Actual Freedom – Mailing List ‘C’ Correspondence

Richard’s Correspondence On Mailing List ‘C’

with Respondent No. 3


March 25 2000:

RESPONDENT: I wonder why anyone would ‘want’ to feel they have exceeded the understanding of such a one as Buddha or Christ?

RICHARD: Why would anyone want to merely ‘feel’ that have done anything correctly or incorrectly ... let alone exceeding Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s or Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene’ ‘understanding’? Feelings are notoriously unreliable ... why feelings should be given the honour of being the final arbiter in any issue speaks volumes about the human condition and indicates why people are unable to directly address the issue under question, which is: why do human beings suffer?

RESPONDENT: Actually feelings are totally accurate, when felt without the interpretation of your intellect. People suffer because they have egos and are reactive and are ignorant of their higher selves, that self that is telepathic and beyond the material plane incarnation.

RICHARD: Just as in a previous post you proposed that ‘ideas’ were subject to ‘interpretation’ only in a person with ‘separated awareness’ you are now putting forward that ‘feelings are totally accurate when felt without the interpretation of the intellect’ ... are you not insinuating an infallibility for ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ once again?

Since the advent of audio-taped and video-taped discourses, has there been any ‘Enlightened Being’ who has been demonstrably infallible?

*

RICHARD: As feelings lie all around the root cause of suffering (thus protecting and concealing it) then to give feelings the power to be the ultimate adjudicator means never finding the root cause.

RESPONDENT: The root cause is ignorance Richard. Ignorance means not knowing that we are spirit beings seemingly trapped in this veil of tears material world, which in fact we are not. Only until we truly awaken.

RICHARD: To awaken in a dream is to be ‘lucidly dreaming’ ... but one is still dreaming, nevertheless. Virtually all disciplines – if not all – acknowledge ‘truly awakening’ as happening after physical death ... the Buddhist ‘Parinirvana’ and the Hindu ‘Mahasamadhi’ are but two of the most obvious examples. Mr. Gotama the Sakyan, for instance, could not definitively answer several fundamental ‘before birth/after death’ questions ... he observed that such questions were speculative.

Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to believe, eh?

*

RESPONDENT: Few feel they can even begin to fathom the depths of realizations of those two towering figures.

RICHARD: Speaking personally, I always let the facts speak for themselves ... and the facts are very simple in regards to the ‘realisations’ of Mr. Gotama the Sakyan and Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene: neither offered peace-on-earth and both proposed non-earthly salvation (‘Deathless’ and ‘Heaven’) after physical death. It does not take a genius to suss out that they were both anti-life to the core.

RESPONDENT: Not anti-life, but a higher life. Life doesn’t require the material world, it is a level of life, like kindergarten, very much like it in fact.

RICHARD: Okay ... I am only too happy to re-phrase it: it does not take a genius to suss out that they were both anti-life-on-earth to the core. Neither Mr. Gotama the Sakyan and Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene offered peace-on-earth and both proposed non-earthly salvation (‘Deathless’ and ‘Heaven’) after physical death. Thus they both had nothing of substance to offer but instead some spurious immortality in some specious after-life. How on earth is this ‘wisdom’ going to bring to an end all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and the such-like on this otherwise fair earth we all inhabit?

*

RICHARD: The paramount ‘realisation’ of Mr. Gotama the Sakyan was that everything material (physical) – which includes the entire universe – being transitory, impermanent, was dukkha: therefore cease craving physical existence (do not even bother looking for peace-on-earth).

RESPONDENT: He had peace, he just knew it isn’t too peaceful here in the material world, and that it will be ‘more’ peaceful beyond it. Like going to the country.

RICHARD: Is this response not just another way of saying the same as what I wrote? What you are saying, in effect, is that the paramount ‘realisation’ of Mr. Gotama the Sakyan meant do not even bother looking for peace-on-earth ... peace comes at physical death (‘Parinirvana’) and not before? Because when you speak of the ‘peace he had’ (knowing that it will be ‘more peaceful’ beyond life-on-earth) you are discussing the difference between ‘Nirvana’ and ‘Parinirvana’.

 

According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica ‘Ultimate Reality’ in Buddhism is called ‘Parinirvana’ (Complete Nirvana) or the freedom of spirit (by whatever name) brought about by release from the body. In the Buddhist analysis of the human condition, delusions of egocentricity and their resultant desires bind humans to a continuous round of rebirths and its consequent ‘dukkha’. It is release from these bonds that constitutes ‘Nirvana’, or the experience of ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’. ‘Nirvana’ is but the initial goal of the mindfulness disciplines and practice in that it signifies the transcendent state of freedom achieved by the extinction (‘nirodha’) of ‘tanha’ (craving for existence; desire) and of ‘atta’ (individual consciousness). That this is only the inaugural objective is very clear to the discerning eye because – while liberation from rebirth does not imply immediate death and thus release into the ‘Deathless’ – the physical death of a ‘Perfect One’ (an Arhat or a Buddha) does. Thus while the immediate aim of the Buddhist path is release from the round of phenomenal existence with its inherent dukkha by attaining ‘Nirvana’ (the enlightened state in which the fires of greed, hatred, and ignorance have been quenched), ‘Nirvana’ is not to be confused with total annihilation because, after attaining ‘Nirvana’, the enlightened individual will continue to live, burning off any remaining karma until the state of ‘Final Nirvana’ (‘Parinirvana’) is attained at the moment of physical death.

It may be noted that, during the early centuries of Buddhist history, not only were there the three major pilgrimage centres – the place of Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s birth at Lumbini, the place of his Enlightenment at Bodh Gaya, the Deer Park in Varanasi where he preached his first sermon – but particularly the village of Kusinara, (or Kushinagara) located in the eastern district of Deoria, which is the place of his ‘Parinirvana’.

Quite obviously, this is a very self-seeking approach to life on earth ... something that all metaphysical peoples are guilty of. The quest to secure one’s immortality (by whatever name) in some spurious ‘After-Life’ (by whatever name) is unambiguously selfish ... peace-on-earth is readily sacrificed for the supposed continuation of the imagined spirit (by whatever name) after physical death. So much for their humanitarian ideals of peace, goodness, altruism, philanthropy and humaneness. All religious and spiritual and mystical quests amount to nothing more than a self-centred urge to perpetuate oneself for ever and a day. All metaphysicists fall foul of this existential dilemma. They pay lip-service to the notion of self-sacrifice – weeping crocodile tears at noble martyrdom – whilst selfishly pursuing the timeless ‘State of Being’ ... the ‘Deathless State’. The root cause of all the ills of humankind can be sheeted home to this single, basic fact:

The overriding importance of the survival of ‘self’ by whatever name (the ‘non-self’).

*

RICHARD: Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene’ major ‘realisation’ was essentially the same: everything material (the heavens and the earth) shall pass away – therefore resist the temptations of the flesh – as his kingdom, which was before the heavens and the earth were, endures (do not even bother looking for peace-on-earth).

