an absolute and irreversible fact. One is utterly harmless and totally reliable ... and peace-on-earth occurs effortlessly.
RESPONDENT: What is the difference between the state you described (that lasted 4 hours, and changed your being) and the permanent state you are in now? RICHARD: Apart from the obvious quantitative difference (on-going for the remainder of one’s natural life) there is a qualitative difference that is more than the outcome of permanence. In a PCE, the identity is merely in abeyance – not extinct – and this abeyant ‘me’ casts an ever-so-faint shadow over the purity of the perfection made apparent. This ever-so-slight pall is of little or no account, however, given the vast differentiation betwixt ‘reality’ and the actuality being evidenced and what one sees is, more or less, what one gets. The actual is so perfect, you see, that nothing ‘dirty’ can get in, as it were ... thus it needs no protection whatsoever. Consequently, the actual freedom is qualitatively different in that there is a safety and security here that has to be lived to be known ... in a PCE one will inevitably revert to ‘normal’ where menace and insecurity prevail. In an actual freedom – as distinct from a PCE – one is pristine, immaculate, impeccable, unimpeachable, unassailable, untouchable and so on as an absolute and irreversible fact. One is utterly harmless and totally reliable ... and peace-on-earth occurs effortlessly. RESPONDENT: After this ‘experience’ you concluded, or felt, that Richard had to go. RICHARD: It was so blatantly obvious, when ‘I’ saw ‘myself’ for what ‘I’ was (a lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning social identity), that thought and feeling had no part to play ... because 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 could be aware of if only they realised 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. Naturally, there was a lot of thinking and feeling about it all – and discussion with one’s peers who all said it was not possible twenty four hours a day – yet there was an awareness that predominated all the while that disregarded all this thinking and feeling and which simply and wordlessly said ‘THIS IS IT’ no matter what conclusions and decisions were reached. When one has experienced the best ... one cannot settle for second-best. RESPONDENT: Was there another movement, experience, fact, involved to make it go? RICHARD: Oh yes ... the PCE was in July 1980 and ‘I’ did not deliberately and consciously and knowingly step onto the wide and wondrous path that leads to an actual freedom from the human condition until January 1981. Thus there was a six-month gestation period wherein the implications and ramifications of abandoning ‘humanity’ were ruminated and digested subliminally. Also, and this is but a personal thing, a close friend of many years standing went ‘stark staring mad’ in December 1980 – what I nowadays know of as ‘divine madness’ – and the event shook ‘me’ to the core. Thus ‘I’ was determined to put to an end, once and for all, to all the religious, spiritual, mystical and metaphysical nonsense that has saturated and dominated both 5,000 years of recorded history and perhaps 50,000 years of pre-history. The war that I volunteered for in 1966 was not just an ideological war (capitalism versus communism) ... I went to war as a gilded youth in order to stop the spread of that ‘godless regime’ from sweeping south. The never-to-be-achieved triumph of ‘Good’ over ‘Evil’ has dominated all conflict since the dawn of human consciousness ... with the nature of both ‘good’ and ‘evil’ being culturally determined, of course. RESPONDENT: Self-immolation is another separate fact? RICHARD: Yes ... it requires a rather curious decision to be made: a decision the likes of which has never been made before nor will ever be made again. It is a once-in-a-lifetime determination and takes some considerable preparation because ‘I’, the aggressive psychological entity and ‘me’, the frightened psychic entity will both vanish forever. After ‘my’ close friend’s ‘divine madness’ began to unfold in its inevitable course through ‘parousia’, the first thing ‘I’ did, in January 1981, was to put an end to anger once and for all ... then ‘I’ was freed enough to live in an ad hoc virtual freedom. It took ‘me’ about three weeks and I have never experienced anger since then. The first and crucial step was to say ‘YES’ to being here on earth, for ‘I’ located and identified that basic resentment that all people that I have spoken to have. To wit: ‘I didn’t ask to be born!’ This is why remembering a PCE is so important for success for it shows one, first hand, that freedom is already always here ... now. With the memory of that crystal-clear perfection held firmly in mind, that basic resentment vanishes forever, and then it is a relatively easy task to eliminate anger once and for all. One does this by neither expressing or repressing anger when an event happens that would previously trigger an outbreak. Anger is thus put into a bind, and the third alternative hoves into view, dispensing with the hostility that is a large part of ‘I’ the aggressive psychological entity, and gently ushering in an increasing ease and generosity of character. With this growing magnanimity, one becomes more and more anonymous, more and more selflessly motivated. With this expanding altruism one becomes less and less self-centred, less and less egocentric ... the humanitarian ideals of peace, kindness, caring, benevolence and humaneness become more and more evident as an actuality. And all this while I asked (as an open question) ‘how do ‘I’ do it?’ (psychologically and psychically self-immolate) ... and the essential character of the perfection of the physical infinitude of this material universe was enabled by ‘my’ concurrence. This enabling is experienced as a ‘pure intent’ running as a ‘golden thread’, as it were, from the purity and perfection of the infinitude to that little-used faculty: naiveté (which is the closest one can get to innocence). Thus the thing is to live, each moment again, a virtual freedom wherein the ‘good’ feelings – the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) are minimised along with the ‘bad’ feelings – the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful) – so that one is free to be feeling good, feeling happy and harmless and feeling excellent/perfect for 99% of the time. If one deactivates the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activates the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (happiness, delight, joie de vivre/ bonhomie, friendliness, amiability and so on) with this freed-up affective energy, in conjunction with sensuousness (delectation, enjoyment, appreciation, relish, zest, gusto and so on), then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception). Delight is what is humanly possibly, given sufficient pure intent obtained from the felicity/ innocuity born of the pure consciousness experience, and from the position of delight, one can vitalise one’s joie de vivre by the amazement at the fun of it all ... and then one can – with sufficient abandon – become over-joyed and move into marvelling at being here and doing this business called being alive. Then one is no longer just intellectually making sense of life ... the wonder of it all drives all intellectual sense away. Such delicious wonder fosters the innate condition of naiveté the nourishing of which is essential if the charm of it all is to occur. Then, as one gazes intently at the world about by glancing lightly with sensuously caressing eyes, out of the corner of one’s eye comes – sweetly – the magical fairy-tale-like paradise that this verdant earth actually is ... and I am the experiencing of what is happening. But try not to possess it and make it your own ... or else ‘twill vanish as softly as it appeared. The other thing ‘I’ did was to become accustomed with the territory that ‘me’, the frightened psychic entity, lurked
about in: fear itself. Fear is both the barrier to and the gateway for an actual freedom ... and one runs the full gauntlet from disquietude,
uneasiness, nervousness, apprehension, anxiety, fear, terror, horror, dread and existential angst. Dread is the passion to watch out for as the
foreboding Thus one can become virtually free from all the insidious feelings – the emotions and passions – that fuel the mind and give credence to all the illusions and delusions and fantasies and hallucinations that masquerade as visions of ‘The Truth’. One can become virtually free of all that which has encumbered humans with misery and despair and live in a state of virtual freedom ... which is beyond ‘normal’ human expectations anyway. Then, and only then, can the day of destiny dawn wherein one becomes actually free. One will have obtained release from one’s fate and achieved one’s destiny ... and the world will be all the better for it. This, the third alternative, is now possible.
