Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

RESPONDENT: Richard, You are correct as to my failure on this list, and so far in the world as well, at Transforming anything (except myself). This however will not deter me one iota. I say there is such a happening as Transformation that is indeed beyond enlightenment, not as in better, just beyond, and while they are different enlightenment may well be a doorway to transformation, I have no proof.

RICHARD: Your ‘Transformation’ has all the hall-marks of the age-old ‘Tried and True’ ... not something different or beyond.

RESPONDENT: Yes I have seen that as well it has been spoken of by many and in many different ways, this does not take away from the truth however . .

RICHARD: Of course it does not ‘take away from the truth’. This is because ‘the truth’ is not actual ... therefore it can be whatever one thinks that one feels it to be. Feelings are notoriously unreliable in determining facticity.

RESPONDENT: You yourself give a particular meaning to the word ‘affective’.

RICHARD: No ... I use the dictionary meaning, actually. The only words I give a particular meaning to are ‘actual’ and ‘real’ (because people have made the word ‘real’ mean pretty well anything metaphysical at all) and the words ‘fact’ and ‘true’ (because people have made the word ‘true’ mean pretty well anything at all). When people stop using ‘real’ and ‘true’ to mean metaphysical things I will go back to using them.

RESPONDENT: AND I still struggle, want, strive to understand this ‘illusory self’ that everybody says doesn’t exist but obscures that Reality which does exist, and if it (self) doesn’t exist, then how does it have such power over the physical? Nobody denies that the physical exists (with the exception of a few weirdos) and yet, this self that doesn’t exist can make the body do things like cry, smile, yell, cuss, get a sick stomach, muscles tie up in knots, get cancer, a headache, get horny, commit murder, rape, leave town, etc. (all in your list). For something that doesn’t exist, the self, the thinker, the ‘I’, the ego, can sure cause a lot of havoc in a physical world, which some on the list say doesn’t exists either or is a figment of one’s imagination, or if we believe that is what we have, then that is what we have.

RICHARD: There is a rather simple way to understand this. For many years I mistakenly assumed that words carried a definitive meaning that was common to all peoples speaking the same language ... for example ‘real’ and ‘truth’. But, as different person’s told me things like: ‘That is only your truth’, or: ‘God is real’, I realised that unambiguous words are required (to a child, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are ‘real’ and ‘true’). Correspondingly I abandoned ‘real’ and ‘true’ in favour of ‘actual’ and ‘fact’, as experience has demonstrated that no one has been able to tell me that their god is actual or that something is only my fact. Therefore this monitor screen is actual (these finger-tips feeling it substantiate this) and it is a fact that these printed letters are forming words (these eyes seeing it validate this). These things are indisputable and verifiable by any body with the requisite sense-organs.

Now, to a person who believes ardently in their god, then for them their god is real ... not actual, mind you, but real. Usually they tell me that their god is more real than we humans are ... that is how real their fervency makes of their belief (it is the same as the child with the Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy example I gave above). So too, is it with regards to this wretched ‘self’. The ‘self’, whilst not being actual, is real ... sometimes very, very real. The belief in a real ‘thinker’ and ‘feeler’ is not just another passing thought. It is emotion-backed imagination at work. ‘I’ passionately believe in ‘my’ existence ... and will defend ‘myself’ to the death if it is deemed necessary. All of ‘my’ instincts – the instinctive drive for biological survival – will come to the fore then, for ‘I’ am confused about ‘my’ presence, linking ‘my’ survival with the body’s physical continuation. Nothing could be further from the truth for ‘I’ play no part in perpetuating physical existence: ‘I’ am not necessary at all. In fact, ‘I’ am a hindrance. With all of ‘my’ beliefs, values, creeds, ethics and other doctrinaire disabilities, ‘I’ am a menace to the body. ‘I’ am ready to die for a cause ... and ‘I’ will willingly sacrifice physical existence for a Noble Ideal.

That is how real ‘I’ am.

RESPONDENT: God is the doer – he acts through me and through you.

RICHARD: Your god may very well act through you ... but I can assure you that no god acts through me: I am a thorough-going atheist through and through. There is not the slightest trace of religiosity, spirituality, mysticality or metaphysicality in me whatsoever. I am an actualist ... not a spiritualist.

RESPONDENT: So you don’t like the idea of a ‘God’. Well we can call it ‘your higher self’. It doesn’t matter what word you use.

RICHARD: Shall I provide a list of what does not act through me so as to save time? Viz.: The Truth, The Absolute, The Supreme, The Mind, The Source, The Intelligence Behind Everything, The Underlying Cause, The Ground Of Being, Existence, The Self, The Higher Self, The True Self, The Real Self, The Greater Reality, The Spirit, The Soul, The Over-Soul, The Divine Presence, The Greatest, The Sublime, The Essence, The Tao, The Breath Of Life, The Core Of One’s Being, The Most High, The Highest Good, Thatness, Suchness, Isness, Mother Nature, Life Itself, Cosmic Consciousness, Nirvana, Satori, Samadhi, Sunyata ... and so on and so on.

RESPONDENT: The point is – there is some force that created the universe.

RICHARD: This infinite and eternal physical universe, being boundless and limitless, beginningless and endless, unborn and undying, has always been and always will be. As there is no creation there is no ‘force that created the universe’ .

RESPONDENT: That force directs your life.

RICHARD: That ‘force’ may very well direct your life ... but I can assure you that no ‘force’ directs me: I am a thorough-going atheist through and through. There is not the slightest trace of religiosity, spirituality, mysticality or metaphysicality in me whatsoever. I am an actualist ... not a spiritualist.

RESPONDENT No. 21: There is a place in the bible where the world is described as a globe. If I find it, I will post it. Maybe someone knows it. I believe it is in Isaiah if I remember correctly. It is definitely in there ... <SNIP> ... Here it is, written between 745 and 680 B. C. Isaiah 40:22: ‘It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in’.

RICHARD: Hmm ... a circle is hardly a globe, now is it? ...<SNIP> ... Do you really want to get into a discussion about the veracity of ‘God’s Word’?

RESPONDENT: Now Richard, why do you have to confuse No. 21 with the facts? He’s fixin’ to sit on the right hand of God and you’re going to mess him up big time!

RICHARD: I think not. For most, seeing a fact means betraying one’s belief ... thus one is rendered incapable of seeing it. Then the biggest problem – even after overcoming such loyalty – is one’s intellectual pride ... one has to come to terms with having been silly for all of one’s life. Usually, believers have become so accustomed to being spiritually humble that they are not at all prepared for the genuine humility engendered ... it is too humiliating.

Besides which, discerning the difference between the truth and the fact eludes most people anyway.

RICHARD: Your ‘Transformation’ has all the hall-marks of the age-old ‘Tried and True’ ... not something different or beyond.

RESPONDENT: Yes I have seen that as well it has been spoken of by many and in many different ways, this does not take away from the truth however.

RICHARD: Of course it does not ‘take away from the truth’. This is because ‘the truth’ is not actual ... therefore it can be whatever one thinks that one feels it to be. Feelings are notoriously unreliable in determining facticity.

RESPONDENT: All people are conditioned to reject truth.

RICHARD: Au contraire ... they seek it like all get-out. They are blinded by the Glamour and the Glory and the Glitz of ‘The Truth’ and cannot see its diabolical underpinnings.

RESPONDENT: You included.

RICHARD: I reject it because I see it for what it is ... not because I am conditioned to reject it.

‘The Truth’ is rotten at its very core.

RESPONDENT: If there is no ‘me’ inside this body, why insist that ‘one’ must die to find out the actuality?

RICHARD: It is because ‘I’ appear to be very, very real ... so real as to be true. For many years I mistakenly assumed that words carried a definitive meaning that was common to all peoples speaking the same language ... for example ‘real’ and ‘truth’. But, as different person’s told me things like: ‘That is only your truth’, or: ‘God is real’, I realised that unambiguous words are required (to a child, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are ‘real’ and ‘true’). Correspondingly I abandoned ‘real’ and ‘true’ in favour of ‘actual’ and ‘fact’, as experience has demonstrated that no one has been able to tell me that their god is actual or that something is only my fact. Therefore this monitor screen is actual (these finger-tips feeling it substantiate this) and it is a fact that these printed letters are forming words (these eyes seeing it validate this). These things are indisputable and verifiable by any body with the requisite sense-organs.

RICHARD: And where is Truth to be found if not in beauty? Is Truth a product of thought?’

RESPONDENT NO. 10: Truth cannot be found in beauty, nor thought for both are thought.

RICHARD: Okay ... what do you make of this statement:

• ‘That state of mind which is no longer capable of striving is the true religious mind, and in that state of mind you may come upon this thing called truth or reality or bliss or God or beauty or love’. (‘Freedom From The Known’; ©1969 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd).

The reason that I ask is that he is definitely saying that ‘truth or reality or bliss or God or beauty or love’ are all one and the same thing ... with no ifs, buts or maybes. Can all this (truth and/or god) be nothing a product of thought (love and/or beauty) for Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti then? Do you see why I wish to put love and compassion and beauty and truth and so on under the same scrutiny that this Mailing List gives to thought? There is quite some cloudiness around this issue which needs clarifying and, seeing that you are channelling this miraculous cure-all through to a benighted humanity, to remain ignorant of the constitution, disposition or nature of Love and Truth would indicate that you actually do not care about your fellow human. And surely you do care, eh?

