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Richard’s Correspondence On Mailing List ‘C’ with Respondent No. 2
RESPONDENT No. 1: It surprises me to see morality thrown into a debate about truth. Morality (...) will stand in the way to honesty and truth. A lover of truth (...) is neither ‘moral’, nor ‘immoral’, but unconcerned about it; ‘amoral’, if you want. RICHARD: Indeed, yet a person is amoral only when they can totally and reliably be capable of spontaneously interacting in the world of people, things and events, in a way that is neither personally insalubrious nor socially reprehensible, at all times and under any circumstance without exception. The $64,000 question then appears to be this: Does the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) bestow such a remarkable freedom? RESPONDENT: Interesting question. What is Morality? RICHARD: If I may point out? The question is about amorality ... not morality. RESPONDENT: It is just a standard given by society. Ultimately it is subjective and therefore not fixed. Some examples: I kill a fly ... is that moral? I kill another human being ... is that moral? I kill someone in self-defence ... is that moral? I kill someone who is going to kill lots of others (a potential Hitler type figure) ... is that moral? I kill someone who has killed my brother (revenge) ... is that moral? A judge sentences a killer to the electric chair ... is that moral? A professional killer kills for money ... is that moral? Before we can address the question we have to establish a standard of what is good and what is bad. There is no such standard. We can never know the whole story. Once you get the whole story, that which seemed to be good is then known to be bad. I could give an example (but I am not going to). In the Indian epic – Mahabharat – there is a scene where a king goes to a holy man to ask for a son who will kill his enemy, but the holy man refuses (on moral grounds). Instead he sends him to his brother, saying, he does not discriminate. When the kings goes to the brother the brother says ‘My brother thinks I do not discriminate between good and bad; that in not the case ... it is just that I have realised that we cannot discriminate between what is good and bad’. This is interesting because ultimately it is true ... sometimes we something bad, but the ultimate result is good. Good and bad in itself is made up by our own mind. That which helps me attain what I seek I call it good. Suppose I realise that there is nothing to attain ... there is just living. In the end I have nothing to attain. My body will die; all I attain will be left behind ... then what is there to seek? And how do I call something good or bad? Good and bad only exist within a context of desires and goals. RICHARD: You have my full agreement that morality sucks (as does immorality) ... this is not under question. RESPONDENT: If there is just living there cannot be good and bad. RICHARD: Does your phrase ‘just living’ represent amorality for you (neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’)? If so, what are the qualities that epitomise ‘just living’? Does ‘neither personally insalubrious nor socially reprehensible’ constitute equitable qualities worthy of the name ‘amoral’? RESPONDENT: Awakening is the beginning ... the goal of total enlightenment only happens (I believe) when we lose all desires. RICHARD: Okay ... but does the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) bestow such a remarkable freedom that amorality indubitably is? Is the ‘loss of all desires’ (including the desire for peace-on-earth) the factor that precludes amorality from happening in ‘total enlightenment’? RESPONDENT: Perhaps only when we leave the body. RICHARD: Are you saying that peace-on-earth is not possible? RESPONDENT: Until then we still desire to keep the body alive ... and to experience life. RICHARD: Yet is not this flesh and blood body entirely capable of keeping itself alive, via the autonomic nervous system, without ‘your’ desire (‘you’ who would ‘leave the body’ at physical death)? And whilst this flesh and blood body is alive (not dead), awake (not asleep) and conscious (not unconscious), does not experiencing happen of its own accord anyway ... without ‘your’ desire for experience (‘you’ who would ‘leave the body’ at physical death)? RESPONDENT: Awakening allows us to grow from day to day ... more awareness ... find out what we are really doing here. RICHARD: Hokey-dokey, but in the meanwhile, ‘what we are really doing here’ is causing wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and the such-like ... with periods of armed truce masquerading as peace and moments of happiness, snatches of gladness, glimpses of actual peace. For 3,000 to 5,000 years of recorded history, various ‘Enlightened Beings’ have been claiming to have discovered that which will right the wrongs of the human condition ... and for 3,000 to 5,000 years they have been abjectly failing to live up to their own standards (let alone bringing about their promised Peace On Earth). How on earth is one going to ‘find out what we are really doing here’ by following their failed example?
