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Richard’s Selected Correspondence On Spirit
RESPONDENT: I am not an adherent of the doctrine that knowledge is derived from the action of the intellect or pure reason. I am not an intellectualist. RICHARD: Okay ... and are you not an intellectualist in the same way that you are not a spiritualist? RESPONDENT: I don’t understand your question. What do you mean with ‘in the same way’? RICHARD: In the same way that you are not a spiritualist even though the prevailing theme, of 215 e-mails you wrote over the 36 days (31/03/2005- 6/05/2005) you were writing to this list, was about [quote] ‘genuine spirituality’ [endquote] ... for instance:
RESPONDENT: I am simply not a spiritualist. RICHARD: Perhaps, then, what you simply are might be better served by you not writing such things as the following (as it all-too-easily conveys the impression that you are):
RESPONDENT: I am not evoking spirits ... RICHARD: I am not referring to spiritism – ‘the belief that the spirits of the dead can communicate with the living, esp. through a medium; the practice of this belief’ (Oxford Dictionary) – but to spiritualism ... here is an example of the way I mean the word ‘spiritualist’:
Plus here is an example of the way I mean the word ‘spiritual’:
And here is one example of what the word ‘spirit’ means to you:
RESPONDENT: ... nor do I adhere to Eastern belief systems (karma, reincarnation, etc.). RICHARD: Obviously I cannot comment on an etcetera ... here is an instance of what you do believe:
RESPONDENT: I am just a simple man trying to make my way through life. RICHARD: Sure ... do you now understand what I mean with ‘in the same way’ in my question [quote]
‘and are you not an intellectualist in the same way that you are not a spiritualist’ [endquote]? RESPONDENT: Reading the link you gave me, I still think that you are mixing dodgy Spiritual claims with descriptions of freedom (or actual freedom if you prefer) into one category and dismissing them all. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. RICHARD: If I were to use your analogy then this is the ‘baby’ that got thrown out:
In other words all spiritual claims are ‘dodgy’ as there is no ‘spirit’ or ‘presence’ or ‘being’ (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is ‘being’ itself) in actuality ... there are no gods or goddesses of any description in this actual world. It is all so peaceful here. RESPONDENT: I have been captivated with the meaning of life, reality, the universe, God/ Man etc., for as long as I can remember. I find that not everyone, by a long shot, has this particular passion – if I may use that term – and it is enjoyable to find others who do. It is doubly enjoyable to run across someone who seems to have resolved the great matter/ spirit split. RICHARD: Yes ... but resolving the split through dissolving the ‘spirit’ (an active dissolution of ‘being’), though. Most people attempt to resolve ‘the great matter/ spirit split’ from within the human condition: either cognitively (philosophy and psychology) or affectively (spirituality and mysticality). Thus the ‘Tried and True’ is the ‘tried and failed’. RESPONDENT: I find the notion that this material world is somehow unreal, and there is a separate world of spirit that is somehow more real, to be silly, to say the least. RICHARD: To say the least ... yes. The key to understanding this tendency is to be found in the psychiatric phenomenon of ‘dissociation’ ... as is evidenced in severely traumatised patients. RESPONDENT: Like you, I haven’t come to these conclusions because I’ve never believed in the other plane of existence theory, it’s just the for some reason I don’t settle very easily. I’m not a very good believer, I am afraid. And when some concept is seen through, well, it’s just seen through. RICHARD: One cannot start believing in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy once again, eh? * RESPONDENT: Re: the matter/ spirit split. You say, ‘yes, but resolving the split through dissolving the spirit (an active dissolution of being)’. I would counter that both matter and spirit as they were understood while split are dissolved. RICHARD: Hmm ... I also wrote: ‘most people attempt to resolve ‘the great matter/ spirit split’ from within the human condition: either cognitively (philosophy and psychology) or affectively (spirituality and mysticality)’. By this I indicated that peoples attempt to integrate matter and spirit (either cognitively through mental understanding or affectively through feeling recognition). My experience (which is where all my description/ understanding is drawn from) is that ‘spirit’ goes whilst ‘matter’ (this flesh and blood body) is alive. And also, research has shown me that, despite peoples best efforts, there is no 100% successful ‘healing’ of the matter/ spirit split. Thus traditionally, for the spiritualists, the matter/ spirit split is resolved at physical death when ‘matter’ (the body) goes ... and ‘spirit’ lives on in the Timeless and Spaceless