RESPONDENT: Truth or beauty or love that is scrutinized is known; which is image, not actuality.

RICHARD: Yea verily ... but No. 10 says that the ‘Love and/or Truth’ that he is an ‘empty vessel’ for is not an image. Therefore, is this not a vital opportunity to ascertain just what the nature, character or disposition of Love and Truth is? Why are you not interested in finding out? Then peoples like me will not be able to point out that, if you do not know what the nature, character and disposition is of Love and Truth (what you call ‘the other’ which, being ‘not touched by thought’, is ‘the sacred’) then you are operating on blind faith and/or trust?

RESPONDENT: Truth is when I as observer am not.

RICHARD: Yea verily ... truth is when ‘I as observer am not’ and the observer is the observed. Which is when the fragmented identity has stopped becoming and is being ... being a whole identity. The less coy mystics call this holistic identity by its given name: ‘I am God’ or ‘I am That’. The more coy mystics say: ‘There is only That’.

RESPONDENT: What is sacred is that which is incorruptible, not graspable by thought, not yours or mine.

RICHARD: Yea verily ... Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti says that what is sacred, holy is not the god of the churches, the temples, the synagogues and the mosques. Viz.:

• ‘If you have followed this inquiry into what is meditation, and have understood the whole process of thinking, you will find that the mind is completely still (...) don’t say, ‘That is Samadhi’ – which is all nonsense, because you have only read of it in some book and have not discovered it for yourself. There is a vast difference between the word and the thing. The word is not the thing; the word door is not the door. So, to meditate is to purge the mind of its self-centred activity. And if you have come this far in meditation, you will find there is silence, a total emptiness (...) therefore there is a possibility for that which is timeless, eternal, to come into being (...) the discovery of truth, or God demands great intelligence, which is not assertion of belief or disbelief, but the recognition of the hindrances created by lack of intelligence. So to discover God or truth – and I say such a thing does exist, I have realised it – to recognise that, to realise that, mind must be free of all the hindrances which have been created throughout the ages’. (The Book Of Life: Daily Meditations With J. Krishnamurti’, December Chapter. Published by Harper, San Francisco. Copyright ©1995 Krishnamurti Foundation of America).

Note well that he clearly and unambiguously says ‘To discover God or truth – and I say such a thing does exist, I have realised it – to recognise that, to realise that, mind must be free of all the hindrances which have been created throughout the ages’.

Do you see where he says ‘I say such a thing does exist, I have realised it’? If so, can you stop this nonsense that you go on about such as ‘K said that to assert ‘I am free is an abomination’ or ‘isn’t it a religious nut that asserts that I have attained a state of perfection or sacredness?’ or ‘is there someone that seems to be there to take credit, to assert that I have attained?’ and so on? It would be more conducive to a mutual understanding – and less repetitive – if you could move past this ‘he who knows does not speak’ fixation. The man who you like to quote clearly made no secret that he knows ... and he spoke for sixty-plus years (as did the man who first penned that pithy aphorism).

For the sake of the 160,000,000 fellow human beings who may very well be going to be killed by their fellow human beings this coming century, can we have – you and I – an honest and sincere discussion?

Is this possible?

RESPONDENT: Whenever the limitations of ‘reasoned dialogue’ become apparent that is the only reasonable thing to do.

RICHARD: A reasoned dialogue has no limitations ... unless you are of that school of thought that says, with finality: ‘The Truth cannot be known’.

RESPONDENT: I am of no ‘school’ whatsoever.

RICHARD: I used the ‘school of thought’ phrase as an expression and was not implying that you subscribed to a particular ‘school’ at all. I meant mysticism in general ... a libertarian ‘all paths lead to the same ‘Ineffable Unknowable Truth’’ approach.

RESPONDENT: The truth can be perceived and embodied, but a million years of ‘reasoned dialogue’ will not bring it to you or you to it.

RICHARD: Then why are you (and others for that matter) on this Mailing List? Whenever anyone comes close to actually discussing something of import ... out comes this ‘cannot be known; cannot be spoken’ put-down.

RESPONDENT: That which cannot be expressed cannot be remembered and thus does not qualify as knowledge, which is merely stored data

RICHARD: If I may point out? Whether you belong to any school or not is now beside the point, for you are clearly saying that it cannot be known and it cannot be spoken either. Which is pretty well what all the ‘schools’ say anyway.

RESPONDENT: No ‘school’ can teach this, one has to take ‘reasoned dialogue’ (or whatever ilk of thought one has fashioned into an idol) out to the end of its tether and observe its inevitable and utter failure.

RICHARD: In other words: ‘Thought must stop for the Other to be’ or ‘A Transmission outside of the Scriptures’ and so on. Hence your dogmatic refusal to investigate and uncover; to explore and discover.

Yet a reasoned dialogue has no limitations ... except when you are saying, with finality: ‘The Truth cannot be known: cannot be spoken’.

RESPONDENT: ‘... he who speaks does not know ...’. Where does that leave you?

RICHARD: The full (public) version is, of course, ‘he who speaks does not know; he who knows does not speak’. Given that what is being referred to is ‘that which is ever unknowable’, then it is vital that any speaking to be done (and ‘The Truth’ must be spoken) should only be done by the one who has woken up to the reality that ‘he does not know’ (because he alone knows he can never know) so as to ensure that the esoteric lineage remains uncorrupted. Consequently, any pseudo-mystic, who fondly imagines that they know ‘that which is ever unknowable’ (and gullibly demonstrates this imprudence in public by ostentatiously popping one-liner psittacisms onto mailing lists) has not penetrated the cryptic focus of Mr. Lao Tzu’s inscrutable pun ... thus he separates the boys from the men with an uncanny precision long after he dispersed the ether. Needless to say, the profundity of the layers of arcane meaning built into this pithy aphorism also escapes the pseudo-seekers’ purview (who deem it an acceptable ‘not speaking’ modus operandi to utter laconic axioms to the privileged inner circle) who seek to perpetuate the aura of sanctimony that enhances the symbiotic sage/student fusion of seeker and sought. Thus (and do not make this public knowledge) the secret saying reads: ‘he who knows that he does not know speaks; he who does not know that he does not know does not speak’. Therefore, you will now realise, I am sure, that the ‘Be still and know that I am God’ phrase that you have inadvertently been using is incorrect.

What you should be saying is: ‘Be still and know that I do not know that I am not God’.

RESPONDENT: There is no authority to truth, reality, actuality ... one must give up all teachers, be completely on one’s own.

RICHARD: There is indeed an authority to truth ... it is usually called God. Some people disingenuously call it: ‘that which is sacred, holy’. There is indeed an authority to reality ... it is called: ‘Might is Right’ ... and it comes from the point of a gun.

But, there is no authority in actuality ... there are no forces, no energies or no powers here. This is the realm of utter equality ... there is no hierarchy here.

RESPONDENT: So, the questions are: (a) how does one test the truth or falsehood (corruption) of what is stated? (b) [relatedly] what is the role of /feeling/ and intuitively grasping the truth of what is stated? What do you (and others) say?

RICHARD: Simple. Examine the supporting evidence that is presented with the purport so as to determine whether what is being said is substantiated. For example: one can make a critical examination of all the words I advance so as to ascertain if they be intrinsically self-explanatory ... and only when they are all seen to be inherently consistent with what is being spoken about do 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. This bypasses becoming embroiled in having to determine ‘the role of /feeling/ and intuitively grasping the truth of what is stated’ because 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 altered state of consciousness (ASC). Then ‘I’ as ego – sublimated and transcended as ‘me’ as soul – manifest as a god or a goddess (that which is ‘timeless and spaceless and formless’) otherwise known as an embodiment of the ‘supreme intelligence’ ... and preach unliveable tenets born out of dissociation (such as that there is a love that has no opposite or a compassion that knows no sorrow and so on). Tenets that they cannot live themselves.

RESPONDENT: The Seer is Aware and flows in the state of At-One-Ment in the non-dualistic energy of What Is, of Truth, of Life. At-One-Ment means just that; it flows in the holistic vibration of Infinite Intelligence. It is, as one Brother stated, ‘The Truth, The Life, And The Way’.

RICHARD: Personally, when in a somewhat similar situation some years ago, I found it pertinent to ask myself: Who is the ‘I’ that identifies as ‘The Seer’?

If I were in this position today I would also ask myself: Who is the identity that is ‘At-One-Ment in the non-dualistic energy of What Is, of Truth, of Life’?

Then I would go on to question: Is not this ‘What Is, Of Truth, Of Life’, who ‘The Seer’ is at one with, but another set of names for ‘God’?

Then I would realise: Is not ‘God’ but a projection of the ‘self’ – magnified now into a grandiose ‘Self’?

I would discover that any notion of an ‘holistic vibration’ is but a predictable outcome the fatally flawed desire of the ‘I’ to stay in existence by becoming ‘Whole’.

