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Richard’s Correspondence The Actual Freedom Mailing List With Correspondent No. 7
RESPONDENT: If my ‘I’ and another person’s ‘I’ are basically identical then ‘I’ am not much different from any man who has lived in the past or will live in the future. If this is right then death has lost most of its bite. RICHARD: Ahh ... physical death is but the ending of this particular flesh and blood body – which began x-number of years ago – and this universe, of course, will go right on doing what it was doing before one was born. Which is what it is doing right here and now. RESPONDENT: This is a very powerful statement. It has stimulated my mind and my whole being. I am wondering why this perspective on life and death is not widely publicized and discussed (?!). Its very logical and powerful as far as its implications. It is about facing our physical death without an overwhelming and paralysing fear. RICHARD: It is a fact that I, as this body, am mortal. As such, I will die in due course ... this heart will stop beating, these lungs will cease breathing, this brain will quit thinking. The flesh will decompose, if buried, or will be dispersed, if burnt, as smoke and ash. There could be nothing more final, more conclusive, more complete, of an ending to me than this. Human beings have various attitudes towards death. As far as it has been able to be ascertained, humans are the only creatures that are aware of their own demise. The ability to reflect upon one’s own death has been a source of inspiration to philosophers, theologians and their ilk down through the ages. To other people, death is a subject to be avoided, to be not thought about; it is a taboo topic for dinner-table conversation. It is not until a close friend or relative dies that they are brought face-to-face with their own mortality ... and they usually endeavour to ‘get over it’ as soon as possible. A sure way to be told that one is morbid is to talk about death: to invoke an uneasy reaction, one needs only to ask if they have ever considered the ramifications of death; of no longer being alive; of not being a ‘human’; of not ‘being’ at all. Nevertheless, why avoid the subject? Surely it is of the utmost importance to explore all the unknown aspects of being a ‘human’ – 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. Death is viewed by most as a calamity, a tragedy. ‘I’, being non-material, cannot accept, let alone embrace, that which is physical, that which is actual. Mortality is a physical phenomenon; it is a fact to be met and understood. To act otherwise is a denial of the actual. This universe was amazingly able to give birth to me, it is marvellously capable of bearing me and will, eventually, wondrously manage to end me. This is the physical ‘scheme of things’ in this, the only universe there is ... and this universe is so enormous in its scope, so grand in its order, so exquisite in its form, that it is sheer vanity and utter insolence to presume that birth and death is somehow ‘wrong’. With an attitude like that, no wonder people hate having to be here on earth. It is no wonder that they feel that they have to ‘get on with life’ and ‘make the best of things’ whilst waiting for death to release them. It is such a shame that billions of human beings are missing out on the unadulterated perfection of being fully alive; missing out on rejoicing in being here now; missing out on deriving immense pleasure at living this moment, here on earth. There seems to be a general consensus among human beings that death is a mystery that one cannot penetrate, and that the ‘Mystery of Life’ will be revealed only after death. There, most say, lies ‘Peace and Ultimate Fulfilment’ ... yet there is nowhere else but here and there is no time but now. Anything else than here at this place in infinite space – now at this moment in eternal time – exists only in an enthusiastic imagination ... enthused by ‘me’, by ‘being’ itself. Any fear of the death of ‘me’ is an irrational reaction to the demise of an apparently enduring psychological and/or psychic entity. The ending of ‘me’ (the ‘death’ of ‘me’) is an autological non-event; ‘I’ do not actually exist in the first place. There is no actual ‘me’ to either ‘die’ or to have ‘Eternal Life’. It all appears to be an exercise in futility to think about and feel into what is entailed in physical death (which is the guaranteed end of ‘being’) because the end of ‘being’, at physical death, can only ever be a speculation; it has to be experienced to know it. Just like one cannot know the taste of something until one eats it ... so too is it with death as the end of ‘being’. 