Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Asked Questions

RICHARD: You are talking about reality – an affective experience of the world of people, things and events – whereas I am using the word ‘actuality’ to refer to the sensate world only. It is this sensual experience that is ambrosial. By actual, I do not mean the real-world of normal human experience. Actuality is only seen by people in glimpses ... it is as if everyday reality is a grim and glum veneer pasted over the top of this actual world of the senses. When ‘I’ vanish in ‘my’ entirety – both the ego and the soul – this ‘normal’ everyday reality disappears and the underlying actuality becomes apparent. It was here all along. To experience the metaphysical Reality – usually with capitalisation – is to go further into the illusion of normal everyday reality, created by ‘I’, and to create a supernatural ‘True Reality’ ... which one could call an abnormal reality.

Thus normal everyday reality is an illusion and the abnormal metaphysical Reality is a delusion born out of the illusion ... a chimera, as it were. This is why only .000001 of the population ever become enlightened ... it is extremely difficult to live in a hallucination permanently. Speaking personally, I was so deluded, that for eleven years I lived in humanity’s greatest fantasy, before the dissolution of ‘me’ as soul finally brought salubrity through release from the human condition itself.

My questioning of life, the universe and what it is to be a human being all started when I was nineteen years of age. I was in a war-torn foreign country, dressed in a jungle-green uniform and carrying a loaded rifle in my hands. This was to be the turning point of my life, for up until then, I was a typical western youth, raised to believe in God, Queen and Country.

Humanity’s inhumanity to humanity – society’s treatment of its subject citizens – was driven home to me, there and then, in a way that left me appalled, horrified, terrified and repulsed to the core of my being with a sick revulsion. I saw that no one knew what was going on and – most importantly – that no one was ‘in charge’ of the world. There was nobody to ‘save’ the human race ... all gods were but a figment of a feverish imagination. Out of a despairing desperation, that was collectively shared by my fellow humans, I saw and understood that I was as ‘guilty’ as any one else. For in me – as is in everyone – was both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ ... it was that some people were better at controlling their ‘dark side’. However, in a war, there is no way anyone can control any longer ... ‘evil’ ran rampant. I saw that fear and aggression ruled the world ... and that these were instincts one was born with. Thus started my search for freedom from the Human Condition.

My attitude, all those years ago was this: ‘I’ was only interested in changing ‘myself’ fundamentally, radically, completely and utterly.

‘I’ was not alone in this endeavour because ‘I’ tapped into the purity and perfection of the infinitude of this physical universe with a pure intent born out of a pure consciousness experience (PCE) that ‘I’ had during a peak experience in 1980. Pure intent is a palpable life-force; an actually occurring stream of benevolence and benignity that originates in the vast and utter stillness that is the essential character of the universe itself. Once set in motion, it is no longer a matter of choice: it is an irresistible pull. It is the adventure of a lifetime to embark upon a voyage of exploration and discovery; to not only seek but to find. And once found, it is here for the term of one’s natural life – it is an irreversible mutation in consciousness. Once launched it is impossible to turn back and resume one’s normal life ... one has to be absolutely sure that this is what one truly wants.

Eighteen years ago ‘I’, the persona that I was, looked at the natural world and just knew that this enormous construct called the universe was not ‘set up’ for us humans to be forever forlorn in with only scant moments of reprieve. ‘I’ realised there and then that it was not and could not ever be some ‘sick cosmic joke’ that humans all had to endure and ‘make the best of’. ‘I’ felt foolish that ‘I’ had believed for thirty two years that the ‘wisdom of the real-world’ that ‘I’ had inherited – the world that ‘I’ was born into – was set in stone. This foolish feeling allowed ‘me’ to get in touch with ‘my’ dormant naiveté, which is the closest thing one has that resembles actual innocence, and activate it with a naive enthusiasm to undo all the conditioning and brainwashing that ‘I’ had been subject to. Then when ‘I’ looked into myself and at all the people around and saw the sorrow and malice in every human being, ‘I’ could not stop. ‘I’ knew that ‘I’ had just devoted myself to the task of setting ‘myself’ and ‘humanity’ free ... ‘I’ willingly dedicated my life to this most worthy cause. It is so delicious to devote oneself to something whole-heartedly – the ‘boots and all’ approach ‘I’ called it then!

