Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

RESPONDENT: According to Richard and others, everyone has had a PCE sometime in their life.

RICHARD: I usually add a qualifier so as to obviate anyone having to ask a ‘how can you know that’ type of question ... for instance this is how I put it on the home page of my part of The Actual Freedom Trust web site:

• [Richard]: ‘I invite anyone to make a critical examination of all the words I advance so as to ascertain if they be intrinsically self-explanatory ... and if they are all seen to be inherently consistent with what is being spoken about, then the facts speak for themselves. Then one will have reason to remember a pure conscious experience (PCE), *which all peoples I have spoken to at length have had*, and thus verify by direct experience the facticity of what is written (which personal experiencing is the only proof worthy of the name). The PCE occurs globally ... across cultures and down through the ages irregardless of gender, race or age. However, it is usually interpreted according to cultural beliefs – created and reinforced by the persistence of identity – and devolves into an ASC. Then ‘I’ as ego – sublimated and transcended as ‘me’ as soul – manifest as a god or a goddess (‘The Truth’ by any name) and preach unliveable doctrines based upon their belief that they are ‘not the body’.
Doctrines like acceptance, pacifism and unconditional love, for example. [emphasis added].

And here is an example of how I put it in conversation:

• [Richard]: ‘I do recollect that when I was a normal human being I would oft-times repeat the phrase ‘there must be more to life than this’ and when I had a four-hour pure consciousness experience (PCE) in 1980 I finally understood the origin of that optimism: throughout my life I had had numerous PCE’s (more so in childhood) that I had not consciously remembered ... and *everybody that I have spoken to at length* eventually recalls moments of such perfection throughout their life.
It is the amorphous memory of perfection lying somewhere or somewhen that keeps one going. [emphasis added].

Anywhere I have baldly said that ‘everyone has had a PCE sometime in their life’ (or words to that effect such as in Article Six of ‘Richard’s Journal’) would only be because I omitted to add the qualifier which obviates anyone having to ask a ‘how can you know that’ type of question.

RESPONDENT: And, a good question here: Does Richard or others know this to be a fact ...

RICHARD: What I know for a fact is that all the people I have spoken to at length could recall having had a PCE – as distinct from an altered state of consciousness (ASC) – although it sometimes took a quite a while for them to remember. Once it took over three hours of intensive description/discussion – as being sans any affective content whatsoever the PCE cannot be stored in the affective memory banks (which is where the ASC is primarily located) – plus they are much more common in childhood and require further reach.

Also ‘I’ have a vested interest in not remembering such an experience of pristine perfection as it would mean the beginning of the end of, not only ‘me’, but the extinction of ‘being’ itself (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is ‘being’ itself) ... which is quite often capitalised as ‘Being’ (aka ‘Truth’, ‘God’, ‘Isness’, ‘All That Is’, ‘That’, and so on) upon self-realisation.

It is far easier to say that it can only be an assumption that everyone has had a PCE sometime in their life ... and then get on to the much safer topic of discussing whether such an assumption is reasonable.

RESPONDENT: ... or is it a reasonable assumption?

RICHARD: As everybody I spoke to at length – everybody – could recall at least one PCE, and usually more, it would be a very strange situation indeed that it be not an experience common to all people but only to those whom I engaged with on an ad hoc basis for two decades or more.

Plus I have read descriptions of such experiences at random over the years – and seen/ heard descriptions on television/radio – thus it is not a matter of my prompts implanting such a notion or even me putting words in their mouth ... and a good example of this happened only recently when a co-respondent referred me to books written by some ‘positive psychologists’, whilst discussing the subject of happiness in normal people, one of which books I found on-line in its totality. Here is an excerpt from the first chapter which immediately caught my eye:

• ‘One summer day, 40 years ago or so, I was walking along a residential street when an rich, earthy scent wafted my way and triggered, as smells are wont to do, a vivid recollection. Like Dorothy, stepping out of her front door into the Technicolor Land of Oz, I remembered another summer’s day when I was 4 years old, playing in a bank of warm, black dirt in the back yard of my home. I had a little red toy car for which I’d made a road slanting up the face of the dirt bank and, in my recollection, I was ‘driving’ the car up this mountain road while making motor noises. That’s all there was, no real action, yet the memory, in the few seconds before it faded away, was redolent with the smell and feel of the warm dirt, the bright colour of the toy, the hot sun – with simple but intensely pleasurable sensory experience. When I read Aldous Huxley’s account of his mescaline experience, of his feeling that the colours, shapes, and textures of his books on the shelves across the room were as intense an experience as he could bear and that he dared not look outside at the flowers in the garden, I thought of my brief revisitation of my childhood’. (Chapter 1, ‘Happiness: The Nature and Nurture of Joy and Contentment’; David Lykken; www.psych.umn.edu/psyfac/emeritus_sr/Lykken/HapChap%201.htm#_edn3).

The various people I have discussed these matters with have invariably recalled similar ‘Technicolor Land’ experiences in childhood ... sometimes referred to as a ‘nature experience’, a ‘peak experience’, a ‘jamais vu experience’, or even an ‘aesthetic experience’. And not only have I witnessed children having such an experience, and spoken with them about while it is happening, but recall having the same myself on many an occasion: often in early childhood there would be a ‘slippage’ of the brain, somewhat analogous to an automatic transmission changing into a higher gear too soon, and the magical world where time had no workaday meaning would emerge in all its sparkling wonder ... where I could wander for hours at a time in gay abandon with whatever was happening.

They were the pre-school years: soon such experiences would occur of a weekend (at school I became known as ‘the dreamer’ and had many a rude awakening to everyday reality by various teachers) ... so much so that I would later on call them ‘Saturday Morning’ experiences where, contrary to having to be dragged out of bed during the week, I would be up and about at first light, traipsing through the fields and the forests with the early morning rays of sunshine dancing their magic on the glistening dew-drops suspended from the greenery everywhere; where kookaburras are echoing their laughing-like calls to one another and magpies are warbling their liquid sounds; where an abundance of aromas and scents are drifting fragrantly all about; where every pore of the skin is being caressed by the friendly ambience of the balmy air; where benevolence and benignity streams endlessly bathing all in its impeccable integrity.

This magical world is what occasions me to write like this:

• [Richard]: ‘When one walks naked (sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) in the infinitude of this actual universe there is the direct experiencing that there is something precious in living itself. Something beyond compare. Something more valuable than any ‘King’s Ransom’. It is not rare gemstones; it is not singular works of art; it is not the much-prized bags of money; it is not the treasured loving relationships; it is not the highly esteemed blissful and rapturous ‘States Of Being’ ... it is not any of these things usually considered precious. There is something ultimately precious that makes the ‘sacred’ a mere bauble.
It is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe – which is the life-giving foundation of all that is apparent – as a physical actuality. The limpid and lucid purity and perfection of actually being just here at this place in infinite space right now at this moment in eternal time is akin to the crystalline perfection and purity seen in a dew-drop hanging from the tip of a leaf in the early-morning sunshine; the sunrise strikes the transparent bead of moisture with its warming rays, highlighting the flawless correctness of the tear-drop shape with its bellied form. One is left almost breathless with wonder at the immaculate simplicity so exemplified ... and everyone I have spoken with at length has experienced this impeccable integrity and excellence in some way or another at varying stages in their life.
This preciosity is what one is as-one-is – me as I am in actuality as distinct from ‘me’ as ‘I’ am in reality – for one is the universe’s experience of itself. Is it not impossible to conceive – and just too difficult to imagine – that this is one’s essential character? One has to be daring enough to live it – for it is both one’s audacious birth-right and one’s adventurous destiny – thus the pure consciousness experience (PCE) is but the harbinger of the potential made actual.

