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Richard’s Selected Correspondence On Denial
RICHARD: Intelligence cannot comprehend infinity and eternity. What hope would an intelligence have in running the universe? RESPONDENT: But that is anthropomorphism, conceiving of ‘Intelligence’ as involving self-conscious comprehension and motivation. RICHARD: Not so ... it is the dictionary definition of intelligence. (Oxford Dictionary): ‘The faculty of understanding; intellect; quickness or superiority of understanding, sagacity; the action or fact of understanding something; knowledge, comprehension (of something)’. If you wish to make the word ‘intelligence’ mean something else you are free to do so. It will make communication somewhat more difficult, of course, so maybe it would be handy to call it ‘mystical intelligence’ so as to differentiate it from the genuine article ... as most peoples do not realise the metaphysical significance of your capitalisation of the word (‘Intelligence’ as above) and thus the delusion is wide-spread that god knows, understands and really cares. I do find it indicative, however, that you consider that your ‘Intelligence’ cannot comprehend and thus motivate itself. Maybe that is why 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 rage on forever and a day? Because you do seem to be saying that your ‘Intelligence’ cannot comprehend what human animosity and anguish feels like and is thus not motivated into action. Speaking personally, I am well pleased that the ‘I’ that was inhabiting this body could self-consciously comprehend and be motivated into an action that was not of ‘his’ doing. Otherwise I would not be here ... writing these words now.RESPONDENT: ?? there are no such God images here. RICHARD: We have been down this path before, you and I, and your denial rings as hollow now as then. And you have protested so, not only to me but to other posters. May I re-post an exchange you had with another poster last year wherein you describe your god (‘the other’) as being the ‘sacred’ that ‘calls to or silently contacts the ever-changing body/brain – the human being’? Viz.:
In other posts you have described ‘the other’ as being ‘Intelligence’ and it, too, being ‘not
touched by thought’ is also ‘sacred’ . I can re-post them if it would help with an honest and sincere discussion? RESPONDENT: Rather, detachment (properly understood in the context of the teachings of Buddha) is regarded on one level as an ending of the identification process; identifying with possessions, beliefs, titles, jobs, status, etc. RICHARD: The word ‘detachment’ is a common English rendering of the mental absorption deemed necessary for
the removal of what the Buddhists conceive of as being the cause of birth in the first place (in Pali ‘nirodha’ more properly means ‘cessation’).
It refers to the ‘mindfulness’ that leads to the cessation of ‘dukkha’ through the cessation of craving. In Buddhism, ‘craving’
(Pali ‘tanha’ or Sanskrit ‘trsna’) is said to draw creatures on through greed – and drives them on through hate – while
ignorance prevents their seeing the truth of how things are or where they are going (ignorance is regarded as a basic factor in the continuity of
existence). Therefore the Buddhist ‘detachment’ (‘nirodha’) is seen as the removal of a poison, the curing of a disease, not as the
mere denial of it (opposed to the assertion of it) or the obstruction of it (in conflict with the favouring of it) since both assertion and denial
confirm and maintain alike the basic idea or state that is required to be cured ... which state is known as ‘clinging’ (Pali ‘upadana’).