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 that Ultimate Fulfilment ... here on earth? RESPONDENT: It is just one step away from the false conclusion (1) ‘I am the immortal Universe’. Or even more tempting is: (2) ‘I am the immortal consciousness, an eternal ‘flame’ or ‘light’ of consciousness generated by the infinite sequence of human bodies; like light created in a lamp’ The first conclusion is false because I am the product of some natural perpetual life processes but I have not got much control over them, and my individual ‘I’ will not survive my physical death. I am a bit puzzled by my own second proposition. (2) in this paragraph. What is your thought about it? I think the explanation would be that I am not consciousness because any ‘I’ requires some mental effort to create and justify and thus is imaginary? Suddenly I feel peaceful now ... RICHARD: Conclusion No. 1 (‘I am the immortal Universe’) is only ‘I’
typically arrogating identity because of the instinctual drive to survive at any cost ... whereas the phrase ‘I am the
infinite and eternal (which is what ‘immortal’ means) universe experiencing itself as a sensate and
reflective human being’ puts it all in perspective. And, as a human being, the universe has intelligence Conclusion No. 2 (‘I am the immortal consciousness, an eternal ‘flame’ or ‘light’ of consciousness generated by the infinite sequence of human bodies; like light created in a lamp’) is but ‘I’ similarly expropriating something that does not exist anyway! It has taken countless aeons for carbon-based life-forms to evolve through to being conscious (as all sentient beings are) and as being consciousness in one species alone: the human animal. Of course the human animal values consciousness highly – it is what separates humans from other animals – and allows the ability to consciously reflect, consider and appreciate being here now (which other animals cannot do). But to take this faculty which humans value highly and seek to impose it upon this marvellous, amazing, wondrous and magical universe is to commit the vulgar error of anthropocentricism. Be that as it may, because of this evolved consciousness the human animal can ask: why are we here? * RESPONDENT: After ‘I’, (No. 7), am dead, with all my individual experiences and memories disappearing, my individual sense of time will also stop. RICHARD: Your individual sense of everything (not only time) will cease absolutely ... death is the end. Finish. Oblivion. RESPONDENT: It is wonderful that death is the end. The universe physical forces will create a new conscious ‘I’ to enjoy this life. There is responsibility for the coming ‘I’s, our future ‘myselves’. RICHARD: Maybe an exchange I had with another some time back may be of interest? Vis:
It is for such self-centred, uncaring and inconsiderate attitudes like this that I have only ever wished, in these latter years, for the words and writings of an actual freedom and a virtual freedom to exist in the world so that they are available long after I am dead – and after those peoples writing here today are no longer – so that a third alternative is available for anyone who comes across them in any indeterminate future to draw affirmation and confirmation from. * RESPONDENT: What will follow is some other ‘I’ being born and experiencing life, starting from scratch its individual existence (no past life memories or reincarnation). It leads to the conclusion that death is not that bad. It is an end of one life which marks a beginning of another life. RICHARD: The awareness that is this flesh and blood body called Richard started right along with this body over half a century ago and – barring war, accidents and disease – will cease somewhere around 2030 because they are one and the same thing. Then, when this body ceases being animated its constituent particles will re-combine with other particles of matter into other forms – some of which will be carbon-based life-forms and therefore animate – but only if that life-form is another human being will there be an ‘I’ ... and another opportunity for the universe to experience itself as a sensate and reflective human being. RESPONDENT: I think there is