Actual Freedom – Mailing List ‘A’ Correspondence

RICHARD: I am pleased that you have ‘been at this place on many a perennial moment’ because we can communicate more easily when we know what we are referring to. To ‘be there continuously’ one’s self in its entirety must become extinct ... I know what I talk about as it is my on-going experience of life, twenty four hours a day.

RESPONDENT: You seem a bit too sure that such is completely (all perennial moments) attainable by every soul, however mad they may be. It’s wonderful that you have mastered it, but you should not project your success upon all else. You have no idea (neither do I) what torment some are going through, so much so at times that even if apperception is the key to releasing them from their hell, they are much too disturbed to even know it is right there right in front of them.

RICHARD: No, it is not ‘attainable by every soul’ as the soul must be extinguished before one can actualise an on-going experience of freedom here on earth. The soul is a psychological entity that has no substance whatsoever, but has a reality – in a Greater Reality – that keeps one spell-bound in its tenacious grip. It and its world is nothing but a psychic adumbration and has no actuality at all.

Anybody can actualise this condition of freedom ... but I am not so idealistic to consider that many will. Just look at the opposition on this list to the possibility of an individual peace-on-earth (I had about twenty people writing against me a couple of months ago – it is in the archives or I can send you a copy privately if you are interested). I receive the same resistance here in this country with most people I meet physically. Mostly, people would rather stay true to their beliefs than come down to earth and experience the purity of the perfection of this moment in time and this place in space as this body only. Yet, strangely enough, the spiritual people keep on muttering about ‘being here/now’ ... all the while acting in the way which shows that they prefer to be anywhere but here and anytime but now!

But that is okay by me, for I am having so much fun.

RESPONDENT: The unconscious operations of the mind are not easily quieted – seem to have a life of their own, both when one is awake and when one is asleep. I’m sure discipline and practice is the cure. Some will pull it off to varying degrees. The best will do best. The raving lunatics won’t so much as hold still long enough to consider it.

RICHARD: I advocate application and diligence born out of a pure intent ... which is the intent to actualise the perfection of the pure consciousness experience wherein apperception is experienced. This gives rise to a patience and perseverance unequalled in one’s life thus far. One becomes so dedicated and devoted to the challenge of actualising an individual peace-on-earth – for the benefit of oneself in particular and humankind in general – that one’s interest in life, the universe and what it is to be a human being becomes so fascinating that what amounts to an obsession ensues.

Discipline is thus not required ... which is a forced imitation of the eagerness and willingness engendered by the thrill of realising that perfection is possible, as this body, here on earth, in this life-time.

RESPONDENT: Then of course, there is the question of the nature of the blessing an apperceiving mind has to humanity. I don’t doubt it one bit, as to my own experiences. But how can we know how all will react? Can we say that the greatest of apperceives, he who has mastered it perfectly, will be a totally selfless being? How will this one keep a check on the inevitable violence of our natural world?

RICHARD: The blessing is beyond price. As to how all will react ... if my experience is anything to go by it would be with delight and joy that perfection is already always here and not in some dubious After-Life. And yes, such a person who has ‘mastered it perfectly’ – that is, actualised it – is totally selfless. After all, that is what the word ‘selfless’ means, does it not ... self-less? That is: without a self. Such a person’s thoughts and deeds are innocence personified and bear little or no resemblance to religious, spiritual or humanitarian ideals of selflessness. Like all ideals, their ideals of the ‘good’ have no basis in actuality and are merely the opposites to the ‘bad’. Their ‘selflessness’ is merely the idealistic opposite to ‘selfishness’ ... and is properly called ‘unselfishness’.

As to violence in the natural world ... in actualism one is totally happy and harmless – with the extirpation of the identity both malice and sorrow are eliminated and not merely transcended as in Spiritual Enlightenment – so one does not have to practice pacifism. There is no ‘turning the other cheek’ and having to endure noble martyrdom in actuality. If someone is so stupid as to bop me on the nose I have the option to freely bop them back ... being without sorrow or malice all of one’s actions are freely exercised. Veritably, actualism is a wonderful freedom, with no need for controls at all.

RESPONDENT: And what to do with those perennial moments? Must thinking be entirely eliminated? Or is it contained to only the present moment? (i.e. Should I buy that life insurance?) And what if one, preceding the consumption of the hamburger, chooses to give thanks for it to the sustaining universe or God as he understands it.

RICHARD: Oh dear ... have you actually had many experiences of apperception? If you have, what is all this talk of God? God is a fantasy ... a delusion born out of the psychological entity’s projection of itself into an almighty entity. It is egotism – self-promotion and self-aggrandisement – taken to the extreme. Apperception is the mind’s perception of itself ... not ‘I’ perceiving ‘my’ mind. It is a bare awareness – bare of any ‘me’ whatsoever.

As for the choosing to ‘give thanks for it to the sustaining universe’ ... without the pernicious ‘I’ living a parasitical psychological existence within this body, then what I am is this body only. And as this body – bereft of a ‘who’ – I am the universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being. This physical universe has no personality – no identity at all – to give thanks to. There is no need for humiliating gratitude in actual freedom ... it is free!

And thinking happens of itself ... the brain is entirely capable of thinking its own thoughts. As there is no ‘I’ in there to generate thoughts there is no need to discipline oneself with that spiritual nonsense of trying to stop thought so as to enter into a trance state. A blissful self is still a self, nevertheless.

RESPONDENT: And what can you say about attitudes of attachment to things or other.

RICHARD: There is no ‘I’ to be attached ... or detached. One neatly sidesteps that onerous discipline by the simple action of psychological self-immolation. A detached self is still a self ... it cleverly avoids attachment so as to survive and wreak its havoc on this fair planet once again. The ‘I’ will do anything to stay in existence ... even become so deluded as to believe itself to be that imagined god.

Actual freedom is a freedom the likes of which has never been before in human history.

RESPONDENT: Richard. Isn’t it possible then, that what you are now, is pure God? A plain, brief and straight-forward response appreciated, if you know that is.

RICHARD: Yes, I do know. Plainly, briefly and straight-forwardly ... no, I am not ‘pure God’ .

RESPONDENT: Richard. Isn’t it possible then, that what you are now, is pure God? A plain, brief and straight-forward response appreciated, if you know that is.

RICHARD: Yes, I do know. Plainly, briefly and straight-forwardly ... no, I am not ‘pure God’ .

RESPONDENT: Richard. I’m surprised by your remark. How is it that you know you are not God???

RICHARD: I know that I am not God for I was for eleven years – from September 1981 until October 1992 ... whereupon it become obvious to me that I was living in a massive delusion.

In 1980 I had a peak experience wherein I saw that everything was already perfect as-it-is and that ‘I’, the psychological entity, was standing in the way ... and no-one else was preventing me from achieving the ultimate goal of being a free human. In that peak experience I saw ‘myself’. ‘I’ was the end product of society and nothing more. ‘I’ was an emotional construct of all of the beliefs, values, morals, ethics, mores, customs, traditions, doctrines, ideologies and so on. ‘I’ was nothing but an emotional-mental fabrication ... a sense of identity with its conscience. I also saw that ‘I’ was a lost, lonely, frightened – and a very, very cunning – entity. Just as those Christians who are said to be possessed by an evil entity and need to be exorcised, I saw that every human being had been endowed with a social entity ... and it was called being normal. To say that I was amazed rather fails to adequately describe the feeling of relief that after all there was a solution to the human situation here on earth. I was ecstatic.