The word ‘upadana’ means literally ‘taking up’ (‘upa’ plus ‘adana’) and is used for what the Buddhists
maintain is the assumption and consumption that satisfies craving and produces existence. As craving pre-dates birth, such upadana is the
condition sine qua non for ‘being’. And, as clinging’s ending is Nirvana, the Buddhist detachment (as ‘cessation’) is not to be
confounded with mere negativism or nihilism ... it is a total disassociation of self from the world of people, things and events. Mr. Gotama the
Sakyan expressly states that the self is not to be found anywhere in phenomenal existence ... as he so clearly enunciates to compliant monks in the
‘Anatta-Lakkhana’ Sutta (The Discourse on the Not-self Characteristic, SN 22.59; PTS: SN iii.66). RESPONDENT (to Respondent No. 2): In order to see ugliness in the actions of others one must look out through their own ugly nature. RICHARD: Speaking personally, I can state unequivocally that I do not have an ugly nature ... nor a beautiful nature. Yet I see wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide (this list is by no means exhaustive) and I unhesitatingly call that ‘ugliness in the actions of others’ . Do you see these things too (for if you do not, then you are in denial of what is happening all over the world)? RESPONDENT: Know this; if you return their attitude you have indeed plummeted to the very station of being they have accused you of. RICHARD: It seems that you are writing about ‘their attitude’ in disparaging terms, so it would appear that you do see ‘ugliness in the actions of others’. Thus would you say that you have an ‘ugly nature’? All this leaves me musing. Does God have an ‘ugly nature’ then ... or is God’s nature that of serious denial? * RESPONDENT (to Respondent No. 2): In order to see ugliness in the actions of others one must look out through their own ugly nature. RICHARD: Speaking personally, I can state unequivocally that I do not have an ugly nature ... nor a beautiful nature. Yet I see wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide (this list is by no means exhaustive) and I unhesitatingly call that ‘ugliness in the actions of others’ . Do you see these things too (for if you do not, then you are in denial of what is happening all over the world)? RESPONDENT: Is it, Richard, that this question is intended to be rhetorical? RICHARD: No, it is not rhetorical ... it is a very sincere question that strikes at the very heart of your ‘I am It!’ philosophy. RESPONDENT: It seems you have provided little room for an answer. RICHARD: No, it is your ‘I am It!’ philosophy that puts you in a tight corner ... like all philosophies (belief systems) it has blatantly unliveable aspects to it. RESPONDENT: Chances are, Richard, the answer from here, if you were seriously interested and if I understand your question, would be both yes, these things have been seen. RICHARD: You say ‘have been seen’ ? Are they being seen now? Currently? RESPONDENT: And yes, you would probably think me in serious denial of what you assert is happening in the world. RICHARD: Firstly: I do not ‘think’ you to be in serious denial ... I know that you are. All your writing is permeated by denial (and your use of the word ‘think’ is used here in the same way you tried to use ‘believe’ on me before ... that ploy does not work on me). Secondly: I am not ‘asserting’ what is happening in the world ... it is indeed happening. And you know it is. * RICHARD: All this leaves me musing. Does God have an ‘ugly nature’ then ... or is God’s nature that of serious denial? RESPONDENT: Ahh, yes, yes, very good! To this I can respond! RICHARD: Do you mean that all the above was not a response? What was it? Oh, I know ... prevaricating and obfuscating. RESPONDENT: If ugliness exists, Richard. RICHARD: It does exist. RESPONDENT: Then indeed God is an ugly nature! RICHARD: Oh, if only you meant that. RESPONDENT: By the same token, if serious denial exists. RICHARD: By the same token ... serious denial does exist. RESPONDENT: Then indeed, God is serious denial. RICHARD: Oh, if only you meant that. RESPONDENT: Wonderful Richard! Wonderful! Good line you have initiated here. RICHARD: What was so good about it? You had to slip and slither your way through it ... all the way. How can you live with such duplicity? RICHARD: The Tibetan situation is a particular case in point ... pacifism means that the bully-boys get to rule the world. RESPONDENT: Richard, there are no bully-boys. RICHARD: There is a name for this attitude: denial (in your case: a massive denial). Burying your head in the sand does nothing to bring to an end 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. RESPONDENT: Of course it does not. What does, however, is an acknowledgment