RESPONDENT No. 1: It surprises me to see morality thrown into a debate about truth. Morality (...) will stand in the way to honesty and truth. A lover of truth (...) is neither ‘moral’, nor ‘immoral’, but unconcerned about it; ‘amoral’, if you want. RICHARD: Indeed, yet a person is amoral only when they can totally and reliably be capable of spontaneously interacting in the world of people, things and events, in a way that is neither personally insalubrious nor socially reprehensible, at all times and under any circumstance without exception. The $64,000 question then appears to be this: Does the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) bestow such a remarkable freedom that amorality indubitably is? RESPONDENT: If there is just living there cannot be good and bad. RICHARD: Does your phrase ‘just living’ represent amorality for you (neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’)? If so, what are the qualities that epitomise ‘just living’? Does ‘neither personally insalubrious nor socially reprehensible’ constitute equitable qualities worthy of the name ‘amoral’? RESPONDENT: I have no idea where I am going with this e-mail but we’ll just see ... kind of just thinking aloud on issues I have not really thought about. RICHARD: I am sure you will find, as you read through where you went in your response, that although you started with the question on amorality it rapidly became a discussion about morality ... even to the point of positing a ‘True Morality’. The question is about amorality ... not morality (nor immorality). RESPONDENT: Let’s get to the heart of the matter. What I call ‘just living’ is beyond all morals. There are no morals. That is how a child inherently lives. A child may poke his mother in the eye. There is nothing evil in that – he is just experimenting – just playing. Now when we grow older we know that such an action causes pain so we would not do it. A child just lives. When he wants milk he cries. He doesn’t care if it is convenient for the mother. Now what happens when we grow older and realise that sometimes what we want may be inconvenient to others. This is the whole point of morals. Let’s say I decide I need £10,000. So I go and rob some bank, because I don’t care about others. Now that is not an acceptable form of behaviour. And if that is enlightenment then people will say ‘Well you can just keep your enlightenment. It’s not for me’. We live in a society – not in isolation. Society needs rules, and they need to be enforced because otherwise some people will take advantage. So we end up with the type of society we have. Enforcing the rules may cause reactions when some feel it is not fair. Lots of things are not fair. Reactions are the central issue. Reactions happen from hurt feelings and from resentment, when we take things personally. When we react we may perform actions that will deliberately hurt or harm others ... because we feel justified. This is also done on a larger scale – wars are started because a country may feel it is justified in taking a certain position to defend another country, or the rights of certain people. It is all about ‘I am right’ and ‘you are wrong’, which are all opinions. I am merely observing here – not taking a position. So now let’s compare this to an enlightened person – or an enlightened society. Ideally there will be no reactions. Each person does whatever they choose without deliberately hurting another. Sometimes another will be inadvertently hurt. That person does not react but just accepts it as part of life and learns from it – asks himself ‘What is life teaching me’ instead of ‘I’ll get that person back’. It is not a matter of forgiveness. It is much deeper – it is recognising there is no ‘wrong’ and therefore nothing to forgive. It is ultimately realising that whatever happens it is all for a reason – the advaita view – that we are not the doers. Whatever happens just happens – there is a higher purpose. This concept is a central part of many religions. Guru Nanak (Sikhism) talks of this a lot – that God is the Doer – and further says that once we live this way the ego disappears. We are not the doer and there in no more reaction. We want life to happen our way – but it doesn’t. Once we learn to take life as it comes there is no more reaction – we just accept. No more blaming – we live in acceptance of what is. We can still have goals – but we don’t get too concerned with the results. This is the central teaching of the Gita – Krishna explains this to Arjuna. True Morality then becomes a matter of being ourself – doing whatever we choose – just so long as we do not consciously harm another. It is having respect for the freedom of others too. Live and let live. Not the mechanical obedience of fixed rules – but living from the heart. Mechanical obedience of fixed rules creates a ‘good and bad’ standard and we then condemn those who fit into the ‘bad’ category, and this becomes the trap: we now condemn others – blame – this causes resentment. There is no way out. Reactions cause further reactions and before you know it you have WW3 on your hands. RICHARD: There are several key points that come to light in this exploration:
What I was curious about was whether your phrase ‘just living’ represented amorality for you (neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’) and that, if so, what the qualities were that epitomised ‘just living’? What I gathered, from your response, is that ‘just living’ is not amorality at all ... and is, in fact, predicated on a ‘True Morality’ that is based on (so far unnamed) heart-felt feelings and at least two clearly stated dictums regarding how other people are treated (with no stated qualities on how you treat yourself). Is this a fair appraisal? * RESPONDENT: Awakening is the beginning ... the goal of total enlightenment only happens (I believe) when we lose all desires. RICHARD: Okay ... but does the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) bestow such a remarkable freedom that amorality indubitably is? Is the ‘loss of all desires’ (including the desire for peace-on-earth) the factor that precludes amorality from happening in ‘total enlightenment’? RESPONDENT: Awakening is the BEGINNING. Enlightenment is the ultimate goal – the final state of being. In Enlightenment there can be no more desires, no more teaching, no desire for world peace – just nothing. Ultimate Enlightenment is realising that none of this is happening. It is all a dream. You and I do not exist. We are just a lower form of reality – like a dream. It doesn’t matter what happens in a dream – in the end the dream is over and none of it matters. Who cares if is was a nightmare? It was not real. Even though it seemed to be real at the time. You see there is a DILEMMA within awakening. I’ll talk about myself because I cannot talk for others – I do not know their experience. AWAKENING, for me, is knowing that this is a dream – My Dream, God’s Dream. He (or what I REALLY am) is the DOER. Just like in a dream the dreamer (asleep on the bed) is the real doer. There is only one dreamer (doer) but there may be many people in the dream. The dream people are not real. It is the same here. You do not exist even though you appear to. It is all a game – the game of maya – the play of God. God playing his own game with himself. Only he cannot play the game unless he becomes many – creation is God becoming many. God is SIMULTANEOUSLY separate from the creation and playing the game. BOTH are true. The Dreamer is really asleep on the bed but he is also engaged in the dream. Now morality and amorality takes on a new light. The question of morality only exists in duality – where there is more than one. But in REALITY there is ONLY ONE ... there is ONLY GOD, there is ONLY YOU. So, the question of morality disappears. There are no other being alive – they are just a dream. In an existence where there is ONLY ONE PERSON – no morality exists. Further, nothing happens – there is no time or space. Now ULTIMATE ENLIGHTENMENT is KNOWING this. So then, when you teach – WHO ARE YOU TRYING TO AWAKEN? There is ONLY YOU. It is all different forms of YOU. Once YOU are awake it is over ... no more teaching, no more desires, just nothingness or everythingness. RICHARD: Hmm ... this is solipsism RESPONDENT: Something just occurred to me. Maybe, just maybe, the ultimate enlightenment cannot happen until everyone awakens; maybe that is why the awakened ones try to awaken others. Because I have heard it said that it is an on-going journey ... maybe it ends when everyone becomes enlightened. Just a thought. RICHARD: Are you saying that peace-on-earth is not possible until every single man, woman and child becomes enlightened? RESPONDENT: Well now, I guess I have opened a can of worms ... anyone care to examine them? RICHARD: I am always happy to explore all issues relating to life, the universe, and what it is to be a human being living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are ... but at this point I only want to keep asking the $64,000 question until I get an answer: Does the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) bestow such a remarkable freedom that amorality indubitably is?