Put succinctly: there is an unimaginable purity which is born out of the stillness of the infinitude as manifest at this moment in time and this place in space ... but one will not come upon it by thinking about or feeling out its character. It is most definitely not a matter to be pursued in the rarefied atmosphere of the most refined mind or the evocative milieu of the most impassioned heart.

One must come to one’s senses ... both literally and metaphorically.

*

RESPONDENT: I have searched my memory banks and the only thing I can recollect is a possible PCE that I had when I was 3 or 4 years of age. I will describe it ... although this description is undoubtedly a memory of a memory of a memory ... since it was so long ago. I was sitting on the concrete under a tree in the back yard of my house. I was playing with something ... and I looked at the sky. I remember feeling so untroubled, so unusually peaceful ... just staring at the perfectly blue sky ... and then the green leaves of the tree gently dancing in a slight cool breeze. I don’t know how long the experience lasted ... it was so unique ... that I set the memory of it apart in my brain ... for I wanted to save it to refer to and savour later. This experience was so different from any other childhood or adult experiences that I ever had. The experience was so direct and fresh and perfect.

RICHARD: Yes, these moments of perfection are indeed ‘so direct and fresh and perfect’ that they speak for themselves, as it were, and no literary work, no philosophy tome, no religious tract, no musical rendition, no artistic piece, and so on, can say what actuality has to say.

Which is more or less why I abandoned a flourishing career as a practising artist ... nothing can compete with actuality.

RESPONDENT: Since I have had this ... .I have concluded, by contrast, that all of my other life experiences are muddy, stained ... (dare I say as looking through a glass darkly? ... which I think is an accurate description).

RICHARD: No, what is seen ‘through a glass darkly’ is an imagined actuality.

RESPONDENT: If I had never had this experience, I would have concluded that muddy is the only experience there is ... that clarity, conceivably ‘actuality’ is nonexistent ... only a far off dream for myself ... at best.

RICHARD: This actual world is magnificent beyond ‘my’ wildest dreams.

RESPONDENT: Does this sound like a PCE to anyone.

RICHARD: Yes ... and, more to the point, it goes to reinforce the inclination that what I would consider an unreasonable assumption would be the assumption that these experiences are not universal.

RESPONDENT: If so ... how can I use this recollection in the more pragmatic, practical way ... if at all?

RICHARD: It is where confidence lies.

RESPONDENT: ... and that I was looking very seriously about the claims and statements being made about AF by you, Mr. Peter and Ms. Vineeto ... with (read carefully here) an open mind, suspending both belief and disbelief.

RICHARD: If I may point out? I always ‘read carefully’ what my fellow human being considers important enough to share with me (as evidenced by my responses being direct and relevant to the point under discussion) ... the question is: do you?

RESPONDENT: That suspension includes (read carefully here again) suspending belief and disbelief in spiritualism in general, and Pure Land Buddhism in particular. I am perfectly capable of doing that ... of looking at this topic sans calenture of any kind ... based on my own background experience of having PCE’s.

RICHARD: Ahh ... here is the nub of the issue: if, as you say, you are looking at this topic (of whether or not actualism is indeed the third alternative to materialism and spiritualism) based on your own background experience of having pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s) then where does the necessity to have ‘an open mind’ on top of such direct experience come from?

More to the point: the PCE, being self-evidentiary, does away with the intellectual approach of suspending ‘both belief and disbelief’ (which is why I stress its importance in the actualism practice).

*

RESPONDENT: I close with this, Richard, for your particular benefit: [Respondent]: ‘I like your commitment to investigation, empiricism, pragmatism, ACTUAL FACTS’. [Richard]: ‘It is one thing to like another’s commitment to ‘investigation, empiricism, pragmatism, ACTUAL FACTS’ ... and another thing entirely to emulate same’. [endquotes]. Have no fear about my emulating your commitment.

RICHARD: If you had not snipped what immediately followed you would see that it is not my commitment at all I am speaking of:

• [Richard]: ‘It is one thing to like another’s commitment to ‘investigation, empiricism, pragmatism, ACTUAL FACTS’ ... and another thing entirely to emulate same.
In other words the commitment made by the identity parasitically inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago, a total dedication to global peace and harmony, took just under 12 years to bring about an actual freedom from the human condition ...’.

I have no such commitment – and I did nothing at all as I have been here all along just having a ball – because the necessary altruism is, just as selfism is, a core feature of the passionate identity within ... and not the flesh and blood body.

RESPONDENT: I will do no such thing.

RICHARD: Suit yourself ... it is your life you are living, when all is said and done, and only you get to reap the rewards, or pay the consequences, of any action or inaction you may or may not do.

All I can do is offer suggestions ... what the other does with these suggestions is entirely up to them, of course.

RESPONDENT: I have my OWN commitment to integrity in this investigation, that depends not a whit upon yours.

RICHARD: If I may suggest? Sincerity is the key to unlock one’s innate naiveté, the nourishing of which is essential if the wondrous magic of life itself is to be apparent, which naiveté effortlessly provides the ‘integrity’ you say you have your own commitment to.

Speaking of which ... did you not notice that I said the commitment was a ‘total dedication to global peace and harmony’ (and not the ‘commitment to integrity’ you make it out to be)?

Just curious.

RESPONDENT: If, as time unfolds, your commitment, or anyone else’s should appear less that 100% ...

RICHARD: Again (and put differently for emphasis) my commitment is 0.00%.

RESPONDENT: ... my commitment to doing this investigation with integrity will be unaffected.

RICHARD: So be it ... you stay with your commitment to ‘doing this investigation with integrity’ then, and let other people, who have twigged to the fact that naïveté is the closest that one can come to innocence (which is where integrity lies) whilst remaining a ‘self’, proceed on their way so that the results of your experiment can be assessed for viability against this salient bench mark.

I might add, though, that naïveté does away with all that ‘heavy lifting’ you spoke of in an earlier e-mail. Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘From what I can glean so far, virtual freedom is a period of ‘heavy lifting’. (‘Introduction’; Friday, 27 July 2003).

Where you have gleaned this diaphoretic impression from has got me stumped ... here is but one of the many ways I describe the actualism practice:

• [Richard]: ‘... the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition is marked by enjoyment and appreciation – the sheer delight of being as happy and harmless as is humanly possible whilst remaining a ‘self’ – and the slightest diminishment of such felicity and innocuity is a warning signal (a flashing red light as it were) that one has inadvertently wandered off the way.
One is thus soon back on track ... and all because of everyday events.

Or even more specifically to the point of your ‘heavy lifting’ comment:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘If it is the experiencer that makes efforts to be aware and stay aware, the centre is strengthened, not dissolved, right?
• [Richard]: ‘Since when has naiveté been sudorific?

In short: if it be not either easy (effortless) or fun (enjoyable) then there is something to look at until it is again.

*

RESPONDENT: And ... at the end of the day (week, month, year), if I have concluded that indeed there is something radically different and radically worthwhile going on here (i.e. a legitimate 3rd alternative able to at long last deliver the goods ... i.e. AF), I will have no trouble, I assure you, in permanently re-adjusting my cognitive maps and models as you, Mr. Peter and Ms. Vineeto have done, regardless of my ultimate judgement of any of the PROMOTERS and their integrity at any given moment.

RICHARD: I wonder why you do not see how you undo your claim to have, not only a background of PCE’s but having had one just recently, when you make comments such as above. For example:

• [Respondent]: ‘Of course I have had PCE and have also had the ‘devolved’ experience of ASC. (‘Re: Introduction’; 28 July 2003).

