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Richard’s Correspondence On Mailing List ‘C’ with Respondent No. 3
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 it is not sarcasm RESPONDENT: Again, Richard you understanding is incorrect. Peace on earth or anywhere will come to us one at a time and you cannot help another attain that unless your understand is correct. RICHARD: As I have already said that peace-on-earth becomes apparent when a person ‘self’-immolates psychologically and psychically, and that global peace-on-earth is when there are 6.0 billion outbreaks of individual peace-on-earth, you are not telling me anything new here ... and as peace can only come about on earth (whilst ‘in’ the body according to all the scriptures) your ‘or anywhere’ throwaway line is simply pointless. As for ‘helping another’ ... I can be of assistance to those who want affirmation that the peace-on-earth which they experienced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) is valid. And yet not only is it that such experience is affirmed as valid, but they also gain a confirmation in that a fellow human being has traversed this territory in an eminently satisfactory way. For nineteen years I scoured the books for information on an actual freedom ... to no avail. Now the information exists and has taken on a life of its own on computers and in books in various parts of the world ... and I am well content. I am having such fun, here at the keyboard. RESPONDENT: Peace on earth for normal people living normal lives? It won’t ever happen. RICHARD: I see that you are again publicly stating, this time emphatically, that people living in the transcendent state (Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages and so on) do not have peace-on-earth on their agenda. The paucity of this ‘ancient wisdom’ stands in stark contrast to an actual freedom: as an actual freedom is peace-on-earth, as this flesh and blood body, it is here in the actual world – it is not an ‘inner freedom’ requiring withdrawal and detachment – and it is to be accessed in the market place, as one goes about one’s normal daily life, in the world of people, things and events. An actual freedom from the human condition is for ‘normal people living normal lives’ ... all 6.0 billion people if each individually so desires. RESPONDENT: It will get better overall tho, just as there isn’t as much slavery as there once was, and women can vote, the overall condition will improve and this is what you seem to be concerned with. RICHARD: No, this is not what I am ‘concerned with’ ... these gains which you mention have been done by forceful human effort. Such advances in living standards does not, has not, and will not, bring about peace-on-earth. RESPONDENT: Suffering may be brought down to a dull roar, but unless one has the correct understanding, one will suffer. RICHARD: Indeed ... and as you have already acknowledged Why is it so difficult to comprehend cause and effect? RESPONDENT: The correct understanding is that you have three bodies, physical, astral and causal. RICHARD: May I ask? Which body (or bodies) contains the cause that makes the ‘Enlightened Being’ still suffer? RESPONDENT: If you don’t make this realization and not just intellectually, but experientially, you will not experience things as they are. RICHARD: By saying ‘experience things as they are’ you are, presumably, meaning that one experiences people, things and events as being ‘the grand illusion’ such as is detailed in the Vedas? This way of experiencing ‘things as they are’ is how any dissociated personality sees the world (as being dream-like) which is but a desperate way of escaping painful reality (by making it all unreal). I experienced this unreality process for eleven years and know it intimately. RESPONDENT: Most people are only aware of the one body, the physical, and the corresponding worlds and realities that go with that body. RICHARD: Yes ... yet there are three worlds altogether: normal (the grim and glum ‘real world’ where 6.0 billion people live), abnormal (the ‘timeless and spaceless and formless’ realm where 0.0000001 of the population live) and this actual world (here in infinite space and now in eternal time). As an analogy: to be normal is to be viewing the physical world through grey glasses (through malicious and sorrowful eyes); to be abnormal is to put rose-coloured glasses (viewing through loving and compassionate eyes) over the top of the grey glasses; to be actual is to take both glasses off. Taking both glasses off does mean acknowledging mortality, however. * 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? RESPONDENT: My answer is self-realization, which as stated above is the actual experience of oneself as the three bodies that we are. RICHARD: Yet as you have already acknowledged on several occasions RESPONDENT: Your solution has not been offered. RICHARD: If you would be inclined to re-visit some of our previous E-Mails, with an eye to see what I propose, you will see that I have already put forward my solution born out of my own experiential discoveries regarding peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body. 