Actual Freedom – Selected Writings from Richard's Journal

Pure contemplation is absolutely free from any pre-conceived concepts … it lies beyond ‘human’ beliefs and ideals. There is a dare in pure contemplation ... daring to expect the utter best. Actual freedom is far superior to anything ‘I’ can aspire to; it makes ‘me’ and ‘my’ world obsolete. The actual world has nothing to do with ‘me’ and ‘my’ machinations: ‘my’ hopes, ‘my’ dreams, ‘my’ ideals, or ‘my’ longings. All these things come from the heart ... and the heart has led humankind astray for countless centuries. Passion, coupled with imagination, can only produce variations on that Timeless Reality so beloved by the Religious, Spiritual and Mystical peoples. Being ‘human’ is a feeling; being Divine is a passion. Feelings – emotions and passions – are a liability to one who is going to be actual. In actual freedom I am neither ‘human’ nor Divine, for I am not metaphysical.

I am the third alternative: this very actual body. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Fourteen

I have no plans at all for the future.

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. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Thirteen

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. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Introduction

Upstream ... past the gurgling waterfall ... crossing over the quaint little bridge ... the scent of jasmine hangs heavy in the air ... I am easily enticed to linger. I seat myself at the gaily painted picnic table and chairs. Little birds, chirping and whistling, are flying and jumping from branch to branch in this secluded grove of trees. Nearby a kookaburra starts its laughing call ...and is soon answered by its mate. The sunlight streams down, dappled here by the leaves ... all is well, I am extremely content with this world ... the ambience is such that I could sit here forever.

I do not, of course, for this early-morning stroll is but the prelude to a full day. A large box of rainforest trees, seedlings yet in their little pots, that were purchased last weekend at the local market, are waiting to be planted out. The bare lower slopes of the hill on the other side of the newly dug large lake are begging for some growth. I could not resist the impulse to produce some greenery; a lush, future forest is, I consider, definitely called for. I have already built a bench seat halfway up the hill and my companion painted it yellow and brown. We often go to sit there of an evening, where one can overlook the entire property as it changes colour whilst the sun is setting behind the long mountain range that looms large to the west of here. Inspired into action, I soon find myself in the garden shed collecting tools, stakes, mulch, some chicken manure for fertiliser – I like to give the trees a best possible start – and I water the box of seedlings and place them, with the other things, in the wheelbarrow, ready to go. The sun is still not high in the sky; the temperature will remain pleasant enough to allow some heavy exertion for a while yet. Time enough to have an early-morning cup of coffee on the veranda. There is no sense of rush or haste here; it is as if I have all the time in the world.

What I do have, in actuality, is sufficient time to achieve all that needs to be done. It is one of the many charming characteristics of life that emerges spontaneously when one is activated by pure intent. Pure intent is not to be confused with being a ‘do-gooder’, or being full of ‘righteousness’, or being ‘moralistic’. Pure intent is the quality that encompasses what morals and ethics aspire to but never reach. ‘Good’ fails to reach its desired goal because it opposes ‘Bad’ ... the fight between Good and Evil has raged for centuries. Pure intent enables one to be liberated from both Good and Evil. This freedom from perversity is a guarantee of success. By perverse I mean not only being corruptible and corrupted, but obstinately persisting in being corrupt. Absence of perversity enables one, each moment again, to perform in the optimum manner; be it physically or psychologically. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Four

I am exploring the implications and ramifications of time, which is germane to the awareness of ‘being’. Through pure contemplation, awareness happens – not that there is an ‘I’ to be aware – awareness happens of itself. There is a realisation akin to that of ‘me’ having not happened yet ... and time seems to have come to a halt. As time stopping is patently absurd, it is worthy of further investigation. Time is an observable fact: the clock measures the hours, the day becomes night, a leaf falling from a tree takes time to reach the ground. Yet, psychologically speaking, does time exist? Many philosophers have said it does not, but I demur. Something does happen with time, subjectively, when this moment lives me – instead of ‘me’ living in the present – but what is it that happens? Is this moment actually timeless as some say that it is?

Time has no duration when the immediate is the ultimate and the relative is the absolute. This moment takes no interval at all to be here now. Thus it appears that it is as if nothing has occurred, for not only is the future not here, but the past does not exist either. If there is no beginning and no end, is there a middle? There are things happening, but nothing has happened or will happen … or so it seems. Only this moment exists. This moment has no term, it takes no time at all to occur … which gives rise to the inaccurate notion that it is timeless. This is an institutionalised delusion, for it stems from the egocentric feeling that ‘I’ am Immortal, that ‘I’ am Eternal.

Apperception – which is the mind’s perception of itself reveals that this moment is hanging in eternal time … just as this planet is hanging in infinite space. This moment and this place are in the realm of the infinitude of this actual physical universe. This moment is perennial, not timeless. I am perpetually here – for the term of my natural life – as this moment is; I am not Eternally Present. It is the universe that is eternal … not me. As one is the universe experiencing itself as a sensate human being, any ‘I’ - always on the look-out for self-aggrandisement – grabs the universe’s eternity for itself. Also, what helps to create the feeling that the present is timeless is that human beings – as an identity – are normally out of this universe’s eternal time. Yet time is as intimate as this body being here now at this moment. It is so intimate that I – as a body only – am not separate from it. Whereas ‘I’, as a human ‘being’, have separated ‘myself’ from eternal time by being an entity. To be an ontological ‘being’ is to mistakenly take this body being here as containing an ‘I’, a psychological or psychic entity. To ‘be’ is to take this moment of being alive personally … as being proof of ‘my’ subjective existence. ‘I’ am an illusion; if ‘I’ think and feel that ‘I’ do exist, then ‘I’ am outside of eternal time. ‘I’ am forever complaining that there is ‘not enough hours in the day’, or ‘I am always running out of time’, or ‘I am always catching up with time’, or ‘I am always behind time’. All this activity is considered ‘normal’, as it is the common experience of humankind. (...)