And:

• [Respondent]: ‘FYI, this AM I woke up and disconnected from my self identity entirely (something I have done before, more than once). That catapulted me right into a pure and perfect PCE which lasted for well over an hour. As I got out of bed and took a shower, the experience was exquisite, sensual and overwhelming in a most pleasurable way. The sense of past and future had dropped away and I was experiencing life in the eternal present ... and that freshness has stayed with me throughout this day. even as I re-engaged as an egoic self’. (‘Conversation Continuing’; Monday, 04 August 2003).

Yet you say now that, at the end of the day, week, month, or year, if you have concluded that indeed there is something radically different and radically worthwhile going on here (that is, a legitimate third alternative, an actual freedom, able to at long last deliver the goods) you will have no trouble, you assure me, in permanently readjusting your cognitive maps and models.

Do you see why I look askance at the other things you have to say? Things like this for instance:

• [Respondent]: ‘I’m not convinced that just because someone has created a different map (as perhaps Mr. Richard has), or is using a different vocabulary (as perhaps Mr. Richard is), that he is actually staking out some brand new territory. (‘Re: Ram Tzu Blues; Wednesday 06 August 2003’).

As it is the PCE which convinces – and not any claims I make as my words are designed to precipitate a PCE in the reader (whereupon they can then experience perfection for themselves) so as to not have them believe me or be convinced by the sensibility of any description I offer – I would suggest there is a strong possibility that whatever it is you experienced, both before you ‘re-engaged as an egoic self’ and after disconnecting, it was not a PCE.

Which could explain why you considered that Mr. Douglas Harding [Finding The Self], Ms. Byron Katie [God With God], Mr. Maximilian Sandor [Alienation/Integration Of The Being], and Free Zone [The Beingness-By-Itself] were some places to look to see where an actual freedom from the human condition was already happening because Richard had not yet made an exhaustive investigation of all the other places it might have been happening up until now.

More to the point: if it were indeed a PCE then your contributions to this mailing list would be of an entirely different nature to what they currently are.

RESPONDENT: And finally, just so you and everyone else here knows: I’m very comfortable being proven wrong, about things small or large.

RICHARD: As the only proof worthy of the name, in matters of consciousness, is experiential proof only you can prove yourself wrong.

RESPONDENT: It is a comfort I commend to one and all ...

RICHARD: Oh? Are you really recommending that people should emulate your comfort? If so, why then do you spurn emulation of the commitment to global peace and harmony the identity parasitically inhabiting this flesh and blood body made all those years ago?

Is it a case of one rule for your advice ... and another rule for my advice?

RESPONDENT: ... one that prevents, and even cures, premature hardening of the orthodoxies.

RICHARD: Let me see if I comprehend the basis of your commendation (after 30+ years of having prevented, or even cured, premature hardening of the orthodoxies):

• [Respondent]: ‘I’ve settled into a variant of Buddhism that doesn’t attempt to cross the fabled river to enlightenment in this lifetime, but rather assumes that for the vast majority it is simply not attainable’. (‘Re: Introduction – Clarifying Communication’; Fri 01 August 2003).

If being ‘settled’ in a variant of Buddhism is not a hardening of the orthodoxies, be it premature or otherwise, then I would like to know what is ... or is there some inscrutable understanding in this deconstructionism method of yours that I am missing?

Because I have yet to have it demonstrated how the method which worked, the one that delivered the goods, is not the one to emulate.

RESPONDENT: Before one can investigate beliefs, morals, etc does there have to be a recalled memory of a PCE?

RICHARD: No, there is sufficient information presented on The Actual Freedom Trust Website to establish a prima facie case worthy of further investigation – rather than capricious dismissal – which examination may very well induce recall ... or a fresh pure consciousness experience (PCE).

The PCE enables one to know, for oneself, that actualism is not a philosophy.

RESPONDENT: I see that you have set aside responding to the rest of my email, because I have caused a misunderstanding. I should have said that I was not interested in others’ (just in general, but not including or excluding yours, by the way) claims of *authenticity* (and hence, of authority) which is where so many discussions can and do become uselessly fixed, as these are entirely not settleable by third parties.

RICHARD: This sweeping dismissal – ‘entirely not settleable’ – indicates to me that you are again not taking note of what I am saying in regards the pure consciousness experience (PCE).

Perhaps if I were to put it this way: it is the PCE which is authentic – and hence authoritative – and the validity of the authenticity and authority of the PCE can certainly be settled by any body ... it is experiential.

To use an old-fashioned – and possibly now politically incorrect – phrase: one has to ‘go native’ to fully understand.

RESPONDENT: However, I am quite interested in your ‘report’ and others’ inasmuch as they *unpack* the subtler aspects and layers of what they feel to be going on, rather than, say, merely making capsule apodictic statements.

RICHARD: There are many, many descriptive articles and passages available on The Actual Freedom Web Page ... not all of what I write is in the form of apodictic statements.

I will say it again: it is the PCE where the necessary facticity or complete certainty of these matters is clearly demonstrated or established ... then there is no need to ‘feel’ what is going on.

Furthermore, to ‘feel’ what is going on will keep one away from the world as-it-is.

RESPONDENT: I think there is much subtly to what you are addressing by ‘apperception’, and I hope we can continue getting at it beginning by way of the rest of my last email.

RICHARD: Not by way of your last e-mail, no ... I read it through three times before I responded as I did and in it you made it patently obvious that unless a matter was able to be settled in the ‘third-person’ way then it was a matter of [quote] ‘outright speculations’ [endquote] to discuss it ... in fact you observed that otherwise [quote] ‘usually, fine and entertaining disputes develop’ [endquote].

You may not have been subscribed to The Actual Freedom Mailing List long enough to notice that those peoples that have had, or remember having had, a PCE do not dispute what actualism is on about – nor do they have to have recourse to ‘third party’ settlement – rather that there is a sharing of experience and understanding and the querying of the various statements with the aim of elucidation rather than argumentation.

RESPONDENT: I believe our heretofore good clarifications of words/referents can arrive at an shared understanding of the dynamics of what you are calling apperception which does not depend on any claims of authenticity, but rather elucidates features which become testable against the observations of one’s own experience.

RICHARD: Hmm ... you want to claim the authenticity (and hence the authority) of the ‘third-person’ way of validation but seek to deny me of the authenticity (and hence the authority) of the experiential way of validation.

Yet the subject under discussion – human consciousness – is an experiential matter and not a ‘third-person’ matter. Here is the example you provided to explain what ‘third-person’ means to you (in item No. 2 of your previous e-mail):

• [Respondent:]: ‘... molecules of water are of the third-person; that is, they can exist even if no living creatures exist’.

It is this simple: if no living creatures exist then no human consciousness exists.

RESPONDENT: Sorry for the confusion.

RICHARD: Oh ... there was no confusion: you made it quite clear where you stood (just as you continue to do in this e-mail).

*

RESPONDENT: Thought I’d better add a little more to my reply, so we can get back on track in our discussion. (... ...) You see, appalling as it might at first seem, it has never really mattered to me whether a source of insight came from a sage or a madman, a well-grounded philosopher or a psychotic street musician, a family man or a freak of nature, the poised or the spastic, a man of honesty and integrity or a hypocrite and a plagiarist.

RICHARD: Sure ... I gained useful information from many, many people over many, many years: the most valuable information, however, came from those that put their words into practise (those that spoke from their on-going experience).

For example: a heroin addict might say ‘drugs are detrimental to your well-being’ (and the explanation why from their own situation is useful information) ... but what an ex-heroin addict has to say is valuable information (because such a person knows how to free oneself of the addiction).

