Actual Freedom – The Actual Freedom Mailing List Correspondence

March 03 1999

RESPONDENT: Richard, I have some questions. Your describing Actual Freedom seems far better than my present state. So it seems to me attractive. But because I don’t know your so called Actual Freedom, I can not evaluate your statements from my experience.

RICHARD: Yes, this is where remembering one of your pure consciousness experiences (PCE) is essential. Otherwise this is all theory.

RESPONDENT: In the term of being logic, your statements are not inconsistency. But that a statement is logically consistent is one thing and that a statement is existentially true is another thing. So the point is whether I can trust your statements or not.

RICHARD: To ‘trust’ someone – anyone at all – is to invite betrayal ... to ‘trust’ someone is to impose a demand upon them that they may not be able to live up to (or want to) and I never do that. I have had no use for ‘trust’ at all: to ‘trust’ is to attract deception. Etymologically, ‘trust’ – a covenant with ‘The Truth’ – is in the same category as faith – loyalty to ‘The Truth’ – and both are aligned with belief. Belief means fervently wishing to be true. There is not much difference between ‘trust’ and faith ... as a generalisation perhaps ‘trust’ is used more in spiritual circles, whereas faith is more aligned with the religious. ‘Trust’ seems to have more solid connotations than faith – to the spiritual aspirant, who scorns religion and all its trappings – yet, essentially they amount to the same. They all give rise to hope. Hope, the antidote to despair, is what most people live on. Living in hope – having faith or trusting – is a poor substitute for the living purity of the perfection of the actual. Hope sets one up for disappointment time and again ... and all it is, is the antidote for despair. All trusting, believing, hoping and having faith and certitude are but the antidotes to distrust, disbelief, despair, doubt or suspicion.

I advise people not to believe, trust, hope or have faith and build a certitude ... I urge people to find out for themselves. Look upon what I have to say – and other actualists – to see if there is enough evidence for a prima facie case. This means that one listens with both ears and examines one’s own psyche – which is the human psyche – and discovers whether the words accord with the facts or not ... a fact is distinct from a ‘truth’. A belief – cunningly disguised as a truth – is not a fact. A fact is apparent, there can be no confusion or argumentation about a fact. By its very nature a belief is not factually true ... otherwise it would not need to be believed to be true. A fact is obvious, freely available for all to see as being correct. To believe something to be true is to accept on trust that it is so. A fact does not have to be accepted on trust ... a fact is candidly so. A fact is patently true, manifestly clear. A fact has actual verity, whereas a belief requires synthetic credence. One of the ways of ascertaining whether a ‘truth’ is a belief or a fact is that a belief demands loyalty; you give allegiance to it and to the group that espouses it. And look for passion ... the passionate involvement required to maintain the synthetic credibility of whatever is believed in, or what one has faith in, or what one trusts and what one hopes for or has certitude about. It is impossible to dispassionately believe, dispassionately have faith, dispassionately trust or dispassionately have hope or certitude. Anyone who claims otherwise does not understand the experiential reality lying under those words.

I am consistently urging not only the discarding of all beliefs, but to examine and discard the very action of believing itself. I only present a refutation to a particular belief in order that a person may come to see, not only how silly it is, but how dangerous it is to believe at all. I would not want anyone to stop believing in immortality, for example, and start believing in death as oblivion ... that would be to swap one belief for another and the action of believing remains intact. Where the action of believing remains intact, the ‘believer’ – the ‘I’ – is supported, affirmed, verified and perpetuated. This is the primary danger of beliefs. ‘I’ am, to a large part, an emotional ‘being’ ... ‘I’ am, to a large part, made up of beliefs, values, principles, ideals, theories, traditions, customs, mores and so on. Belief is an emotion-backed thought ... and not sensible thought at that. Personally, I never believed or trusted that it was possible; nor did I have hope or faith or certitude, for such an action of believing, trusting, hoping and having faith and certitude perpetuates the believer, the truster, the hoper and the faithful certifier. On the contrary, I could no longer believe that it was not possible ... which is a different action entirely. I stopped the activity of believing, period. The mind is a fertile breeding ground for fantasies and hallucinations; if one backs it up with trust, faith, belief, hope and certitude then anything weird can eventuate. Instead, make full use of a confidence born out of the apperception that occurs in a pure consciousness experience (PCE); the surety that comes from a solid knowing ... an irrefutable knowing, not a flight of fancy from some religious epiphany or spiritual vision or mystical revelation or any metaphysical occurrence. One thus has the courage of one’s convictions – which is the certainty born out of the solid knowing as evidenced in a PCE – and can thus develop a superb assurance and a wondrous optimism. Therefore nothing can stand in one’s way in this, the adventure of a life-time.

RESPONDENT: Then, one big question arises. This is your attitude to Rajneesh.

RICHARD: I am not attacking Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain per se ... it is the Altered State Of Consciousness called ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ that is the issue. I use quotes from any Guru or God-Man to demonstrate my point. I am doing a relentless exposé on all ‘Awakened Teachers’, on their ‘Holy Teachings’ ... and the ‘Sacred Source’ of their ‘Ancient Wisdom’ (that which the finger is pointing to). In actualism all of the previous world-views – human’s understandings of ‘humanity’ – are seen to be erroneous. Especially erroneous are the metaphysical solutions to the plight of ‘humanity’ ... however long such solutions may have been held in awe, venerated and viewed as being the ‘Eternal Truth’. The solutions – ‘The Truth’, ‘The Good’, ‘Love Agapé’, ‘Divine Compassion’ and so on – that these ‘Blessed Ones’ have brought into the world are all the more insidious because no one, it seems, dares to question them. Nobody, it appears, equates the resultant problems, that these ‘Gods On Earth’ have managed to produce, with the solutions. And the resultant problems are horrific: Religious Wars, for example, have beset this planet for thousands of years ... for about as long as these Masters and Messiahs, Avatars and Redeemers, Saviours and Sages, Priests and Prophets, Saints and Shamans and have been around, in fact, peddling their perverted delusions.

RESPONDENT: This is your understanding about Rajneesh.

RICHARD: Of course it is my understanding ... I do not get my information carved in stone tablets from on high. I can think for myself.

RESPONDENT: From my understanding and experiences, your understanding is wrong.

RICHARD: I would not wish to get into a ’tis/’tisn’t disputation ... could you instead detail where my words are incorrect? Then we can have a practical discussion, eh?

RESPONDENT: Your criticism against Rajneesh seems to be valid in logical sense.