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. My solution is the enabling of the already always existing peace-on-earth (as ascertained in a PCE) via the dissolution/ death of not only the ego (spiritual freedom) but of the soul as well (actual freedom). Why is it so difficult to comprehend that, just as the solution for egotism is ego-death, the solution for soultism is soul-death? * 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 ... RESPONDENT: Ah, but millions have been saved by the self-realized. And they are being saved all the time, even as this is being written. 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. Will you provide some similar substance for your figure of the ‘millions’ who ‘have been saved by the self-realized’? How many Buddhists do you calculate? How many Christians do you calculate? How many Muslims do you calculate? How many Jews do you calculate? How many Hindus do you calculate? How many Jains do you calculate? How many Sikhs do you calculate? How many Taoists do you calculate? And how many of any other disciplines or faiths? I will be extremely interested to see the break-down of your figures. RESPONDENT: Perhaps someone will ‘get it’ by reading this post, it is my intention to help as many as possible to understand the situation, to soothe their fevered brow thru understanding. If you really understand, you are at peace with this world. It’s not that you are dissociated, but dispassionate. RICHARD: As no ‘Enlightened Being’ in recorded history has been ‘at peace with this world’, then you must take your place as being the first to do so. Therefore, in what way is your ‘self-realisation’ different from Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages who did not and do not and can not offer peace-on-earth ... but instead propose an after-death ‘Peace That Passeth All Understanding’? And again, how does this statement of yours jell with your ‘just accept what I say and agree with me, because what I’m saying is the essence of thousands of years of wisdom, nothing I say is ever original’ credentials? RESPONDENT: Are you feeding the hungry or working a self-help centre? Do you volunteer at a hospital or work in a soup kitchen? RICHARD: How would doing these things bring about peace-on-earth? Where has it been demonstrated in history that ‘feeding the hungry or working a self-help centre’ or doing ‘volunteer work at a hospital or work in a soup kitchen’ brought a total, complete and utter end to anyone’s existential suffering? Why are you suggesting that I fritter away my experiential skill (which nobody else has as far as I have ascertained) by doing the same-same things as any charitable organisation or government department already does? How will taking your advice help 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? RESPONDENT: What do you do to help the problem besides saying there is no answer? RICHARD: This is a ‘straw-man’ argument (because I have never said that there is no answer). An actual freedom from the human condition (peace-on-earth, in this life-time, as this flesh and blood body) is the answer. And it is through an altruistic sacrifice of identity in toto – psychological (ego-death) and psychic (soul-death) ‘self’-immolation – that the already always existing peace-on-earth becomes apparent. I did not manufacture, invent, concoct, contrive or in any other way create this peace-on-earth ... I simply discovered it. And it being so perfect I wished to inform my fellow human beings of its existence. What they do with this information is their business. * RICHARD: 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 ... RESPONDENT: Think of six billion people. Then think of that poster with the ages of man, on the left is a gorilla and then Australopithecus, Cro-Magnon man on up to so-called Modern man. Those six billion are like that, souls in varying states of personal evolution, some robbing your house and raping your wife, some feeding the poor and serving their fellow beings. What you must surrender to is to Spirit, not man. Spirit is God, which is the unknowable as far as understanding. Beyond understanding. RICHARD: Aye ... and because it is so extremely ‘beyond understanding’ is why only 0.0000001 of the population have managed the massive dissociation required to attain to it. As this ancient wisdom has had 3,000 to 5,000 years of recorded history to demonstrate its efficacy – and there is still as much misery and mayhem as back then – the ‘Tried and True’ has been demonstrated to be the ‘tried and failed’. The experiment has failed. Clear the work-bench and start afresh. Learn from the failures of the past and move on. * RICHARD: 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 ... RESPONDENT: You have not experienced it yet, IMO, so you cannot judge it. RICHARD: Yet your opinion means nought in this situation, as anyone discerning enough (thanks to this modern era’s rapid and comprehensive publication and communications network) will have noticed that the ‘Enlightened Beings’ have squandered their heyday because none of their gaffes and improprieties elude notice anymore. As the ‘Enlightened Beings’ have publicly fallen short of their own standards, it is only a matter of time before they can no longer continue to strut the world stage with apparent immunity to a sensible and valid critique anyway. I am merely hastening that inevitable day ... and because I actually care about my fellow human, and not merely feel that I care, I would rather this exposé be sooner than later. 