But I am supremely blasé about the opinion of others, for their ‘truths’ do not work ... they do not live in peace and tranquillity. They do not experience the perpetual purity of this moment of being alive; a purity welling-up in all directions from the vast, immeasurable stillness of the infinitude of this universe. They remain ignorant of the excellence of the absence of ‘being’. In short, their ‘truths’, their philosophies on life, do not work. The criterion of a fact is that it works, it produces results. Because I live here, where the immediate is the ultimate and the relative is the absolute, I have never known sorrow or malice. All my thoughts and deeds are benign, for maleficence does not exist where time has no duration.

By living the fact that ‘I’ am not actual, evil has ceased to be. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Sixteen

I am busy in the kitchen, boiling the kettle and making the preparations for a freshly-brewed pot of coffee. My life here on earth, is most definitely mature, most assuredly consummated ... I know only perfection. I am constantly amazed at the untainted quality of my simple existence. There is no ‘me’ inside this body thinking about Metaphysical matters or feeling out the ‘Rights’ and ‘Wrongs’ in life ... in short, making a nuisance of itself. The presence of ‘me’, with all its mischief, prohibits the apperception of this vast stillness which is the progenitor of purity.

Being here now, as this body, is to be living inside eternal time. In here lies security, utter safety. Nothing can go ultimately wrong inside eternal time, all is forever well. It is only when one thinks and feels that ‘I’ exist that the troubles begin. To locate this entity, one has only to tune into the feeling of ‘being’. In ‘being’ there is a sense of ‘presence’, a feeling of being present. The Spiritual people tell everyone, peremptorily, that humans are all One. They endlessly praise Unity and revere Oneness. If one has done what they advise to do, one will have come across a Presence … which goes by many names.

Clearly this Presence is a psychic projection of ‘my’ own ‘presence’. They describe this Presence as being the Timeless One that creates and sustains all of Existence. They maintain that by believing in this Timeless One, one will have Absolute Peace, by which they mean Eternal Life. It is the fear of death that has set this entire system of belief into motion: ‘I’ dread extinction. To be extinct is, of course, not to ‘be’. ‘Being’ is the root-cause of the perceived tragedy of life. Life is seen to be tragic because it has death at the end; if it were not for death, according to the received ‘wisdom’, life would be good.

In actuality, the concept of living forever, as a psychic entity, is the original cause of abject sorrow and malice ... not extinction. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Sixteen

To be an entity is to be forever locked-out of eternal time. Complete security lies inside eternal time. ‘I’ will never look into eternal time; for ‘me’ eternal time is an enemy to be avoided at all costs. ‘I’ condemn ‘myself’ to the endless creation of grandiose schemes to save my soul; ‘I’ concoct all kinds of fantasies about Other-Worldly Dimensions. ‘I’ have to believe in multitudinous Heavenly Kingdoms wherein ‘I’ can reside as an Immaculate Spirit for all of Eternity. ‘I’ am driven to spin dreams and illusions because ‘I’ refuse to see what lies here on earth ... right under ‘my’ nose, as it were. ‘I’ can never live inside eternal time … whereas I as this flesh and blood body can only be here now. Inside this body there is no ‘being’ … nothing psychological or psychic left for ‘I’ am extinct. Time is a blessing, not a curse. I can never be out of time, nor anywhere but here, for I have actualised my destiny … here on earth and now in time.

I am mortal. Mortality is a fact and if one is to be at all scientific, one must stick to the facts. To avoid a fact is to avoid involvement ... and there is no greater involvement than being here now. Time and mortality are inextricably linked. Mortality is essential in order to be here now, in eternal time. I am glad that I am mortal; if it were not for death, I could not be free to be here now. Perennial happiness is only possible because of death as extinction. This universe is perfect to the nth degree and I would not presume to change one little bit of it. To live with the fact is to live completely. Nothing is missing; nothing has ever been missing, nor ever will be missing. Life is already complete.

By avoiding death – which is avoiding the fact – ‘I’ am standing in the way of the exquisite purity of being alive. By searching for Eternal Life,‘I’ shut ‘myself’ off from the perfection of being here now. ‘I’ am wasting ‘my’ time in the most insidious way possible; but then again, ‘I’ am by nature cunning and deceitful. ‘I’ will do anything but face the fact of ‘my’ own demise. Ironically, with ‘my’ psychological ‘death’ comes release from the fears of physical death. All of the unnamed terrors surrounding death arise from apprehension as to what will happen to ‘me’ as a ‘being’. I regard death with equanimity; when it happens I will welcome it as I do the oblivion of deep sleep each night. Like sleep, it is an agreeable actual occurrence.

I am completely happy to be here now, securely inside eternal time. Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Sixteen