RICHARD: You say ‘seems to be’ ... is it or is it not? (I am presuming by ‘logical sense’ you mean ‘factually correct’).

RESPONDENT: But I know it is wrong existentially.

RICHARD: I would not wish to get into a ’tis/’tisn’t disputation ... could you instead detail where my words are incorrect? Then we can have a practical discussion, eh?

RESPONDENT: So I cannot help concluding that I cannot trust your statements about Actual Freedom.

RICHARD: Indeed not ... that would be silly. I thoroughly recommend finding out for oneself ... 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: Then one more question arises. What’s your hidden motivation? I am very curious.

RICHARD: An actual freedom for you ... in this life-time, as this body, here on earth.

This is my position: we are all fellow human beings who find ourselves here in the world as it was when we were born. We find war, murder, torture, rape, domestic violence and corruption to be endemic ... we notice that it is intrinsic to the human condition ... we set out to discover why this is so. We find sadness, loneliness, sorrow, grief, depression and suicide to be a global incidence ... and we gather that it is also inherent to the human condition ... and we want to know why. We report to each other as to the nature of our discoveries for we are all well-meaning and seek to find a way out of this mess that we have landed in. We are all living this particular life for the very first time, and we wish to make sense of it. My motivation was three-fold: to bring about peace-on-earth; to solve the mystery of life ... and to ensure peace and harmony between man and woman. My questioning of life, the universe and what it is to be a human being had all started in a war-torn country in June 1966 at age nineteen – when there was an identity inhabiting this body complete with a full suite of feelings – and a Buddhist monk killed himself in a most gruesome way. There was I, a callow youth dressed in a jungle-green uniform and with a loaded rifle in my hand, representing the secular way to peace. There was a fellow human being, dressed in religious robes dowsed with petrol and with a cigarette lighter in hand, representing the spiritual way to peace. I was aghast at what we were both doing ... and I sought to find a third alternative to being either ‘human’ or ‘divine’.

This was to be the turning point of my life, for up until then, I was a typical western youth, raised to believe in God, Queen and Country. Humanity’s inhumanity to humankind – society’s treatment of its subject citizens – was driven home to me, there and then, in a way that left me appalled, horrified, terrified and repulsed to the core of my being with a sick revulsion. I saw that no one knew what was going on and – most importantly – that no one was ‘in charge’ of the world. There was nobody to ‘save’ the human race ... all gods were but a figment of a feverish imagination. Out of a despairing desperation, that was collectively shared by my fellow humans, I saw and understood that I was as ‘guilty’ as any one else. For in this body – as is in everyone – was both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ ... it was that some people were better than others at controlling their ‘dark side’. However, in a war, there is no way anyone can consistently control any longer ... ‘evil’ ran rampant. I saw that animal instincts – what I now know to be fear and aggression and nurture and desire – ruled the world ... and that these were instincts one was born with.

This is why I am so insistent in what I write. After my experience in a war-zone I wished to do something constructive with my life; I wished to rid myself, personally, of the ‘human nature’ which all people say can not be changed. Thus started my search for freedom from the Human Condition ... and my attitude, all those years ago was this: I was only interested in changing myself fundamentally, radically, completely and utterly. Twenty six years later I found the third alternative ... but only when ‘I’ ceased to exist in ‘my’ entirety. There was no change or transformation big enough or grandiose enough to cure ‘me’ ... only extinction – extirpation, annihilation, expunction – ensures that the already always existing peace-on-earth will become apparent.

This is because this actual world is already perfect. You see, peace-on-earth is already here – here in this actual world – and no one needs to invent it. It is all a matter of entering into it; making it apparent; allowing it to emerge; watching it unfold ... or whatever description. Everyone is either rushing about trying to make an imitation peace ... or sitting back moaning and groaning about the inequity of it all. I did not devise, concoct or contrive this peace-on-earth ... it was already here ... as it always has been and always will be. I just happened to discover it, that is all ... and it being so perfect that I wished to inform my fellow human beings of its existence.

What they do with this information is their business.

March 30 1999

RESPONDENT: In the term of being logic, your statements are not inconsistency. But that a statement is logically consistent is one thing and that a statement is existentially true is another thing. So the point is whether I can trust your statements or not.

RICHARD: To ‘trust’ someone – anyone at all – is to invite betrayal ... I advise people not to believe, trust, hope or have faith and build a certitude ... I urge people to find out for themselves ... I am consistently urging not only the discarding of all beliefs, but to examine and discard the very action of believing itself ... personally, I never believed or trusted that it was possible ... on the contrary, I could no longer believe that it was not possible ... I stopped the activity of believing, period.

RESPONDENT: Then, one big question arises. This is your attitude to Rajneesh.

RICHARD: I am not attacking Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain per se ... it is the Altered State Of Consciousness called ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ that is the issue. I use quotes from any Guru or God-Man to demonstrate my point. I am doing a relentless exposé on all ‘Awakened Teachers’, on their ‘Holy Teachings’ ... and the ‘Sacred Source’ of their ‘Ancient Wisdom’ (that which the finger is pointing to).

RESPONDENT: From my understanding and experiences, your understanding is wrong.

RICHARD: I would not wish to get into a ’tis/’tisn’t disputation ... could you instead detail where my words are incorrect? Then we can have a practical discussion, eh?

RESPONDENT: Your criticism against Rajneesh seems to be valid in logical sense.

RICHARD: You say ‘seems to be’ ... is it or is it not? (I am presuming by ‘logical sense’ you mean ‘factually correct’).

RESPONDENT: But I know it is wrong existentially.

RICHARD: I would not wish to get into a ’tis/ ‘tisn’t disputation ... could you instead detail where my words are incorrect? Then we can have a practical discussion, eh?

RESPONDENT: When I was in ASC under the influence of Ecstasy, I was confused trying to sort out what had been going on. Then my friend said ‘BE HERE’ and hit the floor just in front of me.

RICHARD: Then your friend has hopelessly misunderstood what the sages having been saying for millennia ... the ‘be here’ of the god-men and gurus (and their ‘now’) is a metaphysical ‘here and now’ (a timeless and spaceless void) that has nothing to do with literally being here – now – in actual space and time. Indeed, Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain oft-times used the metaphysical word ‘herenow’ to distinguish it from the (physical) spatial and temporal location ... and it is anywhere but here as this place in infinite space and anywhere but now as this moment in eternal time. When the mystics say: ‘I am Timeless and Spaceless; Unborn and Undying; Birthless and Deathless’ and so on, what do you take it that they mean? Because, as this physical body has a limited life-span, they can only be referring to themselves as being a psychic entity receiving its post-mortem reward of immortality. Thus the reality of their psychic ‘being here’ is vastly different to the actuality of sensately being here.