That proved to be my undoing – as far as an actual freedom is concerned. Ecstasy led to euphoria and euphoria led to bliss. In the blissful state I manifested and became Love Agapé which led to an emanation of Divine Compassion for all living beings who were suffering and in sorrow by virtue of the fact that they were ignorant of the Divine Order of things ... for an Absolute had been revealed to me in that Love and Compassion – it was that Love Agapé and Divine Compassion – and I had been chosen to bring this self-same Love and Compassion to earth. I was to go through a process, when I returned to normal, that would result in my being well-prepared to usher in this new age of peace and prosperity to all humankind. As this revelation continued, I saw a new ‘me’ coming into existence ... a grand ‘Me’, a glorious ‘Me’ and a spiritually fulfilling ‘Me’. I was the Saviour Of Humankind!

(As all this was happening, a passing thought occurred to me, which was briefly contemplated ... then banished: Who or what was it that was observing these two ‘me’s – the social ‘me’ and the grand ‘Me’? This trifling question was to be of immense benefit years later when I realised that I was living in a delusion and that there was an actual freedom lying beyond ... but I jump ahead of myself.)

Three nights later I had a similar experience and what I had witnessed on the first revelation was confirmed. Then nothing untoward happened for the next five months – this had been in late July 1980 – until on the first day of January in 1981when I began a ‘process’ that was to last for nine months, culminating in my Divine Awakening on a fine September morning. The ‘process’ was both prosaic and extraordinary: on the one hand I began undoing all the social conditioning that I had been subject to since birth and on the other hand I generated love for all and sundry. I examined all the social traditions and customs etc., one by one, and released myself from their iron grip. I diminished hate and anger and sadness and loneliness by surrendering to and living in love and oneness ... which is the best that a normal human could do by virtue of the socialisation process. I moved in and out of Sacred States of Heavenly Bliss and Love Agapé and Divine Compassion and immersed myself in the entire ‘process’ with dedication and resolution. I adopted the principle of pacifism (‘turn the other cheek’) and developed Goodness of the highest order. I cleansed and purified myself of all impure thoughts and deeds and worked both hard and industriously in my daily work. I practised honesty and humility in all my interactions with other people and pondered the significance and ramifications of the Divine Order.

I totally believed in and had supreme faith in The Absolute and its ability to bring about the Peace On Earth so long promised. That I was to play the central role in this Divine Plan no longer came as a surprise to me, as I began to realise that I had long yearned to be part of the Salvation Process. I understood that I had to die and be reborn and, consequently, went into a catatonic state that resulted in my being carted off to hospital and kept under intensive care for four hours until I came out of it. I was never to be the same again, as Divinity had been working on me whilst I was catatonic and from that date forward I was permanently in a state of human bliss and love ... I could do no wrong. About six weeks prior to 6^th September 1981 I had a revelation that I was going to really die this time, not become catatonic again, and that I was to prepare myself for it. I mustered all of my faith and resolution, renewed all of my trust and dedication, and awaited the day. The night before I could hardly maintain myself as a thinking, functioning human being as a blistering hot and cold burning sensation crept up the back of my spine and entered into the base of my neck just under the brain itself. I went to bed in desperation and frustration at my apparent inability to be good enough to carry this ‘process’ through to its supreme conclusion.

The next morning I awoke and all was calm and quiet. Expressing relief at the cessation of the intensifying ‘process’ that had reached an unbearable level the night before, I lay back on my pillows to watch the rising sun (my bedroom faced east) through the large bedroom windows. All of a sudden I was gripped with the realisation that this was the moment! I was going to die! An intense fear raced throughout my body, rising in crescendo until I could scarcely take any more. As it reached a peak of stark terror, I realised that I had nothing to worry about and that I was to go with the ‘process’. In an instant all fear left me and I travelled deep into the depths of my very being. All of a sudden I was sitting bolt upright, laughing, as I realised that this that was IT! was such a simple thing ... all I had to do was die ... and that was the easiest thing in the world to do. Then the thought of leaving my family and friends overwhelmed me and I was thrust back on the bed sobbing. Then I was bolt upright once more laughing my head off ... then I was back on the pillows sobbing my heart out ... upright, laughing ... pillows sobbing ... upright laughing ... pillows sobbing. At the fifth or sixth time something turned over in the base of my brain – in the top of the brain-stem. I likened it to turning over a L.P. record in order to play the other side ... with the vital exception that it would never, ever turn back again.

It was over. I had arrived. I had become Awakened to the Greater Reality. I was Love Agapé and Divine Compassion ... there was no separation between me and The Absolute. I was It. I had a Divine Sense of Mission to spread The Word and I embarked on fulfilling my Sacred Duty, gathering some disciples on the way, until 1984. Then I started to question just what I was doing and just what had happened to me. Something seemed to be wrong ... this had all been done before by other Masters and Messiahs, Saints and Sages, Avatars and Saviours, to no avail. In fact, instead of bringing Love and Peace, they had left in their wake much bloodshed and hatred ... and I was one of them! Accordingly I travelled to India to find out for myself exactly what was amiss with this whole Enlightenment business by meeting some of these hallowed Gurus and imbibing the centuries of Eastern Spiritual Tradition for myself, instead of merely reading about it in books.

It was to take me eleven years to get out of this massive delusion I was living in and go beyond it to arrive at where I am today. It was eleven years of coming to terms with the understanding that what I was living was a delusion of grandeur ... and that it was what every human being believed in, in some way, shape or form ... but that is another story. Today, I am no longer an Enlightened Master living in an Exalted State of Being ... I am me-as-this-body only, a fellow human being who has no sorrow or malice whatsoever to transcend; hence I am both happy and harmless. I am what I was on that fateful night in 1980 when I asked the question: ‘Who or what was it that was observing these two ‘me’s – the ego ‘me’ and the grand ‘Me’?’ I am these sense organs in operation: this seeing is me, this hearing is me, this tasting is me, this touching is me, this smelling is me, and this thinking is me. Whereas ‘I’, the identity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain. Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the actual world ... the world as-it-is ... by ‘my’ very presence.

Any identity, such as ‘I am God’, is a delusion.

RESPONDENT: You successfully explained why you are not any vision of a kind of imaginary God you once believed in, or that the ignorant world looks to. You haven’t shown, however, how you can know you (i.e. your mind that is) are/is not in fact pure true real God manifest in your body? I suggest you cannot know what you claim to know, that is, that you are not God. You have not forgotten the old false images you at one time embraced, and this emotional memory may be responsible for your ‘knowing’ the unknowable.

RICHARD: But I do know that I am not ‘in fact pure true real God manifest in my body’ because by having eliminated any identity whatsoever – the ego and the soul – I can ascertain, with clarity, that there is no self or Self in this body or anywhere else outside of a person’s imagination. Likewise is it that any god – which is a projection of self – ‘exists’ only in the human psyche and not in the actual world. Therefore it follows that I can know, by direct experience, that I am not the ‘pure true real God’ because such an entity has no actuality.

Without an ‘I’, I have no emotions. Hence no ‘emotional memory’. Knowing the ‘unknowable’ is only possible for a body bereft of any identity – complete with its emotions and passions – at all. This knowing is a direct experiencing of the actuality of people, things and events. It is a direct experiencing of the infinitude – the infinite and eternal character of the universe – here and now. It is a direct experiencing of the purity of the perfection of being here at this moment in time, as this body only, here on earth. It is a direct experiencing of the fact that I am the universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being ... and that experience is ambrosial.

I am without sorrow and malice, therefore I am both happy and harmless. Apart from the personal benefits of achieving perfection, the social benefit is enormous.

It means peace-on-earth.

RESPONDENT No. 16: It always seemed to me that the Zen type of existing totally in the moment was like an evolutionary regression. Birds and fish achieve this mental state quite well and effortlessly.

RICHARD: As far as human beings can ascertain, animals can not think and reflect as we do.

RESPONDENT: Certainly some of these differences exists between human and animal, but it appears to me you are evading the point.