This entailed finding the source of ‘myself’ ... and I discovered that ‘I’ was born out of the instincts that blind nature endows all sentient beings with at birth. This rudimentary self is the root cause of all the malice and sorrow that besets humankind, and to eliminate malice and sorrow ‘I’ had to eliminate the fear and aggression and nurture and desire that this self is made up of ... the instincts. But as this self was the instincts – there is no differentiation betwixt the two – then the elimination of one was the elimination of the other. One is the other and the other is one. In fact, with the elimination of the instincts, ‘I’ ceased to exist, period.

So, I can freely say that I, as I am today, did nothing to become free of the Human Condition. It was ‘I’ that did all the work. Consequently I find myself here, in the world as-it-is, as this flesh and blood body. A vast stillness lies all around, a perfection that is abounding with purity. Beneficence, an active kindness, overflows in all directions, imbuing everything with unimaginable fairytale-like quality. For me to be able to be here at all is a blessing that only ‘I’ could grant, because nobody else could do it for me. I am full of admiration for the ‘me’ that dared to do such a thing. I owe all that I experience now to ‘me’. I salute ‘my’ audacity. And what an adventure it was ... and still is. These are the wondrous workings of the exquisite quality of life – who would have it any other way? Thus I find myself to be this infinite and perfect physical universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being.

This is totally different to eastern spiritual enlightenment ... this is actual.

RESPONDENT: Also now you suggest that an ‘I’ is an illusion (i.e. something that does not have any substantial true existence), which is different than: [Richard to No. 19]: ‘But I do not deny ‘self, soul, etc.’ ... you must be confusing me with No. 22. I fully acknowledge their very real existence and clearly state that the ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul are the source of all human problems. I have said this over and over again to the point of tedious repetition ... do you not read what I write?’ [endquote]. It sounds as if your point of view is evolving.

RICHARD: My ‘point of view’ is not evolving at all. I have always maintained, in all my posts, that whilst the ‘I’ is real – sometimes very real – it is not actual. I have also made clear – to the point of almost tedious repetition for some people – that I draw a sharp distinction between the those two words, as any dictionary gives ‘real’ and ‘actual’ the same meaning. As various peoples over the years tried to tell me that their god was real, I abandoned the word and settled upon ‘actual’, for no one has been able to tell me that their god was actual. If people stop using the word ‘real’ in the way they do, then I am quite happy to go back to using it. Its etymological meaning is as the word ‘actual’: truly existing. So therefore, if god is real ... then the ‘I’ is real. However, just as any god is an illusion, similarly the ‘I’ is an illusion. Now, everybody’s experience of everyday life – called reality – is also an illusion. Therefore I talk about an actuality that this everyday reality – as a veneer pasted over – is obscuring. In order to escape from this reality – which is grim and glum – people seek a greater reality (what you call ‘essential nature’ other people call ‘greater reality’). As this is self-aggrandisement, I call it a delusion ... a delusion born out of the illusion. I have been consistently saying this since my first post to this List five months ago.

RESPONDENT: I see. You distinguish between real and actual things the same as between illusory and actual things. It seems very unclear considering their definitions.

RICHARD: Not so unclear when one considers that people say that their god is real to them. They use the word ‘real’ like some people use the word ‘apparent’ . The word ‘actual’ is unambiguous ... it is a sensate word only.

RESPONDENT: In any case, since no thing labelled real or actual has any truly independent ongoing substantial existence, we can say that its existence is apparent.

RICHARD: And here you go ... proving my point so well. You use words in such a slippery fashion that you can fool most people some of the time ... but in the long run you are only fooling yourself. I actually exist as this flesh and blood body ... I am not seemingly here.

RESPONDENT: Clinging to the notion of some truly existing ‘me’ or some truly existing actual thing or physical body or physical universe seem to be an expression of the same fearful clinging.