RESPONDENT: And I got it with a belly laughter that the very searching itself is the hindrance of finding.

RICHARD: Yet if one does not seek one will never find; if one does not explore one will never uncover; if one does not investigate one will never discover that this moment is hanging in eternal time like this planet is hanging in infinite space. There is no beginning or end to the infinitude of this universe’s space and time, therefore there is no middle, no centre. Thus, here is nowhere in particular and now is nowhen specifically ... one is easily always here as it is already now. In apperceptive awareness – which is this flesh and blood body being conscious sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul – there is the direct experience of the immediate being the ultimate and the relative being the absolute.

RESPONDENT: After this small satori experience I happened to read Rajneesh’s book ‘Nirvana The Last Nightmare’. And I have understood he had the same experience and far more that I want to know.

RICHARD: Hmm ... could you detail just what you understood as it is of no avail to name a source without quoting it. I have not read that particular book myself and all I could find on the ‘Osho Web Site’ was this: [quote]: ‘Nirvana: The Last Nightmare’ (Only Available on Audio); Author: Osho; Publisher: Rebel Publishing House: ‘Why does Osho call the desire for nirvana, enlightenment, ‘the last nightmare’? Because, he says, all desire, all hope is the nightmare. Through Zen stories and responses to seekers’ questions, Osho speaks on the nature of desire, the disease of comparison, man’s compulsive need to ‘do’, macrobiotics, being creative with work, and the chronic state of schizophrenia inflicted upon mankind by the organised religions’.

RESPONDENT: This is my meaning to be disciple of him. So there is no believing nor trusting such as you defined.

RICHARD: Whoops-a-daisy ... it was you who told me (above) that you were questioning whether you could trust my statements or not: [Respondent]: ‘So the point is whether I can trust your statements or not’. [endquote]. When I look back through your and my correspondence I cannot see anywhere at all that I have defined you, personally, as believing or trusting Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain. Howsoever that may be, to be a true disciple, one has to be surrendered to the master ... and one cannot surrender totally if one does not believe in and trust the aforementioned master. This is such common knowledge to anyone with even the slightest notion about eastern spirituality that I wonder why you are making such a weak demurral. Methinks thou does protesteth too much ... just look at this next sentence of yours (immediately below).

RESPONDENT: I cannot help concluding that I cannot trust your statements about Actual Freedom.

RICHARD: Indeed not ... that would be silly. I thoroughly recommend finding out for oneself ... it is the most stimulating adventure of a lifetime to embark upon a voyage into one’s own psyche ... to seek and to find; to explore and uncover; to investigate and discover ... these actions are the very stuff of life!

RESPONDENT: Then one more question arises. What’s your hidden motivation? I am very curious.

RICHARD: An actual freedom for No. 14 ... in this life-time, as this body, here on earth ... this is because this actual world is already perfect ... peace-on-earth is already here ... I just happened to discover it, that is all ... and it being so perfect that I wished to inform my fellow human beings of its existence ... what they do with this information is their business.

RESPONDENT: I see. I keep staying in the list.

RICHARD: Good ... perhaps you could attend to the following points (then we can have a practical discussion):

• [Respondent]: ‘From my understanding and experiences, your understanding is wrong’.
• [Richard]: ‘I would not wish to get into a ’tis/’tisn’t disputation ... could you instead detail where my words are incorrect? Then we can have a practical discussion, eh?’
• [Respondent]: ‘Your criticism against Rajneesh seems to be valid in logical sense’.
• [Richard]: ‘You say ‘seems to be’ ... is it or is it not? (I am presuming by ‘logical sense’ you mean ‘factually correct’)’.
• [Respondent]: ‘But I know it is wrong existentially’.
• [Richard]: ‘I would not wish to get into a ’tis/’tisn’t disputation ... could you instead detail where my words are incorrect? Then we can have a practical discussion, eh?’.

I am only too happy to explore these issues more deeply so as to ascertain the implications and ramifications of an actual freedom from the Human Condition for you ... and your fellow human beings. I recall you writing that you ‘visited the ‘City of Peace’, Hiroshima’.

• [Respondent]: ‘When I walked around the Atomic Dome, I felt so much energy of peace. After the total disaster, which was the culmination of Man’s tendency of fear and fighting, Hiroshima has resurrected again ... I think we are now under the World War 3’.

Peace-on-earth is already always here – now – if you want it.

April 19 1999

RESPONDENT: In the term of being logic, your statements are not inconsistency. But that a statement is logically consistent is one thing and that a statement is existentially true is another thing. From my understanding and experiences, your understanding is wrong.

RICHARD: I would not wish to get into a ’tis/’tisn’t disputation ... could you instead detail where my words are incorrect? Then we can have a practical discussion, eh?

[You may insert your reply here].

*

RESPONDENT: Your criticism against Rajneesh seems to be valid in logical sense.

RICHARD: You say ‘seems to be’ ... is it or is it not? (I am presuming by ‘logical sense’ you mean ‘factually correct’).

[You may insert your reply here].

*

RESPONDENT: But I know it is wrong existentially.

RICHARD: I would not wish to get into a ’tis/’tisn’t disputation ... could you instead detail where my words are incorrect? Then we can have a practical discussion, eh?

[You may insert your reply here].

*

RESPONDENT: When I was in ASC under the influence of Ecstasy, I was confused trying to sort out what had been going on. Then my friend said ‘BE HERE’ and hit the floor just in front of me.

RICHARD: Then your friend has hopelessly misunderstood what the sages having been saying for millennia ... the ‘be here’ of the god-men and gurus (and their ‘now’) is a metaphysical ‘here and now’ (a timeless and spaceless void) that has nothing to do with literally being here – now – in actual space and time. Indeed, Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain oft-times used the metaphysical word ‘herenow’ to distinguish it from the (physical) spatial and temporal location ... and it is anywhere but here as this place in infinite space and anywhere but now as this moment in eternal time. When the mystics say: ‘I am Timeless and Spaceless; Unborn and Undying; Birthless and Deathless’ and so on, what do you take it that they mean? Because, as this physical body has a limited life-span, they can only be referring to themselves as being a psychic entity receiving its post-mortem reward of immortality. Thus the reality of their psychic ‘being here’ is vastly different to the actuality of sensately being here.