of responsibility. Just as, as you, I can take responsibility for feeling the way I do (as you) about all the ‘wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides’, and change it if I wish, I can take responsibility for my feelings about everything and thus avoid all ‘wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides’ by feeling differently about my possessions and the station I have created as life. I have no need to feel sad, nor violent, nor horny, nor depressed. I can become suicide if I like, but I need not feel as though I am compelled to be suicide. I have no need to beat the child, I can simply change how I feel about the circumstance I have created as anger. Such things are done here daily, and since that which chooses as me is what chooses as all beings (that being I), it can be done anywhere, anytime. These things you speak of, ‘wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides’, are not due to the human condition, they are due to not acknowledging responsibility for what one creates. RICHARD: If, as you so clearly state, that human suffering is not due to the human condition but is due to ‘not acknowledging responsibility for what one creates’ then what, may I ask, causes one (as god) to create it in the first place? And secondly: why is one (as god) so reluctant to acknowledge responsibility for what one (as god) creates? What with you (as god) being omnipotent and all that ... I am sure that you (as god) know the answer already. Would you care to give forth of your wisdom to a benighted humanity? What I am getting at is: why are you (as god) doing all this mayhem and misery? RESPONDENT: There may be obstructions to your desire to be a particular way (living, painless, wealthy, poor, loved, etc.) The children here are only a threat to what I may wish to be. If this body is put asunder, so be it. If this money is taken from the desk, so be it. That I feel differently as you, is OK as me. RICHARD: Very slick ... you do try hard to make your borrowed eastern mystical philosophy work. Yet it has not ever been lived successfully, is not currently being lived successfully and never will be lived successfully ... because it can never be lived successfully. This is what comes from allowing principles decreed by Gurus and God-men – who clearly state that they are not the body – to rule one’s life when one is this body. How would a ‘Teaching’, conceived, hatched and propagated by bodiless entities, be of any use to flesh and blood bodies living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are? This is what I realised whilst being deluded all those years ago. Their wisdom has not ever worked, is not currently working and never will work – because it can never work – if only because it is predicated upon ‘I am not this body’ ... hence the unliveable injunctions that abound in all scriptures. Does avoidance and denial and fatalism and delusion look as silly to you – when viewed sensibly in print – as it does to me when I read what you say? RESPONDENT: As to fatalism, yes, it appears to be a rather silly philosophy. As to denial, there is none here. RICHARD: May I offer the following exchange for your elucidation?
I classify that answer as being in a state of denial about what is happening in this world of people, things and events. RESPONDENT: The only meaningful denial is denial of responsibility, and denial of responsibility is the only delusion. RICHARD: Okay ... I will run with this and see where it goes (and please correct me if I have got it wrong): upwards of 1.0 million Tibetans (as you) were brutally slaughtered by the Chinese (as you) because the Chinese (as you) were in a state of denial – ‘the only meaningful denial’ – about being you (as god). And, furthermore, this ‘denial of responsibility’ (the denial of the responsibility of being the one who creates such mayhem and misery by denying that one is god all along) is, you say, ‘the only delusion’. Have I understood you? Which is: god is doing brutal things to god because god is in denial about being god ... thus creating 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? How does that sound to you? Have I got it right? If so, does it look as silly to you – when viewed sensibly in print – as it does to me when I read what you say? * RICHARD: Pacifism means that the bully-boys get to rule the world. The Tibetan situation is a particular case in point. RESPONDENT: Richard, there are no bully-boys. RICHARD: I classify that answer as being in a state of denial about what is happening in this world of people, things and events. RESPONDENT: Yes, you do Richard – your opinion is noted (...) the only meaningful denial is denial of responsibility, and denial of responsibility is the