Actual Freedom – Mailing List ‘C’ Correspondence

March 13 2000:

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’ and (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: (1) not consciously harming another. I am not talking about morality here. I am talking about living in a way that recognises that we are all one. So one sign of this is that I would not consciously harm another.

RICHARD: Yet when one does consciously harm another (when push comes to shove the animal instincts come to the fore) is this then called ‘True Immorality’ (virtually any society’s immorality writ large)? Because even the ‘Enlightened Beings’ demonstrate ‘True Immorality’ ... 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.

RESPONDENT: (2) Respect for the freedom of others – again I would allow others the freedom to find their own truth – so I respect their freedom.

RICHARD: Yet when one does not ‘respect for the freedom of others’ (when ‘feelings get hurt and reactions happen from hurt feelings’ whilst busily ‘just living’) ... then what happens? Where is the amorality then?

RESPONDENT: A society’s morals are different – they are a fixed set of rules, laws.

RICHARD: Am I to take it that (1) ‘we do not consciously harm another’ and (2) ‘respect for the freedom of others’ are not ‘a fixed set of rules, laws’ then? This means, therefore, that an ‘Enlightened Being’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) can indeed ‘consciously harm another’ and ‘disrespect the freedom of others’ ... provided they are ‘being truly human – caring, loving’? Which means they can lovingly kill a fellow human being?

RESPONDENT: People who break them are called criminals and they are ‘bad’. This creates the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ category – which is the root cause of conflict. The ‘bad’ are condemned so it is okay to ‘punish them’ – or in the case of countries to wage war against them. So the morals serve to create further conflict. In the ‘amoral’ case I do not enforce my way of living on others – I never call anyone ‘bad’. There is no more condemning.

RICHARD: Put it this way (about that ‘no more condemning’ principle of yours) do you personally:

1. Condone rape and child abuse?
2. Approve of rape and child abuse?
3. Have no opinion about rape and child abuse?
4. Disapprove of rape and child abuse?
5. Proscribe rape and child abuse?

Do you see what I mean about ‘unliveable edicts handed down by bodiless entities’? It is simply a fact that one makes appraisals of situations and circumstances each moment again in one’s daily life ... this is called making a decision. And all those wannabe ‘Enlightened Beings’ castigate anyone who thinks for themselves ... whilst secretly doing the very self-same thing (judging others).

*

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 and sorrow to one’s bosom one is no longer immoral and the need for morality vanishes and peace-on-earth is enabled via amorality ... a remarkable freedom. However, you say ‘yet you appear to want peace on earth’ as if peace-on-earth is something opposed to a remarkable freedom ... whereas peace-on-earth is the most remarkable freedom. It is perfection personified.

RESPONDENT: I agree with you – no more malice and sorrow. When we all live that way then yes – we have peace. You can do that yourself – remove malice and sorrow – but how do you get others to do the same?

RICHARD: By example and not just precept. Which means: putting one’s money where one’s mouth is (practice what one preaches). No more inconsistencies; no more contradictions; no more hypocrisies; no more justifications; no more lame-duck excuses ... and so on.

*

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: What you are seeking is impossible in a dualistic world. You want ‘good’ without ‘bad’.

RICHARD: Not so ... when both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ disappear (which is the end of ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety) peace-on-earth becomes apparent. There is no ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in actuality; and because there is no ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in the actual world of sensuous delight – where one lives as this flesh and blood body – one then lives freely in the magical paradise that this verdant earth floating in the infinitude of the universe actually is. Being here at this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space is to be living in a fairy-tale-like ambience that is never-ending.

RESPONDENT: You want just ‘day’ and no ‘night’. This is the nature of this world of form. There will always be both sides.

RICHARD: This is sloppy analogising. Both ‘day’ and ‘night’ are physical events which exist independent of human thought and feeling ... whereas ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are emotionally-backed mental constructs based on extinguishable instinctual passions. That is, ‘day’ and ‘night’ endure for as long as the planet earth revolves and the sun glows hot ... whereas ‘good’ and ‘bad’ exist only whilst one nurses malice and sorrow to one’s bosom so as to antidotally generate the compensatory love and compassion.

RESPONDENT: When there is world peace someone will come along and demand more – and create war.

RICHARD: Not so ... what part of the phrase ‘world peace’ do you not understand? There will be global peace-on-earth only when there are 6.0 billion outbreaks of individual peace-on-earth ... hence no one to ‘come along and demand more’.

RESPONDENT: How can you stop them? While there is ‘wanting’ and selfishness – there will be conflict.

RICHARD: Indeed ... only unilateral action will do the trick (do not hold your breath waiting for global peace-on-earth).

