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Richard’s Correspondence On Mailing List ‘C’ with Respondent No. 3
RICHARD: 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: 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. * RESPONDENT: I’m going to cut the repetitious arguments ... RICHARD: Good ... because what you told me (above) is indeed repetition. RESPONDENT: ... as repetition is suffering and I for one don’t want to promote that. RICHARD: But my daily life is remarkably repetitive ... yet there is no suffering at all. RESPONDENT: I’ll try to just keep in any new material I’ve heard from you. I’ll preface with saying that your assertion is to have a superior understanding and realization, which I find contrary to what realization is, which is the same and identical in all that have it. RICHARD: Yes ... which means that the blinded have been leading the blind for 3,000 to 5,000 years. 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 by going beyond Spiritual Enlightenment – which turned out to be an Altered State Of Consciousness (ASC) – into the actuality of being here on earth and now in time as this flesh and blood body. This is because I did not just look to others for confirmation that I had arrived and thus rest on my laurels ... I looked into myself. In the eleven years of enlightenment I became peeved once and irritated on three occasions ... obviously something was amiss. I travelled the country – and overseas to India – meeting with people from all walks of life in an attempt to discover why ... I heard and I read that ‘Enlightened Beings’ still could experience both anguish and anger from time to time. The question that commanded my attention was why this was so. I was looking beyond the superficial and questioning even the most closely held ideas and beliefs. Was there something more to discover ... something that lay beyond enlightenment that would usher in the beginning of a genuine possibility of peace for all? Some Masters hinted at and alluded to ‘Going Beyond Enlightenment’ ... yet their Teachings remained exactly the same. Some disciplines suggested that such a condition existed after physical death: when the soul ‘quit the body’. The Hindu Mahasamadhi and Buddhist Parinirvana are two examples of this kind of thought. I went through a time I call my ‘puritan period’ in an endeavour to purify myself. I eventually whittled my worldly possessions down to three sarongs, three shirts, a cooking pot and bowl, a knife and a spoon, a bank book and a pair of nail scissors ... I was homeless, itinerant, celibate, vegan, (no spices; not even salt and pepper), no drugs (no tobacco, no alcohol; not even tea or coffee), no hair cut, no shaving, no washing other than a dip in a river or the ocean. I possessed nothing else anywhere in the world and had cut all family ties ... whatever I could eliminate from my life that was an encumbrance and an attachment, I had let go of. In other words: whatever was traditionally seen as an impediment to freedom I discarded. I retreated altogether from civilisation to a group of uninhabited islands in the tropics off the north-eastern Australian seaboard, some time after being in the Himalayas, where I stayed for the best part of three months in total silence, on my own, speaking to no one at all and moving from island to island at whim. It was there I finally discovered that it was ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ which was at fault and that I could ‘purify’ myself via these ‘Tried and True’ means until the cows came home ... to no avail. I was able to experience what lay beyond enlightenment several times ... the first of these experiences occurred at maybe three in the morning (I had no watch) and was accompanied by a sense of dread the likes of which I had never experienced even in a war-zone – made all the more acute because I had not experienced fear for four years (I was living in a state of Divine Compassion and Love Agapé which protected me from malice and the underlying fear). This dread contained the existential angst of discovering that ‘I’ was nothing but a contingent ‘being’ and that ‘I’ would cease to ‘be’. Then the condition I went on to experience had the character of some ‘Great Beyond’ (I have to put it in capitals because that is how I experienced it at the time) and it was of the nature of which has always been ascribed, in all the spiritual/mystical writings I had read, as being ‘That’ which one merges with at physical death when one ‘quits the body’. Sometimes known as ‘The Ocean of Oneness’ or ‘Mahasamadhi’ or ‘Parinirvana’. It seemed so extreme that the physical body must surely die for the attainment of it. To put it into a physical analogy, it was as if I were to gather up my meagre belongings, eradicate all marks of my stay on the island, and paddle away over the horizon, all the while not knowing whence I go ... and vanish without a trace, never to be seen again. As no one on the mainland knew where I was, no one would know where I had gone. In fact, I would become as extinct as the dodo and with no skeletal