Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

RESPONDENT: I am going to go back and read some of the commonly raised objections concerning this matter but anything you can offer would be appreciated.

RICHARD: Okay ... given that you agree the goal of the actualism method just seems contrived then here is a question for you: what is the difference between solipsism and nondualism (aka advaita)?

RESPONDENT: I am not familiar with advaita.

RICHARD: In which case ... essentially there is no difference between solipsism and nondualism as they are both totally, completely and utterly self-centred.

RESPONDENT: What does the question have to do with the actualism method being contrived?

RICHARD: It does not have anything to do with [quote] ‘the actualism method being contrived’ [endquote] ... it has to do with you agreeing that [quote] ‘the goal’ [endquote] of the actualism method just seems contrived. Vis.:

Put succinctly: as the goal of a nondualist (even for a dilettante) is not peace-on-earth then, of course, the goal of the actualism method must seem contrived.

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RESPONDENT: [Richard]: What actualism – the wide and wondrous path to actual freedom – is on about is a ‘virtual freedom’ (which is not to be confused with cyber-space’s ‘virtual reality’) 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 feel good, feel happy and feel perfect for 99% of the time. I make this very clear in my writing: [snip]. What I am reading here is, ‘good feelings along with bad feelings are minimized so that one is free to feel good feelings and thereby make a PCE more likely. Could you clarify?

RICHARD: Sure ... the [quote] ‘good’ [endquote] feelings mentioned are the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) and the [quote] ‘bad’ [endquote] feelings mentioned are the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful) whereas feeling good/ feeling happy/ feeling perfect are the felicitous and innocuous feelings (those that are delightful and harmonious).

RESPONDENT: So the meditation practices blow the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions up larger than life?

RICHARD: That is one way of putting it ... the spiritualisation process involved is essentially one of sublimation and transcendence.

RESPONDENT: What do they do with the felicitous ones?

RICHARD: As a generalisation: the felicitous (and innocuous) feelings are not experienced in their own right but are subsumed under the ‘good’ feelings ... felicity (and innocuity), rather than being the delightful experience of sensuosity and sensuality, then comes from feeling loving and compassionate (for instance).

A conditional happiness, in other words, dependent upon the ascendancy of the ‘good’ feelings.

RESPONDENT No. 28: Isn’t the mind noticing the absence of me, also me? Is there anything to the mind other than me? This isn’t a flip advaita-shuffle kinda question (...)

RICHARD: It looks more like a glib solipsism-serenade kinda question than anything else.

RESPONDENT: No. 28 says he regards mind and self as synonymous: ‘I tend to think the mind is me and v.v.’ In his terms, if the mind/self notices that something is absent, it stands to reason that the absent something cannot be mind/self ... it can only be one of the contents or faculties of mind/self. How is that related to solipsism?

RICHARD: If (note ‘if’) the mind is me and vice versa then the questions would look something like this:

• [example only]: ‘Isn’t the me noticing the absence of me, also me? Is there anything to the me other than me?’ [end example]

Perhaps I should have said that it looks more like a glib solipsism-soliloquy kinda question than anything else.

RESPONDENT: Not to me. It looks like No. 28 wondering about the basis for treating mind and self as different/ separate things/ processes.

RICHARD: Sometimes things are not what they seem to be ... here is a question for you: what is the difference between solipsism and non-dualism (aka advaita)?

RESPONDENT: I have not had much cause to think about it but here is an off-the-cuff attempt:

Solipsism and nondualism are both based on the fact that our most immediate experience of the universe is our own consciousness of it. Solipsists conclude that we cannot know anything apart from that – or whether there is anything apart from that – presumably because it is impossible to extricate ourselves from it. Non-dualists take this basic experiential inseparability of world and consciousness and blow it up into a metaphysical truth, say that there actually is nothing apart from consciousness. I still do not see what this has to do with what No. 28 wrote.

RICHARD: My co-respondent has written something like 230+ e-mails to this mailing list since first subscribing in 2002 ... thus it has been made abundantly clear that they can not, or will not, distinguish the marked distinction between actualism and non-dualism. As for your off-the-cuff attempt: essentially there is no difference between solipsism and non-dualism ... they are both totally, completely and utterly self-centred.

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P.S.: Many is the time I have had a fellow human being tell me that the physical world is an illusion: when I enquire as to why they are talking to one of their illusions – why they feel the necessity to inform one of their illusions that he is one of their illusions – the conversation generally goes rapidly downhill.

Over the years I have noticed that objectivity is an incredibly subjective thing for more than a few people and in the full-blown enlightened/ awakened state itself there is only pure subjectivity (aka solipsism/ non-dualism). Hence such terminology as ‘Consciousness Without An Object’ to describe enlightenment/awakenment.

Put succinctly: a fully enlightened being (as in fully-deluded) simply shuts up upon reaching that final state – absolute aloneness – as there is nothing/nobody else other than ‘me’ (usually capitalised as ‘Me’).

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RESPONDENT: To thank you, I would like to give back something, a text elaborating on the universe observing itself through us.

RICHARD: You may find the following illuminative: [Co-Respondent]: ‘... I should like to ask you also something else. You said that through you the universe is experiencing its self’ ...

RESPONDENT: As I understood Advaita teachings, the ‘Self’ and the ‘Universe’ are identical; why should the ‘universe’ have a ‘self’ separate from itself? As you say in your reply: [Richard]: ‘I did nothing of the sort ... I specifically say *as* this flesh and blood body. Vis.: [Co-Respondent]: ‘We are the universe creating its own self and experiencing it’s self. [Richard]: ‘The planet earth not only grows vegetation it also grows people – and all other sentient beings – and, as such, the universe can experience itself as a sensate and reflective human being (just as it also experiences itself as a cat or a dog and so on)’. [endquote].

RICHARD: I was not referring to the ‘Self’ and the ‘Universe’ being identical as I had clearly said [quote] ‘itself’ [endquote] ... it was my co-respondent who evidently split that word, which I had used four times in the previous discussions, into two so as to make what I had said into meaning something they were partial to.

The word ‘itself’ is nothing other than a reflexive form of ‘it’ ... and there have been others trying to get similar mileage out of it too. Vis.:

• [Richard]: ‘Contrary to popular belief, there is no ‘something’ or ‘someone’ in charge of the universe. It is perfectly capable of looking after itself.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Namaste’. It is clear that the choice has been made not to respond to offerings attributed to [me], however, if you please, concentrate on the following questions as they are now, and provide answers?
• [Richard]: ‘Hmm ... where I wrote, on December 26 2000, in response to your then latest offering, that I was currently not inclined to feed your voracious capacity to dismiss all the ills of humankind through tortuous tautological treatises by responding to any other e-mails you might see fit to offer just then, one of the things I was referring to was a propensity on your part to pick up on syntactic aberrations and semantical oddities as if so doing demonstrated something profound.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘What actually is the universe’s self ( as in: ‘It <the universe> is perfectly capable of looking after itself’)?
• [Richard]: ‘This query of yours is a perfect example of out-of-control semanticism. Vis.: [Dictionary Definition]: itself: refl. form (indirect, direct, and after preps.) of ‘it’; pron. (to, for, etc.): the thing in question; emphatic; in apposition to a noun (subjective or objective); that particular thing, the very thing, that thing alone; it, not something else. (© 1998 Oxford Dictionary). Thus as there is nary a ‘self’ to be found, in the sentence in question, and when I do ‘concentrate on the questions as they are now’ I see yet again why ‘the choice has been made not to respond to offerings attributed to [you]’. In fact, ‘the questions as they are now’ are remarkably the same as the questions as they were then’.

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RICHARD: ... [Richard]: ‘I did nothing of the sort ... I specifically say *as* this flesh and blood body. Vis.: [Co-Respondent]: ‘We are the universe creating its own self and experiencing it’s self. [Richard]: ‘The planet earth not only grows vegetation it also grows people – and all other sentient beings – and, as such, the universe can experience itself as a sensate and reflective human being (just as it also experiences itself as a cat or a dog and so on). [endquote] ...

