A Conversation with a Spiritual Teacher
Article 1 HE SAID THAT THIS DISCOVERY WAS OF IMMENSE IMPORTANCE FOR HUMANITY
To be fully alive is to be allowing this moment to live one, resulting in a blithe exemption from the everyday cares and worries that are the direct result of living as a psychological entity – an identity and self – in the real world. Tamely submitting to such a fate as having to endure everyday reality equips one with an in-built predilection for doom and gloom ... which precludes perennial gaiety, regardless of the weather. Some people, of course, respond to a particularly pleasant day with a temporary feeling of happiness; such a feeling is transitory because it is but a mood which, by its very nature, does not last for long. However, even though feeling good at any time is not to be decried, one nevertheless stays ‘normal’ – which is to be an entity with an ego and soul – complete with the unfortunate potential for wreaking havoc on this otherwise perfect planet that all humans live on. The discontent at a mood-swing – especially on a glorious day – will prompt one who is at all alert to do something substantive about one’s life and seek out that which is lastingly exceptional. Upon close inspection, one will discover that this moment in time is already here – it is always now – and that being immediate and virginal it is constantly fresh, continually new ... incessantly novel and of inestimable value. What makes this moment precious is that nothing ‘dirty’ can get in; this moment is impeccable and unimpeachable in its character and one can only experience it when one is in a like condition. Thus the very perfection of the whole of creation ensures that the optimum must prevail in such vital immediacy. This intimate excellence is the consummation of the infinity of this physical universe – the wellspring of all that is apparent – being played out in its pure action on this very physical earth we humans all inhabit. The actual world of people, things and events is not unlike a playground for one who is immaculate; a playing field in which to revel in the certainty of being here as-this-body and doing this happening called life with well-earned impunity from malice and sorrow. As nothing is gained without effort – apart from some serendipitous discoveries because of activating the pure intent born out of a peak experience – the rewards and benefits of going all the way into what the universe intends for one anyway come only as a result of questioning even the most closely held ideas and beliefs. Maintaining nothing to be sacrosanct and questing only for veracity, one’s genuine exploration and discovery of what it means to live a fully human life is a life dedicated to the living of fidelity, integrity and probity.
And so my day has moved unambiguously from perfection to perfection, with an afternoon maturing towards a golden eventide. I am now seated at a seaside restaurant, which has a spacious outdoor decking furnished with tables and chairs shaded by large umbrellas, in accordance to a pre-arranged meeting with an Awakened Teacher from overseas. This Self-Realised person has been travelling the world, publicly questioning the antics that some of the Enlightened Beings get up to, and propagating the line that he holds nothing sacred but the search for truth. As these Divine Masters are starting to pop up like mushrooms now that the beguiling doctrines of Eastern Spirituality have been exported to the West, he has had more than a few to target. Consequently, I have responded to his challenge for persons dedicated enough to ‘go all the way’ to respond to his call, by inviting him to a conversation about what the implications and ramifications are of going beyond Spiritual Enlightenment. I have had to send him a hand-delivered letter describing what is entailed in forsaking the Glamour and the Glory and the Glitz of the Altered State Of Consciousness – and thus landing here in this actual world of blitheness and gaiety – for an earlier postal-delivered note had failed to elicit a response. Was the notion of the Altered State Of Consciousness being but a delusion born out of an illusion too much of a threat to his empire for him to reply? We may never find out, for he is by now late for the appointment. Tardiness is considered by more than a few to be an accepted practice in this area, so I am well used to a person’s failure to arrive on time. Then again, some people use a late arrival as a measure of their own self-importance; whilst others in positions of power cultivate a proclivity for keeping another waiting so as to establish precedence and authority. Whatever the case, it is of no concern at all for it is a pleasure merely to be able to be here, sitting at ease with my companion and the colleague of ours who has arranged this meeting. We order a cup of coffee from the by-now familiar waiter ... and I sit back to enjoy the mellow rays of the late afternoon sun that come streaking through the large trees all about. Numerous birds are fluttering and chirping amidst their leafy branches and through some gaps in the foliage the azure ocean froths its waves upon the sandy beach some few hundred metres away. Beyond the shore the bay sweeps around to the west where the sun is about an hour away from setting atop the smoky blue-green mountains that face the sea all along the coastline hereabouts. There is a quiet hum of talk from the other patrons seated at the tables nearby, complimenting the clatter of utensils in the kitchen of the restaurant inside and the leisurely movement of waiters moving about their designated duties ... and the profuse layer of froth atop the aromatic cappuccino is a delight for the taste-buds. I am these taste-buds ... what I am is this flesh-and-blood body simply saturated with sensate delight. For this condition to come about it is a must to psychologically self-immolate. Normally one identifies with the ‘self’ as being ‘me’ – it is ‘my’ very identity – and the ‘self’ is comprised of two entities: the ego and the soul and they are, approximately speaking, situated in the head and the heart respectively. It must be emphasised that while they may be real, they are not actual ... they have no substance whatsoever. However, whilst they hold sway they are the ‘who’ one takes oneself to be; they are the ‘who’ one thinks and feels that one is. They are one’s sense of ‘being’, a feeling of ‘presence’ that is erroneously taken to indicate and confirm one’s existence. One can sacrifice oneself – psychologically speaking – for the benefit of oneself in particular and for humankind in general. With no identity or self whatsoever inside the body, one finds that one is both spontaneously benign and carefree, for one has eradicated malice and sorrow forever. One’s essential character is identical with the essential character of the universe ... this wondrous universe that all we humans abide in. One discovers that one is living in a condition of perfection and purity ... and in perfection and purity there is no need for Right or Wrong and Good or Bad.
