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Richard’s Selected Correspondence On Ancient Wisdom and the New Dark Age
RESPONDENT: Now, this is only my intellectual comprehension and not my experience. In fact I don’t remember of any peak experience kind or PCE, which you say everybody has once in a while. So, to me it does not matter, if what you are saying is ‘new’ or not. If you have experienced it and can help me experience it, I am ready to learn because I already see, intellectually, the need for it. RICHARD: Good ... but we need to be clear what it is that you want to experience. Nothing that I am on about will you find in the scriptures. Nothing. Eventually one has no recourse but to face the facts and the actuality of the human situation squarely. Which is: ‘If the ‘ancient wisdom’ is so good, why has it not worked? How long must we try something before abandoning it in favour of something more promising?’ There is as much animosity and anguish now as back then. The experiment has failed. Love and its Compassion; Beauty and its Truth have had thousands of years to demonstrate their efficacy ... where is the evidence that they should be persevered with? Where is the Peace On Earth that they promised? Why is it that only 0.000001 of the population becomes enlightened? Why? Why?? Why??? Clear the work-bench and start fresh. Learn from those that have gone before and move on. RESPONDENT: I would still insist that this is not the first time I am hearing this. I have read about getting into the minute (I know this is not the right word, but my vocabulary is poor, the Sanskrit word is Sukshma) ego on the spiritual path. RICHARD: Would you be referring to ‘Sukshma Sarira’? Sometimes known as ‘Sukshama Sharira’? RESPONDENT: No I was referring to Sukshma Ahamkara. RICHARD: Oh? May I ask? Just what has ‘ahamkara’ (be it subtle or not) got to do with what you initially stated (top) and what I responded with (second from top)? I was clearly talking of an actual freedom (as in a PCE) from the real-world when ‘me’ as soul becomes extinct – which is ‘being’ itself expires – and not what happens when ‘I’ as ego transmogrifies. Whereas enlightenment (as in an ASC), which is liberation (Moksha) from the bonds of samsara (anava, karma and maya), consists of the soul (atman or purusha) extricating itself from its mistaken assumption of personality or individuality (aham). This assumption is because of its focus (‘ahamkara’ translates as ‘I-Maker’ in English) on material nature (samsara or prakriti) and when there is the recognition of its total difference from it – and non-involvement in it – such enlightenment (Moksha) is the freedom from the fettering power of these reincarnational bonds. These bonds do not cease to exist but no longer have the power to fetter or bind the soul (atman), until its final release at physical death (Mahasamadhi) whereupon atman is Paramatman (or the Brahman). And in case that paragraph is difficult to follow, I am talking of the soul (atman) being annihilated ... and you are talking about ‘getting into the minute (sukshma) ego on the spiritual path’. RESPONDENT: The scriptures have warned against falling into illusion of being one with God and against the danger of acting as a Guru. RICHARD: These scriptures that you are referring to ... are they Jain Scriptures by any chance? RESPONDENT: No, I have not read Jain scriptures. RICHARD: Okay ... then are you referring to Buddhist scriptures? RESPONDENT: I have indeed read earlier of the need of completely annihilate the ‘I’ and not falling into the delusion of being one with God. RICHARD: If it is the Jain Scriptures then this is simply a matter of the terms of reference being used ... becoming a ‘Siddha’, for example and residing in a state of perpetual bliss in ‘Siddha-Shila’. RESPONDENT: As I said I don’t know much about Jain scriptures. RICHARD: Now, I can keep up this guessing game – until the moon turns blue if you wish – as I am already free of the Human Condition. However, would it not be easier for you – and quicker – if you just name your scriptures? Then we can have a practical discussion. RESPONDENT: Also what you tell about ‘this seeing is me ...’ is somewhere in Osho’s teaching itself. Now I may not be able to quote the exact book and page number etc. because I never did the study to be able to convince somebody or to argue. My studies of the spiritual text have been only to learn for myself. If you want to believe me, this is my understanding of the spiritual text I have studied. RICHARD: No, I do not wish to believe you, given that all the scriptural texts that I have ever seen do not talk about what I experience and write of ... and I have been scouring books for eighteen years. It is to no avail to say to me that you already know all this that I write about from your understanding of the scriptures ... and then become rather vague about what you do know. Nowhere in the scriptures does it say that nothing other than this physical universe is it; nowhere does it say that only this lifetime is it; nowhere does it say that death is the end, finish, oblivion. They speak of a timeless and spaceless void; a formless and deathless emptiness; an unknowable and immutable presence; an immortal and ceaseless being and so on. They say that the physical universe is an illusion, a dream and not ultimately real. They talk of reincarnating through multiple lifetimes until ‘Liberation’ frees one from ‘Karma’ and one never needs being born again. They say that physical life is inherently sorrowful and the best thing to do is to scarper ... into a metaphysical realm of the ‘unborn’. I must ask: where in all this does it relate to what I speak of? RESPONDENT: Let me correct myself a bit. When I said it is not new to me, what I mean is that is not surprising to me. I thought vaguely (yes vaguely, as I have not experienced it) about this possibility also. My understanding is not based on one particular teacher or book. It is a complex of various things which I have been hearing/reading for so many years and adding my own interpretation to it. RICHARD: Okay, could you detail these various things that you have been ‘hearing/reading for so many years’? Because I have not come across it in eighteen years of hearing/reading multitudinous various things. RESPONDENT: I will just give an example. The snake and the rope metaphor is well known in Hindu philosophy. It says that a rope lying on a way may look like a snake to somebody. It is explained that the illusion of snake is ‘maya’ which arises because of ‘aham’ (‘I’). When there is no aham, there is no illusion (maya) and therefore rope is rope (the brahma). Aren’t you saying the same thing? Just replace brahma by actual world and maya by real world. RICHARD: No. This actual world is material – as in tangible, corporeal, physical, substantial, palpable, tactile and sensate – and is evident when ‘I’ as ego (aham) and ‘me’ as soul (atman) become extinct. There is nothing other than this infinite and eternal actual phenomenal universe. Whereas ‘the brahma’ is the supreme existence or absolute, the noumenal font of all things – the eternal, conscious, irreducible, infinite, omnipresent, spiritual source of the universe of finiteness and change – and is realised when aham remembers that its true nature (atman) is brahma. And according to the Advaita (Non-dualist) school of Vedanta, brahma is categorically different from anything phenomenal, and human perceptions of differentiation are illusively projected on this physical reality. The Bhedabheda (Dualist-Non-dualist) school maintains that brahma is non-different from the world, which is its product, but different in that phenomenality imposes certain adventitious conditions (upadhis) on brahma. The Vishistadvaita (Non-duality of the Qualified) school maintains that a relation between brahma and the world of soul and matter exists that is comparable to the relation between soul and body and that phenomenality is a glorious manifestation of brahma (as a personal god, Brahma, is both transcendent and immanent). The Dvaita (Dualist) school refuses to accept the identity of brahma and world, maintaining the ontological separateness of the supreme, which it also identifies with a personal god. I must ask again: where in all this does it relate to what I speak of? RESPONDENT: I understand the same thing by the famous Zen story of ‘mountains were mountains again’. RICHARD: Yet Zen is grounded in the experience of Mr. Buddha, who based his entire teaching on the fact of human suffering ... all physical existence is painful, he said. Living amid the impermanence of everything and being themselves impermanent, human beings search for the way of deliverance, for that which shines beyond the transitoriness of human existence; he asserted there was no essential or ultimate reality in things. He said: ‘There is an unborn, an unoriginated, an unmade, an uncompounded; were there not, there