a slim chance that all my atoms will build another single life form. But I don’t think this is an important point what percentage of my molecules will build a future human being after my death. The atoms belong to nobody. What matters, I think, is that human being with its reflective capabilities will enjoy life again. RICHARD: Aye ... it immediately matters inasmuch as we are here anyway doing this business called being alive. If peoples were not killing. maiming, torturing and otherwise harming each other it would not be so urgent, perhaps ... but, then again, there is always this opportunity to ask: Why am I (No. 7) here? * RESPONDENT: It does matter what we leave for the future generations because we are doing it for our own future ‘selves’. RICHARD: Yes, whatever gets one of one’s backside is worthy of contemplation ... ‘I’ need all the inspiration ‘I’ can muster to enter into what is, after all is said and done, ‘The Voyage of a Life-Time’. RESPONDENT: By ‘The Voyage of a Life-Time’ do you mean enjoying this life as it is here and now as nobody in particular? RICHARD: It is the most stimulating adventure of a lifetime to embark upon a voyage into one’s own psyche. Discovering the source of the Nile or climbing Mount Everest – or whatever physical venture – pales into insignificance when compared to the thrill of finding out about life, the universe, and what it is to be a human being. I am having so much fun ... those middle-aged or elderly people who bemoan their ‘lost youth’ leave me astonished. Back then I was – basically – lost, lonely, frightened and confused. Accordingly, I set out on what was to become the most marvellous escapade possible. As soon as I understood that there was nobody stopping me but myself, I had the autonomy to inquire, to seek, to investigate and to explore. As soon as I realised nobody was standing in the way but myself, that realisation became an actualisation and I was free to encounter, to uncover, to discover and to find the ‘secret to life’ or the ‘meaning of life’ or the ‘riddle of existence’, or the ‘purpose of the universe’ or whatever one’s quest may be called. To dare to be me – to be what-I-am as an actuality – rather than the who ‘I’ was or the who ‘I’ am or the who ‘I’ will be, calls for an audacity unparalleled in the annals of history ... or one’s personal history, at least. To seek and to find; to explore and uncover; to investigate and discover ... these actions are the very stuff of life! * RESPONDENT: I don’t know why, but this issue has been on my mind for some time. RICHARD: What does ‘having this issue on my mind for some time’ do to you? RESPONDENT: It brings about intensity in the process of ‘getting to the bottom of things’. It gives courage to see things honestly, as they are without the fear of finding something which ruins my previous set of points of views and opinions about life. It gives me strength to take responsibility. It makes me feel happy. This has been a good conversation for me! RICHARD: I am well pleased.
RESPONDENT: Richard, you said: ‘An aesthetic experience is somewhat akin to a pure consciousness experience (PCE)’. What is exactly the difference between these two experience kinds? RICHARD: The primary difference is that an aesthetic experience is in relation to art – and art is but a representation of life – whereas a pure consciousness experience is a direct experience of the actual. When I wrote ‘somewhat akin’ , at the end of the explanatory paragraphs about the act of painting, I was referring more to the process or action of how the experience occurred – rather than the quality of the experience itself – and that ‘I’ would temporarily disappear and the painting would paint itself. Which is somewhat akin to letting this moment live you ... so that you become the doing of what is happening rather than the ‘do-er’. RESPONDENT: Have you ever had a brain scan done? A nuclear magnetic resonance scan, electric or an infrared scan to determine the active versus inactive areas of your brain? RICHARD: No ... I rather fail to see what such scans would achieve in terms of assisting someone to free themselves of the human condition. Even if it provided some sort of a map, as it were, one cannot reach inside one’s brain with a screwdriver or pincers or whatever and do a nip here, a tuck there, a tweak at this place, a twitch at that spot and so on. Technological progress may prove me wrong, of course.