RICHARD: Speaking personally, I am not ‘clinging’ to anything at all. This flesh and blood body is actual ... it is a fact, just like this physical universe is. There used to be a ‘me’ inside this body, clinging to the realisation that it was ‘essential nature’ (in the metaphysical sense) but it became extinct in October 1992. Simultaneously that much-prized ‘essential nature’ disappeared. It too was an illusion ... yet to you it is real.

Do you see what I mean about the word ‘real’, now?

RESPONDENT: When a person is not experiencing either ASC or PCE, what is one experiencing?

RICHARD: Put simply: the normal, everyday reality that 6.0+ billion identities are pasting as a veneer over actuality.

RESPONDENT: Is the ‘actual’ person NOT seeing the ‘actual’ world? NOT hearing the ‘actual’ world? NOT smelling, tasting, and touching the ‘actual’ world?

RICHARD: The flesh and blood bodies – all 6.0+ billion of them – are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching (and proprioceptively sensing) the actual world.

RESPONDENT: I haven’t noticed people walking into walls or failing to respond when called. What’s happening?

RICHARD: The facsimile walls and calls (the veneered reality) are sufficient for the purpose thereof.

RESPONDENT: I won’t presume that my understanding based on my experience matches yours, but I find it intriguing that you used the phrase ‘pasting as a veneer over actuality’. I understand that all 6B+ persons are experiencing the ‘actual’ world ...

RICHARD: All 6.0+ billion *flesh and blood bodies* are experiencing the actual world ... the entity, or being, residing in the body can only experience their ‘outer world’ reality. Here (from the footnote in this e-mail you are responding to):

• [Richard]: ‘(...) ‘I’/ ’me’, a psychological/ psychic entity, am busily creating an inner world and an outer world and looking out through ‘my’ eyes upon ‘my’ outer world as if looking out through a window, listening to ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ tongue, touching ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ skin and smelling ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ nose. This entity, or being, residing in the body is forever cut-off from the actual – from the world as-it-is – because its inner world reality is pasted as a veneer over the actual world, thus creating the outer world reality known as the real world ...’. [endquote].

RESPONDENT: ... but in addition to that, like a veneer, imagine and project concepts such as social relationships.

RICHARD: The identity residing in a body does much, much more than merely imagine and project concepts (such as social relationships): the entire outer world which the identity experiences – the normal, everyday reality that 6.0+ billion identities experience – is that veneer.

RESPONDENT: These concepts are experienced as ‘real’, but are experienced only as long as we believe in the concept.

RICHARD: The normal, everyday reality that 6.0+ billion identities experience – their outer world – will be experienced for as long as identity remains in situ ... only altruistic ‘self’-immolation, in toto, will bring that outer world reality to an end.

RESPONDENT: In this way, ‘PCE’ is always available, in fact occurring now, and is experienced when we cease believing in concepts and/or free our attention from them.

RICHARD: Whilst a pure consciousness experience (PCE) is indeed always available it will only occur, and therefore be such an experience, when the identity in toto goes into abeyance.

RESPONDENT: But, damn, they [concepts such as social relationships] are enticing.

RICHARD: What is fundamentally enticing is, of course, the very instinctual passions the identity is (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’).

RESPONDENT: And that too is part of the world, not ‘actual’, not ‘virtual’, not ‘real’ – the world.

RICHARD: The world of the instinctual passions/ the identity formed thereof is the world of the psyche.

RESPONDENT: The universe is one stuff.

RICHARD: The universe which the identity experiences, being but a veneer pasted over the actual universe, has no existence in actuality. Here (from the top of this page):

• [Respondent]: ‘When a person is not experiencing either ASC or PCE, what is one experiencing?
• [Richard]: ‘Put simply: the normal, everyday reality that 6.0+ billion identities are pasting as a veneer over actuality’. [endquote].

RESPONDENT: What do you mean by ‘world’, the world of people interactions – ‘society’ or something else?

RICHARD: The physical world ... the world of this body and that body and every body; the world of the mountains and the streams; the world of the trees and the flowers; the world of the clouds in the sky by day and the stars in the firmament by night and so on and so on ad infinitum.

