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Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’ with Respondent No. 38
RESPONDENT: Richard, I am interested in your experience, your movement past enlightenment (I am not sure of what your particular term for it is). I admit I am sceptical, because many people claim to be enlightened and many of them do not appear to be given many of their personal characteristics. However, your posts have always struck me as quite reasonable and well-considered. It could be, of course, that this is merely my image of what someone who is enlightened or beyond might act like, but there it is nevertheless. Could you please try to tell me succinctly what state you are in now, and how it is different from enlightenment? Just a short summary, if that is possible. And second, could you tell me how you got into that state, and how others can do so as well? RICHARD: An actual freedom from the human condition is different from Enlightenment in that it is most definitely substantial: there is no transcendence, for I have neither sorrow nor malice anywhere at all to rise above via sublimation. They have vanished entirely, leaving me both blithesome and benign – carefree and harmless – which leads to a most remarkable state of affairs. The chief characteristics of Enlightenment – Union with the Divine (by any name), Universal Compassion, Love Agapé, Ineffable Bliss and Rapture, The Truth, Timelessness, Spacelessness, Formlessness, Immortality, Aloneness, Oneness, Pacifism, Surrender, Trust, Beauty, Goodness and so on – being redundant in this totally new condition, are no longer extant. Herein lies the unmistakable distinction between this condition, which I call actual freedom, and the Enlightened State: I am no longer driven by a Divine Sense Of Mission to bring The Truth, Universal Love and Divine Compassion to the world. I am free to speak with whomsoever is genuinely interested in solving the ‘Mystery of Life’ and becoming totally free of the Human Condition. For succinctness and clarity I can summarise it as follows:
Thus the search for meaning amidst the debris of the much-vaunted human hopes and dreams and schemes has come to its timely
end. With the end of both ‘I’ and ‘me’, the distance or separation between both ‘I’ and ‘me’ and these sense organs – and thus
the external world – disappears. To be living as the senses is to live a clear and clean awareness – apperception – a pure consciousness
experience of the world as-it-is. Because there is no ‘I’ as a thinker (a little person inside one’s head) or a ‘me’ as a feeler (a
little person in one’s heart) – to have sensations happen to them, I am the sensations. The entire affective faculty vanishes ... blind nature’s
software package of instinctual passions is deleted. There is nothing except the series of sensations which happen ... not happening to an ‘I’
or a ‘me’ but just happening ... moment by moment ... one after another. To live life as these sensations, as distinct from having them,
engenders the most astonishing sense of freedom and magic. Consequently, I am living in peace and tranquillity; a meaningful peace and
tranquillity. Life is intrinsically purposeful, the reason for existence lies openly all around. Being this very air I live in, I am constantly
aware of it as I breathe it in and out; I see it, I hear it, I taste it, I smell it, I touch it, all of the time. It never goes away – nor has it
ever been away – it was just that ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ was standing in the way of the meaning of life being apparent. RESPONDENT: If you wish to refer me to other posts, I would appreciate it if you could provide exact URLs (or at least dates and subject lines) for the posts in question; I will then read those posts and ask further questions based on them. RICHARD: I have written more than a few posts and, depending upon what you are looking for, any one of them is as
useful as another. I do keep a record of all E-Mails I have written which you may access. I am only too happy to answer any question.
RICHARD: All sentient beings are born with instinctual passions like fear and aggression and nurture and desire genetically bestowed by blind nature which give rise to a rudimentary animal ‘self’ – which is ‘being’ itself – that human beings with their ability to think and reflect upon their mortality have transformed into a ‘me’ as soul (a ‘feeler’ in the heart) and an ‘I’ as ego (a ‘thinker’ in the head). RESPONDENT: Where did these things come from? RICHARD: Matter is perpetually arranging and rearranging itself in a multiplicity of forms RESPONDENT: This is an especially pertinent question in view of what you say later, namely that you are the sensations you experience and nothing else. RICHARD: I am this infinite and eternal universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being ... and this is marvellous. * RICHARD: The primary cause of all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides and so on is the instinctual passions which give rise to malice and sorrow and the antidotally generated pacifiers of love and compassion which, if sublimated and transcended, give rise to Love Agapé and Divine Compassion. This ‘Tried and True’ solution to all the ills of humankind lies within the ‘Human Condition’ and, as it has had 3,000 to 5,000 years to demonstrate its efficacy, can be discarded as being the ‘Tried and Failed’. RESPONDENT: I see your point, yet I do not know many people who can claim, even arguably, to have had a true transformative experience with Love Agape and Divine Compassion. RICHARD: Some enterprising person did a head count last year and came up with an estimate of 0.0000001 of the population. RESPONDENT: So I wonder if these are truly ‘tried and failed’. RICHARD: It has had at least 5,000 years of