RESPONDENT: The origin is the ego – the ‘I’ – from that comes ‘mine’ and wanting more. This necessarily creates conflict.

RICHARD: You may have gathered by now that the ‘origin’ lies deeper than ‘I’ as ego with all its petty demands.

RESPONDENT: The ‘have nots’ rebel because they want more. Life is impossible without pain and suffering. First there is bodily suffering – illness. Then there is mental suffering. You cannot avoid it.

RICHARD: I beg to differ ... it is helpful to draw a distinction betwixt physical pain and emotional/mental pain. Physical pain is essential, else one could be sitting on a hot-plate and not know that one’s bum was on fire until one saw the smoke rising. Emotional and mental pain (which is what I indicate by using ‘animosity’ and ‘anguish’) are totally unnecessary. The only pain I ever experience is physical pain ... 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 do not mentally or emotionally pain me at all. As there is no ‘being’ in this body there are no precious feelings – no affective faculty whatsoever – and no ones’ animosity or anguish touches me at all (there is no ‘being’ to be touched).

RESPONDENT: Nothing is permanent here – in the end you will die anyway.

RICHARD: Aye ... physical death is essential: if it were not for death one could not be happy and harmless.

RESPONDENT: Many times awakening happens through suffering – as one realises that there is no peace here. The only true peace is in knowing who you are. All other peace is temporary and false.

RICHARD: The genuine article (the already always existing peace-on-earth) is not ‘temporary and false’ ... it never goes away for it has never been away. It was only that ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul was standing in the way.

RESPONDENT: Will you enforce world peace?

RICHARD: No.

RESPONDENT: How?

RICHARD: Nothing lasting is ever gained through coercion.

RESPONDENT: It is impossible. Suppose a government puts up taxes. Some citizens refuse to pay. They are locked up. Family members become upset – and break them out of prison. In the process other innocent people are hurt. I could go on and on. How will you possibly get peace here?

RICHARD: Through example and not just precept. Which means: putting one’s money where one’s mouth is (practice what one preaches). No more inconsistencies; no more contradictions; no more hypocrisies; no more justifications; no more lame-duck excuses ... and so on.

RESPONDENT: I am all for peace on earth.

RICHARD: Excellent ... the desire for peace-on-earth – to the point that others will call obsessional – is the factor that will bring about ‘my’ demise.

RESPONDENT: I would love for that to happen. Just tell me how. I will be happy to help to implement it.

RICHARD: Are these E-Mails throwing some light upon the root cause of all the mayhem and misery? Because knowing the root cause is the essential first step. The next step then becomes obvious each moment again in one’s daily life. Through application and diligence borne upon the pure intent for peace-on-earth for all, one can voluntarily forsake the social identity and go into exile, into ‘self’-retirement as it were, whilst remaining in the market place. One does this by examining all of one’s feelings that are supporting one’s beliefs – masquerading as ‘truths’ – each moment again and watching them vanish as if they had never existed. One can observe oneself in action in one’s moment-to-moment activities as one goes about daily life. Gradually one notices that ‘I’ have grown rather thin, as if withering away, until ‘I’ become merely a shadow of ‘my’ former self ... causing very little trouble and then only occasionally. This condition will continue to subsist until the inevitable happens and ‘I’ cease to exist in ‘my’ totality of ‘being’.

As only this moment is ever-actual, one puts this exploration into effect by asking oneself, each moment again: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’

*

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: I agree. I do not advocate detachment.

RICHARD: If I may point out? You just did (above). Viz.: ‘one becomes ‘god-like’ and detached’.

RESPONDENT: Instead we should truly care.

RICHARD: How about actually caring ... rather than feeling-caring?

RESPONDENT: The detachment I refer to is different. You don’t do it. You care deeply. The detachment is simply knowing the ultimate reality. I do not advocate consciously trying to be detached. All that creates is a sick sense of ‘not-caring’ and selfishness – the opposite of what is required.

RICHARD: Hmm ... I remained unconvinced that you comprehend what is being discussed here regarding detachment. What you are doing is positing a ‘True Detachment’ as if that means ‘Truly Caring’. Anybody who is dissociated from all the misery and mayhem is sick – dissociation is a psychiatric term – and a person so dissociated as to say that this body and that body and the mountains and the streams and the stars and the planets and so on are only a dream is perhaps beyond psychiatric help.

*

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: Gandhi stood by while he himself and others were beaten and worse. I take your point though. What do you suggest? If you fight back – you add to the conflict. Gandhi’s idea was to protest peacefully – without violence.