RICHARD (to Respondent No. 44): A pure consciousness experience (PCE) of the world as-it-is with people as-they-are happens when the mind becomes aware of itself ... such awareness is called apperceptive awareness. 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 – which is to be the senses as a naked awareness – is the outcome of the exclusive attention paid to being alive right here at this place in infinite space right now at this moment in eternal time ... which is one’s only moment of being alive. (Oxford Dictionary: apperception: the mind’s perception of itself). RESPONDENT: Richard, you seem to be positing a ‘mind’. RICHARD: No, I do not subscribe to the theory that ‘mind’ is something other than ‘brain’. The mind is the brain in operation: being sentient as in alive (not dead) and awake (not asleep) and conscious (not unconscious) and being aware and perceiving ... and also maybe thinking, remembering, reflecting and proposing. This neuronal activity – consciousness – is what ‘mind’ is. So when I read the Oxford Dictionary definition (‘the mind’s perception of itself’) I read ‘the conscious brain’s perception of itself’ and thus ‘the conscious brain being aware of being conscious’ or ‘consciousness being aware of being conscious’. RESPONDENT: Would not this imply in a separate ‘mind’ being aware of itself ... RICHARD: In what way ‘separate’? The human mind is the human brain in action in a human skull. As a human skull is part and parcel of a flesh and blood body waking and sleeping, eating and drinking, urinating and defecating, walking and talking and so on in the world of people, things and events, and as it is patently obvious that this human mind that is the human brain in action in the human skull is the carrots and the beans and the cheese (or whatever food) eaten and the air breathed and the water drunk, then there can never be ‘a separate ‘mind’’ (as in separate from this body) ... or, for that matter, any separation whatsoever betwixt this body and anything or anyone else. Just because each consciousness is the private domain, as it were, (as opposed to the public domain) and that this body is discrete (physically distinct) to that body, it does not imply separation (unless an ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul identity is in residence asserting property rights). A hill or mountain is the very earth it seems to sit upon, for example. Everything and everyone is the very self-same stuff that this physical world – and this material universe – is ... hence no separation whatsoever. RESPONDENT: ... and a content in this mind? RICHARD: If by ‘a content’ in the human mind that is the human brain in action in the human skull you mean, not only all that one has learnt through experience and talking with others and reading and/or watching media (memory), but also the direct apprehension of this that is actually happening right here at this place in infinite space right now at this moment in eternal time, then the ‘content’ of ‘this mind’ can in no way be separate from this flesh and blood body. Contrary to popular belief, the content of consciousness causes no problems to one that is apperceptively aware (a flesh and blood body sans a ‘thinker’ and a ‘feeler’). It is this ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul that is problem ... not thought and memory. Amnesiacs have a dickens of a job operating and functioning satisfactorily.
RESPONDENT: Richard, you seem to be positing a ‘mind’. RICHARD: No, I do not subscribe to the theory that ‘mind’ is something other than ‘brain’. The mind is the brain in operation: being sentient as in alive (not dead) and awake (not asleep) and conscious (not unconscious) and being aware and perceiving ... and also maybe thinking, remembering, reflecting and proposing. This neuronal activity – consciousness – is what ‘mind’ is. So when I read the Oxford Dictionary definition (‘the mind’s perception of itself’) I read ‘the conscious brain’s perception of itself’ and thus ‘the conscious brain being aware of being conscious’ or ‘consciousness being aware of being conscious’. RESPONDENT: Would not this imply in a separate ‘mind’ being aware of itself ... RICHARD: In what way ‘separate’? The human mind is the human brain in action in a human skull. As a human skull is part and parcel of a flesh and blood body waking and sleeping, eating and drinking, urinating and defecating, walking and talking and so on in the world of people, things and events, and as it is patently obvious that this human mind that is the human brain in action in the human skull is the carrots and the beans and the cheese (or whatever food) eaten and the air breathed and the water drunk, then there can never be ‘a separate ‘mind’’ (as in separate from this body) ... or, for that matter, any separation whatsoever betwixt this body and anything or anyone else. Just because each consciousness is the private domain, as it were, (as opposed to the public domain) and that this body is discrete (physically distinct) to that