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Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’ with Respondent No. 33
RESPONDENT: At the moment of pure fear (that is just a label) there is something indescribable. RICHARD: It is not ‘indescribable’ at all ... it is the adrenaline coursing through your veins; the heart pumping furiously; the palms sweaty; the face blanched white; knuckles gripped; body tensed and so on and so on (leading to ‘freeze’ or ‘fight’ or ‘flight’). Of course it can be described ... and in nuances ranging from disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension through to anxiety, fear, terror, horror, panic and dread. RESPONDENT: In pure fear, there is only fear. Whatever you write above is after-the-fact. RICHARD: It is not ‘after-the-fact’ at all, it is what is happening at that very moment. If there is not the feeling of fear happening, (and the Oxford Dictionary describes this feeling as ‘the instance of a painful emotion caused by the sense of impending danger’) then it is not fear but something else. And this feeling of fear has characteristics that peoples who are interested in communicating honestly with each other can relate to. Vis: adrenaline coursing through one’s veins; the heart pumping furiously; the palms sweaty; the face blanched white; knuckles gripped; body tensed and so on and so on (leading to ‘freeze’ or ‘fight’ or ‘flight’). And such genuinely communicating peoples can describe it in nuances ranging from disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension through to anxiety, fear, terror, horror, panic and dread. RESPONDENT: Not that those things do not take place at the time of fear ... RICHARD: Good ... this is what I have been saying all along. May I ask? Have you just been arguing for the sake of arguing? RESPONDENT: ... but the description, it comes later. RICHARD: Not if one is at all aware ... in my experience all those years ago, at the moment of fear (or disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension, anxiety, terror, horror, panic and dread), the ‘I’ that was inhabiting this body would ‘sit with it’ as it were and directly experience it as it was happening as the fear which it was (or disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension, anxiety, terror, horror, panic and dread). This is because ‘I’ wanted to know, ‘I’ wanted to find out, once and for all, that which has paralysed human beings for millennia ... ‘I’ observed ‘my’ psyche (which is the ‘human’ psyche) with the objectivity of a scientist. Now, whilst the word ‘fear’ is not the feeling itself, the feeling is very, very real whilst it is happening (as real as any ‘I’ is). By ‘being with it’ as it was happening – without moving in any direction whatsoever with escapist thoughts, feelings or urges – ‘I’ would come to experience ‘being it’ ... and ‘I’ am this fear and this fear is ‘me’. Thus ‘I’ came to experience ‘myself’ in all ‘my’ nakedness. All ‘I’ am, is this fear ... and fear is but one of the instinctual passions that blind nature genetically encodes in all sentient beings at conception in the genes ... ‘I’ am the end-point of myriads of survivors passing on their genes. ‘I’ am the product of the ‘success story’ of blind nature’s fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Being born of the biologically inherited instincts genetically encoded in the germ cells of the spermatozoa and the ova, ‘I’ am – genetically – umpteen tens of thousands of years old ... ‘my’ origins are lost in the mists of pre-history. ‘I’ am so anciently old that ‘I’ may well have always existed ... carried along on the reproductive cell-line, over countless millennia, from generation to generation. And ‘I’ am thus passed on into an inconceivably open-ended and hereditably transmissible future. In other words: ‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’ (and ‘I’ am aggression and aggression is ‘me’; ‘I’ am nurture and nurture is ‘me’; ‘I’ am desire and desire is ‘me’). The direct experiencing of this is the ending of ‘me’ ... and I am this flesh and blood body only being here now as only this moment is. RESPONDENT: More of this at the very end [of this post]. RICHARD: What you write at the end of this post is not a description of fear but of a peak experience or a pure consciousness experience (PCE) which sometimes is precipitated by the intensity of imminent danger ... military personnel have reported this. What we are/have been discussing is the origins of the ‘self’ in one of the instincts called fear – the instinctual and thus non-thinking animal affective reaction to danger – which is both the barrier to and a gateway for an entry into this actual world. The discussion started as follows:
If the origins of the ‘self’ are not acknowledged and understood then the ‘Tried and True’ band-aid solution will inevitably be applied again and again in an outmoded attempt to remedy the human condition from within the human condition. And so 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 will go on for ever and a day ... just as they always have been throughout 5,000 years of recorded history and maybe 50,000 years of pre-history. * RESPONDENT: Body’s instinctive responses are not fear. RICHARD: There are numerous instincts – and there is dissension among biologists as to which is what and where – but they all more or less acknowledge that what I categorise as fear and aggression and nurture and desire for convenience and consistency are more or less common to all sentient beings. You are way out on your own in the scientific field of biology here, because ‘the body’s instinctive response’ is known as the ‘freeze or fight or flight’ reaction ... and the body is brimming with adrenaline. In other words: pure fear. RESPONDENT: That is body’s own intelligence. RICHARD: Are you trying to tell me that it is intelligent to panic and lash out blindly? I was in the military for six years as a youth and young man ... I have seen the ‘body’s own intelligence’ in action ... and no way would I call that intelligent. RESPONDENT: It is the memory, the trace of that response, that is what we fear. Not body’s responses. RICHARD: At the precise moment of actual danger – at that very exact instant – memory does not function ... there is nothing but the instinctual response. And this instinctive response is known as the ‘freeze or fight or flight’ reaction ... and the body is brimming with adrenaline. In other words: pure fear. And all sentient beings are born with this fear. RESPONDENT: All sentient bodies are born with natural intelligence to respond to situations. RICHARD: Aye ... and they are called instincts. Basically, the survival instincts are known as fear and aggression and nurture and desire (allowing for dissension among various biologist according to their school) and peoples like yourself choose to call the instinctual response the ‘natural intelligence’ of the body. I cannot see how the instinctive adrenaline-driven ‘freeze or fight or flight’ reaction shows the ability to reflect, plan and implement considered activity ... which is intelligence in operation. RESPONDENT: We can get rid of the semantics by calling it /foo/. /Foo/ is beyond description. The body works in its own way. It responds instinctively. Has its own /foo/ mechanism to help it cope with situations. RICHARD: Can we stay with the conventional word signifying this instinctual response for the sake of a genuine discussion? To wit: fear. Because fear is not ‘beyond description’ and thus when ‘the body works in its own way’ and ‘responds instinctively’ it is reacting with blind nature’s own survival mechanism ... and not some mysterious ‘/foo/’ that is ‘indescribable’. Why do you not want to know? * RESPONDENT: Fear is always in the past. RICHARD: No ... thinking about fear is in the past, but at the actual moment of fear there is only fear. And at the moment, thought does not necessarily operate ... there is the instinctual ‘freeze or fight or flight’ reaction operating full blast. RESPONDENT: The observer is the fear. RICHARD: Yes ... this is ‘I’ in all ‘my’ nakedness. RESPONDENT: The after-thought, the thought: ‘it shouldn’t have happened to me’ ‘I don’t like it’ etc. ... these are the harbingers of fear. RICHARD: Yes ... thinking about fear – even if sitting safely in one’s own home when there is no immediate danger – can trigger off the full array of fear (ranging from disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension through to anxiety, fear, terror, horror, panic and dread). But fear exists prior to thought ... thought does not create fear: it already exists. RESPONDENT: I don’t know. I think thinking triggers those responses. RICHARD: Yes ... that is what I am agreeing with (‘thinking about fear – even if sitting safely in one’s own home when there is no immediate danger – can trigger off the full array of fear’). But the point I am making is that thinking triggers the already existing fear that all sentient beings are born with ... and fear is an instinctual passion. It has a prior existence to thought; fear has been and can be observed in animals and in human infants ... and both animals and human infants cannot think. Why is this fact so difficult to acknowledge? * RICHARD: May I leave you with the following observation? I would particularly draw your attention to where you specifically say: [Respondent]:’... then ‘X’ can write any crap and assume no responsibility because ‘words are not the things’ ... ‘s/he will take refuge under the umbrella of ‘it can not be said’. RESPONDENT: Well quoted, Richard. I don’t have any argument other than reiterating that what I wrote is all experiential. It is possible though, that I am very dishonest and hypocritical. RICHARD: Hmm ... even if ‘that what you wrote is all experiential’ that which is experiential can be both observed while it is happening (apperceptively) and described accurately and concisely by one who genuinely cares about the plight of human beings. Otherwise you are indeed taking ‘refuge under the umbrella of ‘it can not be said’’. Why is this? RESPONDENT: Sunday morning I was involved in a car accident. In that fraction of a second when the other car hit