160,000,000 people were killed in wars in the last century by their fellow human beings and 40,000,000 people killed themselves in the same period ... this means that at least 200,000,000 babies currently alive and yet to be born are destined to the same fate. Is this the legacy you wish to bequeath for future generations by promoting the ‘Tried and Failed’? * RICHARD: 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 ... RESPONDENT: Enlightenment is about merging with Spirit, not about becoming perfect overnight. With an emphasis on Spirit. RICHARD: I see that you are again * RICHARD: 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 ... RESPONDENT: Spirit remains perfect. We are spirit entities, believing we are human beings. That too will pass. RICHARD: I see that you are again publicly explaining why people living in the transcendent state (Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages an so on) do not have peace-on-earth on their agenda ... because perfection, being a property of the spirit only, lies after physical death when the body is no more. * RICHARD: 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. RESPONDENT: Are you a deprogrammer? An angry ex-follower of some guru? RICHARD: You may have missed my answer, to your question about having a teacher or following a guru, twice before in
previous posts
* RICHARD: 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? RESPONDENT: Self-realization is of course the answer. RICHARD: Yet as you have already acknowledged on several occasions that ‘self-realisation’ does not bring about peace-on-earth then this is a rather pointless answer, is it not? RESPONDENT: You have these three bodies. We have these sub-consciousnesses that need to be cleaned out and we have these false ego-selves that need to be realized for their falseness, we have this illusory separation that needs to be understood. The same answer from Krishna’s time. RICHARD: Yet as you have already acknowledged on several occasions that ‘self-realisation’ does not bring about peace-on-earth then all this cleansing of ‘these three bodies’ (‘physical, astral and causal’) is a rather pointless exercise in regards peace-on-earth, is it not? Of course it is of immense benefit to the one who has the desire to ‘save one’s immortal soul’ ... which is, quite obviously, a very narcissistic approach to life on earth ... something that all metaphysical peoples are guilty of. All religious and spiritual and mystical quests amount to nothing more than a narcissistic urge to perpetuate oneself for ever and a day. All metaphysicists fall foul of this existential dilemma. 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’ (as ‘Self’ or ‘Soul’) by whatever name. * 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. RESPONDENT: Right, like you believe that or respect it. Ha, ha. The truth is Richard, if you actually believed that, we would be having a whole different conversation. RICHARD: If I may interject? I neither need to ‘believe that’ nor ‘respect it’ as I have so far only had dialogues with two self-acknowledged realised beings, in a public forum on the internet such as this, whilst I have had hundreds of discussions on-line with wannabe angelic beings ... therefore it is indeed rare. As for a ‘whole different conversation’ ... they both responded by attempting to defend the indefensible somewhat the same as you are. RESPONDENT: One doesn’t even need to be telepathic or self-realized to see your insincerity. RICHARD: I beg to differ ... I am entirely sincere. Because I actually like my fellow human beings, and not merely feel that I do, then I wish only the best for them ... each and every one. I actually care, you see, and not merely feel that I care. * RICHARD: 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. RESPONDENT: You are not. You are angry at god knows who. Some guru, some teacher. RICHARD: Not so (I was one of them myself for eleven years) ... why I particularly appreciate that you were able to consider, clarify and publicly state both your affirmation and seal of approval to these extremely important issues is because 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. Such raw, unedited information is vital. RESPONDENT: You think I’m bullshit, why not just come out and say it plainly instead of using all your flowery language and footnotes. RICHARD: But I do not ‘think you’re bullshit’ at all ... it is the grandiose belief system that has sucked you in that I consider to be male bovine faecal matter and not you ... you are a fellow human being. And I like my fellow human being ... no matter what mischief they get up to. RESPONDENT: It’s okay, either people get what I’m saying or they think I’m bullshit. I’ve been living with this situation for 24 years. RICHARD: I do understand ... I lived it for eleven years and had the full gamut of scorn and derision and ridicule and flattery and gratitude and compliments ... and indifference. But I would not be where I am now if I had kept it all to myself. All those people who over those years pointed out flaws in my then ‘wisdom’ aided me immensely as far as I am concerned. For are we not fellow human beings who find ourselves here in this world as it was when we arrived ... a mess? And do we not all seek to find a way through this mess ... and share our findings with one another? And if one has ‘got it wrong’ is it not beneficial that someone else will point that out to one? One can benefit from such interaction as much as the other ... we all benefit. Speaking personally, I make no secret of the fact that I consider that I have discovered the ‘secret to life’ and I welcome rigorous – and at times vigorous – discussion and invite people to either agree or disagree (those who are neutral on the subject will just ignore it). This process is called ‘peer-group review’ and, as such, is priceless. Why do you want to be treated differently? * RICHARD: 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. RESPONDENT: Right, but I have answers, can’t you see that you’re not presenting any, only knock it off humans. But you don’t tell the ‘how’ to knock it off. RICHARD: You will have gathered by now that it is malice and sorrow which is the problem and that coping-mechanisms, such as pacifism, do not work to ensure peace and harmony. This is because pacifism, for example, is an ideal; in an idea of peace, people are into altering behavioural patterns (rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic) whereas what I speak of is the elimination of that which causes the aberrant behaviour in the first place. As pacifists and their ilk (those who live the doctrine of non-violence) do not eliminate the source of aberrant behaviour then they have to imitate the actual ease of an actual freedom from the human condition by making a big splash about their ‘goodie-goodie’ behaviour. To put it simply – and in a way that might just convey it to you – this what I speak of is somewhat indicated by what is possibly the only passage in the Christian’s Holy Scriptures half-way worthy of note. Vis.:
Which means: clean up your act on the ‘inside’ and the ‘outer’ actions are free to be appropriate to the circumstances (there is no ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ in actuality). This applies to all anti-social behaviour ... not just a minor thing like sex outside of marriage. Things like all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides, to give but a small yet very representative example. As I am happy and harmless (with no malice and sorrow extant), if someone were to bop me on the nose I am free to bop them back – or not – dependent upon the situation and circumstances. An actual freedom contains no inconsistencies, hypocrisies or contradictions whatsoever ... because it is actual. * RICHARD: 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. RESPONDENT: Richard, I want you to cut the crap and tell the people of earth ‘how’ they can stop their suffering. RICHARD: Peoples anywhere and everywhere can stop both their own suffering and their perpetuating of suffering in others very simply: altruism. The ‘who’ you think and feel and instinctively ‘know’ yourself to be has a job to do: When ‘I’ willingly ‘self’-immolate – psychologically and psychically – then ‘I’ am making the most noble sacrifice that ‘I’ can make for this body and every body ... for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is ‘my’ moment of glory. It is ‘my’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘my’ petty life all worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... to physically die without having experienced what it is like to become dead is such a waste of a life. There is an intrinsic trait common to all sentient beings: self-sacrifice. This trait can be observed in almost all animals – it is especially easy to see in the ‘higher-order’ animals – mainly with the parental defending of the young to the point of fatal injury leading to death. Defending the group against another group is also simple to observe ... it manifests in humans in the way that one will passionately defend oneself and one’s group to the death if it is deemed necessary. Speaking personally, as a callow youth this self-sacrificing trait impelled me to go to war for ‘my’ country ... to ‘willingly lay down my life for kith and kin’. It is a very powerful passion indeed ... Christianity, to give just one example, values it very highly: ‘No greater love hath he that lay down his life for another’. However, all of ‘my’ instincts – the instinctive drive for biological survival – come to the fore when psychologically and psychically threatened, for ‘I’ am confused about ‘my’ presence, confounding ‘my’ survival and the body’s survival. Nevertheless, ‘my’ survival being paramount could not be further from the truth, for ‘I’ need play no part any more in perpetuating physical existence (which is the primal purpose of the instinctual animal ‘self’). ‘I’ am no longer necessary at all. In fact, ‘I’ am nowadays a hindrance. With all of ‘my’ beliefs, values, creeds, ethics and other doctrinaire disabilities, ‘I’ am a menace to the body. ‘I’ am ready to die (to allow the body to be killed) for a cause and ‘I’ will willingly sacrifice physical existence for a ‘Noble Ideal’ ... and reap ‘my’ post-mortem reward: immortality. This trait is called altruism ... albeit misplaced. Thus it is ‘I’ who is responsible for an action that results in ‘my’ own demise ... without really doing the expunging itself (and I am not being tricky here). It is ‘I’ who is the cause of bringing about this ‘self’-sacrifice in that ‘I’ deliberately and consciously and with knowledge aforethought set in motion a ‘process’ that will ensure ‘my’ demise (‘I’ do not really end ‘myself’ in that ‘I’ do not do the deed itself for an ‘I’ cannot end itself). What ‘I’ do, voluntarily and willingly, is to press the button which precipitates an oft-times alarming but always thrilling momentum that will result in ‘my’ inevitable ‘self’-immolation. What one does is that one dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here as the universe’s experience of itself ... now. And peace-on-earth is the inevitable result because it is already here ... it is always now. ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ was merely standing in the way of this already always existing peace-on-earth from becoming apparent. The act of initiating this ‘process’ is altruism, pure and simple. * RICHARD: If [an honest, candid and frank discussion be not of mutual agreement] 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: Right, you think I’m making your point, showing how right you are. How yours is the superior viewpoint. RICHARD: I am simply having a dialogue with a self acknowledged self-realised being ... what people do with what is being discussed is their business. What I am doing here on this forum (as I do on others) is to consistently ask the question that I asked myself throughout the eleven years I was living in the ASC known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’. To wit: how come, after 3,000 to 5,000 years of a recorded history, of the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages hawking their ‘Divine Solution’ to all and sundry, there is still as much misery and mayhem as back then? Consequently, I questioned the ‘Teachers’, the ‘Teachings’ and the ‘Source’ of the ‘Teachings’ ... and unearthed this salient point: despite all their rhetoric, peace-on-earth was not on offer. This seminal discovery shook me to my core ... which ‘core’ is where I found the instinctual passions endowed by blind nature. * 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’? RESPONDENT: Are you familiar with the term arrogance? RICHARD: Not any more ... I was for eleven years, though (I graduated). * RICHARD: 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. RESPONDENT: You’re full of crap. There is no ‘better than enlightenment’ or ‘more advanced that self-realization’ any more than there is a tooth fairy. You judge things by their externals. You are not making your case here, you are not showing your superiority at all. RICHARD: If I may point out? It is the already always existing peace-on-earth which is superior ... eminently superior. The infinitude of the universe is innately perfect and pure; immaculate and consummate. Nothing ‘dirty’ can breach the blameless bastions of this unimpeachable purity and perfection ... even the most profound thoughts and the most sublime feelings are self-centred and/or Self-centred (narcissistic). The self and/or Self (soul and/or Soul) is not only defiled, it is corrupt through and through. The self and/or Self (soul and/or Soul) is perversity itself. No matter how sincerely and earnestly one tries to purify oneself, one can never succeed completely. The last little bit always eludes perfecting. The self and/or Self (soul and/or Soul) is rotten at the very core. There is one thing that the self and/or Self (soul and/or Soul) can do, however, to remedy the situation. The self and/or Self (soul and/or Soul) can disappear, vanish, become extinct. Psychological and psychic self-immolation is the only sensible sacrifice that the self and Self (soul and Soul) can make in order to reveal perfection. Life is bursting with meaning when the self and/or Self (soul and/or Soul) is no longer present to mess things up. The self and/or Self (soul and/or Soul) is standing in the way of that purity being apparent. Both the self’s presence and the Self’s presence (the soul’s presence and the Soul’s presence) prohibits perfection being evident. The self and/or Self (soul and/or Soul) is thwarting the very meaning to life from coming into plain view. The self and/or Self (soul and/or Soul) is preventing the already always existing peace-on-earth from being apparent. Thus the self and/or Self (soul and/or Soul) is actively perpetuating 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: Nor am I superior to you or anyone. We’re all the same. RICHARD: Hmm ... I do not buy this ‘we’re all the same’ (aka ‘we are all equal’) psittacism. 