RICHARD: And what point is that? No. 16 was expressing an opinion which has no basis in fact ... no bird or fish can ever be considered Enlightened, which is what Zen is all about. It is a ridiculous statement to make and I corrected this all-too common petty fault-finding that is often made by inexperienced and carping critics who demonstrably do not know what they are talking about (not that I am at all impressed with Zen, mind you, I was merely setting the record straight).

RESPONDENT: There is no reason to believe any state of being, such as apperception, is mutually exclusive with some non-reflective (characteristic within an) animal.

RICHARD: I demur ... there is every reason in the world! The sheer fact of thinking and reflecting sets the human species apart from all other animals. For example – as I went on to say – animals do not have a history to discuss with other animals and compare notes. Animals are not aware of their impending death nor talk about that with their compatriots in an effort to understand life, the universe and what it is to be an animal ... like humans do. I was born and raised on a farm and have had vast experience with animals throughout my life. I made a study of the differences between animals and humans – by reading countless scholarly studies made by enterprising people; by watching many a television program on animal life and by often visiting zoos – because I am vitally interested in life on earth. To attribute human characteristics to animals is called anthropomorphism, and many people make this mistake (like that person who was channelling dolphins a number of years ago).

Ms. Enid Blyton and Ms. Beatrice Potter and their ilk have a lot to answer for.

RESPONDENT: Richard, is ‘I’ more cunning than what is left of you – the sensing, body, mind, etc. (can I say ‘non-I’). How does the ‘non-I’ deduce the truth about the ‘I’ being not there? Do you as a person simply just ‘feel’ like, just ‘know somehow’, that I is ‘gone’ (which may do it, I don’t know)?

RICHARD: It is the ‘I’ only that is cunning, not ‘more cunning than what is left’ when it is gone ... what is left has no need to be cunning. You see, the ‘I’ knows that it is a fiction and that it should not be here ... and it lives in mortal fear of being found out and exposed for the fraud that it is. Hence its cunning nature.

As to how the ‘‘non-I’ deduces the truth about the ‘I’ not being here’ ... I would say it is your concept of ‘non-I’ that is making it difficult to understand, for how can an absence deduce anything? It is far better to discard that spiritual term (‘non-I’) and stick to the facts. Where there is no ‘I’ whatsoever, the apperceptive mind is eminently capable of discerning for itself that there is no identity (be it either an ‘I’ or a ‘non-I’ ) lurking about in the inner recesses of this body.

*

RICHARD: Some early Greeks had the earth supported by their god’s shoulders – Mr. Atlas – while the Hindus had it supported on four elephants standing on a turtle’s back swimming in the cosmic ocean ... or some such thing. Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene was a flat earth god ... and so on. Such is the stuff of genius.

RESPONDENT: I wonder how much you really know of the real Jesus Richard. Or how much you could know.

RICHARD: Which ‘real Jesus’ are you referring to? The one of the New Testament gospels? Or the one of the Gnostic Gospels? Or the one of the Dead Sea scrolls? Or the one that visited the Americas (as recorded in the Book Of Mormon)? Or the one of Book of Essenes? Or the one of the gospel of St. Thomas? Or the one that went to India and is buried in Kashmir? Or the one in that latest fad ‘The Course of Miracles’? Or the one that visits people in visions?

There are so many people claiming to have knowledge of the ‘Real Jesus’ that I have personally lost interest entirely. Besides, there is serious scholarly studies which point to the distinct possibility that there never was such a flesh-and-blood person at all ... along with many other Saviour god-men like Mr. Krishna, Mr. Gotama the Sakyan, Mr. Lao-Tzu, Mr. Zoroaster and so on. Apparently they all fit an archetypal pattern that includes being born of a virgin mother, performing miracles, walking on water, curing people, raising the dead, being sacrificed and so on. More than thirty claims of beings invested with divinity have come forward to contest the verdict of Christendom in having proclaimed Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene as ‘The Christ’ ... ‘the only son and sent of God’. Thirty-odd Messiahs, Saviours and Sons of God, according to tradition, have in past times descended from heaven and taken upon themselves the form of men, clothing themselves with human flesh, and furnishing incontestable evidence of a divine origin ... and these god-men laid the foundation for the salvation of the world, and ascended back to heaven.

About the ‘flat earth’ remark that I made: If Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene could take the time to do such a trivial thing as turning water into wine at a wedding, do you not think that he might mention in passing – say around the campfire at night – something to the effect of: ‘Hey guys ... by the way, while I think of it ... the earth is round, not flat, and you can sail from Europe to the Americas without falling off the edge. Just thought I’d mention it’. He could then go back to the serious business of curing a few people’s blindness with spittle and mud. It would not have taken him long to correct humanity’s mistake about the earth being flat, now would it?

*

RICHARD: Personally, by the extirpation of the self – and the Self – I have eliminated all of those debilitating instincts which blind nature endowed me with at birth.

RESPONDENT: I’m having trouble with this one Richard. Anyone writing here on the list has at the very least retained their instinct to eat and drink. Just as the child instinctually suckles the breast. At this point you will need to explain the distinction. You can reason that to eat is not a debilitating instinct, but with an intact ‘I’, it certainly can result in debilitation.

RICHARD: For sure the infant suckling is an instinct ... but I am not an infant. The stomach secretes a chemical when empty which triggers a receptor in the brain that gives rise to a sensation we non-infants call ‘I am hungry’. Indeed, tests have been done by people who delight in doing these things, wherein the chemical was injected into volunteers who had just eaten a full meal.

The chemical caused them to feel hungry despite their distended stomachs.

RESPONDENT: So then, it’s not the instinct that is debilitating, but the action that proceeds from it. Your I-lessness may provide the freeing you experience, but not by ‘elimination’ of instincts, it appears. In some other way then.

RICHARD: All creatures are born with a rudimentary self that is integral to the instincts that blind nature endows us with. The elimination of self in its entirety is the elimination of those instincts. Instincts are not set in stone, they are only included in the bodily package to give us a start in life. Now that a thinking, reflective brain has developed over the top of the primitive ‘lizard brain’ at the top of the brain-stem where the instincts and basic emotions lie, we can improve upon blind nature as we have done in so many other ways. It is possible to be entirely free from all instinctive impulses ... I have no furious urges, no inherent anger, no impulsive rages, no inveterate hostilities, no evil disposition ... no malicious tendencies whatsoever. I do not need instincts to function and operate in this world of people, things and events ... they may have been necessary in the wild but with a now civilised world they are detrimental to peaceful and harmonious co-existence. The 160,000,000 people killed in wars this century alone testify to this.

So yes, it is the instincts that are debilitating.

RESPONDENT: As regards killing and eating and the harmlessness you claim for yourself ... I’m not exactly sure ‘to who’ you believe yourself to be harmless! You make some excellent points here. The elimination of malice, the drive to survive, eat, what have you. The need to kill that follows this. The reality of predilection you experience as a sensate being. For myself, this is cause for great wonder. Since as you say, whether it be a cow or a carrot, one just the same brings about the cessation of life. Well then, outside of the obvious fact that it would be illegal and there exists the risk of consequence – what would be the ‘problem’ with one having a predilection to killing and eating human beings? And exercising such a preference in societies where, or in a situation where, one perceives no risk? Would you say that an I-less mind, such as your own, somehow has an innate ability to make an almost moral distinction here? I see no reason why it would.

