Actual Freedom – Selected Writings from Richard's Journal

It is now possible for any human being to be totally free from sorrow and malice; the two fundamental elements that prevent one from being happy and harmless. Gone now are the days of having to assiduously practice humility and pacifism in an ultimately futile attempt to become free by transcending the opposites … the traditional and narrow path of denial and fantasy, negation and hallucination. A wide and wondrous path of blitheness and gaiety is now available for one who wishes to live the freedom of the actual.

Actual freedom is a tried and tested way of being happy and harmless in the world as it actually is … stripped of the veneer of reality or Greater Reality that is super-imposed by the psychological or psychic entity within the body. This entity is that sense of identity that inhibits any freedom and sabotages every well-meant endeavour. Thus far one has had only two choices: being ‘normal’ or being spiritual.

Now there is a third alternative … and it supersedes any Mystical Altered State. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Introduction

Philosophical wisdom, Psychological knowledge and Spiritual enlightenment have had their day and are proving themselves inadequate to meet the requirements of this modern era. For thousands of years – maybe tens of thousands of years – humankind has known of no alternative manner of living life on this verdant planet. The passing parade of Philosophers and Preachers, Masters and Sages – geniuses and thinkers of all description – have failed abysmally to deliver their oft-promised ‘Peace On Earth’ … in fact, instead of their much-vaunted love and virtue, they have left in their wake much hatred and bloodshed, the likes of which beggars description.

Millions of well-meaning followers have diligently put their Teachings into practice, prostrating and belittling themselves like all get-out in a hopeful attempt to live the unliveable. Yet no-one, it seems, dares to question the Teachings themselves; instead the humiliated penitents obligingly blame themselves for failing to achieve release from the ‘Human Condition’. To seek freedom via profound and lofty thought or sublime and exalted feelings is to blindly perpetuate all the horrors and sufferings that have plagued humankind since time immemorial. The time has come to put to an end, once and for all, the blight that has encumbered this fair earth for far too long. It behoves one to question all of the received ‘wisdom’ of the centuries, all of the revealed ‘truths’ … all of the half-baked inanities that pass for understanding. Then, and only then, there is a fair chance that one can come to an actual freedom … a freedom the nature of which has never been before in human experience.

The blame for the continuation of human misery lies squarely in the lap of those inspired people who, although having sufficient courage to proceed into the Unknown, stopped short of the final goal … the Unknowable. Notwithstanding the cessation of a personal ego operating, they were unwilling to relinquish the Self or Spirit … and an ego-less Self or Spirit is still an identity, nevertheless. In spite of the glamour and the glory of the Altered State Of Consciousness, closer examination reveals that these ‘Great’ persons had – and have – feet of clay. Bewitched and beguiled by the promise of majesty and mystery, they have led humankind astray. Preaching submission or supplication they keep a benighted ‘humanity’ in appalling tribulation and distress.

The death of the ego is not sufficient: the extinction of the identity in its entirety is the essential ingredient for peace and prosperity to reign over all and everyone. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Introduction

Thus, after The Altered State Of Consciousness has manifested itself, the soul is still present as The Self. No matter how Enlightened or Liberated one may be, an ‘I’ is still in existence ... Timeless maybe, but still an ‘I’, still in the body. The soul, as The Self, is a psychic entity identifying as being an Enlightened Master. The ego is only half of one’s identity; the other half is the soul. When the ego dies, one has dispelled an illusion – the illusion of a personal self – only to wind up living in a delusion ... the delusion of an impersonal Self. To take oneself to be The Self, the Immortal Soul, The Supreme, The Absolute, or God On Earth, is nothing short of institutionalised insanity. The delusion must be dispelled in order to be actually free: along with the ‘death of the ego’ there must be a corresponding ‘death of the soul’. Then ‘I’ – the self or the Self – do not exist, psychologically or psychically speaking, in any way at all. Then the Eternal Present also vanishes … along with all that other capitalised nonsense. Surpassing the Altered State Of Consciousness is the third alternative … an actual freedom.

Spiritual Enlightenment has been around for some thousands of years ... and there is still no peace on earth. Nowadays I know, experientially, why Enlightenment does not deliver the goods ... and, of course, I now know what does. I am not an Enlightened Master sitting in an exalted position ... and what a relief that is. I am a fellow human being, who happens to live in a condition of perfection and purity, offering my experience to whomsoever is interested. We are all fellow human beings who find ourselves here in the world as it was when we were born. We find war, murder, torture, rape, domestic violence and corruption to be endemic ... we notice that it is intrinsic to the ‘Human Condition’ ... we set out to discover why this is so. We find sadness, loneliness, sorrow, grief, depression and suicide to be a global incidence ... and we gather that it is also inherent to the ‘Human Condition’ ... and we want to know why. We all report to each other as to the nature of our discoveries for we are all well-meaning and seek to find a way out of this mess that we have landed in. Whether one believes in re-incarnation or not, we are all living this particular life for the very first time, and we wish to make sense of it. It is a challenge and the adventure of a lifetime to enquire and to uncover, to seek and to find, to explore and to discover.

