Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

RESPONDENT: Richard, thank you for adding to the discussion by your statement repeated to ensure it is not lost amongst your many words; for ever. I will copy and paste your words to the top of this email so that they can be preserved for posterity. ‘Richard’s point of view on Respondent’s point of view: ‘This is an example of a vital opportunity being frittered away with empty rhetoric’’. Linguists may now argue forever about whether the word ‘this’ refers to Richard’s point of view; to Respondent’s point of view; or to something else entirely. Richard of course will take the statement at face-value.

RICHARD: Linguists will not have to ‘argue forever’ (seeing that it was me that wrote it) because I can state clearly and unambiguously what I was referring to in saying over and again, ‘this is an example of a vital opportunity being frittered away ...’. Indeed, I have already spelt it out before:

• [Richard]: ‘You are not the only person to try to turn an actual freedom into a pay-as-you-participate religion ... and you will not be the last’.

Therefore, you are certainly frittering away a vital opportunity, not only with what you are writing in this post, but in all your E-Mail exchanges so far. Because an actual freedom from the human condition is a non-spiritual down-to-earth freedom, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body ... and you are taking the two words (‘actual freedom’) and making them refer to ... um ... ‘all that is’ or ‘truth’ or ‘god’ or whatever (usually capitalised as All That Is, The Truth, God, The Absolute, The Supreme, The Mind, The Source, The Intelligence Behind Everything, The Underlying Cause, The Ground Of Being, Existence, The Self, The Higher Self, The True Self, The Real Self, The Greater Reality, The Spirit, The Soul, The Divine Presence, The Greatest, The Sublime, The Essence, The Tao, The Breath Of Life, The Core Of One’s Being, The Most High, The Highest Good, Thatness, Suchness, Isness, Mother Nature, Life Itself, Cosmic Consciousness, Nirvana, Satori, Samadhi, Sunyata ... and so on and so on). Here it is in context:

• [Respondent]: ‘My point of view is that in the nature of the freedom we are in on this planet; it is our roots and our destiny; to be nothing more or less; than a point of view into actual freedom. Part of being fully human and thus fully free is that we acknowledge to each other that the viewpoint of each other is just that; nothing more or less than that persons view. The fact is: ‘Actual Freedom’.

And where you specifically wrote:

• [Respondent]: ‘The fact is: ‘Actual Freedom’.

... I responded: ‘this is an example of a vital opportunity being frittered away with a vacuous statement’. This is because the full version makes no sense at all when writing to me (I coined the phrase). Viz.:

• [Full version]: ‘The fact is: an actual freedom from the human condition, in this life-time, as this flesh and blood body’.

I have already pointed out in a previous E-Mail that you are on a hiding to nowhere trying to re-define what my phrase means. Other ways of re-defining an actual freedom in your ‘the fact is: ‘Actual Freedom’ sentence could be as follows:

• The fact is: ‘The Truth’.
• The fact is: ‘God’.
• The fact is: ‘The Tao’.
• The fact is: ‘All That Is’.
• The fact is: ‘The Absolute’.
• The fact is: ‘The True Self’.

... and so on and so on. Here is another example of you trying to turn an actual freedom from the human condition into a pay-as-you-participate religion:

1. [Respondent]: ‘Actual freedom is incredibly simple, Richard. It is the communication that is problematic and difficult ... and that does not change the fact that actual freedom is’.
• [Possible Translation]: ‘The Truth is incredibly simple, Richard. It is the communication that is problematic and difficult ... and that does not change the fact that The Truth is’.

Here is another example of you trying to turn an actual freedom from the human condition into a pay-as-you-participate religion:

2. [Respondent]: ‘I certainly do not argue with your freedom. I have met you in person and I enjoy your company. I also respect highly your autonomy. I have absolutely no reason to doubt that you live in Actual Freedom’ .
• [Possible Translation]: ‘I certainly do not argue with your freedom. I have met you in person and I enjoy your company. I also respect highly your autonomy. I have absolutely no reason to doubt that you live in ‘The Tao’.

Here is another example of you trying to turn an actual freedom from the human condition into a pay-as-you-participate religion:

3. [Respondent]: ‘There are as many viewpoints into actual freedom as there are people who come in contact with the teaching you present. Each viewpoint exists autonomously and discretely in the mind of each person who comes into contact with your teaching’.
• [Possible Translation]: ‘There are as many viewpoints into ‘All That Is’ as there are people who come in contact with the teaching you present. Each viewpoint exists autonomously and discretely in the mind of each person who comes into contact with your teaching’.

Here is another example of you trying to turn an actual freedom from the human condition into a pay-as-you-participate religion:

4. [Respondent]: ‘I do not have a need for you or anyone to show me actual freedom’.
• [Possible Translation]: ‘I do not have a need for you or anyone to show me ‘Buddha-Mind’.

Here is another example of you trying to turn an actual freedom from the human condition into a pay-as-you-participate religion:

5. [Respondent]: ‘I write with you because you are one of the only other people I know who understands directly, the actual’.
• [Possible Translation]: ‘I write with you because you are one of the only other people I know who understands directly, ‘The Earth Goddess’.