RESPONDENT: Here is the world I live in: it has no streams, no trees, no flowers, no stars, yet it has plenty of people (6000 persons per square km as an average), millions of cars and concrete buildings; as a matter of fact it’s a concrete world, THE concrete world ... and it is a very polluted one. I wonder if this, the world I experience on a daily basis, is part of the actual world you talk so much about.

RICHARD: No, it is not ... although each and every one of the 6,000 flesh and blood bodies, each and every one of the millions of cars, each and every one of the concrete buildings, and so on, are of course.

RESPONDENT: It’s a grey world, but I wonder if it’s really grey because of ‘my’ worldview or this is its true colour.

RICHARD: Ha ... it is not its actual colour.

RESPONDENT: Obviously I’m having a little trouble leaving behind some of my spiritual baggage. I wonder if perhaps I have misinterpreted what you said to me in an earlier email: [Richard]: ‘The entire psychic world is real – at times very real – but none of it is actual’. Initially I interpreted this as ‘real’ meaning something akin to the spiritual concept of maya – seemingly real but ultimately not so. Now I am re-reading the definition you give of ‘actual’ and it occurs to me that perhaps you mean only the actual world is important – I’m guessing that’s something made clear during PCE’s and in Actual Freedom itself? – and that the world of the ‘real’ is more unimportant than illusory. Would this be an accurate summary?

RICHARD: The ‘world of the real’ is the ‘inner world’, born of the affective faculty, and superimposed as a veneer over this actual world ... creating what is known as the ‘real-world’ (the ‘outer world’). There is no ‘inner world’ or ‘outer world’ in actuality: there is only the world of this body and that body and every body; the world of the mountains and the streams; the world of the trees and the flowers; the world of the clouds in the sky by day and the stars in the firmament by night and so on and so on ad infinitum.

And, yes, this actual world is stunningly obvious in a pure consciousness experience (PCE).

RESPONDENT: Richard, it would be nice to better understand a few things that have perplexed me. 1) How is it possible for a ‘normal’ human life to be worthwhile, valuable, and at least somewhat happy (as you have told me in the past) – yet you often call life in the ‘real’ world ‘grim and glum’ and ‘miserable?’

RICHARD: What I wrote to you was this (twice):

• [Richard]: ‘... sustaining oneself (and one’s family if there is one) is certainly not pointless. Furthermore there are many meaningful experiences in everyday life: providing shelter (building, buying or renting a home); being married (aka being in a relationship); raising a family (preparing children for adult life); having a career (job satisfaction); achieving something (successfully pursuing a hobby) and so on. However, to rely upon transient experience to provide an enduring meaning to life is to invite disappointment. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27b, 16 July 2002) and (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27c, 6 September 2002).

I could have as easily said that to rely upon transient experience to provide an enduring happiness, for example, is to invite disappointment ... plus real-world happiness is an affective happiness anyway (I have not felt happy for many, many years).

Is life in the real-world worthwhile, valuable, happy (and so on)? The real-world is an illusion, a veneer pasted over this actual world, as a reality, by the animal ‘self’ within ... what worth, what value, what happiness (and so on) inheres in an illusion? The same applies to grimness and glumness and misery (and so on) ... it is all illusory.

Do you still want to ask your question?

RESPONDENT: You also state in your Journal that [quote] ‘It is all so pathetic, actually, to be caught up in the socialised world of ‘human’ one-upmanship. It is an abysmal state of affairs to be ‘me’, living in the real world. Especially when this, the actual world, is right here under one’s nose, as it were, just waiting to be discovered’. (Article 12). Again, how is it that life can be relatively happy, and an abysmal state of affairs all at the same time?

RICHARD: As people have been finding relative happiness in abysmal states of affairs since time immemorial it is a rather odd question to ask of me how they manage to do it ... all I am saying, in the one-upmanship example provided, is that it is a pathetic (as in miserably inadequate, feeble, or useless) happiness to be happy at another’s expense.

Especially so when this, the actual world, is just here right now ... where uncaused happiness (and harmlessness) lies.

RESPONDENT: Do you mean it is ‘abysmal’ only in comparison with innocence?