He has finally arrived and I discern immediately that he does not wish to be here; his attitude and mannerisms, the tone of his voice and his avoidance of looking directly at me, his body language and general demeanour all go to indicate a reluctance to proceed with the agreed upon discussion. I attempt to do the impossible, which is to put him at ease by my actual friendliness and general bonhomie and invite him to join us for a cup of coffee. After a few generalities I get right down to the business at hand by indicating the parameters of the conversation as being concerned with an investigation into going beyond Spiritual Enlightenment and just what is entailed as regards to finding out about the subject from the meagre information that some other venturesome humans in history have made of it. I mention some names, sketching in the paucity of data and the obvious deceit of some modern Masters who have professed to be living there. As their Teachings did not change one jot as a result of their declaration then the veracity of their claim leaves a lot to be desired. Other than that, I say, there is only the traditional Hindu Mahasamadhi and the Buddhist Parinirvana as an example that it is seriously considered as a possibility ... but only at physical death. I maintain that it is indeed possible to go beyond Spiritual Enlightenment whilst this body is alive and breathing and that not only is it possible – it is a must that one proceeds thus, for the wars, murders, rapes, tortures, domestic violence and corruption that malice engenders are a blight upon humanity. Further to that, I say, sorrow begets loneliness, sadness, anxiety, grief, depression and – in the extreme cases – suicide. As all this can be prevented by dispensing with all the well-meant but fatally flawed moralistic injunctions which flow forth from the Saints and Sages, the Masters and Messiahs, the Saviours and Avatars and the Prophets and Priests of all description. It is The Teachings themselves that are at fault, for they come from diversely adventurous individuals who have dared to go into The Unknown but have stopped short of The Unknowable. Further to that, they have surrendered their integrity to the Psychic Power that lies hidden as the Unmanifest Authority behind the scenes. This Divine Entity can go by many names, most of them obviously a god, but the most pernicious is the one usually described as either The Truth or The Absolute. To have surrendered to That Which Is Sacred is the root cause of the imperfect behaviour of those otherwise supposedly happy and harmless Self-Realised Beings and Enlightened Masters. This is a direct and unequivocal statement of course, leaving him no room to manoeuvre for his position is collectively prestigious. It amounts to a categorical exposé of his much-prized State Of Being ... which is why there is the reluctance to have this meeting at all. There is simply too much at stake to expect a searching and penetrating dialogue leading to a mutual agreement as to the ultimate condition of the human being. Yet he makes the effort to understand, albeit somewhat lamely, by proffering the observation that if what I am saying is true, then I have discovered something that nobody in history has discovered before ... but the ‘if it is true’ codicil indicates his doubt. Of course it is not a matter of someone merely believing me – that would not be at all desirable as the action of believing sustains and perpetuates the identity. Rather than belief, it is a matter of the facts speaking for themselves. Is the notion of an identity, born out of the soul, persisting as a Self after the dissolution of the ego a valid and cogent proposition? Is it entirely possible that one has stepped out of the illusion of being a self, only to step into the delusion of being The Self? These are indeed deep and probing questions, because one’s very identity is in jeopardy if there is agreement. Nevertheless he rallies to the moment and makes the only valid comment so far. He said that this discovery – if it was correct – was of immense importance for humanity.
As I have been living in this invaluable condition for five years now, endeavouring to convey to others the priceless
character of an actual freedom from animosity and anguish – as distinct from having merely transcended and smothered them over with a honeyed
coating of Love Agapé and Divine Compassion – then I am inordinately pleased whenever someone can grasp what this means for peace
on earth. It is one thing to bask in Rapturous Bliss, Ineffable Ecstasy and Exalted Euphoria while perpetuating the status-quo and
quite another to delightedly enjoy the ripples of pleasure that this body is patently capable of manifesting whilst actualising benignity and
blitheness. These organic waves of sensational pleasure are usually constrained by the demands of the entity for emotional and passionate
feelings ... which are the synthetic compensations for the supposed indignity of having to be here at all as this despised body. When the
psychological – and psychic – entity willingly abdicates its sovereignty and takes its leave, the senses can act in their optimum manner
... just as when a normal person becomes blind, for instance, all the other senses are heightened. The result is a phenomenal increase in the
pleasurable sensitivity of being a corporeal body in this very physical world. The resultant benevolence produces easy good-will, kindness and
altruism, for one is living in a friendly This is important to comprehend, for under different conditions thoughtful people are prone to jumping to the conclusion that one would then be an out and out hedonist – an unfortunate appellation for I rather like the term and wished it received far better press – yet as a matter of fact and actuality, one is demonstrating one’s appreciation of all that the universe can offer by being here in a palpable and tangible sense. Instead of standing back and expressing a feeling – an emotion or passion – about this world, one is saying yes to existence in the most evident and obvious way ... with tactile approbation and sensibly discernible relish. One is fully committed, for one has realised that life is inherently perfect ... and it is possible to live that perfection all the time. Then – and only then – is one being here. Being here is a direct experiencing of the actuality of this moment that is hanging in time and is vastly superior to ‘me’ as an identity ‘living in the present’. When one is actually being here, one is totally immersed, completely involved in living. One is no longer ‘holding back’, saving oneself for Something after death or Someone who is deathless. One is out from control; no more is one keeping part of oneself in reserve, for this moment is freely living me ... and I am all of me. Being here as an actuality is to be doing what is happening with the full endorsement of one’s entirety. What is implied – which is what is resisted – is the unconditional acceptance of mortality. Not surprisingly, although death’s oblivion is a fact, belief defies credibility when it comes to the persistence of identity even unto an After-Life. One of the most momentous implications of sanctioning actualism is the acknowledgment of the lie of Eternal Life; the ramifications of this realisation are that if one does not experience the purity of perfection now, as this flesh-and-blood body, one never will. To wait for ‘death’s release’ is to defer consummation indefinitely ... for the entire term of one’s natural life. And further to this procrastination is the danger of the gratitude and thankfulness engendered solely by putting faith in the unintentional mendacity of those propagating Timelessness and Deathlessness ... which leads to devotional worship of the fabricated ‘evidence’ of Transcendental Everlastingness as demonstrated by the Divine Beings, with their trust and hope in what amounts to an abject surrender of one’s integrity and originality. All in all, the price paid for prevarication and equivocation is altogether too high, as human sanity and salubrity is traded for the myth and fantasy so beloved of the most ancient of ancestors. All of the agony and anguish that has prevailed since the dawn of human memory will continue to flourish unless the Spiritual Leaders of humankind can wake up and realise the remarkable error of their way. The discovery of actualism is most unquestionably of tremendous consequence for the human race.
Article 2 HE SAID HE BELIEVED THAT I WAS A VERY PASSIONATE MAN
This is the case in point at this moment; the man I am talking with is clearly only accommodating me and my diagnoses and prognostications about the fate of humanity continuing as it is when compared with the possibility of realising one’s destiny. As he is vitally interested in maintaining the status-quo in order to justify his investment as being an Awakened Teacher of esoteric Eastern Spirituality, he can not afford to take on board the full import of what I am saying. Too many inversely intelligent people before him have also relinquished their discerning intellect for the seductive blandishments proffered so generously by the Unmanifest Presence lurking mysteriously behind the scenes for him to readily abandon all Arcane Salvation just on my say so. The source of the recondite reprieve from temporal transience enigmatically resides in the psychic world so venerated as being the genesis of all redemption ... it seems to promise deliverance from the durance vile that mortal life is unfortunately considered to be. The hold that this Almighty Authority has on people with its virtuous Heavenly Power has the effect of restricting the free play of one’s native perspicacity and results in accepting various ‘truths’ as being actuality. The moment one sees a ‘truth’ for what it is – a belief – one finds that it has already disappeared because of the seeing, leaving nothing behind, except perhaps a vague memory that one once thought like that. This ‘seeing’ is simple seeing, based upon pure intent born out of the peak experience; as an outcome of this, all of one’s life becomes a wondrous experience, progressively being clearer and cleaner and more pure. It is not an intellectual ‘seeing’, nor is it emotional ... passions play no part in becoming free. Passions are only needed for defending one’s belief in the status-quo. One of the many ‘truths’ that one has accepted, with no suspicion, is that hoary adage that ‘we are all emotional beings’. Feelings – emotions and passions – are accepted, without question, as being the touch-stone of actuality. Thus the ‘who’ one fancies oneself to be is an emotional being ... a psychological entity residing inside this body. I realise, by discovering what I actually am, that who ‘I’ was – an emotion-backed thought – was a usurper ... an alien entity having only psychological existence. ‘I’ am a ‘being’, and if by chance ‘I’ happen to ‘find myself’, then ‘I’ become a Divine Being. The shift from being ‘human’ to being ‘Divine’ is a move from the suspect ‘reality’ of the real world to equally dubious ‘Reality’ of the ‘Divine World’. It is all a play in a super-charged imagination invoked from the evocative milieu of the most impassioned heart ... and has nothing to do with fact.
