Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Asked Questions

RICHARD: As anything short of going naked in the world at large, without so much as even a box of matches, a knife, or a packet of salt, and gathering berries/fruit by hand and digging for roots/yams with same, is a technological advancement on pure animality there is no reason whatsoever why human beings collectively would not continue to maintain the myriad benefits of civilisation just because they opted for peace-on-earth.

Indeed, whilst it is quite amazing what has already been achieved, despite the human condition, just what possible advancements there are to be accomplished in a world without war and murder and rape and torture and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide, and so on, and so forth, lie beyond present-day comprehension.

It will have to be lived in order to find that out.

RESPONDENT: Before I respond to the whole message I would like to ask you about your PCE experience (I assume it is a constant experience for you).

RICHARD: Yes, twenty four hours a day, three hundred and sixty five days of the year ... and has been thus since 1992. From 1981 to 1992, I lived in an Altered State Of Consciousness for the twenty four hours of the day. It is an irrevocable and thus permanent condition ... I could not reverse it if my life depended upon it.

RESPONDENT: If there is no psychic entity in your body than you don’t know and don’t care what will happen next moment.

RICHARD: There is no next moment ... there is only this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space. I can intellectually know that there possibly will be a now that is presumably going to happen (and that there was a series of past now-moments that did happen) and can plan according to the probability that certain events are likely to occur (that the banks will be open tomorrow at 9.30 AM, for example) based upon those past experiences. But there actually is no future (or past) whatsoever as I sit here now.

Living here, there is only now ... and it is always now. I care for the next moment inasmuch as sensible planning can ensure the optimum creature comforts and ease of life-style ... I purchased a carton of cream yesterday afternoon so that I can have some in this cup of coffee I am sipping now (3.36 AM) when all the shops are closed. Other than sensible planning it is simply silly to ‘care what will happen in the next moment’ (substitute ‘worry’ for ‘care’ ) as it is unknown in that it does not exist. The future is not ‘out there’ somewhere already formed and just waiting to happen ... it has no existence whatsoever until it happens. When the future happens it is called now ... hence there is no future at all.

RESPONDENT: So, your experience is always fresh and no boredom or fear is possible.

RICHARD: No boredom or fear whatsoever. This moment has never happened before and never will happen again ... thus life is always ever-fresh, novel, original, unique, peerless, matchless and impeccable.

RESPONDENT: And because there is no ‘I’ in you, there is nobody to worry about anything or correct, improve anything?

RICHARD: There is no worry, no, but I am not too sure that this is because there is no ‘I’ ... it is simply silly to worry as worrying does nothing whatsoever to get an event changed. I correct – and thus improve – what can be corrected ... according to a preference for creature comforts and ease of life-style. For example: if I can sit upon a cushion instead of the brick pavers of the patio I will ... that is a preference. But if a cushion is not available it does not matter ... I thoroughly enjoy being alive at this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space irregardless of what is happening. I could be just as happy and harmless on bread and water in solitary confinement in some insalubrious penitentiary ... but I would be pretty silly to act or behave in such a way as to occasion that outcome! The ‘I’ that used to inhabit this body did everything possible that ‘I’ could do to blatantly imitate the actual in that ‘I’ endeavoured to be happy and harmless for as much as is humanly possible. This was achieved by putting everything on a ‘it doesn’t really matter’ basis. That is, ‘I’ would prefer people, things and events to be a particular way, but if it did not turn out like that ... it did not really matter for it was only a preference. ‘I’ chose to no longer give other people – or the weather – the power to make ‘me’ angry ... or irritated ... or even peeved, if that was possible. It was great fun and very, very rewarding along the way. ‘My’ life became cleaner and clearer and more and more pure as each habitual way of living life was consciously eliminated through constant exposure. Finally ‘I’ invited the actual by letting go of the controls and letting this moment live ‘me’. ‘I’ became the experience of the doing of this business of being alive ... no longer the ‘do-er’. Thus ‘my’ days were numbered ... ‘I’ could hardly maintain ‘myself’ ... soon ‘my’ time would come to an end. An inevitability set in and a thrilling momentum took over ... ‘my’ demise became imminent.

The moment of the death of ‘me’ was so real that it was experienced as being that one was going into the grave physically ... that is how real ‘I’ am.

RESPONDENT: So, the world is perfect.

RICHARD: The clean and clear and pure perfection of peace-on-earth never goes away despite all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicide. There is the preference for the creature-comforts and ease of life-style, of course, but one takes the world of people, things and events as it is. Even if every single human being was happy and harmless, there would still be cyclones and earthquakes and tidal waves and fires and crocodiles and sharks and mosquitoes and so forth. Life is an adventure, after all.