RESPONDENT: This last part is almost a literal quote of Alan Watts – the universe as ‘peopling’, ‘treeing’ and so forth.

RICHARD: It has nothing to do with Mr. Alan Watts’ whimsical penchant for using verbs instead of nouns ... as the word ‘experience’ refers to a sentient creature participating personally in events or activities then the universe quite obviously does not experience itself as a tree.

RESPONDENT No. 54: I thought that the point of the riddle is to show that without sense organs there can be no sensual information arising.

RICHARD: Or, to put that another way, the point of the riddle is to (supposedly) show that without the observer there is no the observed ... in a word: solipsism.

RESPONDENT: Yes, I like the analogy that Da Free John used, of the popping of a balloon, where the air inside equalizes with all of space.

RICHARD: The Encyclopaedia Britannica reports of a similar metaphor from Mr. Gaudapada:

• ‘[Advaita] has its historical beginning with the 7th-century thinker Gaudapada (...) He argues that there is no duality; the mind, awake or dreaming, moves through maya (‘illusion’); and only nonduality (advaita) is the final truth. This truth is concealed by the ignorance of illusion. There is no becoming, either of a thing by itself or of a thing out of some other thing. There is ultimately no individual self or soul (jiva), only the atman (all-soul), in which individuals may be temporarily delineated just as the space in a jar delineates a part of main space: *when the jar is broken, the individual space becomes once more part of the main space*. [emphasis added]. (©1994-2002 Encyclopaedia Britannica).

Interestingly enough Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti has this to say about Mr. Gaudapada:

• ‘The saints are trying to tell you, so they are always in the field of duality; whereas the sage or seer, or whatever you want to call him, is in the state of undivided consciousness. He does not know that he is a free man, so for him there is no question of trying to free others. He is just there, he talks about it, and then he goes. Gaudapada had no disciples – he refused to teach anybody’. (from Part Four, ‘The Mystique Of Enlightenment’; Second Edition; Published by: Akshaya Publications, Bangalore, INDIA. 1992: (www.well.com/user/jct/moetitle.htm).

And:

• ‘You must challenge what I am saying without the help of your so-called authorities. You just don’t have the guts to do that because you are relying upon the Gita, not upon yourself. That is why you will never be able to do it. If you have that courage, you are the only person who can falsify what I am saying. A great sage like Gowdapada[2] can do it, but he is not here. You are merely repeating what Gowdapada and others have said. It is a worthless statement as far as you are concerned. If there were a living Gowdapada sitting here, he would be able to blast what I am saying, but not you’.
[2] Gowdapada: (c.780 A.D.) The philosopher who revived the monistic teaching of the Upanishads. His pupil Govinda is the teacher of Samkara, the famous Advaita (non-dualist) philosopher. He is the author of Mandukya-karika, a commentary on the Mandukya Upanishad. (from Chapter Four, ‘Mind Is A Myth’; Published by: Dinesh Publications, Goa, 403 101 INDIA. 1988: www.well.com/user/jct/cover.html).

RESPONDENT: In reality exist dualism, because reality is under thought’s government.

RICHARD: No, ‘reality’ is primarily an affective reality, and as the affections have polar opposites (the love/hate dichotomy for instance), any dualism which exists only exists because ‘reality’ is affective at root ... feeling-fed thought merely aids and abets by putting it all into word-pictures.

RESPONDENT: In actuality where everything is facts duality can not exist, because a fact has not opposite. Right?

RICHARD: Correct. A fact is neither right nor wrong ... a fact is so.

RESPONDENT: In actuality the bad is not opposite of the good, because what is, is.

RICHARD: There is neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’ here in this actual world ... actuality is a sensate world, not an affective world.

RESPONDENT: That means if the one exist and is a fact the other does not exist.

RICHARD: If you are speaking of something like, for example, ‘it is raining’ then the opposite – ‘it is not raining’ – obviously does not exist.

RESPONDENT: The opposites exist in thought.

RICHARD: Only in feeling-fed thought (the affections imbue and colour the thought with its polar opposites).

RESPONDENT: In actuality if is dark, is dark, where is place for light. Dark is the absolute fact and the same is valid for light. When there is light, where is the dark, light is the absolute fact.

RICHARD: Yes, this is the equivalent to the ‘it is raining’/‘it is not raining’ example I provided (above) ... but that everyday type of phenomenon is not what is under scrutiny here ... we are talking of the real-world (the world of the human psyche) which is a feeling-reality.

RESPONDENT: So one immediate, sudden mutation must take place now to jump from reality to actuality. Is logical. I can see it around me. A child for example who crawls out of the blue walks. He can not crawls and walk in the same moment.

RICHARD: Again it is that reality ceases to exist, when identity becomes extinct, and actuality becomes apparent ... whereas in your example, even though the crawling has ceased and the walking is what is happening, the child which crawled is the child which walks (as in the child still exists).

RESPONDENT: Good friend No. 22 cites Vedanta to illustrate Maya but conveniently ignores Brahma – the reference point for Maya.

RICHARD: Could it be that he is speaking partly from the Buddhist standpoint where ‘Brahma’ has no reality? I have not been following your thread so I do not know what you have covered, but at a guess, in citing Vedanta he could be citing the latter development of the Hindu viewpoint (Advaita Vedanta, which matured long after Mr. Gotama the Sakyan, goes some way to accommodating Buddhism).

According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica the Buddhist’s ultimate reality, ‘The Deathless’ (accessible only at ‘Parinirvana’ for a person who has attained ‘Nirvana’), has nothing to do with time and space and form whatsoever, whereas ‘The Brahmin’, whilst not being a god as such (let alone a creator god), does have some relationship (which connection varies between different schools). Mr. Gotama the Sakyan declined to supply any answers for what created and/or creates and/or is a cause of this physical universe ... his equivalent of ‘The Absolute’ (‘The Deathless’) is something else entirely. Indeed, Mr. Gotama the Sakyan maintained that there were countless numbers of universes coming into being, countless numbers of universes existing for aeons, and countless numbers of universes going out of existence at any one time ... and discouraged speculation as to why because of the infinite regression of cause and effect. Mr. Gotama the Sakyan spoke instead of ‘dependent origination’, based upon multiple interrelated causes and effects contained within ‘samsara’ (the beginningless and endless round of birth and death), as being the cause of dukkha (along with ignorance and craving) and, by positing no discernable cause for the universe, insisted that there be no source for salvation (god or gods) other than the individual’s own application of the tenets he espoused. He expressly stated that he offered the solution for ‘dukkha’ only and had no interest in supplying useless solutions to cosmogonical questions ... he said that such questions were futile and would even hinder ‘Unbinding’ (release).

RESPONDENT: You are well versed in various philosophies and I am sending this message to you to help me understand if there is anything wrong with my reasoning, i.e., things cannot be recurrently illusionary and Brahma must exist – otherwise the whole idea of Maya is meaningless. If you find time – and inclination – to respond to this message, I will really appreciate your help.

RICHARD: I have no intention of becoming embroiled in an unresolvable metaphysical dispute ... there is an explicit divide between Buddhism and Hinduism that is unbridgeable. As you would be well aware, I find both systems to be predicated upon incorrect assumptions and to argue points of difference in the contingent chain of thought that follows is but a fruitless endeavour. I would, however, be interested in exploring why you say that ‘Brahma must exist’ in order to support the ‘whole idea of Maya’ (the word ‘Maya’ more properly translates as ‘apparent’, in its ‘seemingly so’ meaning, than ‘illusion’). I have no problem with the ‘reality’ of the ‘real world’, that 6.0 billion peoples are experiencing, as being only ‘seemingly so’ without having to posit a timeless and spaceless and formless absolute that ‘must exist’ in order to explain it away.

Is it because, if one says that all of time, all of space and all of form are relative, then any absolute posited must needs be not only ‘no time’, ‘no space’ and ‘no form’ (the unknown negative of the known positive) but also include or enclose all of time, all of space and all of form ‘within it’, so to speak, in order to be the ‘Absolute’ (thus more than a mere negative)? Therefore, starting from the known, through some sleight of hand (sleight of mind) the unknown assumes greater importance and, for some people at least, the known is diminished to the point of being seen as an illusion (a spurning not unlike the ‘biting the hand that feeds you’ exercise).