only delusion. RICHARD: Okay ... please correct me if I have got this wrong: upwards of 1.0 million Tibetans (as you) were brutally slaughtered by the Chinese (as you) because the Chinese (as you) were in a state of denial – ‘the only meaningful denial’ – about being you (as god). And, furthermore, this ‘denial of responsibility’ (the denial of the responsibility of being the one who creates such mayhem and misery by denying that one is god all along) is, you say, ‘the only delusion’ . Have I understood you? RESPONDENT: Yes. RICHARD: Which is: god is doing brutal things to god because god is in denial about being god ... thus creating 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? How does that sound to you? Have I got it right? RESPONDENT: Yes. RICHARD: Does it look as silly to you – when viewed sensibly in print – as it does to me when I read what you say? RESPONDENT: Nope (...) It is a pleasure to speak with you again. RICHARD: Why? RICHARD: All discussion about fear eventually turns around death. This is a fact that needs be faced squarely. To not be is inconceivable; it is impossible to imagine not being because all one has ever known is being. There are no terms of reference to compare against – which is the normal way of thinking – and with no comparison there is no possibility of thought dealing with the fact of death. If pursued diligently, thought gives up the attempt and stops ... it cannot proceed further. The affective rushes in to fill the gap left by the absence of thought and fear turns to dread ... contemplation of extinction invariably turns fear to dread. The instinct to survive takes over and dread flips to its opposite: awe. As it says in some revered scriptures: ‘Fear of The Lord is the beginning of wisdom’. Most religious and spiritual tracts refer to awe and dread when contemplating the majesty and mystery of some transcendental being lying beyond time and space. Temporal transience is replaced by a firm conviction in a timeless and spaceless divinity that antedates birth and postdates death. Driven by the instinct for survival at any cost – blind nature is rather clumsy – one attempts to transcend the duality of Life and Death and achieve immortality. If successful, ‘I’ disappear and mysteriously reappear as ‘Me’, the eternal soul. One is then apparently without fear because one is ‘Deathless’ ... one is ‘Unborn and Undying’. One disseminates one’s findings to all and sundry, finding a multitude of gullible penitents willing to suspend reason and rationality for a chance at avoiding extinction. Such strange goings-on are the way that the denizens of the real world deal with the existential dilemma of facing the facticity of death’s oblivion. It is called being in a state of denial ... and results in avoidance and escapism. One’s native intelligence is nowhere to be found operating in all this. What I did was face the fact of my mortality. ‘Life’ and ‘Death’ are not opposites ... there is only birth and death.
Life is what happens in between. Before I was born, I was not. Now that I am alive, I am. After death I will not be ... just like before birth.
Where is the problem? RICHARD: I consider that it may be important for you to know that you are currently engaged in a correspondence with a madman. Ain’t life grand! RESPONDENT: You are safe here, Richard. You are here with friends. I am the doctor. RICHARD: Which doctor ... and just how safe? If your doctoring is similar to your debating skills, I would have to rate you as fair to medium on diagnosis; pathetic to fair on prognosis ... and zero to pathetic on follow-up procedures. RESPONDENT: Richard, you are in a serious state of denial. RICHARD: Pray tell me ... what am I in denial of? I have been very explicit in all my posts about the state of the human species ... just what am I denying? RESPONDENT: You are tucked in this actual ambrosial world. RICHARD: Oh, yes ... but not ‘tucked’ ... walking freely in this very ambrosial world. RESPONDENT: The Bowing Buddha is Peace-On-Earth. And both of you are living on a planet scorched by misery. RICHARD: Five point eight billion human beings are living on a planet ‘scorched by misery’ ... and scorched by malice, too, do not forget. Yet all malice and misery are feelings and are not, therefore, actual. They may be real – very real at times – but they are not actual. The direct results of having these feelings – these emotions and passions – are acted out in this actual world in the form of wars, murders, rapes, domestic violence, child abuse, suicides and so on ... but all these actions are unnecessary. They all stem from feelings and feelings – emotions and passions – are self-induced (‘I’ am passion and passion is ‘me’) and, as such, can be eliminated. Then