and Formless void. And for the materialist, both ‘spirit’ and ‘matter’ goes at physical death. Which is why the spiritualist usually triumphs, in those materialist/ spiritualist debates on TV or the Internet as the spiritualist can ascribe meaning to life (drawn from value ascribed to the quality of the after-death state) while the materialist cannot (hence the Existentialist Philosophers’ twentieth century dilemma of knowingly creating value ex nihilo). RESPONDENT: I have noticed that you apply many of the traditional attributes of spirit to matter: infinite, eternal, benevolent, benign, even, I believe, intelligent in a non-anthropomorphic way. RICHARD: Not ‘applying’, no ... these ‘attributes’ are actually properties (infinite and eternal) and qualities (immaculate and consummate) and values (benevolent and benign) and are my direct experience, each moment again, and those words are my description of what is actually happening (properties plus qualities equals values). It is that peoples for millennia have been ‘stealing’ the properties and qualities and values of this physical universe and attributing them to their particular metaphysical fantasy (whichever god or goddess that is the ‘flavour of the month’) ... and anthropocentrically adding a few (power-based) properties and qualities and values while they at it in order to make him/ her into a supreme being. I am simply bringing those properties and qualities and values back where they have belonged all along ... to this infinite and eternal universe (stripping the power-based extraneities along the way). But the universe itself is not intelligent (even in a ‘non-anthropomorphic way’) ... this universe, being infinite and eternal, is much, much more than merely intelligent. Intelligence, which is the ability to think, reflect, compare, evaluate and implement considered action for benevolent reasons, cannot comprehend infinity and eternity (as infinitude has no opposite there is none of the cause and effect relationship which is what intelligence needs in order to operate). Only apperceptive awareness can perceive and/or apprehend infinitude (thus I am this universe experiencing its own infinitude apperceptively). And, as a human being, I am this universe experiencing itself intelligently (just as the universe experiences itself as a cat or a dog or whatever: as a cat, this universe experiences itself miaowing and as a dog this universe experiences itself barking and so on). Thus this universe is not consciousness per se (nor capital ‘C’ Consciousness). RESPONDENT: If you take away that which perpetuates the split (everything that is mutually exclusive, which can only be ascribed to either spirit or matter), then everything is present here and now. I am not trying to make a theist out of you by this statement. But, I also understand that you are not a nihilistic, an existentialist. RICHARD: What I experience is neither ‘existentialistic’ (materialism) To be actualistic is to be living the infinitude of this fairy-tale-like actual world with its sensuous quality of magical perfection and purity: where everything and everyone has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, wondrous, scintillating vitality that makes everything alive 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 everyone. We do not live in an inert universe ... but one cannot experience this whilst clinging to immortality. I am mortal. RESPONDENT: For example, it is even a bit funny, but some time ago I became fascinated with some elusive bluish ‘aura’ about my hands. (I always wanted to see my aura because it was a measure of spiritual development, I thought. As is to develop strong, mesmerising ‘energy’). I felt very special until, after some time, I discovered that it is simply an optical illusion due to the fact that my skin is yellowish and the opposite colour of yellow in the spectrum is blue. An eye gets tired staring at an object and creates the illusion of the opposite colour just around any yellowish object! So much for my high spiritual advancement and aura seeing! RICHARD: Any spiritual advancement – with its associated manifestations of eldritch phenomenon –
are also a product of the psyche. But not all uncanny materialisations necessarily produces a change in consciousness but does
indicate that something is happening, something is stirring, deep down in one’s psyche. I had many bizarre things happen –
electrical bolts of lightning dazzling on my eyeballs; pressure-pains in the base of my neck; surges of power travelling up my
spine and up over the back and the top of my head down to the forehead; exalted states of consciousness; convulsive twitching of
limbs; energy surges from the pit of my stomach up through my diaphragm into the chest cavity through to the throat producing
intense nausea ... many, many weird things. None of them are important in themselves (some people get caught up in them and
manifest psychic powers, thus never proceeding to the final goal), what is important that one takes them as a sign that a process