RICHARD: Not only an ‘I-less mind’ but a ‘I-less heart’ as well – and this is a very important distinction that points to the marked difference between Enlightenment and an actual freedom. Physical force is only ever applied as required by the circumstances – the elimination of self in any way, shape or form enables one to automatically conduct a free appraisal of the situation – and that leads to appropriate action ... usually pacifistic. When one lives in this actual freedom that I talk about, one is living in a magical, fairy tale-like world of perfection and purity the likes of which makes it impossible to believe it can exist here on earth, and in this perfection and purity the feeling does not exist – nor even the thought arise – of initiating the harming of one’s fellow human being. No feeling existing or thought arising equals no ‘evil’ deed to later regret. Therefore there is no need for morals to control wayward emotions and passions and thoughts as is required in the real world. In fact, with the extirpation of self in its entirety, one eliminates all feelings – emotions and passions – and all instinctual drives, thus one’s thoughts are free to be only benevolent and magnanimous ... which is an estimable condition to be in.

Altruism and philanthropy come spontaneously and easily and are thus no longer a virtue.

RICHARD: The sheer fact of thinking and reflecting sets the human species apart from all other animals. For example – as I went on to say – animals do not have a history to discuss with other animals and compare notes. Animals are not aware of their impending death nor talk about that with their compatriots in an effort to understand life, the universe and what it is to be an animal ... like humans do. I was born and raised on a farm and have had vast experience with animals throughout my life. I made a study of the differences between animals and humans – by reading countless scholarly studies made by enterprising people; by watching many a television program on animal life and by often visiting zoos – because I am vitally interested in life on earth. To attribute human characteristics to animals is called anthropomorphism, and many people make this mistake (like that person who was channelling dolphins a number of years ago).

RESPONDENT: Here I see you again bringing in the reflective nature as if it is synonymous with apperception, but it seems not, based on how you define it. In any case, this can be nothing more than a matter of opinion, yours or mine or whoever. We have a difficult enough time understanding our own nature, let alone some other creature. Science can only progress so far, and not error free as far as it goes. Certainly you can choose to believe what like about it. I can respect that.

RICHARD: Please be careful with the liberal use of ‘we’ as in ‘we have a difficult enough time understanding our own nature’, because I do not have any difficulty whatsoever ... that is one of the major attributes of an actual freedom. I know myself thoroughly, through and through, and thus – because of my genus – I know the human nature extensively. With this understanding and knowledge, coupled with the apperception of life as-it-is, I can observe animals in a value-free manner and see for myself that – as I so carefully detailed above – an animal can not think and reflect ... as in asking ‘why?’, ‘how?’, ‘when?’ and ‘where?’ and so on. I can see that I do not ‘choose to believe what like I about it’ , for I am not interested in believing something; I am only interested in facts and actuality. Beliefs – and the act of believing – have got humankind into disastrous trouble over the years, thus I no longer believe. I observe facts, and the facts speak for themselves.

The marvellous thing about a fact is that one can not argue with it. One can argue about a belief, an opinion, a theory, an ideal and so on ... but a fact: never. One can deny a fact – pretend that it is not there – but once seen, a fact brings freedom from choice and decision. Most people think and feel that choice implies freedom – having the freedom to choose – but this is not the case. Freedom lies in seeing the obvious, and in seeing the obvious there is no choice, no deliberation, no agonising over the ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ judgment. In the freedom of seeing the fact there is only action.

*

RICHARD: Where there is no ‘I’ whatsoever, the apperceptive mind is eminently capable of discerning for itself that there is no identity lurking about in the inner recesses of this body.

RESPONDENT: Well, I can read your words here all right, but you put forth no supporting argument. Which does not surprise me really, for what could you say? Again, as with the suggestion (I have made) that you may now be ‘pure God’, this can be nothing more than disbelief, which you are certainly entitled to embrace. The ‘I’, after all, could be even more cunning than ‘you?’ can imagine. Lets face it Richard, one would have to ‘know’ exactly what it is it isn’t to know it isn’t it. To say with certainly that you are not now pure God can be nothing more than nonsense, regardless of whether its true or not. You seem to be a reasonable person. I can’t imagine how you could not see the clear possibility you may be mistaken. Not that you are, but that you could be mind you. Based on your other writings, you appear to be retaining a healthy prejudice toward religion, and have tossed out the baby with the bath water. You haven’t explicitly claimed to be all-knowing, but you seem to be behaving so. Sounds God-like to me. This not to detract from the richness of what you have truly contributed here in these discussions. I’m eternally grateful.

RICHARD: Once again, it is not a matter of belief or disbelief ... it is a matter of knowing. This does not require great intelligence, it requires a total absence of the interfering ‘I’, because any sense of self distorts facts and actuality. Freedom from ‘I’ is freedom from distortion. Therefore, for me to say that I am ‘not now pure god’ is a statement of fact ... it is not nonsense and has got nothing to do with being ‘true or not’. People make something to be ‘true’ or ‘false’ by passionately believing something to be so – faith with conviction born out of belief. Etymologically, belief means ‘fervently wishing to be true’, which means that the something being believed in is not even true ... let alone a fact. And faith means ‘loyalty to that which is believed to be true’ ... to face a fact means someone must betray their ‘truth’, and people are so reluctant to be a traitor to their feelings. Yes, I have ‘tossed the baby out with the bath-water’ ... and my life is infinitely blessed by so doing.

The ‘baby’ was rotten to the core.

RESPONDENT: It could be that your suppressed anger and rage is blinding you to the fact that the majority of what Jesus did, said and experienced is not recorded.

RICHARD: You say ‘anger and rage’? But I have no feelings – emotions and passions – to suppress or express, so I can not possibly be ‘blinded’ to the ‘fact that the majority of what Jesus did, said and experienced is not recorded’ . Of course it is not so recorded – if indeed such a person even existed as a flesh-and-blood body – but so what? What is your point? This is what you alluded to in a previous post, is it not? That was where you said: ‘I wonder how much you really know of the real Jesus Richard. Or how much you could know’. It would appear to be that this is a ploy you successfully use to stifle sensible discussion with others, but it does not work with me. If it is not recorded it does not exist so it is useless to even make such a statement. We can only go by what is written down ... and that has generated such dissension and disputation regarding translations that one can not be at all sure about anything at all regarding Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene.

So I disregard it all.

The reason I, personally, can so freely do so is supported by the fact that for eleven years I was living in a similarly deluded ‘State Of Being’ as is so patently ascribed to Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene and others of his ilk. Thus I have an inside knowledge of what is thought, felt, experienced and said by a person in such a state ... it is not a matter of conjecture and speculation, but a solid knowing born out of a direct experience of the reality of being so self-deceived as to believe that not only was there a god – as a reality – but that I was that god! Thus, while I appreciate that you can discern that I have ‘a healthy prejudice toward religion’ I must assure you that I do not ... assuming that any prejudice can be ‘healthy’ that is. I have examined religion meticulously before discarding it ... as I have similarly dispensed with spirituality and mysticism. I have no need for recourse to anything metaphysical at all. In actual freedom, everything is apparent, open to view, self-evident and obvious.

*

RICHARD: All creatures are born with a rudimentary self that is integral to the instincts that blind nature endows us with. The elimination of self in its entirety is the elimination of those instincts.

RESPONDENT: A question here for you Richard. Do you believe that all instincts remain until such time as the self is eliminated? I was wondering if some may drop off earlier ... in your opinion.

RICHARD: I do not ‘believe’ one way or another about anything, as must be obvious by now. It is in my experience – not in my opinion – that the instincts that blind nature endowed one with at birth disappear along with the extinction of self. The self is those very instincts ... the instincts give rise to the self. When one is thus duly endowed with a self, all kinds of nonsense are generated. For instance: the desire for immortality in some after-life is born out of the will to survive which arises out of the instinct for self-preservation ... instincts are a ‘drive’, an ‘imperative’, and one is impelled by them, willy-nilly, into all sorts of silliness. One’s native intelligence is thwarted from carrying out what it is so eminently capable of doing – operating and functioning effortlessly in the world as-it-is.