remains. The autological self by whatever name would cease to ‘be’, there would be no ‘spirit’, no ‘presence’, no ‘being’ at all. This was more than death of the ego, which is a major event by any definition; this was total annihilation. No ego, no soul – no self, no Self – no more Heavenly Rapture, Love Agapé, Divine Bliss and so on. Only oblivion. It was not at all attractive, not at all alluring, not at all desirable ... yet I knew I was going to do it, sooner or later, because it was the ultimate condition and herein lay the secret to the ‘Mystery of Life’. It was to take seven more years to eventuate ... but that is another story. RESPONDENT: I do assert some degree of that and see it in others, I don’t see myself all by myself superior to others, as you do. RICHARD: If I may point out? It is the already always existing peace-on-earth which is superior 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. * RICHARD: 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: Those who have had self-realization need no confirmation, it is self-confirming. RICHARD: There is no one (as far as I have been able to ascertain) who has already discovered an actual freedom from the human condition ... yet it stands on its own in its own right without needing confirmation from anyone. The already always existing peace-on-earth demonstrates its perfection each moment again in all situations and with all people. Since going beyond enlightenment and breaking through into an actual freedom from the human condition (wherein malice and sorrow is eliminated and not transcended as in spiritual enlightenment), I have consistently lived in total peace and harmony. This has been my condition since 1992, thus I have had eight years to compare it with the enlightened state ... I can find no fault anywhere. In the enlightened state there were occasional ‘bleed-throughs’ from the transcended ‘I’ as ego entity ... brief flashes of fear, irritation, anguish, desire and so on (a close examination of what is written regarding various Enlightened Masters’ day-to-day lived experience will verify this as being typical). I have had nary a hint nor a glimmer or even a whiff of the faintest trace of any fear, irritation, anguish, desire and so on in actual freedom ... and I am relentless in my examination of myself. After all, I am going public with an outrageous and outstanding claim that could – and should – set the squalid complacency of the religious, spiritual, mystical and metaphysical communities on their ears ... and for those eleven years in the ASC I was determined to be ‘squeaky-clean’ before doing so. Five years without a single hitch satisfied me beyond any doubt whatsoever – not only beyond reasonable doubt – that this is that which is the answer to all the ills of humankind ... and I started writing of my experience in public. Peoples are far to lenient – overlooking or excusing the ‘Enlightened Beings’ peccadillos – no wonder there is no peace on earth. RESPONDENT: One knows when one has it, they experience themselves as others and experience others as themselves. RICHARD: Aye ... this is the difference between spiritual freedom (solipsistic oneness) and actual freedom (individualistic commonality). Speaking personally, I do not play with another’s integrity and delude myself that I have made it my own (and mayhap messing their’s up into the bargain). There is only one person in this whole wide world that one can change ... ‘myself’. This is the most important point to understand thoroughly, otherwise one endlessly tries to change the other ... and as there are billions of ‘others’ it would be a life-time task with still no success at the end. If one grasps that the way to peace-on-earth is by changing oneself – and oneself only – then all of one’s interactions with others will undergo a radical transformation. One sets them free of ‘my’ graceless demands ... ‘my’ endless neediness born out of being alone in the world. The cause of sadness and loneliness is not, as is commonly believed, alienation from others. The single reason for being alone and lonely is from not being what-I-am. By not being this flesh and blood body just brimming with sensory organs but being, instead, an identity within ‘I’ am doomed to perpetual loneliness and aloneness. ‘I’ am fated to ever pursue an elusive ‘Someone’ or ‘Something’ that will fill that aching void. When I am what-I-am, there is no void. By being what I actually am – this body only – I have no need for others; hence I also have no need to place the burden upon them to fulfil that what was lacking. Not only do I free myself from that perpetual pursuit, but I also free others in my company from the task ‘I’ impose upon them. Being this sensual body is actual fulfilment, each moment again. Nevermore will I be needy, greedy and grasping. Nevermore will I plot and plan and manipulate others. Nevermore will I have to prostitute myself to others to assuage those main attributes of the identity: being lost, lonely, frightened and cunning. Being what-I-am is free-flowing, spontaneous, delightful fun ... for one can