body, it does not imply separation (unless an ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul identity is in residence asserting property rights). A hill or mountain is the very earth it seems to sit upon, for example. Everything and everyone is the very self-same stuff that this physical world – and this material universe – is ... hence no separation whatsoever. RESPONDENT: ‘... and a content in this mind? RICHARD: If by ‘a content’ in the human mind that is the human brain in action in the human skull you mean, not only all that one has learnt through experience and talking with others and reading and/or watching media (memory), but also the direct apprehension of this that is actually happening right here at this place in infinite space right now at this moment in eternal time, then the ‘content’ of ‘this mind’ can in no way be separate from this flesh and blood body. Contrary to popular belief, the content of consciousness causes no problems to one that is apperceptively aware (a flesh and blood body sans a ‘thinker’ and a ‘feeler’). It is this ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul that is problem ... not thought and memory. Amnesiacs have a dickens of a job operating and functioning satisfactorily. RESPONDENT: So, according to the apperceptive-brain model, all we perceive comes to us through the senses. RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: So what you call ‘space’ is in fact something that the brain processed through electrical impulses and interpreted it as ‘space’. RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: The same with ‘materiality’. Trough the sense inputs the brain is able to interpret that data, and in a indirect way, call it as ‘material’. RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: The sense organs themselves are interpretations of the brain in a very analogous manner – sense inputs, electrical impulses. RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: This leads us to say, according to this model, that the ‘real’ nature of things are unavailable to the brain, because it only deals with the senses. RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: Correct me if I am wrong ... so far. RICHARD: You have misunderstood inasmuch as you are coming from the point of view that there is a ‘someone’, an identity (a psychological and/or psychic entity) inside the flesh and blood body to do the perceiving of what you say ‘comes to us through the senses’ ... and from this basic premise make all your following deductions. But where the identity, the psychological ‘thinker’ (‘I’ as ego) and psychic ‘feeler’ (‘me’ as soul) is not extant then what one is (‘what’ not ‘who’) is these very sense organs in operation: this seeing is me, this hearing is me, this tasting is me, this touching is me, this smelling is me, and this thinking is me. Whereas ‘I’, the identity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain (or as you say ‘all we perceive comes to us through the senses’). Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the world as-it-is (the actual world) by ‘my’ very presence. Unable as ‘I’ am to be the direct experiencing of actuality as-it-happens ‘I’ can only conclude ‘that the ‘real’ nature of things are unavailable to the brain, because it only deals with the senses’. Whereas I am the direct sensate experiencing of what is happening right here at this place in infinite space right now at this moment in eternal time. Which is the experiencing of infinitude.
RESPONDENT: According to the apperceptive-brain model, all we perceive comes to us through the senses. RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: So what you call ‘space’ is in fact something that the brain processed through electrical impulses and interpreted it as ‘space’. RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: The same with ‘materiality’. Trough the sense inputs the brain is able to interpret that data, and in a indirect way, call it as ‘material’. RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: The sense organs themselves are interpretations of the brain in a very analogous manner – sense inputs, electrical impulses. RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: This leads us to say, according to this model, that the ‘real’ nature of things are unavailable to the brain, because it only deals with the senses. RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: Correct me if I am wrong ... so far. RICHARD: You have misunderstood inasmuch as you are coming from the point of view that there is a ‘someone’, an identity (a psychological and/or psychic entity) inside the flesh and blood body to do the perceiving of what you say ‘comes to us through the senses’ ... and from this basic premise make all your following deductions. RESPONDENT: No ... there is no inner entity. RICHARD: If there is ‘no inner entity’ then in no way would the physical world of people, things and events ever be experienced as being that which ‘comes to us through the senses’ and thus ‘through