[You may insert your reply here].

*

RESPONDENT: And I got it with a belly laughter that the very searching itself is the hindrance of finding.

RICHARD: Yet if one does not seek one will never find; if one does not explore one will never uncover; if one does not investigate one will never discover.

[You may insert your reply here].

*

RESPONDENT: After this small satori experience I happened to read Rajneesh’s book ‘Nirvana The Last Nightmare’. And I have understood he had the same experience and far more that I want to know.

RICHARD: Hmm ... could you detail just what you ‘understood’ as it is of no avail to name a source without quoting it. I have not read that particular book myself.

RESPONDENT: A little bit long quotation from ‘Nirvana The Last Nightmare’ by Osho Rajneesh [quote]: ‘THERE are a thousand and one poisons, but nothing like idealism – it is the most poisonous of all poisons’.

RICHARD: Whilst not going so far as to say that it is ‘the most poisonous of all poisons’ I have no hesitation in saying that the actual is infinitely superior to the ideal any day ... given that ‘idealism’ means: ‘Existing only as an idea, confined to the imagination, not practical; the practice of performing or pursuing ideals; imaginary, visionary’.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Of course, the most subtle: it kills you, but kills you in such a way that you never become aware of it. It kills you with a style. The ways of idealism are very cunning. Rarely a person becomes aware that he has been committing suicide through it. Once you become aware, you become religious’.

RICHARD: May I ask? Have you become aware that idealism was killing you? If so, are you now religious? Because you did say:

• [Respondent]: ‘After this small satori experience I happened to read Rajneesh’s book ‘Nirvana The Last Nightmare’. And I have understood he had the same experience and far more that I want to know. This is my meaning to be disciple of him’.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Religion is not any ideology. Religion does not believe in any ideals. Religion is to become aware of the impossibility of idealism – of all idealism. Religion is to live here and now, and idealism goes on conditioning your mind to live somewhere else’.

RICHARD: By clearly defining religion as ‘to live here and now’ then his ‘here and now’ is a metaphysical ‘here and now’ (a timeless and spaceless void) and has nothing to do with the secular ‘here’ – as in walking and talking, eating and drinking; urinating and defecating – and the secular ‘now’ as in the clock marking the passage of the sun through the sky ... would you not agree?

Secondly, as a secular consciousness is happening at this place in material space and at this moment in phenomenal time as a tangible flesh and blood body only, then where do you consider a religious person’s consciousness resides? Remember, Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain repeatedly said: ‘I am not the body’ ... and the body is most definitely here in physical space and now in observable time. Could you throw some light upon this matter for me?

Interestingly enough, Mr. Gotama the Sakyan said: ‘The Tathagata (...) is the essence which is the reality of matter, but he is not matter (...) he is neither here, nor there, nor anywhere else’. Is it not strange that he would clearly say that he is ‘not here’? How about this one: ‘The Tathagata has neither whence nor whither, and therefore He is called ‘Tathagata’ . Is it not curious that he is ‘not whence or wither’ because a flesh and blood body has certainly come and gone? And last, but not least, Mr. Gotama the Sakyan said: ‘Since I became Buddha, there have passed infinite, boundless, hundreds, thousands, millions, trillions, myriads of eons’ . As the Buddhists text place him circa 500 BCE (2,500 years ago) would you say that he comprehends time, as measured by the physical phenomenon of day and night, as we mere mortals do ... or is he highly confused?

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘And only the now exists. There is no other way to live. The only way is to be here. You cannot be there. The tomorrow is non-existent, it never comes, and idealism believes in the tomorrow. It sacrifices the today at the altar of the tomorrow. It goes on saying to you, ‘Do something – improve yourself. Do something – change yourself. Do something – become perfect’. It appeals to the ego. Idealism belongs to the world of the ego. It appeals to the ego that you can be more perfect than you are; in fact you should be more perfect than you are’.

RICHARD: I am curious ... have you stopped idealising about becoming perfect? If so, how do you experience yourself living life each moment again? Did his advice work? Would you describe your experience of yourself as an ever-present perfection ... as a result of applying this ‘do nothing about being malicious and sorrowful’ approach? Or have you settled for second-best – having not done anything about eliminating malice and sorrow – thereby participating, as per your default settings, in the perpetuation of all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides?

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘But each moment is perfect, and it cannot be more perfect than it is. To understand this is the beginning of a new life, is the beginning of life’.

RICHARD: Of course, in order to know that this understanding is ‘the beginning of a new life’ one must be comparing it with an old life that has ended ... would you not agree? Otherwise the words ‘the beginning of a new life’ – having no context – are meaningless. Yet (further down this page) Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain bags comparing and comparison like all get-out. Vis: [Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain]: ‘You say, ‘How can I be perfect? I still have anger in me. How can I be perfect? I still have sex in me. How can I be perfect? I still have violence in me. How can I be perfect?’ You are comparing. Comparison is the disease, the very illness’. A strange business, non? Perhaps you might explain for me ... seeing that you understand Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain experientially and say that I do not. Vis: [Respondent]: ‘One big question arises. This is your attitude to Rajneesh. This is your understanding about Rajneesh. From my understanding and experiences, your understanding is wrong (...) I know it is wrong existentially’. [endquote].

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘To miss this is to commit suicide’.

RICHARD: As approximately 6,000,000 people have ‘missed this’ – and they are still walking and talking, eating and drinking; urinating and defecating – he is either outrageously wrong in his observation that they are committing suicide or is referring to missing out on the immortality that is bestowed upon one by realising the ‘Deathless State’ (as epitomised in some scriptural adages: [Buddhism]: ‘There is, monks, an unborn, a not-become, a not-made, a not-compounded (...) therefore there is an escape from the born, the become, the made, the compounded’. [Christianity]: ‘For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? (...) he that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal’. May I ask? Is this your aim? Because you did say: [Respondent]: ‘After this small satori experience I happened to read Rajneesh’s book ‘Nirvana The Last Nightmare’. And I have understood he had the same experience and far more that I want to know. This is my meaning to be disciple of him’. [endquote].

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Then you go on destroying this moment for the moment which never comes. Then you go on destroying this life for some life which exists nowhere. You go on destroying this world for some other world – some paradise, some moksha, some nirvana’.