I would go on to understand that an ‘infinite intelligence’ is clearly nothing more than an anthropomorphic projection of one’s own puny little ‘self’ into an omnipotent entity – a ‘Higher Being’ – existing for all eternity.

And finally I would see the appalling error of aligning myself with a ‘Brother’ who pretentiously stated that he was: ‘The Truth, The Life, And The Way’.

RICHARD: Aye ... the day-to-day ‘truth’ is pretty well whatever anyone wants to make it be – and if the other buys that truth it is mutual masturbation – and the eternal ‘Truth’, being ineffable, is but ‘my will be done in heaven as here on earth’.

RESPONDENT: What?

RICHARD: If the calentural eternal ‘Truth’ is indeed ineffable (because it is unknowable) then those who believe in its existence have to attribute to it their imaginings (otherwise it does not exist for them). Therefore they project impossible qualities onto ‘IT’ ... impossible because those imagined qualities are born out of their misunderstandings of earthly life. And they do misunderstand earthly life because if they did not misunderstand earthly life they would not have to believe that the eternal ‘Truth’, with its un-real qualities, is real. Which is why I wrote that the eternal ‘Truth’ is nothing other than ‘my will be done in heaven as here on earth’.

RESPONDENT: Maybe the non-factually-based conclusion which was arrived at in your example is an example of creating an example to prove one’s bias as well?

RICHARD: I unabashedly acknowledge my bias towards facts and actuality ... I am so hooked on facts and actuality that I can no longer see the truth. Nevertheless, will you demonstrate where the point I am making is a ‘non-factually-based conclusion’? Will you demonstrate where the facts I present are me ‘creating an example’?

*

RESPONDENT: At any rate, was there something simple you would like to start with and discuss? (Remember I have a short attention span).

RICHARD: Yes, there is indeed something simple to discuss: why does the truth need pseudo-science (misinformation and disinformation) to establish its veracity?

RESPONDENT: That is a false question because you are dead sure there is no way to answer it except by refuting the premise upon which it rests. The truth cannot be established.

RICHARD: Ahh ... good. This is the nub of the issue: the fact can be established because, being in the domain of time and space and form, it can be ascertained sensately (or by extensions of the senses such as microscopes and so on) whereas the truth can never be established because, being in the domain of the timeless and spaceless and formless, it cannot be ascertained sensately (or by extensions of the senses such as microscopes and so on).

RESPONDENT: You do not establish a living thing.

RICHARD: I beg to differ ... it is done all the time. A cat or a dog or a tree or a flower or any other ‘living thing’ , being in the domain of time and space and form, can be ascertained sensately (or by extensions of the senses such as microscopes and so on) and established as fact. Whereas the truth, being in the domain of the timeless and spaceless and formless, can never, ever be described as either <living> (being born, existing for a period, then dying) or as a <thing> (a form occupying space through time). Why not try again ... and do not steal physical-world words to describe ‘the truth’ this time (like some peoples do with ‘intelligence’ and ‘here and now’ and ‘eternal’ and ‘infinite’ and so on).

My next ‘something simple to discuss’ would be: why does the truth need physical-world words to lend credence to it very existence?

RICHARD: Because you did add this codicil: ‘That’s where it ends though, that which seeks to befriend truth can never be truth, so the lie (self-importance) lives on’. Is this your experience? Or is this all but platitudes based upon your reading? Does ‘self-importance’ play a big part in your life? Have you seen ‘The Truth’? Did it destroy falseness? Yes? No? If ‘yes’, then you must be living truly, now.

RESPONDENT: Let me see here, you saying if I see the truth that I have automated responses in relation to ‘self importance’ then the seeing of that ends self importance and that it is final.

RICHARD: No ... that is just fiddling with the details of ‘you’. What is meant by the statement that the truth destroys the false – however it is phrased – is that there is another dimension other than everyday reality that, once accessed, wipes ‘you’ out completely. It is ‘you’ that is false ... not just ‘your’ ego or ‘your’ habits and so on.

RESPONDENT: This [seeing the truth that I have automated responses] seems to imply seeing the habit itself in its elemental glory. No, I have not done this. In your above quote I was questioning a statement about truth that seemed to affirm self importance.

RICHARD: Hmm ... the statement that you were questioning said: ‘It is not a matter of acquiring more and more. It is a matter of seeing more and more truth and destroying what is. Lies are separate from truth. Truth restores unity if it is related to correctly, which is to find a willing subjectivity to it. We must become friends with truth’ . I took it that you were saying that ‘I’ – who would become friends with truth – is what is false. This is why I ask you about your personal experiences ... not how well you have read various books on the subject. Do you now mean that the truth can wipe out ‘self-importance’ whilst leaving ‘you’ intact? Do you recall an earlier paragraph in a previous E-Mail where I wrote:

• [Richard]: ‘People mostly look to rearranging their beliefs and truths as being sufficient effort ... ‘I’ am willing to be free as long as ‘I’ can remain ‘me’. In other words: their notion of freedom is a clip-on’.

Do you see this as being what you are saying?

*

RICHARD: If ‘no’ then you cannot know that ‘truth destroys that which is false’ now can you? It thus amounts to being nothing but a belief.

RESPONDENT: No, Richard. Obviously I have not entirely destroyed my residual falseness.

RICHARD: But an ‘I’ destroying ‘my’ falseness was not the question ... only the truth can destroy the false. Is that not what you wrote? You said that you agree that truth destroys ‘what is’ ... particularly, you said, ‘if the what is, is the false’ . The false is ‘you’ in ‘your’ entirety. As I said in a previous E-Mail:

• [Richard]: ‘Not just who you ‘think you are’ ... it is even more fundamental than that. It is what you feel that you are in the core of your ‘being’. This does not just cause discomfort. It requires nerves of steel to delve into the stygian depths of the Human Condition. The journey into the psyche is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee. The rewards for doing so are immense, however ... and are of far-reaching consequences not only for oneself but for humankind as a whole’.

RESPONDENT: It surprises me to see morality thrown into a debate about truth. Morality (...) will stand in the way to honesty and truth. A lover of truth (...) is neither ‘moral’, nor ‘immoral’, but unconcerned about it; ‘amoral’, if you want.

RICHARD: Indeed, yet a person is amoral only when they can totally and reliably be capable of spontaneously interacting in the world of people, things and events, in a way that is neither personally insalubrious nor socially reprehensible, at all times and under any circumstance without exception. The $64,000 question then appears to be this:

Does the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) bestow such a remarkable freedom?

RESPONDENT: The point of enlightenment is recognising the UNITY in creation.

RICHARD: The point of enlightenment is self-aggrandisement ... and self-perpetuation via a spurious immortality in a specious after-life.

RESPONDENT: Seeing the ONE manifested as many. Recognising that the ONE is the reality – the MANY (creation) – is a projection of the ONE. We now come to the apparent contradiction. Because GOD DOES NOTHING. He cannot do anything – because there is nothing to do. There is no time and space. There are no beings – no forms. Nothing happens. There is just pure existence. Yet God is also SIMULTANEOUSLY Doing everything. I go back to the example of the person lying on a bed and dreaming. It is true to say that he is doing nothing because really he is asleep on the bed. It is also true to say that he is CREATING the dream, and that he is the real DOER in the dream, because the dream characters are all his creation. Yet ironically even that is not true because the dream just happens – the characters appear to act of their own accord. The person having the dream does not know what will happen and does not consciously direct it. Do you see all the contradictions?

RICHARD: Indeed I do ... all religiosity, spirituality, mysticality and metaphysicality is made up of nothing but contradictions. It comes from the heart, you see, which makes for a feverish imagination.

RESPONDENT: Enlightenment also contains all these contradictions. I could equally say that YOU are the DOER because your REAL nature is the ONE-NESS. Whatever position you take – it can be contradicted. In the end you just remain silent – because everything you say can be shown to be a lie.

RICHARD: I do not take ‘positions’ ... I am only ever interested in facts and actuality. For example: this flesh and blood body called Richard is going to die sometime in the next thirty years or so ... certainly before it is 200 years old. As I am this body I will decompose if buried or disperse as smoke and ash if burned. There could not be a more complete ending to me than this ... this cannot be ‘contradicted’. For this to be ‘shown to be a lie’ you will have to produce a human being in excess of (a certified) 200 years living.

RESPONDENT: It just depends on how you view it. That is all we are doing in this e-mail. Showing that our view is right. But the truth is – both are right – it depends on your viewpoint. Your points also have equal validity.

RICHARD: Once again ... I am talking facts and actuality: this glass and plastic object that these typed words appear on is a computer monitor ... there is no other view-point possible without being silly. Now, a fact may be misunderstood for a while, yet it always remains a fact irregardless of how it is viewed as a ‘truth’ (the moon used to be viewed as a goddess, for example, but all the while it was rock).

RESPONDENT: Once memory storage has taken place, the process of thinking begins. Thinking is the anticipation of the future based on the memory of the past.

RICHARD: The ability to recognise, remember, compare, appraise, reflect and propose considered action for beneficial reasons – intelligence – is what sets the human animal apart from all other animals ... thought, thoughts and thinking are vital for both individual and communal well-being.