Here is another example of you trying to turn an actual freedom from the human condition into a pay-as-you-participate religion:

6. [Respondent]: ‘What makes you imagine that I am any less in actual freedom than ‘you’? I already have direct experience and I do not claim to have a method, a way, as you claim. I do not want to claim that ... all it does is increases the conflict that exists in the world already. There are enough methods, enough ways. What the world needs is more people who are willing to say ‘hello; this moment is a delight; isn’t it ... can we share and enjoy each others company ... I have no more to offer than you; and you have no more to offer than me ... . Then the actual will have a chance of slowly forming the real physical paradise on earth that is our potential’.
• [Possible Translation]: ‘What makes you imagine that I am any less in ‘Mother Nature’ than ‘you’? I already have direct experience and I do not claim to have a method, a way, as you claim. I do not want to claim that ... all it does is increases the conflict that exists in the world already. There are enough methods, enough ways. What the world needs is more people who are willing to say ‘hello; this moment is a delight; isn’t it ... can we share and enjoy each others company ... I have no more to offer than you; and you have no more to offer than me ... . Then ‘Gaia’ will have a chance of slowly forming the real physical paradise on earth that is our potential’.

Here is perhaps the clearest example of you trying to turn an actual freedom from the human condition into a pay-as-you-participate religion:

7. [Respondent]: ‘There is a big problem with the way you present yourself; you present yourself as the only one who has reached actual freedom and that your teaching is the only way. That is dangerous Richard; dangerous because the ones who come after you will really believe that and will create conflict and wars and pain and suffering in your name just as many other religions have discarded the purity of actual freedom and became a political body. It is dangerous; counterproductive to your stated aims of alleviating suffering on earth ... and it is incredibly arrogant’.
• [Possible Translation]: ‘There is a big problem with the way you present yourself; you present yourself as the only one who has reached ‘God’ and that your teaching is the only way. That is dangerous Richard; dangerous because the ones who come after you will really believe that and will create conflict and wars and pain and suffering in your name just as many other religions have discarded the purity of ‘God’ and became a political body. It is dangerous; counterproductive to your stated aims of alleviating suffering on earth ... and it is incredibly arrogant’.

It is the ‘many other religions’ phrasing which drives the point home. Needless to say, with any one of these (possible) translations of the words ‘Actual Freedom’ the following passage make sense:

• [Respondent]: ‘I prefer gifted people like you who have found a way to express the perennial philosophy uniquely and freshly’.

All this makes clear why you would say to me:

• [Respondent]: ‘Perhaps it is time for you to re-examine the role of The Actual Freedom Trust. Note I am not saying it is time for you to re-examine your experiential, moment-by-moment, direct experience of the actual. Do you begin to hear me yet; or are your filters still in place?’
• [Possible Translation]: ‘Perhaps it is time for you to re-examine the role of The Actual Freedom Trust. Note I am not saying it is time for you to re-examine your experiential, moment-by-moment, direct experience of ‘God’. Do you begin to hear me yet; or are your filters still in place?’

All that remains is for you to state unambiguously what your code-word is for ‘The Truth’, ‘God’, ‘All That Is’ and so on. Maybe it is the phrase ‘Actual Truth’ which you sometimes use ... or maybe it is the ‘awareness’ of Avatar? You wrote:

• [Respondent]: ‘... each of us has a point of view; each of us is UNIQUELY located in regard to time and space, position and history; so each of us is a unique point of view. I am now drawing on the work of the founder of the Avatar trainings, whose name I currently forget ... Palmer ... we each have a point of view, Richard. That is what it means to be human. No more; no less’.

The originator of ‘Avatar’ is Mr. Harry Palmer; self-described as being a ‘poet-engineer-beatnik’ (‘Living Deliberately’, Harry Palmer, 1994). In 1972 he participated in a spiritual guidance meeting known as ‘Scientology’. He then opened the ‘Centre for Creative Learning’, a branch of the ‘Church of Scientology’ in Elmira, New York, which he directed for about fifteen years. In 1988 he set out ‘to explore many systems of beliefs, the psychedelic movement, Eastern philosophies, the hippie movement, Zen, modern psychology ...’. He developed a particular technique (‘I create my experience according to what I believe’) born out of experiences in a sensory deprivation tank over an eight week period. [quote]: ‘It was at this time that the Avatar lessons appeared. I observed my consciousness become defined, starting from the void, advancing and ebbing like the tide, in this non-space ocean of inexpressible source consciousness. From this point of view, one can perceive or apprehend (i.e. to perceive without instructions) a thought form. It is something! ... relativity is the ultimate truth! If Albert Einstein had had a tank, he would have understood that much earlier’ [endquote].

Avatar is a technique which fits in perfectly to the New Age ideology – ‘you experience what you believe and not the opposite’ – or the ‘you create your own reality’ made popular by Ms. Jane Roberts. Therefore, to change one’s life, it is enough to change what one believes. Reality, which is only a belief itself, can thus be modified at will. His basic thesis – that beliefs create a person’s reality as self-fulfilling prophesies – was one that had been expressed in many places from ‘The Vedas’ to ‘A Course in Miracles’ to information channelled through mediums from astral plane entities such as ‘Seth’ and ‘Bashar’. Scientologists are all familiar with the dictum: ‘you are totally responsible for the condition you are in’.