Divinity must, therefore, have its roots buried deep in the psyche, to be held so passionately as a realistic solution to humanity’s plight by so many people. It is not solely the short-lived caprice of a feeble-minded few, for it is something that people feel deeply to be genuine. It is dear to their heart’s desire. Herein lies the evidence to determine why this fantasy has endured: a feeling is not a fact. Feelings have led humankind awry for aeons, without ever being queried as to whether they are the legitimate mechanism for deciding the veracity of the matter. Feelings are held to be hallowed; they are given a trustworthiness they do not merit and are seen to be the ultimate adjudicator in any disputatious topic. Thought, shackled by emotion and passion, can not operate with the clarity it is capable of and doubt ensues. In a valorous effort to eliminate doubt, fervency can be brought into the search. Such devotion can produce an intense love. When ‘I’ experience this love ‘I’ feel that life has purpose after all. Some brazen persons have attained a state of Love Agapé, thereby believing that they have found the Ultimate Meaning, giving rise to morals and principles. These values play a major role in determining the temperament of the persona at large. Passions and emotions are paramount in maintaining the values that make up the fragile identity; emotions give colour to the values and passions make them real. Both are the main source of inspiration for the values learnt in family-life, which are identical to those used in a community, a culture, a nation or a religion. It seems an intimidating engagement to attempt to free oneself from all these inherited emotions and passions, which arise instinctually from the Human Condition, from being a self. The main fear being is that one will run amok, uncontrolled by the socially accepted concepts of Right and Wrong or Good and Bad. Driven by unreasonable apprehension, one shrinks from contemplating the feasibility of living freely. Yet it is indeed possible to live peacefully, at ease and undisturbed by these futile feelings and delusive thoughts. It is an entirely different paradigm with a very different – but now sound – reasoning. From the normal view-point is the antithesis to the conventional codes and disciplines based on respect for human or Godly thoughts and feelings ... the more ancient they are the more appropriate they are considered. The loss of acumen generated by revering antiquity’s wisdom leads to rejecting something as entirely novel and new as what I am offering in this sunny late afternoon scene of paradisiacal simplicity. It is so nice to be here holding forth about human life and experience that I have been energetically putting my case with much firmness and fortitude. My animation is spontaneous and genuine; being without guile and thus unable to indulge in duplicity, I am prone to emphasise my participation in life’s largesse with much verve and vivacity. Being of such good cheer it is easy to be spirited in my response to another’s questionable quandary ... their doubt and despair at the apparently ephemeral nature of this moment’s bounteousness begets a compensatory liveliness that I am loathe to restrain. Besides, I enjoy my life too much to reign in my innate exuberance – I have lived too long in harness to forsake this moment’s benediction for the circumscribed restraint of social politeness and control. In short, I am indefatigably vital when I get going on my pet subject. To wit: the parlous state of humankind’s existential dilemma is, in the main, attributable to passion and pain with their convergent zealotry. Here he interrupts the flow of my eloquent observations to make a predictable remark. He said he believed that I was a very passionate man.
As he has been disseminating, to all the peoples that are inspired to attend his nightly discourses, the wisdom of forsaking the dwelling on feelings in one’s daily life, it should come as a surprise that he would detect in my animation even the slightest smell of passion. By virtue of his acclaimed position as a discerning individual he should be able to judge the marked difference betwixt liveliness and passion ... but as Love Agapé and Divine Compassion are both passions, who is he to be able to discriminate? Not to mention the profound feelings of Rapturous Bliss, Ineffable Ecstasy and Exalted Euphoria ... calenture reigns supreme in the Divine World. Of course he expects anybody who claims what I declare to be an actuality to be passionate, for he can not contemplate liberation from all feelings – no matter what he instructs his students to attain to. He has no idea whatsoever of the delight of living in the dispassionate ease of actuality. Here is an ambience free from human feelings, from humanity’s truisms, from religion’s morals and from civilisation’s mores ... humanity’s cultural coping-mechanisms and covenants. There is a gratifying wonder to be encountered in actualism: it is so comfortably habitable. It is living, here on earth, as this actual body, simply awash with sensory equipment – yet completely devoid of emotions and passions with their hallucinatory thoughts and utopian idealism. Many is the person who, puzzled by my adamant declaration of the absence of feelings, struggles to comprehend how one functions and operates in daily life. The most oft-repeated question is related to what I feel about whatever the person is enamoured of ... which demonstrates again and again that feelings are construed by all as the ultimate arbiter of human experience. It has to be lived to be known ... and once lived there is no turning back. It is, of necessity, an intrepid person who will forsake profound feelings, lofty thoughts and psychic adumbrations and enter into the actuality of life as a sensible enterprise. It bespeaks an astonishing boldness to dedicate oneself to the undertaking of effecting a mutation of consciousness. It requires the solid knowing and sure confidence, born out of repeated peak experiences, that galvanises one into action to begin dismantling the much-prized identity that is pasted over the self that one was born with. One enters this world with a congenital self, as hereditary intuitive practices are blind nature’s way of ensuring the survival of the species via the indigenous instincts. Thus the ‘instinct for survival’ is an animal necessity which served the human animal well until the emergence of a thinking, reflective brain. This thinking, reflective brain gave rise to a brain pattern known as ‘the mind’. In here the ‘instinct for survival’ became the emotion-backed ‘will to survive’. Consequently, the biologically necessary blind instinct spilled over into the psychological arena ... with disastrous results. For five thousand years or more, human beings have been struggling to overcome the ‘will to survive’ with moralistic injunctions. All sentient beings have an awareness of self ... all conscious beings know that they are separate from everything else. The people who were already here when one was born considered it to be of vital importance that one have an identity, for in a social sense the self is considered wayward and in need of control. Thus is a conscience formed ... for it is vital that a wayward self has some measure of being controlled. By the time one is approximately seven years of age, one has a concept of Right and Wrong, Good and Bad. This culturally-created psychological identity thinks and feels itself to be important in the scheme of things. It is an emotional and passionate ‘being’; a sense of ‘presence’ that guides one with alleged safety through the vicissitudes and rigours of earthly life. Hence the dualistic notion of self and other is compounded by a well-meaning society ... and despite the supposed ‘safety’ provided by the identity and its conscience, malice and sorrow continue.