mine, there was no thought, no fear, no anything. Impact ... then ... /foo/. Nothing can be said about that moment of impact. Scientifically, it is possible to record such moments and draw certain inferences: how did the body react, etc. But experientially, personally, that moment of impact is indescribable. Here is my take on it, and you can rip it apart: life actually is /foo/, indescribable. RICHARD: I will only ‘rip apart’ any nonsense such as ‘the word is not the thing’ and ‘it can not be said’ and ‘it is indescribable’. RESPONDENT: At a given moment, there is only that moment; no observer, none taking notes. But notes do get taken. Now, three days after the accident, I can recreate the accident. But I recreate the accident in the present, in here and now. This moment is as vivid and timeless as the moment of the impact. And thus life progresses, timelessly, from moment-to-moment. It is continuous as well as discrete, is continuously discrete. Immensely indescribable, but at the same time I can feel it cruising through my veins and all around me. RICHARD: Apart from the ‘immensely indescribable’ bit (because you are describing it in a way that I can relate to) and the use of ‘timeless’ to describe this ever-fresh moment in time, I am in full agreement with what you report. Just look at what you wrote: ‘at a given moment, there is only that moment’ clearly indicates that this moment (the only one which is actually happening) is perpetually here in time ... now ... and now ... and now. Do you see this? Also with ‘this moment is as vivid and timeless as the moment of the impact’ there is no need to deny time by saying ‘timeless’ when one is living in this actual moment ... the only moment that is existing. This flesh and blood body, just like this moment, is ‘hanging’ or ‘floating’ in the eternal time of this universe just as this planet is ‘hanging’ or ‘floating’ in the infinite reaches of infinite space. And again where you say ‘life progresses timelessly from moment-to-moment’ ... where one is being just here right now (which only happens when there is ‘no observer, none taking notes but notes do get taken’) there is only this moment each moment again. Again, there is no need to deny time by saying ‘timelessly’ even though only this moment exists as an actuality. This moment has no duration (as in then and now and then) because it is now and now and now ... and thus it initially seems that, as it takes no time-as-memory to occur, that it is ‘timeless’. It is not ... this moment and this place are in the realm of the infinitude of this actual physical universe. This moment is perennially here, not timelessly here. And I am perpetually here – for the term of my natural life – the same-same as this moment is ... with the marked exception that this moment’s natural life is forever. It is this moment that is eternal (immortal) and not me. I am mortal. Also, what helps to create the feeling that this moment is timeless is that human beings – as an identity – are normally out of this universe’s eternal time. Yet time is as intimate as this body being here now at this moment. It is so intimate that I – as a body only – am not separate from it. Whereas ‘I’, as a ‘being’, have separated ‘myself’ from time by being an entity. To be an ontological ‘being’ is to mistakenly take this body being here as containing an ‘I’, a psychological or psychic entity. To autologically ‘be’ is to take this moment of being alive as being proof of ‘my’ subjective existence. ‘I’ am an illusion; if ‘I’ think and feel that ‘I’ do exist, then ‘I’ am outside of the eternity of time. ‘I’ am forever complaining that there is ‘not enough hours in the day’, or ‘I am always running out of time’, or ‘I am always catching up with time’, or ‘I am always behind time’. Thus the PCE (which occurs globally across cultures and down through the ages irregardless of gender, race or age) is interpreted according to cultural beliefs – created and reinforced by the persistence of the instinctually created and survival oriented identity – and devolves into an altered state of consciousness (ASC). Then ‘I’ as ego – sublimated and transcended as ‘me’ as soul – manifest as ‘pure being’ (a god or a goddess or that which is ‘timeless and spaceless and formless’) which is ‘unborn and undying’ or ‘deathless’ and so on. Lastly, where you say ‘it is continuous as well as discrete, is continuously discrete’ you are describing it accurately and concisely ... thus it is not that ‘it can not be said’ or ‘it is indescribable’ at all is it? This is communication at its best. Good stuff this knowledge, eh?
RICHARD: In my experience all those years ago, at the moment of fear (or disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension, anxiety, terror, horror, panic and dread), the ‘I’ that was inhabiting this body would ‘sit with it’ as it were and directly experience it as it was happening as the fear which it was (or disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension, anxiety, terror, horror, panic and dread). This is because ‘I’ wanted to know, ‘I’ wanted to find out, once and for all, that which has paralysed human beings for millennia ... ‘I’ observed ‘my’ psyche (which is the ‘human’ psyche) with the objectivity of a scientist. Now, whilst the word ‘fear’ is not the feeling itself, the feeling is very, very real whilst it is happening (as real as any ‘I’ is). By ‘being with it’ as it was happening – without moving in any direction whatsoever with escapist thoughts, feelings or urges – ‘I’ would come to experience ‘being it’ ... and ‘I’ am this fear and this fear is ‘me’. Thus ‘I’ came to experience ‘myself’ in all ‘my’ nakedness. All ‘I’ am, is this fear ... and fear is but one of the instinctual passions that blind nature genetically encodes in all sentient beings at conception in the genes ... ‘I’ am the end-point of myriads of survivors passing on their genes. ‘I’ am the product of the ‘success story’ of blind nature’s fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Being born of the biologically inherited instincts genetically encoded in the germ cells of the spermatozoa and the ova, ‘I’ am – genetically – umpteen tens of thousands of years old ... ‘my’ origins are lost in the mists of pre-history. ‘I’ am so anciently old that ‘I’ may well have always existed ... carried along on the reproductive cell-line, over countless millennia, from generation to generation. And ‘I’ am thus passed on into an inconceivably open-ended and hereditably transmissible future. In other words: ‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’ (and ‘I’ am aggression and aggression is ‘me’; ‘I’ am nurture and nurture is ‘me’; ‘I’ am desire and desire is ‘me’). The direct experiencing of this is the ending of ‘me’ ... and I am this flesh and blood body only being here now as only this moment is. RESPONDENT: Richard, I have read your post for the umpteenth time a few minutes back. Also thought about it a good deal last night. ‘I am this flesh and blood body only being here now as only this moment is’ is a very powerful statement. You further wrote: [Richard]: ‘This moment is perennially here, not timelessly here. And I am perpetually here – for the term of my natural life – the same-same as this moment is ... with the marked exception that this moment’s natural life is forever. It is this moment that is eternal (immortal) and not me. I am mortal’. [endquote]. Here is how my thought process goes: there is a moment of quiet and clarity when the truth of the statements that you made comes home to me. But almost immediately, there is a listlessness that drags me away from the quiet and clarity. I wonder why that happens. RICHARD: As a suggestion only: is what you describe as ‘listlessness’ nothing more than ‘my’ not-so-subtle method of placing what would become an on-going genuine investigation into the ‘too-hard’ basket? Which means, does it not, that ‘I’ would rather intellectually seek than actually seek, for if ‘I’ actually seek ‘I’ will actually find? Because, is it not so that to actually find will mean the ending of ‘me’ (which is who ‘I’ think, feel and instinctually know that ‘I’ am at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself)? For is this not what was experienced in ‘that fraction of a second when the other car hit mine’ (that ‘I’ did not exist and there was only this flesh and blood body being here now as only this moment was)? Only a suggestion, mind you, as to what may or may not lie behind a seeming ‘listlessness’. RESPONDENT: My guess is that I don’t trust the quiet and clarity enough. RICHARD: Speaking personally, I discarded trust very early in the piece ... for how am ‘I’ to know that what ‘I’ am trusting is reliable and not merely a truth that is the product of hope? As hope is the outcome of faith born of belief, then it behoves one to establish a fact rather than some spurious truth. And the fact is to be located in ‘that fraction of a second when the other car hit mine’ wherein you had the direct experience (albeit for a ‘fraction of a second’) of the actuality of ‘I am this flesh and blood body only being here now as only this moment is’. And it is this fact that dispenses with trust by engendering a confidence borne on the reliability of the actual. It does ultimately mean the ending of ‘me’, however. RESPONDENT: The me, the seeker, wants something else. RICHARD: Ahh ... is it not so that in ‘my’ heart of hearts ‘I’ may be fondly imagining that ‘I’ will live forever in another guise ... if only ‘I’ can transform into ‘that which is timeless and spaceless and formless’ (which is ‘being’ itself transmogrified into ‘Being’) by whatever name? Only a suggestion, mind you, given the proclivity of those on this Mailing List to be seeking that RESPONDENT: Nay, the seeker just wants. RICHARD: Yes ... not for nothing do I say ‘I’ am desire and desire is ‘me’ (desire is one of the instinctual passions). Yet one can harness this powerful affective energy so as to bring about what one actually longs for: perfect peace and understanding. RESPONDENT: It even wants the quiet and clarity. And that’s the end of quiet and clarity. Seeking and quiet do not co-exist. RICHARD: Indeed they do not co-exist (if the ‘seeking’ does not lead to ‘finding’) whereas finding – actually finding – and quiet are so co-existing that they are inseparable bed mates. RESPONDENT: But it is so hard not to seek. RICHARD: Aye ... the injunctions from the bodiless entities (which is what these ‘do not seek’ or ‘do not desire’ psittacisms are) are not easy to put into practice. Speaking personally, the ‘I that was inhabiting this body all those years ago sought like all get-out ... ‘he’ desired peace-on-earth like ‘he’ had never desired anything before. And now I am freed to be here ... each moment again. RESPONDENT: I seek the non-seeking too, and the wheel never stops turning. RICHARD: Goodness me ... ‘I seek the non-seeking too’ ... have the bodiless entities (the ‘Deathless Ones’) really got you by the short and curlies that much? You have just had a direct experience of the actual ... yet away you go into interpreting it according to the ‘Tried and True’. How about: ‘I’ want that direct experience of the actual twenty four hours of the day with all of ‘my’ being’? ‘I’ want that perfect peace and understanding, so much so, that ‘I’ will do [insert whatever is applicable] to enable it? ‘I’ want it (peace-on-earth) like ‘I’ have never wanted anything before? RESPONDENT: You mention: [Richard]: ‘This is because ‘I’ wanted to know, ‘I’ wanted to find out, once and for all, that which has paralysed human beings for millennia ...’ [endquote]. RICHARD: Yes, this is the ‘me’ that was actively and consciously harnessing the affective power of the instinctual passion of desire and channelling it into one goal and one goal only: altruistically making apparent the already always existing peace-on-earth (as evidenced in the PCE) through ‘my’ demise. The ‘I’ that was inhabiting this body wanted to sacrifice ‘himself’ for the good of this body and that body and every body. RESPONDENT: And you also mention the tortures, the rapes, the murders, etc. I am pretty selfish. RICHARD: Good ... because unless ‘you’ are so ‘selfish’ as to want peace on earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body, then nothing will happen to even begin to bring to an end all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child and suicides. And in case you think I am just being funny ... I was told last year on this Mailing List that I was selfish to want to save my ‘six foot flesh and blood body’! If only each and every person was so ‘selfish’ there would be a global peace-on-earth. RESPONDENT: My world largely begins and ends at my own doorsteps. It would be nice if brutality in the world ended; if not, at least I be spared. RICHARD: This is the question: how can I bring about an individual peace-on-earth which, if each and every person were to act in this same-same unilateral manner, would result in global peace-on-earth? And if they did not (which is most likely) is this individual peace-on-earth of such a quality and magnitude so as to it not mattering one iota if no one else accesses it? RESPONDENT: All my passions are very personal: I am the world in the sense that all that I care about is my own world. Give me eternal happiness and the world will be fine RICHARD: Aye ... this is how it is for each and every other person that I have spoken with over the last eighteen years. If each and every one actually cared about their ‘own world’ so as to unilaterally make apparent the already existing peace-on-earth (as evidenced by the PCE) then there would be a global peace-on-earth. If they did not (which is most likely), and only ‘I’ do it ... then not only have ‘I’ precipitated peace-on-earth for this body but ‘I’ have paved the way for any one with the gumption to do likewise by both example and precept. It is a win/win situation. RESPONDENT: You see, it is nearly impossible for me to not seek, to not be self-centred. Perhaps there were/ are moments/ days/ weeks/ etc. of absence of self-centeredness in my dealings with my daughter, family, a few friends. But, by and large, I am rooted in my pleasures. So, whatever I feel, care for, experience, etc. is all tinted by the strong tint of pleasure. RICHARD: Once again ... have the injunctions of the ‘Deathless Ones’ (the bodiless entities) really had that much influence on your thinking? You have just had a direct experience of the actual ... yet away you go into interpreting it according to the ‘Tried and True’. Speaking personally, I have pleasure by the bucket load – and take for granted that there is an endless supply – and thus enjoy and appreciate the world of people, things and events each moment again. RESPONDENT: In my association with K, I did imagine myself to be beyond the self. But I don’t kid myself any more. RICHARD: From what you have written, from time to time, I have gained the impression that you taught at schools operating under the auspices of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s ‘Teachings’ ... were you educated there as well? RESPONDENT: So this is where I am. I don’t feel very good about it, but that is the truth. And it scares me a lot that this is what or who I am. I want the world to be less self-centred than I am. RICHARD: Then why not put this want into action and thus pave the way for a benighted ‘humanity’? If not ‘you’ then who? If not now, then when? RESPONDENT: Some stray thoughts, which probably have no logic, flow, or connection with one another. Thanks for your time. RICHARD: Oh, I found them to be connected.
RICHARD: Not for nothing do I say ‘I’ am desire and desire is ‘me’ (desire is one of the instinctual passions). Yet one can harness this powerful affective energy so as to bring about what one actually longs for: perfect peace and understanding. RESPONDENT: But I don’t long for perfect peace and understanding. I want pleasure, instant gratification. Give me the magic lamp and I will ask for nothing else. RICHARD: The magic lamp is the PCE and to be living the PCE twenty four hours a day (an actual freedom from the human condition) is utter pleasure and instant gratification each moment again ... and perfect peace and understanding. * RICHARD: The injunctions from the bodiless entities (which is what these ‘do not seek’ or ‘do not desire’ psittacisms are) are not easy to put into practice. Speaking personally, the ‘I that was inhabiting this body all those years ago sought like all get-out ... ‘he’ desired peace-on-earth like ‘he’ had never desired anything before. And now I am freed to be here ... each moment again. RESPONDENT: It is possible that I am not free because my seeking is of a shallow kind. But I am incapable of seeking anything else. RICHARD: Try watching and/or reading the news bulletins with whatever media you have access to and use your affective feelings – emotions and passions and calenture – to really, deeply, primally feel all the anguish and animosity inherent in all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides that parades across billions of T. V. screens and newspapers daily. And try watching and/or reading the ‘animals in the wild’ programs so as to see where the human animal shares this common ancestry of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Your capacity to seek will increase in direct proportion to your I. Q. (Interest Quotient) because unless one is vitally interested in peace on earth one will never even begin to free the crippled intelligence from the debilitating passions bestowed by blind nature. Yet becoming vitally interested is but the preliminary stage, because until one becomes curious as to whether what is being written here can be applied to themselves, only then does the first step begin. Because it is only when one becomes curious about the workings of oneself – what makes one tick – is that person participating in their search for freedom for the first time in their life. This is because people mostly look to rearranging their beliefs and truths as being sufficient effort ... ‘I’ am willing to be free as long as ‘I’ can remain ‘me’. In other words: their notion of freedom is a ‘clip-on’. Then curiosity becomes fascination ... and then the fun begins to gain a momentum of its own. One is drawn inexorably further and further towards one’s destiny ... fascination leads to commitment and one can know when one’s commitment is approaching a 100% commitment because others around one will classify one as ‘obsessed’ (in spite of all their rhetoric a 100% commitment to evoking peace-on-earth is actively discouraged by one’s peers). Eventually one realises that one is on one’s own in this, the adventure of a life-time, and a peculiar tenacity that enables one to proceed against all odds ensues. Then one takes the penultimate step ... one abandons ‘humanity’. Freedom then unfolds its inevitable destiny. * RICHARD: How about: ‘I’ want that direct experience of the actual twenty four hours of the day with all of ‘my’ being’? ‘I’ want that perfect peace and understanding, so much so, that ‘I’ will do [insert whatever is applicable] to enable it? ‘I’ want it (peace-on-earth) like ‘I’ have never wanted anything before? RESPONDENT: I want the magic lamp. I want perpetual youth, no sickness, no death, beautiful women, and not a worry in the world. RICHARD: The magic lamp is the PCE and to be living the PCE twenty four hours a day (an actual freedom
from the human condition) is perpetual ‘youthfulness’, no psychological or psychic sickness whatsoever, no psychological or