recorded history and maybe 50,000 years of prehistory to deliver the goods so glibly promised ... that is quite a dismal track record. There is just as much animosity and anguish now as ’way back then ... how long would a less glamorous experiment get to run its course before being discarded for a different model? RESPONDENT: Yet I would concede that even if these things exist and worked, they seem to be so rare that, well, they don’t work, i.e. they are not very practical. But the same thing could be said for your state, don’t you think? RICHARD: Seeing as I went public in 1996 it is not reasonable to class it in the same category as something that has had – at the very least – 5,000 years to demonstrate its efficacy. RESPONDENT: It’s practical for you perhaps (just as Love Agape and Divine Compassion may be practical for those who experience it). RICHARD: But Love Agape and Divine Compassion are not ‘practical’ at all ... to practice pacifism and surrender is to allow the bully-boys to rule the world. RESPONDENT: But for the 6 billion people on earth who most likely will never experience this, and for most of the 1 percent who give enough of a damn to try to get to where you are, but who still live and die without having done so – fairly impractical, no? RICHARD: Are you saying that the possibility of peace-on-earth is so remote that one should give up before even trying? Thus all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides will go on for ever and a day. * RICHARD: I am mortal in that I was born, I live for a period of years, then I die and death is the end, finish. The material universe is infinite and eternal and was here before I was born and will be here after I die. RESPONDENT: This I find difficult to understand intellectually. When you die, does that not mean the sensations end? RICHARD: Not only the sensations ... death is the end, finish. Oblivion. RESPONDENT: If the sensations end, FOR YOU, is there any difference between your death and the permanent end of the entire universe? RICHARD: When I am dead, those who are left alive will get on with the business of living. And someone, somewhere, will respond to the challenge of being here now as the universe’s experience of itself. I am not the only fish in the ocean ... this universe has all of time and all of space to manifest itself as the living (carbon-based life-form) perfection that it is. There has been many people who have tried to convince me that I am arrogant ... yet I do not equate my end as being of the same-same magnitude as the (imagined) end of this humungous universe! * RICHARD: When ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul psychologically and psychically self-immolate – which is the end of
‘being’ itself – then the answer to the ‘Mystery Of Life’ becomes evident as an on-going existential experiencing; I am this physical
universe experiencing itself as a reflective, sensate human being; as me, the universe is intelligent (there is no anthropomorphic RESPONDENT: Would you not say a tree or an animal or our solar system are put together remarkably and intelligently? RICHARD: Remarkably ... yes. Intelligently ... no. RESPONDENT: Everything seems to fit together perfectly, so complicated and yet so perfect that to me it does indeed seem almost as if a great intelligence, an intelligence greater than the one I use to solve math problems, put it together. RICHARD: It has taken countless aeons for carbon-based life-forms to evolve through to being intelligent in one species alone: the human animal. Of course the human animal values intelligence highly – it is what separates humans from other animals – and allows the ability to reflect, plan and implement considered activity (which other animals cannot do) in the environment about for beneficial reasons. But to take this faculty which humans value highly and seek to impose it upon this marvellous, amazing, wondrous and magical universe is to commit the vulgar error of anthropocentricism. Be that as it may, because of this evolved intelligence the human animal can ask: why are we here? Which means: why am I (No. 38) here? RESPONDENT: Indeed, it seems my own intelligence can do practically nothing. How do I walk? RICHARD: Walking takes much more than intelligence ... just ask the AI people. RESPONDENT: I have no idea which particular muscles I use, at what times, at what strength. How do I think? RICHARD: Intelligence did not produce thinking ... intelligence is a property of thought RESPONDENT: I do not consciously create thoughts – they appear fully formed, I do not construct them that I know of (although it does seem I can attract certain kinds of thoughts by being open to them). Nor does my intellect operate my circulatory system, the construction of blood cells, my breathing, my limbic system, my nervous system, my organs & their reproduction and replenishment. RICHARD: There ... you have virtually said it yourself: ‘nor does my intellect operate ...’. The intellect (the cerebral faculty) is the source of intelligence. RESPONDENT: And who or what invented the marvelous sense organs? RICHARD: There never is an ‘inventor’ of these things that you mention. RESPONDENT: How was it decided how these senses would be perceived? RICHARD: The circumstances dictated ... organisms responding to the environment. RESPONDENT: Such differences of kind in perception! The amazing distinction between blue and b-minor. Can you even imagine another kind of sense? RICHARD: No ... and I do not wish for more. Somewhere I read that there is something like 150,000 impulses travelling into the brain each second ... enough is enough, eh? RESPONDENT: I cannot – when I try, what I imagine is in terms of the existing senses. RICHARD: Yes, many, many years ago when I made a living as a practising artist I tried to imagine a colour that is not yet