Is it that, if one can somehow comprehend how a negative can come to both include and surpass the positive that spawns it (perhaps with the logical copula breathlessly gripping the steering wheel) then one is a Hindu pundit!

RICHARD: According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Advaita, being the Sanskrit word for Non-dualism, was one of the most influential of the schools of Vedanta ... the then orthodox spiritual philosophy of India ... from about the seventh century on. (Non-Dualism, of course, being the school of spiritual thought that believes that there is only one kind of ultimate substance. It is the view that reality is one unitary organic whole with no independent parts ... a viewpoint or theory that reduces all phenomena to one principle). Advaita was built on the Mahayana Buddhist philosophy of Sunyata (‘Emptiness’) and maintains that there is no duality; the mind, awake or dreaming, moves through Maya (‘illusion’); and only non-duality (Advaita) is the final truth. This truth is concealed by the ignorance of the illusion of Maya. There is no becoming, either of a thing by itself or of a thing out of some other thing. There is ultimately no individual self or soul (jiva), only the atman (‘all-soul’), in which individuals may be temporarily delineated ... just as the space in a jar delineates a part of main space: when the jar is broken, the individual space becomes once more part of the main space.

Mr. Shankara does not start from the empirical world with logical analysis but, rather, directly from The Absolute (Brahman). If interpreted correctly, he argues, the Upanishads teach the nature of Brahman. In making this argument, he develops a complete epistemology to account for the human error in taking the phenomenal world for real. Fundamental for Mr. Shankara is the tenet that the Brahman is real and the world is unreal. (Nevertheless, the empirical world is not totally unreal, for it is a misapprehension of the real Brahman). Any change, duality or plurality is an illusion. The self is nothing but Brahman. Insight into this identity results in spiritual release. Brahman is outside time, space, and causality, which are simply forms of empirical experience. No distinction in Brahman or from Brahman is possible.

Mr. Shankara points to scriptural texts, either stating identity (‘Thou art that’) or denying difference (‘There is no duality here’), as declaring the true meaning of a Brahman as Nirguna (without qualities). Other texts that ascribe qualities (Saguna) to Brahman refer not to the true nature of Brahman but to its personality as Ishvara (God). Human perception of the unitary and infinite Brahman as the plural and infinite is due to human beings’ innate habit of adhyasa (superimposition), by which a thou is ascribed to the I (I am tired; I am happy; I am perceiving). The habit stems from human ignorance which can be avoided only by the realisation of the identity of Brahman.

Which brings us to your point about the Sanskrit word atman. Atman is one of the most basic concepts in Hindu spiritual philosophy, describing that eternal core of the personality that survives after death and that transmigrates to a new life or is released from the bonds of existence. Atman is that which makes the organs and faculties function and for which indeed they function; atman underlies all the activities of a person, as Brahman (The Absolute) underlies the workings of the universe; to know it brings bliss; it is part of the universal Brahman, with which it can commune or even fuse. So fundamental was the atman deemed to be that certain circles identified it with Brahman.

So, all this discussion now revolves around Brahman, the Absolute or Supreme Existence ... the font of all things. Brahman is the eternal, conscious, irreducible, infinite, omnipresent, spiritual source of the universe of finiteness and change. According to the non-dualist school of Advaita Vedanta, Brahman is categorically different from anything phenomenal, and human perceptions of differentiation are illusively projected on this reality ... whereas the Dvaita (Dualist) school refuses to accept the identity of Brahman and world, maintaining the ontological separateness of the supreme, which it also identifies with a personal god. (Of course, in early Hindu mythology, Brahman is personified as the creator god Brahma and placed in a triad of divine functions: Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer.)

I suppose we ought to touch on Nirguna ... just to finish this off: it is to do with the question of whether the supreme being, Brahman, is to be characterised as Nirguna (without qualities) or as Saguna (possessing qualities). The Non-dualist school of Advaita Vedanta states that Brahman is beyond all polarity and therefore cannot be characterised in the normal terms of human discursive thought. This being the case, Brahman cannot possess qualities that distinguish it from all other magnitudes, as Brahman is not a magnitude but is all. The scriptural texts that ascribe qualities to Brahman, leading to the conception of a qualified Brahman (Saguna) are, according to the Advaita school, merely preparatory aids to meditation. The fundamental text of this tenet is the Upanishad definition of Brahman as neti-neti (‘not this! not that!’) Others, notably the theistic schools of Vedanta argue that God (Brahman) is possessed of all perfections and that the scriptural passages denying qualities deny only imperfect ones.

RESPONDENT: Wherever else I may diverge with AF, I am 100% with the non-spiritual plank.

RICHARD: Oh? How do you classify the following divergence, then? Vis.:

• [Respondent]: ‘When I departed [this list a while back because of frustration with the status quo], I suspected that there was something to this actualism business (or at least my interpretation), and that I needed to learn more. This effort led me to advaita-land, and I read much interesting material by both traditional and modern sages. I’m a logical kind of guy and when presented with the kinds of questions presented by this bunch [the traditional and modern sages], I have a hard time not coming to the same conclusions. I defy anyone to honestly answer ‘show me the doer’ and not realize that the doer is a mere construct or concept, fabricated by several forms of conditioning. I also recognize that words/ dialog attempting to describe this are merely concepts themselves, and that we shouldn’t get too hung up on them. In fact, we have to be very careful not to think that the words are any more than that ... a common error in this list. It is after all a very jnana bunch, and I know I have made the mistake of thinking that intellectual reductionism can possibly result in real freedom of any sort.
So, if all this is true, and that the ‘seeker’ is the very thing interfering with the ‘sought’, what do we do (if we ‘choose’ to) in the meantime with all this psychological hoo-ha? Even if one does stumble into awareness, it’s not like the mental claptrap disappears. And, you really can’t do much about it anyways ... the ‘self’ trying to eliminate the ‘self’ ... yeah, right’. (Mon 23/02/04 AEST).

First and foremost, the ‘doer’ is not a ‘mere construct or concept, fabricated by several forms of conditioning’ that spiritualists and their ilk make it out to be as it is writ large all over The Actual Freedom Trust web site that conditioning is but the tip of the iceberg and that the rudimentary animal self the instinctual passions automatically form themselves into is the root cause of all the misery and mayhem ... which self is that which is realised upon self-realisation.

Second, words are not ‘merely concepts themselves’ ... they are referential (as in the words ‘computer monitor’, for example, referring to the actual glass and plastic object you are reading these words on).

Third, getting hung up on thinking words are more than merely concepts themselves is not ‘a common error in this list’ as words are certainly more than merely that ... indeed if it were not for the efficacy of words’ ability to convey information there would be no point in this mailing list existing.

Fourth, actualists are not ‘a jnana bunch’ ... actualism is experiential, not intellectual, and has nowt to do with reductionism whatsoever.

Fifth, ‘the ‘seeker’ is not the very thing interfering with the ‘sought’’ such as spiritualists maintain ... an actualist on the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition is a person no longer seeking – they experientially know where the already always existing peace-on-earth lies – and is actively involved in enabling that to be apparent.

Sixth, it is not just the ‘psychological’ which is attended to ... it is the focus on the psychical/ instinctual as well which sets actualism apart from the ‘Tried and True’.

Seventh, one does not ‘stumble into awareness’ ... it is with knowledge aforethought – from a pure consciousness experience (PCE) – that apperceptive awareness is facilitated (and ‘mental clap-trap’ by any description is not a feature of apperception as thought may or may not be operating).

Lastly, as it is made abundantly clear on The Actual Freedom Trust web site that a ‘self’ cannot eliminate itself, but can set a process in motion that will do the trick, your ‘yeah, right’ comment is misplaced to say the least.

It would appear that you have brought the self-same fish back with you that you departed this list with a while back ... which are those very-same fish you brought with you to this list the first time around.

RESPONDENT: Richard wrote: ... a whole bunch of stuff ...

