Clarity does not arise, but the intensity of looking and listening to the ego is deepened.

I see from our conversation that you seem to take Richard’s writing and his method as just another spiritual writing about how to get free from the ego. But his discovery has nothing, nothing at all, to do with any of the familiar spiritual approaches. His finding is not about getting rid of the ego, ‘watching’, and maybe becoming enlightened. In fact, actual freedom lies 180 degrees in the opposite direction to any spiritual beliefs whatsoever.

Richard was enlightened for 11 years and with diligence and effort managed to work himself out of the massive delusion that enlightenment is. It is very hard when one lives inside the passionate belief-structure to see that the whole thing is only a belief-structure and not the ‘truth’. For me, when I understood it for the first time with all its implications, it was like leaving planet earth in a spaceship and seeing it as a globe hanging in space for the very first time. A completely different perspective indeed.

Months after the shock wore off and I began to explore the amputation, I discovered there were two very different components to what I had previously thought of as ‘love.’ I now think of them as ‘ego attachment’ and ‘real love.’ We have discussed the ego attachment part in previous exchanges and I think we are in basic agreement about the nature of it, give or take a few terms and minor differences in word usages and definitions. The ‘real love’ that I saw left after all the elements of ego attachment were identified, is something completely unconditional, something that does not care whether she does or does not do as I wish, an awareness and regard that does not measure, assess, judge, possess, or expect. I believe it to be connected in a direct way to the kind of observing you describe as ‘my full attention and bare awareness each time we communicate.’ It is what I believe to be ‘real love.’ (Or ‘actual love’ if you wish!) What you and Peter are experiencing when you are free to interact this way.

What do you think?

See, you make a difference between ‘ego’ (something to get rid of) and ‘real love’ (something you want to keep). And then you say, ‘clarity does not arise’. How can it arise? Throwing away the ‘bad’ and keeping the ‘good’ has not worked for thousands of years. Humanity is still waging as many wars as 2000 years ago. Every Enlightened Master created yet another religion, and the religious wars are the most horrific ones.

Last night I saw a re-run of ‘Oh! What a Lovely War’, a black-humour musical about the First World War. Seeing the soldiers in the trenches, used as canon-fodder for the game of numbers that the generals were playing was devastating, and all the soldiers were dying and killing for love. Men die for love of country, love for the family, to protect the ones they love, unconditionally. And after the war is over, the surviving men don’t talk about the horrors they lived through so as not to upset the ones they love. A continuum of malice and suffering – and it is called ‘real love’. No one ever puts these facts in one line and acknowledges that they are interrelated.

I could still feel the impact of the horrors those men went through. They stand for all of the suffering and devastation humans go through in the course of the centuries. Seeing the facts of what causes the suffering made it clear once again that I want to do something about this horrendous situation, which is continuing today as horrendously as in the First World War. And the only thing I can do about it is to eradicate every trace of ‘self’ in me, and that includes the instinct of love, eliminate every reason why I would kill, hurt or even insult any other human being. And I know, as long as there is a trace of ‘me’ inside, I am still capable of violence when ‘push comes to shove’.

...is something completely unconditional, something that does not care whether she does or does not do as I wish ... (Or ‘actual love’ if you wish!)

There is no actual love. Love is an emotion, created by our instinctual passions and beliefs and felt as hormonal surges in the physical body as well. But when love is unrequited it is easy to imagine it as unconditional because there is no fire-test in daily life. There is always a gain for the identity in feeling ‘unconditional love’. Heroic suffering is food for the ‘self’. Suffering keeps the identity intact. And one would still kill, if needed, to protect the object of one’s unconditional love. One suffers but one can stay as one is. In this way one is continuing what every human being has tried to do up to now: to keep the emotions and instincts and still be ‘good’. If you look around it has not brought any peace and happiness to the planet in thousand of years.

If the self cleans the self up, and mine is fairly presentable just now, perhaps a little sad, what is left, after all is said and done, is still a self, a ‘me,’ an ‘I.’ Just dressed up real nice.