In an equally well-meant undertaking to ameliorate the Human Condition, some people ‘realise’ themselves to be Transcendental Entities ... they ‘recognise’ themselves to be the Immortal Self. They say that they have ‘come home’ and propose this to be the solution to humankind’s woes. It is not. The religious wars that have beset this planet speak only of the failure of the Divine Solution to put an end to suffering. Instead, Divinity – in whatever form – has only served to intensify and exacerbate an already difficult situation with treacherous efficiency. It is all due to the intuitive faculties – powered by passionate thought – that activates those psychic adumbrations so beloved of the metaphysical fraternity. The mind can be a fertile breeding-ground for hallucinations, for emotional and passionate thought begets the esoteric world, the suprasensory domain of apparitions and shadows. The mind, held hostage by humanity’s ‘wisdom’, is indeed a productive spawning-ground for fanciful flights of imagination, giving rise to the fantasies and phantasms so loved and revered – and feared – by humankind. One can easily become bewitched by the bizarre beings that populate the Supernatural Realms; one becomes beguiled and enchanted by intuition’s covenant with clairvoyant states of extrasensory perception. The closest approximation to the actual that ‘I’ can attain via prescient means can only ever be visionary states produced from utopian ideals that manifest themselves as hallucinatory chimeras. And it all has to do with the persistence of identity. Something can unmistakably be accomplished with respect to this culturally created identity ... one can willingly do something about it if one is judiciously galvanised into doing so. One can bring about a benediction from that perfection and purity which is the essential character of the universe by connecting with one’s original state of naiveté and refining one’s modus operandi. Naiveté is that most private aspect of oneself that is the closest semblance that one can have of actual innocence – there is no innocence so long as there is a self – and consistent attentiveness paid to naive intimacy gives rise to an ongoing benediction. This blessing allows an association to be made between oneself and the perfection and purity of the infinitude of this universe. This connection I call pure intent. Pure intent endows one with the ability to operate and function safely in society without the incumbent social identity with its ever-vigilant conscience. Thus reliably rendered virtually innocent – well-nigh harmless and practically shameless – by the benefaction of the perfection and purity, one can begin by disabusing oneself of the belief in one’s Higher Self ... and thus on to dismantling the now-redundant social identity. One can indeed live a fascinating and joyful life without any of sorrow’s passion.
Article 3 HE SAID THAT HE WAS TALKING TO ME AND NOT TO HER
The main problem with attempting to free oneself of the iniquities of the Human Condition with the aid of religion, spirituality, mysticism or anything metaphysical at all is that freedom lies here on earth – not in some supernatural realm. This body is of this universe; one is of this very earth beneath one’s feet; one comes out of the ground via food – one is the food one eats – and we could not be here discussing these matters if it were not for corporeal existence. This body is essentially a walking brain, with the senses being the brain’s tactile protuberances extending throughout the body, and one can know that one is here as-this-body only because of these self-same sense organs. It staggers me that peoples all over the world want to disprove the body’s existence as being authentic, original, genuine and actual. We are here as the universe’s experience of itself as a sensate, reflective human being and the disavowal of this fact leads to all kinds of esoteric imaginings that purport to be the way to freedom. It does not require anyone to be a ‘true believer’ – one who has to blindly trust or take a ‘leap of faith’ – to see for oneself and to observe that if one is in denial of the actuality of the sensorial experience of me as-this-body living in the world as-it-is, then one has set oneself up for a major deception. One will never ever be freed from the human situation until one acknowledges the obvious: I am this living, breathing body. To acknowledge the obvious is the first step – and the first step launches one into an adventurous odyssey that will boggle the imagination. The much used cliché ‘fact is stranger than fiction’ can be particularly applicable to the escapade of a lifetime that one embarks upon when one begins to disassemble one’s identity. Those people who look for miracles of a paranormal nature little realise that they are overlooking the greatest ‘miracle’ that there possibly could be: the phenomenon that we are here. It is so stupendous to be able to be here at all that I have no other recourse than to use the expressive word ‘magical’ to describe marvellous facticity and felicity of physical existence. No alchemist or conjurer anywhere in the world can even begin to equal the wondrous prestidigitation required to be getting soil and water and sunlight to transform itself into a walking, talking human being. One can only marvel at the fact that this entire edifice called life-on-earth is actually happening at all. To take it for granted that we are here, or – even worse – to wish we were not, is to miss out on the ‘miracle’ of living fully in this magical, fairy tale-like paradisiacal wonderland that is this planet earth.
The Awakened Teacher has been listening to my explanation of what is entailed in entering into an actual freedom with growing dismay – as is evidenced by an increasingly guarded look in his eyes and a marked disinterest in looking at me face-to-face for more than a few seconds. Indeed, he has the intriguing habit of briefly meeting my gaze then sliding his eyes down to my chest ... as if to look for the passion he firmly believes is lodged there. Strangely enough he is not defensive – only shielded – and does nothing to justify Spiritual Enlightenment. I have paused in my dissertation and am looking at him quizzically ... for there is no point in proceeding without some feedback to determine which way the conversation will flow. Eventually he breaks the growing silence with a comment about ‘something funny going on here between us’. Apparently he is not accustomed to being spoken to in this forthright manner, for he is looking puzzled as he searches around within himself for some input. Finally he finds what he must have been looking for. He says that he has the impression he has to do some work. Of course he does! I can not be more interested in his freedom than he is. Am I here to inspire, to enthuse people? Am I to motivate, to stimulate others? Am I to be a charismatic, provocative leader? It is your life you are living ... it is entirely up to you how you live it. I simply say my piece and it is then over to you for you to do with it what you will. I have no desire to propagandise, to indoctrinate or to inculcate in people what they should or should not do with their lives. The various societies and cultures that have emerged over the thousands of years that Homo Erectus has walked this globe do a reasonable job of containing aggression and remitting anguish ... for as far as they can. I am under no illusion that global peace and tranquillity will eventuate before I am on my death-bed; I do not suffer from the delusion that I can effect a sweeping change to the lot of all human beings; I am not driven to bring a message to humankind; I am not a Saviour ... nor am I a Saint. It is without the slightest doubt that one will have to do some work ... anyone that I speak with understands this only too well. It must be grasped – with all of one’s being – that something is seriously amiss in the religious, the spiritual, the mystical and the metaphysical world. If this is not clear by now, then when will it be? Somewhat taken aback by this categorical expression of a marked disinclination to take upon one’s shoulders the archetypal martyr’s task of liberating humanity from its thralldom he falls silent once more, simply staring at me for a while. This has become my swan song these days, because for eleven years – whilst trapped in an Altered State Of Consciousness – I struggled to free myself from humanity’s self-imposed indebtedness to honour the highly venerated values of duty, obligation and responsibly. It frankly shows a marked lack of understanding to hold as a principle that one is compelled to help another ... no matter what their plight. This does not mean that one will not assist a fellow human in need; it means that such facilitation is only altruistic when it comes freely. In actual freedom there are no strings attached to any aid supplied voluntarily – of one’s own accord – and at one’s discretion. The succour supplied by heart-felt commiseration leads to what is colloquially known as ‘Compassion fatigue’ and leaves a lingering resentment towards the recipient of this supposed philanthropy ... but my colleague has misconstrued his statement about ‘having to do some work’ and asks, sincerely, just what he meant by this. With a contemptuous abruptness he turns upon her and rudely berates this assumed impudence. He said that he was talking to me and not to her.