The corollary to this example is that maybe 6.0 billion peoples are addicted, as it were, to the human condition – and any one of them may say that it is detrimental to one’s well being and explain why – but the person that is free of the human condition knows how to be free of it.

Otherwise it is a case of the blind leading the blind.

RESPONDENT: Now, establishing the authenticity, integrity, etc. of someone or their claims about themselves doubtless has value and is a very important matter, depending on one’s interests and especially if one aims to guide one’s actions based on their authority or validity. And settling such matters is no small affair and usually involves much investigation and disputation. However, this is no what is of interest to me presently.

RICHARD: Okay ... but there is, however, an easier and more reliable way: I invite anyone to make a critical examination of the words available on The Actual Freedom Web Site so as to ascertain if they be intrinsically self-explanatory ... and if they are all seen to be inherently consistent with what is being spoken about, then the facts speak for themselves.

Then one will have reason to remember a pure conscious experience (PCE), which all peoples I have spoken to at length have had, and thus verify by direct experience the facticity of what is written (which personal experiencing is the only proof worthy of the name).

The PCE occurs globally ... across cultures and down through the ages irregardless of gender, race or age.

RESPONDENT: What does matter to me is this: where a certain act or idea (from whatever source, be it ‘sane’ or ‘insane’) presents in my present state of inquiry as heuristic (an exploratory aid), I explore, discuss, and ply its suggestions and implications, both intended and unintended, until either the source or the act or idea are exhausted or fully flowered. That’s what I’m trying to do with you and your use of ‘apperception’. I’m sure there are many aspects we could unfold.

RICHARD: Aye ... but I would point you to the following link, and the links contained thereon, first:

I have always found that some preliminary research saves a lot of unnecessary repetition.

RESPONDENT: So, with that, perhaps we can return to items 1-3 of my original post of 17 July.

RICHARD: I would prefer to start afresh ... the ‘third-person’ way of validation leads nowhere fruitful in regards to experientially understanding human consciousness.

RESPONDENT: 4) How is it that better than 80% of Americans report positive ‘life satisfaction’ in recent surveys reported by some of the ‘positive psychologists’ (see David Myers ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’, Dr. David Lykken ‘Happiness’ and Martin Seligman ‘Authentic Happiness’) studying things like happiness and life satisfaction – and people all over the world reporting in general relatively positive life satisfaction – yet you still refer to life in the real world as ‘abysmal’ and ‘grim and glum’ and ‘miserable?’

RICHARD: To illustrate what a life of total fulfilment and utter satisfaction looks like I will quote from a book by one of the three ‘positive psychologists’ you refer to:

• ‘One summer day, 40 years ago or so, I was walking along a residential street when an rich, earthy scent wafted my way and triggered, as smells are wont to do, a vivid recollection. Like Dorothy, stepping out of her front door into the Technicolor Land of Oz, I remembered another summer’s day when I was 4 years old, playing in a bank of warm, black dirt in the back yard of my home. I had a little red toy car for which I’d made a road slanting up the face of the dirt bank and, in my recollection, I was ‘driving’ the car up this mountain road while making motor noises. That’s all there was, no real action, yet the memory, in the few seconds before it faded away, was redolent with the smell and feel of the warm dirt, the bright colour of the toy, the hot sun – with simple but intensely pleasurable sensory experience. When I read Aldous Huxley’s account of his mescaline experience, of his feeling that the colours, shapes, and textures of his books on the shelves across the room were as intense an experience as he could bear and that he dared not look outside at the flowers in the garden, I thought of my brief revisitation of my childhood. Presumably this intensity of sensory experience does fade, when it’s work of facilitating perceptual learning is accomplished, because it would be maladaptive in adults. Those ancients who sat around all day entranced by colours, smells, and textures, would have never gotten the venison cooked nor the berries picked; they would have been easy meat for prowling tigers and unlikely to become ancestors’. (Chapter 1, ‘Happiness: The Nature and Nurture of Joy and Contentment’; David Lykken). (www.psych.umn.edu/psyfac/emeritus_sr/Lykken/HapChap%201.htm#_edn3).

In short: life here in this actual world *is* such an intense experience, each moment again, as the intense experience he describes (a PCE lasting a few seconds 40 years ago) yet despite his well-explained (referencing Mr. Aldous Huxley’s account) glimpse of the perfection of the purity of this actual world (as experienced when 4 years old) he opts instead for the ‘life satisfaction’ of positive psychology ... all the while presuming, with spurious justifications, that this life I am living is [quote] ‘maladaptive in adults’ [endquote].

Yet I am neither in gaol nor a psychiatric institution; I can orient myself in space and time and get from point A to point B; I am not easy meat for prowlers; I feed, clothe and house myself, paying all my bills on time; 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 ... all the while [quote] ‘entranced by colours, smells, and textures’ [endquote] to an extent much, much more than a PCE allows (as evidenced by Mr. Aldous Huxley not being able to bear it for example).

Need I say more about what the value of his ‘80% of Americans report ...’ survey is worth?

RICHARD: ... what I am also getting is that you may have overlooked, forgotten, or are not taking into account, what is evident in the PCE. Viz.: [Respondent]: ‘The ‘strongest’ part of the experience probably lasted only about 15 seconds – it seemed like I had been taken into another world, though it was obviously the same world, but yet it was in sharp detail that I hadn’t completely noticed before. And it did have a benevolence about it. I remember feeling a bit overwhelmed by the wonder of it all, which may be what brought the most intense part to an end – but the calm and ‘presentness’ lasted the rest of the evening and a bit into the morning. Right now, I’m somewhere in between, as there is obviously more self left to whittle away at. But it is so wonderful to finally get a taste of what a virtual freedom can be – it’s wonder, it’s ‘certainty’ which needs no prop of certainty. It’s obvious to me now that there is no other way for me to live. In the PCE – fulfilment is in every moment. Absolutely amazing’. (‘Getting The PCE’; 12 May 2002). When I read the words ‘fulfilment is in every moment’ I can only take that as referring to meaning and/or purpose being consummated ... can you recall what you meant by it?

RESPONDENT: As best I can put it is that there was ‘nothing missing’. No need for another moment, another experience – each moment was not deficient or lacking.

RICHARD: Ahh ... that is well put. I often say if I were to drop dead right now that would not be a problem ... there is nothing missing or missed as each moment is utter fulfilment and total satisfaction.

RESPONDENT: But I would also say that there was something of a depression when it’s gone. Initially a sense that I may never have to deal with my pet ‘issues’ ever again – then a reluctance to admit that there is much more uncovering of the ‘self’ to be done.

RICHARD: I do recall that often there was a reluctance to acknowledge that a PCE was wearing off – the reality of the ‘real world’ soon brought about that acknowledgement however – but what stands out in your words is that there was a sense that you may never have to deal with your ‘pet issues’ again ... which is an important point to remember, if ever you are more than somewhat lost in such issues, as it helps to bring one back to one’s senses to remember where the ultimate solution to those issues lies.

RESPONDENT: The questions about meaning came from possibly too literal of an interpretation of what you say about meaning both in your journal and your original response with the confusion of ‘meaning’ with ‘meaning of life’, and less reliance on my own experience. I appreciate your pointer back to my own experience.

RICHARD: You are welcome ... after all it is your own experience which is of vital importance, and not my descriptions and explanations (which can be either inadequate or misconstrued), as you then intimately know for yourself where to go and what to do.

Ain’t life grand!

RESPONDENT: Could you please, in detail, explain how that phrase is supposed to free the entity who is asking it from ‘being’?

RICHARD: Certainly ... so as to save space I will refer you to the following link: .