The ‘Creation Handling’ procedure is the one part of Avatar initially considered to be unique ... until a graduate came across a description of a Tibetan meditation technique taught by Mr. Tarthang Tulku, a Tibetan lama who left the country after the Chinese invasion, and founded the ‘Nyingama Institute’ in Berkeley, California in 1969. His method for eliminating unwanted thought forms and their effects, as described in the book ‘Hidden Mind of Freedom’ is virtually the same as Mr. Harry Palmer’s ‘discovery’ in the float-tank. Viz.:

• [Mr. Tarthang Tulku]: ‘Working with thoughts by opening them as they arise can bring many pleasant feelings, which – without attachment – also become our meditation (...) we can even go into the thoughts that judge other thoughts, and, embracing this judging mind, become united with it. By relying on the light of awareness you can see that the difficulties you face are manifestations of your own concepts. Going deeply into your thoughts, you will see how you create your experience, how you alone are the judge who determines heaven and hell, good and bad. Whatever experience arises, stay with it, expand it, and heat it up. If you remain within the intense core of the experience, the meditator unites with thoughts and emotions, and everything dissolves. Then awareness grows powerful and one-pointed. As thoughts and emotions are increasingly included within this field of awareness, they become more useful. Instead of being a cause of frustration or confusion, they become agents of well-being’.

(The four paragraphs above are an edited and abridged composite of some of the information available at the following URL’s: http://members.aol.com/eldonb123/avatar-EDF.html and www.scientology-kills.org/avatarpg1.htm).

With the goal of Buddhist meditation in mind, what does Mr. Harry Palmer have to say about ‘Avatar’:

• [quote]: ‘Avatar is a tool for those who will use it. If you’re on a path to spiritual enlightenment, if your desire is to become spiritually enlightened, to reach a higher state of consciousness or being, then Avatar is the tool that would achieve that (...) if your purpose is to achieve some sort of enlightenment, Avatar is a tool that will allow you to go through the world-lessons that will have you arrive at that enlightenment. Enlightenment is a very unique thing – your unique enlightenment is different from any other being’s enlightenment’.

Okay, so what the is the source of Mr. Harry Palmer’s ‘unique enlightenment’:

• [Mr. Harry Palmer]: ‘Awareness is pure being, non-spatial, non-temporal, effortless, definitionless. Source’.

Thus the source of Avatar’s enlightenment is a timeless, spaceless pure being which, although indefinable, can be called ‘awareness’ if awareness has those specific characteristics. The next question is, is ‘awareness’ the same-same as ‘consciousness’?

• [Mr. Harry Palmer]: ‘Awareness is the essence of consciousness. Consciousness is awareness plus – plus definition, plus judgment, plus time, plus effort, plus desire, plus resistance, etc. The actual process of experiencing is converting consciousness back into awareness’.

The goal, then, of ‘Avatar’ is to have time-bound consciousness go back into timeless ‘awareness’, the source. But how did all this come about in the first place?

• [Mr. Harry Palmer]: ‘Consciousness is created by believing a creation into existence. Awareness plus creation equals consciousness. One, if not the fundamental creation is ‘I am’. It’s at the root of personal consciousness. Consciousness contains definitions and separation. Space or time is necessary for us to discern this separation’.

So where do space and time come from?

• [Mr. Harry Palmer]: ‘Awareness, or pure beingness, though the evident source of space and time, does not itself contain space or time. Hence it is without separation, without definition’.

Therefore, the ‘tool of Avatar’ is the method to have space and time (separation) disappear:

• [Mr. Harry Palmer]: ‘So the process of experiencing is removing separation. Time is the primary resistance that consciousness creates. It delays experience so that an event can be understood – meaning sorted and categorized according to prior stored events and preserved as consciousness. Adding time transforms the flow of experience (what’s happening now) into defined, separate events with beginnings and ends that are stored as a time track of creation. Awareness is timeless.

Okay, so ‘awareness is timeless’ ... but how does all this ‘removing separation’ actually work in practice?

• [Mr. Harry Palmer]: ‘Grace is always here, and you receive it to the degree that you are open to it. When you’re resisting, you’re not open. No grace, suffering. Gratitude opens a crack in consciousness that lets grace in. Being grateful opens you to grace. Complaining, judging, resisting, all lead to suffering’.

Thus the key to ‘grace’, and thence through to enlightenment as a timeless and spaceless pure being called ‘awareness’, is none other than gratitude ... which is a warm affective feeling. And this timeless and spaceless indefinable called ‘awareness’, ‘pure being’ (or ‘truth’, or ‘all that is’, or ‘god’ or whatever name you may give it) is, once again, none other than the ‘Tried and True’ way which history clearly demonstrates is the ‘tried and failed’ way. It is not unique at all.

Whereas an actual freedom from the human condition (a non-spiritual down-to-earth freedom) is totally new in human history.

This is what I mean by a vital opportunity being frittered away.