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. I am the infinitude that this physical universe is experiencing itself as an apperceptive human being ... this is perfection personified. * RICHARD: 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: You are so unsatisfied with others and how painful it is on earth, yet you talk about this dream of perfection you dream you have. RICHARD: Are you really suggesting that I should be satisfied with all the misery and mayhem? Are you really suggesting that I should be satisfied that 160,000,000 sane peoples were killed in wars alone by their sane fellow human beings in the last 100 years? Are you really suggesting that I should be satisfied that 40,000,000 killed themselves in the same period? Are you really suggesting that I should be satisfied 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? I offer a practical solution based on a practical (cause and effect) appraisal of the situation (the instinctual passions) – and you offer a dissociation that does not work perfectly anyway – as being the most effective means of dealing 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. An actual freedom is a totally new (modern) wisdom substantiated by rigorous empirical objectivity (individualistic commonality) and which works; whereas a spiritual freedom is a totally old (ancient) wisdom substantiated by thoughtless metaphysical subjectivity (solipsistic oneness) ... and has been demonstrated again and again to have not worked. Yet you not only promote the ‘tried and failed’ but continue to defend the indefensible with feeble undergraduate-like responses (see further below). May I ask? Do you really care for your fellow human beings ... you who are self-realised? * 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: Yes, and that solution would be? RICHARD: The complete, total and utter extinction of the root cause of all the ills of humankind ... psychological and psychic ‘self’-immolation. The elimination of identity in toto. The extinction of both self and Self (soul and Soul). Ergo: no identity whatsoever. * 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. RESPONDENT: Ha, ha that’s an oxymoron there, because to save a soul, you have to disabuse it of being a self RICHARD: Ahh ... an undergraduate debating technique à la standard internet protocol, I see. However, I am only too happy to rephrase it: The desire to ‘save one’s immortal soul’ is, quite obviously, a very narcissistic approach to life on earth ... something that all metaphysical peoples are guilty of. * RICHARD: The quest to secure one’s immortality (by whatever name) in some spurious ‘After-Life’ (by whatever name) is unambiguously selfish . RESPONDENT: Both immortality and afterlife are part of reality, not something to attain. Something to awaken to. RICHARD: Ahh ... another undergraduate debating technique à la standard internet protocol, I see. However, I am only too happy to rephrase it: The quest to ‘awaken to’ one’s immortality (by whatever name) in some spurious ‘part of reality’ (by whatever name) is unambiguously selfish. * RICHARD: Because 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. RESPONDENT: You are dreaming that you are defrocking anything here. Like saying a tree is not a tree and then saying ‘so there!’ RICHARD: Yet as a tree is indeed a tree (and not an ideal) I would never say that it is not ... but as their humanitarian ideals of peace, goodness, altruism, philanthropy and humaneness are ideals – and not indeed peace, goodness, altruism, philanthropy and humaneness – then I do say so. It is all a dream to them and any ‘humanitarianism’ is but a playing-out of the dream-state ... 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. Hence any tears are but crocodile tears ... they know it is all an illusion anyway. * RICHARD: 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. RESPONDENT: Fear of death drives your need to minimize the mystics and the prophets. Your ego’s fear of it’s loss of separation. RICHARD: If I may suggest? Maybe you are speaking for yourself here, as it is you who seeks the way past death, and not me. I consistently say that death is the end, finish. Extinction. * 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? RESPONDENT: Suss? Where are you from? Liverpool? RICHARD: If you at all interested in your fellow human being, may I refer you to my résumé RESPONDENT: You misunderstand, evolving doesn’t mean instant perfection. Mysticism is just part of reality, part of what we realize is true RICHARD: I see that you are again publicly stating that people living in the transcendent state (Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages an so on) are not perfect ... and that they are ‘evolving’. An actual freedom from the human condition is perfection personified ... hence no evolving at all. * 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? RESPONDENT: Peace on earth can only come from the correct understanding, from realizing reality in a way that conforms to the way reality actually is. Anything else is to superimpose some idea on top of the reality. Like the picture of a flying pig on top of a cow or something. RICHARD: I read this through three times ... I am still not sure if (a) I understand it ... or (b) it just does not make sense. For you do seem to be using that hoary fall-back all masters resort to when their pathetic explanations fail. Vis.: just see IT! If this is