RESPONDENT: Richard, I have been reading your correspondence on your website. The actual freedom issue has been on my mind. Sometimes on the back burner, sometimes on the front burner – but it has been there. I am investigating my life vigorously as some major changes seem to be lurking around the corner. I think that, amazing as it is (quite against the odds?), a feeling-less life could be actually perfect! RICHARD: Excellent. It is initially difficult to comprehend living life sans feelings ... as a child, a youth and as a young man I was particularly sensitive in comparison with my then peers – I felt everything keenly, acutely – and always preferred the company of females to males anytime. I was easily hurt by others and had difficulty hurting anyone or anything – boys pulling wings off flies at grade school sickened me to the stomach – and all the killing I did as a farmer’s son was quick and efficient in that I ensured it was as painless as is possible (I have no objection to killing per se). The rough and tumble of typical manly pursuits such as competitive sports did not interest me at all ... and I felt like a fish out of water during my six years in the military. I felt life deeply, passionately and it is no wonder I fell for the summon bonum of human feelings: the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’. After my break-through into actual freedom I went through twenty months of mental anguish thinking that I had lost the plot completely (although physically everything was perfect). No one could help me as nobody had traversed this territory before. RESPONDENT: It is a shame that we so often equal lack of feelings with depression, escapism, apathy, lack of: intensity of expression, vital energy and the zest for life. We fail to recognize these chronic, low-level negative states as feelings stemming from our identification as ‘miserable person’. During the time of high intensity when my life is happy (due to a breakthrough in the understanding of life) often a temptation arises to identify the smooth functioning of the system with being a happy being. I think it is important to remember it. RICHARD: Yes ... it is ‘being’ itself that is the problem irregardless whether one is a happy being or an unhappy being. Of course, whilst one is still a ‘being’ it is preferable to be a happy being any day of the week ... it is simply silly to be unhappy. Also a glum and/or grumpy person locks themselves out of any chance of a pure consciousness experience (PCE) ... and a PCE is one’s best teacher by far. The PCE is indispensable in fully understanding an actual freedom from the human condition ... one needs to experientially know what one’s goal is. It is a valuable point you note here. RESPONDENT: Thanks for your cutting and pasting style of correspondence. It has been helpful in the process of recovery from a guru-disciple complex. RICHARD: This is good to hear. I am sometimes criticised for copying and pasting ... yet all that is going on is that if I have previously written comprehensively and completely on that particular topic I have nothing further to add. I can only re-phrase the same thing in but a few ways. Also, sometimes some people ask a rearranged version of the same question ... which tells me that that they did not read the original answer with both eyes. So I deliberately resend it. Also I have no idea whether what I wrote to person ‘A’ was read by person ‘B’ or how much someone has read of the Actual Freedom Web Site ... or understood. Sometimes something sinks in only upon the umpteenth reading anyway. It certainly is not laziness on my part ... I like words and thoroughly enjoy talking and writing. The study of the ‘Guru/Disciple’ complex is a fascinating exploration into the nature of love and its power to override reason, basically.
RESPONDENT: Richard, it is always good to find your email in my hotmail mailbox. There is one important point that hit me in your response: [Richard]: ‘After my break-through into actual freedom I went through twenty months of mental anguish thinking that I had lost the plot completely (although physically everything was perfect). No one could help me as nobody had traversed this territory before’ [endquote]. How did you experience the mental anguish from the perspective of actual freedom? RICHARD: As a severe cerebral agitation ... it all happened only in the brain cells. There was perfect sensate experiencing: the direct, startlingly intimate sensuousness of the eyes seeing, the ears hearing, the skin feeling, the nose smelling and the tongue tasting all of their own accord (deliciously unfettered by a ‘me’ or an ‘I’) yet the cognitive faculty was face-to-face with the stark fact that it had been living a deluded dissociative state for eleven years ... and that religion – fuelled by its spirituality and mysticism – was nothing short of institutionalised insanity. That this disconcerting perplexity was only cerebral was evidenced by no sweaty palms, no increased heartbeat, no rapid breathing, no palpations in the solar plexus ... none of those things connected with the existential angst of being a contingent ‘being’. If I were