RICHARD: You will have gathered by now that it is malice and sorrow which is the problem. Pacifism is an ideal; in an idea of peace, people are into altering behavioural patterns (rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic) whereas what I speak of is the elimination of that which causes the aberrant behaviour in the first place. As pacifists and their ilk (those who live the doctrine of non-violence) do not eliminate the source of aberrant behaviour then they have to imitate the actual ease of an actual freedom from the human condition by making a big splash about their ‘goodie-goodie’ behaviour. To put it simply – and in a way that might just convey it to you – this what I speak of is somewhat indicated by what is possibly the only passage in the Christian’s Holy Scriptures half-way worthy of note. Viz.:

• ‘He and/or she that looketh upon a woman and/or man with lust in their heart has already committed adultery’.

Which means: clean up your act on the ‘inside’ and the ‘outer’ actions are free to be appropriate to the circumstances (there is no ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ in actuality). This applies to all anti-social behaviour ... not just a minor thing like sex outside of marriage. Things like all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides, to give but a small yet very representative example.

If someone were to bop me on the nose I am free to bop them back ... or not.

*

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: SO what do you advocate? How will you create peace on earth – if it does not start from individual transformation.

RICHARD: There can only be individual extinction ... not ‘individual transformation’. For who is there of any worth ‘within’ to ‘transform’? ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul are rotten to the core ... and ‘me’ at ‘my’ core is ‘being’ itself. An actual freedom from the human condition is when ‘being’ itself ends ... as in ‘come to an end’. Finish, kaput, cease to exist, extinct. As dead as the dodo ... but with no skeletal remains.

There is no phoenix here to arise from the ashes.

*

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: How will it come about? Do you have a method? The idea is admirable and commendable.

RICHARD: Good ... yes I do have a method: altruism. Who you think and feel and instinctively ‘know’ yourself to be has a job to do: When ‘I’ willingly ‘self’-immolate – psychologically and psychically – then ‘I’ am making the most noble sacrifice that ‘I’ can make for this body and every body ... for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is ‘my’ moment of glory. It is ‘my’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘my’ petty life all worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... to physically die without having experienced what it is like to become dead is such a waste of a life.

There is an intrinsic trait common to all sentient beings: self-sacrifice. This trait can be observed in almost all animals – it is especially easy to see in the ‘higher-order’ animals – mainly with the parental defending of the young to the point of fatal injury leading to death. Defending the group against another group is also simple to observe ... it manifests in humans in the way that one will passionately defend oneself and one’s group to the death if it is deemed necessary. Speaking personally, as a callow youth this self-sacrificing trait impelled me to go to war for ‘my’ country ... to ‘willingly lay down my life for kith and kin’. It is a very powerful passion indeed ... Christianity, to give just one example, values it very highly: ‘No greater love hath he that lay down his life for another’. However, all of ‘my’ instincts – the instinctive drive for biological survival – come to the fore when psychologically and psychically threatened, for ‘I’ am confused about ‘my’ presence, confounding ‘my’ survival and the body’s survival. Nevertheless, ‘my’ survival being paramount could not be further from the truth, for ‘I’ need play no part any more in perpetuating physical existence (which is the primal purpose of the instinctual animal ‘self’). ‘I’ am no longer necessary at all. In fact, ‘I’ am nowadays a hindrance. With all of ‘my’ beliefs, values, creeds, ethics and other doctrinaire disabilities, ‘I’ am a menace to the body. ‘I’ am ready to die (to allow the body to be killed) for a cause and ‘I’ will willingly sacrifice physical existence for a ‘Noble Ideal’ ... and reap ‘my’ post-mortem reward: immortality.

This trait is called altruism ... albeit misplaced.

Thus it is ‘I’ who is responsible for an action that results in ‘my’ own demise ... without really doing the expunging itself (and I am not being tricky here). It is ‘I’ who is the cause of bringing about this ‘self’-sacrifice in that ‘I’ deliberately and consciously and with knowledge aforethought set in motion a ‘process’ that will ensure ‘my’ demise (‘I’ do not really end ‘myself’ in that ‘I’ do not do the deed itself for an ‘I’ cannot end itself). What ‘I’ do, voluntarily and willingly, is to press the button which precipitates an oft-times alarming but always thrilling momentum that will result in ‘my’ inevitable ‘self’-immolation. What one does is that one dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here as the universe’s experience of itself ... now. And peace-on-earth is the inevitable result because it is already here ... it is always now. ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ was merely standing in the way of this already always existing peace-on-earth from becoming apparent.

The act of initiating this ‘process’ is altruism, pure and simple.

