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Richard’s Selected Correspondence On Pantheism
RESPONDENT: Very quickly after reading your site God died for me. What a shock, I had been a devotee, a spiritual person, and God just fell away like the curtain in front of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I did go through a rather hollow, lost period. I waited to see if this Godless state would just blow over, but it didn’t. I’m here in the real world now looking into the activities of the parasite and marvelling at its tenacity and wiliness. It took me a while to have the courage to admit to my Christian mate that I did not believe in God, and found no purpose, other than ego salvation, for the old ‘pie in the sky when we die’. RICHARD: Would I be correct in assuming you are referring to a monotheistic god here (theism)? RESPONDENT: I think that part of what many consider as God is what I consider as the universe. It’s the imaginary, anthropomorphic trappings of God that I can do without and the existence itself that I appreciate, regardless of whether ego suffers or enjoys. RICHARD: Surely you would be cognisant of pantheism and/or panentheism (acosmic mysticism)? For a pantheist their god/goddess is immanent (maybe expressed as ‘god/goddess is the infinitude of the universe’ or ‘god/goddess, as truth, pervades everything that is’) ... as compared with a theist whose god/goddess is transcendent (as in ‘not the infinitude of the universe’ or ‘not all-pervading’). Broadly speaking theism refers to a creator god/ goddess who is beyond the universe whereas in panentheism god/goddess is not only all-pervading (immanent) but beyond the universe as well (transcendent). Viz.: http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/religion/blfaq_theism_pan.htm RESPONDENT: I’ve found amazing amounts of ill will, fear, romantic dependency and cloying nurture in my repertoire, and I’m slogging through the cistern in fishing boots much of the time. From the start I have thought that actualism requires faith. RICHARD: Yet actualism does not require ‘faith’ ... all one needs is the confidence born of the pure consciousness experience (PCE) and belief, with all its trappings, is no more. I addressed this question, at length, only a week ago on this very mailing list:
The full content of that e-mail can be accessed here: * RESPONDENT: And to go on with the god thing. I went into a PCE from an extremely rough and materialistic point of view. At that time I knew nothing of pantheism, only monotheism, which I had rejected, thinking of myself as an atheist. So when I saw what I saw I thought that if they want to call this fabulous existence God then that’s okay, because that’s a way of making it special. Now after reading you all I see that it doesn’t require to be given the name of God to make it special, it’s special in and of itself, and that calling it God is a way to confusion. RICHARD: Yes, basically they have taken the experiential properties of the material universe – infinite and eternal and perpetual – and ascribed them to a supernatural deity. RESPONDENT: When I saw the sparkling magical eternity and beneficence of the universe, so much more real than my previous cognition, I thought that this was the experience that caused people to talk about god. They have this experience, and then later, trying to explain it from the usual restricted point of view it gets embellished with personal limited perspectives and voila! Different religions. What I experience as a beneficent conscious universe others give the name of God. That’s what I thought for a long time. The explanation that it’s another grab by the ego to immortalize itself by aligning with an all powerful immortal God makes even more sense. RICHARD: Yes, though in reality it is the soul (the deeper aspect of identity) which the ego aligns itself to. The realised soul (the spiritual Self) is nothing more and nothing less than the rudimentary animal self of the affective feelings – emotions and passions and calentures – still in operation ... only in a sublimated and transcended form. This is because the affective feelings input a bias towards preserving ‘self’ (particularly ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’ which is ‘being’ itself) – because of their instinctual survival nature – which leads to a switch in identification from ‘I’ as ego (in the head) to ‘me’ as soul (in the heart) via humble ‘self’-surrender ... only blown-up all out of proportion into a grandiose identity (‘Self’, ‘Being’, ‘God’, ‘Goddess’, ‘That’, ‘Isness’ and so on). RESPONDENT: For myself I could reinterpret the experience as first I died an agonizing death by having revealed to me the stupid games I was playing in my life, then I experienced everything as clear and luminous and benevolent, then I classified this everything as a beautiful, loving and ferocious God (is this pantheism?) and identified myself as unified with it and thus immortal. RICHARD: Aye, to be in union with one’s eternal self is the goal of all mysticism ... ‘tis but narcissism writ large. RESPONDENT: Next I had the dreadful sensation that immortality was worse than death because I would have to keep on being this grandiose deity for all eternity. RICHARD: Well said ... I have often remarked that if it were not for death one could not be happy and harmless. RESPONDENT: So I take this to be the danger of enlightenment. RICHARD: The main ‘danger of enlightenment’ (apart from missing out on the meaning of life) lies in its blatant disregard for peace-on-earth and its wilful retardation of human progress: western civilisation, which has struggled to get out of superstition and medieval ignorance, is in danger of slipping back into the supernatural as the eastern mystical wisdom, that is beginning to have its strangle-hold upon otherwise intelligent people, is becoming more and more widespread. The ancient wisdom has even infiltrated modern physics. RESPONDENT: This distortion of perception is a strike against intelligence. The afflicted brain is no longer able to process perceptions intelligently. But outside of that brain intelligence may operate. RICHARD: Are you referring to a disembodied ‘intelligence’? RESPONDENT: Yes, though some relationship to matter seems to exist. RICHARD: Well, Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti, for an example, has it that it creates all matter. Viz.: [K]: ‘There is something sacred, untouched by man (...) and that may be the origin of everything’. [B]: ‘If you say the origin of all matter, all nature ...’