RICHARD: I responded to 31 of your comments/ avowals/ assertions/ points/ issues/ topics from 8 of the 27 e-mails you had written to this mailing list since you re-subscribed.

RESPONDENT: Thanks for all the feedback. I will decline to respond in general as I know where you stand ...

RICHARD: I see that you say one thing to me and another thing to somebody else ... for example:

• [Respondent to Co-Respondent]: ‘Richard, I haven’t figured out, nor expect to. Best guess is that he’s a closet advaitist sage, but is hung up on the spiritual tag that some associate with it. I don’t know, nor consider it important. (Thursday 18 March 2004 AEST).

This is what the Encyclopaedia Britannica has to say:

• ‘Advaita: (Sanskrit: ‘Nondualism,’ or ‘Monism’), most influential of the schools of Vedanta, an orthodox philosophy of India. While its followers find its main tenets already fully expressed in the Upanisads and systematized by the Vedanta-sutras, it has its historical beginning with the 7th-century thinker Gaudapada, author of the Mandukya-karika, a commentary in verse form on the late Mandukya Upanisad.
Gaudapada builds further on the Mahayana Buddhist philosophy of Sunyava-da (‘Emptiness’). He argues that there is no duality; the mind, awake or dreaming, moves through maya (‘illusion’); and only nonduality (advaita) is the final truth. This truth is concealed by the ignorance of illusion. There is no becoming, either of a thing by itself or of a thing out of some other thing. There is ultimately no individual self or soul (jiva), only the atman (all-soul), in which individuals may be temporarily delineated just as the space in a jar delineates a part of main space: when the jar is broken, the individual space becomes once more part of the main space.
The medieval Indian philosopher Sankara, or Sankaracarya (Master Sankara, c. 700–750), builds further on Gaudapada’s foundation, principally in his commentary on the Vedanta-sutras, the Sari-raka-mimamsa-bhasya (‘Commentary on the Study of the Self ‘). Sankara in his philosophy does not start from the empirical world with logical analysis but, rather, directly from the absolute (Brahman). If interpreted correctly, he argues, the Upanisads teach the nature of Brahman. In making this argument, he develops a complete epistemology to account for the human error in taking the phenomenal world for real. Fundamental for Sankara is the tenet that the Brahman is real and the world is unreal. Any change, duality, or plurality is an illusion. The self is nothing but Brahman. Insight into this identity results in spiritual release. Brahman is outside time, space, and causality, which are simply forms of empirical experience. No distinction in Brahman or from Brahman is possible. (...) (©1994-2002 Encyclopaedia Britannica).

‘Tis no wonder advaita has ‘the spiritual tag’ associated with it ... it *is* spiritual.

RESPONDENT: ... and you say you know where I do.

RICHARD: You must be referring to this:

• [Respondent]: ‘Wherever else I may diverge with AF, I am 100% with the non-spiritual plank.
• [Richard]: ‘(...) It would appear that you have brought the self-same fish back with you that you departed this list with a while back ... which are those very-same fish you brought with you to this list the first time around. Vis.:

[Respondent]: ‘I’ve stumbled across actual freedom in my web meanderings (can’t remember the actual path, might have been via some U.G. gleanings) and it hit a major chord. It was clear that this was the refinement of a very similar process I’ve been following for the last several years. I’d been drawn to Buddhism for its seeming sparseness/ simplicity (...) I do think Gautama got most of it right ...’. (Friday 05 March 2004).

Given that you have just recently written the following it does seem reasonable to assume that your parting comment when you unsubscribed from this list a while back, that some (then unspecified) spiritual-mystical writings sound the same to your ears as my writings do, still holds true:

• [Respondent]: ‘I re-cognised in the AF writing something fundamentally important, and attempted to locate its convergence with what I’d suspected to be true, but that effort failed. I grew quite frustrated with the twisty word play, and the fail-safe device of branding with the big ‘S’ (for spiritual). But hey, it’s their gig (...). Where I am now is kinda stuck in the advaita corner ...’. (Thursday 18 March 2004 AEST).

You are not the first to attempt the impossible – to marry actualism and spiritualism – and you will not be the last.

RESPONDENT: You are entitled to whatever world/ universe view you prefer ...

RICHARD: Given all the recent discussion on this very topic – the likening of the direct experience of infinitude (such as in a PCE) to an intellectual cosmology – this is simply silliness in operation.

RESPONDENT: ... [You are entitled to] your own ‘facts’ ...

RICHARD: As this is but a variation on the hoary ‘you are entitled to your own truths’ I will pass without further comment.

RESPONDENT: ... and [you are entitled to] your own ‘common sense’.

RICHARD: And thus does your attempt to dismiss another’s experiential report trail away into the meaninglessness it comes out of.

RESPONDENT: Do you not see the twisty games you play with words?

RICHARD: I did not come down in the last shower ... as you had used the words [quote] ‘twisty word play’ [endquote] in reference to the actualism writings in an e-mail to another only 16 hours previously I specifically provided a copy-pasted quote from the Encyclopaedia Britannica so as to pre-empt more ill-founded comments of that ilk.

You are on a hiding to nowhere trying to maintain that advaita is non-spiritual.

RESPONDENT: If all you have is a spiritual brush, everything gets painted the same.

RICHARD: Well now ... you had better make your case to the editors of the Encyclopaedia Britannica as it was the copy-pasted quote from that publication which explicitly used the words ‘spiritual release’ in reference to the advaita insight into identity (that the self is nothing but that which is outside time, space, and causality). Vis.:

• ‘... Brahman is real and the world is unreal. Any change, duality, or plurality is an illusion. The self is nothing but Brahman. Insight into this identity results in spiritual release. Brahman is outside time, space, and causality (...). (©1994-2002 Encyclopaedia Britannica).

I will say it again for emphasis: you are on a hiding to nowhere trying to maintain that advaita is non-spiritual.

RESPONDENT: I don’t know what kind of permanent change was effected in you, but it’s nothing I want any part of.

RICHARD: I see ... you do not know what it is you are dismissing but you are dismissing it anyway.

RESPONDENT: Oh, and if you don’t like advaita ...

RICHARD: It is not a question of like or dislike ... I lived that/ was that, night and day for eleven years, and found it wanting: peace-on-earth is nowhere to be found in spiritual release.

RESPONDENT: [if you don’t like advaita], you should probably remove the link to the Atlanta Advaita Society from your site.

RICHARD: As it is not on my part of The Actual Freedom Trust web site – only the pages with my name in the URL are mine – any additions or removals are a matter for all the directors of The Actual Freedom Trust and not just me.

For your information: it is what is known as a reciprocal link and is provided in response to a written request from that society.

RESPONDENT: It’ll give you more room for something really important, like more of The Anti-Peace Hall of Fame.

RICHARD: Ha ... that section was created at the express suggestion of a spiritualist writing to this mailing list in October last year:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘... if you want to be fair you could include one more link called ‘The Sceptics’, preferably in highlighted large fonts! I am sure there is a lot of material among your correspondents that you could separate and put in there so to facilitate ‘the seeker’s’ search.
• [Richard]: ‘You may be confusing those who object to be happy and harmless for spiritual reasons with those who are genuinely sceptical that such a thing is possible ...’. ‘Re: Suggestion To Richard (Part One)’ Oct 07, 2003;

The naming of it came from a response to another spiritualist writing to this mailing list 20 days later:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Thanks for the reply. This is fun! In fact, I am rather having a ball here at my keyboard with you Richard. But the challenge is wearing off.
• [Richard]: ‘Hmm ... and what ‘challenge’ would that be? So far this mailing list has attracted cult-busters, guru-busters, disciple-busters, clone-busters, method-busters – and even a myth-destroyer (albeit a one-poster though) – so perhaps you could declare your hand and establish yourself in the anti-peace hall of fame as ... um ... a prose-buster, perhaps? ‘Re: A Couple Of (Business) Questions’; Oct 26, 2003

RESPONDENT: If there is no identification with the body which is memory, would such questions arise?