You described it very well – this is as good as it gets within the Human Condition. The trouble is, in order to get rid of the ‘bad’ you have to throw the ‘good’ out first, which is created in the first place to keep the ‘bad’ under control. One only needs Love to counter-balance malice and sorrow, hate, jealousy, sadness, fear, greed... so something grand and good is aspired for to keep the lid on the ‘bad’, the animalistic instincts that are intrinsic in all of us.

Meditation and Eastern Spirituality attempt to transform those instinctual passions and their resulting emotions into love and compassion, and I have experienced how that works. It is quite a powerful experience, when fear and sorrow are transcended into bliss, ‘truth’ and compassion. It swamps the whole psyche: seductive, overwhelming, radiant, and one realization of ‘truth’ follows another in an endless continuum of supposed insights. Very, very seductive indeed. One is easily taken in that this is the answer to everything.

But this is not the emotionless pure clarity that I have experienced in the PCEs. This is not the solution, it hasn’t been for 5000 years of enlightenment’s history. Those instincts are never eliminated. Once you question bliss and discover the illusion it is, fear and dread pop up their ugly head again. What Richard discovered, and what Peter and I are now finding out for ourselves, is that there is the actual world once one has freed oneself of all beliefs, feelings and instinctual passion which the human psyche produces. This perception of the actual world is then bare of any emotions and feelings, both of ‘bad’ AND ‘good’, freed of any kind of imagination, freed of any distortion of the Human Psyche.

Let’s say I’ve seen this is true, as indeed I have, with a few definition differences here and there not of much importance ...

It is not merely ‘definition differences’ we are talking about. It is worlds apart. This is something nobody has ever dared to question before. Or have you found any kind of Guru or teacher who dared to question Love and Compassion, who dared to put his grand wonderful identity as ‘One-with-the-Whole’ at stake? Not a single one! All the Enlightened Ones keep their BEING in tact. They know WHO they are. So this conversation is not about definition differences. It is about a completely new understanding and approach to the human feelings, emotions and instinctual passions. It is about eradicating them, not merely transforming them. Actual Freedom is based on the acknowledgment that those feelings and passions are only software, not hardware – they can be deleted.

But to eradicate my beliefs, feelings and instinctual passions means that everything that I know I am ceases to exist, and everything anybody ever claimed to know or to be ceases to be of any reference. This includes my beliefs in an immortal soul, a life after death or before birth, a god-like energy of the universe and a belief in the meaning of life. I am not surprised that hardly anybody has dared to take up the inquiry. It is a ruthless operation. But also it is the very best I have ever done in my lifetime. And it works. That may be scary because one really watches oneself dying, having less and less substance and identity to fall back on for one’s definition and reference.

When I started to investigate Richard’s findings I had thought I was quite cleaned up, having been a morally ‘good’ girl and a spiritual seeker for years. So the first step on this new journey was to actually acknowledge the malice and sorrow that I was still carrying – like everybody else. It was not easy to acknowledge that I was as bad and as mad as everybody else, hanging on to my emotional identity, my feelings, my intuition, my beliefs.

After 17 years of meditation and watching intently I was still neither enlightened nor happy and harmless. So I really had nothing left to lose – except the very idea of who I was, instincts, beliefs, emotions, pride, superiority, the whole lot.

The obvious question is a ‘how’ question, and my experience has been that all ‘how’ questions come from the sense of self itself and are based in the usual motivation of the sense of self, that being of course, fear, and are nothing more than an announcement of the presence of the sense of self.

See, the ‘how’ question-explanation is just used by the ‘self’ to avoid the looking. You prove to yourself that it is a hopeless exercise and then you are back in ‘safe’ desperation and searching. It reminds me of Richard’s expression: ‘the psychological and psychic entity is a lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning entity.’ The frightened produces the very cunning; you have to find out your tricks. If you ask, ‘where am I maintaining a belief instead of investigating facts’ and ‘why’, there might be an honest answer. And the knack is to start with the ‘good’ beliefs, the positive ones, the ones we want to keep because they seem so right, so nice, so sweet, so cozy, so honourable. It is belief itself that is the problem, not merely a matter of which belief is right or wrong.

We screw up the world and ourselves with our ‘me’s’ and now we are going to fix everything within us with our ‘me’s’?