Suffice is it to say for now, to enable the process to work its magic, is that it is vital to remember a pure consciousness experience (PCE) where one finds oneself walking through a world of veritable delight – the actual world of the senses – whereupon this ambrosial paradise called planet earth, with its sensuous quality of magical perfection and purity, comes alive in a truly wondrous way. Everything and everybody has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, scintillating vitality that makes everything vivid and sparkling ... even the very earth beneath one’s feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper ... literally everything is as if it were alive (a rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are). This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence ... the actualness of everything and everybody.

We do not live in an inert universe.

RESPONDENT: I have now read most things on the site, Peter’s Journal and about 100 pages of Richard’s journal. I was still wondering when an incident happens, of a ‘volatile nature’, how it registers on what remains of ‘Richard or Vineeto’. They say they feel intimacy as opposed to love; sensate bodily feelings as opposed affectations. I just was wondering if any blow-by-blow description existed in either journals or on the site as to what its like when a ‘close’ friend or relative dies; or something of some similar emotive intensity. Since there is no feeling anymore, what is it like?

RICHARD: The following may throw some light upon the matter:

*

RESPONDENT: Maybe what I’m terming a PCE is still filled with a delightful emotive pleasure.

RICHARD: That may very well be the case ... there are two possibilities:

1. That what you are calling a PCE is not a PCE (which is why I asked some clarifying questions in my last e-mail to you in response to your descriptions).
2. That you have already forgotten the purity of the PCE now that it is not happening (you have written recently in another post that [quote] ‘I was noticing what had transpired between my last PCE and a rather downtrodden way I was feeling. Well ‘I’ that being my walking identity came roaring back with a vengeance. Thoughts like, ‘of course ‘I’ am in place. I’m not like an appendix!’ This continued to how there is useful anger and fear, as opposed to overreacting and histrionics’).

The PCE is the litmus test ... not any claims I make (my words are designed to precipitate a PCE in the reader so that they can experience perfection for themselves and thus not have to believe me or be convinced by the sensibility of any description I offer).

RESPONDENT: How many have you taught successfully?

RICHARD: First, I do not teach anyone ... the PCE does that. I am not required for the process of understanding (as in a ‘personality cult’ that can grow around a ‘charismatic leader’) ... <SNIP> ... as far as I have been able to ascertain there is nobody else living an actual freedom from the human condition ...

RESPONDENT: How did you ascertain that?

RICHARD: The same way that I ascertain anything about anybody and everybody ... I ask and I listen. Plus I read about other people’s experiences in books, journals, magazines, newspapers and on the internet. I watch TV, videos, films ... whatever media is available. I have been scouring the books and talking with many and varied peoples from all walks of life for nineteen years now for information on an actual freedom from the human condition ... but to no avail.

RESPONDENT: So you are the only one? You need more than one case to prove your claims.

RICHARD: Not so ... when I go to bed at night I have had a perfect day ... and I know that I will wake up to yet another day of perfection. This has been going on, day-after-day, for years now ... it is so ‘normal’ that I take it for granted that there is only perfection. Such a remarkable consistency of pristine purity is the only proof I need.

RESPONDENT: By the way, it wasn’t a request of proof for you.

RICHARD: Okay ... who was it ‘a request of proof’ for, then, and why? If it was ‘a request of proof’ by you for you ... can you not recall your own PCE’s, your own direct experiencing of actuality at various stages throughout your life? Everybody that I have spoken to at length over the last nineteen years – everybody – has had at least one PCE ... although most people cannot initially remember a PCE and may need a lot of prompting to retrieve it from their memory. An example by a man from Australia:

• ‘I remember walking in the shallow water marvelling at my magical fairy-tale-like surroundings. A vast blue sky overhead with an ever-changing array of wispy white clouds. The sun glistens on the tiny ripples of water washing gently over my feet. The sensual feel of the mud oozing between my toes as they sink into the muddy beach. Huge pelicans glide overhead and I liken them to the jumbo jets of the bird world as they come in to land on the water some distance out. The sun on my skin is warming me through and through, the breeze is ruffling my hair and tingling my forearms, and the water is cooling on my feet. It is so good to be alive, senses bristling as if on stalks and everything is perfect. Absolutely no objections to being here – pure delight! After a while I turn to my partner who is sitting in the shade beneath a wonderfully gnarled and ancient tree on the lake’s edge. There sits a fellow human being to whom I have no ‘relationship’. Any past or future disappears; she and I are simply here together, experiencing these perfect moments. The past five years that I have known her, with all the memories of good and bad times, simply do not exist. It is just delightful that she is here with me, and I do not even have any thoughts of ‘our’ future. In short, everything is perfect, always has been, and always will be. It is an experience of actual freedom where I, as this flesh and blood body only, am able to experience with my physical senses the perfection and purity of the universe, totally free of any psychological or psychic entity within. I am also free of the delusion that this is all the work of some mythical maker to whom I owe gratitude for ‘my’ being here, and there are no heartfelt delusions of grandeur or Oneness. So totally involving is this sensate experience that the feelings and emotions of a ‘self’ or ‘Self’ have no place in the magical paradise of this actual world that is abundantly apparent. I am actually here, in the physical universe and enjoying a direct and unfettered involvement, every moment’. [endquote].

An example from a woman from The Netherlands:

• ‘One of my peak experiences happened on the fore-shore. All of a sudden, unpremeditated, ‘I’ and ‘my’ world-view had disappeared and an immediate intimacy became apparent. Although I had lived in this village before and had grown very fond of it and its residents, there had always been a distance between me and other people, which had to be bridged by temporary feelings of love and affection which were never satisfying for long. Now a shift in seeing had occurred, and looking at the people around me, I noticed that the distance between me and others had miraculously vanished. Not only between me and other people but equally between me and the trees, me and the houses on the boulevard, even between me and the ocean. Nowhere was there a boundary. Another dimension had taken its place, which I initially experienced as a closeness closer than my own heartbeat, yet it was certainly not love for all or oneness with everything. It was another paradigm than the one in which the opposites play their major role ... and to depict it I needed another vocabulary than words like distant and close, separation and oneness. Opposites can only be used when there is a stationary benchmark to judge them by. When ‘I’, the standard from which everything was measured, ceased to be, a pure appraisal of the situation could take place. I saw everybody, including me as-this-body, and everything else, in its own proper place and nothing was wrong in any way. The concept of bonding, belonging and relationship could simply not be applied, not even with my partner, as there was nobody inside to do the relating. This perfect intimacy was everywhere at once, not generated somewhere specific and then diffused to other locations as is the case with love’. [endquote].

Sometimes a PCE is also known as ‘a nature experience’ ... wherein one’s own personal experiencing is likewise the only proof worthy of the name. Being deep in a rain-forest goes some way towards making it all clearer ... or any wilderness, for that matter. As one travels deeper and deeper into this – initially ‘other’ – world of natural delight, one experiences an intensely hushed stillness that is vast and immense ... yet so simply here. I am not referring to a feeling of awe or reverence or great beauty – to have any emotion or passion at all is to miss the actuality of this moment – nor am I referring to any blissful or euphoric state of ‘being’. It is a sensate experience, not an affective state. I am talking about the factual and simple actualness of earthy existence being experienced whilst ambling along or sitting quietly without any particular thought in mind ... yet not being mindless either. And then, when a sparkling intimacy occurs, do not the woods take on a fairy-tale-like quality? Is one not in a paradisiacal environment that envelops yet leaves one free? This is the ambience that I speak of. At this magical moment there is no ‘I’ in the head or ‘me’ in the heart ... there is this apperceptive awareness wherein thought can operate freely without the encumbrance of any feelings whatsoever.