RICHARD: No, not ‘only in comparison’ ... life in the real-world is quite capable of being abysmal in its own right (as evidenced by real-world sayings such as ‘life’s a bitch and then you die’ for example).

RESPONDENT: You also call ‘my’ life ‘petty’.

RICHARD: Yes ... for example:

• [Richard]: ‘... when ‘I’ willingly self-immolate – psychologically and psychically – then ‘I’ am making the most noble sacrifice that ‘I’ can make for oneself and all humankind ... for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is ‘my’ moment of accomplishment. It is ‘my’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘my’ petty life all worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... ‘I’ go out in a blaze of glory.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘That which dies is judged and praised as noble?
• [Richard]: ‘If you do not find voluntary ‘self’-sacrifice by ‘I’/  ‘me’ (who is the root cause of all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides and the such-like) to be noble, to be an altruistic offering, a philanthropic contribution, a generous gift, a charitable donation, a magnanimous present for the human race ... then I guess you would not be willing to cheerfully devote and give over your ‘being’ as a humane gratuity, an open-handed endowment, a munificent bequest or a kind-hearted benefaction for the benefit of each and every body, eh? (Richard, List B, No. 12g, 19 June 2000).

RESPONDENT: What, precisely, do you mean by that?

RICHARD: Here are three dictionary definitions:

• ‘petty: marked by or reflective of narrow interests and sympathies; small-minded (having narrow interests, sympathies, or outlook). (Merriam-Webster Dictionary).
• ‘petty: marked by narrowness of mind, ideas, or views; marked by meanness or lack of generosity, especially in trifling matters. (The American Heritage® Dictionary).
• ‘petty-minded: having or characteristic of a mind that dwells on the trivial and ignores what is important. (Oxford Dictionary).

Here is the relevant part of the quote with the first dictionary meaning in lieu of the word:

• [example only]: ‘It is ‘my’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘my’ small-minded life, a life of narrow interests, sympathies, or outlook, all worth while’.

Is it not obvious that such an altruistic offering (a philanthropic contribution, a generous gift, a charitable donation, a magnanimous present, a humane gratuity, an open-handed endowment, a munificent bequest, a kind-hearted benefaction for this body and that body and every body) as the voluntary ‘self’-sacrifice by ‘I’/  ‘me’ indubitably is, makes a life of narrow interests, sympathies, or outlook, a life marked by narrowness of mind, ideas, or views, a life marked by meanness or lack of generosity, a life that dwells on the trivial and ignores what is important, all worth while?

*

RESPONDENT: 2) How can being ‘me’ in the real world be automatically an abysmal state of affairs ...

RICHARD: If I may interject? If you do not consider 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 so on to be an abysmal state of affairs then we may as well stop this discussion right here.

RESPONDENT: ... especially since you have stated that someone in virtual freedom is virtually perfect – even though they are still a self – are they still in an ‘abysmal state of affairs’?

RICHARD: Yes ... else why end it? Although a virtual freedom is remarkably superior to how one used to live, there is no way it can compare as favourably with being actually free of the human condition.

Nothing can ... it is beyond compare, as it were.

RESPONDENT: If so then what did you mean by calling life in the ‘real world’ an abysmal state of affairs?

RICHARD: Fundamentally it is because of the instinctual passions, such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire, still being in situ as a ‘presence’, a ‘being’ (an animal ‘self’) ... although a life of virtual freedom, being epitomised by an absence of malice and sorrow (and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion), is a life of virtual peace and harmony there is no guarantee that recidivism cannot occur.

Even so, a virtual freedom is way ahead of normal human expectations, and is not to be sneezed at.

*

RESPONDENT: 3) What do you mean when you say that to not have experienced ‘dying’ is such a waste of human life?

RICHARD: I presume you are referring to this:

• [Richard]: ‘Who you think and feel and instinctively ‘know’ yourself to be has a job to do: When ‘I’ willingly self-immolate – psychologically and psychically – then ‘I’ am making the most noble sacrifice that ‘I’ can make for oneself and all humankind ... for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is ‘my’ moment of glory. It is ‘my’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘my’ petty life all worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... to physically die without having experienced what it is like to become dead is such a waste of a life. (Richard, List B, James, 24 September 1999).