to look in a mirror during that period and ask ‘who am I’ there was no answer – not even ‘the silence that speaks louder than words’ that had been experienced for eleven years – yet the answer to ‘what am I’ was patently obvious and undeniable ... I am this flesh and blood body. In psychiatric terms the neurons were agitated: energised and excited with an excess of dopamine in the post-synaptic receptors, described as being similar to the effect of amphetamines, cocaine or LSD ... yet nothing could be done about it with psychiatry’s extensive arsenal of anti-psychotic drugs. Initially I had no alternative but to seek resolution in terms of either ‘the known’ (psychiatry) and/or ‘the unknown’ (mysticism) ... and I knew from eleven years experience that no mystic could be of any assistance whatsoever. I was truly on my own. The mental anguish was in determining the validity of uncharted territory – 5,000 years of recorded history and perhaps 50,000 years of oral tradition made no mention of this dimension of human experience – for I was irreversibly plunked fair-square in the midst of either ‘insanity’ (the psychiatric model) or ‘the unknowable’ (the metaphysical model) ... which is something else entirely. In the context of metaphysical human experience this condition is only achievable after physical death: the Buddhists call it ‘Parinirvana’ and the Hindus call it ‘Mahasamadhi’. This was no ‘dark night of the soul’ – which I knew from 1981 – nor ‘real-world’ insanity ... this was something beyond either psychiatric or mystic human experience. It was pretty freaky stuff for a mere boy from the farm: who was he to set himself up to be the final arbiter of human experience ... and what was I doing in this territory anyway? What had I become? There was neither self (psychiatric diagnosis: Depersonalisation) nor any Self (metaphysical analysis: Atheistic Materialism); there was neither reality (psychiatric diagnosis: Derealisation) nor any Reality (metaphysical analysis: Atheistic Materialism); there was no affective feelings (psychiatric diagnosis: Alexithymia) nor any ‘State Of Being’ (metaphysical analysis: Atheistic Materialism); there was neither a pleasure centre for beauty (psychiatric diagnosis: Anhedonia) nor a centre for ‘Truth’ (metaphysical analysis: Atheistic Materialism). In the context of known human experience this was a severe mental disorder ... a psychotic condition according to the DSM-IV (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders – fourth edition – which is the diagnostic criteria used by all psychiatrists and psychologists around the world for diagnosing mental disorders). On top of that was the obvious fact that everybody else other than me – especially the revered and respected ‘Great Teachers’ of antiquity – were all quite seriously mad ... which is a classic indication of insanity in itself. I do consider it so cute that freedom from the human condition is considered a mental disorder. RESPONDENT: It must have been quite interesting since the mental anguish happened in the perfection of this moment back then ... to nobody in particular and thus the situation must have, as paradoxical as it might sound, been quite pleasurable. RICHARD: Hmm ... ‘interesting’ , yes; ‘pleasurable’ , no. It was extremely uncomfortable and very disconcerting, perplexing and bewildering. It was also distressing for my companion and caused considerable disturbance in her ... she was a constant witness to my endeavour to come to grips with what had happened and what was going on. Despite the fact she was a qualified nursing sister this was beyond her ken and altogether too much to handle in the first few months. I must emphasise the immediacy and urgency of the dilemma: how could I be right and 5.8 billion peoples then currently alive (and maybe 4.0 billion once living) be wrong? This was an outrageous supposition to contemplate – as I remarked in my previous E-Mail I thought that I had lost the plot – yet all about people were hurting and being hurt: bickering, quarrelling, arguing, fighting and then applying band-aid solutions such as the cycle of guilt, remorse, repentance, forgiveness, empathy, trust, compassion through to love ... until next time. There were all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and the such-like to account for ... and all the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours, and the Saints and the Sages and the Seers, did not have peace-on-earth on their agenda. Obviously someone had to be the first ... and this fact was thrilling to the nth degree. It meant that an actual freedom from the human condition, here on earth in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body had been discovered and could be demonstrated and described ... no one else need ever take that route again (and I would not wish upon anyone to have to follow in my footsteps and run that full gamut of existential angst to break through to what lay beyond). I always liken it to the physical adventure that Mr. 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. No one has to go the path of the trail-blazer and forge along in another leaky wooden boat.