another derivation of the three primary colours ... I could not. I pondered it for months, if I recall. RESPONDENT: Yet whatever amazing creative force fashioned sight, I have no doubt, can fashion a dozen more ways of perceiving, each as different from my present five senses as my touch is different from my sight. RICHARD: I have no need for the hypothesis of any ‘creator’ ... this universe has always been here and always will be. RESPONDENT: It seems that almost everything of any real importance has been handled /for/ me, since before I was born! RICHARD: Yes ... we live in a veritable playground. All that is required is to enjoy and appreciate being here each moment again. RESPONDENT: By whom? RICHARD: I have no need for the hypothesis of any ‘creator’ ... this universe has always been here and always will be. RESPONDENT: How? If I started at birth and will end at death, what force arranged for absolutely everything I need, missing no detail? RICHARD: I have no need for the hypothesis of any ‘creator’ ... this universe has always been here and always will be. RESPONDENT: If the universe is 10 billion years old as scientists suggest ... RICHARD: Scientists have made mistakes before ... and will do so again. RESPONDENT: Surely the odds of all this happening purely by random chance, without the introduction of any ordering principle whatsoever, would require a period of time a million times longer to produce such a thing! RICHARD: Yep ... eternal time, in fact. RESPONDENT: Or so it seems to me. What are your thoughts? RICHARD: Everything is a magical delight ... I live in constant wonder and marvel. * RICHARD: There is a wide and wondrous path to actual freedom: One asks oneself, each moment again, ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’? This gives rise to apperception. Apperception is the outcome of the exclusive attention paid to being alive right here and now. Apperception is to be the senses as a bare awareness, a pure consciousness experience (PCE) of the world as-it-is, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. Apperception is an awareness of consciousness. It is not ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious; it is the mind’s awareness of itself. RESPONDENT: Apperception is an awareness of consciousness. It is not I being aware of me being conscious; it is the minds awareness of itself. OK, I feel like at this moment I am aware of what I am feeling, the keys on my fingers, the breeze on my skin. Is this a PCE? RICHARD: When one is having a PCE one does not need to ask ... it is stunningly obvious. RESPONDENT: If not, what is the difference between a PCE and what I am now experiencing? RICHARD: Initially a PCE is like moving into another world, another dimension (except that one is here – magically here right now as this flesh and blood body – for the very first time). * RICHARD: To be living as the senses is to live a clear and clean awareness – apperception – a pure consciousness experience of the world as-it-is. Because there is no ‘I’ as a thinker (a little person inside one’s head) or a ‘me’ as a feeler (a little person in one’s heart) – to have sensations happen to them, I am the sensations. RESPONDENT: I do see your point that I am the sensations. But how does this affect the metaphysical construct of an objective physical universe? If you ARE the sensations, and sensations are all you know, upon what basis do you posit an objective physical universe? RICHARD: Because this brain has memory ... and memory is a record of a series of yesterdays, that were packed full of sensations, going all the way back to one’s earliest memory. Before that one can refer to the reports given by one’s parents (for example) back to one’s birth. Unless one is paranoid – thinking that there is a conspiracy by one’s parents to deceive one – then it is obvious that this universe has been here for all those years. Unless one wishes to be solipsistic and believe that this universe came into being when one was born (complete with 6.0 billion people whose sole aim in life is to convince you that it was here before you were born when it was not) then it is equally obvious that this universe has been here throughout human history. As for before human history ... unless one is anthropocentric (and egocentric people often are) it is obvious that this universe does not require verification from human beings in order to exist. Palaeontology evidences this. Before that? Unless one is a religious cosmogonist (believing in a ‘Creation’) or a scientific cosmogonist (believing in a ‘Big Bang’) then it is obvious that this universe has always been here. As it has always been here ... it always will be here. This then is an objectively infinite and eternal universe. RESPONDENT: Perhaps all there is, is just the sensations themselves, nothing more, and organizing principles which guide their movement. Do you have any proof to the contrary? RICHARD: If all there is, is your subjective sensations, then there is no point in asking me for verification because I
am yet another of your subjective sensations. This is called solipsism * RICHARD: It never goes away – nor has it ever been away – it was just that ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ was standing in the way of the meaning of life being apparent. RESPONDENT: It seems that in order to see this for myself, I have to see what this ‘I’ is. I probably do not see it right now for the same reason a fish does not see the water. What do you say? RICHARD: Hmm ... I have heard this so-called wisdom before. As a fish not seeing the water amounts to the same thing as humans not seeing the air (the atmosphere is our ocean) this inanity has no value at all. The reason you do not see it for yourself is that you are standing in your own way. This apparently impossible challenge is such fun!