There is a startled silence as the implications of his manner hits home. What hope is there for Peace On Earth if this is the behaviour of one who lives the Divine Solution and travels the world inspiring others to do likewise? No matter is it that his attitude is understandable – she is a former follower of his and her ‘desertion’ would be seen as a betrayal – for such authoritarian rudeness is inexcusable in one who sets themself up to be the latest in a long line of Saviours and Redeemers. This is a prime example of Love Agapé and Divine Compassion in action ... and it leaves a lot to be desired. The perfidious nature of the duplicity involved in surrendering one’s will to such a god that this person has is revealed for all at the table to see and experience for themselves. Words of explanation are surely not necessary ... and I have no desire to comment upon his brusqueness in order to demonstrate my point about the inherent danger of believing in and trusting some Eastern god to help humankind out of its dilemma. This is the mysterious Power and Authority that lies hidden as the Unmanifest Self showing its true colours as it flows through into this secular world. The seductive nature of the beauty of love and the esteem of compassion is but a thin veneer over a murky morass ... The Divine needs The Diabolical to underpin its entire structure. It is all built upon the shifting sands of the instinctual aggression and fear that all humans are born with ... which is blind nature’s way of perpetuating the species. Energised by the ‘will to survive’ that grew out of the survival instinct, the aggression and fear are transformed through socialisation into awe and dread – among other things – which are part and parcel of the identity. With awe comes veneration, reverence, homage, worship, respect and deference. With dread comes dismay, consternation, trepidation, terror, horror, repugnance and a dire sense of foreboding. One’s sense of identity is largely made up of feelings – emotions and passions – and the vast majority of the feelings that one supports are not created by oneself; they were assimilated with the mother’s milk and added to thereupon up to the present day. They are atavistic feelings, put into the child with reward and punishment – love and hate – and added to as an adult with the post mortem carrot and stick – awe and dread. They are all designed to strike fear into the heart of the would-be individual, eliciting submission, obedience, acquiescence and conformity out of the contumacious and perverse self. The graceless outcome of this bizarre creation of a divinity was the aberrant transmogrification of the instinctual aggression and fear into a demoniacal monster that made necessary the antithetical god for its very control. Stupefied and stultified by centuries of conditioning, it is no wonder that the modern person still seeks recourse from the ‘wisdom of old’. In spite of the huge leaps in understanding gained by scientific discoveries on the nature of the brain, the genetic structure, the hormonal activity and many, many other fields of expertise ... still the ‘tried and true’ practices are invariably put into place when it comes to controlling human nature. The self, ‘I’ as ego and soul, can best be described as a psychological parasite living inside the body. In a valiant and understandable attempt to solve the plight of humankind, ‘I’ cease identifying as the ego and identify as the soul ... a shift in consciousness which manifests Love Agapé and Divine Compassion. Unfortunately for its success, Love Agapé is born out of malice and is dependent upon hatred to sustain itself ... and therefore can not provide the ultimate solution: freedom from animosity. So too with Divine Compassion – which has its roots in sorrow – and is unable to provide freedom from anguish. Love and compassion actually perpetuate malice and sorrow, for these are their essential progenitors. Nevertheless, there is an apparently endless supply of willing souls prepared to apply the time-honoured methods of remedying the human situation. ‘I’ obligingly surrender in order to receive ‘my’ rightful dividend.
Living in a phantasmal position of Ineffable Bliss, ‘I’ am driven by ‘That’, the psychic Power and Authority behind the throne, to procure intermediaries in the form of believers to disseminate ‘My’ Word, to spread ‘My’Message and to propagate ‘My’Teaching. ‘I’ dispense Divine Compassion and Love Agapé around the world, trusting wholeheartedly in them as being the elixir for the afflictions of humankind. Little do ‘I’ realise the bloody ins and outs of founding yet another Religious congregation, so persuaded am ‘I’ of the Healing Power of Love Agapé and Divine Compassion. Somehow, enthralled by the bewitching enchantment of ‘My’ Divine station, ‘I’ do not take the trouble to examine the chronicled history specifying the circumstances of the bloodshed and horrors of the Religious Wars that have come in the trail of ‘My’ illustrious forerunners: the ‘Awakened Ones’ from the most Ancient Of Ancients. Somehow ‘I’ am blinded by the Glory, the Glamour and the Glitz of the ‘SupernaturalPromise’ – never fulfilled – and fail to behold the Diabolical sub-stratum that is fundamental to sustaining ‘My’ sublime disposition. One has to realise that ‘I’ have merely transcended the opposites ... not eliminated them. To be actually free is to be completely free from the Human Condition in all its entirety. Free from The Good as well as from The Bad; from Love as well as Hate; from Beauty as well as Ugly; from The True as well The False; from God as well as Evil ... from any thing Diabolical or Divine at all. To be actually free is to be at liberty at last, to be ordinary. To be this body is to be mortal. To be mortal is to be without the need for any inhibiting surrender to that Highest Authority with its Absolute Power. In actualism this universe is experienced as it most certainly is: it is perfection. Upon reflection, being infinite how can it be not perfect? There is no outside to perfection – and hence no centre, either. The purity of this perfection provides for the ultimate satisfaction; the satisfaction that Love Agapé and Divine Compassion seem to promise but can never deliver. Surpassing the Altered State Of Consciousness is actual freedom.