RESPONDENT: His realization was the same because there is only reality. The both transcended material plane slavery. Free at last.

RICHARD: Again, is this response not just another way of saying the same as what I wrote? What you are saying, in effect, is that Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene’ paramount ‘realisation’ meant do not even bother looking for peace-on-earth ... peace comes at physical death (‘R. I. P’) and not before?

*

RICHARD: I did not just ‘begin to fathom the depths’: I have experientially fathomed ‘the depths of realizations of those two’ to the very core of ‘being’ itself ... I lived it night and day for eleven years.

RESPONDENT: No you haven’t or you wouldn’t talk the way you do.

RICHARD: Am I to take it that your evaluation of a fellow human being’s freedom is dependent upon such a person not doing a critique on ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’? That is, if someone says, after living in the transcendental state for sufficient time to absorb all the implications and ramifications, that transcendence sucks ... then they have not truly transcended according to you? In other words, is concurrence with the ‘ancient wisdom’ the defining characteristic of transcendence for you ... and that any dissent is thus effectively quashed?

RESPONDENT: That’s why I say you are deluded. It’s cool, it’s just the Messianic complex, I’ve been there. Part of the path.

RICHARD: This response simply fails to grasp the obvious: as I am a thorough-going atheist through and through (there is no religiosity, spirituality, mysticality or metaphysicality in me whatsoever) I cannot possibly be suffering a ‘Messianic Complex’. All those years ago, when I set out to become actually free of the human condition, I set my sights further than being merely another in a long line of failed saviours ... and I am not likely to fall back to that position now that I have succeeded.

*

RICHARD: Their ‘realisations’ and ‘understandings’ (and those of all God-Men and Gurus) does not include peace-on-earth. Therefore, their ‘wisdom’ means that all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and the such-like will go on forever and a day. And yet you say that it is me who is deluded?

RESPONDENT: You don’t understand earth to think of it as peaceful.

RICHARD: I do not ‘think’ peace-on-earth ... I experience peace-on-earth twenty four hours a day, day after day. When I go to bed at night I have had a perfect day ... and I know that I will wake up to yet another day of perfection. This has been going on, day-after-day, for years now ... it is so ‘normal’ that I take it for granted that there is only perfection.

Plus I can easily put it all into words so as to unambiguously share my experience with my fellow human beings.

RESPONDENT: All beings are evolving to man: plants, animals, bugs. And it will take a beetle (not Beatle) a while before he acquires a human form, then probably a few thousand lifetimes before he attains enlightenment. If you considered all the sentient beings that weren’t in human form that had to attain human form to attain enlightenment you could see how there could be no such thing as ‘peace on earth’. Spiritual truths are very difficult to surrender to, which is what is required.

RICHARD: Aye, yet this is not a ‘spiritual truth’ ... this is a cultural religious belief (not all ‘Enlightened Beings’ believe in metempsychosis).

RESPONDENT: People want to ‘understand’ them, but how can you understand with a mind that is asleep?

RICHARD: I could certainly answer your question, as to how I understand them, from having lived as ‘a mind that is not asleep’ for eleven years ... but as you may very well tell me once again ‘no you haven’t or you wouldn’t talk the way you do’ I may as well not answer.

That is ... not until you can be expansive enough to read what is being written with unjaundiced eyes, anyway.

*

RESPONDENT: I fear you are suffering from delusion here Richard.

RICHARD: Okay ... what is the nature, the characteristics of the delusion, according to you? Bearing in mind that I invite anyone to make a critical examination of all the words I advance so as to ascertain if they be intrinsically self-explanatory ... and if they are all seen to be inherently consistent with what is being spoken about, then 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. The PCE occurs globally ... across cultures and down through the ages irregardless of gender, race or age.

RESPONDENT: Your PCE is limited to your body and this earth. The hole in your argument. One of many.

RICHARD: First, it is not my PCE ... the PCE occurs globally, across cultures and down through the ages, irregardless of gender, race or age. Second, I have only ever wanted peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body ... and I found it. In so doing I discovered infinitude – eternity and infinity – right here at this place in infinite space just now at this moment in eternal time as an on-going existential experiencing. This kind of knocks your ‘limited to your body and this earth’ theory for a six.

And if that is ‘one of many’ holes ... what are the rest? Innuendoes, allusions and intimations in the place of sensible refutations will get you nowhere ... other than creating the impression that, for all of your ‘totally accurate’ feelings and non-interpreted ‘ideas’, you have very little of substance to offer when someone presents a viable alternative to being either ‘human’ or ‘divine’.

*

RICHARD: 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 (‘The Truth’ by any name) and preach unliveable doctrines based upon their belief that they are ‘not the body’. Doctrines like pacifism, for example.

RESPONDENT: You are trying to understand with your intellect that which cannot be understood, but needs to be intuited.

RICHARD: May I suggest? If you wish to respond to me intelligently, then realise that the stock-standard ‘master’s reply’ simply does not work on me. I am not ‘trying to understand with [my] intellect’ at all ... I experientially detected the facticity of the sublimation and transcendence required for spiritual freedom all those years ago.

*

RESPONDENT: To even consider oneself any where near the understanding of those two, let alone beyond them is bordering on the danger zone.

RICHARD: Why? 2,500-odd years and 2,000-odd years have gone by and despite millions upon millions – if not billions – of otherwise intelligent and/or pious and/or studious and/or devout peoples throughout these thousands of years faithfully and trustingly applying their ‘Teachings’ ... there is still as much mayhem and misery as way back then.

RESPONDENT: I’ve been saved. Works for me and millions like me.

RICHARD: Mr. Ken Wilber (writing in Mr. Andrew Cohen’s ‘What is Enlightenment’ magazine) claimed that only about a thousand ‘Enlightened Ones’ had emerged from 2,500 years of devout effort by millions of Buddhist monks. His estimate was, therefore, 0.0000001 of the population. Could you elaborate upon what you mean by ‘millions like me’ so that I am not misunderstanding? Are you speaking of an intellectual understanding of various ‘Teachings’, some minor realisations along the way, or ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ itself?

*

RICHARD: Does this not stretch one’s credulity somewhat?

RESPONDENT: It’s not about credulity, but intuition and faith.

RICHARD: What is the difference between ‘credulity’ and ‘intuition and faith’ ... according to you? Because, when one intuitively knows who ‘I’ really am (as in ‘I am the Self’, the second ‘I’ as explicated by Mr. Venkataraman Aiyer aka Ramana) one is living in an apotheosised field of consciousness where one has the power of attaining to direct metaphysical knowledge without evident sensible thought and rational inference ... which indicates credulity stretched to the max: a readiness to believe, to have faith and trust, that ‘The Truth’ is genuine, authentic, bona fide, valid, legitimate.

*

RESPONDENT: I’ve met some towering folks myself in my time and none of those would dare assert their superiority.