there is peace-on-earth. RESPONDENT: Reality is painful but we have got to hang in there and deal with it. RICHARD: You have the choice to ‘hang in there’ if that is what you want to do ... but you do not ‘have to’. Who told you that furphy? Only sadomasochists wish to prolong suffering ... are you saying that five point eight billion human beings are sadomasochists? And are you suggesting – or demanding – that I ‘come back’ and join you all? What would that achieve? One more unhappy and malicious person would simply be more fuel for the fires of hatred and pain. RESPONDENT: Behaving like trauma-stricken kids withdrawn into paradisiacal states of fantasy is dementia. RICHARD: Behaving like a sulky child and refusing to give up your animosity and anguish is not only personally silly
... but is socially reprehensible. Do you want to perpetuate all these wars, murders, rapes, domestic violence, child abuse, suicides and so on for
ever and a day? What is your investment in prolonging suffering? Job security? RESPONDENT: You have an obvious hunger to close the deal with any passer-by who stops to listen to your fancy sales pitch. RICHARD: Well, you see, it works ... after all, you have stopped to listen have you not? And you seem to be interested ... but are you interested enough? In fact, are you vitally interested? And ‘vitally interes ted’ means that peace-on-earth is the number one priority in your life inasmuch that it amounts to a fascinated obsession with your very being. Is your intention to become free of the Human Condition, in this life-time and as this body, the over-riding factor in all of your day-to-day dealings? If this is not the case, then what are you doing with your life? Why settle for second best when all this while the perfect purity of being alive at this moment in time and this place in space is just sitting here – right under your nose – freely available for anyone with the gumption to proceed on into their destiny. RESPONDENT: Denial is the refusal to see the reality of one’s situation. RICHARD: But you can take heart from the fact that you cannot keep on denying forever ... you do seem to be relenting a little on your previously hostile stance. It is encouraging, is it not, to see progress? No matter how little, some progress is better than none. Keep up the good work! RESPONDENT: A lonely person assumes a fictitious identity and takes on a role of the anointed one, like the Bowing Buddha, who has a coveted attainment – something that everyone shouldn’t be without – and he would graciously give of it to all if only they would gather around him. RICHARD: Okay, you seem to have blown my cover so I will come clean: my name is really Rachel and I am a twenty-year
old student at the Australian National University. I have concocted this whole story just to see how many people I could con into writing back to
me. I plan to do a Doctoral Thesis on the psychology of social misfits and I bet my girl-friends that I could find at least one sucker on this
Mailing List who would be willing to bare their prejudices in public. RESPONDENT: Richard, I doubt that there is a popular misconception of getting back to this ‘inner freedom within us’. Few people seem to even have the intuition that it is there. I am referring to what is here right now. Not as lost freedom, a golden age, or an age of lost innocence to which we seek to return. I am referencing a human’s innate capacity to experience love, joy, and enthusiasm for exploring what is in life. This capacity is clearly observed in infants during their first months of life as I indicated above. You have elsewhere spoken similarly of the individual as being able to be ... ‘benevolent and carefree ... happy and harmless’. RICHARD: Oh yes, indeed I did write that ‘the individual is able to be ... benevolent and carefree ... happy and harmless’, but infants and children are not as happy and harmless and benevolent and carefree as is so often made out to be the case ... and have never been so. They have malice and sorrow firmly embedded in them, for one is born with instinctual fear and aggression. Just watch a one month old baby bellowing its distress at being alone; just watch a one year old pinching its sibling in spite for taking its toy; just watch a two year old stamping its foot in a temper tantrum; just watch a three year old child fighting with its peers for supremacy. In the interests of having a sincere dialogue, I must ask: where in all this is the fabulous ‘inner freedom within us’ ... a freedom which must have peace and harmony and tranquillity in it for there to be peace-on-earth? The imposition of social mores – moral virtues, ethical values, honourable principles, decent scruples and the like – are essential