the sense inputs the brain is able to interpret that data, and in a indirect way, call it as ‘material’’ and that ‘space is in fact something that the brain processed through electrical impulses and interpreted it as ‘space’ or that ‘the ‘real’ nature of things are unavailable to the brain, because it only deals with the senses’ and so on. If there is ‘no inner entity’ then it would be outstandingly obvious that material sense-datum, being directly experienced as-it-is as an actual materiality, is not interpreted in an ‘indirect way as being material’. If there is ‘no inner entity’ then it would be outstandingly obvious that spatial sense-datum, being directly experienced as-it-is as an actual space is not interpreted as ‘electrical impulses called space’. If there is ‘no inner entity’ then it would be outstandingly obvious that actual nature of things sense-datum, being directly experienced as-it-is as an actual nature of things is always directly available to the brain because the sense organs are the brain itself ... the brain on stalks, as it were. This type of perception is known as apperception and is epitomised by the marked absence of a ‘perceiver’ who normally does all this interpreting and indirect experiencing that you talk of. * RICHARD: But where the identity, the psychological ‘thinker’ (‘I’ as ego) and psychic ‘feeler’ (‘me’ as soul) is not extant then what one is (‘what’ not ‘who’) is these very sense organs in operation: this seeing is me, this hearing is me, this tasting is me, this touching is me, this smelling is me, and this thinking is me. RESPONDENT: Yes, it is so. And from where do you get the notion of ‘infinite space’? RICHARD: If it is indeed a case of ‘yes it is so’ then it would be outstandingly obvious that spatial sense-datum, being directly experienced as-it-is as an actual infinite space, is not a ‘notion of ‘infinite space’’ but an actuality directly experienced afresh each moment again. RESPONDENT: The perception of ‘space’ can only be gathered through the senses, with or without the ‘me’ or ‘I’ ... if you consider the ‘brain apperception’ model. RICHARD: Once again there is this ‘gathered through the senses’ phrasing that only a ‘someone’, an identity (a psychological and/or psychic entity) inside the flesh and blood body would say. * RICHARD: Whereas ‘I’, the identity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain (or as you say ‘all we perceive comes to us through the senses’). RESPONDENT: No ... there is no me. It is just a way of expression, communication. RICHARD: If I may point out? It is a ‘way of expression’ that only a ‘someone’, an identity (a psychological and/or psychic entity) inside the flesh and blood body would use. If there is ‘no inner entity’ then it would be outstandingly obvious that poor communication, as in using a ‘way of expression’ commonly used in the ‘real world’, only adds to the confusion that already runs rampant in the ‘real world’. * RICHARD: Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the world as-it-is (the actual world) by ‘my’ very presence. Unable as ‘I’ am to be the direct experiencing of actuality as-it-happens ‘I’ can only conclude ‘that the ‘real’ nature of things are unavailable to the brain, because it only deals with the senses’. Whereas I am the direct sensate experiencing of what is happening right here at this place in infinite space right now at this moment in eternal time. Which is the experiencing of infinitude. RESPONDENT: This seems to be OK. But the word ‘space’ is too tridimensional, no? RICHARD: Yet space is three-dimensional as an actuality ... are you saying that actuality is too much? RESPONDENT: I would rather remain with infinitude. RICHARD: I am using the word ‘infinitude’ in its ‘boundless time and space’ meaning ... not some metaphysical ‘timeless and spaceless’ meaning. RESPONDENT: So the brain is aware of things and events and is aware of itself. There is no ‘me’, no ‘I’. RICHARD: Yes ... is it not an amazing faculty to not only be able to be consciousness being aware but to be consciousness being aware of being consciousness without an ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious? In other words: as this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware, I am the experiencing of the doing of what is happening RESPONDENT: So all existence ... all life ... all of creation, is ‘concentrated’ upon ... is issuing from, a flesh and blood brain? RICHARD: No ... that is a solipsistic view-point known in some disciplines as ‘I Am That’. There is no other ‘existence’ than this infinite and eternal universe which already always is ... it was happening long before this particular flesh and blood body was born and will be happening long after this particular flesh and blood body is dead ... for ever, in fact. Whilst this particular flesh and blood body is alive the universe can experience its own infinitude as a sensate and reflective human being. There is no ‘creation’ ... the universe is already and always has been and always will be.