It is not my ambience nor yours ... yet it is here for everyone and anyone for the asking ... for the daring to be here as this body only. One does this by stepping out of the real world into this actual world, as this flesh and blood body, leaving your ‘self’ behind where ‘you’ belong ... because the reality of the real world is an illusion ‘I’ create by ‘my’ very ‘presence’.

This ambience delivers the goods so longed for through aeons.

RESPONDENT: I’ve been reading your web page and mail group for about 8 months. When I was 18 I had an experience on LSD that seems to match your descriptions of PCE’s and also ASC’s. That day I swung from one to the other. After that day I could never stop desiring to return to that space of unspeakable peace and miraculousness (PCE as I understand it) or messianic immortality (ASC as I understand it).

RICHARD: Welcome to The Actual Freedom Mailing List ... here is an example, from a self-healing personal growth book published only recently, which maybe shows how a pure consciousness experience (PCE) can readily turn into being an altered state of consciousness (ASC) when feelings enter the picture:

• ‘I must have been six or seven, and I remembered lying in the grass in front of my house. My mind had become completely immersed in my own private world of grass and dirt and bugs. I examined each blade of grass, noticing the tiny striated segments, and could even see the various cells in each blade. The dirt was emanating a warm humid, earthy smell. The grass was fragrant, and I became ‘riveted’ in my little kingdom. My mind, utterly focussed, came to a complete standstill, and in that moment of absolute stillness it seemed as if time itself stood still. I found myself immersed in a bath of peace. The grass seemed to shimmer with an intense beauty. Everything scintillated and was bursting with life. It seemed as if only a moment had gone by when I heard my mother’s voice calling me in to dinner. As I got up I realised at least an hour must have slipped away as I had somehow ‘dropped into the gap’. My soul had quietly revealed itself to my innocent child-self’. (pages 48-49, ‘The Journey’, ©Brandon Bays 1999; published by Thorsons; ISBN 0 7225 3839 1).

The intense feeling of beauty, in such instances, is what reveals truth (or god/goddess): beauty is the affective substitute for the purity of the perfection of this actual world ... just as love is the affective surrogate for actual intimacy.

RICHARD: I have never made a secret of what my agenda is in writing to this mailing list (peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body) and I have no reservations whatsoever about endeavouring to persuade another to read with both eyes ... but to describe this pastime as ‘pushing a particular set of conclusions’ is to miss the point entirely.

RESPONDENT: I agree that if there is a PCE, for some people the memory itself can be a trigger for the actuality. But that doesn’t seem to be the case for most people.

RICHARD: One of the many things I did, in the years before I went public, was to ascertain whether people from all walks of life could recall having had a pure consciousness experience (PCE) – as distinct from an altered state of consciousness (ASC) – for obvious reasons. Sometimes it took a quite a while for them to remember – once it took over three hours of intensive description/discussion – as being sans any affective content whatsoever the PCE cannot be stored in the affective memory banks (which is where the ASC is primarily located) ... plus they are much more common in childhood and require further reach.

Everybody I spoke to at length – everybody – could recall at least one PCE ... and usually more

RESPONDENT: Some of us find keen awareness of death or the truth of impermanence tends to trigger PCE but again, that does not seem to be so for most others I have talked with, unfortunately.

RICHARD: Mostly PCE’s happen for no demonstrable reason at all – as in being a serendipitous event – and quite often occur in everyday surroundings doing everyday things ... I can recall being on a farmhouse verandah at age eight, looking into the glistening white of a full glass of milk in the early morning sunshine, when it happened for the entity within.

As for ‘impermanence’ ... as the PCE evidences that it is never not this moment then permanence is already always here.

*

RESPONDENT: Moreover, I question whether freedom or happiness is something to seek. The seeking, grasping, desiring mind is painful, is suffering.

RICHARD: Whereas with the PCE as one’s guiding light, as it were, one is drawn deliciously to one’s destiny.

RESPONDENT: It is to be ‘in the way’ rather than on the way.

RICHARD: How I express it is that the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition is marked by enjoyment and appreciation – the sheer delight of being as happy and harmless as is humanly possible whilst remaining a ‘self’ – and that the slightest diminishment of such felicity/ innocuity is a warning signal (a flashing red light as it were) that one has inadvertently wandered off the way.

One is thus soon back on track ... and all because of everyday circumstances.

*

RESPONDENT: If it is the experiencer that makes efforts to be aware and stay aware, the centre is strengthened, not dissolved, right?

RICHARD: Since when has naiveté been sudorific?

RESPONDENT: A PCE means that the centre is momentarily dissolved.

RICHARD: No, a pure consciousness experience (PCE) is when the identity in toto, and not just its centre, is temporarily in abeyance ... so that one is nothing other than a flesh and blood body living life intimately on this verdant and azure paradise.

As one has been all along.

RESPONDENT: In order for that to occur, the illusion of being in time has to stop.

RICHARD: No, in order for a PCE to occur the identity in toto goes into abeyance ... then one is where one has always been: just here right now at this moment in eternal time.

Have you not ever noticed that it is never not this moment?

RESPONDENT: That is why awareness of death or impermanence can be a trigger. Whatever is being experienced now is not ‘going’ anywhere. It is just a mind thing, a movement of thought.

RICHARD: What one is as this flesh and blood body only is this material universe experiencing itself as an apperceptive human being and, as its physical space is infinite, and as its time is eternal, and as its matter is perpetual, then the infinitude which this universe actually is has no beginning and no ending and therefore no middle. As there are no edges to this universe, which means that there is no centre either, one is neither coming from anywhere nor going anywhere for there is nowhere to come from nor anywhere to go to.

By being here as-this-body now one is nowhere in particular – which means one is anywhere at all – and in the infinitude of the universe one finds oneself to be already here and, as it is always now, one cannot ever get away from this place in space and this moment in time anyway. Furthermore, 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: one is always here as it is already now.

RESPONDENT: Psychologically there is no tomorrow. Tomorrow is just a projection and yesterday is just memory.

RICHARD: Aye, the past, although it was actual whilst it was happening, is not actual now; the future, although it will be actual when it happens, is not actual now.

Only this moment is ever actual.

RICK: Richard ... I have a question. How do I induce a PCE?

RICHARD: The most simple (and thus mnemonical) answer to your question is: by allowing it to happen.

RICK: I ask and ask myself how it is I’m experiencing this moment of being alive and still there is no pure consciousness experience. I haven’t had one yet. How can I go about bringing one up?

RICHARD: It takes the felicity and innocuity of naiveté to bring about a PCE: where one is happy and harmless a benevolence and benignity which is not of ‘my’ doing operates of its own accord ... and it is this beneficence and magnanimity which occasions the PCE.

The largesse of the universe (as in the largesse of life itself), in other words.

RICK: Should I try and focus on what my senses are experiencing (i.e. paying attention to colours, noises, smells, textures, and such) and ignore feelings?

RICHARD: As what you are asking is, in effect, whether a PCE can be induced by focussing on sensate experience with a bored, nervous, scared, regretful, and etcetera, attentiveness the answer is: no.

RICK: Because when I ask myself how it is I’m experiencing this moment of being alive, I am always experiencing this moment of being alive through some feeling, usually a strong feeling (i.e. being bored, nervous, scared, regretful, etc.) and so I pay full-attention to my internal state and what’s going on in my psyche and I get all caught up in what’s going on in there so much so that I am not able to ‘live as these senses’.

RICHARD: The essence of the actualism method is to minimise both the ‘good’ feelings – the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) – and the ‘bad’ feelings – the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful) – by nipping them in the bud as soon as, if not before, they start to occur via the explanatory article I copy-pasted for you, in response to your very first e-mail to this mailing list, a little over ten months ago.