RESPONDENT: Past and future are ego concepts, conditions, that can not see the Now.

RICHARD: The past, although it did happen, is not actual now; the future, although it will happen, is not actual now ... only this moment is actual.

RESPONDENT: Object-ivity is any form is a promotion of ego. There are no objects.

RICHARD: The physical world has an obvious facticity. There is no need for any debate about an objective universe ... no deliberation at all is required to determine objectivity’s self-evident factuality. There is a simple experiment that will demonstrate the actuality of objectivity in a way that a thousand words would not:

1. Place a large spring-clip upon your nose.
2. Place a large piece of sticking plaster over your mouth.
3. Wait five minutes.

Now, as you rip the plaster from your mouth and gulp in that oh-so-sweet and objectively actual air, I ask you: Do you still believe that ‘there are no objects’ ?

• Exit: mental masturbation.
• Enter: facts and actuality.

Seeing the fact will set you free to live in actuality.

RESPONDENT: The so-called Objective Sciences can not infold Truth, because objects are the barriers to Truth.

RICHARD: All gods and goddesses exist only in the human psyche ... ‘The Truth’ has no inherent existence.

RICHARD: My experience, night and day for eleven years, showed me intimately that ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ is indeed a morbid condition. In psychiatric terminology it is a dissociative state of being, sometimes known as ‘disassociative identity disorder’.

RESPONDENT: Please allow me to be frank. My impression from reading your post is that you don’t really know anything about enlightenment. You obviously know quite a lot about ‘disassociative identity disorder’, however you have erroneously equated this with the state of enlightenment.

RICHARD: It is but one of the ways of describing it ... I was answering a question about whether enlightenment was pathological and I couched my reply in similar terminology. I did mention that it can be otherwise described (in non-psychiatric terminology) as ‘Theodicy’ ... which is nothing but a spurious vindication of a god’s and/or goddess’s goodness and justice in the face of the existence of evil. The theological dilemma goes something like this:

1. God and/or Goddess is All-Loving and All-Powerful.
2. Evil exists.
3. Therefore God and/or Goddess is either All-Loving but not All-Powerful or All-Powerful but not All-Loving.

RESPONDENT: Yes this is a theological dilemma. But it doesn’t have anything to do with the Truth.

RICHARD: So as to save time quibbling about mere names, shall I provide a list of words referring to ‘The Truth’ aka God and/or Goddess? Viz.:

• The Truth, The Absolute, The Supreme, The Mind, The Source, The Intelligence Behind Everything, The Underlying Cause, The Ground Of Being, Existence, The Self, The Higher Self, The True Self, The Real Self, The Greater Reality, The Spirit, The Soul, The Over-Soul, The Divine Presence, The Greatest, The Sublime, The Essence, The Tao, The Breath Of Life, The Core Of One’s Being, The Most High, The Highest Good, Thatness, Suchness, Isness, Mother Nature, Life Itself, Cosmic Consciousness, Universal Consciousness, Nirvana, Satori, Samadhi, Sunyata ... and so on and so on.

RESPONDENT: Its just a bunch of words formed into ideas and beliefs, by people who don’t know much about Truth.

RICHARD: If you say that this is so then it is so ... for you. However, I will keep my own counsel on the matter.

RESPONDENT: If you remove point 2. ‘Evil Exists’ the dilemma disappears.

RICHARD: Hmm ... re-define the name of the problem and the problem disappears, eh? What then is the cause of all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and the such-like?

RESPONDENT: Richard, thank you for adding to the discussion by your statement repeated to ensure it is not lost amongst your many words; for ever. I will copy and paste your words to the top of this email so that they can be preserved for posterity. ‘Richard’s point of view on Respondent’s point of view: ‘This is an example of a vital opportunity being frittered away with empty rhetoric’’. Linguists may now argue forever about whether the word ‘this’ refers to Richard’s point of view; to Respondent’s point of view; or to something else entirely. Richard of course will take the statement at face-value.

RICHARD: Linguists will not have to ‘argue forever’ (seeing that it was me that wrote it) because I can state clearly and unambiguously what I was referring to in saying over and again, ‘this is an example of a vital opportunity being frittered away ...’. Indeed, I have already spelt it out before:

• [Richard]: ‘You are not the only person to try to turn an actual freedom into a pay-as-you-participate religion ... and you will not be the last’.

Therefore, you are certainly frittering away a vital opportunity, not only with what you are writing in this post, but in all your E-Mail exchanges so far. Because an actual freedom from the human condition is a non-spiritual down-to-earth freedom, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body ... and you are taking the two words (‘actual freedom’) and making them refer to ... um ... ‘all that is’ or ‘truth’ or ‘god’ or whatever (usually capitalised as All That Is, The Truth, God, The Absolute, The Supreme, The Mind, The Source, The Intelligence Behind Everything, The Underlying Cause, The Ground Of Being, Existence, The Self, The Higher Self, The True Self, The Real Self, The Greater Reality, The Spirit, The Soul, The Divine Presence, The Greatest, The Sublime, The Essence, The Tao, The Breath Of Life, The Core Of One’s Being, The Most High, The Highest Good, Thatness, Suchness, Isness, Mother Nature, Life Itself, Cosmic Consciousness, Nirvana, Satori, Samadhi, Sunyata ... and so on and so on). Here it is in context:

• [Respondent]: ‘My point of view is that in the nature of the freedom we are in on this planet; it is our roots and our destiny; to be nothing more or less; than a point of view into actual freedom. Part of being fully human and thus fully free is that we acknowledge to each other that the viewpoint of each other is just that; nothing more or less than that persons view. The fact is: ‘Actual Freedom’.

And where you specifically wrote:

• [Respondent]: ‘The fact is: ‘Actual Freedom’.

... I responded: ‘this is an example of a vital opportunity being frittered away with a vacuous statement’. This is because the full version makes no sense at all when writing to me (I coined the phrase). Viz.:

• [Full version]: ‘The fact is: an actual freedom from the human condition, in this life-time, as this flesh and blood body’.

I have already pointed out in a previous E-Mail that you are on a hiding to nowhere trying to re-define what my phrase means. Other ways of re-defining an actual freedom in your ‘the fact is: ‘Actual Freedom’ sentence could be as follows:

• The fact is: ‘The Truth’.
• The fact is: ‘God’.
• The fact is: ‘The Tao’.
• The fact is: ‘All That Is’.
• The fact is: ‘The Absolute’.
• The fact is: ‘The True Self’.

... and so on and so on. Here is another example of you trying to turn an actual freedom from the human condition into a pay-as-you-participate religion:

1. [Respondent]: ‘Actual freedom is incredibly simple, Richard. It is the communication that is problematic and difficult ... and that does not change the fact that actual freedom is’.
• [Possible Translation]: ‘The Truth is incredibly simple, Richard. It is the communication that is problematic and difficult ... and that does not change the fact that The Truth is’.

Here is another example of you trying to turn an actual freedom from the human condition into a pay-as-you-participate religion:

2. [Respondent]: ‘I certainly do not argue with your freedom. I have met you in person and I enjoy your company. I also respect highly your autonomy. I have absolutely no reason to doubt that you live in Actual Freedom’.
• [Possible Translation]: ‘I certainly do not argue with your freedom. I have met you in person and I enjoy your company. I also respect highly your autonomy. I have absolutely no reason to doubt that you live in ‘The Tao’.

Here is another example of you trying to turn an actual freedom from the human condition into a pay-as-you-participate religion:

3. [Respondent]: ‘There are as many viewpoints into actual freedom as there are people who come in contact with the teaching you present. Each viewpoint exists autonomously and discretely in the mind of each person who comes into contact with your teaching’.
• [Possible Translation]: ‘There are as many viewpoints into ‘All That Is’ as there are people who come in contact with the teaching you present. Each viewpoint exists autonomously and discretely in the mind of each person who comes into contact with your teaching’.

Here is another example of you trying to turn an actual freedom from the human condition into a pay-as-you-participate religion:

4. [Respondent]: ‘ I do not have a need for you or anyone to show me actual freedom’.
• [Possible Translation]: ‘I do not have a need for you or anyone to show me ‘Buddha-Mind’.

Here is another example of you trying to turn an actual freedom from the human condition into a pay-as-you-participate religion:

5. [Respondent]: ‘I write with you because you are one of the only other people I know who understands directly, the actual’.
• [Possible Translation]: ‘I write with you because you are one of the only other people I know who understands directly, ‘The Earth Goddess’.