The physical world cannot ever be perfect, in the sense that nothing uncomfortable would happen, due to the finite nature of spatial/temporal things – animal, vegetable and mineral – and events happen which some people welcome but others not (a farmer may want rain to germinate the crop whilst a builder may want clear skies to get the roof on). I cannot consider for a moment that people would want a nearby volcano to explode and engulf their village or town or city ... yet it happens. And there are the trivial matters of daily life – I spilt hot coffee only a couple of days ago – yet in the final analysis none of these events matter. Ultimately nothing is of utter importance because we are all going to die, some day. Things are only as important as one makes them be.

RESPONDENT: I am wondering what is your experience of your thoughts. Do they appear to be localised in your head?

RICHARD: Oh yes ... towards the front of the skull, generally. If there is a situation that calls for a considered response there is an active thinking of possibilities and probabilities – an exploring of feasible courses of action – based upon past experience and knowledge. Then the issue is ‘banished’ to the back of the skull where it all gets sorted out of its own accord. Sometimes the outcome is very surprising. For the most of the day there is either few or no thoughts running at all ... none whatsoever. If thought is needed for a particular situation, it swings smoothly into action and effortlessly does its thing. All the while, there is this apperceptive awareness of being here ... of being alive in the infinitude of this universe. No words occur ... it is a wordless appreciation of being able to be here, now. Doing something – and that includes thinking – is a bonus of pleasure and delight on top of this on-going ambrosial experience of being alive and awake and here ... now. Consequently, my life is always blithe and carefree, even if I am doing nothing.

RESPONDENT: (...) And what are your views regarding relationships and what people call ‘love’? Do you think it’s possible for two identity-less beings to fall in love with each other?

RICHARD: (...) There is an actual intimacy between me and my companion. Actual intimacy is a direct experiencing of the other. It is an actuality born out of pure intent. Pure intent was activated by paying intense attention – exclusive attention – to one’s peak experiences. A peak experience is where ‘I’, the identity, temporarily abdicate the throne and everything is seen to be already always perfect. A chief characteristic of the peak experience is the clarity of apperception ... the seeing through of the belief in ‘my’ existence. In the months that followed the peak experience, the pure intent – this unwavering attention – amounted to an obsession for ‘me’, the identity, for what a sin it was to be disconsolate and miserable when the world had been experienced as being so glorious. To be here, intimately here at this moment in time, where this actual world is such a marvellous place to be alive in, is a satisfaction and fulfilment unparalleled in the annals of history.

Actual intimacy – being here – does not come from love, for love stems from separation. The illusion of intimacy that love produces is but a meagre imitation of this direct experience of the actual. In this, the actual world, ‘I’, the personality, the subjectively experienced identity and self, have ceased to exist; whereas love accentuates, endorses and verifies ‘me’ as being real. And while ‘I’ am real, ‘I’ am relative to other, similarly afflicted, persons; vying for position and status in order to establish ‘my’ credentials ... to verify ‘my’ very existence.

To be actually intimate is to be without separation ... and therefore free from the need for love with its ever un-filled promise of Peace On Earth. I am not apart from the universe ... I am the universe experiencing itself as a thinking, reflective human being. Whereas ‘I’ can never be intimate for ‘I’ am distanced from the actual by ‘my’ very ‘being’ ... ‘I’ stand in the way of actual intimacy. The intimacy that ‘I’ as a personality can have, as a feeling – an emotion or a passion – for another in a relationship, pales into insignificance when compared with the actual intimacy of being the universe experiencing itself. There is no need for a relationship here. Relationship requires a separated identity in order to do the relating. By being what I am – ‘what’ not ‘who’ – I am not separate from the universe. This body is literally made of the very stuff of the universe ... there is no difference whatsoever between this stuff and me. I am it.