so, then as you have already acknowledged on several occasions that ‘self-realisation’ does not bring about peace-on-earth then this is a rather pointless answer, is it not? * RICHARD: 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? RESPONDENT: Of course, do you expect me to be the same day after day? RICHARD: Okay ... are you now saying that peace-on-earth is indeed on the agenda of Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages after all? For that is what is being discussed here (how come the ‘ancient wisdom’ has not worked) and close inspection of their ‘Teachings’ shows that they all offer only an after-death peace. Therefore, in what way have you changed in your all-of-a-sudden radical departure from the ‘Tried and True’? RESPONDENT: I change moment to moment, don’t you? RICHARD: No ... an actual freedom is entirely consistent and contains no hypocrisies or contradictions whatsoever. RESPONDENT: Repetition is one of the causes of suffering. RICHARD: But my daily life is remarkably repetitive ... yet there is no suffering at all. RESPONDENT: To have fixed ideas allows no new information to come in, like living in a library in your mind. RICHARD: Aye ... it is otherwise known as ‘cognitive dissonance’. RESPONDENT: Face it Richard, you find me fascinating. RICHARD: Not so ... I know the transcendent state – I lived it for eleven years – and I discovered it to be a sickness. It is salubrity that I find fascinating ... sickness does not fascinate me at all. * 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’). RESPONDENT: No, the dark night of the soul is when you either go mad or find spirit. RICHARD: What is the difference between ‘going mad’ and ‘finding spirit’? Is it not madness to proudly proclaim to all and sundry that this body and that body and all the trees and the mountains and the rivers and the oceans and the sky and the clouds – and the stars at night – are but a ‘grand illusion’ ... and to try to suck other peoples into one’s sickness? Especially as it has been amply demonstrated over 3,000 to 5,000 years to not bring about peace-on-earth? RESPONDENT: They don’t disassociate at all, in fact it’s the complete opposite. Awakening makes you more aware of what’s going on around you, so you naturally feel the suffering more intensely. RICHARD: Except that the ‘what’s going on around you’ is a ‘grand illusion’ ... therefore, what you are ‘more aware of’ is the illusory nature of everything ... which is precisely what the dissociated state has turned the physical world into. This physical world is actually happening. Look, there is a simple experiment that will demonstrate the actuality of objectivity in a way that a thousand words would not:
Now, as you rip the plaster from your mouth and gulp in that oh-so-sweet and objectively actual air, I ask you: Do you still believe that all this is ‘grand illusion’?
Seeing the fact will set you free to live in actuality. * RICHARD: 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’ ... RESPONDENT: Illusory in the sense of being all there is. RICHARD: This statement is a marked departure from ‘something that was perfect in the time of the Vedas’ ... are you re-inventing the ancient wisdom? The ancient wisdom has it unambiguously that material reality is illusion through and through (the word ‘maya’ translates as ‘only apparently real’). RESPONDENT: Don’t die as in total extinction. Your soul goes on. Whether you like it or not. RICHARD: Aye ... ‘ancient wisdom’ has it that one casts of the body, as if a suit of clothes, at physical death. Look, something that I have noticed, over the many years that I have discussed these matters, in the people I have met personally who have what may be described as a religious and/or spiritual and/or mystical and/or metaphysical point of view, is that as a last resort they invariably start threatening me with the dire consequences that ensue in the ‘after-death’ state because I do not agree with their belief system. So that this exchange does not devolve into you endeavouring to put the ‘fear of god’ into me (and I am not implying that you were going to), I take this opportunity to point out that your ‘whether you like it or not’ amounts to the same-same threat that some Christians, for example, have tried on me when they say that I will face their god’s ‘Judgement Day’ ... um ... whether I like it or not. I did not come down in the last shower. * RICHARD: And with such statements as ‘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. RESPONDENT: I’m sorry, I do believe that some of the horrid things are people who have done horrid things to others. RICHARD: There is no need to apologise for the paucity of your (borrowed) belief system ... it has been a pathetic belief for thousands of years. * RICHARD: 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. RESPONDENT: That’s ok, I’ll pass on this idea. RICHARD: Am I to take it by this statement, then, that you are not actually interested in peace-on-earth? * 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? RESPONDENT: Your understanding again is incorrect. A real guru is connected to spirit and connects the real you to that. Spirit awakening spirit, nothing to do with personalities