RICHARD: No, such a question would not arise ... not when that identification has switched to identifying with the metaphysical ‘what is’. Because one then is that ‘timeless’ and ‘formless’ energy ... the energy that creates the ‘appearance’ of a universe of people, things and events. In truth – in that hallucination – there is only that. This is the central tenet of Advaita Vedanta – and of Buddhism in different words – and surely you and the man you quote so often have not fallen for that grandiose ‘Self is All’ (which is still self-centred) eastern mystical twaddle ... have you?

Or have you?

RICHARD: Is Advaita Vedanta really a ‘philosophical system’? It is a sect of Hinduism after all ... and Hinduism is a religion.

RESPONDENT: Advaita Vedanta as far as I know is a ‘philosophical system’ that could have been relevant to the times and conditions existing at that time. But to me a religion and philosophic system are two different things. They just happened to be linked by coincidence. As in India today, most people who ‘practice’ the ‘iconic’ Hindu religion have no knowledge about Advaita Vedanta. This is not a criticism. Having heard you say so much about Brahman etc, can I infer that you too are conditioned by Hindu/ Buddhist beliefs?

RICHARD: No, I am not at all conditioned by Hindu/ Buddhist beliefs ... I was living it for eleven years, but that all abruptly ended five years ago. I am inordinately pleased to be free of those insidious doctrinal truths that masquerade as actuality ... by both word and deed.

You say that ‘a religion and philosophic systems are two different things to me’ . I agree ... up to a point. But that is not what I was referring to. I was pointing to the fact that Advaita Vedanta is a spiritual philosophy – not a secular philosophy – and that it has its origins in the Hindu religion. Central to Advaita Vedanta is Brahman ... and Brahman has its historical beginnings in Brahma, the Hindu God of Creation. Mr. Shankara, inspired by Buddhism’s Sunyata – an attribute free void-that-is-full – accommodated Buddhist thought into Hinduism (Hinduism has been absorbing all religions into its fold since time immemorial)

Basically, Mr. Shankara pointed to scriptural texts, stating identity (‘Thou art That’) as declaring the true meaning of a Brahman as Nirguna (without qualities). Human perception of the unitary and infinite Brahman as being the plural and infinite is due to human beings’ innate habit of adhyasa (superimposition), by which a thou is ascribed to the I (I am tired; I am happy; I am perceiving). The habit stems from human ignorance which can be avoided only by the realisation of the identity of Brahman. Brahman is the Absolute or Supreme Existence ... the origin of all things. Brahman is the eternal, conscious, irreducible, infinite, omnipresent, spiritual source of the universe of finiteness and change. According to the non-dualist school of Advaita Vedanta, Brahman is categorically different from anything phenomenal, and human perceptions of differentiation are illusively projected on this reality

If that lot is a secular philosophy then I would like to know what is a spiritual philosophy.

RICHARD: As you link Advaita Vedanta to Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s ‘Teachings’, could it be that what he called ‘that which is sacred, holy’, from whence the ‘Teachings’ came, is in fact, none other than the Hindu religious god Brahma ... now called Brahman to make it into a spiritual philosophy?

This is not a ‘scholarly debate’ ... I am very interested to hear your answer, as you said that:

• ‘I experience what little I have read of the Great Dead Guys [tm] not with the picayune eye of a practiced philosopher, but with the same sensorium you describe with reference to the ‘ambrosial’ nature of what most see as ordinary, ‘beans & wieners’ existence’.

I take particular note that you stress ‘I experience ... not with the picayune eye of a practiced philosopher’. If you do not experience what you call a philosophy with the petty and small-minded eye of a philosopher, then how do you experience it? As a reality in your daily life? After all, is not that what a philosophy is? A way of living?

I am, of course, ‘inferring’ that you are living this ‘philosophy’ that has an ancient Hindu god central to it. After all, you did say:

• ‘As seen from here Atman/ Brahman is not some mystical ‘font’ of anything, they are one and the same and encompass everything – you, me, the ‘ambrosial’ and abjectly miserable. It is all one, my prolific friend, and your parsing it out into different aspects of ‘reality’, ‘self’, ‘soul’, ‘actuality’ is mere repackaging and relabelling of the most ancient wine of all. An unfamiliar vessel does not a new vintage make. I experience what little I have read of the Great Dead Guys[tm] not with the picayune eye of a practiced philosopher, but with the same sensorium you describe with reference to the ‘ambrosial’ nature of what most see as ordinary, ‘beans & wieners’ existence’.

As ‘sensorium’ means the parts of the brain concerned with the reception and interpretation of sensory stimuli – or more broadly the entire sensory apparatus – then are you are proclaiming yourself to be a Hindu Pantheist? That is, ‘God is everything and everything is God? Advaita Vedanta is not pantheistic by a long shot, because Advaitists maintain that everyday reality is an illusion projected onto Brahman (Brahman is categorically different from anything phenomenal) and that, realising this, one knows that ‘I am That’ (of course, ‘That’ is none other than Brahman ... and thence Brahma. Therefore, this translates as: ‘I am God and God is Me’).

And if all the above is not enough, you did say:

• ‘Richard, I am not looking for a scholarly debate, but for deep, passionate seeing past the letter of the what Krishnamurti (or Shankara or Buddha) wrote or said’.

A ‘deep, passionate seeing’? And ‘past the letter’ of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s words, Mr. Shankara’s words and Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s words? You must mean one is to live what they talk about, surely ... or am I ‘inferring’ again?

It all sounds rather metaphysical to me, whichever way you are going to jump.

RESPONDENT: Different texts provide different meanings and interpretations to [Purusha and Prakriti]. Some texts (e.g. Bhagavad-Gita Chapter 13 and 14) relate them to the ‘field’ and the ‘knower of the field’. Some other texts mentions Purusha as the ‘Holy Ghost’ and Prakriti as the eternal nature of God the Father. Purusha also is a name given to the ‘Shiva Linga’. The nature embodied in that symbol is ‘Prakriti’. And so on. So one needs to be careful in picking up references for the subjects discussed. In common parlance Purusha refers to Man while Prakriti means nature.

RICHARD: If I may point out? In the context of the post that I wrote, the word ‘Purusha’ had nothing to do with ‘common parlance’ as I was discussing ‘Gurus and God-Men’ and their sacred and holy antics. Vis.:

• ‘When a Guru or God-Man – whose ‘Ancient Wisdom’ initiated the morals in the first place that cause these outrageous suicides – displays anger (or any other human trait) it is said to be ‘Divine Anger’ (or any other Divine Trait) and is indicative of the fragile and elusive link between ‘Purusha’ and ‘Prakriti’ (consciousness and nature) and known by some as being ‘Sacred Schizophrenia’. For example: ‘Two birds, inseparable companions, are perched on the same tree; one eats the sweet fruit and the other looks on without eating’. (Rig Veda I. 164. 20). This vision, deemed to be meaningful, is duplicated in Mundaka Upanishad (I. III. 1) and in Shvetashvatara Upanishad (IV. 6). In the same way as the two birds are inseparable, a human being is not thought complete and whole without both the aspect of ‘Prakriti’ (which experiences the domain of time and space and form) and the aspect of ‘Purusha’ (which is timeless and spaceless and formless). Mr. Ishvarakrishna (compiler of ‘Samkhyakarika) pointed out: ‘Purusha without Prakriti is lame and Prakriti without Purusha is blind’font size="2">. Thus a Guru or God-Man’s ‘Spiritual Essence’ is counter-poised with their ‘Basic Nature’ ... which is the human condition: ‘The Saint is the sinner; the Sinner is the saint’ or ‘Emptiness is form; Form is emptiness’ or ‘I am Everything and everything is Me’ ... and so on and so on’.