I do not make the mistake, as the people who have dissolved only their ego do, of identifying myself with Existence or Whatever ... as being God On Earth, or any of that deluded nonsense ... I have no identity or self whatsoever. Nothing that ‘I’ – as an ego-less ‘Self’ – experienced many years ago when ‘I’ lived in the Divine Realm (Samadhi, Satori, Nirvana, Sunyata and so on) can equal the magnificence of being here in this actual world. Being here as-I-am far surpasses any Religious Illumination, Spiritual Enlightenment, Mystical Union or any other Altered State Of Consciousness. For example: This moment is perennial, not timeless. I am perpetually here – for the term of my natural life – as this moment is; I am not immortal. It is the universe that is eternal ... not me. I am free to be me; me as I actually am. I am free to be practical, straight-forward and down-to-earth. I am free of any guile, any hypocrisy, any duplicity, any cupidity ... any corruption at all. Innocence prevails only where time has no duration ... and this moment has no measure, it is ever-new. I have no need for such a paltry surrogate as Immortality ... Immortality fades into the oblivion it deserves when compared to the magnitude of experiencing the infinity of the universe as a human being living here, each moment again, fresh and new and pristine.

I am free to live in this magical wonderland that is the actual world.

RESPONDENT: I shot a sparrow when I was small. My mom had bought me a B-B gun, and I aimed at the bird – I didn’t dream that I would hit it, but I did and it dropped dead. That made me feel real bad. I ‘felt’ that it was wrong to take the life of something as beautiful as a bird. No one told me it was wrong. It fact it was quite the ‘right’ thing to do where I lived. Then, once I went squirrel hunting, aimed at a squirrel in a tree, pulled the trigger, and he, too, dropped dead – from a gunshot wound. I felt terribly guilty. I ‘knew’ that it was wrong, and I did it anyway. I suffered the guilt. Yes, Richard, if people lived by the ‘feelings’ in their hearts, souls, the feeling of love for all creatures and the environment, we might not be in the mess we are today. But people have hardened to their true feelings – their feelings of everything.

RICHARD: But people do already live ‘by the feelings in their hearts, souls’ ... that is why the world is in the mess it is in. The most notorious dictator is ruled by feelings.

As for ‘the feeling of love for all creatures’ ... methinks that statement gives pause for reflection. Where do you draw the line on killing? The very fact that one is alive means consuming nutrients ... and staying alive means that something, somewhere, must die in order to supply these nutrients. This is a fact of life ... and the marvellous thing about a fact is that one can not argue with it. One can argue about a belief, an opinion, a theory, an ideal and so on ... but a fact: never. One can deny a fact – pretend that it is not there – but once seen, a fact brings freedom from choice and decision. Most people think and feel that choice implies freedom – having the freedom to choose – but this is not the case. Freedom lies in seeing the obvious, and in seeing the obvious there is no choice, no deliberation, no agonising over the ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ judgement. In the freedom of seeing the fact there is only action.

When it comes to the consumption of nutrients there are many and various beliefs one can hold dearly to. There are people who will not eat red meat at all ... only white meat and fish. Then there are people who will not eat any flesh of warm-blooded animals at all ... only fish and reptiles. Then there are people (vegetarians) who will not eat any meat at all, but will consume eggs and dairy products. Then there are people (vegans) who will eat only vegetables, grain and seed. Then there are people (fruitarians) who will only eat fruit. Then – as we go into myth and fantasy – there are those who live on water and air ... and finally those who live on air only.

As in regards to ‘loving the environment’ : Some vegetarians maintain that as a carrot (for example) does not scream audibly when it is pulled from the ground there is no distress caused by the consumption of vegetables. Yet the carrot indubitably dies slowly by being extracted from its life-support system – the ground is its home – and is this not distressing on some level of a living, growing organism? It all depends upon the level, or degree, of ‘aliveness’ that one ascribes to things. Vegans, for instance, will not consume eggs as this prevents an incipient life from being born. Fruitarians go one step further and say that, as the consumption of carrots prevents them from going to seed and sprouting new life, vegetables are to be eschewed entirely. Then, as the eating of grain and seeds also prevent potential life-forms from growing, they will eat only the flesh of the fruit that surrounds the kernel and plant out the embryo plant-form. (I have been a fruitarian so I know full well what I am speaking of.)

The obvious fact is clearly demonstrated by taking all this to its ultimate consideration. What will one do – as a fruitarian causing no pain or the taking of life of anyone or anything – about those pesky things like mosquitoes, sand-flies, cockroaches, rats, mice and other ‘vermin’ that invade my house? Put up screens? What about outside? Will I slap them dead ... or just shoo them away? What will one do if attacked by a snake, a crocodile, a shark, a lion and so on? Do as the Revered Scriptures say and turn the other cheek? Will I humbly submit to my fate and be mauled severely myself – or even killed – simply because of a religious injunction, a moral scruple, a noble ideal, a virtuous belief, a passionate opinion, a deeply held ethical theory? In other words, have animals and insects been given the right, by some inscrutable god, to do with me whatsoever they wish? Is my survival dependent upon the non-existent benevolence of all those sentient beings that I am not going to cause distress to?