See, another trick, you prove to yourself again that it cannot work. And then you say, ‘clarity does not arise’! Somebody has to clean yourself up, and nobody else is going to do it. I take it that you are ‘most earnestly looking here’. I think you just fell for your own trick again.

What is doing the active elimination?

Well it will have to be you, whoever you find inside of you who wants to do the job. Most probably he is called No. 2. There is no God and no Divine Grace who will honour your efforts by waving the magic wand. And as I said, it is the ‘good’ beliefs, which will show you your ‘soul’, your ‘self’. You could consider questioning the belief in ‘real love’? Or being a protector? Or an idea that you have how someone else should be or behave...

My experience with PCEs is that they are a rather sudden, intense, seeing all the way through to the heart of the matter, cutting through all fear, all identity, all sense of ‘me’ and its associated purposefulness and with them there is a sense of completeness and belonging to the universe, just as actually I am, without any resistance whatsoever.

PCEs are the flashlights in a basement of rubbish. One can enjoy being relieved from the misery and confusion, which is a wonderful thing to have. But when you have the PCE you can also look at the Human Condition from the clarity you have then and find out which particular bit stands out and needs to be tackled next. The clarity from the PCE always helped me to work out in which way I am obstructing perfection and that understanding then became my work-line.

If ‘I’ knew of a button to push to bring it about continuously, I would push that button right now.

There is no button, sorry. I found only heaps of rubbish obstructing this pure consciousness perception of the actual world on a permanent basis and that rubbish needed facing, questioning, abandoning, changing behaviour, losing identities, losing friends, losing the very ground I thought and felt I was standing on. Yes, wouldn’t it be nice, someone could push the button and then it’s all over? But the satisfaction from each belief I freed myself from was such a joy that it made every day of the journey fascinating and still does.

And that is the problem. While there is any button pusher left, there can be no PCE.

It is much more than just the ‘button pusher’ that is in the way. It is all that humanity has believed in up to now that needs to be investigated and eliminated – it is the very psychic and ‘self’-ish world we are living in, the way we see, feel, imagine, evaluate, reject everything we perceive.

One would seem to be left with watching it intently. As I do now.

Watching intently is not enough. One needs to investigate into each and every belief and why one wants to keep it, when this perfectly functioning world does not need any belief for growing trees, raining, thundering or turning carrots and potatoes into blood and bones. Why do we human think we cannot live without making everything into a picture or our own making? Imagination in its very nature is madly unlimited – and the very obstacle, for the world is already perfect – except for human beings, that is.

‘What is my objection to being happy and harmless?’ was one of the most effective questions that I would continually ask myself.

Perhaps freedom will occur. The intention is certainly present.

Freedom does not simply occur. You go about on the journey into yourself with a torch and a scalpel. It is an amazing and thrilling enterprise, I can tell you that. And each time you have operated successfully, there is a joy, a dance, an outbreak of freedom and perfection which makes it all worthwhile. In my experience it is so much more exciting and gratifying than just watching intently. And for a change – it works.

Thank you Vineeto, I have truly enjoyed corresponding with you. Clarity does not arise, but the intensity of looking and listening to the ego is deepened. I am grateful.

It sounds like you are closing the inquiry shop to this side of the planet. I think I gave you quite a range of information about what we are doing so you can make up your mind. Whether you want to keep love and the other values of humanity and stay watchful of the unwanted qualities or whether you want to explore something which lies 180 degrees in the opposite direction to love and enlightenment is completely up to you.

Should you indeed be intrigued to explore further there is heaps more information on Richard’s web-site and Peter’s Journal (which you may not have had time to read yet).

I have utterly enjoyed our conversation and I had great fun to tell more and more of my story to such an interested listener.

♪ ‘I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year ♪

I hope it’s a good one, without any fear.

War is over, if you want it

♫ War is over, now.’ ♫

You see, I have already gone quite mad! With this song of John Lennon I wish you the best in whatever you want.

2.11.1998

I am glad to hear so much about what you are doing and what you have experimented with in life. It gives me a better idea as to whom I am talking with on the other side. After all, you have the advantage to have read a whole journal about Peter’s and my life, while I rely on the sentences you are writing to get an understanding of what you are saying.