RICHARD: Hmm ... a trifle disingenuous, do you not think? The whole aim of the spiritual search is to attain Moksha, Nirvana and so on ... is it not? Indeed, Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s very last words drive this point home succinctly. Vis.: ‘The Blessed One addressed the Bhikkhus, saying: ‘Behold now, Bhikkhus, I exhort you: All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness!’ May I ask? Was not Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain’s aim, prior to 1952, to strive for ‘some paradise, some moksha, some nirvana’? I am asking you this because you did say: [Respondent]: ‘From my understanding and experiences, your understanding is wrong. Your criticism against Rajneesh seems to be valid in logical sense. But I know it is wrong existentially’. [endquote].

I do so look forward to your considered response on this vital matter.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘To sacrifice the present for the future is to be trapped into death’.

RICHARD: Here, once again, is this reference to achieving the ‘Deathless State’ via living in the religious ‘here and now’ ... because, as everybody now living is going to physically die anyway, they are already ‘trapped into death’ . Unless you become enlightened, of course, as Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain did ... then you can have inscribed on your tombstone: ‘Never Born, Never Died, Only Visited This Planet’. Interestingly enough, Buddhism reports that ‘The Tathagata is not born, does not die’ . May I ask? Is to not ‘be trapped in death’ your aim? Because you did say: [Respondent]: ‘After this small satori experience I happened to read Rajneesh’s book ‘Nirvana The Last Nightmare’. And I have understood he had the same experience and far more that I want to know. This is my meaning to be disciple of him’. [endquote].

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘To live the moment, to live it totally and freely, is to delight in existence, is to celebrate it. And that is the only way of being; there is no other way. Idealism has put you on a wrong track. The first thing to be understood: you ARE perfect’.

RICHARD: Anyone who understands that ‘you ARE perfect’, is sucked in badly ... being subject to malice and sorrow was never ‘my’ idea of being perfect all those years ago. May I ask? Do you understand that ‘you ARE perfect’? Because you did say: [Respondent]: ‘Your describing Actual Freedom seems far better than my present state. So it seems to me attractive. But because I don’t know your so called Actual Freedom, I can not evaluate your statements from my experience. Your criticism against Rajneesh seems to be valid in logical sense. But I know it is wrong existentially. So I cannot help concluding that I cannot trust your statements about Actual Freedom’. [endquote].

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘If somebody says to you that you have to become perfect, he is the enemy – beware of him! Escape from him as soon as possible. Don’t let him poison your being. Don’t let him destroy you. He may have been destroyed by others; now he is doing the same to you’.

RICHARD: Golly gosh ... you had better stop communicating with me right-smartly, eh? You must not let me ‘poison your being’ ... you had better escape from me before I ‘destroy you’.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘He himself may be a victim. Have compassion on him, but don’t allow him to destroy you. He has not lived his life. He has only hoped; he has not lived. He has only dreamed; he has not lived. He has only prepared, planned, he has not lived’.

RICHARD: Please send your compassion to: P.O. Box 1404, Byron Bay, 2481 [now changed], Australia because, according to Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain, I apparently need it ... which I find strange as I experience perfection each moment again, twenty four hours a day, three hundred and sixty five days of the year.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘The idealist mind goes on preparing for something that never happens. It is a nightmare. It goes on preparing and preparing – infinite preparations for a journey that never starts. It goes on planning in a thousand and one ways – subtle, cunning, clever – but the whole thing is pointless, because each moment it is denying life. Life is knocking at your doors each moment and you are denying it, because you say you are preparing for it. You say, ‘How can I receive the guest right now? I am not ready’. By and by you become so accustomed to preparing that preparation becomes your life. You have missed. This type of mind is constantly missing, and the more it misses, the more it plans desperately – to go somewhere, to reach somewhere, to attain something, to be somebody. And the misery of all miseries is that it is not going to happen. Life was already available. You need not prepare for it’.

RICHARD: If, as Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain says ‘you need not prepare for it’ then I guess that all one has to do is sit around in a deck-chair on the patio sipping a drink, eh? Seeing that ‘you ARE perfect’ then there is nothing that one needs to do, apparently ... what joy it must be being a sannyasin!

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘You are already entitled to enjoy it. By just being alive, you are already ready. Because you breathe, you are already capable. Because you can be conscious, you are already ready. Nothing is lacking. Once you take the first wrong step, the whole journey goes wrong. The first step defines and decides your whole life. Never try to be perfect, otherwise you will be caught in a dead routine – preparing and preparing’.

RICHARD: Indeed ... given that ‘you ARE perfect’ it would be silly to try to be perfect ... would you not agree?

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘You can watch yourself, you can watch others. People who have become addicted with idealism live a life of ritual, of empty gestures. They are always waiting: some great thing is going to happen. It never happens of course, because it cannot happen that way. It is happening right now, here, and their eyes are fixed somewhere there, far away. It is happening at close quarters. It is already happening near your heart. Where your heart is beating, it is already happening’.

RICHARD: Could you clarify for me just what this ‘it’ that is already happening ‘near your heart’ is? Could it be ... god?

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘And they are looking at the sky. So they make a life of routine, dead routine. They move like dead corpses – waiting and waiting and waiting. And every day they know death is coming near: they become more and more desperate’.

RICHARD: Ahh ... here is reference to that ‘death’ business again. And ‘desperate’ about it this time ... after all, if ‘it’ does not happen one will have to be reborn in another body and have to do this business called being alive all over again. Otherwise, why be desperate about death ... given that death is the end, finish. Oblivion.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Their whole life will turn into a mechanical routine. Really if you want to live, you have to be spontaneous. Life is spontaneous. Be available to this moment. Allow this moment to lead you. Don’t plan for it. Otherwise you will live in empty gestures, obsessed with a dead routine, just thinking as if ... if you plan your life completely, some day or other the great happening is going to result. You think life is a result? Life is not a result; it is already there. It is a grace. Nothing is to be done to attain to it’.

RICHARD: Well, well, well ... the word ‘grace’ means unmerited divine assistance given to a human being for their regeneration or sanctification – it is a virtue coming from a god – resulting in a state of sanctification. May I ask? Is this the ‘it’ that is happening ‘near your heart’? As grace is the spontaneous gift of the divine favour in the salvation of sinners – and the divine influence operating in humans for their regeneration – then grace requires belief in an imaginary god. No wonder that sannyasins all around the world are not becoming enlightened by the thousands ... their belief, faith and trust are not strong enough to manifest the delusion that they too are god like Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain.

