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Richard’s Selected Correspondence On Benevolence
RESPONDENT: ‘What beneficent creator would permit the sort of suffering so widespread in nature?’ [Charles Darwin]. ‘The God of the Galapagos is careless, wasteful, indifferent, almost diabolical’. [David Hull]. ‘The sheer amount of suffering in the world that is the direct result of natural selection is beyond contemplation’. [Richard Dawkins].
The last quote, although coming from direct experience, contradicts obvious facts, like the first three quotes above. RICHARD: Ha ... since when has any god/ any theology/ any theory been obvious facts? Here is a more spelled-out way of putting it:
RESPONDENT: I can’t reconcile these ... has anyone managed to? ... and how? RICHARD: It is not a matter of reconciliation Put succinctly: actualism is experiential and not theological/philosophical or academical/ theoretical. RESPONDENT: It seems to me that the thin red line between Nature (cruel survival instincts in humans, animals, birds, viruses, other life forms) and Universe (matter) is arbitrarily drawn by actualists, it’s an artificial divide. RICHARD: Just for starters I use the phrase blind nature
I use the word universe to refer to all time and all space and all matter ... and that usage is not, of course, inclusive of the emotional/ passional imaginings (fantasies, hallucinations, deliriums, and so on) of the psyche. And the reason why I mention this, up-front, is because some form of, or variation on, what can be called malism – ‘the doctrine that this world is an evil one’ (Oxford Dictionary) – is an ubiquitous feature of the world of the human psyche ... as is evidenced, for example, in the ‘existence of evil’ dilemma more than a few theologians/ metaphysicians/ philosophers and/or academics/ intellectuals/ theoreticians wrestle futilely with and which type of quandary might possibly be what you are re-presenting a facsimile of in this e-mail (albeit in the guise of a-cruel/ bloody-nature-versus-a-benevolent/ benign-universe line of thought) just as you did in an earlier post (on Thursday, 10/11/2005, at 10:21 PM AEDST) where you spoke of [quote] ‘the horrors of nature’ [endquote]. There is no line or divide (be it thin, arbitrary, artificial, or otherwise) between blind nature’s very essential survival package and the universe – biological-inheritance is not a miraculous gift bestowed by some inscrutable god/ goddess – as this actual world, the world of the senses, is indeed characterised by benevolence and benignity (there is neither cruelness nor horrors in actuality). However, in the real world, the world of the psyche, any such kindly disposition – as in being well-disposed, bountiful, liberal, bounteous, beneficent (aka benevolent) and being favourable, propitious, salutary (aka benign) – being not readily apparent, as in directly experienceable, requires naiveté for its intellectual ascertainment. I am, of course, using the word ‘kindly’ in its Oxford Dictionary ‘acceptable, agreeable, pleasant; spec. (of climate, conditions, etc.) benign, favourable to growth’ meaning ... and which I generally express by saying I am swimming in largesse. For example:
Or even more specifically:
In short: I do not use the words benevolent/benevolence and benign/benignity as antonyms to the words malevolent/malevolence and malign/malignity (such as to require reconciliation) as the latter exists only in the human psyche. RESPONDENT: I can’t reconcile the statement that the Universe is benevolent with the fact that a life form (even free from instinctual passions) has to feed on other life forms in order to survive. It has to kill. RICHARD: Oh, there is even more to it than life feeding off life ... and we have touched on it before:
Umpteen numbers of stars (and thus solar systems) are constantly exploding/ imploding, and their resultant gaseous nebulae are coalescing/ amalgamating, all throughout the observable universe and yet you focus only upon life feeding off life in order to justify your how-can-it-be-reconciled stance. For example:
Or even a more simple (if only because it is a more popular or common plaint) example:
Objecting to, or being resentful of, being alive in the first place takes many forms. RESPONDENT: The actualist universe is a benevolent universe. RICHARD: No, it is the actual universe – as evidenced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) – which is benevolent (and benign) ... and which actuality includes the very flesh and blood body itself. RESPONDENT: Towards whom is this benevolence manifested? RICHARD: As there is no thing (such as the stones, trees, humans, and other animals, you go on to mention) which is not the universe your [quote] ‘towards whom’ [endquote] question makes no sense. RESPONDENT: Stones, trees, animals or only towards humans? RICHARD: The benevolence (and benignity) of this actual universe is intrinsic to every thing ... no thing is exempt. RESPONDENT: ... seems a little awkward/silly to me. RICHARD: That could quite possibly be because you are considering these matters in a spiritualistic versus materialistic context ... rather than in an actualistic paradigm such as what this mailing list is set-up for. I mean it when I say actualism is the third alternative to spiritualism and materialism. * RESPONDENT: The number of unprecedented advances in the last 200 years, including in the social arena, are due to human effort/intelligence alone and not some sort of benevolence ... an active force welling endlessly through parsecs of space. RICHARD: As I have nowhere ever mentioned that the technological/sociological advances are not due to human effort/intelligence that is what is known as a straw-man argument (wherein one goes about fabricating something another never said and then sets about refuting their own invention as if they are having an intelligent discussion). RESPONDENT: Also, the paradigm that you only have to change one person (you) is a bit far-fetched, war takes at least two parties to break out and so does peace. RICHARD: As I specifically refer to the root cause of war (the elimination of which results in an already always existing peace being apparent) that is another straw-man argument. RESPONDENT: If there’s no mutual understanding, there’s nothing you can do ... RICHARD: Only just recently (on Monday, 30/01/2006, at 1:50 AM AEDST) another subscriber to this mailing list characterised your posts as containing [quote] ‘high quality, thoughtful and relevant items’ [endquote] ... do you consider that to be a fair assessment? RESPONDENT: ... what can I do when a Muslim (someone who ardently believes that Allah is the only and true God) asks me to either agree with that or shut up/die? RICHARD: Has any person at all ever put you in such a life-threatening situation (as in a zealous apparatchik, for instance, with all the life-and-death power of the communistic state at their disposal)? RESPONDENT: It touches on what’s called freedom of speech, it’s violence pure and simple, mental rape. RICHARD: Or, rather, it is the suppression of frank, honest and open communication ... in a word: censorship (be it either overt or covert). RESPONDENT: If there’s no one to stand up and fight that ‘meme’ (ignorant bastard) ... RICHARD: Why do you say [quote] ‘fight’ [endquote]? I have personally experienced covert censorship of my writings – no publisher approached in 1996-97 would have anything to do with them – and have made a judicious use of the internet ever since ... all without any fight whatsoever. RESPONDENT: ... well, we can all live in our own private paradise, heads down, and in a miserable world at that. RICHARD: As you are obviously not referring to this actual world (which is neither a private paradise nor a miserable world) I will pass without further comment. RESPONDENT: For evil to triumph, it’s sufficient for good men to do nothing. RICHARD: If I may take the liberty of re-arranging your (borrowed) wisdom? For example:
As a matter of interest: would you classify making available the millions of words for free on The Actual Freedom Trust web site – not to forget this directly-into-your-own-home mailing list – to be doing nothing? RESPONDENT: Is freedom of speech ‘good’? RICHARD: If by that you mean beneficial then ... yes, it can be. RESPONDENT: Can the outside ‘bad’ be efficiently tackled by an actualist? RICHARD: To be tackling either bad or good behaviour (efficiently or otherwise) is to be but rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. RESPONDENT: Is the fight between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ a fancy drama, a soap opera, spurred by human imagination? RICHARD: If you are still referring to a behavioural fight then ... yes (inasmuch it is a physical playing-out of the fight between the good and the bad of the human psyche). RESPONDENT: Seriously, why don’t you live in North Korea or China? RICHARD: For much the same reasons I do not live in Rumania (for instance). RESPONDENT: Ahh, you’re not familiar with the social protocols. RICHARD: Amongst other things... yes. RESPONDENT: Yet there’s matter in China and plenty of it ... and where there’s matter there’s happiness ... and freedom. RICHARD: Aye ... there is plenty of matter on Mars, too (or , more correctly, it is comprised of matter). * RESPONDENT: Also, about the imperative that this universe has ... to (constantly?) improve locally, to reach the full of its potential, the best possible outcome .... where is the evidence for this on other planets, stars, comets? RICHARD: In the same place as the evidence there is life on other planets, stars, comets, perchance? RESPONDENT: It’s an anthropomorphic view ... RICHARD: Ha ... when you look about and observe the myriads of life forms do you see them as imperatively having to deteriorate, to reach the least of their potential, their worst possible outcome, then? RESPONDENT: ... if I can’t see any improvement there in the last 3+ billion years, what makes an actualist (another human) see any? RICHARD: Oh? You do not call the arising of intelligence in the human animal an improvement, then? RESPONDENT: Actualism looks in these occasions condimented with the anthropomorphic and anthropocentric views on the universe. RICHARD: Hmm ... actualism (the direct experience that matter is not merely passive) is anything but an anthropomorphic and anthropocentric view on the universe. RESPONDENT: Maybe, just maybe, we have a hard time just accepting the evidence: we live in a meaningless, breathtaking universe. RICHARD: And just what non-anthropomorphic/ non-anthropocentric evidence would that be (that the universe, albeit breathtaking, is meaningless) ... other than the stock-standard materialistic position, that is, as that fancy has already been flogged to death on other forums? RESPONDENT: Thanks for hearing my thoughts. RICHARD: You are welcome ... any chance of them being more thoughtful (as in relating to the actualism actually on