psychic death menacing each moment, an actual intimacy * RICHARD: Unless ‘you’ are so ‘selfish’ as to want peace on earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body, then nothing will happen to even begin to bring to an end all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child and suicides. And in case you think I am just being funny ... I was told last year on this Mailing List that I was selfish to want to save my ‘six foot flesh and blood body’! If only each and every person was so ‘selfish’ there would be a global peace-on-earth. RESPONDENT: I am selfish as stated above: a magic lamp, pleasure unlimited, no sickness, no old age, no death. RICHARD: The magic lamp is the PCE and to be living the PCE twenty four hours a day (an actual freedom from the human condition) is unlimited pleasure, no psychological or psychic sickness whatsoever and no psychological or psychic death menacing each moment. RESPONDENT: I don’t really care about peace-on-earth. RICHARD: Then why are you on a Mailing List purportedly set up to investigate the mess that is the human condition? * RICHARD: If each and every one actually cared about their ‘own world’ so as to unilaterally make apparent the already existing peace-on-earth (as evidenced by the PCE) then there would be a global peace-on-earth. If they did not (which is most likely), and only ‘I’ do it ... then not only have ‘I’ precipitated peace-on-earth for this body but ‘I’ have paved the way for any one with the gumption to do likewise by both example and precept. It is a win/win situation. RESPONDENT: So, are you saying it is alright for me to seek whatever I am seeking? RICHARD: I can only suggest, it is your life you are living. In the final analysis, only you get to reap the rewards or pay the consequences for any action or inaction you may or may not do. Provided you comply with the legal laws and observe the social protocol you will be left alone to live your life as wisely or as foolishly as you please. If each and every one actually cared about their ‘own world’ so as to unilaterally make apparent the already existing peace-on-earth (as evidenced by the PCE) then there would be a global peace-on-earth. If they did not (which is most likely), and only ‘I’ do it ... then not only have ‘I’ precipitated peace-on-earth for this body but ‘I’ have paved the way for any one with the gumption to do likewise by both example and precept. It is a win/win situation. RESPONDENT: If yes, should I seek ruthlessly, and not care for who I trample upon in my quest? Then lying, cheating, swindling, being dishonest, etc. would be fair game. RICHARD: I can only suggest, it is your life you are living. In the final analysis, only you get to reap the rewards or pay the consequences for any action or inaction you may or may not do. Provided you comply with the legal laws and observe the social protocol you will be left alone to live your life as wisely or as foolishly as you please. If each and every one actually cared about their ‘own world’ so as to unilaterally make apparent the already existing peace-on-earth (as evidenced by the PCE) then there would be a global peace-on-earth. If they did not (which is most likely), and only ‘I’ do it ... then not only have ‘I’ precipitated peace-on-earth for this body but ‘I’ have paved the way for any one with the gumption to do likewise by both example and precept. It is a win/win situation. * RICHARD: Have the injunctions of the ‘Deathless Ones’ (the bodiless entities) really had that much influence on your thinking? You have just had a direct experience of the actual ... yet away you go into interpreting it according to the ‘Tried and True’. Speaking personally, I have pleasure by the bucket load – and take for granted that there is an endless supply – and thus enjoy and appreciate the world of people, things and events each moment again. RESPONDENT: It is possible the deathless ones are talking through me. RICHARD: Would you care to examine this further so as to ascertain whether cognitive dissonance is preventing both ears form hearing what is being said or not? To say ‘it is possible ...’ and then leave it at that is to say nothing ... other than to assuage an intellect fooling itself into imagining that it has the objectivity of a scientist. RESPONDENT: But how far should I push morality in my pursuit of my self-centred ends? My ex- didn’t care about anything: law, values, her own daughter, in her ego-drive. Should I also throw everything to the winds and become as shamelessly dishonest as her? RICHARD: I can only suggest, it is your life you are living. In the final analysis, only you get to reap the rewards or pay the consequences for any action or inaction you may or may not do. Provided you comply with the legal laws and observe the social protocol you will be left alone to live your life as wisely or as foolishly as you please. Have the injunctions of the ‘Deathless Ones’ (the bodiless entities) really had that much influence on your thinking? You have just had a direct experience of the actual ... yet away you go into interpreting it according to the ‘Tried and True’. Speaking personally, I have pleasure by the bucket load – and take for granted that there is an endless supply – and thus enjoy and appreciate the world of people, things and events each moment again. * RICHARD: From what you have written, from time to time, I have gained the impression that you taught at schools operating under the auspices of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s ‘Teachings’ ... were you educated there as well? RESPONDENT: No, I taught at Rishi Valley for a few years. RICHARD: What attracted you to do so?
RESPONDENT: I don’t really care about peace-on-earth. RICHARD: Then why are you on a Mailing List purportedly set up to investigate the mess that is the human condition? RESPONDENT: I can only investigate the mess that is me. RICHARD: Indeed ... yet ‘the mess that is me’ is the same-same mess that 6.0 billion human beings experience. It is known as ‘human nature’ or ‘the human condition’ and is a well-established philosophical term that refers to the situation that all human beings find themselves in when they emerge here as babies. The term refers to the contrary and perverse nature of all peoples of all races and all cultures. There is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in everyone ... all humans have a ‘dark side’ to their nature and a ‘light side’. The battle betwixt ‘Good and Evil’ has raged down through the centuries and it requires constant vigilance lest evil gets the upper hand. Morals and ethics seek to control the wayward self that lurks deep within the human breast ... and some semblance of what is called ‘peace’ prevails for the main. Where morality and ethicality fails to curb the ‘savage beast’, law and order is maintained ... at the point of a gun. Or, as Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti said repeatedly ‘I am the world’. RESPONDENT: Everything else is wishful thinking, in my opinion. RICHARD: And where would the human race be without ‘wishful thinking’, eh? Still sitting in a cave, dressed in animal skins and gnawing on a brontosaurus bone? In investigating my nature I am investigating human nature (the human condition) ... and one is one’s own ‘guinea-pig’ because such an investigation is participatory observation ... the ‘investigator’ is both participant and experimenter at one and the same time Why not approach it this way: as I am a human being – and being born and raised in what is called the normal way – after allowing for idiosyncrasies any study of one’s own psyche is a study of the human psyche? Therefore, any verifiably common discoveries are valid for all peoples, given due allowance for gender, racial and era variance. Through face-to-face interaction and through reading and watching media it is entirely reasonable to deduce that that the three ways of experiencing the world of people, things and events (sensate, cerebral and affective) is common to all human beings. And, essentially, there is no difference between English malice and sorrow and African malice and sorrow and Indian malice and sorrow and so on and so on. (I use the generally accepted convention of ‘malice’ and ‘sorrow’ as delineated by most religions and/or philosophies, that fall under the umbrella term ‘The Human Condition’, purely for convenience. In Christianity, for example, the word ‘suffering’ means the same affective feelings as the word ‘sorrow’ does. Similarly, the ‘Golden Rule’ (found in all religions) known in English as ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ points to the feelings covered under the catch-all word ‘malice’. Basically, ‘malice’ is what one does to others (resentment, anger, hatred, rage, sadism and so on) and ‘sorrow’ (sadness, loneliness, melancholy, grief, masochism and so on) is what one does to oneself ... as a broad generalisation). Speaking personally, in my investigations I first started by examining thought, thoughts and thinking ... then very soon moved on to examining feelings (first the emotions and then the deeper feelings). When I dug down into these passions (into the core of ‘my’ being then into ‘being’ itself) I stumbled across the instincts ... and found the origin of not only the affective faculty but the psyche itself. I found ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’ ... which is the instinctual rudimentary animal self common to all sentient beings (which ‘original face’ is what gives rise to the feeling of ‘oneness’ with all other sentient beings). This is a very ancient genetic memory; being born of the biologically inherited instincts genetically encoded in the germ cells of the spermatozoa and the ova, ‘I’ am – genetically – umpteen tens of thousands of years old ... ‘my’ origins are lost in the mists of pre-history. ‘I’ am so anciently old that ‘I’ may well have always existed ... carried along on the reproductive cell-line, over countless millennia, from generation to generation. And ‘I’ am thus passed on into an inconceivably open-ended and hereditably transmissible future. Hence: ‘I’ am ‘humanity’ and ‘humanity’ is ‘me’. RESPONDENT: And I investigate that mess not to improve the world, or bring peace-on-earth, but because I don’t like this mess that I am in. It is too disturbing, too annoying, and wasteful. RICHARD: Hokey-dokey ... but through your interactions with other peoples – and especially on Mailing Lists such as this – do you not find that other people, more or less, do not ‘like this mess that they are in’ because ‘it is too disturbing, too annoying, and wasteful’ also? What makes you think that you are so special? In other words, whether you like it or not, any investigation you do into yourself is going to be of benefit to ‘the world’ and will be moving towards ‘peace-on-earth’ anyway. Why not acknowledge the fact and give your investigation the impetus it deserves? Much more productive than arguing over ‘selfishness’ versus ‘unselfishness’, eh?