As for people being ‘hardened to their true feelings – their feelings of everything’ ... what then about germs, bacteria, bacillus, microbes, pathogens, phages, viruses and so on? Are they not entitled to remain alive and pain free? If one takes medication for disease, one is – possibly painfully – killing off the microscopic creatures that one’s body is the host too. Some religions – the Jain religion in India, for example – has its devout members wearing gauze over their nose and mouths to prevent insects from flying in and they even carry small brooms to sweep the path as they walk so that they will not accidentally step on some creature. It can really get out of hand. For instance, small-pox has been eradicated from the world by scientists as a means of saving countless human lives ... is this somehow ‘Wrong’? What is ‘Right’ in regards to what I do in order to stay alive? If I do none of these things then I will be causing pain and suffering to myself – and I am a sentient being too. It is an impossible scenario, when pursued to its ultimate conclusion.

And then there is the matter of one’s fellow human beings. Some of them – in fact at times a lot of them – are desirous of invading the country that one is living peacefully in, with the avowed intent of killing, torturing, raping, pillaging and subjugating oneself and one’s fellow citizens. If one holds a strong and passionate belief in not causing any pain and suffering to other sentient beings then one must be more than a fruitarian ... one must be a pacifist as well. This amounts to hanging out a sign – if everybody else in the country one lives in adopts this specific belief – which says, in effect: ‘Please feel free to invade us, we will not fight back, for we hold firmly to the principle of not causing pain and suffering to any sentient being whatsoever’ (the Tibetan situation is a particular case in point.) Thus anarchy would rule the world – all because of a belief system handed down by the Saints and the Sages, the Messiahs and the Avatars, the Redeemers and the Saviours, the Prophets and the Priests, century after century.

All this is predicated upon there being an enduring ‘I’ that is going to survive the death of the body and go on into the paradisiacal After-Life that is ‘my’ post-mortem reward for being a ‘good’ person during ‘my’ sojourn on this planet earth. It is ‘I’ who is the ‘believer’, it is ‘I’ who will cause this flesh-and-blood body to go into all manner of contorted and convoluted emotion-backed thoughts as to what is ‘Right’ and what is ‘Wrong’, what is ‘Good’ and what is ‘Bad’. If it were not for the serious consequences of all this passionate dreaming it would be immensely humorous, for ‘I’ am not actual ... ‘I’ am an illusion. And any grand ‘I’ that supposedly survives death by being ‘Timeless and Spaceless’, ‘Unborn and Undying’, ‘Immortal and Eternal’ am but a delusion born out of that illusion. Thus any After-Life is a fantasy spun out of a delusion born out of an illusion ... as I am so fond of saying.

When ‘I’ am no longer extant there is no ‘believer’ inside the mind and heart to have any beliefs or disbeliefs. As there is no ‘believer’, there is no ‘I’ to be harmful ... and one is harmless only when one has eliminated malice – what is commonly called evil – from oneself in its entirety. That is, the ‘dark side’ of human nature which requires the maintenance of a ‘good side’ to eternally combat it. By doing the ‘impossible’ – everybody tells me that you can’t change human nature – then one is automatically harmless ... which does not mean abstaining from killing. It means that no act is malicious, spiteful, hateful, revengeful and so on. It is a most estimable condition to be in. One is then free to kill or not kill something or someone, as the circumstances require. Eating meat, for example, is an act of freedom, based upon purely practical considerations such as the taste bud’s predilection, or the body’s ability to digest the food eaten, or meeting the standards of hygiene necessary for the preservation of decaying flesh, or the availability of sufficient resources on this planet to provide the acreage necessary to support the conversion of vegetation into animal protein. It has nothing whatsoever with sparing sentient beings any distress.

Thus ‘Right and Wrong’ is nothing but a socially-conditioned affective and cognitive conscience instilled by well-meaning adults through reward and punishment (love and hate) in a fatally-flawed attempt to control the wayward self that all sentient beings are born with. The ‘feeling of love for all creatures and the environment’ is born out of holding on to a belief system that is impossible to live ... as all belief systems are. I am not trying to persuade anyone to eat meat or not eat meat ... I leave it entirely up to the individual as to what they do regarding what they eat. It is the belief about ‘loving all creatures and the environment’ that is insidious, for this is how you are manipulated by those who seek to control you ... they are effectively beating you with a psychological stick. And the particularly crafty way they go about it is that they get you to do the beating to yourself. Such self-abasement is the hall-mark of any religious humility ... a brow-beaten soul earns its way into some god’s good graces by self-castigating acts of redemption.