RICHARD: Yet is it not stunningly clear, to the discerning observer, that the ‘Enlightened Beings’ have squandered their heyday? With this modern era’s rapid and comprehensive publication and communications network, none of their gaffes and improprieties elude notice. Anyone who is at all astute will have perceived that they have fallen short of their own standards ... and have failed to deliver the goods so readily pledged to a credulous humanity.

RESPONDENT: Enlightened beings are beyond unenlightened judgement.

RICHARD: If I may point out? This stock-standard ‘master’s reply’ simply does not work on me: I experientially detected the facticity of the hypocrisy in spiritual freedom all those years ago. ... and anyway, ‘unenlightened judgement’ also shows they have indeed fallen short of their own standards ... and have failed to deliver the goods so readily pledged to a credulous humanity.

RESPONDENT: Enlightenment means freedom from ignorance. You become one with God’s creation.

RICHARD: If I may remind you? I already am aware of this (as I am already aware of all of your other non-responsive-to-the-issue replies in this post) due to eleven years of experiential living of enlightenment. You are not addressing the issues at all ... what has this reply have to do with intelligently responding to ‘none of their gaffes and improprieties elude notice ... they have fallen short of their own standards ... and have failed to deliver the goods so readily pledged to a credulous humanity’? Does ‘you become one with God’s creation’ mean that ‘God’ falls short of ‘God’s own standards ... and thus fails to deliver the goods so readily pledged to a credulous humanity? Because, as there are more than a few recorded incidences of ‘Enlightened Beings’ displaying both anguish and anger, you seem to be indicating that the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) does not bestow such a remarkable freedom that amorality indubitably is.

*

RESPONDENT: I think you are mistaken Richard, you seem to have gone on an intellectual journey that has taken you to some never-never land.

RICHARD: What inspires you to say this? Why is almost everybody held in thralldom to failed ancestors? Is it not obvious that the whole thrust of humanity’s wisdom – polluted as it is by belief, faith, trust, hope and the uneasy certitude engendered – has been going horribly wrong? Wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and corruption have been the odious result of such practices ...

RESPONDENT: You misunderstand peace and freedom. Murders and wars are illusions in a sense. People don’t actually ‘die’, this is the grand illusion. The material world is a gradation of reality, and a somewhat crude one.

RICHARD: Is this not a very, very sick attitude towards the pain and suffering of all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and the such-like? This head-in-the-sand statement (‘murders and wars are illusions in a sense ... people don’t actually ‘die’, this is the grand illusion’) cavalierly dismisses all pain and suffering. If your wife and/or daughter and/or mother and/or grandmother and/or sister was being brutally raped prior to being murdered because a war was going on and all civilised restraints are null and void, would you really stand by saying to her: this is all an ‘illusion in a sense ... people don’t actually ‘die’, this is the grand illusion’?

RESPONDENT: Are you going to the tractor pull on Sunday, Sunday, Sunday? Ha, ha, ha.

RICHARD: You will have to elaborate: what ‘tractor pull’ are you referring to ... and where? And which ‘Sunday’ are you indicating?

*

RICHARD: ... and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and the such-like have been the odious result of [belief, faith, trust, hope and the uneasy certitude engendered] for far too long to persevere in giving credence to the fantasies and hallucinations that pass for sagacity. Fuelled by an emotional imagination, human beings down through the centuries have given voice to their passionate dreams and nightmares, with abominable consequences.

RESPONDENT: Some of that is karma, people who have raped needing to be raped to understand how rape is not right.

RICHARD: Once again ... if your wife and/or daughter and/or mother and/or grandmother and/or sister was being brutally raped would you really stand by saying to her: ‘people who have raped need to be raped to understand how rape is not right’? Not only is she being raped but on top of that horrific experience you are hanging a guilt trip upon her that she did some raping herself in a past life ... infallibly intuited, presumably, by your ‘totally accurate’ feelings and non-interpreted ‘ideas’, perchance?

*

RESPONDENT: If you went around poking people in the eye and getting great joy from people’s suffering, maybe only getting poked a lot yourself would make you understand how getting poked in the eye is painful. Comprehend?

RICHARD: Oh, but I comprehended that, years ago in my callow youth, as a normal person ... this level of wisdom is such ‘kindergarten’ stuff, non?

*

RICHARD: All of humanity’s sublime feeling and profound thought has been a purview predicated upon doom and gloom regarding life here on this fair earth.

RESPONDENT: Fortunately there is life beyond death.

RICHARD: Is this response not just another way of saying the same as what I wrote? Is not what you are saying here (in effect): do not even bother looking for peace-on-earth?

*

RICHARD: And yet you see a fellow human being’s discovery of the already always existing peace-on-earth as an ‘intellectual journey’ into a ‘never-never land’. When I go to bed at night I have had a perfect day ... and I know that I will wake up to yet another day of perfection. This has been going on, day-after-day, for years now ... it is so ‘normal’ that I take it for granted that there is only perfection. If this is what an ‘intellectual journey’ into a ‘never-never land’ produces then I thoroughly recommend such a journey to all and sundry. This is peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body ... as an actuality.

RESPONDENT: That’s good, but to me, you still sound deluded, and that’s not good. I’d rather see the awful truth about myself than tell myself some pretty story.

RICHARD: If I may point out? There is no ‘awful truth about myself’ ... all that was deleted, extirpated, extinguished. In a word: extinct.

RESPONDENT: Which I happen to do also.

RICHARD: May I ask? Does this ‘telling myself some pretty story’ that you ‘happen to do also’ go something like what you have presented to me in this post alone, which portrays a ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’ after one is physically dead, and pours scorn upon ‘oh ye of little faith/understanding’? Vis.:

1. ‘feelings are totally accurate, when felt without the interpretation of your intellect’.
2. ‘people suffer because they have egos and are reactive and are ignorant of their higher selves’.
3. ‘our higher self is telepathic and beyond the material plane incarnation’.
4. ‘the root cause [of suffering] is ignorance of knowing that we are spirit beings seemingly trapped in this veil of tears material world’.
5. ‘the higher life doesn’t require the material world, the material world is a level of life, like kindergarten, very much like it in fact’.
6. ‘[Mr. Gotama the Sakyan] knew it isn’t too peaceful here in the material world, and that it will be ‘more’ peaceful beyond it’.
7. ‘there is only reality. ...they [Mr. Gotama the Sakyan and Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene] both transcended material plane slavery ... free at last’.
8. ‘no you haven’t [lived enlightenment] or you wouldn’t talk the way you do’.
9. ‘all beings are evolving to man [thus metempsychosis shows] how there could be no such thing as ‘peace on earth’.
10. ‘how can you understand [the perpetuation of wars etc.] with a mind that is asleep?’
11. ‘your PCE is limited to your body and this earth’.
12. ‘I’ve been saved ... works for me and millions like me’.
13. ‘enlightened beings are beyond unenlightened judgement’.
14. ‘enlightenment means freedom from ignorance ... you become one with God’s creation’.
15. ‘murders and wars are illusions in a sense ... people don’t actually ‘die’, this is the grand illusion’.
16. ‘people who have raped need to be raped to understand how rape is not right’.
17. ‘maybe only getting poked a lot yourself would make you understand how getting poked in the eye is painful’.
18. ‘fortunately there is life beyond death’.
19. ‘your arguments are very creative but their major flaw is that your consciousness has not really transcended’.
20. ‘your consciousness has not really transcended, so you are in delusion’.