To live a life which, at root, is run by/ ruled by fear is to stay in the survival mode and thus miss out on living fully – living the meaning of life each moment again – in the already always existing peace-on-earth.

RESPONDENT: You also claim that everyone has had a PCE.

RICHARD: Obviously I have not conducted a door-to-door survey of all 6.0 billion human beings ... one of the many things I did, however, in the years before I went public was to ascertain whether people from all walks of life could recall having had a pure consciousness experience (PCE) – as distinct from an altered state of consciousness (ASC) – for obvious reasons. Sometimes it took a quite a while for them to remember – once it took over three hours of intensive description/ discussion – as being sans any affective content whatsoever the PCE cannot be stored in the affective memory banks (which is where the ASC is primarily located) ... plus they are much more common in childhood and require further reach.

As everybody I spoke to at length – everybody – could recall at least one PCE, and usually more, it would be a very strange situation indeed that the PCE be not common to all people but only to those whom I randomly engaged with over the years.

RESPONDENT: >At what point is a person’s life no longer a ‘waste’ according to you?

RICHARD: Is that not obvious? I will arrange your two queries sequentially:

1. ‘What do you mean when you say that to not have experienced ‘dying’ is such a waste of human life?
2. ‘At what point is a person’s life no longer a ‘waste’ according to you?

I am retired and on a pension – and instead of pottering around in the garden I am currently pottering around the internet – thus I have plenty of time at my disposal and it does not really matter all that much to me if I spend that time answering queries which would be patently obvious to my co-respondents if they had thought them through themselves before tapping them out on the keyboard and clicking ‘send’.

The question is: does it matter to you that you would have me do your thinking for you?

RESPONDENT: Also, how can a life lived in the real world be a ‘waste’ and also worthwhile (as you have told me it can be)?

RICHARD: As I have the distinct impression you are making a problem out of nothing I have just now asked my companion if what she was doing was worthwhile (she is heating a vacuum flask preparatory to filling it with a hot drink as she is going out for the day) and she said yes ... and, anticipating my follow-up query, she said even if she was not happy it would still be worthwhile but that it would be a waste of a life to be unhappy whilst doing it.

Does this answer your query?

RESPONDENT: You have also stated that the actualist ‘meaning of life’ is the only one worth living – how does that square with one’s ability to find their life ‘meaningful’ in the ‘real’ world?

RICHARD: I wonder if you have not become bemired in words as the ‘meaning of life’ – or the ‘secret to life’ or the ‘riddle of existence’ or the ‘purpose of the universe’ or whatever the goal of one’s quest may be called – is not in the same category as the meaningfulness of sustaining oneself (and one’s family if there is one), for example, or any of the other meaningful experiences in everyday life ... such as providing shelter (building, buying or renting a home), being married (aka being in a relationship), raising a family (preparing children for adult life), having a career (job satisfaction), achieving something (successfully pursuing a hobby), and so on.

To know the ‘meaning of life’ is to be the living of it: as this flesh and blood body only I am this material universe experiencing itself as an apperceptive human being ... as such it is stunningly aware of its own infinitude.

And this is truly wonderful.

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.

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 and pernicious ‘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 – come to the fore when psychologically and psychically threatened, for ‘I’ am confused about ‘my’ presence, confounding ‘my’ survival and the body’s survival. However, ‘my’ survival being paramount could not be further from the truth, for ‘I’ need play no part any more in perpetuating physical existence (which is the primal purpose of the instinctual animal ‘self’). ‘I’ am no longer necessary at all. In fact, ‘I’ am nowadays 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 (to allow the body to be killed) for a cause and ‘I’ will willingly sacrifice physical existence for a ‘Noble Ideal’ ... and reap ‘my’ post-mortem reward: immortality.

That is how real ‘I’ am. That is why ‘I’ must die a real death (but not physically into the grave) to find out the actuality. What does happen physically occurs in the top of the brain-stem.

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