never, ever suffer hurt again. RESPONDENT: You suggest that someone, say Gangaji or Andrew Cohen come to you for confirmation? RICHARD: But I do not want ‘someone’ (or anybody) to ‘come to me for confirmation’ as I am having too much fun, living my life in the way I see fit, to clutter up my lifestyle with ‘guru-circuit’ peoples, who cannot think for themselves, trooping daily through my front door. The Internet is my chosen means of dissemination for the obvious reason of being interactive and rapid. The electronic copying and distribution capacity of a mailing list service – with it’s multiple feed-back capability – is second to none. Words are words, whether they be thought, spoken, printed or appear as pixels on a screen. Ultimately it is what is being said or written, by the writer or the speaker that lives what is being expressed, that is important ... and facts and actuality then speak for themselves. Anyone who has met me face-to-face only gets verification that there is actually a flesh and blood body that lives what these words say. I am a fellow human being sans identity ... there is no ‘charisma’ nor any ‘energy-field’ here. 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. RESPONDENT: They already have that. Their experience confirms it. RICHARD: If you say so then it is so ... for you. After all, it is you who is in the transcendent state that intuits another’s state and not me. I will keep my own counsel, though. * 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, as all the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages both can and do display anguish and anger, it is obvious that the reason why they are suffering is because they do not have ‘the correct understanding’. My eleven years experience showed me that ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ most certainly does not endow the correct understanding of the root cause of human suffering. This is because human suffering (malice and sorrow) being physical, has a physical cause (instinctual passions such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) and not a metaphysical cause (such as ‘ignorance of knowing that we are spirit beings seemingly trapped in this veil of tears material world’ as you propose). Why is it so difficult to comprehend cause and effect? RESPONDENT: It’s not. RICHARD: Oh? Are you saying that you comprehend what I am discussing vis a vis the genetically inherited instinctual passions and the rudimentary animal ‘self’ that gives rise to a feeling ‘me’ which infiltrates into thought to establish itself as a thinking ‘I’ which then fondly imagines itself to be an as yet unmanifest manifestation of ‘God on Earth’ and then sets out to be humble enough to manifest that vainglorious grandiosity that has sucked in millions – if not billions – of otherwise intelligent people? If so, then we can have a sensible (empirical) discussion. * 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: The mind is the cause. Errors in thinking and feeling. Reactivity. Egoism. RICHARD: I do appreciate you publicly explaining why Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages both can and do display anguish and anger and yes, it is indeed ‘errors in thinking and feeling’ (mainly feelings) which does cause their ‘reactivity’ ... but it is soulism and not ‘egoism’ that is manifesting itself. One does not get to be enlightened unless there is an ego-death (as you would well know from your own experience 24 years ago, of course). RESPONDENT: You still have it. RICHARD: I can assure (for what that is worth) that there is not the slightest trace of either egoism or soulism in me whatsoever. The identity – in toto – is no more, finish. Extinct. RESPONDENT: You just refuse to see it in yourself. RICHARD: Hmm ... anosognosia * 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: It appears you are trying to solve the problem empirically, which cannot be done, you can’t reason your way to a state of grace. RICHARD: If I may point out? This ‘trying to solve the problem empirically, which cannot be done’ statement of yours is at odds with your very assured ‘it’s not’ reply to my empirical ‘why is it so difficult to comprehend cause and effect’ question (further above). As you go on to say that ‘you can’t reason your way to a state of grace’ some light is thrown onto your contradictory statement: it would appear that you consider that I am talking about the same thing as you are (a non-empirical spiritual freedom) when I am not (I was empirically answering your ‘correct understanding’ question much further above). I fully acknowledge that cause and effect (empiricism) plays no part in ‘a state of grace’ manifesting (indeed it is a question that has vexed theologians for at least two millennia). I am talking about empiricism: the physical cause and effect relationship between the instinctual passions and the inevitable animal ‘self’ that forms of survival necessity in the womb and thence giving rise to the soul-‘self’ and the ego-‘self’ and thus to the ‘Higher Self’ and/or the ‘Higher Soul’ (by whatever name). Therefore, despite