Here is another example of you trying to turn an actual freedom from the human condition into a pay-as-you-participate religion:

6. [Respondent]: ‘What makes you imagine that I am any less in actual freedom than ‘you’? I already have direct experience and I do not claim to have a method, a way, as you claim. I do not want to claim that ... all it does is increases the conflict that exists in the world already. There are enough methods, enough ways. What the world needs is more people who are willing to say ‘hello; this moment is a delight; isn’t it ... can we share and enjoy each others company ... I have no more to offer than you; and you have no more to offer than me ... . Then the actual will have a chance of slowly forming the real physical paradise on earth that is our potential’.
• [Possible Translation]: ‘What makes you imagine that I am any less in ‘Mother Nature’ than ‘you’? I already have direct experience and I do not claim to have a method, a way, as you claim. I do not want to claim that ... all it does is increases the conflict that exists in the world already. There are enough methods, enough ways. What the world needs is more people who are willing to say ‘hello; this moment is a delight; isn’t it ... can we share and enjoy each others company ... I have no more to offer than you; and you have no more to offer than me ... . Then ‘Gaia’ will have a chance of slowly forming the real physical paradise on earth that is our potential’.

Here is perhaps the clearest example of you trying to turn an actual freedom from the human condition into a pay-as-you-participate religion:

7. [Respondent]: ‘There is a big problem with the way you present yourself; you present yourself as the only one who has reached actual freedom and that your teaching is the only way. That is dangerous Richard; dangerous because the ones who come after you will really believe that and will create conflict and wars and pain and suffering in your name just as many other religions have discarded the purity of actual freedom and became a political body. It is dangerous; counterproductive to your stated aims of alleviating suffering on earth ... and it is incredibly arrogant’.
• [Possible Translation]: ‘There is a big problem with the way you present yourself; you present yourself as the only one who has reached ‘God’ and that your teaching is the only way. That is dangerous Richard; dangerous because the ones who come after you will really believe that and will create conflict and wars and pain and suffering in your name just as many other religions have discarded the purity of ‘God’ and became a political body. It is dangerous; counterproductive to your stated aims of alleviating suffering on earth ... and it is incredibly arrogant’.

It is the ‘many other religions’ phrasing which drives the point home. Needless to say, with any one of these (possible) translations of the words ‘Actual Freedom’ the following passage make sense:

• [Respondent]: ‘I prefer gifted people like you who have found a way to express the perennial philosophy uniquely and freshly.

All this makes clear why you would say to me:

• [Respondent]: ‘Perhaps it is time for you to re-examine the role of The Actual Freedom Trust. Note I am not saying it is time for you to re-examine your experiential, moment-by-moment, direct experience of the actual. Do you begin to hear me yet; or are your filters still in place?’
• [Possible Translation]: ‘Perhaps it is time for you to re-examine the role of The Actual Freedom Trust. Note I am not saying it is time for you to re-examine your experiential, moment-by-moment, direct experience of ‘God’. Do you begin to hear me yet; or are your filters still in place?’

All that remains is for you to state unambiguously what your code-word is for ‘The Truth’, ‘God’, ‘All That Is’ and so on. Maybe it is the phrase ‘Actual Truth’ which you sometimes use ... or maybe it is the ‘awareness’ of Avatar? You wrote:

• [Respondent]: ‘... each of us has a point of view; each of us is UNIQUELY located in regard to time and space, position and history; so each of us is a unique point of view. I am now drawing on the work of the founder of the Avatar trainings, whose name I currently forget ... Palmer ... we each have a point of view, Richard. That is what it means to be human. No more; no less’.

The originator of ‘Avatar’ is Mr. Harry Palmer; self-described as being a ‘poet-engineer-beatnik’ (‘Living Deliberately’, Harry Palmer, 1994). In 1972 he participated in a spiritual guidance meeting known as ‘Scientology’. He then opened the ‘Centre for Creative Learning’, a branch of the ‘Church of Scientology’ in Elmira, New York, which he directed for about fifteen years. In 1988 he set out ‘to explore many systems of beliefs, the psychedelic movement, Eastern philosophies, the hippie movement, Zen, modern psychology ...’. He developed a particular technique (‘I create my experience according to what I believe’) born out of experiences in a sensory deprivation tank over an eight week period. [quote]: ‘It was at this time that the Avatar lessons appeared. I observed my consciousness become defined, starting from the void, advancing and ebbing like the tide, in this non-space ocean of inexpressible source consciousness. From this point of view, one can perceive or apprehend (i.e. to perceive without instructions) a thought form. It is something! ... relativity is the ultimate truth! If Albert Einstein had had a tank, he would have understood that much earlier’ [endquote].

Avatar is a technique which fits in perfectly to the New Age ideology – ‘you experience what you believe and not the opposite’ – or the ‘you create your own reality’ made popular by Ms. Jane Roberts. Therefore, to change one’s life, it is enough to change what one believes. Reality, which is only a belief itself, can thus be modified at will. His basic thesis – that beliefs create a person’s reality as self-fulfilling prophesies – was one that had been expressed in many places from ‘The Vedas’ to ‘A Course in Miracles’ to information channelled through mediums from astral plane entities such as ‘Seth’ and ‘Bashar’. Scientologists are all familiar with the dictum: ‘you are totally responsible for the condition you are in’.

The ‘Creation Handling’ procedure is the one part of Avatar initially considered to be unique ... until a graduate came across a description of a Tibetan meditation technique taught by Mr. Tarthang Tulku, a Tibetan lama who left the country after the Chinese invasion, and founded the ‘Nyingama Institute’ in Berkeley, California in 1969. His method for eliminating unwanted thought forms and their effects, as described in the book ‘Hidden Mind of Freedom’ is virtually the same as Mr. Harry Palmer’s ‘discovery’ in the float-tank. Viz.:

• [Mr. Tarthang Tulku]: ‘Working with thoughts by opening them as they arise can bring many pleasant feelings, which – without attachment – also become our meditation (...) we can even go into the thoughts that judge other thoughts, and, embracing this judging mind, become united with it. By relying on the light of awareness you can see that the difficulties you face are manifestations of your own concepts. Going deeply into your thoughts, you will see how you create your experience, how you alone are the judge who determines heaven and hell, good and bad. Whatever experience arises, stay with it, expand it, and heat it up. If you remain within the intense core of the experience, the meditator unites with thoughts and emotions, and everything dissolves. Then awareness grows powerful and one-pointed. As thoughts and emotions are increasingly included within this field of awareness, they become more useful. Instead of being a cause of frustration or confusion, they become agents of well-being’.

(The four paragraphs above are an edited and abridged composite of some of the information available at the following URL’s: http://members.aol.com/eldonb123/avatar-EDF.html and www.scientology-kills.org/avatarpg1.htm).

With the goal of Buddhist meditation in mind, what does Mr. Harry Palmer have to say about ‘Avatar’:

• [quote]: ‘Avatar is a tool for those who will use it. If you’re on a path to spiritual enlightenment, if your desire is to become spiritually enlightened, to reach a higher state of consciousness or being, then Avatar is the tool that would achieve that (...) if your purpose is to achieve some sort of enlightenment, Avatar is a tool that will allow you to go through the world-lessons that will have you arrive at that enlightenment. Enlightenment is a very unique thing – your unique enlightenment is different from any other being’s enlightenment’.

Okay, so what the is the source of Mr. Harry Palmer’s ‘unique enlightenment’:

• [Mr. Harry Palmer]: ‘Awareness is pure being, non-spatial, non-temporal, effortless, definitionless. Source’.

Thus the source of Avatar’s enlightenment is a timeless, spaceless pure being which, although indefinable, can be called ‘awareness’ if awareness has those specific characteristics. The next question is, is ‘awareness’ the same-same as ‘consciousness’?

• [Mr. Harry Palmer]: ‘Awareness is the essence of consciousness. Consciousness is awareness plus – plus definition, plus judgment, plus time, plus effort, plus desire, plus resistance, etc. The actual process of experiencing is converting consciousness back into awareness’.

The goal, then, of ‘Avatar’ is to have time-bound consciousness go back into timeless ‘awareness’, the source. But how did all this come about in the first place?

• [Mr. Harry Palmer]: ‘Consciousness is created by believing a creation into existence. Awareness plus creation equals consciousness. One, if not the fundamental creation is ‘I am’. It’s at the root of personal consciousness. Consciousness contains definitions and separation. Space or time is necessary for us to discern this separation’.

So where do space and time come from?

• [Mr. Harry Palmer]: ‘Awareness, or pure beingness, though the evident source of space and time, does not itself contain space or time. Hence it is without separation, without definition’.

Therefore, the ‘tool of Avatar’ is the method to have space and time (separation) disappear:

• [Mr. Harry Palmer]: ‘So the process of experiencing is removing separation. Time is the primary resistance that consciousness creates. It delays experience so that an event can be understood – meaning sorted and categorized according to prior stored events and preserved as consciousness. Adding time transforms the flow of experience (what’s happening now) into defined, separate events with beginnings and ends that are stored as a time track of creation. Awareness is timeless.

Okay, so ‘awareness is timeless’ ... but how does all this ‘removing separation’ actually work in practice?

• [Mr. Harry Palmer]: ‘Grace is always here, and you receive it to the degree that you are open to it. When you’re resisting, you’re not open. No grace, suffering. Gratitude opens a crack in consciousness that lets grace in. Being grateful opens you to grace. Complaining, judging, resisting, all lead to suffering’.