This enables one to (initially) feel good, to (then) feel happy and harmless, to (eventually) feel perfect for 99% of the time (a virtual freedom) ... and by thus deactivating both the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ feelings, and therefore activating the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (happiness, delight, joie de vivre, bonhomie and so on), then with this freed-up affective energy maximised, in conjunction with sensuousness (delectation, enjoyment, appreciation, relish, zest, gusto and so on), the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception).

In short: it is the on-going felicitous/ innocuous sensuousness which ensures a win-win situation.

RICK: Thus, I wonder that maybe I should switch my focus from paying attention to my internal state of affairs when asking myself how I’m experiencing this moment of being alive, to exclusively focusing on what is happening externally (sensately).

RICHARD: As what you are wondering is, in effect, whether apperception (unmediated perception) can be brought about by focussing on sensate experience with a bored, nervous, scared, regretful, and etcetera, attentiveness your wonder is entirely misplaced.

RICK: Any thoughts on that approach?

RICHARD: Just this: the more one enjoys and appreciates simply being alive – to the point of excellence being the norm – the greater the likelihood of a PCE happening ... a bored, nervous, scared, regretful, and etcetera, person has no chance whatsoever of allowing the magical event, which indubitably shows where everyone has being going awry, to occur.

It really is as straightforward as that.

RICHARD: ... when I was first catapulted into an actual freedom from the human condition I was astonished to discover that beauty had disappeared (I had trained as an art teacher and had made a living as a practising artist). Howsoever I was to discover that beauty is but a pale imitation of the purity of the actual.

Even so, it was initially disconcerting (to say the least).

RESPONDENT: If I may interject here? By the time you became actually free you had experienced numerous PCE’s, some of which had come while painting and/or listening to music. If I am not mistaken, you had even produced some of your best work when ‘you’ were absent. Why, then, would it be disconcerting, or even surprising, to find yourself experiencing on a permanent basis something which you had experienced many times before and had actively sought to make permanent?

RICHARD: First and foremost: there was absolutely no precedent – the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago did not have the millions of words now available on The Actual Freedom Trust web site to refer to – and, whilst it is true that ‘his’ best work was produced when ‘he’ was absent (and thus beauty played no part at all), when ‘he’ came out of abeyance and reviewed that art ‘he’, of course, automatically imbued it with beauty ... as did the viewers who bought ‘his’ work (reinforcement).

Second, when a pure consciousness experience (PCE) occurs the contrast with what was immediately prior (everyday normality) is so startling, plus there is so much going on (the !Wow! effect), that it never struck ‘him’ afterwards, when ‘he’ came out of abeyance, that there was no beauty in actuality.

Third, although a PCE is so close to what this flesh and blood body experiences 24/7 as to be virtually identical in every respect it must be borne in mind that it is a temporary experience wherein identity is in abeyance and not extinct and thus, by being latent, can cast an ever-so-slight influence upon what is being experienced ... which influence, and once again through lack of precedence, that identity all those years ago was not aware of.

Last, but not least, as the main focus during ‘his’ eleven years of spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment lay in questioning love and compassion, pacifism and appeasement, timelessness, spacelessness and formlessness, immortality and ‘being’ itself, it simply never occurred to ‘him’ to question beauty ... ‘he’ (unknowingly) took the pristine purity of the actual, which beauty is but a pathetic imitation of, to be beauty itself.

RESPONDENT: Also, if I may ask, how did you experience being disconcerted without the affective faculty?

RICHARD: Just because there are no affections whatsoever it does not mean it is not possible to be (mentally) astonished, astounded, surprised, uncertain, baffled, puzzled, perplexed, nonplussed, and so on, on occasion.

Here is an in-context example:

• [Richard]: ‘... in 1992, when the break-through into this actual world occurred, the following thirty months or so were a time of intense brain agitation – neuronal excitation – which I have described before as being ‘mental anguish’ (not to be confused with emotional anguish) so as to convey the intensity of the cognisance that no body in human history had ever lived this up until now. That this disconcerting perplexity was only cerebral was evidenced by no sweaty palms, no increased heartbeat, no rapid breathing, no palpations in the solar plexus ... none of those things connected with ‘being’. If I were to look in a mirror during that period and ask ‘who am I’ there was no answer – not even ‘the silence that speaks louder than words’ that I had been experiencing for eleven years – yet the answer to ‘what am I’ was patently obvious and undeniable ... I am this body.
The cognitive agitation was in determining the validity of uncharted territory – 5,000 years of recorded history and perhaps 50,000 years of oral tradition made no mention of this dimension of human experience – for I was irreversibly plunked fair-square in the midst of either ‘insanity’ (the psychiatric model) or ‘the unknowable’ (the metaphysical model). In the context of metaphysical human experience this condition is only achievable after physical death: the Buddhists call it ‘Parinirvana’ and the Hindus call it ‘Mahasamadhi’.
This was no ‘dark night of the soul’ – which I knew from 1981 when enlightenment happened – this was something else ... beyond either psychiatric or mystic human experience. It was pretty freaky stuff for a mere boy from the farm – who was he to set himself up to be the final arbiter of human experience – and what was I doing in this territory anyway? What had I become? No self or Self (Depersonalisation)? No reality or Reality (Derealisation)? No feeling or Being (Alexithymia)? No beauty or Truth (Anhedonia)? In the context of physical human experience this was a severe mental disorder ... a psychotic condition according to the DSM-IV (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders – fourth edition – the diagnostic criteria used by all Psychiatrists and Psychologists around the world for diagnosing mental disorders). On top of that was the obvious fact that everybody else other than me – especially the revered and respected ‘Great Teachers’ of antiquity – were insane ... which is held to be a classic indication of insanity in itself.
I do consider it so cute that freedom from the human condition is considered a mental disorder’.

RICHARD: ... when I was first catapulted into an actual freedom from the human condition I was astonished to discover that beauty had disappeared (I had trained as an art teacher and had made a living as a practising artist). Howsoever I was to discover that beauty is but a pale imitation of the purity of the actual. Even so, it was initially disconcerting (to say the least).

RESPONDENT No. 106: If I may interject here? By the time you became actually free you had experienced numerous PCE’s, some of which had come while painting and/or listening to music. If I am not mistaken, you had even produced some of your best work when ‘you’ were absent. Why, then, would it be disconcerting, or even surprising, to find yourself experiencing on a permanent basis something which you had experienced many times before and had actively sought to make permanent?

RICHARD: First and foremost: [now snipped]. Second [now snipped]. Third, although a PCE is so close to what this flesh and blood body experiences 24/7 as to be virtually identical in every respect it must be borne in mind that it is a temporary experience, wherein identity is in abeyance and not extinct, and thus by being latent can cast an ever-so-slight influence upon what is being experienced ... which influence, and once again through lack of precedence, that identity all those years ago was not aware of.

RESPONDENT: Richard, from dictionary.com: ‘abeyance: the condition of being temporarily set aside; suspension’. [endquote]. From the AF Library section on PCE: ‘This is knowing by direct experience, unmoderated by any ‘self’ whatsoever’. [endquote]. I find it surprising that now you report that the identity does have an ‘ever so slight influence’ even in a PCE.

RICHARD: I did not say it [quote] ‘does’ [endquote] have an ever-so-slight influence ... I specifically said that, by being thus latent, and not extinct, it *can* cast an ever-so-slight influence upon what is being experienced. Viz.:

• ‘can: may possibly ...’. (Oxford Dictionary).

Maybe it would have been more clear to have added the qualifier ‘on occasion’. For example:

• [example only]: ‘... it must be borne in mind that a PCE is a temporary experience, wherein identity is in abeyance and not extinct, and thus by being latent can, on occasion, cast an ever-so-slight influence upon what is being experienced ...’. [end example].