Now I simply don’t have enough experience to have taken Richard’s writing as ‘just another’ anything because I’m new at this. The ‘just another’ part of what you said above is totally coming from you. What Richard calls ‘Tried and True’ is for me ‘Just Brand New’. Just a little bit less brand new in fact, than Richard and you are to me. So judge me in that light if you would please.

I don’t have 21 or 17 years of experience with a spiritual journey or 11 years of ‘enlightenment’ (whatever that is, and I truly don’t know, but I suspect it isn’t real).

To judge ‘Tried and True’ as ‘Tried and Failed’ you don’t need 17 years of spiritual journey but common sense. When I heard Richard or Peter say for the first time, ‘why don’t you judge the religion – Eastern or Western – by the outcome’, it hit me like a brick. Never even once had I looked at the factual outcome of what I was aiming for – how people are living in India, how Indians, especially enlightened ones treat women, how religious wars are raging in many parts of the world – to judge the workings and sensibility of what I was trying to achieve. At that time I felt quite stupid, clumsy, thick and thought I had wasted my time. But then, there had been nobody pointing it out to me and it seemed the best solution on offer at the time for the misery and desperation I felt about life.

It does not take 20 years of spiritual experience to look, for a change, at the facts of the particular belief-system instead of the promised solutions that it never delivers. So you are not missing any ‘time done’ here. Everyone who dares to look further than the herd can find out the facts for him/herself. Maybe the frustration of having had so little success after so many years of effort helped me to get over my pride and fear so that I started looking in another direction.

I had an experience this summer that showed me I belong in the universe completely, just as I am, and paying attention to everything in front of me was seen to be the most important thing in life to do.

Could you tell me more about the experience and what kind of conclusions you have drawn from that experience? I am suss about the word ‘belong’ and ‘the universe completely’. It seems to point to a universe that has god-like qualities as in ‘taking care of one’ or that gives ‘assurance of belonging’ as of not being on one’s own. But I could be mis-interpreting...

I’m not a ‘this’ or a ‘that’ identity.

From my own experience and from my observations of other people I very much doubt this. I haven’t found anybody except Richard who has not got one or several identities. Here is a definition of identity taken from the dictionary and Peter’s glossary:

identity –– ‘The condition or fact of a person or thing being that specified unique person or thing, esp. as a continuous unchanging property throughout existence; the characteristics determining this; individuality, personality.

Consists of two parts – the ego (who one thinks one is) and the soul (who one feels one’s self to be). This ‘unique’ identity is no more than the program of social conditioning that we are instilled with from birth onwards and which overlays our instinctually- programmed innate self. We then assume that we are unique individuals, but, in fact, we are forever bound both to society’s beliefs, morals and ethics and our instinctual animal passions. This dual bondage and the ensuing lack of freedom results in either rebellion against or resentful acceptance of one’s ‘lot in life’. Many people seek to escape from the bondage of ‘real’ world beliefs, morals and ethics and pursue the spiritual path of ‘freedom’ from everyday reality. For some .0001% of spiritual seekers an Altered State of Consciousness (aka Enlightenment) is achieved resulting in a delusionary shift of identity from mortal human to Immortal Divine. For the followers on the spiritual path the adoption of a new spiritual persona – an escape from everyday reality – suffices by imagining ‘mortal earthly life’ a necessary and acceptable passing phase on the way to a better ‘some-where else’, after death.

The challenge facing modern humans is to rid themselves of all past identity in order to become free of the Human Condition of malice and sorrow. The first step is to rid oneself of one’s socially instilled identity – all the morals, ethics, values and psittacisms that bind one to be part of the traditional waring groups be they ethnic, tribal, religious, spiritual, social, ethical or political. Stripped of the illusion that the world is a grim place, and stripped of the delusion that there exists a meta-physical world, one is then able to tackle one’s animal instinctual heritage – the innate ‘being’ that is programmed by blind nature to survive at any cost. This program of fear, aggression, nurture and desire needs to be eliminated if one is to achieve one’s destiny – an actual freedom, the like of which has not been possible before.