offer and not a spiritualistic/ materialistic construal of same) the next time around? RESPONDENT: Infinite ‘benevolence’ forever. RICHARD: As I have more than a few times delineated what I mean by the word ‘benevolence’ (a munificent well-wishing) – the etymological root of the word benevolent is the Latin ‘benne velle’ (meaning ‘wish well’), and well-wishing stems from fellowship regard (like species recognise like species throughout the animal world), for we are all fellow human beings and have the capacity for what is called ‘theory of mind’ – there is indeed an infinite benevolence irregardless how ill-informed a co-respondent’s critique may be ... but only for, at most, the remainder of my life (and not forever). RESPONDENT: Maybe somebody will still look into his obsessive distinction between dirt and purity ... RICHARD: As it is all-too-easy to say ‘obsessive’ – without any attempt to substantiate same – your baseless assertion will be treated with the ignore it deserves. RESPONDENT: – some nasty things might turn up. RICHARD: As your usage of the auxiliary verb ‘might’, in a context such as this, also includes its opposite then what you are saying there looks something like this:
Just as a matter of interest ... what does the word ‘nasty’ mean to you, then, if not the same as what the colloquial usage of ‘dirty’ does? RESPONDENT: I might be oversensitive here; but the fact that Vineeto, being of German origin, is so responsive to it, makes me suspect otherwise. RICHARD: So as to have something on the table to look at here is how I have typically used the word ‘dirty’:
For your information: at root an identity born and raised in Germany is essentially no different to an identity born and raised anywhere else. RESPONDENT: To put is most neutrally: this distinction, which I took seriously in the beginning, appears to me closest to his ‘blind spot’ aka cognitive dissonance. RICHARD: I am only too happy to couch the above in your terminology by way of illustrating something of import:
What now of that ‘blind spot’ (aka cognitive dissonance) you doubt you are being oversensitive about, eh? Speaking of which ... I will leave you with the following description (deliberately left un-attributed and un-referenced for reasons which may become obvious upon a search for the original):
RESPONDENT: So, I’m just letting you know that I’m with you, and reading you all the time and finding Actual Freedom the solution in which my past pursuits are dissolving. RICHARD: Okay ... instead of having Love/God/Truth/IT give you some ‘shattering kicks in the butt’ may I suggest adopting the benevolent, and thus beneficial, approach? Vis.:
Put succinctly: be kind to yourself ... you are the only friend you have, so to speak. RESPONDENT: I see how the ‘good side’ combats the ‘dark side’ in my relationship with my mother. Does the good side hold the dark side in place? In other words, if I eliminate the good side (love) will the hate for her also disappear or must the dark side be eliminated first and then the good side goes with it? RICHARD: As both the ‘good side’ and the ‘dark side’ are the same (affective) energy, at root, it is not possible to eliminate the one without the other ... the entire package goes in one fell swoop. What can be done in the meanwhile, however, is to direct all of that energy into being the felicitous/innocuous feelings. RESPONDENT: Ok, then the way I am understanding it is to investigate either the good or bad feelings, whichever might be present, in order to eliminate those and get back to being ‘felicitous/innocuous’. RICHARD: What I mean by [quote] ‘in the meanwhile’ [endquote] refers to the opportunity, each moment again, for the already always existing actual world to become apparent for the very asking, as it were, not being taken full advantage of. In other words, directing all of that affective energy (that is, ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being, which is ‘being’ itself) into being the felicitous/ innocuous feelings is what can be done so as to effect what the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years lived circa March-September 1981, as a deliberate imitation of the actual experienced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE), and which has become known as a virtual freedom ... to wit: being as happy and as harmless (free of malice and sorrow) as is humanly possibly whilst remaining a ‘self’. Such imitative felicity/ innocuity, in conjunction with sensuosity, readily evokes amazement, marvel, and delight ... a state of wide-eyed wonder best expressed by the word naiveté. Naiveté, being the nearest a ‘self’ can come to innocence, allows the overarching benignity and benevolence inherent to the infinitude this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe actually is to operate more and more freely. This intrinsic benignity and benevolence, which has nothing to do with the imitative affective happiness and harmlessness, will do the rest. All that was required was ‘my’ cheerful concurrence. RESPONDENT: I don’t really understand what motivates you to sit at the computer constructing the website and corresponding with people like me. RICHARD: Put succinctly it is benevolence (a munificent well-wishing) ... the etymological root of the word benevolent
is the Latin ‘benne velle’ (meaning ‘wish well’). And well-wishing stems from fellowship regard – like species recognise like species
throughout the animal world – for we are all fellow human beings and have the capacity for what is called ‘theory of mind’ RESPONDENT: It can’t be out of pride that you broadcast your findings – that would be far too ironic. RICHARD: It has nothing to do with irony that it is not ‘out of pride’ … there is no trace of either pride or its companion-in-arms (humility) whatsoever in this flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: It can’t be out of boredom, because for the actualist the moment is too rich to allow for boredom. RICHARD: ‘Tis impossible to ever be bored, here in this actual world, as everything is novel, fresh, always new. RESPONDENT: I don’t suppose it’s compassionate proselytising, for compassion reeks of instinctual impulse. RICHARD: As there is neither sorrow nor its antidotal compassion anywhere to be found in this flesh and blood body there is, correspondingly, no urge at all to proselytise. RESPONDENT: If it’s to establish a pure school of thought that won’t be watered down in a thousand directions ... well, what’s the point, really? RICHARD: As actualism – the direct experience that matter is not merely passive – is not a ‘school of thought’ (be it pure or not is besides the point) any speculation about such is irrelevant. RESPONDENT: I mean, you are going to die; that legacy doesn’t have anything to do with ‘now’ … RICHARD: If I may interject? There is only now … have you never noticed that it is never not this moment? RESPONDENT: … [you are going to die; that legacy doesn’t have anything to do with ‘now’]; human beings will continue to be born as instinctually driven human beings … RICHARD: If I may interject again? If, as you say, humans will continue to be born ‘instinctually driven’ (driven by such instinctual passions as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) then there is all the reason in the world for there to be a do-it-yourself method with a proven track-record, an unambiguous report of pure consciousness experiencing, clear descriptions of life here in this actual world, lucid explanations of how and why, and clarifications of misunderstandings in words and writings for their consideration … is there not? Otherwise all there is, as an alternative to the norm, is the institutionalised insanity popularly known as ‘spiritual enlightenment’. RESPONDENT: …[human beings will continue to be born as instinctually driven human beings]; and the majority of people couldn’t care less if they reorient themselves toward an ‘actual’ experience of the ‘now’ … RICHARD: If I may interject yet again? As ‘the majority of people’ are not cognisant of an actual freedom from the human condition your observation has no relevance to what is actually the case. RESPONDENT: …[the majority of people couldn’t care less if they reorient themselves toward an ‘actual’ experience of the ‘now’], because they’ve got more pressing matters to attend to. RICHARD: If (note ‘if’) someone – anyone – has ‘more pressing matters to attend to’ than enabling
the already always existing peace-on-earth, in this lifetime as this flesh and blood body, then that is their business … not mine. RESPONDENT: I see zero benevolence here. RICHARD: I will first draw your attention to the following:
It is because I wish well for my fellow human being that I responded, in the first instant with a carefully detailed reply which explained why I considered it not to be either an actual or virtual freedom from the human condition, and in the second with a carefully considered explanation of why I wrote what I wrote in the first ... and I would be doing neither person a favour if I carelessly replied, in either instance, with an ill-considered response. RESPONDENT: I see zero happiness here. RICHARD: Given that what you see is (1) the master word twister ... and (2) a person that just takes another’s words ... and (3) a person that has a world view ... and (4) a person that takes other’s words apart ... and (5) a person that accords other’s words to their logic ... and (6) a person that accords other’s words to their ideology ... and (7) a person that uses No’s 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 as a fantastic method to put people off ... and (8) a person that is certainly an over-achiever in No. 7 then it is not at all surprising that you see no happiness. RESPONDENT: I see zero harmlessness here. RICHARD: Again, it is not at all surprising that you see no harmlessness, either. RESPONDENT: All I see here is a master ability to take peoples’ accounts and interpret them as it fits into one’s world view best. RICHARD: That would explain why you (a) see no benevolence ... and (b) see no happiness ... and (c) see no harmlessness. RESPONDENT: Maybe I am just blind ... RICHARD: There is no ‘maybe’ about it ... you are indeed blind. RESPONDENT: ... but I doubt it. RICHARD: You can, of course, doubt that you are blind all you will ... yet it will not alter the fact of your blindness