RICHARD: I am this infinite and eternal universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being ... and this is marvellous. RESPONDENT: You say ‘I am this infinite and eternal universe’. Does this mean that you feel you and this universe are one and the same thing? If so, how is this different from solipsism? RICHARD: It is ‘different from solipsism’ because I do not snip the other half of the sentence off so as to make it sound like a grandiose claim. Vis.: ‘experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being’. There are 6.0 billion sensate and reflective human beings ... and the universe is also experiencing itself as cats and dogs and so on. Just the same as any other sensate being, I am the carrots and the beans and the cheese (or whatever food) eaten and the air breathed and the water drunk. There is no separation whatsoever betwixt this body and anything or anyone else. Everything and everyone is the very self-same stuff that this physical world – and this material universe – is. I did not come from outside this universe – there being no outside to infinity – nor was I put here by some metaphysical god for some inscrutable reason. We all come out of the ground ... and this earth is the very stuff that this universe is. We are as infinite and eternal as the universe that we are made up of ... and we can be conscious of this as an actuality. All human beings are discrete (physically distinct) flesh and blood bodies which, being the very stuff that is this entire universe, are not separate from anything at all. It is the feeling of identity (which has its origins in the common ancestry of the animal instincts and takes on the feeling of being separate because of being manifest in individual flesh and blood bodies) that has the desire to regain ‘oneness’ with all sentient beings via relationship. ‘I’ am alone and lonely and long for the ‘connection’ that is evidenced in a relationship ... especially in a loving relationship. When ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ become extinct there is no need – and no capacity – for a relationship, for who is there to need to unite? Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti was hopelessly wrong in his oft-repeated ‘Teaching’ that ‘Life is a movement in relationship’. Only a psychological and/or psychic entity needs the connection of relationship in order to create a synthetic intimacy – usually via the bridge of love and compassion – and manifest the delusion that separation has ended. And if human relationship does not produce the desired result, then ‘I’ will project a god or a goddess – a ‘super-friend’ not dissimilar to the imaginary playmates of childhood – to love and be loved by. Apperception is something that brings the facticity born out of a direct experience of the actual. Then what one is (‘what’ not ‘who’) is these 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. Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the actual world – the world as-it-is – by ‘my’ very presence. Thus I say: I am this infinite and eternal universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being ... and this is marvellous. * RESPONDENT: I do not know many people who can claim, even arguably, to have had a true transformative experience with Love Agape and Divine Compassion. So I wonder if these are truly ‘tried and failed’. RICHARD: Some enterprising person did a head count last year and came up with an estimate of 0.0000001 of the population. The ‘Tried and True’ has had at least 5,000 years of recorded history and maybe 50,000 years of prehistory to deliver the goods so glibly promised ... that is quite a dismal track record. There is just as much animosity and anguish now as ’way back then ... how long would a less glamorous experiment get to run its course before being discarded for a different model? RESPONDENT: Well, I don’t have any idea how many people have actually experienced this. I have no reason to believe or doubt your number of 0.0000001 percent. RICHARD: It was Mr. Ken Wilber (writing in Mr. Andrew Cohen’s ‘What is Enlightenment’ magazine) who claimed, with some pride, that only about a thousand Enlightened Ones had emerged from 2,500 years of devout effort by millions of Buddhist monks. His estimate was, therefore, 0.0000001 of the population. Whilst the exact figure will never be known (even the 0.0000001 of the population argue amongst themselves as to which one of them is the bee’s knees or not) it seemed to me to be a reasonable approximation to take as a working hypothesis. Whatever the figure, it is a very, very small percentage ... hence it is useless as being a practical way to achieve peace on earth. RESPONDENT: Furthermore, the people who did experience that may be having a grand time. RICHARD: Aye ... being enlightened is indeed a ‘grand time’ – this I would not dispute – but I am, as I have always been, only interested in peace on earth. RESPONDENT: Maybe everyone picks their own level, and you literally live in a different world depending on the level on which you choose to live. RICHARD: Speaking personally, I choose peace-on-earth over every other consideration. RESPONDENT: I don’t know. You claim you do know – so how do you know? RICHARD: Because (a) I was normal for 34 years ... and it is the pits; and because (b) I was abnormal for 11 years ... and it sucks. To explain briefly: in 1981, ‘I’ as ego went beyond normal (ego death) resulting in the abnormal state; in 1992 ‘me’ as soul went beyond abnormal (soul death) resulting in the third alternative ... which I choose to call an actual freedom. RESPONDENT: Yet I would concede that even if these things exist and worked, they seem to be so rare that, well, they don’t work, i.e. they are not very practical. But the same thing could be said for your state, don’t you think? RICHARD: Seeing as I went public in 1996 it is not reasonable to class it in the same category as something that has had – at the very least – 5,000 years to demonstrate its efficacy. RESPONDENT: Are you the one and only person ever to have experienced this going-beyond-enlightenment? RICHARD: No one else, as far as I have been able to ascertain in eighteen years of scouring the books and travelling overseas, has experienced this going-beyond-enlightenment. The only person who comes close is Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti whom I found out about in 1997 when I first came onto the Internet. But he does not know what happened to him and has no solutions to offer. He is