is underway ... and to rev up the process with one’s active consent. The mark of success is to be willing to do whatever it
takes, to proceed with all dispatch, employing much vim and vigour ... and have a lot of fun along the way. RESPONDENT: There are no such God images here. RICHARD: We have been down this path before, you and I, and your denial rings as hollow now as then. And you have protested so, not only to me but to other posters. May I re-post an exchange you had with another poster last year wherein you describe your god (‘the other’) as being the ‘sacred’ that ‘calls to or silently contacts the ever-changing body/ brain – the human being’? Viz.:
In other posts you have described ‘the other’ as being ‘Intelligence’ and it, too,
being ‘not touched by thought’ is also ‘sacred’. I can re-post them if it would help with an honest and
sincere discussion? RESPONDENT No. 20: Can I suggest to you my read on this: Krishnamurti the man’ is Krishnamurti who is memory, who was and is conditioned, who is thinking, and has this and this to say and has said, and all the rest of it. This otherness is what is there when there is not this conditioning. It is the intelligence that is free of conditioning, and therefore by definition not Krishnamurti What do you think? RESPONDENT: Don’t know. Know only what he said. He said he had ‘visitors’ (loosely stated). I take this to mean spirits. RICHARD: ‘Spirits’ is as good a word as any ... Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti would say that ‘They’ would ‘work on him’ whilst he was ‘away from the body’. Two women would be under strict instructions to ‘stay with the body while he was being worked on’. By ‘worked on’ he meant ‘purified’ ... and in another dimension. All very esoteric and metaphysical stuff indeed ... in the full mystical sense of the words. RESPONDENT: He also said he was free of conflict and unconditioned, so much so that he had to make himself remember to eat. RICHARD: Yes, he was very specific and clear about his state of being. Besides, if he was not living the ‘Teachings’ himself, who was he to preach to others? Unless he was channelling ... which is how modern day ‘seers’ get out of that dilemma. My position is – of course – that the ‘Teachings’ are unliveable ... and have been for century upon century. The ‘Tried and True’ is the ‘Tried and Failed’. RESPONDENT: He also said that the other came ‘uninvited’. I guess it’s not really important, for only he could know whether ‘something else’ was in him or not, and then he said he couldn’t know ‘what it was’, but that others (close to him) might figure it out if they put their minds to it. RICHARD: Except that if one brings the written words of those ‘close to him’ into a discussion on this List, one gets howled down. Speaking personally, I consider it is all of the utmost importance ... given that he has influenced so many people into thinking in a certain way (and still does so even today). RESPONDENT: So if he didn’t know, and we don’t know, I don’t guess anybody will ever know, except maybe for the ‘intelligence’. How’s that for knowing ‘not’? RICHARD: In Australia there is an apt expression: ‘squibbing’ ... which comes from the poor results experienced in a firecracker in which the powder burns with a fizz. Basically it means that the person so named is not applying themselves to the question or task at hand – deliberately – so as to not rock the boat. Would you say that that is a fair description of ‘how’s that for knowing ‘not’?’ RESPONDENT No. 12: It is the claim that ‘the universe is experiencing itself as this flesh and blood body’ that smacks of self-aggrandisement. RICHARD: In what way? I make no claim to be ‘everything’ (aka ‘the otherness which is sacred, holy’). I
am this flesh and blood body; I was born, I live for x-number of years, I die ... and death is the end, finish. Oblivion. I am mortal ... it is
this universe which is immortal. RESPONDENT: There is a spirit that lives on after death that can effect actual events here on Earth. RICHARD: I have no use for such a hypothesis. RESPONDENT: Perhaps this spirit that lives on, lives in the cells that are passed from one generation to another and that accumulation of energy can effect events – I don’t know. RICHARD: What is passed on in the germ cells is deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), a self-replicating material in the chromosomes of living organisms, and is the carrier of genetic information ... this certainly affects events. RESPONDENT: When the flesh and blood body dies, does not that energy, which is never dying, revert to that from whence it came? RICHARD: As it is your hypothesis ... I will leave it to you to answer. RESPONDENT: In that sense, can the atoms and energy that are you now, and the stuff of which the universe is made, ever really be extinct? RICHARD: What I am is the air breathed, the water drunk, the food eaten and the sunlight absorbed ... thus I am nothing but ‘the stuff of which the universe is made’ (matter). The