RESPONDENT: I am only too happy to re-phrase: If the identity can exert an ever-so-slight influence upon what is being experienced even in a PCE (and this ‘can’ can become ‘does’ on occasion), then *on that occasion* when it actually does so, the PCE is no longer pure.

RICHARD: If I may point out? The words [quote] ‘even in a PCE’ [endquote] are your words and not mine.

RESPONDENT: Either it is a PCE un-contaminated by an identity, be it in an ever-so-slight degree or to any degree, or it is not.

RICHARD: Aye ... unless identity is in total abeyance it is not a PCE.

RESPONDENT: It is double-talk to say that the identity is in abeyance but still it *can* (or *does on occasion*) have an ever-so-slight influence in a PCE.

RICHARD: It would indeed be double-talk to say that identity is in abeyance but can, on occasion, have an ever-so-slight influence [quote] ‘in a PCE’ [endquote].

*

RESPONDENT: Well the question then is: Is the identity in total abeyance or not in a PCE?

RICHARD: Unless identity is in total abeyance it is not a PCE but an ASC ... for instance:

• [Richard]: ‘Often people who do not read what I have to say with both eyes gain the impression that I am suggesting that people are to stop feeling ... which I am not. My whole point is to cease ‘being’ – psychologically and psychically self-immolate – which means that the entire psyche itself is extirpated. That is, the biological instinctual package handed out by blind nature is deleted like a computer software programme (but with no ‘Recycle Bin’ to retrieve it from) so that the affective faculty is no more. Then – and only then – are there no feelings ... as in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) where, with the self in abeyance, the feelings play no part at all. However, in a PCE the feelings – passion and calenture – can come rushing in, if one is not alert, *resulting in the PCE devolving into an altered state of consciousness (ASC)* ... complete with a super-self. Indeed, this demonstrates that it is impossible for there to be no feelings whilst there is a self – in this case a Self – thus it is the ‘being’ that has to go first ... not the feelings’. [emphasis added].

Here is another:

• [Richard]: ‘If the experience is ‘perhaps tinged’ with an affective element then it is not, or is no longer, a pure experience. Indisputably the PCE has no ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul – no affective element whatsoever – as a PCE is a pure consciousness experience’.

RESPONDENT: Well the question then is: Is the identity in total abeyance or not in a PCE?

RICHARD: Unless identity is in total abeyance it is not a PCE but an ASC ...

RESPONDENT: Ok, so it would not be a PCE be when the identity is in abeyance but is exerting an ever-so-slight influence on the experience. Correct?

RICHARD: Where identity is casting an ever-so-slight influence upon what is being experienced it is not, or is no longer, a PCE.

RESPONDENT: If correct, then please clarify in what way (other than the obvious one of being temporary) is experiencing a PCE, in which the identity is in total abeyance, and not having even an ever-so-slight influence, different from actual freedom?

RICHARD: The very fact that identity is in abeyance – a ‘dormant condition liable to revival’ (Oxford Dictionary) – during a PCE, and not extinct, renders it a potentially unstable condition, liable to degradation and/or dissolution at any moment, and bound to eventually cease happening anyway ... as such it can in no way be said to be identical in every respect, to an actual freedom from the human condition, but only virtually so.

Furthermore, being potentially unstable a PCE is, by that very factor, subject to variation and fluctuation (wherein it momentarily ceases to be a PCE) from time-to-time.

Moreover, the comprehension that it is, after all, a temporary condition casts a (barely perceptible) pall over the experience.

RESPONDENT: Is it that one has to be on guard not to let passion and calenture (or any other affective feelings) take over?

RICHARD: All it takes is the habitual attentiveness engendered by being aware of how this moment of being alive is experienced – and that awareness is the very enjoyment and appreciation of being alive at this moment (the only moment of ever being alive) – inasmuch any diminishment of the quality of that experiencing is patently obvious (simply by virtue of a lessening of that enjoyment and appreciation).

RESPONDENT: Would you say such alertness is effortless?

RICHARD: No, the alertness of being on guard implies effort ... whereas enjoyment and appreciation is a breeze.

*

RESPONDENT: And your last sentence above is confusing: An identity is not ‘aware’. It is a merely a poisoning facade over unmediated perception.

RICHARD: I am using the word ‘aware’ in the following sense:

• ‘aware: conscious of, informed of, familiar with, sensitive to; inf. clued up on, in the know’. (Oxford Dictionary).

Thus the latter part of that last sentence could have been written like this:

• [example only]: ‘... which influence, and once again through lack of precedence, that identity all those years ago was not conscious of’. [end example].

Or:

• [example only]: ‘... which influence, and once again through lack of precedence, that identity all those years ago was not informed of’. [end example].

Or:

• [example only]: ‘... which influence, and once again through lack of precedence, that identity all those years ago was not familiar with’. [end example].

Or:

• [example only]: ‘... which influence, and once again through lack of precedence, that identity all those years ago was not sensitive to’. [end example].

Or:

• [example only]: ‘... which influence, and once again through lack of precedence, that identity all those years ago was not clued up on’. [end example].

Or:

• [example only]: ‘... which influence, and once again through lack of precedence, that identity all those years ago was not in the know about’. [end example].

I will take this opportunity to add that an as-fully-informed-as-possible identity is vital to the whole process as only an identity, and no-one else, can set its host free. For instance:

• [Richard]: ‘... you have a vital role to play, not only in regards peace-on-earth, in this lifetime as that flesh and blood body, but in enabling the already always existing meaning of life (or ‘the purpose of the universe’ or ‘the reason for existence’ or however one’s quest may be described) into becoming apparent.
In short: your freedom, or lack thereof, is in your hands and your hands alone’. 

Another way of putting it is that identity has a job to do. Viz.:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Is it correct to say that ‘I’ am in abeyance during the PCE?
• [Richard]: ‘That was the word that occurred to me to describe the experience ... ‘suspended’, maybe (as in ‘the operation has been suspended until further notice’)?
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Or is it more accurate to say that ‘I’ have vacated the scene completely and totally?
• [Richard]: ‘Oh, yes, there is a marked absence of ‘me’ during the experience ... perhaps it is more correct to say that it is after the experience, when ‘I’ reappear, that in hindsight it becomes obvious that ‘I’ was in abeyance?
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘What causes ‘me’ to return?
• [Richard]: ‘Because *‘I’ have a job to do*: ‘I’ am going to make the most noble sacrifice that ‘I’ can make for this body and that body and every body ... for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is ‘my’ moment of glory. It is ‘my’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘my’ petty life all worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... to physically die without having experienced what it is like to become dead is such a waste of a life’.

RESPONDENT: And also, do you mean to say that in a PCE, an identity is still there to take stock of the experience, to compare it with others (‘and once again through lack of precedence, that identity all those years ago was not aware of.’).

RICHARD: No, I do not mean that at all ... I meant it in the same way as is clearly expressed in both my ‘First and foremost ...’ section and my ‘Second ...’ section. Viz.:

• [Richard]: ‘First and foremost (...) whilst it is true that ‘his’ best work was produced when ‘he’ was absent (and thus beauty played no part at all), *when ‘he’ came out of abeyance and reviewed that art* ‘he’, of course, automatically imbued it with beauty ...’ [emphasis added].

And:

• [Richard]: ‘Second (...) it never struck ‘him’ afterwards, *when ‘he’ came out of abeyance*, that there was no beauty in actuality’. [emphasis added].

Having thus already written in that qualifier twice before it did not seem necessary to repeat it a third time.

SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE ON PURE CONSCIOUSNESS EXPERIENCES (Part Four)

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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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