The Human Condition is a transitory stage in the evolution from animal to human, and a method is now available for those who want to achieve freedom from the burden of being a sorrowful and malicious social identity and of being biologically bound to instinctual animal-survival passions. The ‘survival’ phase of human evolution is finishing – the challenge for humans now is to be happy and harmless. To be a pioneer in this process is to be both unique and individual and to evince an Actual Freedom is to be more free than a bird on the wing. AF Glossary

I’m a flesh and blood human being doing my very best to see what this life is about. < ... > My ‘spiritual approach’ consisted of ‘seeing the obstacles to paying attention’, because I had found that to merely want to pay attention is not enough, one must either BE attentive, or one must attend to the obstacles to attentiveness. I do not believe I was making a rash assertion to say we have some common ground, give or take a few definitions. But if you still think not, OK.

I think the assumption that we have common ground is a very good start for this discussion. But, being a thorough person, especially when we are talking about beliefs, makes me question and investigate everything where we apparently differ. ‘Attending the obstacles to attentiveness’ I would translate into ‘eliminating every fear, every belief, every emotion that hinders my direct experience of the factual and actual world’. I don’t know if that is what you are attempting to do. Are you?

I don’t need your endorsement or approval, but honestly, it does mean something to me, approval from others. I know I have plenty to learn in many areas.

In my investigation I have made a difference between ‘needing approval’ and scrutiny. Since I embarked on my journey to freedom, every single person’s input has been of value to me for scrutinising myself, be it criticism or approval, because I would measure my reaction to their input on what I wanted to achieve ie be free from any emotional reaction and check if I was not kidding myself. Given that I, like everyone else, have this ‘very very cunning entity’ inside myself, I will use every help possible to dismantle the ‘self’s’ tricks to stay in existence.

The ‘needing approval’ I know very well and I can say that it disappears as the need to maintain an identity vanishes. It is the identity that needs approval, given it is made up of other people’s opinion about me, as well as the instincts that everyone is born with.

Why does my saying I see we have things in common make you seem to pull back, retreating into a ‘You don’t understand Richard’ position?

I said: ‘It is not merely ‘definition differences’ we are talking about.’ And I still maintain that it is not only definition differences. Every difference in definition usually means a difference in belief, as I know from my own process of digging into my beliefs, emotions and instincts, and they need to be investigated before we know that we have things in common. As I have told you, it is good fun for me to be doing this and helps me to become clearer. Any communication about my favourite subject – and actual freedom from the Human Condition – is very welcome.

Because it would be scary to be like me? As ignorant and clumsy and stupid? As inconsistent and confused?

The journey so far has been also scary, yes, but incredible rewarding. I see it as no bad thing to be inconsistent and confused. After all, you are on a discovery journey. Ignorance, stupidity, inconsistency and confusion are part of the Human Condition that is being investigated. A bummer of a birthmark for each of us, that is true. The way to overcome the ignorance and confusion, created by the many beliefs, was to investigate the facts of each situation, and facts are simply facts. Further, it has taken many leaps to overcome pride and fear again and again, but the fascination and thrill of investigating and eliminating my own shackles has given me the necessary fuel.

As ‘full of malice and sorrow’, to use your all’s rather religious terminology?

...after all, it was Peter’s ‘advertisement’ for freedom from malice and sorrow that caught my attention.

Strange that you should judge the expression that caught your attention a religious terminology. If it is something you want to achieve, why put it down as a mere belief? Don’t you want to be free from malice and sorrow?

In fact, I would say that my very own ‘seeing the obstacles to paying attention now’ amounts closely to ‘how am I experiencing this moment alive?’ It’s just that, I suppose, I’m not very good at it, and the obstacles are formidable.

Yes, the obstacles seemed formidable, especially when I started looking. Taking the obstacles one by one without bothering about the one to come has helped me immensely to keep my feet on the ground and my mind off discouragement. Each moment, now, there is only one obstacle, the one that is bothering me in this moment. Like: ‘Why did this particular remark or behaviour upset me?’ ‘Why am I stressed out when I could do it also relaxedly?’ And after every obstacle removed comes the joy of yet more freedom, deeper understanding, greater confidence and more happiness ...

Enough for tonight, time for playing a few solitaire games...