Thus the key to ‘grace’, and thence through to enlightenment as a timeless and spaceless pure being called ‘awareness’, is none other than gratitude ... which is a warm affective feeling. And this timeless and spaceless indefinable called ‘awareness’, ‘pure being’ (or ‘truth’, or ‘all that is’, or ‘god’ or whatever name you may give it) is, once again, none other than the ‘Tried and True’ way which history clearly demonstrates is the ‘tried and failed’ way. It is not unique at all.

Whereas an actual freedom from the human condition (a non-spiritual down-to-earth freedom) is totally new in human history.

This is what I mean by a vital opportunity being frittered away.

RESPONDENT: Earnest inquiry is to inquire into one’s own bias. As they say in Scotland, the rest is just Crrraap!

RICHARD: Do you ever countenance an end to ‘earnest enquiry’ ... or do you intend to procrastinate for ever and a day?

RESPONDENT: LOL – what is it that seeks an ending?

RICHARD: The ‘earnest enquiry’ does ... else why so busy earnestly enquiring in the first place?

RESPONDENT: Just for the love of truth, not to get something for me.

RICHARD: Do you ever countenance an end to an earnest enquiry ‘for the love of truth’ ... or do you intend to earnestly enquire for ever and a day?

<snipped for space>

RESPONDENT: Wisdom is openness to ‘what is’ which is ever-changing.

RICHARD: Speaking personally, I started being open to the ever-changing ‘what is’ in January 1981; earnest enquiry led to ‘what is’ blossoming and by September 1981 ‘what is’ flowered into the full bloom of its wisdom; earnest enquiry into the fully blooming wisdom of ‘what is’ flourished throughout the ‘eighties; earnest enquiry into the flourishing wisdom of ‘what is’ led to ‘what is’ beginning to wilt early in the ‘nineties ... and ‘what is’ died towards the end of October 1992.

Thus ‘what is’ is dead, extinct ... and its wisdom is no more.

RESPONDENT: When we do not earnestly enquire, there is no interest in truth.

RICHARD: Speaking personally, earnest enquiry into ‘what is’ in January 1981 rapidly led to an interest in ‘truth’; earnest enquiry and an interest in ‘truth’ led to ‘what is’ blossoming and by September 1981 ‘what is’ flowered into the full bloom of ‘truth’; earnest enquiry and an intense interest in the fully blooming ‘what is’ of ‘truth’ flourished throughout the ‘eighties; earnest enquiry into the flourishing ‘what is’ of ‘truth’ led to ‘truth’ beginning to wilt early in the ‘nineties ... and the ‘truth’ died towards the end of October 1992.

Thus the ‘truth’ is dead, extinct ... and earnest enquiry is no more.

RESPONDENT: Do we see our aggressiveness, our ambition, our compulsion to dominate?

RICHARD: You will need to indicate what you mean by ‘we’ ... is it the royal ‘we’ aka No. 12? If so, as you have already informed me that you are earnestly enquiring into ‘what is’ (for the love of truth and not to get something for yourself) then it would appear that you apparently do see (or partly see) your aggressiveness, your ambition, your compulsion to dominate and etcetera. If by ‘we’ you mean to indicate ‘humanity’ at large then ... some of them do and most of them do not (at a guess). If by ‘we’ you mean you and me ... then, apart from your own seeing (or part seeing) of yourself, you have obviously not been reading my words with both eyes open: I see that I specifically wrote, in my previous E-Mail, ‘I never have to earnestly enquire ... I am already always just here right now’. Plus I have oft-times mentioned to you, in many, many past exchanges that, concomitant to the extinction of identity in toto (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) in 1992, the entire affective faculty vanished, never to return.

Thus ‘what is’ and the ‘truth’ is dead, extinct

RESPONDENT: It is clear that often do not, and it shows in our behaviour.

RICHARD: There may be a typo in ‘often do not’? Apart from that ... yes, ‘what is’ does show in the behaviour of ‘humanity’ at large. As for yourself ... that supple attempt in the previous E-Mail to blarney your way out of your own cul-de-sac, even though all you were communicating was dualistic advice from your pseudo non-dualistic position, certainly gives the impression that the ‘what is’ you nurse to your bosom (and which you are earnestly enquiring into for the love of truth) is firing on all cylinders.

Do you ever countenance an end to an earnest enquiry for the love of truth ... or do you intend to earnestly enquire for ever and a day?

RESPONDENT: Take care.

RICHARD: All is carefree in this actual world ... there is no ‘good’ or ‘evil’ here.

RESPONDENT No. 109: I also have a link to share with you and perhaps you will find it of some interest: www.selftransformation.org/purpose.html.

RICHARD: The following words, from the second paragraph on that page, speak for themselves: [quote] ‘Transformation is the birth of a new human being, and it begins with speaking the truth about self to yourself. This will open the door to yourself, and when this transformational event happens in the individual, the old and trained conditioned self can die, and a new self can be born’. [endquote]. As do these: [quote] ‘Since that day November 19, 1979, and as I write these words, I have been living what could be called an in-the-body life, a life of living each second and watching every movement and emotion as they happen’. [endquote].

RESPONDENT No. 109: Free from all beliefs.

RICHARD: On the contrary ... here is the mother of all beliefs (also from that second paragraph on the page you provided a link to): [quote] ‘Transformation of self will birth a new consciousness on earth, and it is this consciousness that will ultimately save us from ourselves’. [endquote].

RESPONDENT: I’m glad you have broken down what he is saying Richard. I have told [name deleted] time and again that he is spiritual which he still denies because he says he doesn’t believe in God so he thinks he is not spiritual. The way you have taken apart what he is saying makes it easy to say how he is spiritual. The dead giveaway for me is when he talks about love and oneness.

RICHARD: It only took me a few minutes to find the following (posted on Saturday, 25 Feb 2006):

RESPONDENT: If you find something real, something that is truth, then don’t be afraid, nobody can take it from you. Is yours. It is not necessary to try to put down other people for your to be the one who is right.

RICHARD: First, I have not found something ‘real’ I have found what is actual; second, this which is actual is not ‘truth’ it is fact; third, there is no fear here in this actual world so you can cease projecting your ‘don’t be afraid’ feelings onto me; fourth, as it is the universe itself which is actual to say ‘nobody can take it from you’ is simply silliness operating; fifth, this actual world is not mine it was here long before I was born and will be here long after I die; sixth, I do not ‘try to put down other people’ I report my experience and set the record straight wherever necessary ... and, lastly, this which is actual is neither ‘right’ nor wrong it simply is so.

RESPONDENT: JK for example never put down other people for over-imposing his teachings. When they were asking him about Aristotle or Gandhi for example he was saying live other people let’s see together for our self. They may be right (the other people) but what good for you if a have a steak to eat and you don’t have a piece of bread?

RICHARD: What Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti did is his business ... as he was not free from the human condition there is no correspondence betwixt his modus operandi and mine.

RICHARD: ... faking care is not the distinction being referred to as the person feeling caring is being true to their feelings. It is not their fault that the truth is insincere.

RESPONDENT: I see now that ‘faking care’ isn’t what you mean by ‘feeling caring’. I’m curious, what would it take to be sincere? Is all feeling caring insincere – or are you saying that the person being true to their feeling of caring could be sincere by realizing that their caring is ‘self’ centred? Is it only possible to be sincere if one is actually free? Or ‘imitating’ the actual? Could you say more about what you mean – ‘It is not their fault that the truth is insincere’. What exactly is insincere about feeling that one cares for another? Is all feeling caring insincere? Or is insincerity due to one’s ignorance of the actual genesis of feeling caring? If all feeling caring is actually insincere – then it doesn’t seem we ‘beings’ have any choice about it, do we? If this is the case, the path to actual freedom would be becoming as sincere as possible, yet one couldn’t be completely sincere until once actually free. Is this how you see it? Or is one ‘imitating’ the actual also sincere – since they know all feeling caring is ‘self-centred’? Thus, anyone could be sincere just by realizing the ‘self-centeredness’ of feeling caring.

RICHARD: Unless a realisation is actualised, meaning that it operates spontaneously each moment again, it remains just that ... a realisation.

All I am indicating by saying that the truth is insincere is that, as the truth holds the promise of an after-death peace for the feeling being inside the flesh and blood body (as in ‘The Peace That Passeth All Understanding’), the truth is not sincere in regards to bringing about peace on earth ... which peacefulness is what caring is all about.

In short: feeling caring is incapable of delivering the goods.

As being sincere in the context under discussion is to have the pure intent to enable peace-on-earth, in this lifetime as this flesh and blood body, it would therefore take a perspicuous awareness of what is unadulterated, genuine, and correct (seeing the fact) to be sincere ... rather than an instinctive feeling of what is unadulterated, genuine, and correct (intuiting the truth). The feeling of caring (be it a pitying caring, a sympathetic caring, an empathetic caring, a compassionate caring or a loving caring), being primarily the feeling being inside one flesh and blood body caring for the feeling being inside another flesh and blood body (or for an anthropomorphised feeling being called mother earth for instance), is insincere by its very nature. And to realise that such feeling caring is a ‘self’-centred caring – and thus corrupt and/or tainted – is the first step towards sincerity.