Holding fervently to any belief is a sure sign that there is a wayward ‘I’ that needs to be controlled.

RESPONDENT: Richard, in reading your recent contributions to this list, such as the example above, I am beginning to question whether you and I use certain words, such as ‘emotions’ in the same way. For it seems that perhaps I use that word in a more inclusive sense of which your use is a subset. Perhaps your use is more restrictive / precise. For example when you express that communicating via the internet is great ‘fun’ – I equate fun to have an emotional component. If joy and fun are non-emotional, they also are not machine like nor dead. What do you call that vivifying facet of each breathtaking moment if not emotional?

RICHARD: I appreciate that what you want to discuss is the ‘vivifying facet’ ... for it cuts straight to the nub of the issue. Put simply: sensuousness and its in-built apperceptive awareness is the vivifying facet (the sensate and cognitive faculties). It is the ability to fully enjoy and appreciate being just here – right now – at this moment in eternal time and at this place in infinite space as this flesh and blood body. In this full enjoyment and appreciation is an amazement that all this wondrous event called life is actually happening ... and a marvelling at the perfection of it all.

It is such fun and a delight to actually be here doing this business called being alive.

As for the words I use to describe the qualities of experiencing life, as this flesh and blood body only, it is sobering to come to understand that all of the 650,000 words in the English language were coined by peoples nursing malice and sorrow to their bosom ... hence most of the expressive words have an affective component. When I first began describing my on-going experience to my fellow human beings I chose words that had the least affective connotations ... coining too many new words would have been counter-productive.

Consequently, the etymology of words can be of assistance in most cases to locate a near-enough to being a non-affective base ... the word ‘enjoy’ for example, is linked with ‘rejoice’ which means ‘gladden’ (from ‘glad’ meaning ‘shining’, ‘bright’, ‘cheerful’, ‘merry’). Of course the word ‘joy’ (from ‘enjoy’, from ‘rejoice’, from ‘gladden’, from ‘shining’) is loaded with the affective feeling for most people ... hence I tend to use it in conjunction with ‘delight’ (as in ‘it is such a joy and a delight to be here’). The word ‘delight’, incidentally, comes from the Latin ‘delectare’ (hence ‘delectation’, ‘delectable’) meaning ‘charm’, allure’ ... and so on through all sub-sets of nuance.

It is pertinent to comprehend that dictionaries are descriptive (and not prescriptive as are scriptures) and reflect more about how words came about, how they have changed, and how they have expanded into other words, rather than what they should mean. I tend to provide dictionary definitions only so as to establish a starting-point for communication ... from this mutually agreed-upon base each co-respondent can apply their own specific nuance of meaning to words as are readily explainable and mutually understandable (such as I do with ‘real’ and ‘actual’ and with ‘truth’ and ‘fact’, for example). Generally I can suss out what the other means by a word via its context and both where they are coming from and what they are wanting to establish ... if not I ask what they are meaning to convey.

As for it being ‘great fun’ communicating via the internet ... it is simply marvellous that I can sit here in my lounge-room in a seaside village and have my words be available, and potentially accessible by all 6.0 billion peoples on this planet (‘potentially’ meaning, of course, being given access to computers – such as in internet cafes – and the ability to read and comprehend English), totally free of charge ... and with nary a tree being chopped down in order to do so.

Ain’t life grand! 

RICHARD: He [Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti] acknowledges that there are still emotions ... but that it is the body that is having them ... fear and anger were two that I heard him say. I can not relate to this at all.

RESPONDENT: Let me ask you this, Richard. Suppose one day that you visit your wife in the expectation of a little mutual pleasure. You arrive there, but instead of your wife assenting to some harmless hanky-panky, she instead tells you that she doesn’t want to see you any more because she has finally worked out that you are a fraud. She says that she had been blindly following you all these years, but now realises the error of her ways and doesn’t want to participate any longer in the sham. What do you think, Richard?

RICHARD: For a start I would not visit my wife ‘in the expectation of a little mutual pleasure’ for I have no expectations at all ... to have expectations of other people is to set yourself up for disappointment again and again. It is the same with trust: to trust someone – anyone at all – is to invite betrayal (or what is perceived to be betrayal by the one who is doing the trusting) from the one who is trusted. Also, to trust someone is to impose a demand upon them that they may not be able to live up to (or want to) ... and I never do that.