Whereas an actual freedom is all one’s own doing – it is in your own hands – and nobody can set you actually free but yourself.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘What have you done to be born? What have you done so that you can breathe? What have you done so that you can be conscious? What have you done so that you can fall in love? It has happened. It is a sheer grace, a gift. Yes, let me tell you – life is a gift. Don’t think that it is going to be a result. Once you think it is going to be a result, it is never going to be there at all’.

RICHARD: I begin to see more clearly now why you are not doing anything to rid yourself of malice and sorrow ... Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain says if you do something then ‘it’ is never going to ‘be there at all’. Do nothing! God is going to do all the doing for you ... it is called grace.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Then there are a few people who will go on waiting and waiting, and they will die. Almost ninety-nine percent of people die this way. Their whole life has been a sheer wastage’.

RICHARD: Yea verily ... god’s grace cannot do its trick because all these people are waiting. A peculiar business, is it not, that merely by waiting you can put a stop to grace?

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘One percent of people, sometimes, by chance, accident, become aware that they are wasting their life. Then their whole training and conditioning takes a subtle revenge. The day that they become aware they have been waiting for something which is not waiting for them, which is not going to happen, they start saying that life is meaningless. First they were waiting for some meaning; now, because that meaning is not happening, they say life is meaningless. First they were waiting for some purpose; now, because it is not happening, they say life is purposeless. ‘Ask Jean-Paul Sartre. He says, ‘Man is a useless passion’. It does not say anything about man. It does not say anything about life. It does not say anything about existence. It simply says that Sartre has missed. It simply says that he was waiting for some utilitarian end to be fulfilled in life and now he has become aware that it is not going to be fulfilled. He was waiting for some meaning. Now, seeing it, realising it – that that meaning is not going to be – he says life is meaningless. Life is neither. It is neither meaningful nor is it meaningless’.

RICHARD: Speaking personally, I experience life as simply bursting with meaning. I am living in peace and tranquillity; a meaningful peace and tranquillity. Life is intrinsically purposeful, the reason for existence lies openly all around. Being this very air I live in, I am constantly aware of it as I breathe it in and out; I see it, I hear it, I taste it, I smell it, I touch it, all of the time. It never goes away ... nor has it ever been away. ‘I’ was standing in the way of meaning being apparent.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘If really there is no meaning, how can life be meaningless?’

RICHARD: How? Well, given that ‘if really there is no meaning’ for him then ... um ... is it that ‘life be meaningless’ because there is no meaning for him, perchance?

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘If there is no purpose, how can life be purposeless?’

RICHARD: How? Well, given that ‘if really there is no purpose’ for him then ... um ... is it that ‘life be purposeless’ because there is no purpose for him, perchance?

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘For life to be purposeless there must be a purpose’.

RICHARD: Not so ... for life to be purposeless there must be no purpose.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘For life to be meaningless, for even the word ‘meaningless’ to be meaningful, there must be a meaning’.

RICHARD: Not so ... for life to be meaningless there must be no meaning. And for the word ‘meaningless’ to be meaningful there must be no meaning.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Life is neither. It simply is there in sheer beauty, with no purpose’.

RICHARD: Do you not find it a bit odd that he would say that life is ‘there’ ... rather than ‘here’? After all, he did say (above) that ‘The only way is to be here. You cannot be there’.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Look at the trees. Look at the sunlight. Just ... it is. What is the purpose of the sun rising every day in the morning?’

RICHARD: Just a guess, mind you, but maybe it has something to do with the sun’s heat and light energy sustaining carbon-based life-forms and all that. Seems like a quite reasonable purpose to me ... without the sun there would be no carbon-based life forms at all.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘What is the purpose of trees blossoming?’

RICHARD: Just a guess, mind you, but maybe it has something to do with the bees being attracted and thus fertilising the reproductive organs of the blossom with the pollen that sticks to their rear legs ... procreation and all that. Seems like quite a reasonable purpose to me ... without plant-life procreating all sentient beings would cease to exist.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘What is the purpose of birds singing?’

RICHARD: Just a guess, mind you, but maybe it has something to do with communication – on a rudimentary animal level – between the birds.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘No purpose. I don’t say purposelessness; I simply say no purpose. It is’.

RICHARD: This repetition of academic philosophic sophistry becomes silly ... do you not agree? Either there is purpose ... or there is not. Either there is purposelessness ... or there is not. As the word ‘purposelessness’ means ‘lack of purpose’ then it is the same thing as saying ‘no purpose’.

This form of wanking is called tautology.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Drop your search for meaning, because that search either will destroy your whole life and you will live in misery, or, one day if you become aware, then another anguish will surround you – the anguish of meaninglessness’.

RICHARD: According to his logic (above) he cannot say ‘meaninglessness’ ... just ‘no meaning’ . Therefore this translates as ‘the anguish of no meaning’ ... which amounts to the same thing.

Sophistry means being clever with words ... an occupational habit amongst philosophy professors.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Says Sartre, ‘Life is nauseating’. He must have been expecting too much. Now the fulfilment is receding further away and he feels a rumbling in the stomach, a nausea, an illness, a sea-sickness. He was expecting too much’.

RICHARD: Speaking personally, I expected everything – to be perfection personified – and succeeded ... therefore he did not ‘expect too much’ at all. He expected too little ... he set his sights way too small. Expect the best.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Now all expectations are turning into frustrations and life has become nauseating. It is not. Life has nothing to do with nausea, because it has nothing to do with your expectations. Once you get out of this trap of idealism, you are available to life and life is available to you’.

RICHARD: As Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain interchanged the word ‘life’ with ‘existence’ and ‘the universe’ and ‘god’ then this last sentence reads: ‘Once you get out of this trap of idealism, you are available to god and god is available to you’. In other words: ‘surrender to god’ and, as Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain was god, then it means: ‘surrender to Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain’.

Indeed, he oft-times said: ‘I am here for you; make yourself available to me’.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Somewhere Friedrich Nietzsche has said, ‘Where can I feel at home? Where?’ He must be seeking a womb, a home, a mother. He must have been a little childish. He must have been stuck somewhere in his growth. Why are you seeking a home? Life is not a home, but it is not homelessness either. It is. Simply it is. Enjoy it. Celebrate it. It is not going to become a home for you, but it is not homelessness either. The very search for a home makes life look as if it is homelessness’.