one little bit. RICHARD: ... as you mentioned Peter talking about altruism, you could access the Library section of The Actual Freedom Trust website and look under the entry for altruism ... you will see that he refers to the ‘quality of altruism’ in actualism as being ‘benevolence in action’ and that this altruism ‘needs to be put under the microscope, examined carefully and fully understood, lest one confuses it with blind instinctual passions and senseless societal values’. RESPONDENT: Makes more sense to me now. RICHARD: Okay ... you are aware that the benevolence and benignity referred to (of the PCE) is not ‘my’ benevolence and benignity? * RESPONDENT: I think the confusion stems from the fact that I witness the general helpfulness of human beings – even in contexts where there is no immediate personal gain physically or emotionally – so it seems that altruism is more than just ‘self-sacrificing’ – but more of an instinct towards perpetuating not only the survival, but the flourishing of the species – but not only homo sapiens, but all other things in the universe insofar as one has an effect on them. RICHARD: Again, what you say here is sourced in blind nature’s nurture – taken to a fantastic extreme when applied to ‘all other things in the universe’ – which instinctual passion is currently the flavour of the month in those ‘save mother earth’ circles. RESPONDENT: This confusion is a result of confusing the two senses or ‘altruistic’ – the biological and the moralistic. My reference to ‘all other things in the universe insofar as one has an effect on them’ might better read ‘all other things in the universe insofar as they have an effect on one’. Reversing the latter part of the sentence may be more accurate – since it shows the ‘self centeredness’ of feeling-caring. For a while, I couldn’t understand why you called that comment ‘fantastic’ – but I see now that what I was referring to was merely the moralistic idea of altruism – which is not at all to be equated with benevolence. RICHARD: Exactly ... in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) one discovers that the universe is already benevolent and benign (it does not need ‘my’ benevolence and benignity pasted as a veneer over it). There is a passage in ‘Richard’s Journal’ which may be worth contemplating:
I have emphasised the words which indicate one of the biggest stumbling-blocks to first setting foot upon the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition – the apprehension of becoming a simpleton – so as to highlight the fact that when I say naiveté I mean naiveté. * RICHARD: This is just a guess, as I can only go on the words you write, but I would venture to suggest that the ‘self image’ you were invested in developing over all those years has resurrected itself in the guise of an (intellectual) caring which is (ostensibly) not a feeling caring. (...) Being a ‘loving, caring person’ is born of the instinctual passion of nurture – as most moralistic/ ethicalistic caring is – and as the instinctual passions are particularly tenacious it may be apposite to enquire into who the grief you mentioned in another e-mail was being felt for. (...) ‘Tis only a suggestion, mind you. RESPONDENT: Thanks for the suggestion, but I think I’ve always been aware that there was a gulf between how I used to care and what is happening when I am asking the actualist question and being happy and harmless. It seems that I was trying to extend the concept of moralistic altruism and ‘imitating the actual’ beyond what you intend. The confusion is cleared up now though – I see clearly that you mean altruism merely in the biological sense is needed for the actualist process and that imitating the actual specifically means being happy and harmless and acting benevolently from that position. RICHARD: Yes, though where one is happy and harmless then benevolence and benignity act of their own accord ... thus it is effortless. RESPONDENT: Here is how I think the confusion arose. I was seeing all feeling caring as stemming from separation – something an actualist is to be wary of. So I figured, there must be a kind of caring which isn’t based on feeling – which must be ‘altruism’. That seemed to match up with a kind of caring that doesn’t seem to have much premeditative thought or feeling – ‘spontaneous’ caring which one could call altruistic since one doesn’t think or feel much about how the action would affect oneself. So I was equating ‘altruism’ with ‘actually caring’ and ‘benevolence’. So I thought maybe that’s what was meant – that feeling caring changes into a sort of spontaneous caring which is not consciously related to one’s personal aims (actually caring) – which would make caring happily and harmlessly not a feeling caring, but a spontaneous altruistic caring – which is the ‘launch-pad’ to an actual freedom. But I see now this was just a wild goose chase. I was simply misunderstanding. Even one in virtual freedom still uses feelings to care – only happy and harmless ones – benevolence. RICHARD: So as to keep it simple: all you have to do, so to speak, is be happy and harmless ... the rest takes care of
itself. RESPONDENT: I do understand about minimising both the good and bad feelings as I have been down the road of trying to eliminate the bad while maximising the good. It is clear that I can’t have the good without the bad. RICHARD: Exactly ... and thus the way is cleared to be launched upon the adventure of a lifetime. RESPONDENT: Sorry for all the repetition. I was just trying to get at what’s missing. It is obvious now that what is missing is altruism. You said above that altruism is a group instinct and this instinct is just not activated. I can only see altruism in terms of love and compassion and that is not it. RICHARD: Indeed not – in this context love and compassion lead to ‘self’-surrender not ‘self’-sacrifice – whereas benevolence is the key to altruistic ‘self’-immolation for the benefit of this body and that body and every body. And the feeling of caring already mentioned (further above) is the genesis of being benevolent. RESPONDENT: I see that doing for ‘me’ will automatically benefit others but there is no sense of truly caring. I understand you to be saying that there needs to be caring which leads to benevolence which is the key to the altruism that is needed for self-immolation. RICHARD: Good ... comprehending what is needed provides the necessary understanding to proceed (and the lack of truly
caring will sort itself out of its own accord as one proceeds). RESPONDENT: There is, for me, something very similar in both positive and negative feelings. What am I trying to say? I think there is a central figure that in one case (positive feelings – like being in love) is grasping and in the other (negative feelings – being angry, repulsed) is pushing away. There is a centre to all this feeling that tries to maintain itself by what – by nurturing itself by grasping for things, or defending itself by pushing things away? Is this the primitive self structure you are talking about? RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: I experience the most primitive feelings towards my children. My teenage daughter goes out at night, and is later than she is supposed to be, and I panic. It is so chemical it is almost comical. I can laugh about it and I do, but the reaction is instantaneous. In my guts, I’m driven to keep both my kids alive. RICHARD: This is undeniably the basic instinctual passion of nurture: to provide, protect, support, cultivate, nourish ... blind nature’s rough and ready survival package. Now that a thinking and reflective neo-cortex has developed over the instinctual lizard brain the instinctual passions can be deleted. With an unprecedented 6.0 billion chemically-driven malicious and sorrowful peoples (and 6.0 billion chemically-driven antidotally loving and compassionate peoples) populating the planet it is high time that we humans ceased looking to the past and reapplying failed solutions ... and got on with the business of living in deliciously sensible manner. The twentieth century was the bloodiest century in human history. RESPONDENT: So, a question for you: How do you distinguish between feeling-caring and caring? RICHARD: By being here, right now, as this flesh and blood body. A feeling is not a fact; it is an identity’s interpretation of the actual and to be standing back and expressing a feeling – to feel an emotion or be passionate about life – is nowhere near the same as being here now as an actuality. In actually being just here – right now – one is completely involved, utterly concerned; being here now is total inclusion. One demonstrates one’s appreciation of life by partaking fully in existence ... by letting this moment live one (rather than ‘living in the present’) so that one is the doing of what is happening. One dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here now as the universe’s experience of itself. Initially one is deathly afraid to actually be here now, as it can feel rather rudely raw ... one feels more naked and exposed than taking off one’s clothing in the market place. However, feeling rudely raw about the prospect of being here now is not the same as actually being here now ... feelings are notoriously unreliable for ascertaining a fact. Being here now is to be at the place in infinite space and eternal time where all is pristine. This pristine place is this, the actual world ... and it is already always here. This actual world is original; unmarred, uncorrupted, unspoiled, spotless, fresh and perpetually new. It is alarming to feel this immaculateness – it is frightening in its immediate intimacy – which is why one backs off, initially denying its very existence. What happens though, if one takes the risk to actually be here now – instead of standing back and feeling it out in order to make up one’s mind – is that one discovers that oneself is also pristine. Then one is actually benevolent (harmless), actually concerned (happy) for all peoples ... no one is special. There is a vast gulf betwixt feeling benevolent (with feelings such as pity, sympathy, empathy, compassion and so on) and actually being benevolent (free of malice). Similarly, the concern one feels for others (worry, distress, anxiety, grief, anguish, torment and all the rest) is far removed from the actual interest one has in one’s fellow human being’s welfare (free of sorrow). RESPONDENT: What do you say to your grandchildren when they are hurt, desolate, crying? RICHARD: The same as I say to any body and every body – no body is special – which is: all mental-emotional-psychic suffering is an unnecessary and self-inflicted wound. Any mental-emotional-psychic viciousness on the part of another, first and foremost, lies in the heart of the ‘giver’ and inevitably turns in on itself as existential sorrow. Thus, in the final analysis, it is the ‘giver’ who suffers the most intimately. As for the ‘receiver’ of any nastiness, it is entirely up to them what they do with it ... apart from physical brutality, no-one can force their cruelty on another without the other’s acquiescence and compliance. It is a truly and remarkably free world we live in. RESPONDENT: What is the difference in saying ‘I feel’ for my mother, and ‘I care’? Main Entry: 2care: Function: verb: 1 a : to feel trouble or anxiety