Secondly, she has gone through stages wherein she ‘has finally worked out that [I am] a fraud ... that she has been blindly following [me] all these years ... and doesn’t want to participate any longer in the sham’ (or words to that effect) so I can speak from personal experience. As I am not at all affected by other people’s opinion of me, I treat the occasions where she has praised me to the skies in the same way as when she criticises me for fraud. Her praise or blame impresses me not at all. What would impress me – and I would be delighted to be ‘affected’ then if I could be – would be her attainment of an actual freedom. I would be dancing down the hall with joy and delight!

Until that day happens, I remain unperturbed by anything that anyone says about me ... be it complimentary or condemning.

RESPONDENT: Furthermore, she also tells you that she is about to go off on an overseas holiday with her new boyfriend and won’t be back in the country for a month. Would you feel no emotions at all in this scenario?

RICHARD: No. And to forestall any further queries about feelings – emotions and passions and calentures – it would be useful for me to explain that not only do I have no feelings about this scenario, but I have none about any other you might like to propose. I do not experience feelings per se because I do not have any anywhere in this body at all ... this body lost that faculty entirely when ‘I’ became extinct. Thus to use the jargon: no one can ‘press my buttons’ as I do not have any buttons – nor any feelings under them – to be activated. Literally I feel nothing at all. Even when, say, watching a magnificent sunrise where some lofty clouds are shot through with splendid rays of golden light, transforming the morning sky into a blaze of glory ... I feel nothing at all. These eyes seeing it delight in the array of colour, and this brain contemplating its visual splendour can revel in the wonder of it all – but I can not feel the beauty of it in the emotional and passionate sense of the word feel.

Just as when a person becomes physically blind all their other senses are heightened, so too is it when all feelings vanish entirely. This body is simply brimming with sense organs which wallow in their own sensual delight. Visually, everything is intense, vivid, brilliant ... sensually everything is dynamic and alive with an actuality ... a matter-of-fact actual-ness. Everything is endowed with a purity that far exceeds the now-paltry feeling of beauty ... and an intimacy that surpasses the highest feeling of love. Love is actually a pathetic substitute for the perfection of actual intimacy. Actual intimacy is the direct experience of the pristine actuality of another, unmediated by any ‘I’ whatsoever.

RESPONDENT: Richard, I have been reading your correspondence on your website. The actual freedom issue has been on my mind. Sometimes on the back burner, sometimes on the front burner – but it has been there. I am investigating my life vigorously as some major changes seem to be lurking around the corner. I think that, amazing as it is (quite against the odds?), a feeling-less life could be actually perfect!

RICHARD: Excellent. It is initially difficult to comprehend living life sans feelings ... as a child, a youth and as a young man I was particularly sensitive in comparison with my then peers – I felt everything keenly, acutely – and always preferred the company of females to males anytime. I was easily hurt by others and had difficulty hurting anyone or anything – boys pulling wings off flies at grade school sickened me to the stomach – and all the killing I did as a farmer’s son was quick and efficient in that I ensured it was as painless as is possible (I have no objection to killing per se). The rough and tumble of typical manly pursuits such as competitive sports did not interest me at all ... and I felt like a fish out of water during my six years in the military. I felt life deeply, passionately and it is no wonder I fell for the summum bonum of human feelings: the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’. After my break-through into actual freedom I went through thirty months of mental anguish thinking that I had lost the plot completely (although physically everything was perfect).

No one could help me as nobody had traversed this territory before.

RESPONDENT: It is a shame that we so often equal lack of feelings with depression, escapism, apathy, lack of: intensity of expression, vital energy and the zest for life. We fail to recognize these chronic, low-level negative states as feelings stemming from our identification as ‘miserable person’. During the time of high intensity when my life is happy (due to a breakthrough in the understanding of life) often a temptation arises to identify the smooth functioning of the system with being a happy being. I think it is important to remember it.

RICHARD: Yes ... it is ‘being’ itself that is the problem irregardless whether one is a happy being or an unhappy being. Of course, whilst one is still a ‘being’ it is preferable to be a happy being any day of the week ... it is simply silly to be unhappy. Also a glum and/or grumpy person locks themselves out of any chance of a pure consciousness experience (PCE) ... and a PCE is one’s best teacher by far. The PCE is indispensable in fully understanding an actual freedom from the human condition ... one needs to experientially know what one’s goal is.

It is a valuable point you note here.

RESPONDENT: I have two parrots in a cage home, and I see them flirting and playing. You said that you are not able for flirting but able for sex.