simply a curiosity to those who go to see him. He states that he is a ‘never to be repeated sport of nature’. Whereas I know where I came from and where I am at and how I got here. RESPONDENT: Also, has the world improved in any substantial way since 1996? RICHARD: I can put you into contact with people who have put actualism into practice in their daily life so that you can ask them for yourself, if that is what you would like. RESPONDENT: What is your prediction of when the change you have experienced will actually result in a world with no tortures, murders, etc? RICHARD: I used to jokingly say 5,000 years (a figure plucked at random) but given the level of objections to being happy and harmless that people come out with I would be inclined to say maybe never. RESPONDENT: It’s practical for you perhaps (just as Love Agape and Divine Compassion may be practical for those who experience it). RICHARD: But Love Agape and Divine Compassion are not ‘practical’ at all ... to practice pacifism RESPONDENT: So you identify pacifism with Love Agape and Divine Compassion? RICHARD: It is not necessarily just my classification ... pacifism and surrender (meekness and humility and so on) are primary among the principle injunctions handed down by the Gurus and the God-men. RESPONDENT: I do not, since I really have no idea what these things are, they’re just words to me. RICHARD: Stick around on this Mailing List and you will soon get the drift ... such attributes are the main event. RESPONDENT: Is it possible that there is a Love Agape and a Divine Compassion which are not pacifistic – maybe they’re even warlike in some cases? RICHARD: Not only is ‘a Love Agape and a Divine Compassion’ non-pacifistic and warlike ... any brand of non-human (sacred, divine, unconditional, and so on) love and compassion has left much bloodshed and hatred in its wake. This is because the diabolical underpins the divine. RESPONDENT: But for the 6 billion people on earth who most likely will never experience this, and for most of the 1 percent who give enough of a damn to try to get to where you are, but who still live and die without having done so – fairly impractical, no? RICHARD: Are you saying that the possibility of peace-on-earth is so remote that one should give up before even trying? Thus all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides will go on for ever and a day. RESPONDENT: No, not saying that. I am saying that all the human effort thus far does not seem to have fixed the problem and the problem seems to be complex indeed. RICHARD: Okay ... ‘all the human effort thus far does not seem to have fixed the problem’ are the key-words. I have discovered something entirely new in human history ... and mostly, when I report my experience to my fellow human beings, people wish to retry ‘all the human effort’ which, as you so rightly say ‘thus far does not seem to have fixed the problem’. For clarity I call it the ‘Tried and Failed’ ... and then get told that I am arrogant (or whatever). RESPONDENT: I am no more saying that we should therefore give up than I would suggest we should quit trying to figure out physics and biology because those subjects are complex. RICHARD: Good. It is the most stimulating adventure of a lifetime to embark upon a voyage into one’s own psyche. Discovering the source of the Nile or climbing Mount Everest – or whatever physical venture – pales into insignificance when compared to the thrill of finding out about life, the universe, and what it is to be a human being. I am having so much fun ... those middle-aged or elderly people who bemoan their ‘lost youth’ leave me astonished. Back then I was – basically – lost, lonely, frightened and confused. Accordingly, I set out on what was to become the most marvellous escapade possible. As soon as I understood that there was nobody stopping me but myself, I had the autonomy to inquire, to seek, to investigate and to explore. As soon as I realised nobody was standing in the way but myself, that realisation became an actualisation and I was free to encounter, to uncover, to discover and to find the ‘secret to life’ or the ‘meaning of life’ or the ‘riddle of existence’, or the ‘purpose of the universe’ or whatever one’s quest may be called. To dare to be me – to be what-I-am as an actuality – rather than the who ‘I’ was or the who ‘I’ am or the who ‘I’ will be, calls for an audacity unparalleled in the annals of history ... or one’s personal history, at least. To seek and to find; to explore and uncover; to investigate and discover ... these actions are the very stuff of life! * RESPONDENT: When you die, does that not mean the sensations end? RICHARD: Not only the sensations ... death is the end, finish. Oblivion. RESPONDENT: How do you know? RICHARD: It is a fact that this body is mortal. I will die in due course ... this heart will stop beating, these lungs will cease breathing, this brain will quit thinking. The flesh will decompose, if buried, or will be dispersed, if burnt, as smoke and ash. There could be nothing more final, more conclusive, more complete, of an ending to me than this. RESPONDENT: What is the difference between the complete end of all perception and oblivion? RICHARD: I deliberately put that condition in so as to preclude any inclination towards the Buddhist nonsense of denying any after-death self yet all the while believing in re-incarnation. RESPONDENT: If the sensations end, FOR YOU, is there any difference between your death and the permanent end of the entire universe? RICHARD: When I am dead, those who are left alive will get on with the business of living. And someone, somewhere, will respond to the challenge of being here now as the universe’s experience of itself. I am not the only fish in the ocean ... this universe has all of time and all of space to manifest itself as the living (carbon-based life-form) perfection that it is. There has been many people who have tried to convince me that I am arrogant ... yet I do not equate my end as being of the same-same magnitude as the (imagined) end of this humungous universe! RESPONDENT: But this (your last paragraph) is exactly what it seems you said at the beginning of this message: ‘I am this infinite and eternal universe’. Do you now retract that statement, did you mean it in a different sense, or is there some other way to resolve this? RICHARD: I do not retract the full statement (‘I am this infinite and eternal universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being’) because I never meant it in the chopped-off sense (‘I am this infinite and eternal universe’) and by restoring the chopped-off part the ‘problem’ is resolved. * RICHARD: When ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul psychologically and psychically self-immolate – which is the end of