the fact that you said ‘it’s not’ in reply to my empirical ‘why is it so difficult to comprehend cause and effect’ question (further above) ... it would now appear that you do not have even the foggiest notion of what I am on about, eh? But please correct me if my assumption is incorrect (I am not a mind-reader and cannot know anything other than what you tell me). * 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 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: You twist my words, it ‘does’ bring about peace for that person. RICHARD: There is 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 somewhere along the line they invariably start accusing me of ‘twisting their words’ because I do not agree with their belief system. So that this exchange does not devolve into you endeavouring to put a double-helix spiral onto something factual that I say (and I am not implying that you were going to), I take this opportunity to point out that although your assertion that ‘self-realisation ‘does’ bring about peace for that person’ you have already acknowledged on several occasions that it does not bring about peace-on-earth for that person. It is because many, many other peoples have attempted to pull this stunt on me that I provide footnotes. For example: you have written: [Respondent]: ‘I’ve known two [gurus] personally, Stephen Gaskin and John Panama and they were both peaceful. Oh sure once in a while one would lose his temper, Christ lost his temper when he turned over the tables. No one is perfect’ and ‘to once every blue moon fall down [losing their temper] does not prove one is not peaceful’. You (and all the enlightened ones) obviously have an entirely different concept of what constitutes peace ... no wonder there is no peace on earth! RESPONDENT: It does not however stop others from doing evil. RICHARD: Indeed ... this is because enlightenment comes about through sublimation and transcendence (the lotus blossom
has its roots in mud) thus they have not eliminated evil Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain, to give but a recent example, demonstrated this sublimated ‘dark-side’ malignancy flowing its sinister way through his entire Oregon/ Rajneeshpuram debacle for all the world to see. As I have remarked before, thanks to this modern era’s rapid and comprehensive publication and communications network, the ‘Enlightened Beings’ have squandered their heyday as none of their gaffes and improprieties elude notice anymore. The ‘Enlightened Beings’ have fallen short of their own standards (and they can no longer continue to strut the world stage with immunity to a sensible and valid critique) because the ‘Enlightened Beings’ have a fatal flaw – a hidden ‘dark side’ – which ‘Achilles’ Heel’ is why they have failed to deliver the goods so readily pledged to a credulous humanity ... and also because they still command respect, loyalty, devotion, worship and total surrender of the integrity of otherwise intelligent people. Only the gullible * 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: This is one man’s estimation ... RICHARD: Yes ... and Mr. Mukunda Lal Gosh’s (aka Paramhansa) estimation is another man’s estimation. Given that Mr. Ken Wilber provides a sensible basis for his estimation I will plunk for it over pure fantasy any day. RESPONDENT: How long do you estimate existence has been going on? RICHARD: This universe, being infinite and eternal, has always been here ... and always will be. RESPONDENT: How do you know that earth is the only planet that supports life? RICHARD: As far as space exploration has been able to ascertain so far, this planet earth is the only known planet to evolve carbon-based life-forms. RESPONDENT: How do you know that the material world is in its’ one and only cycle of existence? RICHARD: As matter arranges and rearranges itself endlessly (through all eternity and infinity) the answer is obvious: infinite cycles with infinite variety of existence. RESPONDENT: We don’t know this, can’t know this, so numbers are really unimportant ... RICHARD: On this planet they are important ... this current configuration of matter known as planet earth is the first and last time that this particular configuration will happen (nothing is ever the same twice). Therefore, whatever has happened whose veracity can be reliably ascertained is a once in a life-time opportunity to ‘get it right’. Whatever has happened prior to this solar system and this planet becoming habitable to human beings, being no longer existent, is simply irrelevant. When this solar system burns out (and/or collapses and/or whatever latest theory becomes popular) then everything experienced and known to human beings so far will be obliterated as before. It is what is happening in this cycle which is relevant and important ... not the wild fantasies of some dissociated self-realised ‘being’ so distraught at his master’s physical death that he conjures up a vision of his master in his master’s heaven. RESPONDENT: And you can use this to say ‘aha! so you flip-flop, maybe it’s not millions!!!’. RICHARD: I gain the distinct impression that you are leading up to saying that you will not be providing a break-down of the ‘millions’ who ‘have been saved by the self-realized’ and that you will not be detailing how many Buddhists, how many Christians, how many Muslims, how many Jews, how Hindus, how many Jains, how many Sikhs, how many Taoists, and how many of any other disciplines or faiths, eh? RESPONDENT: My source for this is ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ and all I can say is I believe it. RICHARD: Yet this discussion is about ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (known in Mr. Mukunda Lal Gosh’s spirituality as