matter of the universe is both actual things (solid stuff) and active force (energetic stuff). The immeasurable amount of ‘stuff of the universe’ (either in its solid aspect or energetic phase) is perpetually arranging and rearranging itself in endless varieties of myriad form all over the boundless reaches of infinite space throughout the limitless extent of eternal time. This universe, being boundless and limitless (never beginning and never ending) is unborn and undying ... as I remarked (further above): it is this universe which is immortal. RESPONDENT: I watched a TV show about the origins of the humanoid. Scientists are saying that they can trace the origins of our being to a single female who lived in Africa over 3 million years ago. Do we not all have her living atoms in our bodies? RICHARD: All human beings stem from common ancestors ... archaeology and palaeontology is already pushing discovery of beginnings further back than the example you give here. I am following with interest the recent investigations into the life-forms in and around deep undersea volcanic vents and two miles deep in mine shafts ... they do not require photo-synthesis as does all other life-forms but are the result of chemo-synthesis. These are very early days in such research and speculation has it that this may be the origin of life ... self-generated out of the very bowels of the earth itself. RESPONDENT: And where did her atoms come from? The universe? RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: ‘I’ as an ego can die, but are not these living cells what we mean by ‘soul’? RICHARD: Living cells are not what I refer to when I say or write ‘‘me’ as soul’ ... I am referring to precisely what the religious, the spiritual, the mystical peoples are pointing to. RESPONDENT: I realize that your arguments make you an atheist which makes you all knowing – knowing that there is no ‘otherness’. RICHARD: It is my direct experience which produces atheism ... my ‘arguments’ are a story put together after the event, as it were, so as to describe my experience to my fellow human beings using their lingo. RESPONDENT: Who made you God to know it all? RICHARD: As it is your hypothesis ... I will leave it to you to answer. However, I am on record as oft-times saying that I am not an expert on everything – only on a freedom from the human condition – and any other knowledge that I have is what I call ‘encyclopaedic’ ... whatever is just enough information gleaned from other people’s explorations for me to get by on. RESPONDENT: That seems rather strange for a person whose belief in atheism holds that there is no ‘all knowing God’. RICHARD: But I have no ‘belief’ in atheism ... atheism is what is just here right now when one does not believe in gods and goddesses. Here is a useful working definition of what is actual (useful for a fledgling ex-believer): That which is actual is that which remains when one stops believing in it. RESPONDENT No. 27 (to Peter): By the way, my recent conversation with Richard regarding ‘spiritual’ has cleared up much of the misunderstanding I have had regarding your statement that Richard is (was) the only atheist on the planet. What I see now is that you have not only applied the word ‘spiritual’ to religious belief, but also to ‘being’ itself. In other words, to ‘be’ is to be ‘spiritual.’ Personally, I think that usage is ripe for misunderstanding. From here, it would seem better to apply the word ‘spiritual’ to ‘spiritual’ belief as in religious belief and practice, etc. then possibly ‘metaphysical’ (or some other word?) could cover better what it means to simply be a ‘being.’ RESPONDENT: I’d second this. It takes some time for a newcomer to really understand the implications of ‘beinglessness’. I don’t think it is the kind of thing that can sink in immediately. In the interim, while people are trying to come to terms with the startling novelty of this aspect of actualism, it is confusing for people to find themselves described as spiritualists, or to hear their views described as ‘spiritual’ beliefs when, in real world terms, they are not spiritual at all. RICHARD: Here is the passage which your co-respondent asked me (twice) to respond to a line extracted from it ... with the extracted quote highlighted in bold:
As you have replied as if Peter had said ‘spiritual beliefs’ – and not ‘spiritual outlook’ (and ‘spiritual viewpoint’) – you are really conducting what is known as a ‘straw man argument’ (wherein something someone never said is critiqued as if it were what they actually said). Here is the critical part of my response/ explanation mentioned further above:
And again just recently:
* RESPONDENT No. 27: Of course, this is all new territory, so actualists are free to adapt or create whatever vocabulary they please. RESPONDENT: Sure, but if the intent is to communicate clearly with the ‘real world’, why invite these misunderstandings? Personally, I was very nearly driven away by this issue. It seemed to me that actualists could not distinguish between the metaphysicality of God and the metaphysicality of Euclid’s Elements. RICHARD: I copy-pasted the phrase <Euclid’s Elements> into this computer’s search engine and sent it through every e-mail you have posted to this mailing list ... only to return nil hits; a search for <Euclid> similarly drew a blank. If you could provide the relevant passage it would be most appreciated. RESPONDENT: And when they suggested I had ‘spiritual’ beliefs, it seemed very much a case of them being crazy and/or stupid. RICHARD: I see that you have just recently written the following:
As you will be cognisant by now the ‘certain way of using the word ‘spiritual’’ which (supposedly) invites misunderstanding is ‘of, pertaining to, or affecting the spirit or soul’ (Oxford Dictionary) which, when used in conjunction with the word ‘outlook’ (or ‘viewpoint’), looks something like this:
As the word ‘soul’ has both a spiritualistic and materialistic meaning in the Oxford Dictionary it was the word I chose to use when I first went public as the main difference between those two meanings is materialists maintain that such an emotional/ passional/ intuitive self (sometimes referred to as one’s spirit) dies with the body and spiritualists maintain it does not ... a distinction which somebody relatively new to this mailing list had no difficulty comprehending a few weeks ago when this fact was elucidated. Viz.:
Incidentally, as you state that you have nothing more to say on this subject there is no need to respond to this e-mail. * RESPONDENT (to No 27): ... it is confusing for people to find themselves described as spiritualists, or to hear their views described as ‘spiritual’ beliefs when, in real world terms, they are not spiritual at all. RICHARD: Here is the passage which your co-respondent asked me (twice) to respond to a line extracted from it ... with the extracted quote highlighted in bold:
As you have replied as if Peter had said ‘spiritual beliefs’ – and not ‘spiritual outlook’ (and ‘spiritual viewpoint’) – you are really conducting what is known as a ‘straw man argument’ (wherein something someone never said is critiqued as if it were what they actually said). RESPONDENT: The main point I have been driving at all along is this: outside actualist circles, the feeling of being someone is not regarded as having a spiritual belief/ outlook/ viewpoint. RICHARD: If I may point out? This is the first time you have even mentioned the word ‘outlook’ (or ‘viewpoint’) in this exchange ... let alone what you do not regard it as being. Moreover, you are further compounding the problem you have created by now lumping ‘belief’ and ‘outlook’ together (along with ‘viewpoint’) as I have already explained what Peter is not saying in an earlier e-mail. Viz.:
This may be an apt moment to remind you of something I often warn about:
Has it never occurred to you how come Richard, a reasonably intelligent and well-read person with a tertiary education – and agnostic if not atheistic from early childhood into the bargain – could inadvertently become enlightened along the way to an actual freedom from the human condition? Here is a clue:
Put briefly: I was staggered as to how deep the Judaic/ Christian environment I was raised in was embedded ... to the point that I then realised that humanism was the secular religion, so to speak, that British/ European Colonialism had foisted onto the world at large (via countries like the USA for instance) as it underpins the UN Charter and the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Breaking free from the tenacious grip of their humanitarian principles was difficult to say the least. RESPONDENT: To describe the feeling of being someone as ‘spiritual’ is to invite unnecessary confusion. RICHARD: Just what is unnecessarily confusing about describing the feeling of ‘being’ as generating an outlook on life ‘of, pertaining to, or affecting the spirit or soul’ (Oxford Dictionary)? RESPONDENT: (There is plenty of empirical evidence to suggest that this is the case). RICHARD: As this is the first time this issue has ever cropped up since publishing the website in 1997 this is news to me ... which could very well be because Peter makes quite clear the association between the adjective ‘spiritual’ and the noun ‘spirit’ it is descriptive of (even to the point of many times hyphenating the word). Viz.:
RESPONDENT: As this observation/ opinion is not specific to spiritual belief (as opposed to viewpoint and/or outlook), it is not a straw man. RICHARD: As this is the first time you have acknowledged, albeit in a circuitous manner, that the glossary entry in question was not about spiritual belief, but about a spiritual outlook on life (and, by extension, a spiritual viewpoint permeating various disciplines) I do look askance at your asserverance. * RICHARD: Here is the critical part of my response/ explanation mentioned further above:
RESPONDENT: *Metaphysical* in outlook. [emphasis added] ;-) RICHARD: I had figured, as this was such an important issue for you (inasmuch you would have Peter choke on the shards