RESPONDENT: Richard, it is a warm, peaceful morning in New Jersey even though occasional anxiety and strong emotions suddenly appear in my mind. These mental constructs come and go at variable, unpredictable pace. My attention is automatically drawn to inspect and clearly see these mental constructs in the sharpest, most honest and sincere way. Because of this mind’s habit and desire to see things clearly now, it has become quite rare to ‘desire’ other things. For example, I have lost 50% of my stock portfolio in the recent stock market crash and I did not identify or feel myself as miserable at all. RICHARD: Excellent ... I am always delighted whenever someone has gained benefit in their daily life from having read actual freedom writings and, as a consequence, can experience changes (‘I did not identify or feel myself as miserable at all’ ) in the way they themselves are living life. Because it is what actually happens in one’s life as a result of the reading that is important ... not how well someone can remember what the words look like. To me, upon having read something all those years ago, the question always was: Does it work? Does it produce the goods? Is my life better for having read this? How am I experiencing this moment of being alive? After all, it is all about enjoying oneself moment-to-moment and appreciating each moment again and again ... for this moment is one’s only moment of being alive. RESPONDENT: My friends at my new workplace has commented several times that they have never see me angry yet. This habit of the mind to observe has changed my interactions with people because I tend to be less and less manipulative, argumentative, critical, cynical and complaining, and if I do become like that, I automatically bring my attention to it rather then follow these emotions blindly. RICHARD: Yes, the crux of the matter is not only how one treats one’s fellow human being but also how one thus treats oneself in the interactions you describe. RESPONDENT: It has been quite wild. For example, I have found myself in the process of breaking up with my wife and actually I am not quite sure why as the things just happen at their own pace. RICHARD: There are, of course, many reasons. My first marriage ended when the person who got married was no more ... it was ‘his’ marriage, wife, children, house, business, car and so on. It was quite bizarre situation to find oneself in. RESPONDENT: I have to say that I thought initially that the path to actual freedom had to do a lot with logic and difficult vocabulary but I see it is much more than that. RICHARD: Yes ... much, much more. Logic has very little work to do on the wide and wondrous path ... rational, sensible, down-to-earth thinking wins hands-down any day. Thank you for this note ... I enjoy reading your posts, your successes, your humour. Even though I do not write often to the Actual Freedom Mailing List I read everything with close interest. Also, it has taken me a while to respond as I am actively subscribed to three lists altogether and am currently swamped with a back-log of posts waiting to be answered. I am endeavouring to catch up ... yet a computer technician assessed my set-up yesterday with the result that entire system is going to be stripped down and revamped in a few days time (I am getting Windows 2000 Server installed to replace the ailing NT Server 4.0 that requires too much attention to keep the Actual Freedom Web Page on-line and the Mail Server operating). Which means I will be head down and tail up formatting and re-loading all my hard-drives from scratch with all the many and varied programmes ... maybe twelve to twenty fours hours off-line. I do enjoy fiddling with computers as much as I enjoy writing ... they are amazing instruments. Maybe I will never catch up ... the bottom line is, of course, that I only write when the whim takes me.
RESPONDENT: The question ‘How am I experiencing this moment’ seems to be a very pleasurable activity. I like its simplicity. In my previous ‘spiritual’ era I would obsess and hope to become an influential enlightened master with a following of devotees. I would indulge in spiritual literature because it would promise wonders ... I don’t read spiritual books anymore. I think my life now is about getting from ‘there’ to ‘here’ as fully as I can, and it is very enjoyable. As I am asking myself now ‘How am I experiencing this moment’ I am happy, relaxed and somewhat over-eaten. RICHARD: These words of yours (‘in my previous ‘spiritual’ era I would obsess and hope to become an influential enlightened master with a following of devotees ...’ ) are music to my ears. I appreciate your honesty.
RETURN TO THE ACTUAL FREEDOM MAILING LIST INDEX RETURN TO RICHARD’S CORRESPONDENCE INDEX 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 1997-2001 |