b : to feel interest or concern (care about freedom). RICHARD: You have asked me before about this and I responded then by saying that one can actually care as contrasted to feeling that one cares ... and there is a world of difference between the two. As for the dictionary meaning: dictionaries give alternate meanings to a particular word and different dictionaries can give differing meanings than in other dictionaries and I notice that you have selected two of the several meanings ascribed to the word ‘care’ in the Merriam-Webster ... whereas I would have chosen their [quote] ‘to be concerned about or to the extent of’ [endquote] meaning so as to convey what I personally mean by it. The Oxford also gives various meanings ... the ones that I would choose are [quote] ‘an object or matter of concern; a thing to be done or seen to; attention, heed, regard, inclination’ [endquote]. Regarding this word – and the other words I use to describe the qualities of experiencing life as this flesh and blood body only – it is sobering to come to understand that all of the 650,000 words in the English language were coined by peoples nursing malice and sorrow and love and compassion to their bosom ... hence most of the expressive words have an affective component. When I first began describing my on-going experience to my fellow human beings I chose words that had the least affective connotations ... coining too many new words would have been counter-productive. Consequently, the etymology of words can be of assistance in most cases to locate a near-enough to being a non-affective base to start from ... taking the word ‘care’ as an example it will be seen that etymologically the word comes from the Old English ‘caru’ meaning ‘charge’ or ‘oversight’ (‘charge’ as in the Latin ‘carricare’ from ‘carrus’ meaning ‘wagon’ – thus ‘carry’ – and ‘oversight’ as in ‘overseeing’) and basically means ‘an object or matter of concern’ as in ‘a thing to be done or seen to’ or ‘protective overview’ or ‘guardianship’. The only way to make it a particular feeling is by linking it with the Gothic and Germanic word ‘kara’ meaning ‘grief’ or ‘lament’ (as derived from ‘karar’ meaning ‘bed of sickness’). In popular use it appears to mean worrying about the other. Incidentally, the word ‘consideration’ is from the Latin ‘considerare’ meaning ‘examine’ (perhaps from the Latin ‘sider’ or ‘sidus’ meaning ‘constellation’ or ‘star’) and basically means ‘the action or fact of examining and taking into account of anything as a reason or motive with regard for the circumstances of another’ ... in popular use, however, it generally means ‘don’t hurt my feelings’. It is pertinent to comprehend that dictionaries are descriptive (and not prescriptive as are scriptures) and reflect more about how words came about, how they have changed, and how they have expanded into other words, rather than what they should mean. I tend to provide dictionary definitions only so as to establish a starting-point for communication ... from this mutually agreed-upon base each co-respondent can apply their own specific nuance of meaning to words as are readily explainable and mutually understandable (such as I do with ‘real’ and ‘actual’ and with ‘truth’ and ‘fact’, for example). Generally I can suss out what the other means by a word via its context and both where they are coming from and what they are wanting to establish ... if not I ask what they are meaning to convey. Ain’t life grand! RICHARD: ... I look forward with avid interest to any suitably amended formulae so as to ascertain the degree of lived experiencing entailed in classifying oneself virtually free. RESPONDENT: Stagnancy takes on many forms. One Mr. Einstein has been suffice. RICHARD: It would appear that you have missed the joke – my co-respondent had indicated at the beginning of his post that it was to be [quote] approached in a pseudo scientific manner [endquote] and halfway through he had said that it was written in a [quote] tongue in cheek mode [endquote] – so I responded in kind (plus took the opportunity to include some experiential information in the body of the post). Of course there is no mathematical formula for peace-on-earth. RESPONDENT: Men everywhere seek practical direction to fullness of being, not theories and formulae. RICHARD: I do not know how much of The Actual freedom Web Page you have read so this may be an opportune moment to point out that an actual freedom from the human condition is all about the elimination of ‘being’ ... not the seeking of ‘the fullness of being’ which you speak of (above). RESPONDENT: Happy Easter and God Bless. RICHARD: As I am not a Christian (I am a thorough-going atheist through and through) your religious felicitations and your god’s blessings are wasted on me. Furthermore I do find it a bit odd that you would seek to sign off in this manner as the matter of an actual benediction (an actual blessing) was addressed by me in the body of the very e-mail that you took my last line from (at the top of this page) ... I will re-present it here for your perusal and considered deliberation:
You will notice that I did indeed provide a ‘practical direction’ in regards to triggering this actual blessing (in stark contrast to your god’s traditionally capricious bestowal of grace) by activating an innate catalyst ... the contacting and the cultivation of one’s original state of naiveté through the application of sincerity. I have always found that it pays to thoroughly read all of what one is responding to before clicking the ‘send’ button. RESPONDENT: K’s harsh words are as rare as your words of kindness. RICHARD: I have never taken a count so as to be able to provide evidence either way ... and as it is your proposition it is up to you to go through all his words and then through mine so as to statistically substantiate your statement. Until you do ... I will just take this for the rhetoric that it is and ignore it completely. RESPONDENT: Though you say you are an expression of the kindliness of the Universe??? RICHARD: I prefer the word ‘benevolent’ (‘well-wishing’) as it cannot be misconstrued. Some people would attribute an affective component to the word ‘kindliness’ ... and then, indeed find me devoid of what they are looking for. When ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul became extinct, the entire affective faculty vanished ... which means all the feelings (the emotions and passions and calentures). Which may explain why you detect no ‘warmth’ in me ... you may very well be looking for love and/or compassion. I have no love nor compassion for you whatsoever for I have no malice and sorrow that needs such counterparts. RESPONDENT: I have noticed that you apply many of the traditional attributes of spirit to matter: infinite, eternal, benevolent, benign, even, I believe, intelligent in a non-anthropomorphic way. RICHARD: Not ‘applying’, no ... these ‘attributes’ are actually properties (infinite and eternal)
and qualities (immaculate and consummate) and values (benevolent and benign) and are my direct experience, each moment again, and those words are
my description of what is actually happening (properties plus qualities equals values). It is that peoples for millennia have been ‘stealing’
the properties and qualities and values of this physical universe and attributing them to their particular metaphysical fantasy (whichever god or
goddess that is the ‘flavour of the month’) ... and anthropocentrically adding a few (power-based) properties and qualities and values while
they at it in order to make him/her into a supreme being. I am simply bringing those properties and qualities and values back where they have
belonged all along ... to this infinite and eternal universe (stripping the power-based extraneities along the way). RICHARD: You may say that you are not defending Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti ... but you are defending the indefensible. Why? RESPONDENT: You don’t care actually, one hoot that I may or may not be defending Krishnamurti. What you really care about is that I’m not accepting your own words as authority. RICHARD: There are two meanings to the word ‘authority’ and the one that causes all the troubles is the one connected with power. (The power of the authority to enforce obedience; the power of the authority to enforce moral or legal judgements; the power of the authority to command or give the final decision; the power of the authority to control; the power of the authority of a governing body; the power of an authoritative holy book; the power of the authority to inspire belief and so on). The second – less used – meaning is: an expert on a particular subject. Because I live in an actual freedom twenty four hours a day, I am automatically an expert about what it is like to experience freedom from the Human Condition. I have no power – or powers – whatsoever. It is very simple to be an expert on actual freedom ... one has but to live it and report to others from this on-going experience of being here now. (Expert as in specialist, professional, virtuoso ... or being experienced, proficient, able, accomplished, apt, competent and so on). I freely acknowledge – and delight in – my expertise on all matters pertaining to actual freedom and spiritual enlightenment. This expertise is drawn out of my personal experience on a day-to-day basis, for the last eighteen years ... twenty four hours a day. If you wish to maintain that this makes me an ‘authority’ as in the spiritual meaning of the word ‘master’ then you are entirely missing the point of all I have said, written and demonstrated. Because those otherwise intelligent ‘Enlightened Beings’ have surrendered their integrity to the psychic Power that lies hidden as the ‘Unmanifest Authority’ behind the scenes. This divine entity can go by many names, most of them obviously a god, but the most pernicious is the one usually described as either ‘The Truth’ or ‘The Absolute’. To have surrendered to ‘that which is sacred’ is the root cause of all the religious wars that have beset this planet since time immemorial. Power is what the ‘authority’ of a guru / master / sage / avatar / messiah / saint is all about. As they have surrendered to an ‘Higher Authority’, everyone else has to slot into the inevitable hierarchy which ensues. And so the battles rage. The hunger for power – or the subservience to it – is the curse of humanity. Curiously enough, the ‘energy’ that this power manifests as – whilst going under many and varied a nomenclature – is what I call Love Agapé. In actualism it is readily experienced and understood that Love Agapé – which is born out of sorrow – is but a paltry substitute for the over-arching benevolence of the actual world. Similarly, Divine Compassion is seen and known to be a pathetic surrogate for the actual intimacy of direct experiencing ... Love Agapé and Divine Compassion are