RICHARD: You must be referring to this:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Do you joke, laugh, flirt (...)?
• [Richard]: ‘I like to joke, yes and I laugh a lot ... there is so much that is irrepressibly funny about life itself. I have no ability to flirt, however, as my libido is nil and void ... yet I have an active sexual life (...).

RESPONDENT: I can’t understand that. I really can’t.

RICHARD: The word ‘libido’ (Latin meaning ‘desire’, ‘lust’) is the psychiatric/psychoanalytic term for the instinctual sex drive, urge, or impulse, and the word ‘flirt’ refers to behaving in a superficially amorous manner, to dally sexually with another ... what is so difficult about understanding that, sans the instinctual passion to procreate (and nurture) the species, the ability to be sexually amorous (either superficially or deeply) ceases to exist?

With no passions driving behaviour one is able to treat the other as a fellow human being ... and not a sex-object.

RESPONDENT: Why you have a companion and you don’t change one every day?

RICHARD: Primarily because of fellowship regard ... and specifically because of how my current companion is.

RESPONDENT: You don’t have any feelings for her, so what a difference makes?

RICHARD: A whole lot of difference ... just for starters I actually care, rather than merely feel that one cares, and thus have genuine consideration for her integrity.

Plus I have no interest whatsoever in toying with my fellow human being, anyway, no matter who they are.

RESPONDENT: Also could you make sex with a 80 years old and 150 kilos?

RICHARD: Pardon, your prejudices are showing.

RESPONDENT: Please don’t even let pass for a moment from your brain that there is any trace of irony in my email.

RICHARD: I will bear that in mind.

RESPONDENT No. 25: Richard, if I were to knock-knock on your brain there will be no-one to answer, let alone your heart?

RICHARD: My previous companion would oft-times say ‘there is no-one in there’ or ‘there is no-one home’ when feeling me out whilst looking at me quizzically ... she also would explain to others that, contrary to expectation, it was sometimes difficult to live with Richard (it could be said that living with some body that is not self-centred would always be easy) as it was impossible for her to have a relationship because there was no-one to make a connection with. She would also say that Richard does nor support her, as an identity that is, at all ... which lack of (affective) caring was disconcerting for her, to say the least, and my current companion has also (correctly) reported this absence of consideration. Put simply: I am unable to support some-one who does not exist (I only get to meet flesh and blood bodies here in this actual world).

GARY: One of the most striking things to happen to me since I started practising Actualism is the diminishment of emotional connections to other human beings. I cannot say that there are absolutely no connections to others, as it is obvious to me in my relationship with my partner that a sense of connectedness comes up from time to time in various ways. And no doubt this happens with other people as well. However, I have noticed for a long period that when people want to be ‘friends’ with me, for instance, and make certain friendly overtures, these are generally not at all reciprocated on my part. In other words, the offer to ‘make a friend’ or ‘be a friend’ or such similar things as happen in the social world usually fall completely flat on my part. I have sometimes gotten the impression, gleaned from body language and other cues, that this irritates people. Overtures of this type just do not seem to ‘take’ with me. It is difficult to describe but I am sure that the other practiced Actualists on this list know what I am talking about.

RICHARD: Given that the primary basis of a meaningful friendship is an affectionate attachment, a tie or a bond based upon one identity making an affective connection with another identity, it speaks volumes about the underlying nature of relationship that a proposition of that ilk deemed to be spurned incurs chagrin. A succinct description of this core nature can be as follows:

• ‘friend: a person joined by affection and intimacy to another, independently of sexual or family love’. (Oxford Dictionary).
• ‘friend: one attached to another by affection or esteem’. (Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary).
• ‘friend: a person you know well and regard with affection and trust’. (WordNet 1.6).
• ‘friend (word history): a friend is a lover, literally. The relationship between Latin amicus ‘friend’ and amos ‘I love’ is clear, as is the relationship between Greek philos ‘friend’ and phileo ‘I love’. In English, though, we have to go back a millennium before we see the verb related to friend. At that time, freond, the Old English word for ‘friend,’ was simply the present participle of the verb freon, ‘to love’. The Germanic root behind this verb is fri–, which meant ‘to like, love, be friendly to’. (The American Heritage® Dictionary).

Of course the words ‘friendly’ and ‘friendliness’ have different connotations to the root meanings of ‘friend’ and ‘friendship’ ... such connotations as amity, affability, amiability, geniality, cordiality, courtesy, civility, helpfulness, kindliness, gentleness, benevolence, and so on.