RESPONDENT: But I don’t long for perfect peace and understanding. I want pleasure, instant gratification. Give me the magic lamp and I will ask for nothing else. RICHARD: The magic lamp is the PCE and to be living the PCE twenty four hours a day (an actual freedom from the human condition) is utter pleasure and instant gratification each moment again ... and perfect peace and understanding. RESPONDENT: Possibly so. I have had moments in my life that were utterly peaceful. Once in a while, now increasingly so, I get a feeling to near absolute bliss and peace. RICHARD: Okay ... do you not want every moment in your life to be ‘utterly peaceful’ ... or are you a masochist? RESPONDENT: I don’t really care about peace-on-earth. RICHARD: Then why are you on a Mailing List purportedly set up to investigate the mess that is the human condition? RESPONDENT: I think I responded to this point earlier: the only mess that I can possibly tackle and do something about is my own condition. RICHARD: Indeed ... yet ‘my own condition’ is the same-same mess that 6.0 billion human beings experience. It is known as ‘human nature’ or ‘the human condition’ and is a well-established philosophical term that refers to the situation that all human beings find themselves in when they emerge here as babies. The term refers to the contrary and perverse nature of all peoples of all races and all cultures. There is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in everyone ... all humans have a ‘dark side’ to their nature and a ‘light side’. The battle betwixt ‘Good and Evil’ has raged down through the centuries and it requires constant vigilance lest evil gets the upper hand. Morals and ethics seek to control the wayward self that lurks deep within the human breast ... and some semblance of what is called ‘peace’ prevails for the main. Where morality and ethicality fails to curb the ‘savage beast’, law and order is maintained ... at the point of a gun. Or, as Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti said repeatedly ‘I am the world’ ... which means that in investigating one’s own nature one is investigating human nature (the human condition). One is one’s own ‘guinea-pig’ because such an investigation is participatory observation ... the ‘investigator’ is both participant and experimenter at one and the same time. Would you not agree that through your interactions with other peoples – and especially on Mailing Lists such as this – that you find that the ‘only mess’ that other people ‘can possibly tackle and do something about is their own condition’ also? What makes you think that you are so special? In other words, whether you like it or not, any investigation you do into yourself is going to be of benefit to others and will be moving towards peace-on-earth anyway. Why not acknowledge the fact and give your investigation the impetus it deserves? Is this not much more productive than arguing over ‘selfishness’ versus ‘unselfishness’? Why not approach it this way: as I am a human being – and being born and raised in what is called the normal way – after allowing for idiosyncrasies any study of one’s own psyche is a study of the human psyche? Therefore, any verifiably common discoveries are valid for all peoples, given due allowance for gender, racial and era variance. Through face-to-face interaction and through reading and watching media it is entirely reasonable to deduce that that the three ways of experiencing the world of people, things and events (sensate, cerebral and affective) is common to all human beings. And, essentially, there is no difference between English malice and sorrow and African malice and sorrow and Indian malice and sorrow and so on and so on. (I use the generally accepted convention of ‘malice’ and ‘sorrow’ as delineated by most religions and/or philosophies, that fall under the umbrella term ‘The Human Condition’, purely for convenience. In Christianity, for example, the word ‘suffering’ means the same affective feelings as the word ‘sorrow’ does. Similarly, the ‘Golden Rule’ (found in all religions) known in English as ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ points to the feelings covered under the catch-all word ‘malice’. Basically, ‘malice’ is what one does to others (resentment, anger, hatred, rage, sadism and so on) and ‘sorrow’ (sadness, loneliness, melancholy, grief, masochism and so on) is what one does to oneself ... as a broad generalisation). Speaking personally, in my investigations I first started by examining thought, thoughts and thinking ... then very soon moved on to examining feelings (first the emotions and then the deeper feelings). When I dug down into these passions (into the core of ‘my’ being then into ‘being’ itself) I stumbled across the instincts ... and found the origin of not only the affective faculty but the psyche itself. I found ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’ ... which is the instinctual rudimentary animal self common to all sentient beings (which ‘original face’ is what gives rise to the feeling of ‘oneness’ with all other sentient beings). This is a very ancient genetic memory; being born of the biologically inherited instincts genetically encoded in the germ cells of the spermatozoa and the ova, ‘I’ am – genetically – umpteen tens of thousands of years old ... ‘my’ origins are lost in the mists of pre-history. ‘I’ am so anciently old that ‘I’ may well have always existed ... carried along on the reproductive cell-line, over countless millennia, from generation to generation. And ‘I’ am thus passed on into an inconceivably open-ended and hereditably transmissible future. Hence: ‘I’ am ‘humanity’ and ‘humanity’ is ‘me’. RESPONDENT: I taught at Rishi Valley for a few years. RICHARD: What attracted you to do so? RESPONDENT: I was very much interested (and still am) in the philosophy of K. RICHARD: Please correct me if I am wrong ... but was not Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s ‘philosophy’ about ‘perfect peace and understanding’? Where did he offer anything to anybody who said ‘but I don’t long for perfect peace and understanding. I want pleasure, instant gratification. Give me the magic lamp and I will ask for nothing else’? Did you misunderstand his ‘philosophy’ ... or did you teach under false pretences?
RICHARD: Can there be ‘knowledge of that extraordinary state’? As this ‘extraordinary state’ can only actually exist at this moment of being alive, the question means: can what is happening, right here at this place in space right now at this moment in time, be known in such a way as to be rationally (sensibly and reasonably) understood ... as would be evidenced by being able to communicate this with others by the spoken or written word? RESPONDENT: Richard, here is my take on it (we discussed it before also): The actual experience, the PCE or whatever you may call it, cannot be completely described verbally. RICHARD: As the English language has upwards of 650,000 words in it, I have no difficulty in completely describing it (provided I explain which of the sometimes two or more meanings ascribed to a word I am using ... or any particular twist I am putting on a word). RESPONDENT: But we can get the /feel/ of it through words. RICHARD: As an example of two or more meanings to a word: I cannot accurately respond to your the use of the word <feel> without an explanation as to how you are using it. The word <feel> usually serves two faculties (sensate and affective) as in ‘I feel the sun on my face’ or ‘I feel the wind in my hair (sensate feeling) and ‘I feel hateful’ or ‘I feel loving’ (affective feeling). Thus it can also be used to mean ‘sense’ as in ‘but we can get the sense of it through words’ ... which could mean intellectually grasping the meaning of what is being described (a mental understanding known as ‘making sense’) or, by blurring the distinction between the sensate-based perception (a use known as ‘seeing’) and the affective-based sensitivity (otherwise known as a ‘gut-feeling’ or a ‘hunch’) it could mean an intuitive empathy to the meaning of what is being described (as in ‘it feels true’). RESPONDENT: For example, while reading your words, I get a feel of what you are trying to get at. I understand you at a depth that is not entirely verbal – you convey to me something that is original, that is sincere, that is universal. In short, I sense truth in your writing. Without offending most other writers, I don’t get the same feeling when I read their postings. So, I usually skip their postings, or read them and not think too much about it. The question is: is K trivial (corrupt)? I don’t think so. When I read his writings, I get a feel of something authentic, something universally true. Now, this could very well be a devotee-effect: that I am a K-devotee and hence find his writings to be authentic and true. RICHARD: What I am saying is not the same-same as what Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti says ... yet you effectively use similar descriptions of what you ‘get the /feel/ of’ whilst reading these two radically diverging positions (you use ‘universal’ and ‘true/truth’ in both instances coupled with ‘original/sincere’ on the one hand and ‘authentic/not trivial’ on the other ... which effectively amounts to the same thing). Consequently, I ask whoever I am discussing these matters with to remember a PCE – and preferably have this direct experience again – which does away with having to rely upon ‘feeling’, ‘perceiving’, ‘sensing’, ‘intuiting’ and so on altogether. As for the ‘devotee-effect’ ... you appear to already know the answer to that. Vis.: [Respondent]: ‘I do feel dependent on him for sustenance: he is constantly in my thoughts, talking to me. There are times when his presence is very real and I can hear him guiding me, telling me things. His presence is very reassuring ...’ [endquote]. 3,000 to 5,000 years of accumulated ‘ancient wisdom’ is a lot to discard ... overnight, as it were. This inherited ‘wisdom’ creates a mind-set that finds meaning in the non-sense ... and prevents something new to human historical experience penetrating through to one’s native intelligence. This effect is known as ‘cognitive dissonance’ whereby the recipient literally cannot afford to take in what is being presented. What I have noticed, over the years, is that if I persist in presenting my case – which of necessity includes questioning the other’s borrowed wisdom – that the other’s responses become more and more irrational as I proceed. It is a grand adventure we are all involved in! * RESPONDENT: So, the questions are: (a) how does one test the truth or falsehood (corruption) of what is stated? (b) [relatedly] what is the role of /feeling/ and intuitively grasping the truth of what is stated? What do you (and others) say? RICHARD: Simple. Examine the supporting evidence that is presented with the purport so as to determine whether what is being said is substantiated. For example: one can make a critical examination of all the words I advance so as to ascertain if they be intrinsically self-explanatory ... and only when they are all seen to be inherently consistent with what is being spoken about do the facts speak for themselves. Then one will have reason to remember a pure conscious experience (PCE), which all peoples I have spoken to at length have had, and thus verify by direct experience the facticity of what is written. This bypasses becoming embroiled in having to determine ‘the role of /feeling/ and intuitively grasping the truth of what is stated’ because the PCE occurs globally ... across cultures and down through the ages irregardless of gender, race or age. However, it is usually interpreted according to cultural beliefs – created and reinforced by the persistence of identity – and devolves into an altered state of consciousness (ASC). Then ‘I’ as ego – sublimated and transcended as ‘me’ as soul – manifest as a god or a goddess (that which is ‘timeless and spaceless and formless’) otherwise known as an embodiment of the ‘supreme intelligence’ ... and preach unliveable tenets born out of dissociation (such as that there is a love that has no opposite or a compassion that knows no sorrow and so on). Tenets that they cannot live themselves.