RICHARD: Maybe he was seeking a home because he listened to discourses from Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain? For example:

• [Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain]: ‘Just silently listen to your own heart and go on following it, you will reach the space where you can feel at home; where suddenly you realise who you are, where suddenly you feel a synchronicity with the whole existence’. (Source: Osho: The Invitation, Chapter 12).
• [Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain]: ‘There is only one miracle: the miracle of coming home. And that is possible, and I am ready to bless you and help you’. (Source: Osho: Zen: The Special Transmission, Chapter 10).

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Drop the search. The very search throws you away from life. You go on missing the present moment. So you can either wait – a futile waiting; or you can become angry – a futile anger’.

RICHARD: Or ... maybe you can do something about investigating the source of malice and sorrow.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘If you go on waiting, your life will be obsessed with routine. You will try to become an automaton. Let me tell you an anecdote: ‘Mr. Smith had killed his wife, and his entire defence was based on temporary insanity. He was a witness on his own behalf and was asked by his lawyer to describe the crime in his own words. ‘Your Honour’, he began, ‘I am a quiet, peaceful man of systematic habits, who virtually never bothers anybody. I get up at seven every morning, have breakfast at half-past seven, punch in at work at nine, leave work at five, come home at six, find supper on the table, eat it, read, watch TV, bed. Until the day in question ...’ Here he paused to breathe passionately. His lawyer said gently. ‘Go on. What happened on the day in question?’ ‘On the day in question’, said Smith, ‘I woke at seven, had breakfast at seven-thirty, began work at nine, left at five and came home at six. There was no supper on the table and no sign of my wife. I searched through the house and found her in the bedroom in bed with a strange man. So I killed her’. What were your emotions at the time you killed her?’ asked the lawyer, anxious to get the point on the record. ‘I was in a white-hot fury’, said the defendant, ‘mad with rage, simply out of my mind, and unable to control myself’. He turned to the jury and, pounding the arm of the witness chair, cried out, ‘Gentlemen, when I come home at six o’clock, supper has to be on the table!’’ That was his reason for killing his wife – not that she was in bed with a strange man. ‘Supper has to be on the table exactly at six o’clock!’

RICHARD: May I pass on this one? It is so trite it is not worth responding to.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Are you aware that you are also more or less obsessed with a dead routine? Why are people so obsessed with a dead routine? They are so obsessed with a dead routine because if the chain of their routine is broken, suddenly, underneath they see a futile life, a useless life, a meaningless life. Somehow they are trying to give it a feeling of meaning, an aroma of meaning. Somehow they are trying to forget that they are living uselessly, that they are not living at all. They make a dead routine; they follow it. Just by following it like a mechanism, they have a feeling that everything is going perfectly well’.

RICHARD: I have yet to meet someone who thinks that everything is ‘going perfectly well’ by following a dead routine ... they usually say that ‘there must be more to life than this’ ... or something similar.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘They get up exactly at the right time, they go to the office, they come home, they read the newspaper, they watch the TV, they take their food, they go to sleep – everything is going as it should go. A dead routine gives the feeling that everything is perfectly right’.

RICHARD: I have yet to meet someone who thinks that everything is ‘perfectly right’ by following a dead routine ... they usually say that ‘there must be more to life than this’ ... or something similar.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Underneath, everything is in chaos. They are missing life. Idealism, to me, means living for some ideal to be fulfilled in the future. Future is not part of time; it is only part of desire. Ordinarily you think that past, present and future are divisions of time. You are wrong. They are not divisions of time. Time is only present, always present, never otherwise. Past is just in the memory, in the mind. It is not part of time; it is part of the mind. And future is also part of the mind – the desire. Past, the memory; future, the desire. And between the two is the very small moment, the atomic moment of time which is present, which is always present. Time comes always as now. If you are missing the now, you are committing suicide’.

RICHARD: Once again this ‘committing suicide’ warning ... missing out on eternal life looms large in this discourse, I see.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Maybe it is slow, that’s why you are not aware. You are postponing life for some ideal? Then your life will become a dead routine, futile. You are simply wasting a great opportunity – but wasting for beautiful words. Somebody is trying to become perfect. Somebody is trying to become a sage. Somebody is trying to become a mahatma. Somebody is trying to become something else’.

RICHARD: Yet if one does not seek one will never find; if one does not explore one will never uncover; if one does not investigate one will never discover.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Be – and forget becoming. Becoming is the nightmare. Relax. You are perfect. Life as it is, is perfect each moment of it’.

RICHARD: Do you not consider that there is more to this business than merely relaxing? A human being – nursing malice and sorrow to their bosom – is not perfect ... that this is so obvious is evidenced by all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide that is endemic to all peoples of all cultures and all times.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Very difficult to accept it, because you have been conditioned for centuries. You have been given ideals and you go on comparing with ideals. You say, ‘How can I be perfect? – I still have anger in me. How can I be perfect? – I still have sex in me. How can I be perfect? – I still have violence in me. How can I be perfect?’ You are comparing. Comparison is the disease, the very illness’.

RICHARD: Methinks it is anger, violence and so on that is the disease, the illness ... not comparison. Without comparison there would be no basis for appraisal and decision-making.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘You are you. If anger is there, what can you do? You have to accept it’.

RICHARD: For the first thirty four years of my life, I too had this attitude ... then I stopped ‘accepting it’ and changed myself radically, completely, totally and utterly. As a result, there is no anger whatsoever in me ... and has not been for years and tears.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘If you try first to be beyond anger and then live, you will never live. Listen to me. Accept the anger and live. And I tell you – by living, the anger will disappear’.

RICHARD: Yet Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain has been observed to be angry from time-to-time ... so what is his advice worth?

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Transformation happens through living, not through preparations. The more you prepare, the more you become hung-up in the head. Relax. Enjoy. But the ego goes on like a hard taskmaster. It goes on saying, ‘Why are you wasting your time in small things, trivia? Become a great man! Become a Buddha, become a Mahavira, become a Christ!’

RICHARD: Aye ... if those peoples (Mr. Gotama the Sakyan, Mr. Mahavira, Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene) had never had the aim of becoming ‘a great man’ they never would have been ‘a great man’ . If they had taken Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain’s advice and relaxed instead ... then there would be no Buddhism, no Christianity and no Jainism today.

In hindsight, maybe they should have taken his advice, eh?

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Christ was never trying to become a Christ, that’s why he was a Christ. He simply accepted himself – through that acceptance he flowered’.

RICHARD: This is simply a fabrication ... the Christian Scriptures make no mention of this at all.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Mahavira was not trying to become somebody else. He had no ideals. He simply lived his life, he simply did his thing, and life happened to him’.