would be no escape from the world of the born, the originated, the made, and the compounded’. Thus, for Zen Buddhists, the ‘mountains which were mountains again’ are now known to be an illusion ... whilst before they were not. Whereas for me this material world is actual. RESPONDENT: Yes, the ancient scriptures are mostly written in poetic form and are open to interpretation. RICHARD: You will find, upon closer examination, that they are uncommonly faithful – and not open to poetic interpretation – about several fundamental and core beliefs. To wit: They mostly say that something other than this physical universe is it; they mostly say that this lifetime is not it; they mostly say that death is not the end, finish, oblivion. They mostly speak of a timeless and spaceless void; they mostly speak of a formless and deathless emptiness; they mostly speak of an unknowable and immutable presence; they mostly speak of an immortal and ceaseless being and so on. They mostly say that the physical universe is an illusion, a dream and not ultimately real. They mostly talk of reincarnating through multiple lifetimes until spiritual freedom releases one from temporal bondage and one never needs being born again. They mostly say that physical life is inherently sorrowful and the best thing to do is to scarper ... into a metaphysical realm of the ‘unborn’. RICHARD: Oh, there is a point all right. Like all ‘Awakened Teachers’ of mystical persuasion he is saying the same-same esoteric thing, fundamentally. Which is: narcissism rules supreme. RESPONDENT: It is all vague to discuss because we can’t agree upon what was the point. RICHARD: I am having no trouble ascertaining the point at all ... which is that you are hopelessly wrong in your understanding of Mr. Mohan Rajneesh’s self-proclaimed divinity. RESPONDENT: I think that is where Osho seemed to have failed. Many of his close associates seem to got him so wrong. Osho and many other eastern philosophies have stressed so many times on being happy ‘here and now’. There may be many methods how to achieve it. RICHARD: Aye ... except that their ‘here and now’ is a metaphysical (timeless and spaceless) ‘here and now’ (and Mr. Mohan Rajneesh oft-times used the word ‘herenow’ to distinguish it from the temporal location) and it is anywhere but here as this place in infinite space and anywhere but now as this moment in eternal time. And his method for attaining happiness is to end separation by creating the illusion of intimacy through attaining union or oneness as ‘Pure Love’ – what I call Love Agapé‚ – and not through ending the separative self per se. RESPONDENT: Fortunately, what I already understood from ‘here and now’ is exactly what you are telling now. That is, here in this ‘actual’ space and now as this ‘actual’ moment. Well, the word ‘actual’ might have come to my mind after reading you. RICHARD: If, as I have already mentioned, you are referring to the Jain Scriptures, then you will be hard-pushed to explain how ‘alokakasha’ (the non-universe) is actual. RESPONDENT: I was not referring to Jain scriptures. RICHARD: Okay, then in whatever scriptures you were referring to when you said ‘Osho and many other eastern philosophies have stressed so many times on being happy ‘here and now’’, they all mean a metaphysical ‘here and now’ ... usually accessed by entering into a trance state somewhat akin to catatonia (clumsily translated as ‘meditation’ in English) wherein both time and space cease to be. RESPONDENT: It is just plain common sense. For me whenever somebody says here and now it has to be here and now in this world otherwise it is already there and then. RICHARD: Aye, the word ‘here’ literally means ‘this physical place in space’ – unless one is a mystic – and the word ‘now’ literally means ‘this moment in time’ ... unless one is spiritual. (Incidentally, the word ‘intelligence’ literally means ‘the human brain thinking and reflecting’ ... unless one is enlightened). RICHARD: The wars and rapes and murders and tortures and corruptions and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides that afflict this globe are far too serious a matter to deal with for me to spend time in mincing words. The gurus and god-men have been peddling their snake oil for centuries to no avail. They have had two to three thousand years to demonstrate their effectiveness as being the ultimate solution. Their time has come to either put up or shut up. RESPONDENT: What if it is not gurus fault but