RICHARD: Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the world as-it-is (the actual world) by ‘my’ very presence. Unable as ‘I’ am to be the direct experiencing of actuality as-it-happens ‘I’ can only conclude ‘that the ‘real’ nature of things are unavailable to the brain, because it only deals with the senses’. Whereas I am the direct sensate experiencing of what is happening right here at this place in infinite space right now at this moment in eternal time. Which is the experiencing of infinitude. RESPONDENT: This seems to be OK. But the word ‘space’ is too tridimensional, no? RICHARD: Yet space is three-dimensional as an actuality ... are you saying that actuality is too much? RESPONDENT: I would rather remain with infinitude. RICHARD: I am using the word ‘infinitude’ in its ‘boundless time and space’ meaning ... not some metaphysical ‘timeless and spaceless’ meaning. RESPONDENT: So the brain is aware of things and events and is aware of itself. There is no ‘me’, no ‘I’. RICHARD: Yes ... is it not an amazing faculty to not only be able to be consciousness being aware but to be consciousness being aware of being consciousness without an ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious? In other words: as this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware, I am the experiencing of the doing of what is happening RESPONDENT: So all existence ... all life ... all of creation, is ‘concentrated’ upon ... is issuing from, a flesh and blood brain? RICHARD: No ... that is a solipsistic view-point known in some disciplines as ‘I Am That’. There is no other ‘existence’ than this infinite and eternal universe which already always is ... it was happening long before this particular flesh and blood body was born and will be happening long after this particular flesh and blood body is dead ... for ever, in fact. Whilst this particular flesh and blood body is alive the universe can experience its own infinitude as a sensate and reflective human being. There is no ‘creation’ ... the universe is already and always has been and always will be. RESPONDENT: So ... there is a flesh and blood brain. Mind is the function of this brain. This brain is aware of the world and is aware of itself being aware. So ... I must ask: is there any other means through which this brain gathers data, besides the senses? RICHARD: Firstly, where there is no ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul as an entity inside the flesh and blood body, there is no experience of the senses as being a ‘means through which this brain gathers data’ because one is the senses ... thus this is a direct experiencing of the world as-it-is (no ‘through’). Secondly, what data is there other than sensate data that would need ‘other means’ ... metaphysical data? Where there is no ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul (no psyche) there is no imaginative/intuitive faculty ... hence no metaphysicality. It is all so simple here in this actual world. RESPONDENT: Is the faculty of being aware of itself also a sensorial data input? RICHARD: There are and have been people who are blind and deaf; people who have no smell and taste; people who have no touch (physical sensation) from the neck down ... but I have not come across or heard about anyone who is totally without sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch (not just ‘neck down’ ... no whole body physical sensation). I would have to be that corny ‘brain in a vat’ so beloved of epistemologists to ascertain experientially that apperceptive awareness is not sensate-oriented ... and then I would not be able to communicate the information you seek anyway. Speaking from a fully-functioning-senses experiencing, I always say – and definitively – that without the senses I would not know that I exist. Because I am the senses – which senses are the brain on stalks as it were – thus when I touch something I am that touching ... and that very touching is apperceptive awareness (in which there may be thinking as in remembering, considering and recognising or not). There is no ‘I’ in here touching ‘that’ out there ... no ‘inner’ and no ‘outer’ at all. As this body being apperceptively aware I am the direct experiencing of what is happening ... and it is this infinite and eternal universe that is happening everywhere and everywhen. And what a happening it is!
RESPONDENT: So ... there is a flesh and blood brain. Mind is the function of this brain. This brain is aware of the world and is aware of itself being aware. So ... I must ask: is there any other means through which this brain gathers data, besides the senses? RICHARD: Firstly, where there is no ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul as an entity inside the flesh and blood body, there is no experience of the senses as being a ‘means through which this brain gathers data’ because one is the senses ... thus this is a direct experiencing of the world as-it-is (no ‘through’). Secondly, what data is there other than sensate data that would need ‘other means’ ... metaphysical data? Where there is no ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul (no psyche) there is no imaginative/intuitive faculty ... hence no metaphysicality. It is all so simple here in this actual world. RESPONDENT: Is the faculty of being aware of itself also a sensorial data input? RICHARD: There are and have been people who are blind and deaf; people who have no smell and taste; people who have