. [K]: ‘Everything, all matter, all nature’. [B]: ‘All of mankind’. [K]: ‘Yes. That’s right, sir’. (‘The Wholeness Of Life’; pages 135-136; J. Krishnamurti; HarperCollins, New York; 1979). RESPONDENT: Wonderful words. Are you implying a conflict between these lines by k and my position? RICHARD: None whatsoever ... I was indicating support for your position (and taking it one step further) as you had only said ‘seems’ to exist. Whereas Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti definitively said: ‘Yes. That’s right, sir’. Such a ‘position’ is known as panentheism (or pantheism). Viz.: http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/blfaq_theism_pan.htm#Panentheism RICHARD: Mr. Rabindranath Tagore also explicitly says ‘my God’ in other verses: [quote]: ‘In one salutation to thee, my God, let all my senses spread out and touch this world at thy feet’. (‘Gitanjali, Song Offerings’ by Rabindranath Tagore). RESPONDENT: The God is the infinitude of the universe. RICHARD: Are you a pantheist? RESPONDENT: No. I never believed in any organized religion. RICHARD: Allow me to refresh your memory:
Have you all-of-a-sudden ceased being a Hindu? RESPONDENT: In 1993 I was dealt a sever, nearly devastating blow. That blow made me question the very basis of life, of justice, morals, and such. Through a near-death experience I realized that life is not what we make it out to be; instead it is infinitely more deep than the shallowness of everyday existence. God, as truth, pervades everything that is there, and once you touch that truth, then all doubts vanish. From that point on, I view things differently. There is no belief in me of any denomination, atheistic, monotheistic or pantheistic. Truth has no such language, but while expressing that truth, different words may come handy. RICHARD: Aye ... and such a handy word is pantheism: for a pantheist their god is immanent (as in the way you expressed it as ‘god is the infinitude of the universe’ and ‘god, as truth, pervades everything that is’) as compared with a theist whose god is transcendent (expressed as not the infinitude of the universe and not all-pervading) ... broadly speaking theism refers to a creator god who is beyond the universe. Whereas in panentheism a god is not only all-pervading (immanent) but beyond the universe as well (transcendent). Is your god, or the truth you realised, beyond the universe as well as immanent? RESPONDENT: My truth is right here, in my own heart. RICHARD: Of course ... which should make it easy for you to answer the question without recourse to scriptures as you reply: is your god, or the truth you realised, beyond the universe as well as immanent? RESPONDENT: I don’t know, my friend. RICHARD: This is the reason why I ask:
When your ‘I guarantee, all existence is relative’ statement is juxtaposed with your ‘god is the infinitude of the universe’ and ‘god, as truth, pervades everything that is’ statements it appears to be that your ‘truth’ (which, being right there in your heart, should be easy to access so as to find out once and for all) is a panentheistic truth ... which means not only all-pervading (immanent) but beyond the universe as well (transcendent). Viz.: http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/religion/blfaq_theism_pan.htm And so as to forestall another ‘I don’t know’ response this may be an apt moment to point out that when somebody declares themselves as knowing and/or having realised the truth or god they are bound to be asked penetrating questions ... and as the ability to reply accurately and honestly can only help to validate one’s declaration surely you would not expect to be treated any different? Incidentally, pantheism (and panentheism) is a category ... not a ‘denomination’. * RESPONDENT: The way in which you define universe, it is synonymous with the Absolute. RICHARD: This infinite, eternal and perpetual universe is not ‘synonymous with the Absolute’ (if by capitalising the ‘Absolute’ you are referring to the Hinduism’s Absolute, that is) ... it simply is absolute as-it-is. RESPONDENT: For the transient to exist, there has to be an intransient. RICHARD: And I am asking you whether your ‘intransient’ (your ‘god, as truth’ ) is not only the universe (‘god is the infinitude of the universe’) but something else as well which the universe is relative to (‘all existence is relative’). It is a simple question. RESPONDENT: And I answered it earlier also: the way in which you define ‘universe’, no, it is not relative to anything. Since you also refer to ‘universe’ as absolute, I think we have (an absolute) agreement. RICHARD: Where is the agreement? You say, further below, that your ‘intransient’ (your ‘god as truth’ ) is ‘time-less’ and ‘form-less’ and ‘beyond space’ and I say that this physical universe is eternal time, perpetual form and infinite space. Viz.:
You are obviously not talking of this physical universe ... this physical universe is not ‘time-less’ and ‘form-less’ and ‘beyond space’ by any stretch of imagination. * RESPONDENT: So, the transient existence is relative to the intransient, the way in which you put it, the universe. RICHARD: That is the way I put it, yes ... but I am asking you about the way you put it. RESPONDENT: Since we are in agreement, the way I put it is the same way you put it. RICHARD: But we are clearly not ‘in agreement’ ... this is what you have said about your ‘intransient’ (your ‘god, as truth’):
Whereas I say that this physical universe is eternal time, perpetual form and infinite space. * RESPONDENT: Absolute, or the intransient (which you call the universe) is necessary for the change to be perceived. RICHARD: I know that is what I call it ... but I am asking you about your ‘god, as truth’ and whether it is other than the universe as well as being the universe. RESPONDENT: Once again, the way in which you define ‘universe’, my God or Truth will fit that description. RICHARD: Yet this is what you have previously told me:
You clearly say that ‘all existence’ (aka this physical universe) is relative and that ‘only Brahma or Void is Absolute’. * RESPONDENT: Hence, the universe that contains all time and all shapes and all space is the backdrop against which time, form, and space take are perceived. It can not be otherwise. RICHARD: Okay ... so here is the question again: is your god, or the truth you realised, beyond the universe as well as immanent? RESPONDENT: The way you define ‘universe’, no, nothing is beyond it. RICHARD: Again, this answer of yours is at odds with what you have previously told me:
As this physical universe is ‘that [which] can be sensed’ you are clearly saying that this physical universe ‘ceases to be’ with ‘time-less’. * RESPONDENT: You insist on saying things differently, for whatever reason. RICHARD: Mainly because they are different. RESPONDENT: But I thought we agreed: ‘universe’ is absolute and so is truth. RICHARD: There are markedly differing characteristics:
You are simply fastening on the word ‘absolute’ and ignoring everything else. * RESPONDENT: That which contains all time, has to be time-less, that which contains all forms has to be form-less, that which contains all space, has to be beyond space. That is a simple requirement. RICHARD: So, is this your answer? That your ‘god, as truth’ (the truth which is right there in your heart) is ‘time-less’ and ‘form-less’ and ‘beyond space’? Put simply: your ‘god as truth’ is other than the universe? RESPONDENT: Answered equally simply, the way in which you define ‘universe’, it is all encompassing and nothing is, or can be, beyond it. RICHARD: Yet you say (to take but one example) that which contains all space, has to be ‘beyond
space’. * RESPONDENT: Saying things differently doesn’t make them different. RICHARD: But words mean different things when the ‘things’ being referred to are different, though. RESPONDENT: I fail to comprehend how two /absolutes/ can be different. RICHARD: Maybe repetition will drive the point home:
RESPONDENT: Universe, as defined by you, and whatever else may someone call his or her absolute, have to be the same. RICHARD: How? Look, several times recently you have posted the Hindu ‘Creation Hymn’ to this mailing list (Rig Veda 10, 129) which asks the question who or what was before the creation of this physical universe. Viz.:
Therefore, your ‘intransient’ (your ‘god, as truth’) is not only the universe (‘god is the infinitude of the universe’) but is something else as well which the universe is relative to (‘all existence is relative’) ... because ‘that’ alone is what is, prior to the universe. Which all goes to indicate that you are a panentheist, non? RESPONDENT: You and I are staring at the same inky darkness betwixt stars my friend ... with one difference: occasionally you start comparing shades of your inkiness with mine. RICHARD: It is the other way around ... you have been doing nothing else but trying to make my original discovery into being the same as what the many and varied saints, sages and seers down through the centuries have been saying. Viz.:
The only question which remains is how much longer are you going to keep this charade going? RESPONDENT: As long as you want to keep making things up. RICHARD: If you will provide the instances where I have been ‘making things up’ I will be only too happy to address each and every one of them ... until then this unsubstantiated comment amounts to being nothing but rhetoric. RESPONDENT: I have demonstrated beyond doubt that /all time/ = timeless, /all space/ = beyond space and /all form/ = formless. RICHARD: You have demonstrated no such thing ... let alone ‘beyond doubt’. RESPONDENT: Why do you keep insisting that it is otherwise, my friend? RICHARD: Mainly because it is otherwise: all time = eternal time; all space = infinite space; all form = perpetual form. RESPONDENT: Why not accept what is obvious? RICHARD: Because what you want me to accept ‘as obvious’ is that this physical universe is ‘timeless’ (without time) and ‘spaceless’ (without space) and ‘formless’ (without form) when it is patently obvious that these characteristics are applicable only to your ‘god, as truth’. Viz.:
RESPONDENT: I suggest that we agree to disagree. RICHARD: Why on earth would anyone wish to ‘agree to disagree’ when all 6.0 billion of one’s fellow human beings are needlessly suffering? Can you not enter fully into an exploration and discovery of what it actually is to be a human being living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are? Do you really wish to but endlessly resurrect the dying embers of an ancient wisdom that has had its day; to