to curb the instinct-born spiteful anger and vicious hatred that are part and parcel of the essential traits of being ‘human’. To repeat: a ‘Golden Past’ has never existed at any period, or at any stage, of development. To achieve a truly golden age, something entirely new must come into existence. All peoples must cease being ‘human’. To change ‘Human Nature’, they must give-up, voluntarily, their cherished identity ... the self they were born with. RESPONDENT: However, this capacity also exists along side the innate defence capacity to develop self severing, security oriented views of oneself and life that result in the operation of strategies for self aggrandisement, aggression, destruction, materialistic acquisition, longing, fearful avoidance, and squelching joy and loving. For reasons we do not understand, perhaps for factors related to the survival of the species, humans seem to be overly endowed with the latter defensive capacity which is seen to begin crystallising into definite patterns of behaviour as the child reaches the so called age of self awareness at 14 months or so and is influenced by social influences which further stimulate this defensive nature. RICHARD: Okay, so we can now see that an actual freedom from fear and aggression has never existed, then. What you have just described above does not jell with what you wrote before: ‘I afraid your scenario paints the picture of humans born as monsters to be tamed’. It is not my ‘scenario’, it is a fact that all sentient beings are born with fear and aggression ... this is blind nature’s way of ensuring the survival of the species. This is commonly called the ‘Human Condition’ and most people will sagely tell one that ‘you can’t change human nature’. To say that, or to pretend that humans are not ‘born monsters’ is to shut the door on investigation. The inhumanity of humankind is legendary, by now, and to not be able to see it in infants and children is but a denial of the actuality. The seeing of a fact is actual wisdom, and out of that direct experience of the actuality of the Human Condition there is action. This action is the beginning of the ending of the ‘self’ one was born with. RESPONDENT: Apparently it is only with a great deal of pain, fear, and diligent attentiveness to our inner attitudes, opinions, predispositions, feelings, and overt behaviour that we can begin to be aware of the magnitude of this inner defensive structure. For some it is a lengthy journey. For others it is a rather rapidly developing ‘dark night of the soul’ whereby this structure is experienced in depth, abandoned and the world experienced through the eyes of bliss, beauty, love, and carefree enthusiasm where everything appears beautiful just as it is. RICHARD: One’s ‘pain, fear ... inner attitudes, opinions, predispositions, feelings, and overt behaviour’ are humanity’s ‘pain, fear, inner attitudes, opinions, predispositions, feelings and overt behaviour’. For ‘I’ am ‘humanity’ and ‘humanity’ is ‘me’. It is a fact that ‘I’ am not as unique as ‘I’ would like to think and feel that ‘I’ am. ‘I’ am but a carbon copy of ‘everybody else’ and ‘everybody else’ is but a carbon copy of ‘me’. Seeing this is the beginning of the end of ‘me’ ... and the ending of ‘me’ is the ending of ‘humanity’. The ‘dark night of the soul’ is only experienced by religious and spiritual seekers, who wish to perpetuate themselves for all eternity. I suggest that this is a very selfish and self-centred approach to life on earth – something that all religiosity and spirituality is guilty of. The quest to secure one’s place in ‘Eternity’ is unambiguously selfish ... peace-on-earth is readily sacrificed for the supposed continuation of the imagined soul after physical death. So much for the humanitarian ideals of peace, goodness, altruism, philanthropy and humaneness. All Religious and Spiritual Quests amount to nothing more than a self-centred urge to exist for ever and a day. All Religious and Spiritual Leaders fall foul of this existential dilemma. They pay lip-service to the notion of self-sacrifice – weeping crocodile tears at noble martyrdom – whilst selfishly pursuing Immortality. The root cause of all the ills of humankind can be sheeted home to this single, basic fact: the overriding importance of the survival of self as a soul. All this gets played out in the human psyche – and not in this actual world. For those rare few who succeed, their reward for enduring the ‘dark night of the soul’ is bliss, ecstasy, euphoria, love, compassion, beauty, truth and a few other glittering baubles ... which also only have an existence in the human psyche. But they do not get a ‘carefree enthusiasm’, for they are driven to ‘save the world’ and to ‘set mankind free’.