RICHARD: This is simply a fabrication ... the Jain Scriptures make no mention of this at all.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘It always happens. It is always happening. It is not that life is not happening; it is that you are missing it. It is a simple fact. I am not talking philosophy. It is a simple statement of a fact. Right now look! What are you missing? Nobody is missing anything’.

RICHARD: Not so ... at last count there were 6,000,000 people missing out on perfection.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘I was reading one of Emerson’s essays. He says, ‘Man is timid and apologetic. He is no longer upright. He dares not say ‘I am’. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones’.

RICHARD: This is only a guess, mind you ... but it could be because roses cannot feel or think or read or write or talk. Consequently they wilt and die unless enough rain happens to fall ... unlike human beings who can think and reflect and plan for such a contingency.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘They are for what they are. They exist with god today.’

RICHARD: As god is a human invention born of the human psyche – and roses do not have a psyche – then this is patently incorrect.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘ Let this be the very foundation of your life: ‘They exist with god today’.

RICHARD: If one bases one’s life on a lie then one will be living a lie.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘They don’t refer to the former roses. They don’t compare with better roses’.

RICHARD: This is only a guess, mind you ... but it could be because roses cannot feel or think or read or write or talk. Consequently they wilt and die unless enough rain happens to fall ... unlike human beings who can think and reflect and plan for such a contingency.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘They simply are themselves and they exist with god today. ‘There is no time to them’.

RICHARD: As the sun moves through the sky and day becomes night for all carbon-based life-forms then this is patently incorrect. Roses exist only in time and space.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘There is simply the rose. It is perfect in every moment of its existence’.

RICHARD: This is so silly ... only sentient beings have feelings and only humans have thoughts. A rose has no sorrow or malice whatsoever ... nor love and compassion, either.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Perfection is not a goal; it is already there’.

RICHARD: Do you not find it a bit odd that he would say that perfection is ‘there’ ... rather than ‘here’? After all, he did say (further above) that ‘the only way is to be here. You cannot be there’.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘You are born perfect’.

RICHARD: This is a variation on the ‘Tabular Rasa’ theory so beloved of many philosophers down through the ages. It is false, however, as even a cursory study of genetic inheritance quickly demonstrates.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Only perfection happens in this existence, nothing else’.

RICHARD: Then what about all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide? I would not call that perfect ... would you?

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Out of god, how can imperfection happen? Only perfection is possible’.

RICHARD: This is so puerile it is not even risible.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘The idea that you have to be perfect makes you imperfect in the present, because the comparison arises’.

RICHARD: May I ask? How does this gobbledegook pass for wisdom?

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘You go on comparing yourself with others. Somebody is more beautiful. Somebody is more intelligent. Somebody is more moral. Somebody is more sincere. Somebody is more healthy. Somebody is stronger. And you are crippled in these comparisons; such a dead weight falls on your head that you cannot move. But you have forgotten one thing – that you are you and you cannot be anybody else. Once you accept the fact that you are you and whatsoever you do you are not going to be anybody else, you are going to remain yourself ... once you accept it, a transfiguration happens’.

RICHARD: In 1980 I had a PCE – wherein I experienced life as perfection personified – that lasted for four hours. Then I reverted to normal. If I had not compared the one with the other I would still be normal today.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘You start living. Then you don’t bother about the future. Then you are not in the rat-race of being somebody else. Then you are no more comparative, no more competitive. Then you also become a rose under the window. You exist with god today’.

RICHARD: As god is a human invention born of the human psyche – and roses do not have a psyche – then they could not possibly ‘live with god’ . And as a rose cannot feel or think or read or write or talk there is, of course, no way they can compare ... but, like all plants, they do compete for living space.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘If you are not existing with god today, you will be in a nightmare’.

RICHARD: Speaking personally, I am not ‘existing with god today’ ... yet there is a total absence of nightmare.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Buddha realised this. He was the first man to realise it in its absoluteness. He dropped all ideals’.

RICHARD: Not so. He did not drop the ideal of the ‘Deathless State’ – just as one example – because when he physically died he fondly thought that he was going into ‘Parinirvana’ (now there is an ideal if there ever was).

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘People would come to him and ask, ‘Is there god?’ and he would remain silent.

RICHARD: This stance is sometimes known as being agnostic ... and the people I have met personally, over many years that I have discussed these matters, who embrace this position have invariably been firmly convinced that this approach is the intelligent approach. Mostly they have been academics ... it is a variation on that hoary adage: ‘He who says he does not know, really knows’. I guess it makes them feel intellectually comfortable.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Not that there is no god, but once he says there is, a desire arises in you to achieve, to know, to be – and you are on the wrong track again’.

RICHARD: Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain affirms the existence of god quite a bit in this discourse, I have noticed.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Buddha remained silent. He would not say anything about god. People would ask, ‘Okay, if god is not there, it is nothing to be worried about. Is there a soul inside?’ Buddha would keep silent, because once he says, ‘Yes, there is a soul’, then you are after it’.

RICHARD: As Mr. Gotama the Sakyan espoused reincarnation, it is quite clear, to anyone discerning enough to think for themselves, that he believed in a soul (by whatever name).

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘You have become such addicted chasers of shadows that any word, any hint will do, and you are on the track, running. Chasing has become your life. Chase something. Money, moksha – it makes no difference, but chase. Power, prestige, meditation – it makes no difference, but chase’.

RICHARD: Ah well ... he could be right, you know. There have only been 0.0000001 of the population enlightened ... all the other billions must have been going wrong somewhere. You may be well on your way to becoming enlightened with this ‘do nothing’ about eliminating malice and sorrow approach of yours. After all, one does not become enlightened by eliminating sorrow and malice ... one sublimates them by enhancing their antidotes. That is: without malice and sorrow there can be no love and compassion ... and love and compassion is what is ‘happening at close quarters’. Love and compassion is what is ‘already happening near your heart’.

Indeed, it is ‘where your heart is beating’ that love and compassion is ‘what is already happening’. Thus, all you have to do is to fondly imagine that this product of the tender side of the instinctual passions is god’s grace and be totally available and ... Bingo! You are no longer ‘becoming’ but are ‘being’ ... being love ... being compassion ... being god.

Yet ... is it fair to say that this discourse could be summed up as teaching you to simply stop idealising, stop waiting and just relax ... after all: you ARE perfect, eh?

If so, would you say that many sannyasins have adopted this approach?