but ineffectually try to vivify the selfish solution that has all but run its course; to but futilely attempt to breathe new life
into that primeval peculiarity which is doomed to be as the small-brained dinosaur in the history of consciousness growth/mutation
... and thus never find peace-on-earth? RICHARD: Mr. Rabindranath Tagore also explicitly says ‘my God’ in other verses: [quote]: ‘In one salutation to thee, my God, let all my senses spread out and touch this world at thy feet’. (‘Gitanjali, Song Offerings’ by Rabindranath Tagore). RESPONDENT No. 33: The God is the infinitude of the universe. RICHARD: Are you a pantheist? RESPONDENT: Please allow me to respond to this question. I would dearly love to tell you what he is. RICHARD: I always prefer to ask directly – rather than second-guess what another is – as it is more reliable that way. Basically there are several options possible when a self-professed Hindu says that their god is the infinitude of the universe: a pantheist (as explicated in the later Vedas), an acosmic pantheist (as explicated by Mr. Shankara), a panentheist (as explicated by Mr. Radhakrishnan) or a monist panentheist (as explicated by Mr. Ramanuja) ... but there is also the slight possibility of being a panpsychist as well. Ain’t life grand! RESPONDENT: If the experience is that I am this vast space standing apart from the physical universe, I agree that would be some kind of narcissism because the self is established in it. RICHARD: When someone says (in words to the effect) ‘I Am God’ you can bet your last dollar they are saying (in words to the effect) that ‘I am this vast space standing apart from the physical universe’ ... unless they are a pantheist. RESPONDENT: But we have clearly said that there is no such subject/ object division that is pointed to. RICHARD: Only if one is a pantheist ... and even so there is thus no actual intimacy (to see the universe as being god is to miss the actual universe). RESPONDENT: The direct perception is that physical form is emptiness. RICHARD: The religio-spiritual meaning of the word ‘emptiness’ is that the material world is empty of ‘self’. RESPONDENT: Consciousness is its contents. RICHARD: As consciousness exists even in the absence of content this is patently incorrect. RESPONDENT: But it is not ‘my’ consciousness. RICHARD: A disembodied ‘consciousness’, in other words. RESPONDENT: That is why I asked what you mean when you say that the physical universe experiences itself as this flesh and blood body called Richard. RICHARD: And I mean what I say ... the universe also experiences itself as cats and dogs and so on. RESPONDENT: The physical universe experiencing implies an impersonal consciousness operating in the particular. RICHARD: It does not imply that at all ... this physical universe is time and space and form (and not ‘an impersonal consciousness’). RESPONDENT: But apparently that is not what you mean. RICHARD: Indeed not ... it is only as an apperceptive human being that this universe is impersonally
conscious. RICHARD: If Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti had meant that the observer becomes extinct he would have said so
... he had a good grasp of the language. But he talked of a state wherein the observer is the observed. He called that state ‘wholeness’ RESPONDENT: Not correct, Richard. Krishnamurti repeatedly stated that when the observer is the observed, there is then neither the observer nor the observed: Krishnamurti: ‘Isn’t there – I am just suggesting, I am not saying it is, or it is not, it’s for you to look to find out – isn’t there a sense of observation without the observer? Right? Do you understand? Which means there is neither the observer nor the observed. I wonder if you get this ... meditation means that there is neither the observer nor the observed. So the observer is not, only ‘what is’.’ RICHARD: There are two ways of reading this:
Of course, it could be – and probably is – a mixture of No. 1 and No. 2 for he spoke about the same thing in another passage, saying that this was ‘the highest form of a religious mind’:
Where he says ‘That total silence in which there is neither the observer nor the thing observed is the highest form of a religious mind’ is why both Buddhists and Vedantists claim him as being one of them. That ‘total silence’ that ‘cannot be put into words’ is the ineffable ‘Truth’ of all mystical endeavour. And as Hindus and Buddhists are either Cosmic Pantheists (‘God is everything and everything is God’) or Acosmic Pantheists (‘God is beyond everything and everything comes from God’), you then understand what the source of the ‘Teachings’ are. This has been going on for century after century ... and there is still no Peace On Earth. RICHARD: I ask this because this physical universe, this material planet and the various carbon-based life-forms – including sentient beings called human beings complete with malice and sorrow – all already existed prior to when I first emerged on this planet as a baby in 1947. Thus it is clear that the flesh and blood body called ‘Richard’ did not create the suffering that the billions of human beings were experiencing in 1947 ... and neither did they create the suffering, as their experience – each and every one of them – was identical to my experience in 1947. That is, that the suffering of sentient beings existed prior to each and every human being emerging on this planet as a baby. RESPONDENT: ‘Them’, as it were, is identical to the ‘suffering of sentient beings’. ‘Them’ could not create it, because they are it. RICHARD: Indeed not ... but, so that I do not fall victim to the ‘hypnosis of poorly used language’, is it that who did ‘create it’ a bodiless ‘Universal Mind’ (by whatever name) that ‘decides as me’? RESPONDENT: Likewise, ‘the flesh and blood body called ‘Richard’’ could not decide as you, because it is you. RICHARD: Indeed not ... but, so that I do not fall victim to the ‘hypnosis of poorly used language’, is it that who did ‘decide as you’ a bodiless ‘Universal Mind’ (by whatever name) that ‘decides as me’? RESPONDENT: ‘The flesh and blood body called ‘Richard’’ is the decision made. RICHARD: Okay ... but, so that I do not fall victim to the ‘hypnosis of poorly used language’, is it that who made the ‘decision made’ a bodiless ‘Universal Mind’ (by whatever name) that ‘decides as me’? RESPONDENT: This sentence that is now the experience there, now, is you; is ‘the flesh and blood body called ‘Richard’’. RICHARD: Not so ... the sentence is tiny dots at 800 times 600 resolution on a computer monitor. The experience of reading the sentence is ‘the flesh and blood body called ‘Richard’’ ... not the sentence itself (unless one is a Pantheist, of course ... then I am the sentence because then ‘I am Everything and Everything is Me’). RESPONDENT: Likewise, and forgive my redundancy please, but the point may be clearer if illustrated several different ways, this sentence now being typed, which is not separate in any manner from what the Universe is now, is me, the ‘the flesh and blood body called No. 14. No. 14, or Richard or ‘Them’ is the Universe happening or what the Universe is being. There is one action at all time and that is what the Universe is being, which may be ‘the flesh and blood body called ‘Richard’’ or ‘them’, or ‘fish and chips’. RICHARD: In other words: Pantheism. That means that you are Everything and Everything is You. Which means that you are tiny dots at 800 times 600 resolution on a computer monitor. RESPONDENT: Now, with that being said, and forgive me if it was said beyond tolerance, it is quite easily deduced; that which is, can not be its own cause. RICHARD: Indeed not ... but, so that I do not fall victim to the ‘hypnosis of poorly used language’, is it that who the cause of ‘that which is’ a bodiless ‘Universal Mind’ (by whatever name) that ‘decides as me’? RESPONDENT: There is a movement, an action, an existence, perhaps this movement is ‘suffering of sentient beings’, and this ‘suffering of sentient beings (identical to them or us)’ is not its own cause. RICHARD: Indeed not ... but, so that I do not fall victim to the ‘hypnosis of poorly used language’, is it that who the cause of ‘suffering of sentient beings’ is a bodiless ‘Universal Mind’ (by whatever name) that ‘decides as me’? RESPONDENT: Now since this movement is not in any manner separate from ‘you’, and knowing that your actions are not blind, nor random, nor unintelligent, it is beyond reasonable to deduce a sensible source for these actions. RICHARD: Indeed it is beyond reasonable to deduce a sensible (physical) source ... but, so that I do not fall victim to the ‘hypnosis of poorly used language’, is it that who a non-sensible (non-physical) ‘source for these actions’ is a bodiless ‘Universal Mind’ (by whatever name) that ‘decides as me’? RESPONDENT: It is this source that I speak of when I say that which ‘‘decides as me’ the flesh and blood body called No. 14 (me)’ is the decision made, that which decides as me is something else entirely. RICHARD: And just what is that non-sensible (non-physical) source of all the suffering that is ‘something else entirely’? Is it a bodiless ‘Universal Mind’ (by whatever name) that ‘decides as me’? I guess that one could say that ‘The Timeless and Spaceless and Formless Universal Mind’ is the source of
all the suffering! * RICHARD: Apperception is something that brings a facticity born out of a direct experience of the actual RESPONDENT: If you would, Richard, please demonstrate the evidence that supports the implication that there is difference between ‘the actual’ and the ‘direct experience of the actual’. RICHARD: Sure ... ‘I’, the identity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain. Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the actual world – the world as-it-is – by ‘my’ very presence. Whereas, sans identity, what one is (‘what’ not ‘who’) is these sense organs in operation: this seeing is me, this hearing is me, this tasting is me, this touching is me, this smelling is me, and this thinking is me. This is called ‘apperceptive awareness’ (not to be confused with ‘choiceless awareness’). Apperception is consciousness being aware of being consciousness ... and this is a ‘direct experience of the actual’. I am not a Pantheist: I do not identify with the objects of perception in an all-embracing oneness. RESPONDENT: Humility can not be discarded. RICHARD: It can and it was ... when pride went the antidotal humility also vanished. RESPONDENT: It is a state of polarity relative to something higher than itself. RICHARD: Only in someone’s dreams and schemes. RESPONDENT: What would discard it? RICHARD: One’s native intelligence in operation (what people call ‘commonsense’ in the ‘real world’). RESPONDENT: The question should be ‘how do we get it?’ RICHARD: You only can get it by narcissistically desiring to be the next manifestation of the ‘Supreme Intelligence’ ... you do not get to be ‘God On Earth’ unless you are first humble. RESPONDENT: You never become ‘god on earth’. RICHARD: Huh? You say ‘never’? Are you aware of what Mailing List you are writing to? RESPONDENT: The end of humility relative to god (not man) is simply to become an extension of or subject of god. RICHARD: In the West (monotheistic mysticism), yes. In the East (pantheistic mysticism), no. In either
case the principle holds true: being humble is a means to the end and not the end. It is a device, a technique, a contrivance ...