deep feelings which the psychological or psychic identity within creates in order to sustain itself and perpetuate its self-centred existence. Love is born out of loneliness ... or in the case of the Enlightened Ones, out of Aloneness ... and is touted as being the cure-all for humankind’s failings because it imitates the intimacy of the actual via a feeling of Oneness. The feeling of Oneness creates an erroneous impression that separation is ended ... but the self survives triumphant, only to wreak its havoc in the real world once again. Life can be a grim and glum business in the real world, for separation ceases only when the psychological and psychic entity inside the body – the ego and the soul – is extirpated. In actual freedom there is a universal magnanimity which is so vastly superior to petty forgiveness or pardon that any comparison is worthless. Actual intimacy – being here now – does not come from love and compassion, for the affective states of being stem from separation. The illusion of intimacy that love and compassion produces is but a meagre imitation of the direct experience of the actual. In the actual world, ‘I’ as ego, the personality, and ‘me’ as soul, the ‘being’ – both subjectively experienced as one’s identity – have ceased to exist; whereas love and compassion accentuates, endorses and verifies ‘me’ as being real. And while ‘I’ am real, ‘I’ am relative to other similarly afflicted persons; vying for position and status in order to establish ‘my’ credentials ... to verify ‘my’ very existence. To be actually intimate is to be without the separative identity ... and therefore free from the need for love and compassion with their ever un-filled promise of Peace On Earth. There is an actual intimacy between me and everyone and everything ... actual intimacy is a direct experiencing of the other as-they-are. I am having a superb time ... and it is a well-earned superb time, too. Nothing has come without application – apart from serendipitous discoveries because of pure intent – and I am reaping the rewards which are plentiful and deliciously satisfying. Actual intimacy frees one up to a world of factual splendour, based firmly upon sensate and sensual delight. The candid and unabashed sensorial enjoyment of being this body in the world around is such a luscious and immediate experience, that the tantalising but ever-elusive promise of the mystique of love and compassion has faded into the oblivion it deserves. I have no power – or powers – at all, for I have not surrendered to any one or any thing whatsoever. There is no trace of humiliation in me at all. RESPONDENT: Admit that, and maybe there will be the off-chance that you will begin to face the reality of your anger and confusion and snap out of it. RICHARD: I have no anger – or confusion – to face. All that disappeared along with the identity. RESPONDENT: I mean this beneficently of course. RICHARD: I am sure you do ... mostly people are well-meaning. RESPONDENT: I have not met anyone on this list naïve enough to accept your facade. RICHARD: Hmm ... this is unfortunate – not the ‘facade’ bit – but because naïveté is so vital to
freedom. This is because even the strictest application of moralistic and ethicalistic injunctions will never lead to the clean clarity of the
purity of living the perfection of the infinitude of this material universe. Purity is an actual condition – intrinsic to this universe – that
a human being can tap into by pure intent. Pure intent can be activated with sincere attention paid to the state of naïveté. To be naïve is to
be virginal, unaffected, unselfconsciously artless ... in short: ingenuous. naïveté is a much-maligned word, having the common assumption that it
implies gullibility. Nevertheless, to be naïve means to be simple and unsophisticated. Pride is derived from an intellect inured to naïve
innocence; to such an intellect, to be guileless appears to be gullible, stupid. In actuality, one has to be gullible to be sophisticated, to be
wise in the ways of the real world. The ‘worldly-wise’ realists are not in touch with the purity of innocence; they readily obey the peremptory
decrees of the cultured sophisticates. A sample of such decrees are: ‘I didn’t come down in the last shower’, or ‘I wasn’t born yesterday’,
or ‘You’ve got to be tough to survive in the real world’, or ‘It’s dog eat dog out there’ ... and so on. Such people are said to have
‘lost their innocence’. Human beings have not ‘lost their innocence’ ... they never had it in the first place. Innocence is something
entirely new; it has never existed in human beings before. It is an evolutionary break-through to come upon innocence. It is a mutation of the
human brain. naïveté is a necessary precursor to invoke the condition of innocence. One surely has to be naïve to contemplate the profound
notion that this universe is benign, friendly It is foolishness of the highest order to believe it to be impossible to be free. RICHARD: When it comes to the consumption of nutrients there are many and various beliefs one can hold dearly to. There are people who will not eat red meat at all ... only white meat and fish. Then there are people who will not eat any flesh of warm-blooded animals at all ... only fish and reptiles. Then there are people (vegetarians) who will not eat any meat at all, but will consume eggs and dairy products. Then there are people (vegans) who will eat only vegetables, grain and seed. Then there are people (fruitarians) who will only eat fruit. Then – as we go into myth and fantasy – there are those who live on water and air ... and finally those who live on air only. Some vegetarians maintain that as a carrot (for example) does not scream audibly when it is pulled from the ground there is no distress caused by the consumption of vegetables. Yet the carrot indubitably dies slowly by being extracted from its life-support system – the ground is its home – and is this not distressing on some level of a living, growing organism? It all depends upon the level, or degree, of ‘aliveness’ that one ascribes to things. Vegans, for instance, will not consume eggs as this prevents an incipient life from being born. Fruitarians go one step further and say that, as the consumption of carrots prevents them from going to seed and sprouting new life, vegetables are to be eschewed entirely. Then, as the eating of grain and seeds also prevent potential life-forms from growing, they will eat only the flesh of the fruit that surrounds the kernel and plant out the embryo plant-form. (I have been a fruitarian so I know full well what I am speaking of.) The obvious fact is clearly demonstrated by taking all this to its ultimate consideration. What will one do – as a fruitarian causing no pain or the taking of life of anyone or anything – about those pesky things like mosquitoes, sand-flies, cockroaches, rats, mice and other ‘vermin’ that invade my house? Put up screens? What about outside? Will I slap them dead ... or just shoo them away? What will one do if attacked by a snake, a crocodile, a shark, a lion and so on? Do as the Revered Scriptures say and turn the other cheek? Will I humbly submit to my fate and be mauled severely myself – or even killed – simply because of a religious injunction, a moral scruple, a noble ideal, a virtuous belief, a passionate opinion, a deeply held ethical theory? In other words, have animals and insects been given the right, by some inscrutable god, to do with me whatsoever they wish? Is my survival dependent upon the non-existent benevolence of all those sentient beings that I am not going to cause distress to? What then about germs, bacteria, bacillus, microbes, pathogens, phages, viruses and so on? Are they not entitled to remain alive and pain free? If one takes medication for disease, one is – possibly painfully – killing off the microscopic creatures that one’s body is the host too. Some religions – the Jain religion in India, for example – has its devout members wearing gauze over their nose and mouths to prevent insects from flying in and they even carry small brooms to sweep the path as they walk so that they will not accidentally step on some creature. It can really get out of hand. For instance, small-pox has been eradicated from the world by scientists as a means of saving countless human lives ... is this somehow ‘Wrong’? What is ‘Right’ in regards to what I do in order to stay alive? If I do none of these things then I will be causing pain and suffering to myself – and I am a sentient being too. It is an impossible scenario, when pursued to its ultimate conclusion. And then there is the matter of one’s fellow human beings. Some of them – in fact at times a lot of them – are desirous of invading the country that one is living peacefully in, with the avowed intent of killing, torturing, raping, pillaging and subjugating oneself and one’s fellow citizens. If one holds a strong and passionate belief in not causing any pain and suffering to other sentient beings then one must be more than a fruitarian ... one must be a pacifist as well. This amounts to hanging out a sign – if everybody else in the country one lives in adopts this specific belief – which says, in effect: ‘Please feel free to invade us, we will not fight back, for we hold firmly to the principle of not causing pain and suffering to any sentient being whatsoever’ (the Tibetan situation is a particular case in point.) Thus anarchy would rule the world – all because of a belief system handed down by the Saints and the Sages, the Messiahs and the Avatars, the Redeemers and the Saviours, the Prophets and the Priests, century after century. All this is predicated upon there being an enduring ‘I’ that is going to survive the death of the body and go on into the paradisiacal After-Life that is ‘my’ post-mortem reward for being a ‘good’ person during ‘my’ sojourn on this planet earth. It is ‘I’ who is the ‘believer’, it is ‘I’ who will cause this flesh-and-blood body to go into all manner of contorted and convoluted emotion-backed thoughts as to what is ‘Right’ and what is ‘Wrong’, what is ‘Good’ and what is ‘Bad’. If it were not for the serious consequences of all this passionate dreaming it would be immensely humorous, for ‘I’ am not actual ... ‘I’ am an illusion. And any grand ‘I’ that supposedly survives death by being ‘Timeless and Spaceless’, ‘Unborn and Undying’, ‘Immortal and Eternal’ am but a delusion born out of that illusion. Thus any After-Life is a fantasy spun out of a delusion born out of an illusion ... as I am so fond of saying. When ‘I’ am no longer extant there is no ‘believer’ inside the mind and heart to have any beliefs or disbeliefs. As there is no ‘believer’, there is no ‘I’ to be harmful ... and one is harmless only when one has eliminated malice – what is commonly called evil – from oneself in its entirety. That is, the ‘dark side’ of human nature which requires