and power. RICHARD: Okay ... I am only too happy to re-phrase the question: Why did you give the unmanifest power that lurks behind the throne of a fellow human being such incredible power over you? RESPONDENT: Oh some false teachers may exploit people, that hasn’t been my experience. I have never been mislead or exploited. RICHARD: If you examine the term ‘false teachers’ (with a view to understanding what a ‘true teacher’ is), you may come to comprehend why, after 3,000 to 5,000 years of recorded history, of the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages hawking their ‘Divine Solution’ to all and sundry, there is still as much misery and mayhem as back then. Because, essentially it matters not whether one has been sucked in badly by a ‘false’ teacher or a ‘true’ teacher ... they are all promoting the same-same thing. Which is: Escape from the ‘vale of tears material world’ at all costs ... because peace-on-earth is not possible! * RICHARD: 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: I’m glad you are not, but the only concrete thing I heard of your plan was that by not believing in being a self will cure all this. RICHARD: That is the first and most important step (to start thinking for oneself) and thus forsake the spurious immortality. Then the next step becomes obvious of its own accord ... actively working on eliminating the animal ‘self’ bestowed by blind nature each moment again in one’s daily life as one goes about one’s normal business in the market place. There is a wide and wondrous path to actual freedom: One asks oneself, each moment again, ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’? This can give rise to apperception. Apperception is the outcome of the exclusive attention paid to being alive right here just now. Apperception is to be the senses as a bare awareness, a pure consciousness experience (PCE) of the world as-it-is, 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. Thus attentiveness and sensuousness will facilitate what the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom is on about: is a virtual freedom wherein the ‘good’ feelings – the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) are minimised along with the ‘bad’ feelings – the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful) – so that one is free to be feeling good, feeling happy and harmless and feeling excellent/perfect for 99% of the time. If one deactivates the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activates the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (happiness, delight, joie de vivre/ bonhomie, friendliness, amiability and so on) with this freed-up affective energy, in conjunction with sensuousness (delectation, enjoyment, appreciation, relish, zest, gusto and so on), then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception). Thus, delight is what is humanly possible, given sufficient pure intent obtained from the felicity/ innocuity born of the PCE, and from the position of delight, one can vitalise one’s joie de vivre by the amazement at the fun of it all ... and then one can – with sufficient abandon – become over-joyed and move into marvelling at being here and doing this business called being alive. Then one is no longer just intellectually making sense of life ... the wonder of it all drives all intellectual sensing away. Such delicious wonder fosters the innate condition of naiveté the nourishing of which is essential if the charm of it all is to occur. Then, as one gazes intently at the world about by glancing lightly with sensuously caressing eyes, out of the corner of one’s eye comes – sweetly – the magical fairy-tale-like paradise that this verdant earth actually is ... and I am the experiencing of what is happening. But try not to possess it and make it your own ... or else ‘twill vanish as softly as it appeared. RESPONDENT: To me the problem is incredibly complex and has to do with nothing less than a total reprogramming of the human mind and ... the awakening of the spiritual consciousness. RICHARD: Yet why would one want to make this ‘incredibly complex’ problem more complex by adding extra identities to the existing one(s)? Why not the elimination of all identity? RESPONDENT: That will free ONE man, the man who does this. Then there is hope that more will follow. RICHARD: But ... again why? Why do you ‘hope that more will follow’ you into believing that this body and that body and all the trees and the mountains and the rivers and the oceans and the sky and the clouds – and the stars at night – are but a ‘grand illusion’? Why try to suck other peoples into having one’s own sickness at well? Especially as it has been amply demonstrated over 3,000 to 5,000 years to not bring about peace-on-earth? RESPONDENT: And this is not a new process, this has been going on for at least 5000 years of recorded history beginning with Krishna. Probably much longer, probably as long as history itself. RICHARD: Aye ... but hoariness does not necessarily wisdom bestow (the earth is no longer flat and the moon is no longer a goddess).
RETURN TO MAILING LIST ‘C’ 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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