RICHARD: A person is amoral only when they can totally and reliably be capable of spontaneously interacting in the world of people, things and events, in a way that is neither personally insalubrious nor socially reprehensible, at all times and under any circumstance without exception. The $64,000 question then appears to be this: Does the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) bestow such a remarkable freedom that amorality indubitably is? RESPONDENT: If there is just living there cannot be good and bad. RICHARD: Does your phrase ‘just living’ represent amorality for you (neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’)? If so, what are the qualities that epitomise ‘just living’? <SNIP> Where you say ‘a child just lives’ you are clearly stating that a child meets your criterion for ‘just living’ ... and that this is because what a child does is not ‘evil’. As the definition of innocence is the absence of evil, then you have to be indicating that a child is inherently guiltless (born innocent) ... which they are not. RESPONDENT: Are you saying that a child is NOT born Innocent? Are you saying a child has evilness built in? I maintain that a child is born innocent. Please explain what you mean here. RICHARD: The hoary belief that all children are born innocent (the ‘Tabula Rasa’ theory) is dying a lingering death ... but dying it is. The genetic mapping project and brain imaging studies of recent times have conclusively shown empirically that instinctual passions (the survival instincts) are physically encoded in the DNA and/or RNA of every foetus at conception. These genetically-inherited passions include fear and aggression and nurture and desire ... and all sentient beings, to some degree or another, come biologically equipped with this rudimentary ‘software package’ of basic animal passions per favour blind nature as a rough and ready start to life. And the potential for malice * RICHARD: Where you correctly observe that the child ‘doesn’t care’, it shows that a child is inherently inconsiderate towards others ... which means that the (supposed) innocence of the child has inconsiderateness as one of its qualities. RESPONDENT: You miss the point here. The point is that the child is not aware of the qualities called ‘considerate’ or ‘inconsiderate’. RICHARD: Indeed not ... yet the child is inconsiderate (what you call ‘selfish’). RESPONDENT: The child is selfish – but there is nothing wrong with that – because the child is not yet aware that there are others to consider. So the child’s quality of ‘being selfish’ is not ‘evil’ or ‘bad’. It is innocent. There is no evil intent. RICHARD: I am not talking of the legal definition for culpability here (wherein the offender has to know that they are doing wrong in order to be guilty). This is not a court of law ... this is biology. RESPONDENT: So ‘Inconsiderateness’ is NOT a quality of the child. The child is beyond all concepts of ‘considerate or inconsiderate’. RICHARD: Of course, no child has the slightest notion of any concepts at all ... let alone ‘concepts of considerate or inconsiderate’. It is their instinctively driven action (behaviour) that I am referring to as ‘inconsiderateness’. Apart from many, many painstaking studies done by biologists in this area, I have personally seen children less than 12 months old spitefully pinching their sibling, for example. I am not suggesting for a moment that this child knows that they are being spiteful, yet spite (which is malice in action) is what is driving them at that moment ... and impelling them into anti-social behaviour (which behaviour, of course, they do not know is socially reprehensible). * RICHARD: You observe that as the child grows older it realises the inconvenience caused to others by
its unawareness of inconsiderateness ... thus what looks like innocence in a child is actually ignorance (not knowing). This
awakening of awareness of others being the same as oneself is what is called ‘theory of mind’ RESPONDENT: Yes – the child is innocent – but the innocence is from ignorance. This does not take the innocence away – it simply means it is a different type of innocence. The child is still innocent. RICHARD: I notice that you used the word ‘innocent/ innocence’ five times in this short response ... just repeating a hoary belief again and again like a mantra does not miraculously turn it into a fact. The fabled ‘innocence’ of child-hood (the ‘Tabula Rasa’ theory) turns out to be nothing more than a lack of knowledge, regarding the function that the instinctual passions play, on the part of those who invented that theory. Modern empirical scientific research has shone more than a little light on factors that the ancients simply did not yet know (satellite photographs and astronaut’s/ cosmonaut’s reports, for example, finally set the ‘flat earth’ theory conclusively to rest once and for all). A child is instinctively driven just as adults are ... only on a more rudimentary scale. * RICHARD: Where you state ‘we live in a society – not in isolation’ the ‘theory of mind’ undeniably signifies that, because one lives among one’s fellow human beings, one is as considerate towards others as one is towards oneself. And where you say ‘reactions are the central issue ... reactions happen from hurt feelings’ I am in full agreement with your observations (which are essentially about the affective feelings): when a person’s precious feelings get hurt (either justified or not) the faecal matter hits the rapidly turning blades and sensibility is nowhere to be found. Nations (which are nothing more and nothing less than peoples collectively) have feelings just the same ... hurt is inevitable to anyone nursing feelings to their bosom. However, unlike individual emotional hurts (resulting in fisticuffs or whatever), nations these days hurl million dollar missiles at each other ... a nation’s ‘fisticuffs’ do far more damage and cause far more destruction. Yet it is precipitated by the self-same affective feelings that each and every person holds so dear. RESPONDENT: The central issue here is ‘how are feelings hurt?’ Who has the power to hurt my feelings? If someone makes a statement that hurts my feelings – that is to do with me – not the other person. The other person was simply the trigger to cause a reaction inside me. If there was not a latent issue already there – there would be no reaction. For example – suppose some says to me ‘You are a television’ – I will just laugh at the idea. Of course I am not a television. However, if the statement is, ‘You are an IDIOT’, and the person then presents some evidence that shows that his statement may be valid – then I may feel hurt. That is because at some level I recognise that the statement has some truth – perhaps I am an idiot. So in reality the only person who can hurt me is me – others are simply triggers. People often say ‘The truth hurts’. RICHARD: Shall I put it this way? Can you personally guarantee 100% to never, ever react to hurt feelings? Because even the ‘Enlightened Beings’ cannot ... there are more than a few recorded incidences of ‘Enlightened Beings’ displaying both anguish and anger, which clearly indicates that the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) does not bestow such a remarkable freedom that amorality indubitably is. The ‘Tried and True’ system is the ‘tried and failed’ system ... a system which has failed again and again for 3,000 to 5,000 years of recorded history. * RICHARD: Where you hypothesis that in ‘an enlightened person – or an enlightened society – ideally there will be no reactions’ you have to be referring to either (a) feelings not getting hurt (a coping method), or (b) no feelings to get hurt (the elimination of feelings). RESPONDENT: I am talking about taking responsibility for our own feelings – not blaming others. Which effectively means that I allow them to be themselves – to say what they choose. And even deeper than that – total acceptance of what happens. Recognising that things happen – that there is not necessarily an evil intent. Of course this leaves the matter of when there clearly appears to be an evil intent (e.g. when someone is instigating violence ... or stealing etc.). If we accept a higher purpose here – even then there will be no reaction (like when Jesus was taken before Pilate – he did not even protest his innocence ... but simply said to Pilate ‘You have no power unless it has been given to you by my father’ This is clearly the view of an enlightened being – who sees his father (God) as the doer. RICHARD: Hmm ... someone who gets angry, at out-of-season fig trees for not bearing fruit and at money-changers in a temple going about their officially-sanctioned business, is hardly a shining example for you to quote to prove your case. Anyone who quotes scriptures to prove their case is on a hiding to nowhere as they are shot-full of inconsistencies and blatant hypocrisies ... to say nothing of wrath and vengeance and jealousy and bloodshed and so on. Modern scholarly research has thoroughly scotched the ‘wisdom’ myth of the revered fables and legends of yore. * RICHARD: You then propose that ‘another will be inadvertently hurt ...
that person does not react but just accepts it’ which indicates you have opted for option (a) by proposing either: (1)
fatalism RESPONDENT: I am indicating the way an enlightened person would behave. If you accept that ‘God’ is the doer (which Jesus accepted in the example above) – then there is nothing to react to. Reactions are cut at the root. Jesus said on the cross ‘Father – forgive them – for they know not what they do’. He is saying this about the very people who are nailing him to the cross. There is no reaction – he is not condemning them. Was Jesus a fatalist? Did he just tolerate being crucified? I don’t think he was either. I am not proposing either of those ... I am talking about ‘accepting what is’. RICHARD: Yet amongst ‘what is’ is wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and the such-like ... and your god wants you to ‘just accept’ all this mayhem and misery? RESPONDENT: God is the doer – he acts through me and through you. RICHARD: Your god may very well act through you ... but I can assure you that no god acts through me: I am a thorough-going atheist through and through. There is not the slightest trace of religiosity, spirituality, mysticality or metaphysicality in me whatsoever. I am an actualist ... not a spiritualist. RESPONDENT: There are many ways of explaining this – this is just one way. It means I am no longer the doer – so I am no longer caught up in life – instead life happens to me. And I let it happen – I can still act – it does not mean fatalism. I am able to act as I am moved to act – but I do not mind what the result is. Another way of explaining this is what Krishnamurti said ‘This is my secret – I don’t mind what happens’. RICHARD: And so 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 and such-like go on forever and a day simply because some God-Man