the maintenance of a ‘good side’ to eternally combat it. By doing the ‘impossible’ – everybody tells me that you can’t change human nature – then one is automatically harmless ... which does not mean abstaining from killing. It means that no act is malicious, spiteful, hateful, revengeful and so on. It is a most estimable condition to be in. One is then free to kill or not kill something or someone, as the circumstances require. Eating meat, for example, is an act of freedom, based upon purely practical considerations such as the taste bud’s predilection, or the body’s ability to digest the food eaten, or meeting the standards of hygiene necessary for the preservation of decaying flesh, or the availability of sufficient resources on this planet to provide the acreage necessary to support the conversion of vegetation into animal protein. It has nothing whatsoever with sparing sentient beings any distress. Thus ‘Right and Wrong’ is nothing but a socially-conditioned affective and cognitive conscience instilled by well-meaning adults through reward and punishment (love and hate) in a fatally-flawed attempt to control the wayward self that all sentient beings are born with. The feeling of ‘Right and Wrong’ is born out of holding on to a belief system that is impossible to live ... as all belief systems are. I am not trying to persuade anyone to eat meat or not eat meat ... I leave it entirely up to the individual as to what they do regarding what they eat. It is the belief about being ‘Right or Wrong’ that is insidious, for this is how you are manipulated by those who seek to control you ... they are effectively beating you with a psychological stick. And the particularly crafty way they go about it is that they get you to do the beating to yourself. Such self-abasement is the hall-mark of any religious humility ... a brow-beaten soul earns its way into some god’s good graces by self-castigating acts of redemption. Holding fervently to any belief is a sure sign that there is a wayward ‘I’ that needs to be controlled. Give me ‘silly’ and ‘sensible’ any day. RESPONDENT: Nature, in every instance, is what we (I) am doing (being). RICHARD: For clarity, I would say that ‘blind nature’ is what you are ‘doing (being)’. But now that a freed intelligence has been able to break free from the strangle-hold that the instinctual passions, bestowed by blind nature that ensured that consciousness could arise out of matter, the blind instinctual patterns can be superseded. RESPONDENT: If it is a hypnotic and unexamined struggle, then that is what nature is. RICHARD: That is indeed what ‘blind nature’ is. Nature is blind inasmuch as it does not care two-hoots about you or me. It is only concerned with the survival of the species ... and any species will do as far as nature is concerned. Therefore it is blind. There is no such thing as ‘Mother Nature’, for example, outside of sentimental human imagination. Nature is indeed ‘red in tooth and claw’ and is not concerned about anyone in particular at all – including all of humankind – but I am. I like my fellow humans and wish them no harm at all – I wish well upon everyone including myself – which well-wishing is the root meaning of the word ‘benevolence’. (Benevolent: Old French – ‘benivolent’ from: Latin – ‘benevolent’ : present participle stem of ‘bene velle’ : ‘wish well’). Nature, be it blind or not, can never be described as benevolent. RESPONDENT: If it is understanding that the whole thing is like trying to kick off your own foot, then a new peace arises, and that is what nature is. RICHARD: There is an already always existing peace-on-earth that can only become apparent when ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul self-immolate ... that is: identity itself becomes extinct. One can decamp from one’s fate (bestowed by blind nature) and achieve one’s destiny (implicit as this universe). It is yours for the choosing. * RICHARD: It is very simple to identify it precisely ... it is called the survival instinct. All sentient beings have been charged by blind nature to survive at all costs. RESPONDENT: If you would Richard, please demonstrate the difference between ‘the survival instinct’ and ‘all sentient beings’ that you would have ‘charged by blind nature to survive at all costs’. RICHARD: Sure ... given that a ‘sentient being’ is any animal (‘animal as in the classification of ‘animal, vegetable or mineral’) that emerges with in-built sense-organs (which minerals and plants do not), then a sentient being is aware of ‘self’ and ‘other’ (which minerals and plants do not), however rudimentary this awareness may be. Thus comes with awareness (as consciousness emerging from matter) an initially necessary ‘survival instinct’. This ‘survival instinct’ (a set of affective passions that I describe as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) has only one purpose: the perpetuation of the species ... and any species will do as far as blind nature is concerned. Thus blind nature does not care about you and me – or humankind as such – but life itself continuing. Hence the appellation ‘blind’ ... nature is only blind from a human point of view. Thus blind nature is not concerned at all about your or my well-being – or humankind as such – but I do. I like being this flesh and blood body and I like my fellow human being and wish well upon myself and anyone else (this is what ‘benevolence’ means). Now I know this attitude of actually caring and actually being concerned about us human beings is called selfish by would-be mystics ... but I happen to find 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 abhorrent. Speaking personally, I do not consider that ‘each instance of rape is fine’. RESPONDENT: No, No, I would not wish that. Yes, Yes, I would like that. Yes, it is terribly laborious to watch, to remind oneself to watch, to be vigilant, wondering if one is doing it enough, should one be more vigilant constantly, and then watching the never being in the present moment. ‘It’ has been experienced only for a few minutes in the last twenty five years. Only once did the observer and the observed merge. Only a few times have I felt that Real compassion, forgiveness, Love. Only a couple of times have I had experience with the ‘other’ dimension. RICHARD: It is entirely possible, throughout the vast majority of one’s time, for there to be no thoughts running at all ... none whatsoever. If thought is needed for a particular situation, it swings smoothly into action of its own accord and effortlessly does its thing. All the while there is an apperceptive awareness of being here ... of being alive at this moment in time and this place in space. No words occur in the brain – other than when necessary – for it is a wordless appreciation of being able to be here now. Consequently, one is always blithe and carefree, even if one is doing nothing. Doing something – and that includes thinking – is a bonus of happiness and pleasure on top of this on-going ambrosial experience of being alive and awake and here on this verdant planet now. When the psychological ego and psychic soul willingly relinquish their sovereignty and take their leave, the senses can act in
the optimum manner. Just as when a normal person becomes blind and all their other senses are heightened, so too does the abdication result in a
phenomenal increase in the pleasurable and luxurious sensitivity of being a corporeal body in this very physical world. The resultant benevolence
produces easy good-will, kindness and altruism, for one is living in a friendly This is an actual freedom from animosity and anguish – as distinct from becoming enlightened and thus having merely transcended and smothered them over with a honeyed coating of Love Agapé and Divine Compassion – and I am inordinately pleased whenever someone can grasp the priceless character of what this means for peace on earth. It is one thing to bask in Ineffable Bliss, Ecstasy and Euphoria while perpetuating the status-quo ... and quite another to delightedly enjoy the ripples of pleasure that this body is patently capable of manifesting whilst actualising benignity and blitheness. These organic waves of sensational pleasure are usually constrained by the demands of the ego and soul for emotional and passionate feelings ... which are the synthetic compensations for the supposed indignity of ‘me’ having to be here at all in this despised body. You see, what one is as this body is this material universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being. The physical space of this universe is infinite and its time is eternal ... thus the infinitude of this very material universe has no beginning and no ending ... and therefore no middle. There are no edges to this universe, which means that there is no centre, either. We are all coming from nowhere and are not going anywhere for there is nowhere to come from nor anywhere to go too. We are nowhere in particular ... which means we are anywhere at all. In the infinitude of the universe one finds oneself to be already here, and as it is always now, one can not get away from this place in space and this moment in time. By being here as-this-body one finds that this moment in time has no duration as in now and then – because the immediate is the ultimate – and that this place in space has no distance as in here and there – for the relative is the absolute. In other words: I am always here and it is already now. RESPONDENT: When you accidentally kill something, are you not ‘sad’ about it? RICHARD: No ... nor when I deliberately kill something. Every time I breathe air, drink water, eat food, take a step, sneeze and so on, something, somewhere (if only on the microscopic level) is being killed by me. Being alive as a creature means other creatures inevitably die ... under your scheme I would be sad every second of the day. I watched a fascinating video, some time back, of fantastic camera work on the microscopic level ... a drop of dew from an early morning rose had millions of tiny ‘shrimp-like’ creatures in it all swimming around and multiplying and eating each other. A dew drop, mind you. Modern technology makes the ‘Sacred Teachings’ of those path-sweeping pacifistic Jain Monks look silly. RESPONDENT: What do you call your care and concern for the 6 billions abused, raped, murdered peoples on this planet? RICHARD: I particularly favour the word ‘benevolence’ (‘well-wishing’) but equally words like ‘consideration’, ‘regard’, ‘care’ and so on. I like my fellow human being and delight in their happiness and harmlessness and enjoyment in being alive and fully appreciate their company each time again. It is such fun being here. RESPONDENT: Concern? How does ‘concern’ manifest itself? With selling PCE over the internet at $35.00 a whack? RICHARD: If you are referring to the semi-autobiographical novel ‘Richard’s Journal’ ... it is AUS $29.95 and constitutes 