*

RICHARD: For sure the infant suckling is an instinct ... but I am not an infant. The stomach secretes a chemical when empty which triggers a receptor in the brain that gives rise to a sensation we non-infants call ‘I am hungry’. Indeed, tests have been done by people who delight in doing these things, wherein the chemical was injected into volunteers who had just eaten a full meal. The chemical caused them to feel hungry despite their distended stomachs.

RESPONDENT: This is a bit weak since the chemical/receptor/brain thing may simply be the mechanism for instinctual drives and knowledge of it’s operation does little to support your belief.

RICHARD: Why is it ‘a bit weak’ ? And why do you attempt to belittle exact science by saying it is my ‘belief’ ? It is an established fact – borne out by strict experimentation and duplication – that hunger is not an instinct but a simple chemical activity. ‘Suckling’ is instinctual – and necessary for survival in the early stages of life – but ‘hunger’ is not.

It is all so simple, actually.

RESPONDENT: I’ve struggled to see the difference Richard, considering you seriously, but somehow you’re not able to see, that you are not able to see, through the eyes and mind of other creatures.

RICHARD: I am not suggesting – nor have I ever suggested – that I can ‘see through the eyes and mind of other creatures’ . I was born and raised on a farm and have had vast experience with animals throughout my life. I made a study of the differences between animals and humans – by reading countless scholarly studies made by enterprising people; by watching many a television program on animal life and by often visiting zoos – because I am vitally interested in life on earth. I observe animal action and behaviour and ascertain from research how an animal is likely to perceive itself and the world. For example: I have seen a dog acting in a way that can only be called pining; I have seen a cat toying with a mouse in a manner that can only be dubbed cruel; I have seen cows ‘spooked’ and then stampede in what must be described as hysteria; I have seen bulls displaying what can only be labelled aggression; I have watched many animals exhibiting what must be specified as fear ... and so on. Only recently a National Geographic television programme was aired here on chimpanzees in Africa about studies made over many, many years of them in their native habitat and I was able to see civil war, robbery, rage, infanticide, cannibalism, grief, group ostracism ... and so on. It is easily discerned by those with the eyes to see that animals do not have peace-on-earth.

This insistence that the animal state being a natural state and therefore somehow desirable that is held by many people is just nonsense ... I am glad that I am human and that we are living in a civilised society with all that technology can offer. We have already improved on nature so much in the areas of technology, animal breeding and plant cultivation, for instance, that there is no reason why we can not continue this fine work of overcoming the limitations imposed by blind nature and eliminate sorrow and malice from ourselves. Then – and only then – will we have global peace-on-earth.

However, for the person who dares to go all the way in eradicating any trace of identity whatsoever comes an individual peace-on-earth that is so magnificent that global peace matters not.

*

RICHARD: Now I understand ... you believe in a Creator God. Of course, for you, the universe can not be infinite because a god is infinite ... and you can not have two infinities.

RESPONDENT: Here again surfaces the ‘can’t be two infinities’ claim, as if there need be to justify a spirit being, or two rays of light for that matter. The mathematician in us can so conveniently write ‘infinity’ on paper, and even perform some basis arithmetic operations with it. Here’s were our minds are fooled, that we can know it closely enough to arrive at conclusions about it. If this wasn’t so sad I would laugh. As I’ve said before, reasoning is necessarily retired when considering the (unreasonableness) of infinite reality.

RICHARD: I was not talking of an abstract mathematical infinity – of which there are many examples showing a marked lack of understanding on the part of mathematicians of the nature of infinity – but the infinite character of physical space. This, coupled with the eternal character of time, produces an infinitude that can be understood experientially by one who is apperceptive. To grasp the character of infinitude with certainty, the reasoning mind must forsake its favoured process of intellectual understanding through imagination and intuition and enter into the realm of a pure consciousness experience. In a PCE, the essential characteristics of infinitude are transparently obvious, lucidly self-evident, clearly apparent and open to view. It is understood experientially that 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.

And nary a god to be seen anywhere at all.

RESPONDENT: I want to assure you that I have not (consciously) made a ploy to do anything at all. I’m sorry you feel that way. I have seen others not (appearing to deal) with you sincerely and perhaps you are thinking its happening here. Sensible discussion is primarily what I seek, so to attempt to stifle it doesn’t fit for me. If I wanted to stifle sensible discussion with you I wouldn’t be here typing right now. There are not enough hours in my day to waste any on senseless talk, and I’m sure you’d agree. That would be a dishonour to both you and myself. If I am to take you as seriously as you would like, that is, that all your views are rooted in fact, I have to conclude from your statement above that you feel you certainly ‘know’ that I have made a ‘ploy’. It follows then that we have reached an impasse since we are in clear disagreement. Perhaps with the passage of time this will resolve itself. In the interim, there may be little point in continuing our talk under these circumstances .

RICHARD: Ouch! Did I touch a raw nerve? Has a behaviour trait long hidden been exposed to view with painful results? For a ploy is a ploy whether it is conscious or not ... and that is what had been happening. For anyone to say things like: ‘I wonder how much you really know of the real Jesus ... or how much you could know’ and then: ‘The fact that the majority of what Jesus did, said and experienced is not recorded’ is to use a very successful device – whether used unwittingly or not – to stifle sensible discussion. The person receiving this type of response can do nothing with it at all for it conveys no useful information and it adds naught to investigation, exploration and discovery. You are saying, in effect, that what we are discussing can not be known ... what then is the point of discussion? They are statements that bring deliberation to a grinding halt.

Maybe you will be somewhat mollified if I rephrased it to say that your sentences had the effect of stifling sensible discussion?

Incidentally, I do not claim omniscience ... I did not ‘know’ that you ‘made a ploy’ , it was an inference ... in fact my very words written above were: ‘it would appear to be ...’ , which means that I was reasoning it out from the text and not ‘knowing’ it as a fact. But if you wish to remain as you are, then that is, of course, your business entirely. It is your life you are living and only you can reap the rewards or pay the consequences for any course of action or inaction you may or may not take ... including holding on to an anachronistic belief system that has no basis in fact and actuality.

And all this while the radio is doggedly re-playing Christmas Carols like: ‘Peace on Earth; Goodwill to all Mankind’.

RESPONDENT: Well Richard, what am I to do here. You have all the answers that can be had. And you have them all right. What point is there in my attempting to teach if you are the only one here capable of doing so? With this realised, why don’t you simply provide me, all of us, with all there is we need to know to find the perfection you have attained for yourself, out side of what you’ve already explained since that would be repetitive. Some may be greatly blessed. But I doubt it. Words alone won’t pull it off. And that is all we can give each other here is words, isn’t it.

RICHARD: You ask: ‘what point is there in my attempting to teach’ ? As far as I am concerned, none whatsoever, for what you are ‘teaching’ is Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene’ stuff ... and his teachings have had two thousand years to take effect and work – as in producing happy and harmless people freed from malice and sorrow – and they have not. There is as much suffering now as then ... how much longer must we give the ‘tried and true’ the benefit of the doubt before we see that it is the ‘tried and failed’? Personally, I consider two thousand years plenty of time to be given to a ‘Teaching’ to demonstrate its efficacy ... when I look around me, I do not see peace on earth. Nor do I see harmony even ... to take what is happening in Israel as only one example, I see three religions fighting over the ‘Holy City’ of Jerusalem, namely: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

And as for your statement about ‘words alone’ not pulling it off, then we might as well throw away the ‘New Testament’ along with the rest of the ‘Holy Bible’, because that is all that book is – words. Yet you keep on quoting those words, so obviously you see some merit in doing so. And if you are right in that words will not do it, then we might as well all pack up our computers and go home, given the fact that ‘all we can give each other here is words’. However, I for one will not give in to this kind of defeatist talk, because I have no doubts whatsoever that words can and will do it. We think in words and our world view – our purview on life – is made up of words. Words, along with our ability to reflect and muse, is one of the things that set us apart from other animals, so it is up to us to make use of this ability and press on regardless. The English language has, if I remember correctly, some 650,000 words in it ... so there are many more nuances of expression we have yet to call on to convey whatever we wish to convey.