said ‘I don’t mind what happens’ ... and gullible acolytes cease thinking for themselves and continue to nurse malice * RICHARD: You then propose a religious and/or spiritual and/or mystical or some form of metaphysical explanation (a ‘higher purpose’) for all the ills of humankind ... to the point of putting forward the notion (quoting an ‘Enlightened Being’s dictum that ‘God is the Doer’), that the Sikh’s God really did the killing of the 160,000,000 people ordinarily thought of as being killed by their fellow human beings in wars in the last 100 years. Likewise this ‘higher purpose’ accounts for 40,000,000 people ordinarily thought of as having killed themselves in the depths of despair in the same 100 year period (what mere mortals call suicide). RESPONDENT: Not the Sikh’s God. You are surmising there is more than one God. RICHARD: I am not surmising at all ... the last time I looked-up the subject there were nigh on 1200 gods (living and dead) and that is not counting all the Hindu demi-gods. RESPONDENT: Krishna, in the Gita shows Arjuna that He (Krishna) is the creator, sustainer and destroyer of all. RICHARD: Aye ... and Islam has it that their god is the one and only god (it is to no avail to appeal to scriptures to prove your case). RESPONDENT: God is the creator, sustainer and destroyer. So the answer to your question is yes – God did it. But then WHO is God? GOD is who YOU really are. There is only ONE being alive – that is God. What we see here is illusion or maya. Maya is defined as that which appears to be real – but is not – like a dream. A dream appears to be real while it is happening – but it is not. When you awaken you say it was just a dream – it was not real. So we first have to get at the heart of the matter – what is real? That which changes – does not last – is not real. That which remains is real. RICHARD: This infinite and eternal physical universe certainly lasts ... which fits your criterion for being ‘not a dream’. Therefore, 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 and such-like are actually happening. A useful working definition of ‘actual’ is: that which remains when one stops believing in it. RESPONDENT: Guru Nanak describes God as ‘that which was, is, and always will be’. God is beyond time and space. On that level – which is the only truth – this is just a dream. Does it matter what happens in a dream? To a truly enlightened being – it makes no difference what happens here. Jesus appears to be such a person. There are others too. You see, there are two levels of reality – and from this level the other one is not easy to understand. From this level we are too concerned with what happens here. RICHARD: May I suggest? Peoples are not concerned enough ‘with what happens here’ ... peace-on-earth becomes apparent only to the one who is totally concerned. * RICHARD: Then you introduce your ‘True Morality’ which says that ‘we do not consciously harm another’ as one of its qualities ... which is the same-same as virtually any society’s morality (which prompts me to half-facetiously ask whether if one does ‘consciously harm another’ then is this act called a ‘True Immorality’!). Next, ‘respect for the freedom of others’ is another one of the qualities of ‘just living’ ... also just the same as virtually any society’s morality. So as to distinguish ‘True Morality’ from virtually any society’s morality you insist upon ‘living from the heart’ as being the criterion that promises success. I sincerely question the advisability of placing absolute reliability on an affective feeling (or feelings) as being the ultimate guide/ authority on how to interact in the world of people, things and events as feelings are notoriously fickle. Maybe this is why ‘living from the heart’ has to be backed-up with a ‘True Morality’ ... presumably backed-up by God’s Authority? RESPONDENT: I am not talking about a ‘fixed set of rules’ like a society may create. Such rules become the cause of the problem. Whenever someone breaks one of the rules, we brand them ‘bad’ or ‘evil’ or ‘criminal’. That is what we want to get away from, because it creates double standards. When I do something wrong, I justify it – but when others do the same thing I condemn them. Where is the forgiveness? Or even the tolerance? We end up with a society where lots of us are doing things wrong – but we don’t get caught. Those who get caught are condemned. Jesus said ‘let him who is without sin cast the first stone’. That means we are not to judge – because we ourselves are not perfect. I am just giving some bible quotes to illustrate that what I am talking about is not different from what major religions are really teaching. It is just that we cannot live up to what Jesus taught because we are not awakened. He is talking from an awakened viewpoint. We did not even tolerate him – we crucified him. Fixed rules do not work for this reason. Especially the rule that ‘ignorance of the law is not excuse’. How can one be guilty of a crime that one is not even aware that he has committed? Our society laws are so ridiculous. When I am talking about living from the heart; I am talking about being truly human – caring, loving. The opposite of how we tend to live in our society. No more blame, no struggle – just acceptance of life as it happens. The problem here is that I am trying to put into words something I find hard to describe – it is just a way of living. You have to experience it to know what I am talking about. RICHARD: I have experienced it – for eleven years – thus I do ‘know what [you are] talking about’ ... and it sucks. * RICHARD: What I was