Article 4 HE SAID VERY CAREFULLY AND REVERENTLY THAT HE DID NOT KNOW
Surely it is of the greatest consequence to delve into all the unknowable aspects of being a human being – especially those that bring trepidation – for therein lie the causes for not only one’s uneasiness about life, but all the problems that beset humanity. Anything that remains hidden will continue to influence one’s life in an unconscious way, continuously plaguing one’s every moment of being alive and affecting one’s state of well-being. And death itself is the greatest unknown ... decreed to be unknowable, for it is impossible to try to imagine death, to try to visualise not ‘being’. What does it mean to not ‘be’? What is it to not exist? There seems to be a general consensus among human beings that death is a mystery that one can not penetrate, and that the ‘Mystery of Life’ will be revealed only after death. There, they say, lies Absolute Peace and Ultimate Fulfilment. It all appears to be an exercise in futility to think about what is entailed in death, which is the end of ‘being’ ... and it is. The end of ‘being’, at physical death, can only ever be a speculation; it has to be experienced to know it. Yet to wait for death will be leaving it too late to find out what it is to not ‘be’ – as death is oblivion of consciousness there will be no awareness of not ‘being’. The question is: can one experience the end of ‘being’ before this body dies and therefore penetrate into the ‘Mystery of Life’, in full awareness, and find ultimate fulfilment and utter peace ... here on earth? Yes one can. The commonly accepted notion, by the majority of people, is that ‘I’ reside temporarily inside this body until the body dies. Then ‘I’, as Spirit – by whatever name – will return whence ‘I’ came ... some mysterious, Other-Worldly Realm that goes by many titles. The details may vary from culture to culture, but the basic thrust of the concept remains the same: one will still remain ‘being’ after death. All this is to deny death as being oblivion – such peoples are living in a state of denial. To deny oblivion is like, for instance, denying that gravity exists. It is a fact. If the word ‘death’ does not mean an ending to ‘being’ then the word is, in itself, meaningless. A few people, a rare few, say that they have died already – their ego has died – and that they know what it is like to be dead. They state that they have found the Absolute Peace and Ultimate Fulfilment that humankind is searching for. Unfortunately for their argument, they maintain that their Spirit will ‘quit the body’ at physical death and continue to exist in some Eternal Oneness that is situated nowhere in particular. Therefore, if they are going to live forever, obviously they are still ‘being’. So how can they say that they know what death – as entailing the end of ‘being’ – is like?
They too, come up with all kinds of fanciful notions about the Ultimate State of humanity. They say they have found The Truth about life ... yet they do not know what death occasions, for they are still ‘being’. They too, are denying that death’s oblivion exists! ‘Being’, apparently, goes on forever ... ‘only the body dies’, they say. Is there anything at all in this that is a fact? Are not these statements nothing but psittacisms common to all Holy Beings? Surely, to experience what is factual is of far greater import than any conclusion arrived at by thought or feeling – no matter how highly refined the thought or fanatically felt the feeling. To experience the factuality of the ending of ‘being’ whilst this body is still breathing is of the utmost importance, if one is to penetrate into the ‘Mystery of Life’ and discover the ultimate fulfilment and utter peace ... here on earth. To come upon a fact, all that is fiction must be stripped away. All Sacred Cows must be mercilessly exposed to the most extreme scrutiny, nothing or no-one being exempt from critical examination. ‘Humanity’, which gave birth to ‘me’, was being sustained by ‘me’ remaining as a ‘being’. ‘I’ am forever fettered by the Human Condition. The species known as ‘humanity’ has searched for an Absolute Peace and an Ultimate Fulfilment within the arena of the Human Condition for all of history. Such a search is endless and futile, for it is a search within an illusion. Only further illusions – further states of ‘being’ – can be found there ... or delusions. Becoming Divine is a delusion – a state of ‘Being’ that is an insult to intelligence. ‘I’ will never find the ultimate fulfilment and utter peace for ‘I’ am standing in the way of the ‘Mystery of Life’ being revealed. There is no way out, ‘I’ am doomed. ‘I’ must, inevitably, cease to ‘be’. Instead of bemoaning ‘my’ fate and vainly searching for an escape, ‘I’ can see ‘myself’ for what ‘I’ am. This seeing is the beginning of the ending of ‘me’. The extinction of ‘me’ is the ultimate sacrifice ‘I’ can make to ensure the possibility of peace-on-earth for not only me but for all humankind. The psychological annihilation of ‘I’ – in its entirety – is the psychological ending of the species known as ‘humanity’. It is the end of ‘being’ and the end of an illusion. It is also the end of ‘Being’ and the end of delusion. The Human Condition, with all its appalling sorrow and malice, has come to an end in me. All those would-be wise people who state smugly: ‘You can’t change human nature’ are, fortunately, wrong. Because it was possible for ‘me’ to become extinct, thereby releasing the body from the ‘being’ within, I can walk freely in the world as-it-is – this actual world. I, as this body only, am living in that perfect purity twenty-four-hours-a-day. I live in a state of benignity, which means a kindly and harmless disposition. Life is a playful game and I am free to enjoy it all, every moment again. This is why I can say, confidently, that the ‘death of the ego’ is not sufficient, for it only means substituting an impersonal ‘I’ – now called ‘Being’ – for the personal ‘I’. ‘Being’, whether it goes with a capital to denote Divinity or not, means an ‘I’ is still in existence. Therefore the ‘death of the ego’ people’s ‘discoveries’ about the fate of humanity are questionable, to say the least, and their ‘solutions’ to life’s problems are equally suspect. Unless there is an end to ‘being’, which is what death is, one can not say one has penetrated into the ‘Mystery of Life’, one has not found ultimate fulfilment, one has not achieved peace-on-earth. One is only fooling oneself – and some other gullible people – if one is so easily satisfied.