*

RESPONDENT: What I hear in your explanations is just ordinary consciousness, which you should not confuse with superiority to enlightenment.

RICHARD: Okay ... would you expand on your observation so that I may see for myself what you see? And, to save you wading through all that I have written, I will provide a précis ... perhaps you may point out where you see the ‘ordinary consciousness’ being ‘confused with superiority to enlightenment’ in action?

RESPONDENT: Your arguments [in the précis] are very creative, but their major flaw is that your consciousness has not really transcended, so you are in delusion.

RICHARD: What manner of a response is this? You clearly said (infallibly intuited, presumably, by your ‘totally accurate’ feelings and non-interpreted ‘ideas’), that my explanations are just ‘ordinary consciousness’ being ‘confused with superiority to enlightenment’. I specifically asked for you to point out where you see the ‘ordinary consciousness’ being ‘confused with superiority to enlightenment’ in action ... and I even provided a précis of what an actual freedom from the human condition is so as to save you wading through all that I have written. Yet nowhere have you addressed the very issues I bring forward ... you dismiss everything – everything – as being ‘very creative’ because my ‘consciousness has not really transcended’. Do you see the circularity of your statement and response? Vis.:

1. ‘ordinary consciousness should not be confused with superiority to enlightenment’.
2. ‘your consciousness has not really transcended, so you are in delusion’.

I have explained more than once before that it is in ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ that sublimation and transcendence takes place ... and not in an actual freedom (hence ‘superiority to enlightenment’). I provided information in the précis (point No. 7 and point No. 9) ... yet here you circumvent this vital distinction by using spiritual freedom criteria for your dismissal even though I provided a pithy comparison in another post in case all that I have to say gets lost in the verbiage. Vis.:

• Actual freedom: Suffering is eliminated (via immolation).
• Spiritual freedom: Suffering is transcended (via sublimation).

Therefore, will you respond again ... but addressing the issues this time?

March 29 2000:

RESPONDENT: Richard I think you are an intelligent person, but I don’t think you have the awakening you think you do.

RICHARD: I had already distinctly gained that impression from your previous responses to what I write. May I ask? What has happened to your famed ‘telepathy’ that you have to resort to common or garden thinking when it comes to sussing me out? You have this ability to access ‘the astral universes’ and count ‘all the inhabitants’ there ... yet you ‘think’ that I ‘don’t have the awakening’? Where is the infallible intuition – aka your ‘totally accurate’ feelings and non-interpreted ‘ideas’ – when you need it most? Are you ‘trying to understand using your intellect’ ... and having some difficulty using that moth-balled-for-24-years machinery again to its full effect?

Thinking is such a delightful episodic event.

RESPONDENT: My experience is that almost 100% of awakened people went thru the agency of some teacher or guru, that this is not the sort of thing that can be self-taught. Did you do that?

RICHARD: First ... I am not ‘awakened’ (for although to awake in a dream is to be lucidly dreaming one is still dreaming nevertheless), I am actually free of the human condition. Any ‘awakening’ is still within the human condition.

In 1980 I had a pure consciousness experience (PCE) that lasted for four hours. In that four hours I lived the peace-on-earth that is already always here now ... and I saw that ‘I’ (an emotional-mental construct) was standing in the way of this actual freedom being apparent twenty four hours of the day. In that peak experience I saw ‘myself’ for the social identity that ‘I’ was. ‘I’ was the end product of society and nothing more. ‘I’ was a passionate construct of all of the beliefs, values, morals, ethics, mores, customs, traditions, doctrines, ideologies and so on. ‘I’ was nothing but an fabrication in the psyche ... a social identity which is its conscience. Once I had seen this, I then saw that ‘I’ was a lost, lonely, frightened (and a very, very cunning) psychological entity ... what I later came to know as ‘ego’. Just as those Christians who are said to be possessed by an evil entity and need to be exorcised, I saw that every human being had been endowed with an identity as ego ... and it was called being normal. When ‘I’ saw that this was all ‘I’ was ... I was no longer that. I was me ... this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware.

This was what ‘I’ had been searching for – for 33 years – and the joke was that ‘I’ had not known that this is what ‘I’ had been searching for! Thus, when I reverted back to normal in the ‘real world’, ‘I’ knew, with the solid and irrefutable certainty of direct experience, that ‘I’ was standing in the way of the actual being apparent ... and ‘I’ had to go – become extinct – and not try to become something ‘better’. That is, ‘I’ just knew that ‘I’ could never, ever become perfect or be perfection. It was flagrantly evident that the only thing ‘I’ could do – the only thing ‘I’ had to do – was die (psychologically and psychically self-immolate) so that the already always existing perfection could become apparent.

By being born and raised in the West I was not steeped in the mystical religious tradition of the East and was thus able to escape the trap of centuries of eastern spiritual conditioning ... I had never heard the words ‘Enlightenment’ or ‘Nirvana’ and so on until 1982 when talking to a man about my breakthrough into freedom via the death of ‘myself’ in September 1981. He listened – he questioned me rigorously until well after midnight – and then declared me to be ‘Enlightened’. I had to ask him what that was, such was my ignorance of all things spiritual. He – being a nine-year spiritual seeker fresh from his latest trip to India – gave me a book to read by someone called Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti. That was to be the beginning of what was to become a long learning curve of all things religious, spiritual, mystical and metaphysical for me. I studied all this because I sought to understand what other peoples had made of such spontaneous experiences and to find out where human endeavour had been going wrong.

I found out where I had been going wrong for eleven years ... self-aggrandisement is so seductive.

RESPONDENT: And if so, who did you learn from? I myself had two teachers, Stephen Gaskin and John Panama. Also, if you are claiming realization, then you should be able to test it in others.

RICHARD: If I may point out? I am not claiming ‘realisation’ ... I am actually free of the human condition. This is an actualisation of the already always existing peace-on-earth ... not a realisation of one’s ideas, one’s inner dreams and hopes. If I may refer you to the following exchange? Vis.:

• [Respondent]: ‘We actually become our ideas, our thoughts are realities in themselves so they cannot be speculated about, they must be realized for their being alive’.
• [Richard]: ‘Are you saying that becoming ‘one with truth’ is the living-out of ‘ideas’? That it is a thought-created reality that one makes come true through being ‘realised’?’

RESPONDENT: I claim to be able to do that as should you be able to. If you can come to the United States, I would be happy to meet with you and you could test me and I you. This may clear up some of the confusion.