Why do you not consider that ‘consciousness’ and ‘nature’ are the most apt translations of ‘Purusha’ and ‘Prakriti’ in reference to the particular subject I was presenting? I ask because, while most modern languages are more or less ‘meaning-specific’ in that each word has one meaning – or two or more meanings dependent upon context – and while some of the words of the Indian Sub-Continent do have this meaning-specific quality, others do not. ‘Prakriti’, in Sanskrit, is a compound consisting of the prepositional prefix ‘pra’, meaning ‘forwards’ or ‘progression’ and ‘kriti’, a noun-form from the verbal root ‘kr’, ‘to make’ or ‘to do’. Therefore ‘prakriti’ means literally ‘production’ or ‘bringing forth’ or ‘originating’ and by an extension of meaning it also signifies the primordial or original state or condition or form of anything as being primary or original substance ... in a word: nature.

But let us, by all means, look into this further: I have read that ‘Prakriti’ is also to be considered with ‘vikriti’ ... ‘vikriti’ signifying change or an alteration of some kind or a production or evolution from the ‘prakriti’ which precedes it. Is it not in common usage that ‘prakriti’ may be called nature in general, as the ‘great producer’ of entities or things? And through this nature acts the ever-active ‘Brahma’ or ‘Purusha’? (‘Purusha’ also sometimes stands as an interchangeable term with ‘Brahma’, the ‘evolver’ or ‘creator’).

Now, ‘Purusha’ , in Sanskrit, is a word meaning ‘man’ as the ‘Ideal Man’ (like the Qabbalistic Adam Qadmon) the primordial entity of space containing with and in ‘prakriti’ (as nature) all the scales of manifested being. But more mystically ‘Purusha’ has significance in a number of different forms: in addition to meaning the ‘Heavenly Man’ or ‘Ideal Man’, it is frequently used for the spiritual person in each individual human being ... therefore it is a term for the spiritual self. Consequently, ‘Purusha’ is spirit and ‘prakriti’ is its productive veil or sheath. Essentially and fundamentally the two are one and whatever ‘prakriti’ – through and by the influence of ‘Purusha’ – produces is the multitudinous and multiform ‘vikritis’ which make the immense variety and diversity in the universe around. And in one or more of the Hindu philosophies ‘prakriti’ is the same as ‘sakti’, and therefore ‘prakriti’ and ‘sakti’ are virtually interchangeable with ‘maya’ or ‘maha-maya’ (‘appearance’ or ‘illusion’). ‘Prakriti’ is often spoken of as matter in very common usage but this is considered inexact as matter is rather the ‘productions’ or phases that ‘prakriti’ brings about: the ‘vikritis’. Furthermore, in the Sankhya philosophy, ‘pradhana’ is virtually identical with ‘prakriti’ and both are often used to signify the producing element from which (and out of) all illusory material manifestations or appearances are evolved.

RESPONDENT: So I sought teachers, and I found teachers and followed them and found myself led toward the realm of the ASC – messianic immortality, God consciousness, Divine Love and so on. Not that I claim to have achieved these for more than occasional moments here and there, but that was my direction, this would be the final solution, I believed. This pursuit went on for 30 years. Then I came across your web site tangentially, in a funny way. I was linked to it through Satsang MLM, a site that made fun of the non-duality gurus. That site is no longer on the net and I miss it.

RICHARD: Curiously enough the authors of the ‘Satsang MLM’ website tried to make fun of an actual freedom from the human condition as well. Vis.:

• [quote]: ‘ACTUALISM: A non-spiritual spiritual path in the opposite direction of all other non-spiritual spiritual paths, created by Professor Richard of Byron Bay University, (Fellow of the Royal Academy of Non-Spiritual Spirituality, Hon. Reader Emeritus of Other People’s Mail)’. (was: www.fortunecity.com/marina/tidal/2339/dictionary__lexicon__glossary__spiritual__new_age_.htm).

I say ‘curiously enough’ as one of the authors of the now defunct website has met me on a number of occasions in the years gone by – once we discussed life, the universe, and what it is to be a human being living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are, for several hours in the privacy of my own home – yet he still shows a remarkable lack of understanding as to what actualism is ... it is most certainly not a ‘non-spiritual spiritual path’ which is in the opposite direction to ‘all other non-spiritual spiritual paths’ as the very first words on The Actual Freedom Trust website make crystal-clear:

• ‘Actual Freedom: A New and Non-Spiritual Down-to-Earth Freedom’.

Also, I am none too sure how these (few) examples can be misconstrued:

• [Richard]: ‘I have no religiosity, spirituality, mysticality or metaphysicality in me whatsoever.
• [Richard]: ‘I am mortal. Death is the end. Finish. If you do not become free here and now whilst this body is breathing you never will.
• [Richard]: ‘I am a thorough-going atheist through and through.
• [Richard]: ‘All gods and goddesses are a figment of passionate human imagination.
• [Richard]: ‘There is no ‘Intelligence’ running this universe.
• [Richard]: ‘This universe has always been here and always will be ... it has no need for a creator.
• [Richard]: ‘I am a fellow human being sans identity ... neither ‘normal’ nor ‘divine’.
• [Richard]: ‘As this flesh and blood body only I am this material universe experiencing itself as an apperceptive human being ... as such it is stunningly aware of its own infinitude.

Plus many more examples ... yet there was more misconstruing on the website whilst it was on-line:

• [quote]: ‘Philosophical ENLIGHTENMENT (also semantic ENLIGHTENMENT) includes sub category of ‘intellectual Enlightenment’. This is especially useful for academics and failed architects who once actually held a hammer etc. It also includes the sub-sub category ... 180 degrees wrong Enlightenment where after being enlightened for 9 years you then recant and become actual once again. See our upcoming interview on ‘Philosophically Enlightened Reality Virtually’ – PERV – with Professor Richard of Byron Bay’. (was: www.fortunecity.com/marina/tidal/2339/characteristics_of_enlightenment.htm).

Apart from the laboured exposition of their ‘Non-Spiritual Spirituality’ theory it is pertinent to point out that in order to be satirical satire has to be able to accurately hit its mark and expose absurdity ... as an actual freedom from the human condition is entirely new to human experience – it had no existence prior to spiritual enlightenment – the words ‘and become actual once again’ are a dead giveaway that the authors are only making mockery of something they have invented.

Or, if I may mix metaphors, they are but tilting at straw-men.

RESPONDENT: I’ve corresponded with No 36 of EndOfTheRopeRanch@yahoo.com, a group I connected to through the Actual Freedom mailing list, and she gave the old ego-parasite some shattering kicks in the butt.

RICHARD: You must be referring to the following mailing list:

• ‘TheEndOfTheRopeRanch: Realization of Transcendent Understanding, Nonduality, Enlightenment’.
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheEndOfTheRopeRanch/).

If the words ‘Realization of Transcendent Understanding, Nonduality, Enlightenment’ do not signify the spiritual solution to all the ills of humankind for you then the words on the associated web page may very well drive the point home:

• ‘The End of Seeking – How I Became Self Realized (...) all of a sudden, this new energy filled me up and I knew and saw and felt in an instant the absurdity of what I thought my life was about. And what I realized was that I was everything that I had been seeking for. I was love, I was enlightenment, I was freedom, I was understanding, the very ‘thing’ itself. I was ‘IT’. (www.users.uniserve.com/~samuel/judi-2.htm).
• ‘Enlightenment is a very serious matter. It’s the Transcendence of life altogether as you now assume it to be. It’s about death – your death. The Teaching is a Sacred matter and not a self improvement technique thinking that you are going to get something out of it. Because the very one that thinks they are going to get something out of it is what gets obliterated in the process. Enlightenment is not something that you can *aspire* to like the violin. If you’re ready to die right now and never go back I say come on, but if not, turn back, go on with your life and be happy. God has everything under control’. (www.users.uniserve.com/~samuel/judi-2.htm).
• ‘... you see, all there is, is God! You have this idea that you are a separate something or other which keeps you locked in a body in time and space. When the truth is, there is only God. There is no such thing as a *separate*. There is no separate anything that exists apart from God Itself . That is all there is, and I am that. So are you, and so is everybody and everything else. (www.users.uniserve.com/~samuel/judi-1.htm).
• ‘... time is no more, immortality is realized, and life in Truth is understood and enjoyed. (www.users.uniserve.com/~samuel/judi-2.htm).
• ‘... there are no limits on love. It is beyond yet lies within all form. It is the birds in the air taking flight. It is the flower opening itself to the warmth of the sun. It is the wind caressing the trees. (www.users.uniserve.com/~samuel/judi-1.htm).