Nor do they get an actual freedom from the Human Condition ... and certainly not peace-on-earth. RICHARD: Mr. Joseph LeDoux (and others) has demonstrated that much of the (non-cognitive) emotional memory is laid down before the infant can think ... let alone comprehend cause and effect. This instinctive reactionary behaviour (which he calls the ‘quick and dirty’ reaction) is blind nature’s survival instinct in action. It can (and has been) observed and documented again and again ... yet he and other commentators predict massive denial from all kinds of people to this scientifically demonstrated data. There has been much research into this growing science in these last few years. RESPONDENT: My point is simple: whatever the instinctive response is, it can never be completely described. An after-thought, which compares that response to some other response in the memory, can be described. But pure instinctive response: no. RICHARD: My point is simple too: I say that the ‘pure instinctive response’ can be described ... and that I do describe it. What are you (you who ‘observe with the objectivity of a scientist’ ) going to do with this person called Richard and his report of his experience? Dismiss him and his report ... along with all those scientific investigators like Mr. Joseph LeDoux? He and other commentators predict massive denial from all kinds of people to this scientifically demonstrated data. There has been much research into this growing science in these last few years. RESPONDENT: The universality of human emotions is a fiction. RICHARD: If this were true then no communication would be possible. RESPONDENT: Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches. RICHARD: Yet there are 6.0 billion peoples all wearing the same-same shoes. RESPONDENT: Not at all. Me and my brother feel entirely differently. What gives ‘A’ joy can send ‘B’ into a depression. There are differences galore. RICHARD: Yet will you – can you – acknowledge that you are saying that person ‘A’ has joy or depression (or whatever) just the same as person ‘B’ has joy or depression (or whatever) irregardless of whether triggering factor X sends person A thisaway and yet person B thataway? Were you agreeing with your ‘true, but ...’ initial response that human beings are all born with the same basic instinctual passions and, no matter which culture one was socialised into being a member of, all peoples throughout the world have the same emotions and passions or not? Anger and forbearance, for instance, is anger and forbearance wherever it lives. There is no difference at root between English anger and forbearance and American anger and forbearance and African anger and forbearance and so on. Or love and hatred, enmity and alliance, jealousy and acceptance ... whatever the emotion or passion may be, they all have a global incidence. The affective feelings are unambiguously global ... and have been demonstrated to be so in many studies around the world. These basic passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) are the hallmark of virtually any sentient being ... they are blind nature’s instinctual software package genetically encoded into the germ-cells of the spermatozoa and the ova. And these survival instincts are what has enabled us to be born at all; they are what has enabled us to be here today after multiple generations of the development of the evolutionary ‘weeding out’ process of the ‘survival of the most fitted to the environment’. This ‘natural selection’ hypothesis was first publicly proposed jointly by Mr. A. R. Wallace and Mr. Charles Darwin in 1858. Their simultaneous publishing of their account of evolution was, says the Oxford Dictionary somewhat dryly, ‘to the consternation of theologians’ ... which is the same-same response that Mr. Galileo Galilei faced in 1610. Yet peoples today – 141 years later – are still in massive denial of this oh-so-obvious common animal ancestry. Many is the person who has protested to me that ‘I am not an animal’ ... thus shutting the door on their investigation into what it is to be a human being living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are. What a shame, what a pity ... no, what a sin it is to persist so tenaciously in holding on to ‘being’ a ‘higher soul’ (by whatever name) – which ‘being’ is but the end-product of all animosity and anguish through the aeons – when this actual world, which is so perfectly pure, is right under one’s nose. Are you – you who study human behaviour with the objectivity of a scientist – in denial of empirical science or not? RESPONDENT: Just as your experience of the humanity having a common denominator is only that – your own personal experience. No two people live under the same skin and there is nothing universal about human experiences. We are, all of us, each and every moment of our lives, different. You asked, if that is so, how is communication possible? We communicate our differences. We are different even to ourselves every time. In communicating our differences (i.e., how we think, feel, experience, differently), we constantly push the envelop of knowledge which has been the hallmark of our species and the reason for our survival. RICHARD: Perhaps it not so obvious to one who sits in an ivory tower ... but dissociation does not eliminate but makes