RICHARD: I am not interested in ‘testing’ you (or anyone else) ... it is of no concern to me whether you are fully realised or not: spiritual enlightenment sucks. And for as long as you continue to see me in terms of ‘awakening’ or ‘realisation’ or ‘enlightenment’ or any other name for the ‘Tried and True’ you would be wasting your time ... there is no ‘being’ lurking around inside this flesh and blood body to put through the hoops. For example: an awakened ‘Spiritual ‘Teacher’ personally checked me out face-to-face some years ago ... and made me the subject of the nightly discourse, warning the faithful followers that Richard is an example of the dangers on the spiritual path. To wit: Richard is insane. As the ubiquitously called ‘straight’ people (regular society) in the West consider that anyone dabbling in things mystical are the ‘lunatic fringe’ (conveniently ignoring the fact that their ‘God On Earth’ is one of them), I am sure that they must find it quaint that one lunatic would ‘test’ another lunatic and declare him to be insane (thereby implying that the ‘tester’ is not).

Ah ... c’est la vie, I guess.

March 30 2000:

RESPONDENT: You should be able to test realization in others. I claim to be able to do that as should you be able to. If you can come to the United States, I would be happy to meet with you and you could test me and I you. This may clear up some of the confusion.

RICHARD: I am not interested in ‘testing’ you (or anyone else) ... it is of no concern to me whether you are fully realised or not: spiritual enlightenment sucks.

RESPONDENT: It really doesn’t, but anyways ...

RICHARD: It actually does (and I have pointed out many, many instances where it does). Your response here adds nothing to this discussion ... you will need to elaborate if you wish to make a fresh point demonstrating that ‘it really doesn’t’.

*

RICHARD: And for as long as you continue to see me in terms of ‘awakening’ or ‘realisation’ or ‘enlightenment’ or any other name for the ‘Tried and True’ you would be wasting your time ... there is no ‘being’ lurking around inside this flesh and blood body to put through the hoops.

RESPONDENT: Okay, but there certainly seems to be someone in there.

RICHARD: This ‘there certainly seems to be someone in there’ phrasing indicates that there may very well be a psychological and/or psychic entity still inhabiting the body that is writing these words to me. Hence you presumably have no alternative but to see in what I write ‘someone in there’ ... which process, if this is what is happening, is called egocentricity (viewing another through one’s own feelings and/or standards).

*

RICHARD: For example: an awakened ‘Spiritual Teacher’ personally checked me out face-to-face some years ago ... and made me the subject of the nightly discourse, warning the faithful followers that Richard is an example of the dangers on the spiritual path. To wit: Richard is insane.

RESPONDENT: I think we may have touched on something here. This is an unbearably cruel thing to do to anyone. Although the false self must be shattered, this in not the way to do it.

RICHARD: Oh, it was not ‘an unbearably cruel thing’ at all ... I had a thoroughly pleasant time explaining my experience (just as I do here). It was, as always, great fun ... at least for me, anyway (I cannot answer for the awakened ‘Spiritual Teacher’ of course).

RESPONDENT: In my opinion. I’m really sorry your had to go thru this experience, it seems you may be still angry about this?

RICHARD: Goodness me, no ... I have these nonsensical character analyses gratuitously given to me on an almost daily basis. It is this simple: there is no way I can politely say ‘everybody is going 180 degrees in the wrong direction’ without someone getting their nose out of joint. It is all par for the course.

RESPONDENT: If I might ask, were you following this teacher at the time, were you part of a group?

RICHARD: You may have missed my answer to your question about having a teacher or guru in a previous post wherein I explained how I came to be here where I am today. Just so that there is no further misunderstanding I will make my experience crystal clear:

• I have never followed anyone; I have never been part of any religious, spiritual, mystical or metaphysical group; I have never done any disciplines, practices or exercises at all; I have never done any meditation, any yoga, any chanting of mantras, any tai chi, any breathing exercises, any praying, any fasting, any flagellations, any ... any of those ‘Tried and True’ inanities; nor did I endlessly analyse my childhood for ever and a day; nor did I do never-ending therapies wherein one expresses oneself again and again ... and again and again.

RESPONDENT: And also if you don’t mind, who was this teacher?

RICHARD: Why is it important to know who this awakened ‘Spiritual Teacher’ was? It could be anybody of mystical persuasion ... they are all saying the same-same esoteric thing, fundamentally. Please, it is the outcome of the conversation, which I was describing in my previous E-Mail, that is important ... rather than have this discussion devolving into an exercise in disparaging a particular person. I like my fellow human beings ... no matter what mischief they get up to.

It is the phenomenon of ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ that I am talking about ... not the person per se.

RESPONDENT: Or were you just checking yourself out? Like Kenny Rogers, ‘just checking in to see what condition your condition is in?’

RICHARD: No, I have no need to ‘check myself out’ ... I was simply discussing spiritual enlightenment and my experience of life, the universe and what it is to be a human being living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are with a fellow human being. This awakened ‘Spiritual Teacher’ took my explanation of myself, and my description of going beyond enlightenment, to be an indication of insanity ... let me re-present the point I am making: [Richard]: ‘as the ubiquitously called ‘straight’ people (regular society) consider that anyone dabbling in things mystical are the ‘lunatic fringe’ (conveniently ignoring the fact that their ‘God On Earth’ is one of them), I am sure that they must find it quaint that one lunatic would ‘test’ another lunatic and declare him to be insane (thereby implying that the ‘tester’ is not).

I find the entire situation hilarious.

RESPONDENT: I post to other forums and just yesterday someone was talking about ‘normal’ people as being insane and I said that was too severe a summation. Deluded would be accurate. I believe in accuracy.

RICHARD: Oh, normal people are sane alright (it is they who make the definition when it is all said and done). I have not been sane for years ... I was making the point that the Altered State Of Consciousness (ASC) called spiritual enlightenment is an institutionalised insanity where I wrote: ‘conveniently ignoring the fact that their ‘God On Earth’ is one of them’.

Ain’t life grand!

*

RICHARD: As the ubiquitously called ‘straight’ people (regular society) consider that anyone dabbling in things mystical are the ‘lunatic fringe’ (conveniently ignoring the fact that their ‘God On Earth’ is one of them), I am sure that they must find it quaint that one lunatic would ‘test’ another lunatic and declare him to be insane (thereby implying that the ‘tester’ is not).

RESPONDENT: Actually, the whole idea of a teacher ‘testing’ you in front of others is to me totally ridiculous.

RICHARD: Perhaps it was the way I phrased my description. Vis.:

• ‘for example: an awakened ‘Spiritual Teacher’ personally checked me out face-to-face some years ago ... and made me the subject of the nightly discourse, warning the faithful followers that Richard is an example of the dangers on the spiritual path. To wit: Richard is insane’.

Would it have been more clear for me to have written it this way? Vis.:

• ‘for example: an awakened ‘Spiritual Teacher’ personally checked me out face-to-face some years ago ... and made my description of my experience of going beyond enlightenment the subject of the nightly discourse, warning the faithful followers that Richard is an example of the dangers on the spiritual path. To wit: Richard is insane’.