One can realise that one is the universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being. One is, after all, made up of the very stuff of the universe ... and I mean this as a physical actuality. The very material that this body is constituted of is the material of the universe – one did not come from ‘outside’ of it and be randomly placed ‘in’ here by some god for some mysterious purpose that is not up to humans to fathom. It is possible to fully know the ‘Mystery of Life’ to such an extent that one is completely satisfied and fulfilled. Nothing more needs to be done other than to live it each moment again and to enjoy and appreciate it all fully and totally. The utter purity of this perfect understanding – and the living of it – defies imagination and is impossible to believe. All of ones wishes and dreams are answered ... and more. 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. Herein lies the rub. From the real world point of view, most people regard anyone who dabbles in matters esoteric as belonging to the ‘lunatic fringe’ ... and a modern person who claims to be God On Earth is looked upon to be insane. What then does that say about one going beyond the Altered State Of Consciousness? If the denizens of the real world’s ‘normal reality’ is adjudged sanity and the inhabitants of the True World’s ‘Greater Reality’ is insanity, then what is an Awakened Teacher – who considers himself sane and the ‘worldly’ peoples living in illusion – to make of the condition of one who is in actual freedom? If he is insane – as the real world people diagnose – then how can he determine the sanity or insanity of an actually free person? Is such a person considered to have gone ‘beyond sanity and insanity’? Here am I stating that I know not only the Unknown, but also the Unknowable. What he can not comprehend is that I am saying that his much-prized Divinity is a fantasy spun out of a delusion which is born from an illusion ... how much more confabulatory can things get to than this? Can the ‘Mystery of Life’ be known? He was saying that he did not know, so I rather brightly ask him if he would like to know – to find out, to uncover, to reveal and live in, what is known in Mystical Tradition as The Unknowable. He brushes aside my offer with an impatient gesture and repeats his earlier statement that he does not know ... putting particular emphasis upon his words. As this ‘I do not Know’ phrase is hallowed in Metaphysical Knowledge as being a sign of Ultimate Wisdom I clearly understand what he is indicating, so I start to explain that I, too, had been through a period of not knowing anything for eleven years and that I had broken through the impasse by ... but he stops me short and states irritably that he does not want to know about my eleven years with ‘all those dates and times and things’ and could we talk now – here and now – as ‘man to man’? I assure him that I am doing nothing else but being here and that I was endeavouring to indicate that it was possible to know The Unknowable and live in blitheness and gaiety having eliminated malice and sorrow in their entirety; being happy and harmless by no longer having transcended the opposites ... but he is brusquely interrupting me again to make his point. He said, very carefully and reverently, that he did not know.
There is a breathless hush from the others ... as if all at the table are waiting for the heavens to open and Divinity to usher forth ... but nothing happened other than me chuckling with merriment and saying that I did know and that that was the whole point of going beyond Spiritual Enlightenment. Does he want to know? It has been a delight and a thrill to venture into territory where no-one has been before, daring to go beyond the limits of humanity’s understanding, in a successful endeavour to solve the ‘Mystery of Life’. My discoveries were at times startling, to say the least; to an Enlightened person they can be downright shocking and unbelievable. Doubting the possibility of perfection here-on-earth is the biggest saboteur of a fruitful investigation and the jubilant discovery of that which is new. The underlying reason for doubt is the fear of any change away from the traditional, no matter how much of a failure the traditional actually is. Hence the chronic clinging to the ‘tried and true’ formulae – despite the verifiable fact that they have been tried and tried again and again to no avail. It is truly astonishing that human beings can traipse continuously down the well-worn path that leads to nowhere productive ... and vigorously defend their right to do so. Yet, as the ‘tried and true’ has produced such frightful suffering – wars, rapes, murders, tortures, starvation and so on – nobody anywhere at all has any genuine ‘right’ to perpetuate the appalling status-quo. It is all so simple, in the actual world; no effort is needed to meet the requisite morality of society. I have no ‘dark nature’, no unconscious impulses to curb, to control, to restrain. It is all so easy, in the actual world; I can take no credit for my apparently virtuous behaviour because actual freedom automatically provides beneficial thoughts and deeds. It is all so spontaneous, in the actual world; I do not do it – it does itself. Vanity, egoism, selfishness – all self-centred activity has ceased to operate when ‘I’ ceased to be. And it is all so peaceful, in the actual world; it is only in actualism that human beings can have peace-on-earth without toiling fruitlessly to be ‘good’. The answer to everything that has puzzled humankind for all of human history is readily elucidated when one is actually free. The ‘Mystery of Life’ has been penetrated and laid open for all those with the eyes to see. I find myself here, in the world as-it-is. A vast stillness lies all around, 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 was 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? He says he does not want to know.
Article 5 HE SAID THAT I WAS A VORTEX SUCKING ALL INTO MY CATEGORY
For eleven years I lived in an Altered State Of Consciousness so I had plenty of time to examine all its nooks and crannies ... and I found much that was murky and dirty lurking around in the outer darkness. Bewitched and beguiled by the Glamour and Glory and Glitz of the seductive State Of being that ensues when one surrenders to that Power and Authority, I spent the first three years swanning along in a state of Oneness with everything. I was Love Agapé and Divine Compassion all rolled up into one ... and my reward for being the latest Saviour Of Humankind was to be able to live in Rapturous Bliss, Ineffable Ecstasy and Exalted Euphoria. However, my native intelligence would not let me get away with anything false and I soon found enough to make me start suspecting something very serious was wrong with Spiritual Enlightenment. To start off with was the inescapable fact that I had a Sense Of Mission to bring Peace and Love to a suffering humanity – I was driven to spread The Word and to disseminate The Truth – and this imposition did not sit well with me. In my fourth year I started to question the efficacy of Divine Compassion as a means of resolving sorrow once and for all. As a palliative for suffering it was beyond compare – it superseded pity, sympathy and empathy by a mile – but it remained forever a panacea only. Consolation for sorrow, no matter how Divine that solace may be, is not a cure that lasts. I started referring to it as ‘The Trap of Compassion’. In my sixth year I was ready to examine Love Agapé – which up until then had been far to sacred to put under the microscope – and I soon found enough to warrant further investigation. If Divine Compassion had been found to be murky and dirty, I was to go on to discover that Love Agapé was sordid and squalid to the extreme. Just as compassion has its roots in sorrow, so too has love its origin in malice. Hatred is the essential companion to love; the one can not exist without the other. When I first saw the other face of love I was horrified ... for I was in the grip of a Demonic Power disguised as Divine Authority. The Diabolical is but the essential sub-stratum for the Righteous; the sinister for the good; the fiendish for the glorious; the infernal for the heavenly; the wicked for the charitable ... and so on. Love Agapé – which has been touted as the cure-all for the ills of humankind for thousands of years – was hand-in-glove with Evil. No wonder that Religious Wars have beset this planet for aeons, for the central tenet of any religious or spiritual path is love ... and love is the very element that will sabotage any well-meant endeavour with its secret agenda. A loving self is still a self, nevertheless. And a self is made out of the sorrow and malice that are generated by the instinctual aggression and fear that humans are born with in order for the species to survive.