Anybody can be sincere (about anything) – all it takes is seeing the fact (of anything) – and in this instance the perspicacity born out of the pure consciousness experience (PCE) ensures sincerity in regards to enabling the already always existing peace-on-earth into becoming apparent. The basis of such sincerity lies in comprehending the fact that caring starts with oneself – if one is incapable of caring for oneself one cannot care about others (or anything for that matter) – lest it be a case of the blind leading the blind.

There are two forms of ignorance about the genesis of the affective feelings: nescience and ignoration – wherein the former is to be incognisant of the root cause and the latter is to be disregardant of the root cause – and the latter has much to do with what is often expressed as ‘you can’t change human nature’ (only recently on another mailing list the sentence ‘we can’t change biological predisposition’ was pithily presented as if it were a valid reason not to discuss the genetic inheritance of aggression). Meaning that, apart from fanciful notions about genetic engineering, it is generally held that as human nature (biology) cannot be changed therefore biology cannot be the root cause of all the ills of humankind ... or so the bizarre rationale goes.

Obviously part of the first step towards sincerity is the acknowledgement of blind nature’s legacy.

RICHARD: All I am indicating by saying that the truth is insincere is that, as the truth holds the promise of an after-death peace for the feeling being inside the flesh and blood body (as in ‘The Peace That Passeth All Understanding’), the truth is not sincere in regards to bringing about peace on earth ... which peacefulness is what caring is all about.

RESPONDENT: I see that the ‘truth’ is not sincere in regards to bringing about peace on earth – but it is not clear to me that ‘the truth holds the promise of an after-death peace for the feeling being’. I grant that is often the case, but an easily shown exception would be a child being empathetic before having any beliefs about an afterlife. It is also readily apparent that feeling caring is often done for an earthly reward – so am I to assume you were over generalizing here? If not, then I don’t understand.

RICHARD: I am not even generalising – let alone over-generalising – as the truth has not, and will not, bring about peace-on-earth for any flesh and blood body anywhere in its lifetime ... simply because it cannot. Moreover, the truth has not, and will not, bring about peace-on-earth for any entity inside any flesh and blood body either ... what it holds out is the promise of an after-death peace (the feeling of eternity is intrinsic to love).

As for a child not knowing about an afterlife: as far as I have been able to ascertain children in all cultures are spoon-fed fantasies about immortality at a very early age ... for example I can recall having a fascinating conversation with a child, not yet four years old, who not only gravely informed me that their newly deceased pet was residing in their particular society’s abode of requiem aeternam, but that they knew the pet’s body was in the ground.

And even if a child somehow escaped such cultural conditioning any feeling of empathy they may express – no matter how earnestly felt – is still not going to bring about peace-on-earth anyway ... which peacefulness is what caring is all about.

RESPONDENT: To look from the known, from the so-called old brain, is to move from known to known to use K’s expression.

RICHARD: To ignore what is known (that feeling comes before thought in the perceptive process) in order to reach for the stars and beyond is to be building an ornate edifice on quicksand.

RESPONDENT: That is one kind of looking that of course has its place in order to get from here to there in the usual sense.

RICHARD: Hmm ... to see that feeling comes before thought in the perceptive process is to be staying with what is happening.

RESPONDENT: But is it possible to observe with attention that is free of that, with an attention that is not seeking to go anywhere?

RICHARD: What manner of an attention is it that has to ignore the obvious in order to achieve its ‘not seeking to go anywhere’ goal?

RESPONDENT: Most of us discuss in this forum because we realize on some level at least that it is not only possible, but essential for this attention to operate in us.

RICHARD: Aye, but this do-not-let-the-fact-stand-in-the-way-of-the-truth attention is prevalent elsewhere as well.

RICHARD: Put simply: it is an affective state of ‘being’ ... an oceanic feeling of oneness with all creation.

RESPONDENT: What you take to be the simple intent, is nowhere presented in the text.

RICHARD: What part of the word ‘truth’ is it that you do not understand? Viz.:

• [quote]: ‘... this is the very first requirement for a man who would seek truth’.

If this does not speak to you of the simple intent to discover that, recognise that, realise that by feeling that, I would be interested to hear what does.

RESPONDENT: What K meant by ‘feeling of beauty’ is left undefined.

RICHARD: As the feeling of beauty is a feeling it is something to feel – not define – and as the feeler is the feeling it remains forever indefinable.

For as long as its presence remains, that is.

RESPONDENT: Its meaning cannot be squeezed for more juice without adulterating it with your own flavouring.

RICHARD: As the feeling of beauty is not being squeezed for meaning in the first place any speculation about more meaning is just that ... speculation.

RESPONDENT: Such adulterations markedly change its flavour.

RICHARD: It might help comprehension of whatever it is you are wanting to convey if you could provide some details about these adulterated flavours you squeezed out of the meaning of the feeling of beauty.

RESPONDENT: Your expression of ‘oceanic feelings of oneness’, is not authentic to K. I do not recall that K ever used the expression, not even using the expression of ‘feeling oneness’. These expressions are inherently inconsistent with oneness.

RICHARD: Interestingly enough only a few days ago I was told that anybody who truly understood would be able to explain what is pointed to in their own words, and not just parrot quotations out of concern about distorting the original meaning, and now I am being told that the words I used are not authentic to Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti ... yet when I do stay true to his words, not deviating one hair’s breadth away from what they say, I am told that I am being overly literal (whatever that means).

Surely it cannot get any better than this ... or can it?

RESPONDENT: The word ‘truth’ is not what I was referring to, but the expression ‘oceanic feeling of oneness with creation’.

RICHARD: Sure, but as the expression ‘an oceanic feeling of oneness with all creation’ is in reference to the word ‘being’ (as in no longer ‘becoming’) then to focus solely upon the expression is to miss what is being expressed ... to wit: the affective state of ‘being’ itself. And when ‘being’ is all there is ... truth reveals itself, unsolicited.

RESPONDENT: In the text, K speaks about the feeling of beauty, but what does that feeling mean?

RICHARD: Its meaning, its signification, lies in the very feeling itself ... if it be not felt it has no meaning, no significance, other than the speculations that thinking about it can give.

RESPONDENT: I have a vague sense of what it is to feel beauty, as beauty does have an emotional effect on me and on so many others, perhaps that is what K was getting at, though it might not be.

RICHARD: Not an ‘emotional’ effect, no ... he oft-times stressed the importance of passion: it is something to be felt deeply, with the whole of one’s being.

RESPONDENT: But I have no idea what you are saying by ‘the affective state of being itself’. It makes sense to say that the ‘feeling of beauty’ is included as an affective state, but why are you lead to say that it is the affective state of being itself?

RICHARD: It is the very feeling itself which informs: the feeling of beauty, which is the feeling of love, when felt deeply, as a passion, with the whole of one’s being, is a state of being wherein there is no longer ‘me’ feeling beauty, no longer ‘me’ feeling love, but the being of the very feeling itself (hence ‘being’ as in no longer ‘becoming’).

And ‘being’ itself is an impersonalised ‘presence’ (no ego-self).

RESPONDENT: Also, I do not see the connection of your last line to the text, but I am curious about what you mean. When is ‘being’ not all there is?

RICHARD: When one is ‘becoming’ (being an ego-self) ... as is the situation for maybe 6.0 billion people.

RESPONDENT: And for truth to reveal itself, is ‘being’ sufficient?

RICHARD: Indeed so ... after all, when ‘being’ is all there is there is nothing else but this ‘presence’.

RESPONDENT: Isn’t it necessary that there is the action of what K would call ‘choiceless awareness’?

RICHARD: That is inherent in ‘being’ itself ... when ‘being’ is all there is there is no choice.

RESPONDENT: In any case, the expression ‘an oceanic feeling of oneness with all of creation’ is your understanding of what ‘being’ refers to in this context.

RICHARD: It is a simile, an expression used to express what the affective state of ‘being’ itself can be likened to: the word ‘oceanic’ refers to it being an immense, vast, limitless feeling.

RESPONDENT: But where is this supported by the text?

RICHARD: Here is the pivotal portion of the text in question:

• [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘... it is essential *to look at it, to feel it, to be with it*, this is the very first requirement for a man who would seek truth’. [emphasis added].

Spelled-out in full it could be put this way:

• [example only]: ... it is essential *to look at the beauty of the outside, to feel the beauty of the outside, to be with the beauty of the outside*, this is the very first requirement for a man who would seek truth.

As I remarked (further above) it is the very feeling itself which informs ... and being one with all creation is indeed an immense, vast, limitless feeling.

RESPONDENT: Indeed, where is it supported by anything K says elsewhere?

RICHARD: Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti often used words such as ‘immense’, ‘vast’, ‘limitless’ and so on. Thus replace the word ‘oceanic’ with what it describes and the sentence in question looks like this:

• Put simply: it is an affective state of ‘being’ ... an immense, vast, limitless feeling of oneness with all creation.

RESPONDENT: K did not consistently give his expressions specific meaning, yet I cannot recall anywhere where ‘an oceanic feeling of oneness with all of creation’ is the meaning implied by the text.

RICHARD: It is something to be felt, deeply, with the whole of one’s being ... then the passion which is the affective state of ‘being’ speaks for itself.