Your other letters are still sitting on the computer screen waiting for typing fingers and engaged brain...

4.11.1998

I asked myself today, why it is that I am writing to you and how it works with me. I found that talking to you about the different upcoming issues I am making sense of them while we discuss them. Sometimes it takes a few days to sort something out, to see how I understand it and how I want to communicate it. And sometimes I don’t want to say much at all.

But you are expressing preferences too. You are very concerned about wars. My identity thinks wars are bad also. Any war. <snip> I have it too. Otherwise war would just be what is happening. Furthermore, I don’t need to look at war all the time to get motivated to look at the violence within myself. I’m plenty motivated to see my own brutality and cruelty every day. Because it is seen, something else can occur, sometimes.

Yes, I am concerned about wars. The more personal worries disappear out of my life, the more I can see what human beings are doing to each other, every day, in every country, in every household. And everyone is inflicted by the disease called Human Condition, malice and sorrow. To be free from it is to stop being cruel to other people. War is people being cruel to other people, on a big and horrendous scale; it can be eliminated as the Human Condition is eliminated in more and more people. Maybe it takes a few generations, but without instinctual passions and ‘self’ in operation there is no possibility for any war to be fought. That motivates one not just seeing cruelty in oneself but to actually stop being cruel, each time one’s cruelty wants to ‘occur’.

I disagree with you here, Vineeto, I feel we are discussing definition differences. If you are curious about how I speak to myself about attending to the universe with my sense faculties, and I assume you are, I would tell you that I think of the universe itself, our actual physical universe, all of it, us included and everything in us, as ‘God.’ It is a word I use for the universe, because it makes sense to me. Sunrises and rectal abscesses included.

Peter wrote a wonderful definition of ‘sense’. There are two meanings to the word sense. I stick to the first two meanings.

sense

1. Faculty of perception or sensation. Any of the bodily faculties, esp. sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch (the five senses), by which humans and animals are able to perceive external objects and stimuli. The faculties of perception as negated by sleep or unconsciousness.

2. Natural soundness of judgment, practical wisdom or intelligence, common sense.

3. sensus faculty or mode of feeling, thought, meaning, feel, perceive by the senses. Meaning, signification. Emotional sensibility or consciousness of something; regretful, grateful, or sympathetic appreciation or recognition. A mental faculty as opp. to a bodily one.

4. An opinion, view, or judgment held or formed by a group of people or (formed) by an individual, the prevailing view of a group etc. Oxford Dictionary

As can be seen from the definitions the word sense has two distinct meanings (a, b and c, d), but in the emotional turmoil of real life, or the fantasy meta-physical world of spiritual life, the distinction is rarely, if ever, discerned.

The first two definitions point to a practical, pragmatic view or sense, such that a tree is a tree, the universe is infinite, when you die you die, the sky is blue, and this is the only moment you can experience being alive. The world, as perceived by the body’s senses, the ‘stalks’ of the brain, is a physical one only. The physical senses of the brain allow us the sensual feel of touch (the skin of another), the aromatic delight of smell (a frangipani at dusk), the complexity of sight (colour, light, movement, depth, focus), the variety, intensity and layering of sounds and tastes. Further, the human brain has an awareness of this sensorial input and can think, reflect and communicate with others. The brain, when freed of the dominance of ‘self’-centred feeling and thought and the chemical based instinctual passions, is able to function with startling clarity and common sense and the faculty of apperception – the mind’s ability to perceive itself – comes to the fore. This sensate-only experience is known as a Pure Consciousness Experience – a temporary state of ‘self’-lessness.

The ability of the brain to function sensibly – as in definition (b) – is essential for the individual and collective functioning of human beings and is seen in operation in the superb objects, systems and in operation of services, communication, trade, transport, etc. in the world.