‘being’ itself – then the answer to the ‘Mystery Of Life’ becomes evident as an on-going existential experiencing; I am this physical
universe experiencing itself as a reflective, sensate human being; as me, the universe is intelligent (there is no anthropomorphic RESPONDENT: Would you not say a tree or an animal or our solar system are put together remarkably and intelligently? RICHARD: Remarkably ... yes. Intelligently ... no. RESPONDENT: I wonder what you mean by ‘intelligently’. RICHARD: I mean the same thing as the dictionary definition of intelligence. (Oxford Dictionary): ‘The faculty of understanding; intellect; quickness or superiority of understanding, sagacity; the action or fact of understanding something; knowledge, comprehension (of something)’. Therefore, I cannot see how ‘a tree or an animal or our solar system’ are ‘put together’ by ‘something’ that only has the faculty of understanding (as in intellect) which has the quickness or superiority of understanding (as in sagacity) and the capacity for the action or fact of understanding (as in knowledge and/or comprehension of something). It takes something much, much more than intelligence ... intelligence cannot comprehend infinity and eternity, just for starters. Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti said many a time that he could not comprehend infinity and eternity ... even though the ‘supreme intelligence’ was operating in him and would not be manifesting for ‘many hundred of years’! So whether it is the ‘supreme intelligence’ of metaphysical fancy or the genuine article – human intelligence – as neither can comprehend infinity and eternity, it takes something much, much more than intelligence to manifest in itself ‘a tree or an animal or our solar system’ or whatever this universe will be discovered to be manifesting in itself as more and more exploration occurs in the future. RESPONDENT: I call it intelligent when the things one needs are effectively created/discovered. For example, an intelligent design in my programs allows me to do things in the future with my architectures that no one has even thought of yet. Well, a tree very intelligently gathers the energy of sunlight, gathers water, etc. All the things it needs are either available in plentiful supply, or are intelligently gathered by the tree. Perhaps you have a special meaning for the word ‘intelligent’? Perhaps you mean only human-style intelligence. RICHARD: Are you saying that there is some other ‘style’ of intelligence than the only one discovered so far? Where is it? When was it discovered? Has it been verified as different from and superior to the only intelligence there has been so far? Or are you referring to that anthropocentric projection that is known on this Mailing List as ‘that supreme intelligence’ or ‘that which is sacred, holy’ or ‘that which is timeless, spaceless and formless’ and so on? If so, you are talking to deaf ears ... I have no religiosity, spirituality, mysticality or metaphysicality in me whatsoever. I lived that hallucination as a reality for eleven years and found it wanting ... thus I am not open to even consider anything ‘sacred’ or ‘holy’ or ‘divine’ and so on for even one second. RESPONDENT: Everything seems to fit together perfectly, so complicated and yet so perfect that to me it does indeed seem almost as if a great intelligence, an intelligence greater than the one I use to solve math problems, put it together. RICHARD: It has taken countless aeons for carbon-based life-forms to evolve through to being intelligent in one species alone: the human animal. Of course the human animal values intelligence highly – it is what separates humans from other animals – and allows the ability to reflect, plan and implement considered activity (which other animals cannot do) in the environment about for beneficial reasons. RESPONDENT: I disagree with your assertion that other animals cannot plan and implement considered activity. Animals can solve problems and puzzles; animals can make and implement simple plans. Certainly there is an important difference, but it is one of scale, not of kind. If you need experimental evidence to support this claim, I am certain I can find some references for you. RICHARD: I most certainly would welcome any references of any experimental evidence ... apart from squirrels and similar animals that instinctively do what appears to be reflecting, planning and implementing considered activity, I have been unable to come across any validated experimental evidence that shows that animals have the faculty of understanding (as in intellect) which has the quickness or superiority of understanding (as in sagacity) and the capacity for the action or fact of understanding (as in knowledge and/or comprehension of something). RESPONDENT: Indeed, it seems my own intelligence can do practically nothing. How do I walk? RICHARD: Walking takes much more than intelligence ... just ask the AI people. RESPONDENT: A statement which leads me to believe you have a much more specific meaning for the word ‘intelligence’ than I. By intelligence, I simply mean the facility which allows one to efficiently use available resources to accomplish desired tasks. The greater the improvement over random action in terms of gaining a result, the greater the intelligence involved. RICHARD: That description (‘the facility which allows one to efficiently use available resources to accomplish desired tasks’) is more or less in accord with the way I put it (‘the ability to reflect, plan and implement considered activity’). Can you point out animals that display behaviour that conclusively demonstrates that they ‘efficiently use available resources to accomplish desired tasks’ on a regular and consistent basis? I have been unable to ... and I would be very pleased to learn of such creatures. RESPONDENT: And who or what invented the marvelous sense organs? How was it decided how these senses would be perceived? RICHARD: There never is an ‘inventor’ of these things that you mention. The circumstances dictated ... organisms responding to the environment. RESPONDENT: So you say that the sense organs came in response to circumstances. What force is it that reacted to circumstances by creating sense organs? How did that