I was not at the ‘nightly discourse’ ... that was several hours after the discussion (which was at a delightful sea-side restaurant) wherein the awakened ‘Spiritual Teacher’ personally checked me out face-to-face.

RESPONDENT: This teacher is obviously deluded himself.

RICHARD: That is the whole point of my story: [Richard]: ‘as the ubiquitously called ‘straight’ people (regular society) consider that anyone dabbling in things mystical are the ‘lunatic fringe’ (conveniently ignoring the fact that their ‘God On Earth’ is one of them), I am sure that they must find it quaint that one lunatic would ‘test’ another lunatic and declare him to be insane (thereby implying that the ‘tester’ is not).

RESPONDENT: A real teacher would never do that. And if you went to test yourself with a real teacher, you would do this in silence, your consciousness would connect with that of the teacher and you would commune with him telepathically, the ‘test’ would be to see whether your ego could withstand it, or if it would freak you out.

RICHARD: First, I would never, ever, go to an ‘Enlightened Being’ to ‘test myself’ ... I was enlightened for eleven years and know it through and through intimately. Second, there is neither ‘I’ as ego nor ‘me’ a soul extant in this flesh and blood body: if I were so silly as to do what you recommend, then because there is (a) no ‘I’ as ego there would be no possibility of ‘freaking out’ ... and because there is (b) no ‘me’ as soul there would be no possibility of ‘telepathic communion’.

Thus, as I remarked before, you would be wasting your time ... there is no ‘being’ lurking around inside this flesh and blood body to put through the hoops.

RESPONDENT: The teacher would sense immediately your inner condition, there would be no need for you to explain yourself at all, as you radiate your whole condition, nothing is hidden to the enlightened.

RICHARD: If I may interject? It looks like you have either misunderstood or have missed the point of my story entirely. There is no ‘radiation of my whole condition’ to be felt; there is no ‘charisma’ nor any ‘energy-field’ here. I am a fellow human being sans identity because the affective faculty – the entire psyche itself – is eradicated. I have no ‘energies’ ... no power or powers whatsoever.

There is no ‘good’ and ‘evil’ here in this actual world.

April 03 2000:

RESPONDENT No. 4: Richard has gone to great lengths to explain why your concept of a ‘spiritual reality’ – that includes enlightenment, illusion (maya, as in this is all a dream), enlightened beings who can’t truly be understood by ordinary mortals and/or who magically are no more than mere mortals, etc. – is not his shtick. Yet, you keep repeating the same old song, like if he hears it once more he’s going to get it. Like ‘I once was blind, but now I see’.

RESPONDENT: I’m now convinced. I’m finished with my conversation with him. I do have a lot of patience, but like everyone, I have my limit. Richard was worth the effort for me, I needed to try to connect with him, if possible. I didn’t.

RICHARD: Seeing that you have brought the conversation to an end, I would like to express my appreciation for your taking the time, in a discussion with me spanning 10 E-Mails, to give your attention to the most fundamental issues pertaining to human life on earth today. Given that the population inhabiting this otherwise fair planet we all live on has reached an unprecedented and staggering 6,000,000,000 instinctually driven malicious and sorrowful and loving and compassionate human beings; given that technological expertise has multiplied exponentially in the last 100 years in a manner unprecedented in human history; given that 160,000,000 sane people were killed by their sane fellow human beings in wars alone in the last 100 years; given that 40,000,000 people committed suicide in the last 100 years; given that three weapons with an unprecedented mass destruction capacity – chemical, biological and nuclear – were developed in the last 100 years; given that the world-wide mass media and communication networks provide unprecedented access to information never before available to the average person; given that an unprecedented opportunity to carry out scholarly comparative religious studies has scotched the ‘wisdom’ myth ascribed to all the world’s scriptures; given that the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages have had at least 3,000 to 5,000 years to demonstrate the efficacy of their solution to all the ills of humankind ... and given that the internet has the capability of bypassing both official censorship and the self-censorship of commercial publishers and reaching instantaneously into savvy individual’s homes via the rapid copying and distribution capacity of mailing lists with their multiple feed-back facility, it was a timely discussion.

How rare is it to be able to have a dialogue with a self-acknowledged realised being ... to be able to put various propositions and questions for your perusal, appraisal and response in a public forum such as this. I am particularly appreciative that you were able to consider, clarify and publicly state both your affirmation and seal of approval to the following extremely important issues. Vis.:

1. All the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages are not amoral at all ... they both can and do display anguish and anger.

2. All the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages do not have peace-on-earth on their agenda.

3. All the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages advise dissociation (wherein painful reality is transformed into a bad dream) as being the most effective means to deal with all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and the such-like.

4. All the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages, having totally accurate feelings and a telepathic intuitive ability, are infallible.

5. All the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages cannot be understood by ordinary or normal people ... ordinary or normal people should surrender to them and accept what they say and agree with them.

Again ... I do appreciate you giving your attention in detail to the most fundamental issues pertaining to human life on earth today.

April 04 2000:

RICHARD: Seeing that you have brought the conversation to an end, I would like to express my appreciation for your taking the time, in a discussion with me spanning 10 E-Mails, to give your attention to the most fundamental issues pertaining to human life on earth today.

RESPONDENT: I wonder whether this is sarcasm or what? Seems like it could be.

RICHARD: Indeed not ... I am entirely sincere. I like my fellow human beings and wish only the best for them ... each and every one. Hence this discussion and other public dialogues of the same nature and with the same topic. To wit: peace-on-earth, as this flesh and blood body, in this lifetime.

RESPONDENT: Just as a matter of record, what would you advise to cure all the ills of the world and what is your personal plan for bringing those plans about?

RICHARD: For starters: one needs to fully acknowledge the biological imperative (the instinctual passions) which are the root cause of all the ills of humankind. The genetically inherited passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) give rise to malice and sorrow. Malice and sorrow are intrinsically connected and constitute what is known as ‘The Human Condition’. The term ‘Human Condition’ 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. The ending of malice and sorrow involves getting one’s head out of the clouds – and beyond – and coming down-to-earth where the flesh and blood bodies called human beings actually live. Obviously, the solution to all the ills of humankind can only be found here in space and now in time as this body. Then the question is: is it possible to be free of the human condition, here on earth, in this life-time, as this flesh and blood body?

Which means: How on earth can one live happily and harmlessly in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are whilst one nurses malice and sorrow in one’s bosom?