Maybe this is an apt moment to re-visit your earlier words (from the top of this page)? Vis.:

• [Respondent]: ‘So I sought teachers, and I found teachers and followed them and found myself led toward the realm of the ASC – messianic immortality, God consciousness, Divine Love and so on. (...) This pursuit went on for 30 years. Then I came across your web site tangentially, in a funny way. I was linked to it through Satsang MLM, a site that made fun of the non-duality gurus. That site is no longer on the net and I miss it.

It is easy to make fun of the nonduality peoples ... offering a viable alternative in its place is another matter entirely.

RESPONDENT: So, I’m just letting you know that I’m with you, and reading you all the time and finding Actual Freedom the solution in which my past pursuits are dissolving.

RICHARD: Okay ... instead of having Love/ God/ Truth/ IT give you some ‘shattering kicks in the butt’ may I suggest adopting the benevolent, and thus beneficial, approach? Vis.:

• [Richard]: ‘It is important not to view ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ as an enemy – blind nature is the culprit – and to be friends with yourself ... only you live with yourself twenty four hours a day. Coopt any aspect of yourself as an ally in this investigation into the human psyche ... eventually ‘I’ come to realise that the very best thing that ‘I’ can do is altruistically ‘self’-immolate for the benefit of this body and all bodies.
• [Richard]: ‘It is important not to turn the thinker into the villain, an enemy: the thinker is thus one’s greatest ally (...) whilst peoples beat themselves up for not being good enough or for being ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ (or whatever description) they have no chance of ever enabling [peace-on-earth]. None of this mess is ‘my’ fault ... ‘I’ was born like this. Now that ‘I’ realise this ‘I’ can willingly, cheerfully be in concordance. (...) ‘I’ can never, ever become perfect or be perfection. The only thing ‘I’ can do – the only thing ‘I’ need to do – is to say !YES! so that the already always existing perfection can become apparent.
• [Richard]: ‘Nothing of substance will happen less ‘I’ be the willing participant ... the 100% committed participant. I always maintain that each and every person holds their freedom in their own hands ... no one else can either grant it or prevent it. I see that I have written of it many times thus: ‘I’ deliberately and consciously – and with knowledge aforethought [from the PCE] – set in motion a ‘process’ that will ensure ‘my’ demise. What ‘I’ do, voluntarily and intentionally, is to press the button which precipitates a momentum – oft-times alarming but always thrilling – 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. When ‘I’ freely and cheerfully sacrifice ‘myself’ – the psychological and psychic entities residing inside this body – ‘I’ am gladly making ‘my’ most supreme donation, for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is the greatest gift one can bestow upon this body and that body and every body.

Put succinctly: be kind to yourself ... you are the only friend you have, so to speak.

*

RICHARD: ... in order to be satirical satire has to be able to accurately hit its mark and expose absurdity.

RESPONDENT: Yes, I’m corrected there. I often wondered why the author(s) of Satsang MLM expended so much energy to put down the Advaita teachers and what they would offer instead.

RICHARD: Presumably they would offer a direct relationship with Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain (aka ‘Osho’) instead ... one of the authors wrote to Peter a few years ago:

• ‘My relationship, as absurd as it might seem to you, is with Osho not the inner circle or other sannyasins’.

The reason for the ‘Satsang MLM’ (Multi-Level Marketing) website was, basically, that the authors objected to the advaita/ nonduality peoples associating themselves/ their truth with Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain/ his truth ... and thus raking in lots of loot by tapping into the lucrative ‘Sannyasins’/ ‘Friends Of Osho’ market.

Initially they published their objections in a short-lived printed magazine – called ‘Byron Satsang’ – before creating their website. Vis.:

• ‘In this day and age of Free Market Economics and Globalisation what better than to market Freedom and Truth. Globalisation of the world economy means that wherever there are sannyasins there’s a ready made market. There are many options open to you and in this article we will go over some of the basic issues in becoming a Satsang Service Provider (SSP). This Byron Satsang Special should be enough to get you started in your own business and on the road to financial independence. (...) First steps on the road to becoming an SSP: Well, all you have to do is say that Papaji told you to go out and give satsang. Of course since he’s now dead you could say that he came to you in a dream and asked you to look after his followers. This line works really well and has been market tested by [name deleted]. When questioned by sceptics about why he followed the sannyas market and stole Osho’s customers he claimed that Osho had come to Papaji in a dream and asked him to look after his sannyasins!’ (‘Byron Satsang’, circa early 2000; published by Sw. Yakaru and Sw. Karajaal).

RESPONDENT: I was reading many of the Advaita web sites at the same time. I did enjoy a laugh at their expense though and I’ll admit that laughing at the expense of others may come from malevolence. I knew the site poked at you, I didn’t understand what they were getting at. I thought that I might if I kept reading, then the site disappeared.

RICHARD: I have no idea as to why actualism featured on their website at all ... it has nothing to do with Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain whatsoever (let alone ‘guru-circuit’ marketing).

RESPONDENT: My intro to you through them was something like, ‘this is the funniest site on the web if you’ve got a couple of days to read it’. I went to your site and wondered what was supposed to be funny ...

RICHARD: It says a lot about the human condition that peace-on-earth should be deemed a matter of derision.

RESPONDENT: ... and how anyone could read it in two days. It has taken me months and I still have miles to go.

RICHARD: Just in case all the words ever get too much here is a précis:

Or even more succinctly:

RESPONDENT: I guess I must separate the teaching from the teacher ...

RICHARD: If I may interject? I do not either have a ‘teaching’ nor am I a ‘teacher’ ... what I do is offer a do-it-yourself method with a proven track-record, plus an unambiguous report of my experience, clear descriptions of life here in this actual world, lucid explanations of how and why, and clarifications of misunderstandings.

For an example: I always make it clear that I am a fellow human being (albeit sans identity/ affections in toto) providing a report of what I have discovered and not some latter-day ‘teacher’ (aka sage or seer, god-man or guru, master or messiah, saviour or saint, and so on) with yet another bodiless ‘teaching’.

What another does with the method, my report, my descriptions, my explanations, and my clarifications is their business, of course, yet it goes almost without saying, surely, that if what is on offer on The Actual Freedom Trust web site is indeed read as being yet another unliveable ‘teaching’ from yet another bodiless ‘teacher’ then that person will be but pissing into the wind each and every time they write to me.

RESPONDENT: ... just like your oft criticized punching bag, Jiddu Krishnamurti, said to his followers after screwing his best friends wife.

RICHARD: So, just because you experienced your worthless opinion being knocked down a peg or two by a worthless opinion, or your neither-correct-nor-incorrect statement being knocked down a peg or two by a neither-correct-nor-incorrect statement, or your preposterous statement being knocked down a peg or two by a preposterous statement, and despite not putting yourself on a plane with me nor putting me above or below you or another, still experienced being knocked down a peg or two by a person you do not put yourself on a plane with nor put above or below you or another, you somehow manage to liken me to a bodiless ‘teacher’ notorious for distancing themselves from their unliveable ‘teaching’ wherever and whenever the tyre met the road, eh?

O what a tangled web they weave when first they practise to deceive.

RESPONDENT: And thus does all the games and gamesmanship of the supposedly Enlightened or those in a ‘state vastly superior to Enlightenment’ amongst us mere mortals, continue unabated.

RICHARD: Ha ... you will find this to be of interest then:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘It is just a matter of being ‘there’, awake to what one is actually doing. We touch things all of the time, but our thoughts are what wastes the energy needed to ‘be there’ in totality.
• [Richard]: ‘This is precisely what I am getting at ... wanting to be ‘there’, and not here, is to chase immortality in a metaphysical dimension. I am suggesting that one turn one hundred and eighty degrees in the opposite direction ... and be here. But be fully here as an actuality and not a reality. This is where this body is: here at this place in space and now at this moment in time. Nobody wants to do this because it entails acknowledging death’s oblivion. *I am mortal*. Death is the end. Finish. If you do not become free here and now whilst this body is breathing you never will. [emphasis added].