force correlate particular realities to particular kinds of perception? RICHARD: Why the need to bring in what reads like an external force (or an internal force) that is separate from the organism? There is the calorific energy provided by food which, via its own physical feedback mechanism, evolves many and varied organs in response to the dictates of the environment. It is a self-regulating and self-reproducing mechanism. RESPONDENT: Such differences of kind in perception! The amazing distinction between blue and b-minor. Can you even imagine another kind of sense? RICHARD: No ... and I do not wish for more. Somewhere I read that there is something like 150,000 impulses travelling into the brain each second ... enough is enough, eh? RESPONDENT: I guess I am a little more curious about what is possible. For example, telepathy seems totally possible by using short-wave radio and some kind of tool that creates sub-vocalisation in the brain. But I’d really like to study how perception occurs at all, and how different kinds of perception occur. It may be that we could create an entirely different sense, just for receiving the transmitted thoughts of others. And I’d like to include facilities for encryption and authentication. RICHARD: Hmm ... given the thoughts expressed by most peoples I talk to represent but the tip of the iceberg in regard to the totality of their thoughts, then I would rather screen them out than have a new sense that receives them. What a tumult of junk one would be subject to ... and the fact that you would seek the ‘facilities for encryption and authentication’ shows that you may be of similar persuasion. RESPONDENT: Yet whatever amazing creative force fashioned sight, I have no doubt, can fashion a dozen more ways of perceiving, each as different from my present five senses as my touch is different from my sight. RICHARD: I have no need for the hypothesis of any ‘creator’ ... this universe has always been here and always will be. RESPONDENT: How do you know? RICHARD: Because this brain has memory ... and memory is a record of a series of yesterdays going all the way back to one’s earliest memory. Before that one can refer to the reports given by one’s parents (for example) back to one’s birth. Unless one is paranoid – thinking that there is a conspiracy by one’s parents to deceive one – then it is obvious that this universe has been here for all those years. Unless one wishes to be solipsistic and believe that this universe came into being when one was born (complete with 6.0 billion people whose sole aim in life is to convince you that it was here before you were born when it was not) then it is equally obvious that this universe has been here throughout human history. As for before human history ... unless one is anthropocentric (and egocentric people often are) it is obvious that this universe does not require verification from human beings in order to exist. Palaeontology evidences this. Before that? Unless one is a religious cosmogonist (believing in a ‘Creation’) or a scientific cosmogonist (believing in a ‘Big Bang’) then it is obvious that this universe has always been here. As it has always been here ... it always will be here. This then is but one way that I know that this is an objectively infinite and eternal universe. RESPONDENT: It seems that almost everything of any real importance has been handled /for/ me, since before I was born! RICHARD: Yes ... we live in a veritable playground. All that is required is to enjoy and appreciate being here each moment again. RESPONDENT: The question is, for those who don’t presently see it that way, how can their point of view be changed so they do? (Assuming they want that.) RICHARD: Yes ... and your ‘assuming they want that’ proviso is all that stands in the way of peace on earth. Which means no more wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides. It is all rather cute, is it not? RESPONDENT: If the universe is 10 billion years old as scientists suggest ... RICHARD: Scientists have made mistakes before ... and will do so again. RESPONDENT: Do you have any proof which contradicts their claims? RICHARD: I am no mathematician and have no intention of doing the requisite study just to contradict their fantastical claims ... there are other mathematicians who are already doing so (the theories of Mr. R. S. Hall, for example). Most scientists like to say that in their mathematical model of the universe it all started twelve to fifteen billion years ago (Big Bang) and has about another ten to fifteen to go before it ends (Big Crunch). They say it came out of nothing and will go back into nothing. This is not scientific talk ... it is metaphysical talk (abstract mathematics). Spiritual people also say that we came out of nothingness and will go back into nothingness. Virtually nobody is willing to see that this physical universe is already ‘it’ ... because to do so is the ending of not only ‘I’ as ego, but ‘me’ as soul. Blind nature’s survival instinct persuades them to seek immortality – and deny physical death’s oblivion – thus their universe has to die. As I said before: There has been many people who have tried to convince me that I am arrogant ... yet I do not equate my end as being of the same-same magnitude as the imagined end of this humungous universe! Therefore there never was a ‘Big Bang’ outside of the venerable halls of academia (other than in popular imagination) ... nor a ‘Creation’ outside of venerated holy scriptures (other than in popular imagination). This material universe is already always right here ... and just now. * RICHARD: When one is having a PCE one does not need to ask ... it is stunningly obvious. RESPONDENT: Then obviously I have never had one. Sounds more complicated than it originally did. RICHARD: It is the most simplest thing possible ... hence the apparent difficulties. RESPONDENT: If not, what is the difference between a PCE and what I am now experiencing? RICHARD: Initially a PCE is like moving into another world, another dimension (except that one is here – magically here right now as this flesh and blood body – for the very first time). RESPONDENT: I have had experiences that felt like this when I had a severe head rush. RICHARD: This starts to sound as if you may have the experience locked away somewhere ... it can initially be a very, very weird experience (such as can be experienced on psychotropic drugs). Can you remember/ describe more? * RICHARD: To be living as the senses is to live a clear and clean awareness – apperception – a pure consciousness experience of the world as-it-is. Because there is no ‘I’ as a thinker (a little person inside one’s head) or a ‘me’ as a feeler (a little person in one’s heart) – to have sensations happen to them, I am the sensations. RESPONDENT: I do see your point that I am the sensations. But how does this affect the metaphysical construct of an objective physical universe? If you ARE the sensations, and sensations are all you know, upon what basis do you posit an objective physical universe? RICHARD: Because this brain has memory ... and memory is a record of a series of yesterdays, that were packed full of sensations, going all the way back to one’s earliest memory. Before that one can refer to the reports given by one’s parents (for example) back to one’s birth. Unless one is paranoid – thinking that there is a conspiracy by one’s parents to deceive one – then it is obvious that this universe has been here for all those years. Unless one wishes to be solipsistic and believe that this universe came into being when one was born (complete with 6.0 billion people whose sole aim in life is to convince you that it was here before you were born when it was not) then it is equally obvious that this universe has been here throughout human history. RESPONDENT: When you dream, you have all those people who believe that that reality is real. Yet it’s just a dream; in a few minutes you’ll pop out of that and maybe wake up, at which time it’ll be just as though it had not happened. How do you know you are not dreaming everything around you right now? I bet you can’t prove it. It could be a dream or a hallucination. In that case, your belief in an objective universe is merely a /decision/ to prefer one model over another. I do not think the belief that the universe is objectively real offers any practical advantage over solipsism – both are merely unnecessary mental constructs. What is happening is what is happening, the patterns in which things occur are the patterns in which things occur, and one can accept these facts and make useful decisions based on them without either believing in an objective universe or being a solipsist. To summarize, please tell me what proof you have that the universe you perceive is not a dream or a hallucination. Remember that evidence that, to be valid, requires an assumption that the universe is not a dream or a hallucination does not count, since it is circular. If you have none, tell me what practical value is offered by an ‘objective universe’ metaphysics. If you have none, then can you grant that the belief in an objective universe is totally unnecessary? RICHARD: I have no need to ‘grant that the belief in an objective universe is totally unnecessary’ at all; it starts from an obvious facticity. There is no need for ‘a belief’ in an objective universe ... no believing or disbelieving at all is required to determine objectivity’s self-evident factuality. There is a simple experiment that will demonstrate the actuality of objectivity 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 objectively actual air, I ask you: Do you still believe that all this is ‘a dream or a hallucination’?
Seeing the fact will set you free to live in actuality. RESPONDENT: Perhaps all there is, is just the sensations themselves, nothing more, and organizing principles which guide their movement. Do you have any proof to the contrary? RICHARD: If all there is, is your subjective sensations, then there is no point in asking me for verification because I
am yet another of your subjective sensations. This is called solipsism RESPONDENT: I disagree again. Merely because you are a figment of my imagination does not mean I cannot discover anything interesting by talking to you. RICHARD: I had an experience of solipsism back in 1984 (I did not know the word then and called it ‘extreme subjectivity’) which lasted for three days. In such an experience it is of no use to ask anyone something – or check anything against anything – because one is creating everything and anyone. Thus if you ask me something, I will only answer whatever you make me answer (as you are creating me and my answers) hence nothing is verifiable in any meaningful way. It is an alarming experience to have, by the way. Subsequently I discovered that other peoples have experienced and written about ‘extreme subjectivity’ and that it has a name (solipsism) ... Mr. Leo Tolstoy was one such person that I remember reading about. Thus you would not ‘discover anything interesting by talking’ to either me or anyone else ... other than the experience itself is fascinating. RESPONDENT: You are however free to not provide evidence, but I would ask you to simply state you have none, if indeed you do not. RICHARD: I was not avoiding your question in any way whatsoever ... I was demonstrating the futility of asking for verification from someone who is your own creation. Therefore, if you fully acknowledge my factual existence (that there is a flesh and blood body that is not of your creation) that writes these E-Mails (traceable electronically to an address in Australia) then I am only too happy to answer any questions. Therefore, as your original question was ‘do you have any proof to the contrary’ that ‘all there is, is just the sensations themselves, nothing more, and organizing principles which guide their movement’ then I would suggest that you:
Now, as you rip the plaster from your mouth and gulp in that oh-so-sweet and objectively actual air, I ask you: Do you still want proof that all this is ‘just the sensations themselves, nothing more, and organizing principles which guide their movement’?
Seeing the fact will set you free to live in actuality. RESPONDENT: I may have included too many questions for one email. I find it is often best, when trying to stay focused, to ask only one question at a time. However, let’s see how it goes and we can make the threads more specific from there if we need to hone in on one idea. RICHARD: This format is fine by me ... the questions all more or less have the same theme (what is actual and what is not ... and how can one know for sure?). The facticity of both the physical world and one’s own physical existence must be established conclusively before one can begin to enable the already always existing peace-on-earth. Otherwise one may inadvertently sanction the ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’.
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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