*

RICHARD: Given that the population inhabiting this otherwise fair planet we all live on has reached an unprecedented and staggering 6,000,000,000 instinctually driven malicious and sorrowful and loving and compassionate human beings; given that technological expertise has multiplied exponentially in the last 100 years in a manner unprecedented in human history; given that 160,000,000 sane people were killed by their sane fellow human beings in wars alone in the last 100 years; given that 40,000,000 people committed suicide in the last 100 years; given that three weapons with an unprecedented mass destruction capacity – chemical, biological and nuclear – were developed in the last 100 years; given that the world-wide mass media and communication networks provide unprecedented access to information never before available to the average person; given that an unprecedented opportunity to carry out scholarly comparative religious studies has scotched the ‘wisdom’ myth ascribed to all the world’s scriptures; given that the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages have had at least 3,000 to 5,000 years to demonstrate the efficacy of their solution to all the ills of humankind ... and given that the internet has the capability of bypassing both official censorship and the self-censorship of commercial publishers and reaching instantaneously into savvy individual’s homes via the rapid copying and distribution capacity of mailing lists with their multiple feed-back facility, it was a timely discussion.

RESPONDENT: Perhaps, but who will benefit from it?

RICHARD: It will benefit anyone sufficiently motivated to explore, in an empirically-based way rather than a belief-based way, just what constitutes the ‘Human Condition’; it will benefit anyone already suspicious of what passes for wisdom in both the ‘real world’ and the ‘Greater Reality’ due to the absence of peace on earth after 3,000 to 5,000 years of recorded history; it will benefit anyone who still has some remnants of commonsense left and can think for themselves rather than allow themselves to be brow-beaten by vainglorious identities demanding unconditional surrender; it will benefit anyone who wishes to further their search into the area that lies beyond spiritual enlightenment (and any other form of an altered state of consciousness) because spiritual enlightenment has been demonstrated to suck badly; it will benefit anyone with sufficient acumen to discern, thanks to this modern era’s rapid and comprehensive publication and communications network, that the ‘Enlightened Beings’ have squandered their heyday as none of their gaffes and improprieties elude notice anymore; it will benefit anyone who has thus noticed that the ‘Enlightened Beings’ have fallen short of their own standards and who wants to know why they can continue to strut the world stage with apparent immunity to a sensible and valid critique; it will benefit anyone who has noticed that the ‘Enlightened Beings’ have failed to deliver the goods so readily pledged to a credulous humanity yet still command respect, loyalty, devotion, worship and total surrender of the integrity of otherwise intelligent people; it will benefit anyone astute enough to question the value of a promised peace obtained via a selfish desire for immortality in some dubious after-life at the cost of peace-on-earth ... and so on and so on.

To put it in a nut-shell ... it will benefit anyone who comprehends that the ending of malice and sorrow involves getting one’s head out of the clouds – and beyond – and coming down-to-earth where the flesh and blood bodies called human beings actually live; it will benefit anyone who sees that it is obvious that the solution to all the ills of humankind can only be found here in space and now in time as this physical body living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are; it will benefit anyone who then sees that the fundamental question is whether it is actually possible to be free of the human condition, here on earth, in this life-time, as this flesh and blood body ... and it will benefit anyone who then asks themselves:

How on earth can one live happily and harmlessly in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are whilst one nurses malice and sorrow in one’s bosom?

*

RICHARD: How rare is it to be able to have a dialogue with a self-acknowledged realised being ... to be able to put various propositions and questions for your perusal, appraisal and response in a public forum such as this. I am particularly appreciative that you were able to consider, clarify and publicly state both your affirmation and seal of approval to the following extremely important issues.

RESPONDENT: Ha, ha, you are a master of tongue in cheek, aren’t you?

RICHARD: Not at all ... I am entirely sincere. As I have already remarked: I like my fellow human beings and wish only the best for them ... each and every one. Hence this discussion and other public dialogues of the same nature and with the same topic. To wit: peace-on-earth, as this flesh and blood body, in this lifetime.

It is not possible to have an honest, candid and frank discussion until both parties place their cards on the table. Now that you have done so we can proceed with expedition – and without resorting to time-wasting and petty undergraduate debating techniques à la standard internet protocol – if that be of mutual agreement. If not, I will simply use a copy of this page (anonymously) as an established starting point in another discussion with another person on another day ... which is why I am particularly appreciative that you were able to consider, clarify and publicly state both your affirmation and seal of approval to these extremely important issues.

It demonstrably shows other people that I am not making all the details of this mysticism up, you see.

RESPONDENT: But my question to you is if you don’t like my answers, what are yours? No matter what I have said, you have found a way to shoot them down, but you have not offered solutions of your own. Not that I heard.

RICHARD: May I ask? Are you familiar with the term ‘cognitive dissonance’? If so, you may be inclined to re-visit some of our previous E-Mails with an eye to what I have already put forward regarding my own experiential discoveries regarding peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body. I never, ever criticise without offering a viable alternative; I never, ever put something down without something to put in its stead; I never, ever indulge in ‘guru-bashing’ for the sake of ‘guru-bashing’ but ever only to demonstrate my point; I never, ever propose anything in place of the ‘Tried and True’ that is not actual for me right here at this place in infinite space just now at this moment in eternal time.

I am always speaking directly from my on-going (moment-to-moment) actual experiencing of the utter peace of the perfection of the purity welling endlessly as the infinitude this eternal and infinite universe actually is.

RESPONDENT: If transcending the suffering is a dream and there is no other planes to evolve to and if your soul can’t be saved, then how could all the suffering you note with great detail be changed?

RICHARD: By one thing and one thing only: the complete, total and utter extinction of the root cause of all the ills of humankind ... not via a sublimation and transcendence of the root cause of all the ills of humankind (the lotus blossom has its roots in mud).

RESPONDENT: Given that people are self-oriented and that selfishness and competitivity and greed which rise from that selfishness is obviously the cause for much of the suffering here on earth. Without a transcendental reality where the soul transcends separation and acquires a universal viewpoint, how will ‘any’ soul, let alone ‘all’ the souls, ever get saved?

RICHARD: The desire to ‘save one’s immortal soul’ is, quite obviously, a very self-seeking approach to life on earth ... something that all metaphysical peoples are guilty of. The quest to secure one’s immortality (by whatever name) in some spurious ‘After-Life’ (by whatever name) is unambiguously selfish ... peace-on-earth is readily sacrificed for the supposed continuation of the imagined spirit (by whatever name) after physical death. So much for their humanitarian ideals of peace, goodness, altruism, philanthropy and humaneness. All religious and spiritual and mystical quests amount to nothing more than a self-centred urge to perpetuate oneself for ever and a day. All metaphysicists fall foul of this existential dilemma. They pay lip-service to the notion of self-sacrifice – weeping crocodile tears at noble martyrdom – whilst selfishly pursuing the timeless ‘State of Being’ ... the ‘Deathless State’ (by any name). The root cause of all the ills of humankind can be sheeted home to this single, basic fact:

The overriding importance of the survival of ‘self’ (soul) by whatever name.

*

RICHARD: You affirmed that all the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages are not amoral at all ... they both can and do display anguish and anger.

RESPONDENT: The ones I’ve met were also very human. Yes.

RICHARD: Does this fact not make you just the teeniest bit suss?

*

RICHARD: You affirmed that all the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages do not have peace-on-earth on their agenda.

RESPONDENT: Not in your terms. Peace on earth for any who can hear them.