of those front teeth of his you would like to break Nevertheless ... here is the sequence (with the above extract highlighted in bold):
Do you see, this time around, that I specifically mentioned I was using the synonym my co-respondent had said was [quote] ‘more likely’ [endquote] the way Peter was using the word ‘spiritual’ (even though he was not specifically doing so) so as to shed some more light on the topic of atheistic and/or materialistic physicists and/or mathematicians and their cosmogonical and/or cosmological theories in a previous (and unfinished) thread? I deliberately phrased it that way as a lead-in for a much-needed discussion on what the word ‘metaphysical’ can mean and the implications thereof: in short it is the non-theistic spiritual outlook, generated by the instinctive/ intuitive spirit/ soul, which occasions atheistic and/or materialistic physicists and/or mathematicians to postulate metaphysical cosmogonies/ cosmologies ... when all the while this actual universe is out-in-the-open with no uncaused/ uncreated source/ underlying reality at all. To apprehend this latter point the atheistic and/or materialistic physicists and/or mathematicians would, of course, have to be out-in-the-open as well ... but that is a matter of them coming to their senses (both literally and metaphorically). * RICHARD: And again just recently:
RESPONDENT: You say it does not matter. RICHARD: No, I say that, even though it does not really matter in the long run, Peter’s usage of the word ‘spiritual’ is more direct and to the point. RESPONDENT: I think it does matter if you are interested in sparing people unnecessary confusion when they begin to investigate actualism. RICHARD: What I am interested in is explicating why human beings project metaphysical realities and/or metaphysical beings onto and/or existing prior to the universe ... and Peter’s usage of the word ‘spiritual’ is direct and to this very point. RESPONDENT: Metaphysics and spirituality are by no means equivalent. RICHARD: I never said they were ... I specifically said that metaphysics – ‘a division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality and being and that includes ontology, cosmology, and often epistemology’ (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) – has been spiritual from the very beginning (per favour Mr. Parmenides, of the Eleatic School in the Greek colony of Elea in southern Italy in the fifth century BCE, who held that the only true reality is Eon ... pure, eternal, immutable, and indestructible Being, without any other qualification). RESPONDENT: Euclidean geometry, for instance, is entirely metaphysical – but few people would describe it as ‘spiritual’. RICHARD: Surely you are not suggesting that Peter should have written that he was amazed to discover that everyone – and he does mean everyone – has a metaphysical outlook on life such as to be found, for instance, in Euclidean geometry? Quite frankly what you are trying to do just does not make sense to me ... to try and tell Peter what he should have been amazed about, back when he was leaving the spiritual world and beginning to really investigate what others had to say about the human condition, and what permeates philosophy, science, medicine, education, psychology, law, and so on, is but an exercise in futility.. RESPONDENT: As a matter of interest, would you [describe Euclidean geometry, for instance, as ‘spiritual’]? I doubt it, but you do tend to surprise me sometimes. RICHARD: Of course not ... and, being a particular system of a branch of mathematics which deals with the properties and relations of magnitudes, as lines, surfaces and solids in space, it barely even qualifies for the title ‘metaphysics’. But, then again, I am not a geometrician. * RESPONDENT: ... It seemed to me that actualists could not distinguish between the metaphysicality of God and the metaphysicality of Euclid’s Elements. RICHARD: I copy-pasted the phrase <Euclid’s Elements> into this computer’s search engine and sent it through every e-mail you have posted to this mailing list ... only to return nil hits; a search for <Euclid> similarly drew a blank. If you could provide the relevant passage it would be most appreciated. RESPONDENT: Righto. I haven’t specifically mentioned Euclid before ... RICHARD: Then why say it seems to you that actualists cannot make such a distinction? I do understand that the word ‘metaphysical’ can mean ‘highly abstract or abstruse; also theoretical’ (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). For example:
RESPONDENT: ... but I have on numerous occasions raised the difference between ‘metaphysical’ and ‘supernatural’. RICHARD: I copy-pasted the word <supernatural> into this computer’s search engine and sent it through every e-mail you have posted to this mailing list and have been unable to locate those numerous occasions you refer to (where you say you raised the difference between ‘metaphysical’ and ‘supernatural’). If you could provide the relevant passages it would be most appreciated. RESPONDENT: I think Euclidean geometry is one good example of the usefulness of drawing a distinction between metaphysical and spiritual (because ‘spiritual’ connotes ‘supernatural’, whereas ‘metaphysical’ does not (necessarily)). RICHARD: As this – ‘‘spiritual’ connotes ‘supernatural’’ – is a red-herring (when I specifically gave the ‘of, pertaining to, or affecting the spirit or soul’ definition in the part of this e-mail you said you trimmed for brevity) I will pass without any further comment other than adding that the trimmed part could well do with a re-read. * [trimmed for brevity] RICHARD: As the word ‘soul’ has both a spiritualistic and materialistic meaning in the Oxford Dictionary it was the word I chose to use when I first went public as the main difference between those two meanings is materialists maintain that such an emotional/ passional/ intuitive self (sometimes referred to as one’s spirit) dies with the body and spiritualists maintain it does not ... a distinction which somebody relatively new to this mailing list had no difficulty comprehending a few weeks ago when this fact was elucidated. Viz.: (snip quote containing definition). RESPONDENT: I also have no difficulty comprehending this distinction. RICHARD: Good ... the difficulty you seem to be having appears to lie in applying the distinction, eh? RESPONDENT: As I was speaking about the potential confusion surrounding the word ‘spiritual’, not the meaning of the word ‘soul’, your observation is – according to your definition above – a straw man. Addendum: Sorry, that’s wrong, it isn’t a straw man. The dictionary definition of ‘spirit’ includes the word ‘soul’, and the word ‘soul’ has a non-supernatural meaning as well as a supernatural one. Therefore, one aspect of the word ‘spiritual’ has a non-supernatural meaning. RICHARD: Okay ... I am pleased that this is now clear. RESPONDENT: I do see your point. RICHARD: It is Peter’s point, actually, as he wrote the glossary entry and not me ... all I did was to respond as (twice) asked. RESPONDENT: It does seem to be clutching at straws somewhat though. RICHARD: As Peter wrote that glossary entry circa 1997-98 you are but wasting your time making this comment. RESPONDENT: The confusion that results from describing the feeling of ‘being’ as ‘spiritual’ rather than, say, ‘metaphysical’ is unnecessary. RICHARD: This is what you are saying, in effect, when spelled out in full:
As Peter was not (repeat ‘not’) amazed to discover that everyone – and he does mean everyone – has a metaphysical outlook on life (and that the metaphysical viewpoint permeates philosophy, science, medicine, education, psychology, law, etc.), but that it was a spiritual outlook/ viewpoint (as in the association of the adjective ‘spiritual’ with the noun ‘spirit’) he was amazed to discover, to then go back and rewrite history with what did not happen would be to (a) deny his experience ... and (b) falsify his account ... and (c) no longer convey what he was amazed to discover. Maybe this will be of assistance:
JONATHAN: What is the extra ingredient in the actualism method that is missing in meditation practices? RICHARD: As the actualism method is not a meditation practice in the first place there is no [quote] ‘extra ingredient’ [endquote] that is missing in them. JONATHAN: I should have said what is the main difference. RICHARD: This is what Peter wrote to you:
I am none-too-sure that I can put it all that differently but I will give it a go: put briefly, the main difference is that in meditation practices the aim is to bring about senselessness and thoughtlessness (as in become the witness) so that fancifulness and pretentiousness can reign supreme and ... !Hey Presto! ... a modishly much-aggrandised unearthly-like other-self manifests. JONATHAN: Awareness is a factor in both, but what you do with that awareness is different in actualism, right? RICHARD: Yes ... it is, in fact, 180 degrees different as the actualism method is all about coming to one’s senses (both literally and metaphorically) whereas meditation practices are all about going away from same (both literally and metaphorically). To explain: the word ‘meditate’ is the (inaccurate) English translation of what is known as ‘dhyana’ in Sanskrit
(Hinduism) and as ‘jhana’ in Pali (Buddhism) wherein there is a complete withdrawal from sensory perception and a cessation of thought,
thoughts, and thinking ... a totally senseless and thoughtless trance state which could only be described as catalepsy Apart from Mr. Venkataraman Aiyer (aka Ramana), in his early years, possibly the best-known example could be Mr. Gadadhar
Chattopadhyay (aka Ramakrishna): onlookers can see the body is totally inward-looking, totally self-absorbed, totally immobile, and totally
functionless (the body cannot and does not talk, walk, eat, drink, wake, sleep ... or type e-mails to mailing lists). JONATHAN: The idea that the spiritualist ‘be here now’ meant being in some mystical state never occurred to me. RICHARD: Okay ... this is what a dictionary has to say about the word ‘spiritual’:
And this is what a dictionary has to say about the word ‘spirit’:
Thus the word ‘spiritual’ essentially means (a) of, pertaining to, or affecting the immaterial part of a corporeal being ... or (b) of, pertaining to, or affecting a disembodied and separate entity ... or (c) of, pertaining to, or affecting immaterial substance, as opposed to body or matter. JONATHAN: When J. Krishnamurti talked about being choicelessly aware of this moment I took it to mean that he was talking about this moment in this world. RICHARD: Nope, not in the world but away from it ... for example:
JONATHAN: Words like Truth, Beauty and the such did not occur to me to be spiritual words. RICHARD: Spiritualists are prone to pinching spatial/ temporal words even when they have their own lexicon ... such as using the word intelligence, for instance, instead of god/ goddess and so on. JONATHAN: J. Krishnamurti also said something like ‘you are anger’. So it did not register with me that he meant that we were not our feelings ... RICHARD: Oh, he meant it alright ... for instance:
And what is the word most apt for the love which is ‘a total feeling’ and ‘complete purity of feeling’? Viz.:
And where does that passion come from? Viz.:
And here again in a similar vein:
Then there is this:
And this one explains all:
As does this one:
Finally:
In short: out of the passion of transformed sorrow comes compassion; passion also creates beauty; the feeling of beauty is the feeling of love; love is God/ love is not different from truth; I am God. JONATHAN: ... and so I did not try his choiceless awareness with that assumption nor the assumption that ‘this moment’ referred to a mystical state. RICHARD: Ahh ... there is nothing that can be more a mystical state than being a timeless and spaceless and formless god/ truth. * JONATHAN: It sounds like those spiritualists speaking above [now snipped] have the intent of being aware of this moment in the interest of peace and happiness. RICHARD: There are more than a few spiritualists who do not comprehend just what the goal of meditation practices really is (more on this at the bottom of the page). JONATHAN: I read a little of those spiritual books but always with a naturalistic view. RICHARD: You are not the first to do so ... and will not be the last. JONATHAN: If they said they were in some state I assumed they had tapped into something in the brain and just did not know what to call it other than God. RICHARD: You are not the first to assume so ... and will not be the last. JONATHAN: I never thought I was practicing anything spiritual in meditation. RICHARD: Back in 1968, when still in the military, I hired a black and white TV set for six months as, having been born and raised on a remote farm being carved out of a forest, television was a novelty and every now and again, whilst changing channels, I would come across a half-hour programme on something entirely new to me and called ‘Yoga’ which was conducted by a youngish women from India with, what I took to be, a large mole in the centre of her forehead (it was black-and-white television). What puzzled me at the time was that she kept on assuring her viewers that it was not necessary to be religious in order to start doing, what I took to be, the exotic physical exercises she was introducing into this country (daily doses of regular physical exercises were mandatory in the military). It was many, many years before the penny dropped ... and the Tai Chi introduced from China is another instance. JONATHAN: I guess that spiritual ideas are what the practice is based on so even with a secular humanist flavouring to the language it still takes one to the same place. RICHARD: Aye ... if only the western religions could package their prayer-practice in a secular disguise they too may gain many more converts. (...) JONATHAN: I am going to go back and read some of the commonly raised objections concerning this matter but anything you can offer would be appreciated. RICHARD: Okay ... given that you agree the goal of the actualism method just seems contrived then here is a question for you: what is the difference between solipsism and nondualism (aka advaita)? JONATHAN: I am not familiar with advaita. RICHARD: In which case ... essentially there is no difference between solipsism and nondualism as they are both totally, completely and utterly self-centred. JONATHAN: What does the question have to do with the actualism method being contrived? RICHARD: It does not have anything to do with [quote] ‘the actualism method being contrived’ [endquote] ... it has to do with you agreeing that [quote] ‘the goal’ [endquote] of the actualism method just seems contrived. Viz.:
Put succinctly: as the goal of a nondualist (even for a dilettante) is not peace-on-earth then, of course, the goal of the
actualism method must seem contrived.
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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