The need for a friend, and to be a friend, is an urge for an affectuous coupling based upon separation ... an identity is alone and/or lonely and longs for the union that is evidenced in a relationship. When both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul become extinct there is no need – and no capacity – for such unity: the expression ‘life is a movement in relationship’ applies only to a psychological and/or psychic entity who wants the feeling of oneness – a synthetic intimacy per favour the bridge of affection/love – which manifests the deception that separation has ended. And if human relationship does not produce the desired result, then one will project a god or a goddess – a ‘super-friend’ not dissimilar to the imaginary playmates of childhood – to love and be loved by.

The ridiculous part in all this is that we are fellow human beings anyway (like species recognise like species) and to seek to impose friendship over the top of fellowship is, as someone once said in another context, like painting red ink on a red rose ... a garish redundancy.

GARY: Another obvious sign of the diminishment of emotional connections is in the ‘need’ to affiliate. I seem to have no need to affiliate with others, in the sense that that word is commonly used. This is not to say that I am rude or inconsiderate towards others, but as I feel little need or drive to ‘socialize’, pair off with, or otherwise ‘bond’ with others, there is little in an active social sense that is going on with me.

RICHARD: Yes, the need (as in drive or urge) to belong can, and does, vanish completely.

GARY: Which brings me to a point: in my investigations of what it means to be a human being, I have been struck with how much of human socializing is based on commiseration – sharing a common plight and grievance, and additionally sharing feelings and emotions: whether it be returning to work on Monday, the state of the economy, the price of gasoline, how unfairly the work place is treating you, etc., etc. Human beings seems to revel in their complaints and gripes, and a sense of resentment is the cement that seems to bind people together in many social situations. Indeed, it is the raison d’être for political groups and political causes of various types.

RICHARD: Aye ... this is something I come across almost on a daily basis and it is amazing how many people tell me that I am being ‘optimistic’, or ‘positive’, or ‘up-beat’, or that I am ‘forever trying to talk things up’. For example, I might comment upon what a great day it is and, as sure as eggs are eggs, the plighted person will find fault (even if only ‘it won’t last’) ... or I may say how marvellous it is to be living in a technologically advanced society (take contemporary surgical procedures, for instance, or current dental practice) and a whole litany of doom and gloom comes forth.

Even sitting at a caff by myself, with snippets of nearby conversations drifting by from time-to-time, it is remarkable how much of the content of social chit-chat is, as you say, gripe, grievance, complaint, and resentment ... and the last-named is the key to it all (the basic resentment of being alive in the first place).

Until one wakes up to implications and ramifications of the factuality of already being here on this planet earth anyway, whether one wants to be or not (‘I didn’t ask to be born’), one is fated to forever seek consolation and commiseration in the arms (both metaphorically and literally) of another similarly afflicted. Yet the simple fact is that, despite the ‘I didn’t ask to be born’ rhetoric, one does want to be alive (else one would have committed suicide long ago) and all that it takes is to fully acknowledge this and thus unequivocally say !YES! to being here now as this flesh and blood body ... and this affirmation is an unconditional agreement/ approval of life itself as-it-is.

I did not ask to be born either (truisms can be so trite) ... but I am ever-so-glad that I was.

GARY: However, not to get too far afield and to return again to the theme of emotional ‘connection’, I have sometimes in past months been aghast at my lack of emotional, social connection to others. There has been the fright that I am suffering from a serious mental disorder.

RICHARD: This seems to be par for the course ... I would probably not be going too far out on a limb to say that the fear of insanity plays a large part in whatever else it is that keeps people locked into sanity.

GARY: In that one’s emotional connections with others are a prime indicator of one’s mental health, that may certainly be the case, although I carry no official diagnosis (not having come into contact with mental health professionals in any capacity that relates to me personally).

RICHARD: Yes ... ‘well-balanced’ emotional connections are indeed a prime indicator of mental health in the real-world. As a generalisation commitment to radical change is usually avoided like the plague lest people begin calling one ‘obsessed’ and start issuing atavistic warnings of dire consequences ... and slip the word ‘insanity’ into their conversations every now and then.

RESPONDENT: And want to know why you do anything at all if you aren’t motivated by the pleasure/ pain cycle.

RICHARD: Presuming you are referring to not being hedonically motivated ... have you ever considered what human life would be like if humankind was not run by the affections (emotionally/ passionally)?

RESPONDENT: How is this body motivated to do anything at all if there is no feeling?

RICHARD: In a word: anhedonically.

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