unreal that which causes human suffering. Perhaps you may recall the ‘Simon and Garfunkel’ hit of the ‘60’s: ‘I am a rock’? There is life after feelings ... but not through denial and detachment. RESPONDENT: Since we are constantly changing beings, religion is a lie. Science, on the other hand, can take our understanding of ourselves only thus far. Beyond which, we dwell upon the world within. Hence, meditating upon the world within is the only viable way to understand ourselves. And that understanding, by its own nature, will be one person, one instance at a time. RICHARD: Hmm, peoples are already detached from actuality ... that is the problem. To practice meditation (which is conscious detachment and withdrawal) is to be twice removed from actuality. But even ‘the world within’ is remarkably common to those who successfully access it. Yet even this extreme dissociation does not eliminate ... as there are more than a few recorded incidences of ‘Enlightened Beings’ displaying both anguish and anger, the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) does not bestow freedom from the affective feelings. The ‘Tried and True’ is the ‘tried and failed’. RESPONDENT: Actuality. Where the sense of ‘I’ is gone and there is no witness, no centre in awareness. RICHARD: There is no identity whatsoever here in this actual world ... it is pristine here and nothing ‘dirty’ can get in. No ego or Soul (self or Self) will ever be able live in actuality ... and a ‘centreless awareness’ in the spiritual jargon means an impersonal identity that has expanded like all get out until it has become ‘All That Is’ or ‘That’ or ‘Suchness’ or ‘Isness’ or whatever. Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti, for example, stopped saying ‘I am God’ by the late twenties and started to say ‘There is only That’. This may very well have been an attempt to counter the ‘I am That’ which Hinduism promotes so as to be more aligned to the Buddhist denial of both Self and No-Self. Exploring the shrewd twists and turns of arcane thought is a fascinating preparation for freedom from the human condition ... humble grandiosity is rife in the esoteric world and runs riot when unchecked. To have as one’s goal the exposure of the already always existing peace-on-earth through psychological and psychic self-immolation is essential to persuade the pious egoist from arrogating responsibility for bringing a metaphysical ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’ (Love and Truth) to earth. [Editorial note: there is no such thing as ‘actual reality’ in the sensate world]. RESPONDENT: Basic emotions seem to be universal indeed. RICHARD: The ‘basic emotions’ not only ‘seem to be universal’ , they are unambiguously universal ... and have been demonstrated to be so in many studies around the world. These ‘basic emotions’ (like fear and aggression and nurture and desire) are the hallmark of virtually any sentient being ... they are blind nature’s instinctual software package genetically encoded into the germ-cells of the spermatozoa and the ova. And these survival instincts are what has enabled us to be born at all; they are what has enabled us to be here today after multiple generations of the development of the evolutionary ‘weeding out’ process of the ‘survival of the most fitted to the environment’ natural selection hypothesis first publicly proposed by Mr. Charles Darwin and Mr. A. R. Wallace in 1858. Their simultaneous publishing of their account of evolution was, says the Oxford Dictionary somewhat dryly, ‘to the consternation of theologians’ ... the same-same response that Mr. Galileo Galilei faced in 1610. Yet peoples today – 141 years later – are still in massive denial of this oh-so-obvious common animal ancestry. Many is the person who has protested to me that ‘I am not an animal’ ... thus shutting the door on their investigation into what it is to be a human being living in the world as it is with people as they are. What a shame, what a pity ... no, what a sin it is to persist so tenaciously in holding on to ‘being’ – which is but the end-product of all animosity and anguish through the aeons – when this actual world, which is so perfectly pure, is right under one’s nose. To be here now, intimately here at this very moment, is a satisfaction and fulfilment unparalleled in the annals of history.
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.
Richard’s Text ©The
Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved.
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