The second pair of definitions points to a different scenario, a different perception of the universe. This definition alludes to an emotional, feeling and cerebral (thought) perception of the world – the perception of the psychological and psychic entity within the flesh and blood body. With the continual operation of instinctual feelings of fear, aggression, nurture and desire combined with one’s social identity of morals, ethics and values, one is forever ‘feeling’ or ‘thinking’ one’s way in any place, at any time and with all other people. As such, we are continually psychically afraid of the world. We tend, when operating in a psychic-instinctual mode, to see everything as though coated in sorrow or malice. Our only relief is to add a coating of beauty, ‘spirituality’ or gratitude in order to make our perception a tolerable one. But one can never ever make any sense of the world this way, for it is all seen and experienced as either a ghastly nightmare, or a beautiful dream, depending on one’s feelings or thoughts at the time. As a social identity we are instilled with a perception of the world alluded to in definition (d). We are thus bound to having a moral or ethical interpretation or perception of things, people or events – relentlessly evaluating everything as good or bad, right or wrong.

The consequences of the human brain functioning under the influence of instinctual passions, emotions, feelings, nightmares and dreams is most clearly seen in all the wars, rapes, murders, tortures, corruption, depression, suicides, etc. that continually plague Humanity.

The consequences of the human brain functioning under the influence of socially instilled morals, ethics, principles, values and psittacisms is most clearly seen in all ethnic conflicts, religious persecutions, ethical disputes, fights for rights, demands for justice and retribution, etc. that are used as a justification to indulge in war, rape, murder, torture, etc.

There is now a practical down-to-earth solution, such that will bring an end to this madness. When actually freed of a psychic and ‘self’-oriented affective and cerebral sensing of the world – the ‘who’ one thinks one is and the ‘who’ one feels oneself to be – one can’t do anything other than perceive the world directly, sensately, sensuously and sensibly. To experience the physical universe without the emotions of fear and aggression is to continually delight and wonder in amazement at it all. One at last comes to one’s senses, both figuratively and literally. AF Glossary

And so, since I have determined for myself that the highest value I can see is to pay attention apperceptively, to use Richard’s definition, and what is paid attention to is the universe. I simply put these two most important phenomena in their proper cognitive locations, for me, that being love, and God.

Maybe your translation of ‘apperception’ into ‘loving God’ is part of the misunderstanding, because apperception is 180 degrees in the opposite direction of both ‘love’ and ‘god’. Here are some samples of Richard’s Journal what he means by apperception, it is not an easy term to comprehend:

To be the senses as a bare awareness is apperception, a pure consciousness experience of the world as-it-is. Because there is no ‘I’ as an observer – a little person inside one’s head – to have sensations, I am the sensations. There is nothing except the series of sensations which happen ... not to ‘me’ but just happening ... moment by moment ... one after another. To be the sensations, as distinct from having them, engenders the most astonishing sense of freedom and release. Richard’s Journal, Article 17

I have left the park and I am wandering through the village in order to reach my current residence on the other side of town. It is a delicious sensation to be here, meandering my way through the press of life in this little town; I pass virtually unnoticed among the people engrossed in ‘being’. Little do they realise the enormity of this moment of being alive, so enamoured are they of being someone. I experience myself as no-one in particular; I am simply a body enjoying this exquisite motion of strolling, unimpeded by any self within. At this moment the park is but a faded memory and my residence a vague intention. Only this moment actually exists, for there is no lasting ‘I’ present which would make the past and future real. The freedom from enduring over time as the past, the present and the future, leaves one completely able to appreciate the impeccable purity of being here. This appreciation is the exclusive attention paid to being alive right here and now. This type of attention is best known as apperception, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself.

Apperception is an awareness of consciousness. It is not ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious; it is the mind’s awareness of itself. Apperception is a way of seeing that can be arrived at by pure contemplation. Pure contemplation is when ‘I’ cease thinking ... and thinking takes place of its own accord. Such a mind, being free of the thinker – ‘I’ – is capable of immense clarity. All this is born out of pure intent. Pure intent is derived from the peak experience, which all humans have had at some stage in their life. A peak experience is when ‘I’ spontaneously cease to ‘be’, temporarily, and this moment is. Everything is seen to be perfect as-it-is. Diligent attention paid to the peak experience gives rise to pure intent. With pure intent running as a ‘golden thread’ through one’s life, contemplation rapidly becomes pure. Pure contemplation is bare awareness – bare of ‘me’ being aware. Apperception happens of itself.