Incidentally, I do not ‘teach’, for I only write of what I live. All of my words come out of my own experience, moment-to-moment, and I share that experience with my fellow human beings. I look around me and I see facts and actuality ... and I merely point out these facts and this actuality to others who are obviously not seeing them. I too, could not see them all those years ago when my adopted beliefs and values stood in the way of direct seeing.

RESPONDENT: As far as the Jesus stuff goes; it all began when you made the ‘flat earth’ statement, proceeding to attempt to disqualify him by virtue of some silly argument that went something like ... Well if Jesus knew so much why didn’t he tell his disciples ... I thought this was a foolish thing for one to say since it should be obvious to the average mind that not all Jesus said and did was passed on to us. So I went ahead and mentioned, as politely as I could, how foolish a statement it was. And I went on to deduce that perhaps it came about as a result of what I see clearly to be strong negative feelings. But of course you dispute that, and I know you will also dispute that it was a plainly foolish thing to suggest. In any case, this is the truth and the reality of how the logic of the discussion progressed, so when you accused me of making a ‘ploy to stifle sensible discussion’ (my words used here) you were way off the mark. It’s kind of difficult for sensible discussions to follow nonsensical implications such as the one you made. Are you following here? So perhaps you can accept your part in this just as I am willing to accept my part.

RICHARD: Oh dear ... ‘silly argument’, ‘foolish statement’ and ‘nonsensical implications’ eh? Is that all my ‘flat earth’ statement came across as? What a pity, for I found this discovery to be particularly useful in my own understanding many years ago. Look, Christians state unambiguously that Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene is God ... and the ‘Creator God’ at that. If anyone knew that the earth was round and not flat it would be him that created it. Given all the problems that this lack of knowledge provided people with up until Mr. Christopher Columbus’ epic voyage of discovery, I consider that was remiss of Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene not to have mentioned it. I am not being flippant or frivolous here ... look also at the difficulties Mr. Galileo Galilei went through to convince the Church that the earth went around the sun despite the Church’s stance that the Bible – the word of God – said it did not.

However, what I was actually putting across was not whether it was important enough, or not, to be included in Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene’ teachings, but rather as being an indication that Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene was but a man – and thus a deluded man at that – and not a god ... especially a ‘Creator God’. Stripped of his divinity, his words then had to stand or fall on their own merit ... and, given the test of time, they have fallen ... his ‘Teachings’ have failed abysmally.

To repeat: we do not have peace on earth.

RESPONDENT: Even if we examine you claim objectively, what was the problem? Sensible discussion could have continued indefinitely. Such as: Me: ‘The majority of what Jesus experienced was not recorded, and then you could have said, if you wanted sensible discussion to continue: Well [Respondent], it’s true what you say that Jesus could have told someone that the world was not flat, but it never was shared since it would have interfered with Jesus’ mission due to the enormous effect it would have had etc., or you could have said: Yes, that was a silly thing to say ... or: No, I feel that is one fact that would have definitely made it to the writings and been hotly disputed’. So it was in our power to keep sensible discussion in place, but it seems your paranoia decided to make an appearance posing as intuition or something. Not that I don’t have such moments too, I do (and yes, I know you don’t, no need to explain). So at the very least, I see this as a case of both misjudgement and lack of creative thinking.

RICHARD: If you have read and grasped what I have just written above, maybe now you will see that it is not ‘a case of both misjudgement and lack of creative thinking’ . It is not a case of whether or not the earth’s flat-ness or roundness was included or not in the ‘New Testament’, it is a case of checking the man’s bona fide’s. Is he, or is he not, the ‘Creator God’ come to earth to deliver a message that will eliminate the suffering of humankind for all time? This is important because, as you have already made clear, for some people ‘words alone won’t pull it off’ ... so the words must be charged with supernatural meaning. Hence the claim to divinity – divinity imbues the words with a numinous immanence – and all kinds of things ensue as a result of reading the ‘Holy Word’ that is now glowing with this innate ‘Authority’.

Thus it is important to examine the man’s credentials.

As the ‘New Testament’ was written at a time when human understanding was not blessed with later scientific research – nowadays satellite photographs – that revealed that the earth is round and not flat (and travels around the sun and not vice versa) then it follows that Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene was but a man and not a god. Let alone ‘The One and only God’; let alone the ‘Creator God’. Then, and only then, can his words – his ‘Teachings’ – be examined for usefulness according to their efficacy in resolving the ‘Human Condition’ and putting an end to suffering forever. And ... !lo and behold! ... they do not meet this requirement. They have, as I have already said, failed abysmally. They have, in fact, caused far more suffering than they have ameliorated.

End of story.

RESPONDENT: You should (but don’t seem to) realise that a person making claims such as you make will be met with great skepticism. Have you forgotten all the trials and confusion that preceded your present state? You cannot reasonably say that just because you made a decision one day that gained you perfection, that all you went through before that was not part of bringing you to that point. Yet, you expect others to just accept your philosophy immediately. You often make statements such as (my words here) – Why is it you cannot accept the idea of perfection right now, in your body, etc. And you say it as if you somehow know that all that preceded your first day of perfection played absolutely no role in bringing you to the point where you could attain it. You allowed yourself all these experiences yet you imply that one need not hit all the same dead ends experientially as you had, only to listen to you and that’s all it will take to set up the conditions. Well people just don’t operate that way, Richard. People learn the hard way for the most part.

RICHARD: I am well aware that my words will be met with great scepticism for I have been speaking with people for many years now (I did not just start recently when I came onto the Internet). Of course I do not expect others to accept what I say immediately, but they do not have to go through all the ‘trials and confusion that preceded my present state’ for they have only to heed my story and avoid all the pitfalls that I fell into. I always liken it to the physical adventure that Captain James Cook undertook to journey to Australia two hundred plus years ago. It took him over a year in a leaky wooden boat with hard tack for food and immense dangers along the way. Nowadays, one can fly to Australia in twenty-seven hours in air-conditioned comfort, eating hygienically prepared food and watching an in-flight movie into the bargain. It would be silly to ignore the findings and discoveries of the trail-blazer and forge along in another leaky wooden boat. The people who ‘learn the hard way for the most part’ will be the ones who will not listen to what I have to say.

So be it.

RESPONDENT: And outside of that, people are persuaded when they become aware of self-sacrifice, because people are great doubters, and it takes more than words to move people, it takes love, something Jesus exemplified with his very life, and death. Show me your nail holes, Richard.

RICHARD: It takes more than love to ‘move people’ – obviously – because love has had two thousand or more years to do this ‘moving’ and no-one has moved. There is no peace on earth, even after all this while of very earnest peoples, throughout the centuries, assiduously practicing love – the ‘tried and true’ – which promises, but never delivers, peace on earth. Just take a look at the news on television or the headlines in any newspaper. There are as many wars, murders, tortures, rapes, domestic violence incidents and child abuse now as there was then ... not to forget all the sadness, loneliness, grief, depression, despair and suicides ... love, the ‘tried and true’ has a lot to answer for ... it is the ‘tried and failed’.

As for ‘nail holes’ ... if I ever manifested that stigmata I would retire from public life and live in silence and isolation as an abject failure that deserves the utmost censure. I met a man many years ago who indeed had ‘nail holes’ – he showed me his hands and I saw for myself – and he invited me to join him as his disciple. He was preparing to start his ‘Ministry’ and he needed, apparently, twelve followers. When I politely declined he moved on ... and when I enquired around town I was told that he had been involved in the ‘Pentecostal Church’ until they had expelled him in despair some time previously. When I met him, he had obviously been off his medication for some time, because – as I was told – for the most part he was normally rather stable and likeable.