RICHARD: Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti expressly stated that the person listening to him was to exclude everything they had ever heard, read, experienced or otherwise learned in their life-time thus far ... or else they were not ‘listening’. I do not know about you, but that sounds absolutely ‘exclusive’ to me. In fact, according to him, the listener is not to compare, evaluate or judge in any way, shape or form. Vis.: • [quote]: ‘The speaker is either talking out of the silence of truth or he is talking out of the noise of an illusion which he considers to be the truth ... which is it that he is doing? ... You hear him talking about these things and you wonder if he is really speaking out of that extraordinary silence of truth ... How will you find out? ... What is the criterion, the measure that you can apply so that you can say: ‘Yes, that is it’ ... I will tell you what I would do ... I am not going to accept or reject, I am listening to find out ... am I listening to him with all the knowledge I have gathered ... have I rejected it ... or am I listening to him with all that? If I have rejected all that then I am listening. Then I am listening very carefully to what he has to say. ... Am I listening to him with the knowledge of what I have acquired through books, through experience, and therefore I am comparing, judging, evaluating? Then I can’t possibly find out whether what he is saying is the truth’ [endquote]. (‘The Wholeness Of Life’ (pp 221-223); © 1979 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd; Published by HarperSanFrancisco). I see that he is clearly and unambiguously ‘exclusive’ ... he effectively says that if one excludes all the knowledge one has gathered; what one has acquired through books, through experience then one is listening (whereas if one does not exclude all the knowledge one has gathered; the knowledge of what one has acquired through books, through experience, therefore because one is comparing, judging, evaluating then one can’t possibly find the truth). Which is why I said that ‘listening’ is otherwise known (in the world of Gurus and God-Men) as ‘satsang’. RESPONDENT: Richard, he also says: ‘I am not going to accept or reject ...’ That makes the whole thing non-exclusive as well. There is nothing that is accepted or rejected. RICHARD: He says ‘I am not going to accept or reject [what Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti is saying because] I am listening to find out’ (such a non-judgemental attitude is called ‘being open’ in the jargon). He most certainly does not mean ‘I am not going to accept or reject all the knowledge I have gathered; the knowledge of what I have acquired through books, through experience’ because he clearly says ‘if I have rejected all that then I am listening’. He then makes sure that he will not be misunderstood by putting it the other way around: ‘If I am listening with the knowledge of what I have acquired through books, through experience (and therefore I am comparing, judging, evaluating) then I can’t possibly find out whether what he is saying is the truth’. Perhaps he should have said it three ways. RESPONDENT: That is listening. RICHARD: If I may point out? That is not ‘listening’ ... that is misunderstanding a very clear exposition by Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti on how to listen to Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti. He explains this many, many times throughout the millions of words. Vis.:
Which is why I said that ‘listening’ is otherwise known (in the world of Gurus and God-Men) as ‘satsang’. RESPONDENT: Are you listening to me, right now? RICHARD: You are also misunderstanding the ‘in the company of truth’ (‘satsang’) meaning of the word ‘listening’ which implies a living master. But whether you are or are not a living master, I am listening to you the way I always listen (to not only yourself, but to everybody, to everything, to every event) which is without an ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul. This way there is the freedom for remembrance, appraisal and decision (which is to compare, evaluate and judge) in every situation afresh, each moment again, with the full range of the brain’s innate cognitive ability. It sure beats having to be ‘open’.
RESPONDENT: So, the questions are: (a) how does one test the truth or falsehood (corruption) of what is stated? (b) [relatedly] what is the role of /feeling/ and intuitively grasping the truth of what is stated? What do you (and others) say? RICHARD: Simple. Examine the supporting evidence that is presented with the purport so as to determine whether what is being said is substantiated. For example: one can make a critical examination of all the words I advance so as to ascertain if they be intrinsically self-explanatory ... and only when they are all seen to be inherently consistent with what is being spoken about do the facts speak for themselves. Then one will have reason to remember a pure conscious experience (PCE), which all peoples I have spoken to at length have had, and thus verify by direct experience the facticity of what is written. This bypasses becoming embroiled in having to determine ‘the role of /feeling/ and intuitively grasping the truth of what is stated’ because the PCE occurs globally ... across cultures and down through the ages irregardless of gender, race or age. However, it is usually interpreted according to cultural beliefs – created and reinforced by the persistence of identity – and devolves into an altered state of consciousness (ASC). Then ‘I’ as ego – sublimated and transcended as ‘me’ as soul – manifest as a god or a goddess (that which is ‘timeless and spaceless and formless’) otherwise known as an embodiment of the ‘supreme intelligence’ ... and preach unliveable tenets born out of dissociation (such as that there is a love that has no opposite or a compassion that knows no sorrow and so on). Tenets that they cannot live themselves. RESPONDENT: After thinking more about it, here is my objection to what you write: PCE is history. RICHARD: Yet a PCE is only ‘history’ if one is not experiencing this moment of being alive (the only one there is as an actuality) as a pure consciousness experience (PCE). Then one asks ‘why not?’ (as in ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’). It is essential to grasp the fact that this is your only moment of being alive. The past, although it did happen, is not actual now. The future, though it will happen, is not actual now. Only now is actual. Yesterday’s happiness and harmlessness does not mean a thing if one is miserable and malicious now ... and a hoped-for happiness and harmlessness tomorrow is to but waste this moment of being alive in waiting. All you get by waiting is more waiting. Thus any ‘change’ can only happen now. The jumping in point is always here ... it is at this moment in time and this place in space. Thus, if you miss it this time around, hey presto ... you have another chance immediately. Life is excellent at providing opportunities like this. It takes some doing to start off with, but as success after success starts to multiply exponentially, it becomes automatic to have this question running as an on-going thing ... because it delivers the goods right here and now ... not off into some indeterminate future. Thus one asks oneself, each moment again: ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ RESPONDENT: What is happening now is definitely not a PCE, there is thinking involved and feelings (both sensational ones, and the gut feelings). RICHARD: As one knows from the PCE that it is possible to experience this moment in time and this place in space as perfection personified, ‘I’ as ego set the minimum standard of experience for ‘myself’: feeling good. If ‘I’ am not feeling good then ‘I’ have something to look at to find out why. What has happened, between the last time ‘I’ felt good and now? When did ‘I’ feel good last? Five minutes ago? Five hours ago? What happened to end that good feeling? Ah ... yes: ‘He said that and ...’. Or: ‘She didn’t do this and I ...’. Or: ‘What I wanted was ...’. Or: ‘I didn’t do ...’. And so on and so on ... one does not have to trace back into one’s childhood ... usually no more than yesterday afternoon at the most. Thus one asks oneself, each moment again: ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ RESPONDENT: In a way, feelings have supremacy over thinking: something that I can feel deep down, as a gut feeling, rings more true to me than mere thinking. RICHARD: By finding out what triggered off the loss of feeling good, one commences another period of enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive. It is all about being here at this moment in time and this place in space ... and if you are not feeling good you have no chance whatsoever of being here in this actual world (a glum and grumpy person locks themselves out of the perfect purity of this moment and place). Of course, once you get the knack of this, one up-levels ‘feeling good’, as a bottom line each moment again, to ‘feeling happy’. And after that: ‘feeling perfect’. These are all feelings, this is not perfection personified yet ... but then again, feeling perfect for twenty three hours and fifty nine minutes a day is way beyond normal human expectations anyway. Also, it is a very tricky way of both getting men fully into their feelings for the first time in their life and getting women to examine their feelings one by one instead of being run by a basketful of them all at once. One starts to feel ‘alive’ for the first time in one’s life. Thus one asks oneself, each moment again: ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ RESPONDENT: But if remember correctly you (or someone else) mentioned that even intuition can fail us. So, I don’t know what, if any, is/are the guiding principle(s). I see your point about the supremacy of PCE – during those moments the body-mind reacts on its own, without any conscious intervention of thought/feelings. RICHARD: Being ‘alive’ is to be paying attention – exclusive attention – to this moment in time and this place in space. This attention becomes a fascination ... a fascination about being here as a flesh and blood body doing this business called being alive ... and fascination leads to reflective contemplation ... then one is the doing of the happening called being alive. Then – and only then – apperception can occur ... which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. Apperception is an awareness of consciousness. It is not ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious; it is the mind’s awareness of itself. Apperception – a way of seeing that is arrived at by reflective and fascinated contemplative thought – is when ‘I’ cease thinking and thinking takes place of its own accord ... and ‘me’ disappears along with all the feelings. Such a mind, being free of the thinker and the feeler – ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul – is capable of immense clarity and purity. As a sensate and reflective flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware, one is automatically benevolent and benign. RESPONDENT: his leads me to the following: the silence that exists between thoughts is probably the true thing. I have experienced that silence on occasions and today was a particularly eventful day – after a fair amount of cathartic exchanges on this forum, I could feel that silence quite palpably. It descends even now as I type this message. It could well be simple tiredness, or delusion, or any one of those things that my mind is so eminently capable of imagining. Who knows ... RICHARD: Only you can know your every thought and feeling and impulse ... and it is only you who gets to live your life. In the final analysis it is you who reaps the rewards or pays the consequences for any action or inaction you may or may not do. I can only suggest and, born out of personal experience (thus it is not theory), the best way to get to know your every thought and feeling and impulse is to ask yourself, each moment again, ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ Which means: what is preventing the PCE from happening ... right now?
RICHARD: If I may point out? That is not ‘listening’ ... that is misunderstanding a very clear exposition by Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti on how to listen to Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti. He explains this many, many times throughout the millions of words. Vis.: [quote]: ‘God is something unnameable, unknowable, unthinkable by a conditioned mind; it is something which is totally unknown. ... Please think about it with me and do not just deny or accept. There is an art in listening and it is very difficult to listen to something with which you are not familiar. ... If you approve or disapprove you have already ceased to listen. But if you can listen with that attention which is not translating what is being heard, which does not compare, which is really giving the whole of its being to what is being said, in that attention there is listening. ... So if I may, I most respectfully suggest that you listen to see the truth of what is being said. ... you cannot understand it or allow it to come to you if you merely speculate as to whether there is or is not God. You must as an individual experience it, or rather, allow that thing to come to you. You cannot possibly go to it. ... All this I have been talking about is not a theory, it is not something for you to learn and repeat. It is something for you to go into’. [endquote]. (www.kfa.org/poona58.html; 6 Public Talks at Poona; 7 September 1958 – September 24, 1958; ©1996 Krishnamurti Foundation of America). Which is why I said that ‘listening’ is otherwise known (in the world of Gurus and God-Men) as ‘satsang’. RESPONDENT: I will try to keep it simple. Listening, as I understand it to mean is something similar to an intuitive grasping of truth of what is being said. For example, if I hear someone say: ‘ego causes trouble’ and I understand the truth of that statement, I have listened to the person. No Guru or God-man is needed; I can listen to anyone and learn. RICHARD: Of course you can ‘listen to anyone and learn’ – everyone I meet knows things that I do not know – but that ordinary way of listening to an ordinary person not what is being discussed. What is being discussed is ‘listening’ as described by Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti in reference to listening to Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti. Vis.:
You have indicated before that you certainly thought that by being in his presence something could happen (as compared with being in anybody else’s presence) thus he certainly set up that expectation for you ... as well as many, many other people. Vis.:
Presumably ‘shaking his hand’ did not do the trick but, then again, he never advocated that method ... he said to ‘listen’ to him. RESPONDENT: Are the normal cognitive faculties of the brain active in listening? I don’t know and it doesn’t matter either (at least to me). For me listening is synonymous with learning. I really don’t care which faculties of my brain get involved. This is how I learn everything. RICHARD: Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti also lays special emphasis upon the word ‘learn’ and talks of a ‘learning’ that differs from the normal way of learning (which is the accumulation of knowledge over time) and this ‘learning’ occurs when ‘I’ am not. RESPONDENT: I see some similarities between what the gestaltists call the ‘aha’ experience and Krishnamurti’s ‘learning’. Somewhere in the learning process there is a click and an ‘aha!’. RICHARD: The ‘aha! experience’ is when one ‘gets’ something one has not properly understood before ... it is a ‘seeing’ of something important to understanding, somewhat akin to an insight. Once again, Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s ‘learning’ is not this ‘gestalt learning’. RESPONDENT: From my personal experience, this is how learning occurs: 1. Interest in the matter that is being communicated is a pre-requisite; without interest, I doubt if there will be any learning. RICHARD: There is something much, much more involved than ‘interest in the matter’ ... it is an interest that is of a ‘life or death’ importance, to use that term, as in it is a once-in-a-lifetime type of ‘listening’. When one is ‘listening’ one only ‘listens’ that once ... then it is all over and the ‘learning’ that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti talks of comes into being. RESPONDENT: 2. The listener has to be active, i.e., the listener must pay attention to what is being said, be attentive to the words, the tones, the nuances, the subtleties in communication. RICHARD: No ... the ‘listener’ is in a state of suspension, dormancy, latency (otherwise it is not ‘listening’). RESPONDENT: 3. Listener can possibly not pay attention to what s/he is listening to if her mind is wandering and distracted. Hence a relaxed mental attitude, where one is free from anxieties and pressing immediate matters is necessary. RICHARD: As every single brain cell – and every single one of the trillions of synapses – are quivering and shivering and shaking themselves loose with the alert vitality of the import of this once-in-a-lifetime ‘listening’ I would be hard-pressed to describe it as ‘a relaxed mental attitude’. RESPONDENT: 4. Most importantly, the listener needs to see that s/he is listening to the /other/ and not to his own mentation. For example, while reading your posts, I try to find out what you are saying, and not what I think about what you say. That thinking/judging etc. needs to be suspended, at least for a while. RICHARD: Ahh ... when it comes to reading what I have to say I advocate making full use of one’s ability for remembrance, appraisal and decision (which is to compare, evaluate and judge) whilst being fully aware of the activity of cognitive dissonance. I do not request a suspension of disbelief ... I encourage anyone to examine the supporting evidence that is presented with the purport so as to determine whether what is being said is substantiated, thus making a critical examination of all the words I advance so as to ascertain if they be intrinsically self-explanatory ... and only when they are all seen to be inherently consistent with what is being spoken about do the facts speak for themselves. Then one will have reason to remember a pure conscious experience (PCE), which all peoples I have spoken to at length have had, and thus verify by direct experience the facticity of what is written because the PCE occurs globally ... across cultures and down through the ages irregardless of gender, race or age. However, it is usually interpreted according to cultural beliefs – created and reinforced by the persistence of identity – and devolves into an altered state of consciousness (ASC). Then ‘I’ as ego – sublimated and transcended as ‘me’ as soul – manifest as a god or a goddess (that which is ‘timeless and spaceless and formless’) otherwise known as an embodiment of the ‘supreme intelligence’ ... and insist that you ‘listen’ to them in a thoughtless state with a total lack of knowledge. RESPONDENT: 5. Once I have understood what the other person is saying, then I judge it. Now, in true listening, this judging happens at a depth and