RICHARD: Whoa up there ... may I remind you of the last ten E-Mails wherein you made it quite clear that, according to you I ‘don’t understand earth to think of it as peaceful’ because metempsychosis shows how ‘there could be no such thing as ‘peace on earth’? What is with this ‘not in your terms’ business? Just what kind of ‘peace on earth’ are you all of a sudden now offering to ‘any one who can hear them’? How come such a major turnaround? What are you now offering? Where did it come from? How are you demonstrating it?

Have you all of a sudden departed from your ‘what I’m saying is the essence of thousands of years of wisdom, nothing I say is ever original’ credentials? Because no Guru or God-Man or Master or Messiah or Avatar or Saviour or Saint or Sage has ever offered total, complete and utter peace on earth. Virtually all disciplines – if not all – acknowledge ‘The Ultimate’ (by whatever name) as happening after physical death ... the Buddhist ‘Parinirvana’ and the Hindu ‘Mahasamadhi’ are but two of the most obvious examples.

*

RICHARD: You affirmed that all the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages advise dissociation (wherein painful reality is transformed into a bad dream) as being the most effective means to deal with all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and the such-like.

RESPONDENT: No, I never said that.

RICHARD: I will fully acknowledge that you never used the word ‘dissociation’ (thus I fully concur that you ‘never said that’ word) but you said more than enough to make it abundantly clear that, just as a traumatised victim of an horrific and terrifying event makes the experience unreal in order to cope with the ordeal, all the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages have desperately done precisely this thing (during what is sometimes called ‘the dark night of the soul’). You clearly and unambiguously expressed, loud and clear, your full endorsement of the Indian metaphysical conception of ‘maya’ and/or ‘samsara’ with such statements as ‘murders and wars are illusions in a sense’ and ‘people don’t actually ‘die’, this is the grand illusion’ and ‘what I’m saying is the essence of thousands of years of wisdom, nothing I say is ever original’ and ‘we are spirit beings seemingly trapped in this veil of tears material world’ and ‘why try to invent something that was perfect in the time of the Vedas?’ and ‘immortality is part of reality, not something to ‘attain’ and ‘reincarnation is reality, not something to ‘believe in’ ... this is what a buddha awakens to, the way things ‘are’, not some idea collection’ and ‘some of that [rape] is karma, people who have raped needing to be raped to understand how rape is not right’ and so on.

As I am conversive with what is meant by that Indian concept I deliberately and consciously appraised, categorised and labelled it to be nothing more and nothing less than a frantic coping-mechanism, institutionalised into a cultural metaphysics over thousands and thousands of years, known psychiatrically as ‘dissociation’ ... especially if accompanied by dissociative states such as ‘derealisation’ and ‘alternate personality disorder’ and others. It is also known as ‘disassociation’, or ‘disassociative identity disorder’ and dissociative reactions are attempts to escape from excessive trauma tension and anxiety by separating off parts of personality function from the rest of cognition as an attempt to isolate something that arouses anxiety and gain distance from it. In everyday life, mild and temporary dissociation, sometimes hard to distinguish from repression and isolation, is a relatively common and normal device used to escape from severe emotional tension and anxiety. Temporary episodes of transient estrangement, depersonalisation and derealisation are often experienced by normal persons when they first feel the initial impact of bad news, for example. Everything suddenly looks strange and different; things seem unnatural and distant; events can be indistinct and vaporous; often the person feels that they themselves are unreal and everything takes on a dream-like quality. Dissociation becomes abnormal when the once mild or transient expedient becomes too intense, lasts too long, or escapes from a person’s control ... and leads to a separation from the surroundings which seriously disturbs object relations. In object estrangement the once familiar world of ordinary objects – the world of people, things and events – seems to have undergone a disturbing and often indescribable change.

I fully stand by my usage of the term and am prepared to discuss it at length out of my own experience over eleven years ... its understanding is vital if there is to be peace-on-earth.

RESPONDENT: If you look at the god-realized, they are usually engaged in charitable works, self-help centres, humanitarian work, feeding the poor, etc.

RICHARD: If I may ask? How does physical charity, physical self-help centres (or even emotional and/or psychological self-help centres), physical humanitarian work, physically feeding poor people and so on going to demonstrate that they are not dissociated? For, although to awaken in a dream is to be lucidly dreaming, one is still dreaming nevertheless. Therefore such activity, instead of affirming, endorsing and accentuating the concreteness of reality, is but a dream-like playing-out of what you say is the ‘grand illusion’ that is deceiving 6.0 billion people in the first place!

Buddhism, for just one example, understands that when one wakes in the dream (Nirvana) the dream persists until final release at physical death (Parinirvana) brings the dream-world to an end.

*

RICHARD: You asserted that all the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages, having totally accurate feelings and a telepathic intuitive ability, are infallible.

RESPONDENT: Telepathy is a pretty accurate sense, yes. Just as your nerve endings are pretty accurate and distinguishing cold from hot. Your subtle body’s sense mechanisms are that accurate.

RICHARD: Hmm ... I notice that ‘totally accurate’ has all of a sudden been watered down to ‘pretty accurate’. Are you now prepared to acknowledge that, not only are they not amoral ... they are not infallible into the bargain?

Are you allowing the possibly that they could be ... um ... wrong occasionally?

*

RICHARD: You asserted that all the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages cannot be understood by ordinary or normal people ... ordinary or normal people should surrender to them and accept what they say and agree with them.

RESPONDENT: If you don’t have those inner senses awakened, you won’t sense their essence. This is true. You’ll judge them with your intellect.

RICHARD: May I ask? Why did you give a fellow human being such incredible power over you?

*

RICHARD: Again ... I do appreciate you giving your attention in detail to the most fundamental issues pertaining to human life on earth today.

RESPONDENT: Do you?

RICHARD: Indeed I do ... I am entirely sincere. I mean what I say and I say what I mean: I like my fellow human beings and wish only the best for them ... each and every one. Hence this discussion and other public dialogues of the same nature and with the same topic.

To wit: peace-on-earth, as this flesh and blood body, in this lifetime.

RESPONDENT: Why don’t you give us your solutions?

RICHARD: If you are, in fact, genuinely interested in a fellow human being’s experiences, may I refer you to my résumé which I previously submitted for your perusal, appraisal and comprehension? It would appear that some background information may be essential to pave the way to approaching my solution to all the ills of humankind through enabling the already always existing peace-on-earth to become apparent.

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 – and we set out to discover why this is so. We find sadness, loneliness, sorrow, grief, depression and suicide to be a global incidence – we gather that it is also inherent to the human condition – and we want to know why. We all 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. Whether one believes in re-incarnation or not, we are all living this particular life for the very first time, and we wish to make sense of it. It is a challenge and the adventure of a life-time to enquire and to uncover, to seek and to find, to explore and to discover. All this being alive business is actually happening and we are totally involved in living it out ... whether we take the back seat or not, we are all still doing it.

I, for one, am not taking the back seat.


RESPONDENT No. 3 (Part Three)

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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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