RESPONDENT: ‘There is no greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for the sake of his friends’.

RICHARD: True. True indeed. So true that people do actually do this very thing. I too believed in this ‘wisdom’ ... oh ... so many years ago now (I as in ‘I’, the self – the ego and soul that lurked about inside this body – that is). This belief sent me to a war-torn foreign country in 1966, as a volunteer soldier, not a conscript, to lay down my life for my friends and my country. That phrase (‘there is no greater love than this, that a man lay down his life ... ‘) is carved in marble in the many war memorials that dot this country. In the stone mausoleum that passes for architecture in the city of Melbourne, Australia (if my memory serves me correct) it is so arranged that a peephole in the roof far above allows a ray of sunlight to strike the marble inscription on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of each year ... and highlight the words in awe-struck splendour. And so the new generation of gullible youth go off to war.

This ‘wisdom’ has only added to the appalling suffering of one’s fellow human beings ... did you know that over 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone? Not to mention all those countless millions maimed, tortured, raped and otherwise having their life’s work destroyed ... yet all the while perfection is freely available here and now for anyone who dares to dedicate their life to ensuring a peace-on-earth for themselves, as this body only, in this life-time.

Enough said? Or shall I go on ... ad nauseam?

RESPONDENT: As I understand (imperfect) human nature, returning fire with fire tends to greatly decrease any hope for a peaceful existence. Yet, you may find the need to ‘bop’ someone, on the nose I believe you said, if they had done such to you. Not that you would necessarily do so under all circumstances, but that you may decide it’s the best approach (we can only hope you conclude correctly (would that be an intuitive determination?). So, in an ensuing post, you clarify that one condition (so far, any others?) would be if you (believe? knew? thought?) that to return fire with fire would have redeeming value (the other guy would change for the better (not necessarily right away) thanks to your blow to his nose. (we are not talking self-defence here by the way, which is almost always resolved by either running or restraining, but your comments about redeeming value of reciprocating harm). Now I’ve always seen this as a bad approach due to the risk that, the imperfect mind, with ego and soul intact, will magnify the ‘evil’, which has been shown to perpetuate the wars and rapes and murders you feel folks like yourself will eradicate. Now there is no way to guarantee what the other guy is going to do when you bop him. So there will be times when you will lessen hope for peace with your approach. No doubt about it. In fact I’d say more often than not if experience is any clue. And I cannot accept that, and wonder how you can.

RICHARD: Bopping someone back has a deterrent value, not a redeeming value. You may say that ‘we are not talking self-defence here by the way’ ... but I was. You may change the context in which I was writing about physical force being used – and I was most definitely talking about self-defence – but you will only end up talking to yourself. And where you go on to say ‘which is almost always resolved by either running or restraining’ , I must point out that you are showing extreme ignorance of facts and actuality because in my personal experience in the military it was almost always resolved by hitting back ... and very little by restraining and virtually nil by running away. In fact, ‘running away’ was classified as ‘cowardice under fire’, or ‘desertion in the face of the enemy’, and incurred severe penalties, up to and including Capital Punishment.

As for your comment that this approach ‘lessens the hope for peace’ , I must point out that when you are under fire there is no ‘hope for peace’ already. One is at war and one must deal with a war situation ... and ‘turning the other cheek’ does nothing whatsoever to produce peace, it produces a cessation of hostilities via defeat and subjugation. Hitting back likewise does nothing to produce peace, it produces a cessation of hostilities through conquest and domination ... which is the preferred option. It is not the optimum option, however, but it will make the other person think twice before initiating hostilities again, hence my comment about ‘bully boys’ ruling the world. I was not talking about producing peace by ‘bopping someone on the nose’, I was talking about making it difficult for aggression to triumph unimpeded by declining to be a walkover. There never has been ‘Peace On Earth’ yet, there has merely been a truce between warring parties from time to time ... and a truce is not peace.

Peace on earth comes about only when malice and sorrow have been eradicated entirely within the individual human being.

*

RICHARD: I do not have a ‘false feeling of superiority’ towards animals ... I am superior. And they are indeed expendable without the slightest trace of ‘consequence to ourselves’ (apart from the dependence we have on being a part of a healthy ecological food-chain).

RESPONDENT: What are you trying to say here? How are you superior? Are you saying ‘dominion over’. Where does being superior to the animals leave you? And what are the implications as concerns the taking of their lives for food?

RICHARD: I am not ‘trying to say’ anything, I am pointing out the facts and the actuality of the situation. Human beings simply are superior to animals. You ask ‘how are you superior?’ ... to which I am inclined to respond with a couple of obvious questions as my answer: have you ever seen a horse saddle up a human being and ride that person wherever it wants to go? Have you ever seen a dog throw a stick for a human to fetch? This sounds very much like ‘dominion over’ to me. And as to where being superior leaves me, it leaves me where we humans have always been – in charge and with all that entails. As to the implications of taking animal lives for food ... there are none. None, that is, unless you are talking of psychological implications ... which only occur where one is weighed down by the ‘bleeding heart syndrome’.

Eradicate malice and sorrow and all your problems are solved in one fell swoop.

RICHARD: Personally, I consider two thousand years plenty of time to be given to a ‘Teaching’ to demonstrate its efficacy ... when I look around me, I do not see peace on earth. Nor do I see harmony even ... to take what is happening in Israel as only one example, I see three religions fighting over the ‘Holy City’ of Jerusalem, namely: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

RESPONDENT: Richard, I sense your disappointment and share it as well. Many have been misled by pie-in-the-sky ‘Christianity’. This message is much different than what you’ve come to learn. I’m not able to fully explain right here, but I can make a few comments, provide some statements, that may help you understand that you’ve been lied to.

RICHARD: You sense incorrectly – I am not at all disappointed. I expect these kinds of things for the ‘Teaching’ is fatally flawed ... but I see that you say you are disappointed. Fair enough that you are, for you have placed all your faith and conviction in something that just has not worked for two thousand years and never will. But may I ask what ‘pie-in-the-sky ‘Christianity’’ is? And what message is ‘much different than what you’ve come to learn’ ? Are you saying that about one billion Christians have got Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene’ message wrong and that you alone have got it right?

RESPONDENT: Jesus suggested we could find a peace, an internal peace, perhaps similar to what you currently enjoy. (quote) Peace I leave with you; my own peace I give you. Not as the world gives, I give to you. (quote) These things I have said to you that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but have courage, I have conquered the world!

RICHARD: What Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene described is not at all similar to what I experience. The actual world is entirely peaceful and I do not have any tribulation in it whatsoever.

RESPONDENT: Again, just to shed some light on things here, not that I expect this would please you either! As far a planetary peace is concerned: (quote) Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword. (quote) Do you think I have come to bring peace on earth? I say to you, No, but divisions.

RICHARD: I am puzzled as to why you would quote something that is fuel to my argument, but here goes: Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene is not interested in peace-on-earth as he believed it not possible. Hence salvation in some metaphysical after-life wherein one can have eternal peace. I, however, have peace on earth, in this life-time, as this body. Individual peace-on-earth is possible for anybody daring enough to go all the way into being here in actuality, which ushers in the possibility of global peace-on-earth.

*

RICHARD: And as for your statement about words alone not pulling it off, then we might as well throw away the ‘New Testament’ along with the rest of the ‘Holy Bible’, because that is all that book is – words. Yet you keep on quoting those words, so obviously you see some merit in doing so.