*

RESPONDENT: 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; whether any god exists outside of a person’s emotion-backed feverish imagination ... otherwise it is a question based on a false premise.

RESPONDENT: Okay – let’s take God out of the equation. Who are YOU then?

RICHARD: Not ‘who’ ... what: what I am is this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware.

RESPONDENT: Do you exist beyond your physical death?

RICHARD: No ... death is the end, finish. Extinction.

RESPONDENT: What is life all about?

RICHARD: I am this infinite and eternal universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being: as me this universe is intelligent. This on-going experiencing of infinitude is what life is all about.

RESPONDENT: Why achieve anything here – if after death it is all over.

RICHARD: If one does not find out whilst one is alive, one never will.

RESPONDENT: Why even seek peace on earth?

RICHARD: Are you for real? To bring an end, once and for all, to 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 that beset this other-wise fair planet we all live on ... just for starters.

But primarily so that one experientially knows, each moment again, what life is all about ... one attains one’s destiny.

*

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: Not sure what you mean here – they cease to exist. Please explain.

RICHARD: All gods and goddesses exist only in the human psyche ... when there is no one alive believing them into existence they cannot exist. Period.

*

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: Maybe – but you cannot deny that such persons do manage to live remarkable lives.

RICHARD: Yea verily ... so too do the most notorious dictators live ‘remarkable lives’. Unless a person’s ‘remarkable life’ includes peace-on-earth then it is just more of the same-old same-old.

RESPONDENT: Like Jesus saying ‘father forgive them’ when he is being crucified. Pretty amazing feat of non-violence.

RICHARD: Not really ... he believed himself to be immune from death; all gods are (supposedly) immortal.

RESPONDENT: There is some pretty strong evidence of ‘strange’ occurrences that you would find hard to explain in normal terms.

RICHARD: I have no difficulty in explaining them in psychotic terms.

*

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?

RESPONDENT: Well most of them did not preach peace on earth. Jesus said – ‘my kingdom is not of this world’.

RICHARD: Yea verily ... and therein lies the nub of the issue: is one desiring peace-on-earth or is one longing for the metaphysical ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’ that is only accessible after physical death (the Christian ‘R. I. P’ is matched by the Hindu ‘Mahasamadhi’ and the Buddhist ‘Parinirvana’ and so on).

This is a very selfish and self-centred approach to life on earth ... something that all metaphysical peoples are guilty of. The quest to secure one’s immortality is unambiguously selfish ... peace-on-earth is readily sacrificed for the supposed continuation of the imagined soul or spirit or whatever after physical death. So much for their humanitarian ideals of peace, goodness, altruism, philanthropy and humaneness. All religious and spiritual and mystical quests amount to nothing more than a self-centred urge to perpetuate oneself for ever and a day. All religious and spiritual and mystical leaders fall foul of this existential dilemma. They pay lip-service to the notion of self-sacrifice – weeping crocodile tears at noble martyrdom – whilst selfishly pursuing the ‘Eternal After-Life’. The root cause of all the ills of humankind can be sheeted home to this single, basic fact: the overriding importance of the survival of ‘self’.

All religious and spiritual thought – being mystical in origin – is nothing but an extremely complex and complicated metaphysics that does nothing to eliminate the ‘self’ – the ego and soul – in its entirety. In fact, when one applies these ancestor-derived religious and spiritual systems, one’s primal self is endorsed, enhanced, glorified and rewarded for staying in existence. And this is a monumental blunder. All the wars, murders, tortures, rapes and destruction that have eventually followed the emergence of any specially hallowed religiosity or spirituality attests to this. Also, all the sadness, loneliness, grief, depression and suicide that has ensued as a result of following any specifically revered religious or spiritual teaching renders its mute testimony to anyone with the eyes to see.

Culpability for the continuation of animosity and anguish lies squarely at the feet of the Masters and the Messiahs; the Saints and the Sages; the Avatars and the Saviours; the Gurus and the God-Men. And their feet – upon close inspection – are feet of clay. They lacked the necessary intestinal fortitude to go all the way ... they stopped at the ‘Unknown’ by surrendering to the ‘Unmanifest Power’ that lies lurking behind the throne instead of proceeding into the ‘Unknowable’. To stop at ‘dissolving the ego’ and becoming enlightened is to stop half-way. One needs to end the soul as well, then any identity whatsoever becomes extirpated, extinguished, eliminated, annihilated ... in other words: extinct. To be as dead as the dodo but with no skeletal remains. To vanish without a trace ... there will be no phoenix to rise from the ashes. Finished. Kaput.

Then there is peace-on-earth.