When I typed ‘I am mortal’ into my search engine and sent it through all my correspondence it returned 71 hits ... which can only mean we are on the same plane after all and that I am, in fact, a fellow human being (albeit sans identity/ affections in toto) providing a report of what I have discovered and not some latter-day ‘teacher’ (aka sage or seer, god-man or guru, master or messiah, saviour or saint, and so on) with yet another bodiless ‘teaching’.

And thus does another neither-this-nor-that-or-either Advaita Shuffle bite the dust.

*

RESPONDENT: ... I am sure it will look good as an exclamation point in your journal of respondents where, strangely enough, Richard must always come out smelling like a rose.

RICHARD: If looking pathetic (which is what an Advaita Shuffle is) is what passes for looking good, in your neck of the woods, then what does Richard smelling like a rose pass for looking like, in your eyes?

RESPONDENT: Is that a type of dance, that Advaita Shuffle? Like the fox trot or tango?

RICHARD: No ... it is this type of ‘shuffle’:

• ‘shuffle: an evasive trick; subterfuge; sharp practice. (©Oxford Dictionary).

It is a phrase which describes a particular discussional gambit (as in ‘there is no one here to either answer or not-answer your question’) which Mr. Andrew Cohen first drew attention to in 1992 when referring to Neo-Advaitists in general and Ms. Antoinette Varner in particular often resorting to a ‘who is asking the question’ type of fall-back position whenever their non-dual teaching was questioned in a way too close for comfort (that is, with sensible queries from everyday life). Vis.:

• ‘The ‘Advaita Shuffle’ enables a person to use the Advaita teachings of non-duality to ‘Advaita away’ conflicts, disagreements, or uncomfortable aspects of reality. The attention is drawn away from the actual content of the discussion and put back on the questioner himself. (...) In this way, all desire and possibility for investigation, learning and change are destroyed ...’. (pp 13-14, ‘The Advaita Shuffle’, Issue No. 1,‘What is Enlightenment?’ magazine; 1992).

RESPONDENT: I’ll assume the second part of that was a facetious question.

RICHARD: No, I was not being facetious: when I say I am mortal, that death is the end, finish, I mean it; when I say I am a fellow human being (albeit sans identity/ affections in toto) I mean it; when I say I am not yet another bodiless teacher with yet another unliveable teaching, I mean it; but when you gratuitously inform another, upon be queried about your modus vivendi being correct and Richard and others on this mailing list being on the wrong track, that not only do you not put yourself on a plane with me you neither put me above nor below you *or another* yet almost in the next breath, as it were, put me as follows it is patently obvious you do not mean it at all. Vis.:

• [Respondent]: ‘I guess I must separate the teaching from the teacher ... just like your oft criticized punching bag, Jiddu Krishnamurti, said to his followers after screwing his best friends wife. And thus does all the games and gamesmanship of the supposedly Enlightened or those in a ‘state vastly superior to Enlightenment’ amongst us mere mortals, continue unabated’. (Mon 27/10/03 12:22 PM).

Hence my comment regarding another neither-this-nor-that-or-either discussional gambit biting the dust (falling flat on its face) because it is a fact we are on the same plane ... yet you take this as me, strangely enough, having to always come out smelling like a rose because you are sure it will look good in the archives.

Whereas my interest lies only in my fellow human being, in this specific instance, becoming freed from a rhetorical device – a ducking-the-question discussional gambit – which has the effect that [quote] ‘all desire and possibility for investigation, learning and change are destroyed’ [endquote].

In short: you are frittering away a vital opportunity.

RESPONDENT: Richard; I am not a solipsist, certainly not as defined, and I did not understand No. 60’s statement with which I agreed in that way. I would respond by saying that I do not treat my fellow human beings as ‘metaphysical entities’, but you have defined the term in such a way that I am not able. The body/ brain has no ‘independent existence’ as I understand the term; i.e., this body/ brain’s existence is dependent on a set of conditions without which this body/ brain would not exist, simple things like air and water, the earth with gravity, etc. I can say that I treat my fellow human beings as ... well, as human beings. Whether you chose to continue corresponding with me is your choice.

RICHARD: Having read through your (dualistic) words above I can only suggest that, as a starter, you try reading the parenthesised words at the end of the second sentence of my response with both eyes open. By doing so your replies would stand a good chance of bearing at least some relationship (possibly for the first time since subscribing) to what you are responding to. Incidentally, I did not define the terms ... ‘twas your co-respondent who did that (in e-mail after e-mail).

P.S.: As you have now declared yourself to be a non-solipsistic non-dualist, on top of recently declaring yourself to be a non-spiritual non-dualist, then here is a useful word-of-the-day: • ‘wankasaurus (slang): ... a wanker who is worse than most wankers’. (Macquarie Dictionary). And just so there is no misconstrual: •‘wank’: to maintain an illusion: deceive oneself; behaviour which is self-indulgent ...’. (Macquarie Dictionary).

RESPONDENT: There is not much I have to offer, expect for one minor note. You wrote,  ‘As I have no interest whatsoever in corresponding with a fellow human being who treats me as a metaphysical entity (as in having no independent existence) then that is the end of any further discussion.’ I took the words in parenthesis as your definition of  ‘metaphysical entity’, as you offered no attribution.

RICHARD: I see ... yet those parenthesised words, of course, referred back to the parenthesised description, of what the term ‘independent existence’ meant, at the end of the second sentence (in that all one can know is one’s experience of everything/ everybody).

The attribution ‘metaphysical’ came from your co-respondent assigning that classification to anything other than an experiential report ... despite the fact that everything I do have to report can be, and has been, validated (corroborated) by peoples from many and varied walks of life in numerous pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s).

There is no way I would have gone public with my experience had I been not able to first verify, over several years of discussions prior to then (1997), the commonality of pure consciousness experiencing.

To not put too fine a point on it: as ‘boneheaded absolutism’ exists only in your co-respondent’s imagination you were sucked-in by a seemingly persuasive argument.

Needless is it to add just how important it is to think for yourself?

RESPONDENT: Err... I hope you’ve got a day or 10 free because Richard is revving up, and pretty soon he’s gonna force feed your words ‘do no harm’ SLOWLY, one by one, back down your throat. Don’t say I didn’t warn you :-)

RICHARD: Ha ... so you are not just a pretty face after all, eh?

It is one thing to intellectually endorse a solipsistic point and quite another thing to really be solipsistic ... especially as an on-going experiencing.

I can clearly recall a period in 1984, whilst living in the Himalayas and plumbing the depths and extremities of spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment, of being in what I then described (having never heard of the word) as a state of extreme subjectivity.

It was a truly alarming experience (the affective faculty was, of course, still in situ at the time) to have no possible objective corroboration of whatever/ whoever is being sensed, felt out, and/or thought about as to ask another for such corroboration is an exercise in futility ... inasmuch there is no other (in the solipsistic state one is creating everyone and everything hence any ‘corroboration’ is also one’s creation).

Even the clichéd ‘please pinch me I must be dreaming’ is to no avail as nothing and nobody have any independent existence.

I have lost count of just how many wannabe mystics – non-dual dilettantes – have sat on my verandah or in my living room solemnly confiding in me, whilst waving a hand airily all about to include everything and everybody, that ‘this is all an illusion’ ... only to then look at me with rapidly-increasing incredulity when I ask them, in (pseudo) matched solemnity, why they are informing one of their illusions that he is that (one of their illusions).

I have even asked that of one of my fellow human beings by e-mail (archived in Mailing List ‘B’).

Apart from all that ... as much of the material on the web-site clearly shows that Richard is relentless, when it comes to exposing the human condition, a co-respondent would have to be an arrant fool to consider they can try out smart-aleckry on me, and get away with it, when the evidence of so many e-mails in the archives demonstrates that any such attempt has invariably resulted in them coming off a pathetic second-best (if that).

You see, I have nothing to lose and everything to gain for I like my fellow human and would rather see their suffering end sooner than later.

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