Actual Freedom – The Actual Freedom Mailing List Correspondence

April 27 2005

RESPONDENT: I think the text [on The Actual Freedom Trust web site] is very small, and the size can’t be changed by readers. Please remove the size setting in html, so grandpa also can read it.

RICHARD: Would it not be far simpler to suggest to Grandpa he use reading glasses (such as I do), or even alter the DPI setting on his computer to a larger size, than having to get others to make changes so as to suit him?

It is so much easier changing oneself than trying to change other people.

April 27 2005

RESPONDENT: A relationship without love seems so empty, why be together if there is no love?

RICHARD: As your question – ‘why be together if there is no love’ – is predicated upon both a surmise (being together without love seems so empty) and its implied assumption (being together with love will be so full) it would surely be to your advantage to find out, before formulating a query out of it, whether either that surmisal or its implied assumption have any basis in fact.

Be that as it may ... here is a radical notion: were there to be no emptiness in the first place there would not be any need for love to (assumedly) make being together so full.

RESPONDENT: Why stay committed to one person?

RICHARD: As your follow-up query, about steadfastness in pairing with only one mate, stems from a question based upon a presupposed emptiness, needing love to make it so full, it is a forgone conclusion that it would be rather pointless to stay committed to being together with one person where there is no love (not that polygamy, also without love, would make one iota of difference to such emptiness, though).

Howsoever, were there not any need for love, to (assumedly) make being together so full, then staying committed to one person would take on a whole new light.

RESPONDENT: If you are unconditional happy and pleased, why hold on to something?

RICHARD: As to correlate a commitment to being together monogamously with holding on to something is to attribute a clinging onto, a grasping for, or an attachment to that, it would surely be to your advantage to find out, before formulating a query out of it, whether your attribution has any basis in fact.

For it certainly it stands to reason, if nothing else, that were there to be unconditional happiness and pleasaunce there could not be an attachment to conditional happiness and pleasaunce (as in there being nothing essential for salubrity in the committed monogamous association to hold on to).

RESPONDENT: A comparison between a relationship with love and a relationship with ‘actual freedom’, would be appreciated.

RICHARD: Okay ... first and foremost I am assuming you mean the word in a way more or less similar to this:

• ‘relationship: a connection, an association, spec. an emotional (esp. sexual) association between two people’ (Oxford Dictionary).

As a relationship is *specifically* described as being an emotional association between two people – as in an affective connection, union, bond (as in ‘the bonds of friendship’) or tie (as in ‘family ties’) – it confuses the issue somewhat to call being together monogamously with another, when actually free from the human condition, ‘a relationship’ ... indeed, in the first edition of ‘Richard’s Journal’, where I used that very word (albeit as a modern-day substitute for the word ‘marriage’), it caused enough confusion for some readers as to occasion my replacement of it with the term ‘an association’ when preparing the second edition.

Having said all that ... there actually is no comparison between a relationship (either with or without love) and an association where there is an actual freedom from the human condition because the former, being within the human condition, is essentially an association with another identity whereas the latter is an association with another flesh and blood body.

The need for a relationship with love is an urge for an affectuous connection based upon separation ... an identity is alone and/or lonely and longs for the union that is evidenced in a loving relationship. When identity in toto (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul/spirit) become extinct there is no need – and no capacity – for such unity as there is no separation: the expression ‘life is a movement in relationship’ applies only to a psychological and/or psychic entity who wants the feeling of oneness – a synthetic intimacy per favour the bridge of love – which manifests the deception that separation has ended.

And if human relationship does not produce the desired result, then one will project a god or a goddess – a ‘super-friend’ not dissimilar to the imaginary playmates of childhood – to love and be loved by.

The ridiculous part in all this is that we are fellow human beings anyway (like species recognise like species) and to seek to impose relationship (either with or without love) over the top of fellowship is, as someone once said in another context, like painting red ink on a red rose ... a garish redundancy.

RESPONDENT: I guess the most common and accepted reason why people commit to each other is because they feel attraction to the person and want to give himself/herself to the other person, what reason if you are ‘free’?

RICHARD: Quite simply: it is both a delight and a privilege being together.

To explain: to be with/live with the one person who, out of over 3.0+ billion such peoples, wants to spend their most irreplaceable commodity (their time) being with me/living with me, twenty four hours a day/seven days a week, for the remainder of their life is something special as it is, so to speak, putting one’s money where one’s mouth is big time (hence ‘privilege’) ... and the delight is, of course, in the day-to-day enjoyment and appreciation of being with/living with such a person.

Ain’t life grand!

August 04 2005

RESPONDENT: As I know nobody has become actual free by using this method?

RICHARD: The reason why this flesh and blood body is actually free from the human condition is because of the identity in residence all those years ago (1981-1992) utilising the approach ‘he’ devised – a course of action which has become known as the actualism method – to full effect.

RESPONDENT: Not even the inventor used the method of examining and questioning.

RICHARD: I would suggest obtaining your information from a reputable source – www.actualfreedom.com.au – and not from what some malcontent daubed on a lavatory wall.

RESPONDENT: To me it seems contradicting to use (and believe) thought to stop believing in thoughts.

RICHARD: Put simplistically (for maximum effect): the actualism method is about using thought to examine feelings.