In my eighth year I turned my attention to the Timeless and Spaceless aspect of being Enlightened, for although that was my inner experience of myself, I found that I was occupying space as a body moving from place to place – and it took time to do this. The clock kept ticking the hours away and the sun consistently rose in the east, traversed the sky throughout the course of the day and then set in the west. I could clearly observe that time and space were definitely an actuality, despite the feeling that they were an illusion. I also had the sure ‘knowledge’ that I was Deathless ... or as they say in the Eastern Tradition: I was Unborn and Undying. Had I lost my marbles completely? I would go around telling people that I could not die as I was dead already! Yet what was this corporeal body doing if not eating and drinking, urinating and defecating, waking and sleeping, walking and talking ... and so on? I had to be deluding myself to say that all this gigantic happening called the universe was nothing but an illusion. The eastern philosophy of Maya – although very real – did not hold up in actuality. Then one day, as a result of my deep questioning of my State Of Being, I was able to experience that without these senses I would not know that I exist. I was the sense organs and these sense organs were me. I was mortal. Immortality was nothing but a self-centred escape from the actual. It was all a case of the persistence of identity. In my tenth year I tentatively approached one of the last bastions of Spiritual Enlightenment: Pacifism. Almost all of the other attributes of what I called an ‘Absolute Freedom’ had been stripped away and if I was to undo what is called Ahimsa in the east – non-violence – then there would not be much left of my precious Peace On Earth. I found a strong resistance within myself to contemplate letting go of the scriptural adage: ‘Turn the other cheek’ ... even though I intellectually considered it to be nonsense. If an entire country held such a belief it would be akin to hanging out a sign saying: ‘Please feel free to invade, we will not fight back’. Also, I personally relied upon the police to protect me and mine from any personal attack or robbery – what if they adopted this principle? By the time I had worked my way through this philosophical dilemma I had to turn my sights upon the last thing that stood between me and an actual freedom. I would have to let go of the deeply ingrained concept of ‘The Good’. For this to happen I would have to eliminate ‘The Bad’ in me, or else I would be likely to go off the rails and run amok. Little did I realise that it was ‘The Good’ that kept ‘The Bad’ in place. I was soon to find this out. So, of course he does not want to know what he does not know – for ignorance is bliss! He says that I am full of ideas – and that he does not buy any of them. I say that they are not ideas but facts detected, discovered and ascertained by my experiential understanding ... what I speak of is born of my experience. But who is to take my word for it, when they have so much at stake, and start to explore and investigate and uncover for oneself? The very logic of the facts speak for themselves to anyone prepared to listen with both ears and a desire to crack the code by plunging into the depths of their being to find out for their own sake ... and for humankind at large. But he will have none of this and tells me that he has never met such a self-centred person anywhere on earth such as myself. As I have no self whatsoever, I can not help laughing out loud at the hilarity of the situation. Making an effort to hold my mirth in check I observe that he has made a very strong statement, to which observation he seriously agrees for he is keen to teach me something. I am wondering how to proceed, in what started out as an exercise in futility and is now degenerating into a potential slanging match, but I am saved from having to decide. He takes my jocularity the wrong way – for I am not laughing at him but at the circumstances – and he made a curious remark. He said that I was a vortex sucking all into my category.
This is so correct, for I am talking of nothing else but extirpation ... annihilation ... extinction ... oblivion ... the non-existence of any self or Self whatsoever. All of one’s precious identity will disappear ... not only the ego but the soul as well. ‘I’ will cease to exist in any way, shape or form. ‘I’ as a normal self am an illusion and ‘I’ as a supranormal Self am a delusion born out of the illusion. And any Immortality in some specious After-Life which exists outside of this universe – beyond space and time – is but a fantasy spun out of the delusion. It may all be real – very real at times – but none of it is actual. This physical universe is infinite and eternal. It has no beginning and no ending ... and therefore no middle. There are no edges to this universe, which means that there is no centre, either. We are all coming from nowhere and are not going anywhere for there is nowhere to come from nor anywhere to go to. We are nowhere in particular ... which means we are anywhere at all. In the infinitude of the universe one finds oneself to be already here, and as it is always now, one can not get away from this place in space and this moment in time. By being here as-this-body one finds that this moment in time has no duration as in now and then – because the immediate is the ultimate – and that this place in space has no distance as in here and there – for the relative is the absolute. I am always here and it is already now. It matters not that he does not ‘buy any of it’ for I merely had the supposition that he might be interested in going beyond the Enlightened State. I happen to live in a condition of complete emancipation and utter autonomy – the condition is both permanent and actual – and it is different from Enlightenment in that it is most definitely substantial: there is no longer a transcendence, for I have neither sorrow nor malice anywhere at all to rise above. They have vanished entirely, leaving me both blithesome and benign – carefree and harmless – which leads to a most remarkable state of affairs. The chief characteristics of Spiritual Enlightenment – The Presence of The Absolute, Union with the Divine, Universal Compassion, Love Agapé, Rapturous Bliss, Ineffable Ecstasy, Exalted Euphoria, The Truth, Timelessness, Spacelessness, Immortality, Aloneness, Oneness, Pacifism, Surrender, Trust, Beauty, and Goodness – being redundant in this totally new condition, are no longer extant. Herein lies the unmistakable distinction between this condition, which I call actual freedom and the Enlightened State: I am no longer driven by a Divine Sense Of Mission to bring The Truth, Universal Love and Divine Compassion to the world. I am free to speak with whomsoever is genuinely interested in solving the ‘Mystery of Life’ and becoming totally free of the Human Condition. We can agree to disagree ... and call it quits at that. Besides, I have an appointment to keep.
So we stand up and shake hands ... and his parting words to me are that, as I was a Teacher now I have a responsibility to be very careful as to how I treat people and advise them. As I have been speaking to people for seventeen years – long before his Spiritual Awakening occurred – I hardly consider that he is long-enough qualified to act in such a condescending manner, but I saw that it suited his temperament. I refrain from making a belittling comment for he quickly corrects himself, though only to say that he supposed that I did not consider myself a Teacher but that nevertheless I had a serious obligation to sincere Seekers and Searchers. As I have a lot of fun talking with my fellow humans – discussing life, the universe and what it is to be a human being – I can hardly restrain a chuckle at the notion of me taking myself and life so seriously ... and with responsibility and obligation. Would he now start in on lecturing me upon duty? I decide to move on to my appointment ... which is actually with a cup of specially blended and drip-filtered coffee ... plus a well-earned cigarette in the quietude and cosiness of my own living room. It is possible to be actually free.
The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust:1997-. All Rights Reserved.
Disclaimer |
The early spring weather has been producing marvellous days of soft sunshine, mild
breezes and gentle temperatures from early morning all throughout the past week with a delicious consistency. I have been luxuriating in the
atmosphere thus created since the first rays peaked over the horizon this morning, and have been rambling about with much delight and joy at the
beneficent ambience so freely provided by the natural course of events. Although from time to time I have been busy doing some essential daily
tasks, nothing detracts from my appreciation of the wondrous nature of the clement weather that invariably prevails in this region at this time of
the year ... which is one of the main reasons that I live here. Having just emerged from a wetter than average winter, with its corresponding days
of overcast skies instead of the more normal sparkling wintry sunshine, one wonders how anyone could possibly complain about life on a day like
this. To be able to move about the house in shirtsleeves, with all the doors and windows open to allow the sunshine charged air to come streaming
through, provides an amiable arena in which to be fully alive now, here in the actual world of sensuous wonder.