a selfish machination. RESPONDENT: There is no escape whatsoever from evil, except in God. There is no escape into the material world because on the other side of matter, evil is waiting. RICHARD: I am reporting that there is a third alternative ... something new to either materialism or spiritualism. RESPONDENT: We are not one with the universe or anything like that. RICHARD: I am this universe experiencing itself as an apperceptive human being: as such the universe is stunningly aware of its own infinitude. No need for oneness or union at all. RESPONDENT: You are not the universe. RICHARD: I never said I was ... I said that I am this universe experiencing itself as an apperceptive human being. The universe also experiences itself as cats and dogs and so on and so on. RESPONDENT: The universe ‘experiences itself as cats and dogs’? RICHARD: Of course ... the universe is all time, all space and all matter: flesh and blood bodies do not come from outside the universe. RESPONDENT: You are a pantheist I guess. RICHARD: No ... I am an actualist: a ‘pantheist’ is a person who holds the belief that God and the universe are identical (implying a denial of the personality and transcendence of God) and pantheism is the identification of God with the forces of nature and natural substances. Pantheism can also mean worship that admits or tolerates all gods. * RESPONDENT: You are just a small part of the universe. RICHARD: Not a ‘part’, no (let alone ‘just a small part’): the stuff of this flesh and blood body is the very stuff of the universe; the stuff of this flesh and blood body is as old as the universe is ... the stuff of this flesh and blood body has been virtually everywhere and everything at everywhen. I will say it again for emphasis: I am this universe experiencing itself as an apperceptive human being ... as such the universe is stunningly aware of its own infinitude. RESPONDENT: The rest falls into the category of delusions of grandeur. RICHARD: There are no ‘delusions of grandeur’ needed here ... this actual world is magnificent beyond anyone’s wildest dreams and schemes. RESPONDENT: The universe may be magnificent ... but we are flawed. RICHARD: You would be better off speaking for yourself ... there is no ‘flawed’ flesh and
blood body here. RICHARD: Apperception is something that brings a facticity born out of a direct experience of the actual. RESPONDENT: If you would, Richard, please demonstrate the evidence that supports the implication that there is difference between ‘the actual’ and the ‘direct experience of the actual’. RICHARD: Sure ... ‘I’, the identity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain. Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the actual world – the world as-it-is – by ‘my’ very presence. Whereas, sans identity, what one is (‘what’ not ‘who’) is these sense organs in operation: this seeing is me, this hearing is me, this tasting is me, this touching is me, this smelling is me, and this thinking is me. This is called ‘apperceptive awareness’ (not to be confused with ‘choiceless awareness’). Apperception is consciousness being aware of being consciousness ... and this is a ‘direct experience of the actual’. I am not a Pantheist: I do not identify with the objects of perception in an all-embracing oneness. RESPONDENT: That is all very interesting Richard and we can discuss how you choose your identification in another line. RICHARD: We surely can ... except that I did not ‘choose my identification’ in the above paragraph at all. I do not now how you got ‘you choose your identification’ out of a very clear sentence that says: ‘I do not identify ...’. Truly wondrous are the ways, with its miracles to perform, are the workings of your mind. Be that as it may ... I have received five posts from you (and there may be another when I go on-line to send this) with more than one or two puzzled queries in them. You do seem to be having some difficulty in grasping what I articulate (as evidenced by the question and answer above and the further question below). Consequently, there seems to be little point in proceeding with the other queries (all 73 of them) until the above query is answered to your complete and utter satisfaction. Therefore, I have elected to answer this one – and receive your response – before proceeding to the next ... and so on and so on. This way I will know that we are not going too fast for your comprehension ... I am prepared to stick at this one query, through thick and thin, until you have ‘got it’ ... and then we can move on with the next. RESPONDENT: However, for now it would be more helpful to me if you would please demonstrate the difference between the ‘direct experience of the actual’ and the actual that you imply is being experienced. Most simply, please show me the actual as other than ‘direct experience of the actual’. Thank you. RICHARD: Shall I put it this way ... one sits in front of the computer monitor reading this sentence; the eyes see these words and the hand