RESPONDENT: Well of course! Words are much more effective when extraordinary human behaviour has given birth and power to them. (quote) Even heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

RICHARD: The ‘extraordinary human behaviour’ translates easily into ‘deluded human behaviour’ ... Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene (a man) believed himself a god (‘I and The Father are One’). Other people, apparently, decided that this surprisingly common psychiatric disorder was blasphemy against their own religion and killed him for it. These days, such a person is given medication and psychological counselling until they are capable of discerning reality over delusion. As for your quote ... as the ‘my words’ you refer to are dependent upon printed pages and people’s memories, I rather consider that when this earth is no more, then ‘my words’ will indeed ‘pass away’ ... and heaven exists only in people’s imagination, anyway, and ‘passes away’ remarkably easily when one stops believing in it.

*

RICHARD: And if you are right in that words will not do it, then we might as well all pack up our computers and go home, given the fact that ‘all we can give each other here is words’. However, I for one will not give in to this kind of defeatist talk, because I have no doubts whatsoever that words can and will do it.

RESPONDENT: Outside of appealing to one’s heart (i.e. Christ-likeness) or to one’s mind (logical truths), words are wasted.

RICHARD: What about the appeal of coming to one’s senses? I have discovered that words work very well in achieving this, as I use no other method than words of communicating this information and thus sharing my experience.

*

RICHARD: Look, Christians state unambiguously that Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene is God ... and the ‘Creator God’ at that. If anyone knew that the earth was round and not flat it would be him that created it. Given all the problems that this lack of knowledge provided people with up until Mr. Christopher Columbus’ epic voyage of discovery, I consider that was remiss of Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene not to have mentioned it.

RESPONDENT: Here again the misguided, misguided you. Jesus is not God! Does this sound like God speaking: (quote) No one knows about that day or the hour, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, except the Father. (quote) I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it. (quote) Why do you call me good? No one is ‘good’ – except God alone.

RICHARD: So, according to you, Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene is not a god ... I am sure that about one billion Christians would challenge you on this understanding of yours. And selective quotes which do not include the ‘I and the Father are One’ bit will not persuade me that you alone know Christianity correctly as there are other quotes which indicate the opposite to be the case.

*

RICHARD: Is he, or is he not, the ‘Creator God’ come to earth to deliver a message that will eliminate the suffering of humankind for all time?

RESPONDENT: Where did you get your information anyway?! And what’s 2000 years as compared to eternity?

RICHARD: I got my information from where everyone else gets it ... from the printed words of Christianity (‘In the beginning God created ...’). As for ‘eternity’ ... that is but a belief. If you do not achieve peace here on earth and now in time you never will. When you are dead, you are dead.

Finish.

*

RICHARD: This is important because, as you have already made clear, for some people ‘words alone won’t pull it off’ ... so the words must be charged with supernatural meaning. Hence the claim to divinity – divinity imbues the words with a immanence – and all kinds of things ensue as a result of reading the ‘Holy Word’ that is now glowing with this numinous ‘Authority’. Thus it is important to examine the man’s credentials.

RESPONDENT: Tricky business at this point wouldn’t you say. Nevertheless, misunderstandings of doctrine don’t change the facts, whatever they may have been. This is where belief in and communion with a God of Truth can enlighten where logic falls short. (quote) For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, the understanding of the intelligent will frustrate’. Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? Because all the wisdom which God had given was not sufficient for the world to know God, it pleased God to save those who believe by the simple gospel. For the Jew demand signs, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; But we preach Christ crucified, which is a stumbling block to the Jew and foolishness to the Gentiles. But for those who are called, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

RICHARD: This demonstrates my point entirely that divinity imbues the words with a numinous immanence. The ‘power’ of the Christian word revolves around the crucifixion and the resurrection ... the conquering of physical death. Get people to believe that, and they will believe anything.

Without this belief, the words on their own fall short. Hence my remark about ‘examining the man’s credentials’ ... Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene was a flat earth god. This man (if he existed at all as a flesh-and-blood person) was a product of his time, and in his era people believed they would fall of the edges of the world if they went too far.

*

RESPONDENT: ‘There is no greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for the sake of his friends’.

RICHARD: True. True indeed. So true that people do actually do this very thing. I too believed in this ‘wisdom’ ... oh ... so many years ago now (I as in ‘I’, the self – the ego and soul that lurked about inside this body – that is). This belief sent me to a war-torn foreign country in 1966, as a volunteer soldier, not a conscript, to lay down my life for my friends and my country.

RESPONDENT: This is not the intent. Jesus never supported violence and aggression, even though he knew the truth of his message would shake the world, dividing the sheep and the goats.

RICHARD: If this was ‘not the intent’ then what was? If laying down one’s life does not mean dying for one’s friends in defence of one’s country then what does it mean? How else can one ‘lay down one’s life for the sake of one’s friends’? And while we are on the subject – how come you know Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene’ ‘correct’ intent whereas one billion other people do not? And Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene never ‘supported violence and aggression’ ? What about the fig tree? And the money-changers? Love has had two thousand plus years to demonstrate its efficacy in bringing peace and harmony.

It has failed miserably.

RICHARD: As for your comment that this approach ‘lessens the hope for peace’, I must point out that when you are under fire there is no ‘hope for peace’ already. One is at war and one must deal with a war situation ... and ‘turning the other cheek’ does nothing whatsoever to produce peace, it produces a cessation of hostilities via defeat and subjugation. Hitting back likewise does nothing to produce peace, it produces a cessation of hostilities through conquest and domination ... which is the preferred option.

RESPONDENT: Only if you can accept the fact that you have just pushed hope for peace out further out of reach.

RICHARD: But I have only ever been interested in living in an actual peace ... to live in ‘hope for peace’ is to live one’s life in vain. Hope for peace is a poor substitute for the actuality of peace ... living in hope is pathetic compared with living in the perfection of the actuality. Thus I did not merely ‘push hope for peace further out of reach’ ... I pushed hope so far out that I discarded it altogether, with an eminently satisfying result, to wit: the actuality of peace, here and now.

*

RICHARD: It is not the optimum option, however, but it will make the other person think twice before initiating hostilities again, hence my comment about ‘bully boys’ ruling the world. I was not talking about producing peace by ‘bopping someone on the nose’, I was talking about making it difficult for aggression to triumph unimpeded by declining to be a walkover.

RESPONDENT: But it never works. Only fans the flames.

RICHARD: On the contrary, it works very well ... to make the other person think twice before initiating hostilities again, that is. You are talking at cross-purposes here.

RESPONDENT: He who is truly interested in peace in the world above all else does nothing at all.

RICHARD: Oh yes, sure ... just sit in a chair in your backyard with a drink at hand and let others do all the work for you. There is a name for that in Australia – it is called ‘bludging on your mates’.

RESPONDENT: But you may place the value of yourself above your appreciation of peace. And that’s fine as most do the same.

RICHARD: But I do have peace already ... by ridding this body of a ‘self’. How is this translated in your mind as ‘placing the value of yourself above your appreciation of peace’ ?

RESPONDENT: Being a ‘walkover’ is a choice, just as walking away is. If you have attachments that keep you from walking away then you are part of the problem, and not the solution.

RICHARD: Whenever somebody trots out that tired old truism ‘if you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem’ I realise that I have to start all over again from the beginning with explaining the difference between ideals and facts. I have to start all over again from the beginning with explaining the difference between dreams and actuality. I have to start all over again from the beginning with explaining the difference between ‘what should be’ and ‘what actually is’. Because what you mean is this: ‘if you are not part of MY solution, then you are part of MY problem’. By putting the word ‘the’ instead of ‘my’ you try to entice gullible people into thinking that you alone know the truth of the matter ... whilst all along nursing malice and sorrow in your bosom.

Please, before trying to fix up the world with specious solutions borrowed from long-dead deities ... fix yourself up first.