All this being alive business is actually happening and we are totally involved in living it out ... whether we take the back seat or not, we are all still doing it. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Foreword

Is there a future? If one is to believe the Enlightened Masters, when the ego dies there is no past or future ... they say there is only the Eternal Present. The Present stretches Spaceless and Timeless in all directions. One is then Unborn and Undying ... they say that they have overcome death’s mortality and become Immortal. They describe a sense of Oneness with all sentient ‘beings’ and speak of an awareness of ‘A Presence’ ... all spelled with a capital to denote Divinity. This State Of ‘Being’ is called an Altered State Of Consciousness or Spiritual Enlightenment. One has realised oneself as being the Unmanifest Self: All-Expansive, All-Encompassing and All-Pervasive. In Spiritual terms this is known as the death of ego, of self. One has arrived! The past and the future do not exist ... yet, paradoxically, all Masters are known to believe in at least one important future … important for them, that is. At physical death, they state, their Immortal Soul will finally ‘quit the body’ and merge with the Ocean Of Oneness.

How is it that, after The Altered State Of Consciousness has manifested itself, the Soul is still present? Is the Soul not a psychic entity? No matter how Enlightened or Liberated one may be, an ‘I’ is still in existence ... Timeless and Spaceless maybe, but still an ‘I’, still in or around the body. As the ego is dead, then what precisely is still here as an identity … for they all identify as being a Master? It is the Self. The ego is only half of one’s identity; the other half is the soul. When the ego dies, one has dispelled an illusion – the illusion of a personal self – only to wind up living in a delusion ... the delusion of an impersonal Self. To take oneself to be the Self, the Soul, the Supreme, the Absolute, God On Earth or the Void, is nothing short of institutionalised insanity! The delusion must be dispelled in order to be actually free: along with the ‘death of the ego’ there must be a corresponding ‘death of the soul’. Then ‘I’ – the Self or Spirit – do not exist, psychically speaking, in any way at all. Then the Eternal Present also vanishes … along with all that other capitalised nonsense.

This condition I call actual freedom ... the third alternative. Surpassing the Altered State Of Consciousness is the third alternative. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Thirteen

The third alternative is not to be found in any Spiritual book nor heard of in any discourse from a Master, a Guru, a Spiritual Teacher or a Whatever. Some disciplines hint at its existence but no one has ever lived it to speak about it knowledgeably, hence the deafening silence. Some religions posit such a condition pertaining to the other side of physical death – Mahasamadhi and Parinirvana being two examples that spring to mind – but no useful information can be derived from there. I maintain that such a condition is possible while the body is still alive and breathing ... but for this to occur not only must the ego ‘die’ but the soul must be extirpated as well. Only then are all illusions and delusions dispelled. Only then can there be an actual freedom. Understanding all this promotes an actualism which ensures a virtual freedom.

In actualism all of the previous world-views – human’s understandings of ‘humanity’ – are seen to be erroneous. Especially erroneous are the Divine solutions to the plight of ‘humanity’ ... however long such solutions may have been held in awe, venerated and viewed as being Sacred. The solutions – The Truth, The Good, Love Agapé, Divine Compassion and so on – that these Masters have brought into the world are all the more insidious because no one, it seems, dares to question them. Nobody, it appears, equates the resultant problems, that these Gods On Earth have managed to produce, with the solutions. And the resultant problems are horrific: Religious Wars have beset this planet for thousands of years ... for about as long as these Masters and Messiahs, Avatars and Redeemers, Saviours and Sages, Priests and Prophets, Saints and Shamans and have been around, in fact, peddling their perverted delusions.

The Altered State Of Consciousness is attractive only to the masses; it does not appeal to the individual. Only actualism can satisfy a person who already sees through the Master’s deliberate incongruities, their shrewd hypocrisy and their innate inability to live according to their own contradictory statements. Their ‘profound’ statements just happen to be well-known rehashes of their predecessors’ … who also failed to live up to the State Of ‘Being’ they resided in. None of them are able to be scrupulously observed by their disciples, twenty-four-hours-a-day, day-in-day-out, to ascertain the validity of their Divine State. None of them were honest enough to invite meticulous scrutiny of their Eternal Truth, which is full of Goodness. Why not? Why hold any sincerely interested disciple at arm’s length? Why be so stingy as to disseminate Blissful Godliness to the assembled masses only once or twice a day ... and then hide the Divine State away in an inner room for the remainder of the day? Does a Master ever become fully involved, doing The Work that He or She talks about, every moment again until the disciples get the Message by living freely, day after day? No. Instead they go for quantity, not quality. They go for formal discourse and monologue instead of free discussion and easy dialogue. Free discussion and easy dialogue lead to an actual intimacy and a direct discovery. Only an actual intimacy can provide the propitious ambience necessary for genuine freedom. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Thirteen