may reach for the words and touch the glass that is but a scant few millimetres to the front of them. It is obvious that the physical eye-balls and the physical hand are this flesh and blood body ... and that the computer monitor is a glass and plastic object that stays on the desk when the body gets up and walks away. This indicates that there is a distinct physical difference betwixt one and the other. For a normal person (approximately 6.0 billion peoples currently alive on this planet) the experience just described is as if ‘I’ am inside this flesh and blood body looking out through ‘my’ eyes (as if looking out through a window to the world outside a house) ... and ‘I’ see an object called a computer monitor. Just to be sure that it is really there, ‘I’ reach out and feel that it is there through ‘my’ finger-tips ... thus ‘I’ am inside this flesh and blood body and ‘I’ experience the world of people, things and events ‘outside’ the body indirectly (through ‘my’ eyes, through ‘my’ ears, through ‘my’ nostrils, through ‘my’ mouth and through ‘my’ skin). Are we together thus far? I will wait until I receive your response before proceeding to explore the difference between this indirect experiencing (as just detailed) and a ‘direct experience of the actual’ as in my initial article (quoted at the top of this post). Until the workings of this indirect activity is grasped ... it is no use to proceed further. Then we can progress to the more advanced discussions. RESPONDENT: Talking about language ... I’m doing some other translation for a friend and I’ve been stopped by a word that I didn’t find in my Webster’s Dictionary. So I need some help from English speakers here. This word is <THUSNESS>. I would be obliged if some of you could send me some synonyms (or explanation of its meaning) for this word. RICHARD: Basically, ‘Thusness’ is the approximate English translation of the Pali and Sanskrit word ‘Tathagata’ and is one of the titles of a Buddha ... and the one most frequently employed by Mr. Gotama the Sakyan when referring to himself. The exact meaning of the word ‘Tathagata’ is uncertain but it is usually taken to mean ‘one who has thus (tatha) gone (gata)’ or ‘one who has thus (tatha) arrived (agata)’ ... implying that Mr. Gotama the Sakyan was only one of many who have in the past and will in the future experience enlightenment and teach others how to achieve it. In later Mahayana Buddhism, ‘Thusness’ came to convey the essential ‘Buddha-Nature’ hidden in everyone. ‘Tathagata’ is the ‘Thusness’ that makes spiritual enlightenment possible. Having ‘Tathagata’ within, one yearns for enlightenment. As the true state of all that exists, ‘Tathagata’ is synonymous with the ‘Ultimate Reality’ ... otherwise indefinable and ineffable. (Not all that much different to the Hindu ‘Atman’ and ‘Brahman’, you will notice ... in fact, as far as I am concerned, they are the same. Hindus and Buddhists would disagree with me, however). As Buddhists – like Hindus – maintain that the elements of ordinary everyday existence have their basis in illusion and imagination, it was held in early Buddhism that what really exists is the one ‘Pure Mind’, called ‘Suchness’, which exists changelessly and without differentiation. Enlightenment consisted of realising one’s unity with ‘Suchness’. However, later Buddhism distinguished between ‘Suchness’ (‘Pure Mind’ being the ‘Soul’ in its essence) and ‘Thusness’ ... the all-producing, all-conserving ‘Absolute Mind’, which is the manifestation of the ‘Absolute All-Soul’ (as in birth and death as happenings). In Mahayana Buddhism, Sunyata (‘The Void’) gradually became transferred into the place of the ‘Absolute Mind’. If ‘Suchness’, or ‘Pure Mind’, and ‘Thusness’, or ‘The Void’, are identical, they then maintained that the ‘Ultimate Reality’ must lie beyond any possible description. Mahayana Buddhism approaches the matter through dialectical negation: the ‘Ultimate Void’ is the ‘Middle Path’ in that all individual characteristics are negated ... but sublated in that a partial element of the dialectic is preserved as a synthesis. Thus the spiritual aspirant approaches ‘The Void’ through a combination of dialectical negation and direct intuition. Since ‘The Void’ is also called the highest synthesis of all oppositions, the doctrine of Sunyata may be viewed as an instance of the ‘identity of opposites’ pantheism ... thus Buddhism can be identified with acosmic pantheism. Indeed, acosmic pantheism would seem to be the alternative most deeply rooted and widespread in all these rarefied esoteric eastern traditions. All this kind of stuff is but one of the many reasons why I maintain it is all a massive delusion ... but