With apperception operating more or less continuously, ‘I’ find it harder and harder to maintain credibility. ‘I’ am increasingly seen as the usurper, an alien entity inhabiting this body and taking on an identity of its own. Mercilessly exposed in the bright light of awareness – apperception casts no shadows – ‘I’ can no longer find ‘my’ position tenable. ‘I’ can only live in obscuration, where ‘I’ lurk about, creating all sorts of mischief. ‘My’ time is speedily coming to an end, ‘I’ can barely maintain ‘myself’ any longer. Richard’s Journal, Article 18

I read back over one of the letters I sent to Vineeto, where I made the statement ‘I disagree...’ and I have spent the morning looking at disagreement.

Why shouldn’t you disagree? This is, after all, an investigation into what it is to be a human being.

4.11.1998

In my investigation I have made a difference between ‘needing approval’ and scrutiny. Since I embarked on my journey to freedom, every single person’s input has been of value to me for scrutinising myself, be it criticism or approval, because I would measure my reaction to their input on what I wanted to achieve ie. be free from any emotional reaction and check if I was not kidding myself. Given that I, like everyone else, have this ‘very very cunning entity’ inside myself, I will use every help possible to dismantle the ‘self’s’ tricks to stay in existence.

Well said. In fact, everything in every moment becomes one’s teacher, yet our human teachers have a special place I think. Whomever we are with at any time. Each has something to say, something we need to hear. And the rare teachers with whom we may share the action of looking for, listening for, the simple truth, not ‘The Truth,’ are the greatest source of life strength. They are our deepest mirrors. As you have been for me recently, and for which I am grateful.

I am not a teacher. I apologize for this misunderstanding. The way I have written may have caused you to see it that way.

I am simply a human being, telling you my stories. Forget gratitude. What serendipitous delight that two human beings can have a communication trans the globe about life and death and what it is to be alive.

As ‘full of malice and sorrow’, to use your all’s rather religious terminology? After all, it was Peter’s ‘advertisement’ for freedom from malice and sorrow that caught my attention.

Strange that you should judge the expression that caught your attention a religious terminology. If it is something you want to achieve, why put it down as a mere belief? Don’t you want to be free from malice and sorrow?

Passionately. The judgement and fear you have correctly identified comes from my sense of self perceiving you and Richard and Peter to be claiming to be special and different and better than I am. Yes, my sense of self wants to be free. And I have seen that I am an actual self that grows towards freedom, without the help of my identity self. My identity self, in fact, is the obstacle. Yet I don’t put it down as a belief, I correctly identify it as a belief. I am not free of malice and sorrow, and when I take action to attempt to bring about freedom from malice and sorrow, then I am either insane and do not know what I am doing, or I believe that my actions will bring about the desired result, one that I ‘fervently wish were true,’ but is not.

Clearly a belief. It appears to be the core belief of your religion. <Smiling.> One you are allowing while condemning others. But it is OK to be religious. That is just a statement of having an ego, of being who we are.

It may be a belief to you, for me it has been a working theory first and then, with more and more success of eliminating emotions, beliefs and instincts, it has become my experience that it is actually possible to free myself from malice and sorrow. If it intrigues you, you can try it out for yourself. As a mere belief it is of no use whatsoever.

5.11.1998

There is no misunderstanding here Vineeto, you have been my teacher.

When, one and a half years ago I had doubts that the spiritual gurus failed to deliver freedom I met a man who said he was not a guru. As I watched him closely I understood that he in fact had nothing in common with the gurus I had met, loved and believed in.

This man, Richard, said that it is possible to live without emotions and furthermore, without beliefs and instincts. As I watched him dealing with daily affairs it seemed actually possible to ‘survive’ without emotions and beliefs, and obviously completely happy and harmless, which I have not seen in anybody before. And so I tried it out for myself.

I emulated him, meaning I started to look at the world the way he did, every day a bit more making sense in a radically new way. I was trying to find a way of experiencing life the way he did, without emotions, beliefs and instincts. Other references were my own peak experiences.

Of course, I had to sort out a few problems on the way... But now, 18 months later, I am similarly happy and harmless.

Richard has described in his journal a lot how he experiences every-day life and, as Peter said, lots of writings of all of us are available...

Dear Vineeto,

May you be happy and free.

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