114,000 words, of a more personal type, out of the more than 1,000,000 words about the human condition that are available for free on the web-site. It is not essential reading at all and any sales go to meet the overheads of legally maintaining and expanding the Trust ... I never personally receive any money from it. Also, by latest count, 576,000 words have appeared on this Mailing List and the Actual Freedom Mailing List ... also gratis. I am retired and on a pension and have more than sufficient for my needs for the remainder of my life. Just what is the point you are trying to make? RESPONDENT: The basic question is can the ego be seen as a whole with all its qualities and seeing the truth of all that it ends. RICHARD: Oh yes ... indeed it can. Speaking personally, in 1980 I had a pure consciousness experience (PCE) that lasted for four hours. In that four hours I lived the peace-on-earth that is already always here now ... and I saw that ‘I’ (an emotional-mental construct) was standing in the way of this actual freedom being apparent twenty four hours of the day. In that peak experience I saw ‘myself’ for the social identity that ‘I’ was. ‘I’ was the end product of society and nothing more. ‘I’ was a passionate construct of all of the beliefs, values, morals, ethics, mores, customs, traditions, doctrines, ideologies and so on. ‘I’ was nothing but an fabrication in the psyche ... a social identity which is its conscience. I then saw that ‘I’ was a lost, lonely, frightened – and a very, very cunning – entity ... what I later came to know as ‘ego’. Just as those Christians who are said to be possessed by an evil entity and need to be exorcised, I saw that every human being had been endowed with an identity as ego ... and it was called being normal. When ‘I’ saw that this was all ‘I’ was ... I was no longer that. I was me ... this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware ... as this revelation continued, I saw a new ‘me’ coming into existence ... a grand ‘Me’, a glorious ‘Me’ and a spiritually fulfilling ‘Me’. What was it that was observing these two other ‘me’s – the ego ‘me’ and the grand ‘Me’? There are three I’s altogether, but only one is actual. RESPONDENT: Oh, an actual I. Is it a varying or constant quality? RICHARD: What I am is this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. The first person pronoun is not used here to refer to any psychological or psychic identity because in actuality there is nothing other than the physical ... this carbon-based life-form being conscious. There is a consistent quality of perfection ... an unvarying purity. Here is an on-going innocence, an ever-fresh magnanimity which ensures a nobility in character that is vitalised as an endless benevolence ... all effortlessly happening of its own accord. Thus probity is bestowed gratuitously ... dispensing forever with the effort-filled vigilance to gain and maintain righteous virtue. One is free to be me as-I-am; benign and beneficial in disposition. One is able to be a model citizen, fulfilling all the intentions of the idealistic and unattainable moral strictures of ‘The Good’: being humane, being philanthropic, being altruistic, being beneficent, being considerate and so on. All this is achieved in a manner any ‘I’ could never foresee, for it comes effortlessly and spontaneously, doing away with the necessity for morality and ethicality completely. One is swimming in largesse. RESPONDENT: Self-immolation is another separate fact? RICHARD: Yes ... it requires a rather curious decision to be made: a decision the likes of which has never been made before nor will ever be made again. It is a once-in-a-lifetime determination and takes some considerable preparation because ‘I’, the aggressive psychological entity and ‘me’, the frightened psychic entity will both vanish forever. After ‘my’ close friend’s ‘divine madness’ began to unfold in its inevitable course through ‘parousia’, the first thing ‘I’ did, in January 1981, was to put an end to anger once and for all ... then ‘I’ was freed enough to live in an ad hoc virtual freedom. It took ‘me’ about three weeks and I have never experienced anger since then. The first and crucial step was to say ‘YES’ to being here on earth, for ‘I’ located and identified that basic resentment that all people that I have spoken to have. To wit: ‘I didn’t ask to be born!’ This is why remembering a PCE is so important for success for it shows one, first hand, that freedom is already always here ... now. With the memory of that crystal-clear perfection held firmly in mind, that basic resentment vanishes forever, and then it is a relatively easy task to eliminate anger once and for all. One does this by neither expressing or repressing anger when an event happens that would previously trigger an outbreak. Anger is thus put into a bind, and the third alternative hoves into view, dispensing with the hostility that is a large part of ‘I’ the aggressive psychological entity, and gently ushering in an increasing ease and generosity of character. With this growing magnanimity, one becomes more and more anonymous, more and more selflessly motivated. With this expanding altruism one becomes less and less self-centred, less and less egocentric ... the humanitarian ideals of peace, kindness, caring, benevolence and humaneness become more and more evident as an actuality. And all this while I asked (as an open question) ‘how do ‘I’ do it?’ (psychologically and psychically self-immolate) ... and the essential character of the perfection of the physical infinitude of this material universe was enabled by ‘my’ concurrence. This enabling is experienced as a ‘pure intent’ running as a ‘golden thread’, as it were, from the purity and perfection of the infinitude to that little-used faculty: naiveté (which is the closest one can get to innocence). Thus the thing is to live, each moment again, a virtual freedom wherein the ‘good’ feelings – the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) are minimised along with the ‘bad’ feelings – the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful) – so that one is free to be feeling good, feeling happy and harmless and feeling excellent/perfect for 99% of the time. If one deactivates the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activates the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (happiness, delight, joie de vivre/ bonhomie, friendliness, amiability and so on) with this freed-up affective energy, in conjunction with sensuousness (delectation, enjoyment, appreciation, relish, zest, gusto and so on), then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception). Delight is what is humanly possible, given sufficient pure intent obtained from the felicity/ innocuity born of the pure consciousness experience, and from the position of delight, one can vitalise one’s joie de vivre by the amazement at the fun of it all ... and then one can – with sufficient abandon – become over-joyed and move into marvelling at being here and doing this business called being alive now. Then one is no longer intuitively making sense of life ... the delicious wonder of it all drives any such instinctive meaning away. Such luscious wonder fosters the innate condition of naiveté – the nourishing of which is essential if fascination in it all is to occur – and the charm of life itself easily engages dedication to peace-on-earth. Then, as one gazes intently at the world about by glancing lightly with sensuously caressing eyes, out of the corner of one’s eye comes – sweetly – the magical fairy-tale-like paradise that this verdant earth actually is ... and one is the experiencing of what is happening. But try not to possess it and make it your own ... or else ‘twill vanish as softly as it appeared. The other thing ‘I’ did was to become accustomed with the territory that ‘me’, the frightened psychic entity, lurked
about in: fear itself. Fear is both the barrier to and the gateway for an actual freedom ... and one runs the full gauntlet from disquietude,
uneasiness, nervousness, apprehension, anxiety, fear, terror, horror, dread and existential angst. Dread is the passion to watch out for as the
foreboding Thus one can become virtually free from all the insidious feelings – the emotions and passions – that fuel the mind and give credence to all the illusions and delusions and fantasies and hallucinations that masquerade as visions of ‘The Truth’. One can become virtually free of all that which has encumbered humans with misery and despair and live in a state of virtual freedom ... which is beyond ‘normal’ human expectations anyway. Then, and only then, can the day of destiny dawn wherein one becomes actually free. One will have obtained release from one’s fate and achieved one’s destiny ... and the world will be all the better for it. This, the third alternative, is now possible. RESPONDENT: I don’t have pure intent. Possessing and pursuing looks the same I’m living with the question ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ and it is making a difference. I want to live as my senses. RICHARD: Put it this way: do you have the intent to spend the remainder of your life on this verdant planet having malice and sorrow as a backdrop to your every waking moment? Which means that, although you may have shorter or longer periods of being carefree and considerate, greater or lesser moments of gaiety and benevolence, bigger or smaller interludes of being blithesome and benign and so on, do you have the intent to retain and maintain the current base-line of your day-to-day life (which is the fall-back position of animosity and anguish that requires the time-honoured coping methods to keep your head above water) until the day that you die? If your answer is ‘YES’ then you do not have pure intent, you are not pursuing happiness and harmlessness and you will not have a problem with ‘possessiveness’ about peace-on-earth. If your answer is ‘NO’ then you are already somewhat pursuing peace-on-earth, with at least a trace of pure intent, and the ‘problem’ of automatically trying to ‘possess’ freedom when it occurs will inevitably arise as you have success after success at inducing pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s). The name of the game is to be able to ‘live as your senses’ more and more and for longer and longer periods (and to want this is to pursue it) and to the degree you do not make the instinctual ‘grab’ for ownership of these moments is the degree to which these moments will be prolonged ... and these moments are where you learn what it is to be free by direct experience instead of reading about it. Honesty with oneself is paramount – a dishonest approach will produce a dishonest result – and unless one is scrupulously candid one is in danger of being swept up in the Glamour and Glory and Glitz of the ‘Enlightened State’ and suffer the delusion that one