‘Nirbikalpa Samadhi’). And only ‘Enlightened Beings’ get to go to his ‘astral sun or heaven’ which he knows as being called ‘Hiranyaloka’
(‘Illumined Astral Planet’) ... the ‘millions’ who ‘have been saved by the self-realized’ that you are referring to are
what Mr. Mukunda Lal Gosh called ‘the millions of astral beings’ and are not ‘Enlightened Beings’ at all ... and he clearly states that the
‘millions of astral beings’ go to the ordinary astral universe (along with myriads of fairies, mermaids, fishes, animals, goblins, gnomes,
demigods and spirits) in accordance with karmic qualifications and not ‘Hiranyaloka’ (even those who attain ‘Sabikalpa Samadhi’ do not
qualify Thus, as the millions of astral beings, fairies, mermaids, fishes, animals, goblins, gnomes, demigods and spirits with karmic qualifications are clearly not enlightened ... methinks I will stay with Mr. Ken Wilber’s estimate of 0.0000001 of the population. RESPONDENT: Do I totally understand it? No. RICHARD: Yet you want me to? RESPONDENT: I can take things on faith. RICHARD: Speaking personally, I stick to facts and actuality any day. RESPONDENT: I still welcome you to come and test my realization. RICHARD: For all your intuition it appears to have escaped your notice that I have been ‘testing’ your ‘realisation’ over 13 or so E-Mails ... so far. RESPONDENT: If you are right in your assertion, then I’ll be glad to learn and be enlightened by you. RICHARD: Yet I am not making an ‘assertion’ ... I am simply reporting of my experience to my fellow human beings. What they do with this information is their own business (including calling my reports of an actual freedom assertions of enlightenment). It is all par for the course. * 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: Christ said the kingdom is at hand which means right now, not after death or anywhere’s else. RICHARD: Oh? You mean the same Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene who said: ‘my kingdom is not of this world (... ...) you are from below; I am from above; you are of this world; I am not (...) don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth ... no, I came to bring a sword (...) in my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you ... and if I go and prepare a place for you ... that where I am, there ye may be also ... and whither I go ye know, and the way ye know’? Because he then died, spent three days in the underworld, rose again and forty days later bodily ascended into ... um ... the timeless and spaceless and formless realm (it is to no avail to quote scriptures to prove your case). RESPONDENT: Because in your terms no one has found peace doesn’t mean they haven’t. You don’t expect others to conform to your version do you? RICHARD: As you have repeatedly used this ‘in your terms’ phrase it becomes clear that you consider that ‘peace-on-earth’ is Richard’s term and Richard’s term alone. Yet I picked up the phrase in my child-hood via the religious ditty that is plaintively sung annually in the West. Vis.: ‘Peace on Earth, Good Will to Mankind ... etc., etc.’ Thus I do not ‘expect others to conform to my version’ at all ... they already had it long before I was born (it is just that their god-man scarpered off to his father’s mansion and thus being dead has, of course, never come back). May I ask? Why do you object so strenuously to peace-on-earth? RESPONDENT: What I honestly believe is that you have thought your way to a solution that works for you but won’t for others. RICHARD: May I ask again? Why do you so desperately want peace-on-earth to fail? RESPONDENT: Perhaps you can supply some information as to who else your solution works for? RICHARD: I can put you in contact with some of the people who have expressed an interest in an actual freedom ... if that is what you mean? * 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? * 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’? * 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. * 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. May I ask? Do you really care for your fellow human beings ... you who are self-realised? * 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: 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: 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 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?
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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