*

RESPONDENT: Are you saying that the realization that God or truth exists is based in what K called the ‘feeling of beauty’?

RICHARD: Yes, when the outside is the inside (as already discussed) and the affective state of ‘being’ itself is thus all there is ... truth reveals itself, unsolicited.

RESPONDENT No. 33: Truth, in my humble opinion, is multi-faceted, multi-lingual, and multi-thesaurused. Hope this explains my views in the matter.

RESPONDENT: So, are you saying that there are many, many paths to truth? That every path is a path to truth? And, doesn’t that then imply, sir, that truth can be said to be pathless land because there is zero distance between thou and that?

RICHARD: Am I correct in reading you to be saying that it is indeed so that truth be a pathless land (because there is ‘zero distance between thou and that’ )? If so then does this not mean that truth does not lie in any temple, in any mosque, in any church and it has no path to it except through one’s own understanding of oneself, inquiring, studying, learning ... then there is that which is eternal?

RESPONDENT: Well, I am not sure if it means all that – let me share what I see, and then perhaps you will respond. Truth is not in any specific place. It is not for example more in any temple, mosque, or church than it is in any star, hole, or toxic waste dump.

RICHARD: Truth is here on earth then?

RESPONDENT: And, it isn’t as if truth is hidden and must be sought, because truth is that which is. Seeking or travelling a path imply that what is here and now is not it.

RICHARD: Yet is that not the problem ... ‘that what is here and now’ is not it? Is not truth formless, spaceless and timeless? And is not ‘that what is’ the physical body; and is not ‘here’ located in space; and is not ‘now’ situated in time? Therefore, must one not psychically seek or bodilessly travel from here (in space) to ‘there’ (spaceless) and from now (in time) to ‘then’ (timeless) to find truth?

RESPONDENT: But, as there is no actual division between oneself and truth – I agree with what you’ve written above – ‘it has no path to it except through one’s own understanding of oneself, inquiring, studying, learning ... then there is that which is eternal’.

RICHARD: I take it that you do not consider that inquiring, studying, learning so as to understand oneself, in order that there be that which is eternal, constitutes being a path to truth, then?

RESPONDENT No. 33: Truth, in my humble opinion, is multi-faceted, multi-lingual, and multi-thesaurused. Hope this explains my views in the matter.

RESPONDENT No. 25: So, are you saying that there are many, many paths to truth? That every path is a path to truth? And, doesn’t that then imply, sir, that truth can be said to be pathless land because there is zero distance between thou and that?

RICHARD: Am I correct in reading you to be saying that it is indeed so that truth be a pathless land (because there is ‘zero distance between thou and that’)? If so then does this not mean that truth does not lie in any temple, in any mosque, in any church and it has no path to it except through one’s own understanding of oneself, inquiring, studying, learning ... then there is that which is eternal?

RESPONDENT: I am curious why you responded to No. 25’s comment and not as well to No. 33. No. 33 seems to indicate his acceptance of at least some of the diverse teachings of those Saints, Sages, etc, that you have found to be so wanting.

RICHARD: I am interested in exploring the ‘pathless land’ implications (‘there is no path to truth’) as it stands in express contrast to both the ‘there is only one path to truth’ fundamentalist attitude and the ‘all paths lead to the truth’ ecumenical attitude ... whereas I have no query about truth being ‘multi-faceted, multi-lingual, and multi-thesaurused’.

RESPONDENT: As he said to No. 31: [No. 33]: ‘True, but there are a zillion different ways to express it. Sufi poets did it in one way, Buddhists in another, the Advaitists in another, and so on. Hence my comment that truth is multi-lingual (meaning it can be expressed in many different ways)’.

RICHARD: I take that to mean what it says – different ways of expression – and not necessarily indicating no path, one path, or many different paths to truth. It is the validity of the ‘no path to truth’ teaching which interests me ... not the differing expressions of truth.

Recently there has been some critique of what I considerately and purposefully called ‘actualism’ after finding the word in the dictionary when I went public in 1997 – I welcome all critiques as these matters warrant being discussed thoroughly – and an enduring aspect of the critique is that I propose, not only a method, based on the authority of experience, but a path ... and a wide and wondrous path into the bargain. As methods, authority, experience and paths are anathema to the stanch ‘K-Reader’ I am therefore vitally interested in exploring the validity of this critique ... especially as methods, authority, experience and paths are rife throughout most, if not all, of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s ‘Teachings’.

‘Tis a fun challenge to engage such a person in a sincere, frank and honest discussion.

RESPONDENT: Do you agree that Sufis, Buddhists, Advaitists, have expressed ‘truth’ (by which is meant what you have called ‘facts’)?

RICHARD: You do seem to have some on-going misunderstanding regarding the distinction I draw between ‘truth’ and ‘fact’ – despite what I have explained at length – but, then again, you did write recently that my 17-page E-Mail of 12,000 words had ‘not much worth answering’ in it.

Presumably it was not worthy of study either?

*

RESPONDENT: You do not like anyone poking fun at you ...

RICHARD: I have explained that there is no ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul to poke fun at ... therefore your ‘humour’ has no mark to hit.

RESPONDENT: ... and this is because despite your countless testimonials, there is a self beating in your flesh and blood body.

RICHARD: Has it not dawned upon you yet that all reports are testimonials and/or claims? Everything Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti reported was a testimonial and/or a claim ... for example, he claims that ‘truth, or God’ does exist because he has realised ‘God or truth’ and therefore ‘such a thing does exist’:

• [quote]: ‘The discovery of truth, or God demands great intelligence, which is not assertion of belief or disbelief, but the recognition of the hindrances created by lack of intelligence. So to discover God or truth – and I say such a thing does exist, I have realised it – to recognise that, to realise that, mind must be free of all the hindrances which have been created throughout the ages’. [endquote]. (‘The Book Of Life: Daily Meditations With J. Krishnamurti’, December Chapter. Published by Harper, San Francisco. Copyright © 1995 Krishnamurti Foundation of America).

I could provide many, many quotes replete with such claims ... here is an unambiguous testimonial of his:

• [quote]: ‘Consciousness, with its content, is within the field of matter. The mind cannot possibly go beyond that unless it has complete order within itself and conflict in relationship has come totally to an end – which means a relationship in which there is no ‘me’. This is not just a verbal explanation: the speaker is telling you what he lives, not what he talks about; if he does not live it, it is hypocrisy, a dirty thing to do’. (Talks In Saanen 1974; © 1975 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, Ltd).

He is clearly testifying that there is no ‘me’ operating in him (if he does not live it, it is hypocrisy, a dirty thing to do).

CO-RESPONDENT: (...) but of course we wouldn’t want facts to get in the way of your unscientific, unprovable, take my word for it, metafacts.

RESPONDENT: I don’t think metafacts is the correct term ... factoids is probably better, or to paraphrase Colbert, factiness.

RICHARD: Bearing in mind that what your co-respondent is referring to is the actualism method’s track record are you now saying that the following was not factual after all? Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘I’ve been at this actualist business for about a year now, and have been reviewing where I was, and where I am now (typical New Year’s process). The short story is that there is discernable change, many layers of conditioning have been stripped, to the point that there remains only the most subtle. I know those can be devilish, but I see the processes in play quite clearly, can trace their causes fairly easily, and am confident in time those will be reduced if not eliminated. While the subtle emotions require real determination to dig out, in some sense it’s actually an easier process as I have these most effective tools at my disposal. It also is a great benefit not to have the whole self-judgement beast reigning any more as it simplifies ferreting out the emotions without the whole ‘good/bad’ layer in effect. So, I am convinced that actualism does work, and is likely the only method that does. My determination is continually being reinforced by the results. In fact, I realized that if someone were to ask me what I ‘am’, I wouldn’t hesitate to say ‘a practicing actualist’ (yes, it’s a redundant expression). That isn’t a labelling exercise, rather just a simple fact stating how I choose to live my life’. (Monday, 20/01/2003 6:18 AM AEDST).

Just so there is no misunderstanding about what you meant by the word method:

• [Respondent]: ‘(...) The method is incredibly simple: I am not happy now; I was happy a minute/ hour/ year ago; Ascertain what caused me to stop being happy; Get back to being happy as quickly as possible. No wonder this is so radical – it has none of the trappings and dogma that humans seem to need to create around such an elemental concept. Of course, sometimes simple things are the hardest to understand. (...) There is no place in the prevalent worldviews/ religions/etc. for something so simple and straightforward as this process’. (Tuesday, 6/05/2003 11:22 PM ADST).

Specifically, are you now saying that the actualism method/process did *not* produce [quote] ‘discernable change’ [endquote] after all ... inasmuch those [quote] ‘many layers of conditioning’ [endquote] were *not* stripped away?

In other words (and paraphrasing how Mr. Steven Colbert put it five weeks ago): did you emotionally _feel_ it to be fact that [quote] ‘there is discernable change’ [endquote] ... inasmuch _you_ selfishly felt that [quote] ‘many layers of conditioning have been stripped’ [endquote]?

RESPONDENT: No.

RICHARD: Okay ... and I appreciate that you acknowledge this.

I have no further questions.

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(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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