is mostly autonomous. I don’t have to consciously reject what you are saying, if it is not true, but such rejection happens automatically. Vice-versa, I don’t need to accept the truth of your statements consciously; such acceptance comes from a depth. RICHARD: Oh dear ... feelings are notoriously unreliable when it comes to establishing the veracity of something. A feeling is not a fact. Feelings have led humankind awry for aeons, without ever being queried as to whether they are the legitimate mechanism for deciding the authenticity of the matter. Feelings are held to be hallowed; they are given a trustworthiness they do not merit and are seen to be the ultimate adjudicator in any disputatious topic. RESPONDENT: 6. Hence, listening involves processes that are deeper than thinking. There is a silence in which real listening and learning takes place. RICHARD: Again, a feeling is not a fact. Again, feelings have led humankind astray for millennia, without ever being questioned as to whether they are the correct tools for determining the correctness of a matter. Again, feelings are held to be sacrosanct; they are given a credibility they do not deserve. They are seen to be the final arbiter in a contentious issue: ‘It’s a gut-feeling’, or ‘My intuition is never wrong’, or ‘It feels right’, and so on. Thought, shackled by emotion and/or passion and/or calenture, cannot operate with the clarity it is capable of. At the centre of feelings lies a calentural entity known as the soul (by any name). The soul, which has no substance whatsoever, is revered as being the seat of ‘me’; it is ‘my’ essential ‘being’. The feeling of ‘being’ is the impression of being present; it is the perception of a ‘presence’ that transcends time and space and form as a vast silence ... giving rise to the improper assumption that ‘I am that Silence’ (or ‘There is only That’ if one is really cunning). It must be stressed again that all this is derived from calenture; nothing in this has any facticity. This is because ‘I’ generate unfortunate misinformation on account of ‘being’. ‘I’ may be real ... but ‘I’ am not actual. Any ‘Ultimate Reality’ is never actuality ... everyday reality is a world-view created and sustained by emotive thought born out of the instinctual passions. This affective vision is a blinkered version of what is actual. Time is actual, space is actual, form is actual ... and any personal interpretation of the actual is an emotional transubstantiation of it into an illusion called reality. To then transcend this reality is to take a mystical leap into an other-worldly realm ... a supernatural ‘Ultimate Reality’ where silence speaks louder than words. * RESPONDENT: Are you listening to me, right now? RICHARD: You are misunderstanding the ‘in the company of truth’ (‘satsang’) meaning of the word ‘listening’ which implies a living master. But whether you are or are not a living master, I am listening to you the way I already always listen (to not only yourself, but to everybody, to everything, to every event) which is without an ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul. This way there is the freedom for remembrance, appraisal and decision (which is to compare, evaluate and judge) in every situation afresh, each moment again, with the full range of the brain’s innate cognitive ability. RESPONDENT: This is way, way, down the stack. Since you will most likely debate the point, let me say that the brain’s innate cognitive faculties do come in to play but in a very different manner – the silence in which listening takes place is the key to listening. RICHARD: Aye ... the silence in which Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s ‘listening’ takes place is indeed the key to Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s ‘listening’. RESPONDENT: There is a joy, an excitement, in listening and learning. It is not just an emotional joy, but a joy of understanding, of finding the truth. RICHARD: Yea verily ... and so 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 go on for ever and a day. * RICHARD: It sure beats having to be ‘open’. RESPONDENT: Please re-consider the issue in light of what I said. RICHARD: I have, I am and I will ‘re-consider the issue in light of what you said’ ... and I will continue to re-consider everything each moment again as each moment brings each new situation complete with a new looking and learning. Each new moment is packed full of fascinating experience being freshly experienced ... those peoples who complain about being bored are missing out on the novelty of the actual. RESPONDENT: And, if possible, try to listen, i.e., have a meditative mind that grasps the truth of what is said. RICHARD: I have no need of a ‘meditative mind’ ... I have never meditated and never will.
Normally people are once-removed from actuality ... to meditate RESPONDENT: You tend to be too pedantic, and, I think miss the essence of a discussion. RICHARD: I am more than willing to discuss the issue of Richard being pedantic (synonyms: finicky, plodding, obscure, arcane, dull, doctrinaire, sophistic, hair-splitting, precise, precisionist, exact, scrupulous, overscrupulous, punctilious, meticulous, over-nice, perfectionist, formalist, dogmatic, literalist, literalistic, quibbling, hair-splitting, casuistic, casuistical, sophistical, pettifogging, nit-picking, intellectual, academic, scholastic, didactic, bookish, pedagogic, donnish, highbrow, pretentious, pompous, egghead, formal, stilted, stiff, stuffy, unimaginative, uninspired, rhetorical, bombastic, grandiloquent, high-flown, euphuistic, highfalutin) if you are interested enough to pursue the matter. As for ‘missing the essence of a discussion’ – and please correct me if I am in error – the essence of what you are saying in this post (and a previous one where you talked reverently of ‘the silence between two thoughts’) is that you trust intuition to instinctually accept what is ‘true’ and instinctually reject what is ‘not true’ ... irregardless of facts. This way, what ‘me’ as soul (the ‘feeler’) wants, ‘me’ as soul (the ‘feeler’) gets ... and what ‘me’ as soul (the ‘feeler’) wants is for ‘I’ as ego (the ‘thinker’) to get out of the way so that ‘the silence that speaks louder than words’ (such as the silence between two thoughts) can reveal itself for ‘the truth’ that it is (irregardless of facts). Which would be why you want for me to read what you have to say with a ‘meditative mind’ ... by which you would mean ‘meditative mind’ as in the inapt translation of the Eastern Spiritual practice (as epitomised by the word ‘dhyana’) rather than as in the Western meaning: ‘think upon; consider’. There is a vast difference: in the West to meditate means to be thoughtful; to engage in contemplation about, to exercise the mental faculties, contemplate, think about, think over, muse upon, ponder upon, reflect on, deliberate about, mull over, have in mind, plan by turning over in the mind, fix one’s attention on, observe intently or with interest, concentrate on, consider, ruminate, study, intend, project, design, devise, scheme or plot. And such meditation is continuous thought on one subject; a period of serious and sustained reflection or mental contemplation, consideration, reflection, deliberation, rumination, mulling over or being in reverie, musing, pondering or brooding. Whereas in the East to meditate means to be thoughtless; meditation is the action or practice of a profound spiritual or religious state of consciousness for whose description words are considered to be totally inadequate. It is the highest state of consciousness, associated with direct mystic experience of reality and cannot be experienced until a condition of mindlessness has been created through the deliberate elimination of the objects of thought from consciousness. The organs of sense perception are so controlled that they no longer pass to the mind their reactions to what is perceived. The mind loses its identity by absorption into a higher state which precludes any awareness of duality, although a form of unitary awareness of the conventional world is retained. Entering into Eastern meditation, one experiences the heart as being wider than the universe and experiences infinite bliss and immeasurable power exceeding any occult power. It is a yogic state of formless ecstasy when there is absorption in divine reality and a loss of body sense ... and the ego has been transcended. In this state one rests in highest consciousness ... one has become lord and master of reality. Very few spiritual seekers have reached this level for one is manifesting God in every second, both consciously and perfectly. There is identification with the transcendent, radiant being in which all phenomena are seen as temporary, non-binding modifications of this all-inclusive divine being. The divine self is realised beyond the view point of the physical body, or the mind or the independent personal consciousness. When phenomena arise to notice from this formless and unqualified presence or love-bliss there is ecstasy of perfect spontaneity. RESPONDENT: If you don’t mind my saying, reading your posts the expression that comes to my mind often is: ‘the operation was successful, but the patient died’. RICHARD: That is my very intention ... only when ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul altruistically self-immolate does the already always existing peace-on-earth become apparent (which is the only ‘success’ worthy of the name). Thus the ‘operation’ is not yet ‘successful’’ eh?
CORRESPONDENT No. 33 (Part Three): RETURN TO CORRESPONDENCE LIST ‘B’ 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.
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