curious about was whether your phrase ‘just living’ represented amorality for you (neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’) and that, if so, what the qualities were that epitomised ‘just living’? What I gathered, from your response, is that ‘just living’ is not amorality at all ... and is, in fact, predicated on a ‘True Morality’ that is based on (so far unnamed) heart-felt feelings and at least two clearly stated dictums regarding how other people are treated (with no stated qualities on how you treat yourself). Is this a fair appraisal? RESPONDENT: No – totally unfair – just living epitomises being amoral. Beyond all morals. It is just I like talking about morality too. RICHARD: Perhaps you have missed the point that amoral means neither moral nor immoral? Because you talk of a ‘True Morality’ in your ‘just living’ and at least two clearly stated qualities regarding how other people are treated: (1) ‘we do not consciously harm another’ (2) ‘respect for the freedom of others’ which are the same as virtually any society’s morals ... yet here you say ‘just living epitomises being amoral ... beyond all morals’. Can you satisfactorily explain these conflicting statements ... without recourse to that mystical nonsense about paradox? * RESPONDENT: Awakening is the beginning ... the goal of total enlightenment only happens (I believe) when we lose all desires. RICHARD: Okay ... but does the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) bestow such a remarkable freedom that amorality indubitably is? Is the ‘loss of all desires’ (including the desire for peace-on-earth) the factor that precludes amorality from happening in ‘total enlightenment’? RESPONDENT: You talk about amorality as being a remarkable freedom. Yet you appear to want peace on earth. RICHARD: Morality is only ever needed as an antidote to immorality; where there is no immorality,
there is no morality. Whilst one is busy being moral (desperately covering-up one’s immorality) peace-on-earth is nowhere to be
seen. For example, when one ceases to nurse malice It is perfection personified. RESPONDENT: You talk about solipsism later – as if this is evil or bad. Yet being beyond all desires means that one will not care about peace on earth – that one will not get involved with the suffering or happiness of anyone – knowing there is a higher purpose. I would say that true and final enlightenment is beyond all desires and includes amorality. RICHARD: But I did not indicate that solipsism was ‘evil or bad’ ... I noted that your paragraph displayed ‘a very, very sick attitude towards the pain and suffering of 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 and the such-like’ (particularly the ‘no desire for world peace’ observation and the ‘who cares if is was a nightmare ... it was not real’ head-in-the-sand statement that cavalierly dismisses all pain and suffering). As you have repeated it above (‘one will not care about peace on earth’) it was obviously not an hastily-written or casual statement ... but a central part of your philosophy of life. Look well at what you say further below (‘none of this is really happening – it is the dream – and there is nothing to do here’) ... try telling that to someone who has just been raped; try telling that to someone who is in a trench on the front-line; try telling that to someone being tortured; try telling that to the person on the receiving end of domestic violence; try telling that to the recipient of child abuse; try telling that to someone sliding down the slippery-slope of sadness to loneliness to melancholy to depression and then suicide. More specifically, try saying that to the Buddhist woman who is being raped by a Hindu soldier; try saying that to the Hindu mother whose son has been brutally tortured by Muslim terrorists; try saying that to a Jewish grandmother whose entire family has been wiped out by zealous Christians; try saying that to a Taoist girl whose life has been violated and ruined by Buddhist/Shinto soldiers; try saying that a Zen monk whose whole city has been razed by an atomic explosion. If your wife and/or daughter and/or mother and/or grandmother and/or sister was being brutally raped, would you really stand by saying to her: ‘None of this is really happening – it is the dream – and there is nothing to do here’? * RESPONDENT: In Enlightenment there can be no more desires, no more teaching, no desire for world peace – just nothing. Ultimate Enlightenment is realising that none of this is happening. It is all a dream. You and I do not exist. We are just a lower form of reality – like a dream. It doesn’t matter what happens in a dream – in the end the dream is over and none of it matters. Who cares if is was a nightmare? It was not real. Even though it seemed to be real at the time. You see there is a DILEMMA within awakening. AWAKENING, for me, is knowing that this is a dream – My Dream, God’s Dream. He (or what I REALLY am) is the DOER. Just like in a dream the dreamer (asleep on the bed) is the real doer. There is only one dreamer (doer) but there may be many people in the dream. The dream people are not real. It is the same here. You do not exist even though you appear to. It is all a game – the game of maya – the play of God. God playing his own game with himself. Only he cannot play the game unless he becomes many – creation is God becoming many. God is SIMULTANEOUSLY separate from the creation and playing the game. BOTH are true. The Dreamer is really asleep on the bed but he is also engaged in the dream. Now