The third alternative – actual freedom – is not an Ineffable State. Unlike The Altered State, it can be easily and adequately described in unambiguous terms. All is plain to view, nothing is hidden. Nothing is Unknowable. There is no Mystery any longer. The secret to life is solved. In actualism, a person sees all that is religious or spiritual or mystical for the superstitious metaphysical anachronism that it is ... it all belongs to the best that those within the ‘Human Condition’ can aspire to. To be actually free is to be completely free from the ‘Human Condition’ in all its entirety. Free from The Good as well as from The Bad; from Love as well as Hate; from Beauty as well as Ugly; from The True as well as The False; from God as well as Evil ... from any thing Diabolical or Divine at all. To be actually free is to be free, at last, to be ordinary. To be this flesh and blood body. To be mortal. To be without the need for any inhibiting surrender to that Highest Authority with its Absolute Power.

I experience the universe as being here now in all its benignity. The world of people, things and events is no longer at a distance. Without the defences of the identity I can stand proud, as I do not need to maintain myself as ‘someone’ in particular with relation to others. An unusual anonymity has freed me from the ‘normal’ responsibility and onerous task of sustaining ‘myself’. A marked absence of severity has replaced the need for Moral Guidance and Spiritual Discipline, for I am already always harmless. I have never been harmed, psychologically, nor have I ever known sorrow. The identity, ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul, can best be described as either a psychological or psychic parasite living inside the body. In a valiant and understandable attempt to solve the plight of humankind, ‘I’ cease identifying as the ego and identify as the soul ... a shift in consciousness which manifests Love Agapé and Divine Compassion. Unfortunately for its success, Love Agapé and Divine Compassion have their roots in sorrow and malice and therefore cannot provide the ultimate solution: freedom from anguish and animosity.

Compassion actually perpetuates sorrow, and love perpetuates malice, for sorrow and malice are the essential progenitors of Love Agapé and Divine Compassion. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Thirteen

It is so easy to live, here. All this that is happening is self-evidently well organising itself. Insecurity and security have given way to a vast safety unparalleled in the annals of history. Nor do I feel enveloped by any sense of Metaphysical Energy in the form of Love Agapé or Divine Compassion; which is a form of consolation and commiseration … Divine succour. From the vantage point of being here now, these are seen as unnecessary ... for sorrow and malice themselves are unnecessary. For Love Agapé and Divine Compassion to be effective a lonely and resentful victim is required in order to receive them and feel healed. When one ceases being a victim, one no longer is interested in being soothed. One only wants to be free, actually free. However, once ensnared in the psychic tentacles of Divine Healing it is deemed sacrilegious to break free. To the Religious and Spiritual people I seem to be a heretic. Nevertheless, to establish a genuine peace-on-earth one must, perforce, be iconoclastic. Those ‘Tried and True’ methods have been tried and tried, again and again ... and have failed and failed, again and again. It was high time for something new to hove into view.

And although obnoxious people may still appear, from time to time, and attempt to wreak their havoc, my response to them is not hostile and reactionary. One of the amazing attributes of actual freedom is its far-reaching benevolence; an attribute which allows my responses to be appropriate to the circumstances and sometimes unpredictable ... even to me. To be benevolent – which literally means well-wishing – is to be free to act in a way that is beneficial to one and all. Benevolence acts freely, I am not driven by Universal Sorrow as are the Compassionate Ones. When what is known as That Which Is Sacred – which has no existence outside of passionate ‘human’ imagination – is no longer able to meddle in the affairs of humankind, humans can finally have a genuine chance of peace-on-earth. Such a peace is certainly possible for the individual right now. It has been here all along, freely available for anyone to discover. Daring to investigate, explore and uncover, I had to be willing to venture where no one had travelled before … beyond the Altered State Of Consciousness into The Unknowable. I had to be intrepid to abandon all the accrued ‘wisdom’ of the ages ... a ‘wisdom’ that has proved itself to be patently absurd.

In actual freedom this universe is experienced as it actually is: it is perfection. Upon reflection, how can it be not perfect? There is no outside to perfection … and hence no centre, either. The purity of this perfection provides for the ultimate satisfaction; the satisfaction that Love Agapé and Divine Compassion seem to promise but can never deliver.

Surpassing the Altered State Of Consciousness is actual freedom. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Thirteen