is god on earth (an embodiment of the ‘supreme intelligence’ that is beyond time and space and form) ... replete with that spurious ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’. It is possible. RESPONDENT: Why am I afraid of ending the conflict? RICHARD: Is it that up until now conflict has been ‘my’ raison d’être? Is it that ‘I’ have invested so much into it that it has become ‘my’ very identity? The reason is not all that important ... what is important is: Just do it. RESPONDENT: I will have to relinquish all of my hopes, dreams, desires, yes? RICHARD: In order to enable that which is vastly superior to all your ‘hopes, dreams, desires’? Yes ... willingly, cheerfully. RESPONDENT: All of my cherished pains, self-pity, causes, no? RICHARD: All these and more are what ‘I’ am made up of ... these cherished things are ‘me’. RESPONDENT: And I have a market mentality. I want to know what I will get in exchange. I am quite bamboozled ... what to do? RICHARD: There is no problem about a ‘market mentality’ whatsoever ... ‘sacrifice’ means an altruistic offering, a philanthropic contribution, a generous gift, a charitable donation, a magnanimous present; to devote and give over one’s being as a humane gratuity, an open-handed endowment, a munificent bequest, a kind-hearted benefaction. A sacrifice is the relinquishment of something valued or desired for the sake of something more important or worthy ... it is the deliberate abandonment, relinquishment, forfeiture or loss for the sake of something illustrious, brilliant, extraordinary and excellent. It means to forgo, quit, vacate, discontinue, stop, cease or immolate so that one’s guerdon is to be able to be unrepressed, unconstrained, unselfconscious, uninhibited, unrestrained, unrestricted, uncontrolled, uncurbed, unchecked, unbridled, candid, outspoken, spontaneous, relaxed, informal, open, free and easy. As I have remarked before, ‘I’ go out in a blaze of glory. RICHARD: Only you can allow yourself to be ‘taken away’. RESPONDENT No. 25: As the thinker assuming divided existence through a one-dimensional adulterating of the more than 3-D fullness of that, I doubt ‘I’ am going anywhere. RICHARD: On the contrary ... ‘you’ are going into oblivion for this is ‘your’ birthright. The doorway to freedom has the word ‘extinction’ written on it. This extinction is an irrevocable event, which eliminates the psyche itself. When this is all over there will be no ‘being’ at all. Thus when ‘I’ willingly self-immolate – psychologically and psychically – then ‘I’ am making the most noble sacrifice that ‘I’ can make for oneself and all humankind ... for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is ‘my’ moment of accomplishment. It is ‘my’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘my’ petty life all worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... ‘I’ go out in a blaze of glory. RESPONDENT: That which dies is judged and praised as noble? RICHARD: If you do not find voluntary ‘self’-sacrifice by ‘I’/‘me’ (who is the root cause of all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides and the such-like) to be noble, to be an altruistic offering, a philanthropic contribution, a generous gift, a charitable donation, a magnanimous present for the human race ... then I guess you would not be willing to cheerfully devote and give over your ‘being’ as a humane gratuity, an open-handed endowment, a munificent bequest or a kind-hearted benefaction for the benefit of each and every body, eh? RESPONDENT: By what? RICHARD: Not ‘by what’ ... by ‘who’: by the malicious and sorrowful and antidotally loving and compassionate ‘self’ and/or ‘Self’. RESPONDENT: The illusion ends. RICHARD: Yes ... totally, completely, absolutely. End, finish, extinction. RESPONDENT: It is nothing special. RICHARD: If it is experienced as ‘nothing special’ ... then the illusion cannot have totally, completely and
absolutely ended for you, then. RESPONDENT: I have a market mentality. I want to know what I will get in exchange. I am quite bamboozled ... what to do? RICHARD: There is no problem about a ‘market mentality’ whatsoever ... ‘sacrifice’ means an altruistic offering, a philanthropic contribution, a generous gift, a charitable donation, a magnanimous present; to devote and give over one’s being as a humane gratuity, an open-handed endowment, a munificent bequest, a kind-hearted benefaction. A sacrifice is the relinquishment of something valued or desired for the sake of something more important or worthy ... it is the deliberate abandonment, relinquishment, forfeiture or loss for the sake of something illustrious, brilliant, extraordinary and excellent. It means to forgo, quit, vacate, discontinue, stop, cease or immolate so that one’s guerdon is to be able to be unrepressed, unconstrained, unselfconscious, uninhibited, unrestrained, unrestricted, uncontrolled, uncurbed, unchecked, unbridled, candid, outspoken, spontaneous, relaxed, informal, open, free and easy. As I have remarked before, ‘I’ go out in a blaze of glory. RESPONDENT: Ah, but if I am doing it to gain ‘x’ then I am going in as a thinker. If I am doing it because I am allowing my being to be resonant with the order of the fullness that is this living universe, then I am not trying to gain a thing. I am simply being ‘with it’ (the alternative is – of course – to not be with it). RICHARD: Indeed ... the universe does not force anyone to be happy and harmless, to live in peace and ease, to be free of sorrow and malice. It is a matter of personal choice as to which way one will travel. RESPONDENT: By the way, thank you for your love of life. RICHARD: You are very welcome ... the only way one can truly show one’s appreciation of being alive is by jumping in
fully ... boots and all. GARY: The only thing I can see is confidence in it’s sense of No. 1 (WordNet) meaning sureness. One can be sure of a universe so complex and intricate because anyone with a rudimentary knowledge and understanding of science can read of recent discoveries about the nature of the universe and what is revealed of it’s vastness, intricateness, and complexity. I can be sure that these things are there because thousands, perhaps millions, of perceptive people have observed these things first hand. I do not need to climb aboard a space ship and travel throughout the universe to apprehend ‘a universe so grandly complex, so marvellously intricate, so wonderfully excellent’. This information is contained in elementary science texts the world over. But applying meanings No’s 2 through 5, it does not make sense to me to talk of having confidence in something. Because elsewhere in your writings you have advised people to abandon trust, hope, and belief as soon as possible. Is there a way to resolve this apparent contradiction? RICHARD: Well, if you prefer WordNet over other dictionaries then the No. 1 sense of the word comes closest to what I am conveying – where it says ‘assurance, authority, sureness, freedom from doubt’ – and it comes even closer further down the page under the heading: ‘Synonyms/ Hypernyms (Ordered by Frequency) of the noun confidence’:
And under the heading: ‘Attributes of the noun confidence’:
As for other dictionaries ... the Oxford Dictionary has this as their No. 2 meaning:
And the American Heritage® Dictionary has this as their No. 5 definition:
As does the Merriam-Webster:
Thus the assurance of certainty confers reliability ... and such surety engenders confidence all of its own accord:
Furthermore, this endowed confidence means that an inevitability sets in. RESPONDENT: You speak about peace on earth, is this not a feeling toward humanity? RICHARD: No, it is actually caring about my fellow human beings and not merely feeling that one cares. RESPONDENT: When they ask you what is passing through your heart when you see your children, you answered, blood. RICHARD: Indeed I did ... that is because there is no instinctual passions whatsoever in this flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: Is this not a contradiction? RICHARD: No, it is a statement of fact – nobody is special here in this actual world because everybody is special simply by virtue of being alive – and the people who were my children back when I was a father are fellow human beings living their life as they see fit. I do not interfere ... I never offer unsolicited advice, for example. RESPONDENT: When you need a policeman, you ask for his help, like the time the thief came to your house. The policeman is not an actualist. RICHARD: Not in that instance, no ... there is nothing to stop a member of the police force from being an actualist, however, nor any reason why an actualist cannot take up policing as a profession. RESPONDENT: The real change will take place, when there will not be need for policemen any more, and not locks on the doors necessary. RICHARD: As that lack of need for police and locks on doors will only come about through radical change in the nature of each and every human being then to wait for ‘the real change’ is to be waiting forever, so to speak. RESPONDENT: And I think that this will happen when the time will be right. RICHARD: In the final analysis it is your life you are living and, provided you comply with the legal laws and observe the social protocols, you will be left alone to live your life as wisely or as foolishly as you wish ... only you get to reap the rewards or pay the consequences for any action or inaction you may or may not do. Your freedom is in your hands and your hands alone. RESPONDENT: Is good to be aware of our conditioning and make if possible some change to our lives, because this conditioning is man made (Society). RICHARD: Indeed ... how are you going with curing yourself of agoraphobia? RESPONDENT: But to arrive to the point by our self to alter or change our brain, may be dangerous also. RICHARD: In what way is it ‘dangerous’ to become free from the human condition? I am neither in gaol nor a psychiatric institution; I can orient myself in space and time and navigate from point A to point B; I can defend myself when necessary by circumstances; I feed, clothe and house myself, paying all my bills on time; I make contingency plans to meet projected situations; I manage four net-worked computers, an internet domain, a web page, a mail server, and so on, without any prior experience or training; I write millions of words meaningfully strung together in sentences and paragraphs ... and, most importantly, I am neither a danger to myself or to others (which is the very first thing any psychiatrist/psychologist ascertains). As this has been the situation for over a decade your prognosis is totally invalid.
RETURN TO RICHARD’S SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
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Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved.
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