no touch (physical sensation) from the neck down ... but I have not come across or heard about anyone who is totally without sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch (not just ‘neck down’ ... no whole body physical sensation). I would have to be that corny ‘brain in a vat’ so beloved of epistemologists to ascertain experientially that apperceptive awareness is not sensate-oriented ... and then I would not be able to communicate the information you seek anyway. Speaking from a fully-functioning-senses experiencing, I always say – and definitively – that without the senses I would not know that I exist. Because I am the senses – which senses are the brain on stalks as it were – thus when I touch something I am that touching ... and that very touching is apperceptive awareness (in which there may be thinking as in remembering, considering and recognising or not). There is no ‘I’ in here touching ‘that’ out there ... no ‘inner’ and no ‘outer’ at all. As this body being apperceptively aware I am the direct experiencing of what is happening ... and it is this infinite and eternal universe that is happening everywhere and everywhen. And what a happening it is! RESPONDENT: What you say, the way you say it, seems true. I agree basically with what you are expounding here. But I sense that something is not quite ‘right’. Sorry for saying this ... maybe I am not being fair. It’s just that somehow you seem to deny the ‘transcendentality’, the intangibility, that which is not touched by thought, by the senses. You say ‘what a happening it is!’ so I remain here wondering ... maybe you changed your view, maybe you are able to share the unknowable. After all, this what is happening is indeed beyond anything thought could touch ... it is beyond anything any concept could brush, grasp. Something is beyond the flesh and blood – the flesh and blood brain – which is after all just another sense object. And, somehow, I feel that the ‘mind’ as you define it – a function of the brain – does not encompass that, this other ‘mind’, from what the brain is just a partial ‘external’ manifestation. RICHARD: I am somewhat nonplussed at the way you are proceeding here ... may I remind you of your first post to me that started this exchange? Viz.:
Yet it is you who is ‘positing a ‘mind’’ ... and an ‘other ‘mind’’ into the bargain from which all the flesh and blood human brains in all the flesh and blood human skulls are a ‘manifestation’ of. RESPONDENT: So in this respect we seem to separate in our understanding ... but then, when you say that ‘this’ is the direct experiencing of what is happening – we meet again – there is not any mind after all. So what can I say? Something beyond understanding ... and without another ... is happening. It is absolutely real, actual, present, totally transcendental, totally incomprehensible and unknowable. To say that it is sacred may sound too ‘biblical’... but it is indeed ... inexpressible. RICHARD: Where you say ‘totally transcendental’ and ‘the ‘transcendentality’’ (qualified with ‘the intangibility’ and ‘totally incomprehensible and unknowable’) you are conveying ‘transcendental’ in its ‘beyond the range or grasp of human experience, reason, belief, etc.’ meaning (Oxford Dictionary) and, in view of your use of ‘sacred’, in its ‘of, pertaining to, or belonging to, the divine as opposed to the natural world’ meaning (Oxford Dictionary). Now on a forum like this, the words ‘sacred’ or ‘divine’ do not mean the god of the temples, churches, synagogues, mosques, holy place, shrine, sanctuary or any place of worship whatsoever ... and this ‘non-biblical’ usage becomes more evident as you say ‘not touched by thought, by the senses’ and ‘beyond the flesh and blood brain’ and ‘beyond anything thought could touch’ and ‘beyond understanding ... and without another’ which indicates a non-temporal and non-spatial and non-material entirely other ‘otherness’ that is self-existent in its own right (Webster’s Dictionary: otherness: ‘the quality or state of being other or different; Oxford Dictionary: other: ‘existing distinct from that or those already specified or implied’) as is also evidenced by your use of ‘other’ in ‘this other ‘mind’, from what the brain is just a partial ‘external’ manifestation’ sentence. Then you go on to say that ‘this other ‘mind’’ is evident in my sentence (‘the direct experiencing of what is happening’) which, you say, is when ‘there is not any mind after all’ (presumably meaning the human mind which, on a forum like this, generally means ‘ego-mind’ as in thought and thinking). It is no wonder that you say ‘I sense that something is not quite ‘right’’ when you read what I have to say ... I am a thorough-going atheist through and through; there is not the slightest trace of religiosity, spirituality or mysticality in me whatsoever. To be actually free of the human condition is to be sans ‘I’ as ego (the ‘thinker’) and ‘me’ as soul (the ‘feeler’) which is to be this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. And where there is no ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul (no psyche) there is no imaginative/ intuitive faculty ... hence no ‘this other ‘mind’’ metaphysical projection. It is all so simple here in this actual world.
CORRESPONDENT No. 34 (Part Four) RETURN TO CORRESPONDENCE LIST ‘B’ INDEX RETURN TO RICHARD’S CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
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