there you go, eh? RICHARD: I did not devise, concoct or contrive this peace-on-earth ... it was already here ... as it always has been and always will be. I just happened to discover it, that is all ... and it being so perfect that I wished to inform my fellow human beings of its existence. What they do with this information is their business. RESPONDENT: Richard, did it ever occur to you that you are simply pointing to coals in Newcastle and called them ‘black fuel chunks?’ RICHARD: No it never occurred to me ... and never will. Only someone firmly locked-into a Hindu/Buddhist religious belief system could make such an blinkered observation. RESPONDENT: You ... infer a ‘religious belief system’ on my part. RICHARD: Maybe I can draw your attention to a recent post yours: ‘For those of us interested in investigating Advaita Vedanta, (a philosophical system the quite closely parallels what Krishnamurti pointed to in his less formal manner), I’ve turned up the following very intriguing and carefully designed WWW site: www.cco.caltech.edu/~vidya/advaita/ Even yours truly, he of the rather obviously impaired scholarship, found it very informative’. Is Advaita Vedanta really a ‘philosophical system’? It is a sect of Hinduism after all ... and Hinduism is a religion. If a case can be made that it is not a religion but a philosophy, then is it not a spiritual philosophy? For central to Advaita Vedanta is Brahman ... which is derived from a Hindu god, after all is said and done. You may recall me submitting the following:
As you link Advaita Vedanta to Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s ‘Teachings’, could it be that what he called ‘that which is sacred, holy’, from whence the ‘Teachings’ came, is in fact, none other than the Hindu religious god Brahma ... now called Brahman to make it into a spiritual philosophy? This is not a ‘scholarly debate’ ... I am very interested to hear your answer, as you said that: ‘I experience what little I have read of the Great Dead Guys[tm] not with the picayune eye of a practiced philosopher, but with the same sensorium you describe with reference to the ‘ambrosial’ nature of what most see as ordinary, ‘beans & wieners’ existence’. I take particular note that you stress ‘I experience (...) not with the picayune eye of a practiced philosopher’. If you do not experience what you call a philosophy with the petty and small-minded eye of a philosopher, then how do you experience it? As a reality in your daily life? After all, is not that what a philosophy is? A way of living? I am, of course, ‘inferring’ that you are living this ‘philosophy’ that has an ancient Hindu god central to it. After all, you did say:
As ‘sensorium’ means the parts of the brain concerned with the reception and interpretation of sensory stimuli – or more broadly the entire sensory apparatus – then are you are proclaiming yourself to be a Hindu Pantheist? That is, ‘God is everything and everything is God? Advaita Vedanta is not pantheistic by a long shot, because Advaitists maintain that everyday reality is an illusion projected onto Brahman (Brahman is categorically different from anything phenomenal) and that, realising this, one knows that ‘I am That’ (of course, ‘That’ is none other than Brahman ... and thence Brahma. Therefore, this translates as: ‘I am God and God is Me’). And if all the above is not enough, you did say: ‘Richard, I am not looking for a scholarly debate, but for deep, passionate seeing past the letter of the what Krishnamurti (or Shankara or Buddha) wrote or said’. A ‘deep, passionate seeing’ ? And ‘past the letter’ of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s words, Mr. Shankara’s words and Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s words? You must mean one is to live what they talk about, surely ... or am I ‘inferring’ again? It all sounds rather metaphysical to me, whichever way you are going to jump. KONRAD: Richard, have you ever heard of pantheism? In this vision existence itself is God. This is an actual . RICHARD: Yes, of course I have ‘heard of pantheism’ ... but pantheists believe that God is more than this physical universe as tangible to the sense organs ... so they too are believing in something metaphysical. Some people have tried to categorise me as a Pantheist, but why add the notion of an intangible god to what is patently tangible? Why call the universe God and not what it is: the universe? Why add a metaphysical dimension to the world of the senses? Because they do not see their god with their physical eyes alone, they have to use their intuitive faculties coupled with their imaginative faculties for their god to be manifest to them. Thus their god is not actual ... it is a visualised god. Pantheism is the doctrine that the universe conceived of as a whole is God and, conversely, that there is no God but the combined substance, forces, and laws that are manifested in the existing universe. The cognate doctrine of panentheism asserts that God includes the universe as a part though not the whole of his being. (Copyright 1994-1998 Encyclopaedia Britannica). Whereas I am happy and harmless for I have eliminated both ‘SELF and I’ ... there is no ‘I’-ness
of ‘I’ here.
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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