morality and amorality takes on a new light. The question of morality only exists in duality – where there is more than one. But in REALITY there is ONLY ONE ... there is ONLY GOD, there is ONLY YOU. So, the question of morality disappears. There are no other being alive – they are just a dream. In an existence where there is ONLY ONE PERSON – no morality exists. Further, nothing happens – there is no time or space. Now ULTIMATE ENLIGHTENMENT is KNOWING this. So then, when you teach – WHO ARE YOU TRYING TO AWAKEN? There is ONLY YOU. It is all different forms of YOU. Once YOU are awake it is over ... no more teaching, no more desires, just nothingness or everythingness. RICHARD: Hmm ... this is solipsism (and displays a very, very sick attitude towards the pain and suffering of 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 and the such-like). RESPONDENT: Again – we have the same dilemma. In awakening the awakened one will care deeply and will selflessly offer help – he cares deeply. However in the ultimate enlightenment it changes – one becomes ‘god-like’ and detached. RICHARD: I realise that being ‘detached’ is highly prized in some disciplines ... but it amounts to nothing more and nothing less than dissociation. Peoples everywhere are already detached – that is the very problem – and anyone who consciously practices ‘detachment’ is twice-removed from actuality. RESPONDENT: No more desires as one comes to the profound realisation that none of this is really happening – it is the dream – and there is nothing to do here. I the awakening one wants to help others – he may become a teacher. In the final stages of enlightenment he has nothing more to say – he has no desire even to awaken others – as he recognises that it is all happening perfectly from the elevated viewpoint. RICHARD: As I have asked before: if your wife and/or daughter and/or mother and/or grandmother and/or sister was being brutally raped, would you really stand by saying to her: ‘this is all happening perfectly from the elevated viewpoint’? * RESPONDENT: Something just occurred to me. Maybe, just maybe, the ultimate enlightenment cannot happen until everyone awakens; maybe that is why the awakened ones try to awaken others. Because I have heard it said that it is an on-going journey ... maybe it ends when everyone becomes enlightened. Just a thought. RICHARD: Are you saying that peace-on-earth is not possible until every single man, woman and child becomes enlightened? RESPONDENT: Yeah – maybe that is it. If everyone became enlightened – then we would have peace on earth. So – get busy and enlighten everyone. RICHARD: Uh huh ... surely you must have gathered by now that I am no fan of ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’? * RESPONDENT: Well now, I guess I have opened a can of worms ... anyone care to examine them? RICHARD: I am always happy to explore all issues relating to life, the universe, and what it is to be a human being living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are ... but at this point I only want to keep asking the $64,000 question until I get an answer: Does the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) bestow such a remarkable freedom that amorality indubitably is? RESPONDENT: The answer to your question is yes. RICHARD: You have yet to demonstrate that what the ‘Enlightened Beings’ are living-out in their daily life is, in fact, amorality. RESPONDENT: But I do not know if you really regard amorality as a freedom or a nightmare. RICHARD: Amorality is freedom ... a remarkable freedom from the human condition. To put it succinctly and specifically: peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body, living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are. RESPONDENT: The question is ‘Does God care’? RICHARD: Before one can ask ‘does god care’ it must be first ascertained if any god can
exist without calenture RESPONDENT: Why does God allow all the evil and the killings to happen? RICHARD: Do you see how you race away with further questions without first establishing the bona fides of your god? RESPONDENT: The answer is – He doesn’t get involved – because he cannot. RICHARD: May I suggest? Maybe – just maybe – a god (any god or goddess) does not get involved because no god (or goddess) has any existence outside of a person’s emotion-backed feverish imagination? Have you never noticed that all gods were immortal ... yet when peoples stop believing in them they cease to exist? RESPONDENT: Because God is not a person – only god into expression is a person – an awakened person. RICHARD: May I ask? Has it ever occurred to you that someone – anyone – who solemnly proclaims themselves to be ‘God On Earth’ is seriously deluded? And further, other than such people’s utterances (scriptures), there is no evidence that any god or goddess exists? RESPONDENT: That awakened person can get involved. RICHARD: Yet there have been many, many ‘awakened persons’ getting involved for 3,000 to 5,000 years of recorded history. And these many and varied ‘Enlightened Beings’ have been claiming to have discovered that which will right the wrongs of the human condition ... and for 3,000 to 5,000 years they have been abjectly failing to live up to their own standards (let alone bringing about their promised Peace On Earth). How on earth is one going to obtain peace-on-earth by following their failed example?
RETURN TO MAILING LIST ‘C’ INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved.
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