people understood them incorrectly once they died. RICHARD: Are you saying that millions upon millions – if not billions – of otherwise intelligent and/or pious and/or studious and/or devout peoples throughout these thousands of years have all misunderstood what the ‘Teachers’ teach? Does that not stretch one’s credibility somewhat? And given that billions have ‘misunderstood’, according to you, how come you are so special – in that you fondly imagine that you understand – and they do/did not? Are you outstanding among the millions and millions? Or are the ‘Teachings’ and the ‘Teachers’ – and the source that the ‘Teacher’s Teachings’ come from – horribly and terribly sick? RESPONDENT: Has Richard ever met Michael Roads, a fellow Australian, author of works such as Talking With Nature, Journey into Nature, Journey into Oneness? Michael is as unpretentious as they come ... and I find a lot expansiveness in his perspective on life. Check him out and give me a critique if you please. RICHARD: Hokey-dokey ... Mr. Michael Roads, a native of the United Kingdom, emigrated to Australia with his wife, Ms. Treenie Roads, in 1964 and farmed in Tasmania for twelve years; in the process he became known as an expert in organic farming and a consultant in the field. They are the founders of the ‘Homeland Community’ – based on the model of Findhorn in Scotland – and now live in Queensland, Australia. His ‘Journey Into Nature; A Spiritual Adventure Into Oneness’ is said by some to be a spiritual journey as profound as Mr. Carlos Castaneda’s in ‘The Teachings of Don Juan’ or Mr. Dan Millman’s in ‘Way of the Peaceful Warrior’. Mr. Michael Roads explores the nature of energy, the foundations of personal power, and the frontiers of reality. Through a dazzling series of visions, he goes beyond communicating with nature and becomes blackberry, dog, and crystal. He enters the ‘Guidestone’ and encounters the ‘Power Gates’; he accepts the ‘Great God Pan’ as his guide; he merges consciousness with water; he experiences the worldwide effects of pesticides on the plant kingdom and he fulfils the destiny of a dolphin as it travels from death to rebirth. In ‘Journey Into Oneness; A Spiritual Odyssey’ he has passed the initiations posed by the ‘Great God Pan’, and has earned the right in consciousness to enter into the non-physical realms. He says: ‘when I stepped through those Doors, linear time and normal reality ended. Everything of the known was abruptly replaced by an absolute unknown. Time, if it had any meaning at all, was spherical, so that all points of a sphere were the same time – always’. He then finds himself in his light body and, catapulted through one spiritual doorway after another, he meets numerous ‘Beings’ who expand his awareness of the dimensions of reality. Step-by-step, he is led to the greatest understanding of his journey into ‘Oneness’. As ‘Consciousness’, he evolves from gas, to mineral, to plant, to animal, and finally to human, experiencing the pull of ‘Self’ to express itself through physical form. He explores the infinite universe and comes to know the meaning of ‘I AM THAT I AM’. His ‘Into A Timeless Realm; A Metaphysical Adventure’ was followed by ‘Getting There’ which established this ‘New Age writer’s entry into ‘Visionary Fiction’ ... according to a critic. Mr. Michael Roads is not even enlightened ... let alone actually free of the human condition. His contribution to peace-on-earth is zero ... and may even help pull western civilisation, which has struggled to get out of superstition and medieval ignorance, back into the supernatural ... as the Eastern mystical thought that is beginning to have its strangle-hold upon otherwise intelligent people is becoming more and more widespread. RICHARD: In actualism the third alternative always applies. ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’, ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’, ‘Virtue’ and ‘Sin’, ‘Hope’ and ‘Despair’, ‘Gratitude’ and ‘Resentment’, and so on, all disappear in the perfection of purity. RESPONDENT: This is typical Taoism. RICHARD: Are you sure? Shall we take just one pair of opposites as an example? Virtue and Sin? In Taoism, virtue does not disappear along with its cohort, sin ... it transforms into a superior virtue called ‘Te’. Now, ‘Te’ is the power acquired by the Taoist and is known as the efficacy of the Tao in the realm of ‘Being’ (‘Being’ is life on earth as opposed to ‘Non-being’ which is the abode of the ‘Hsien’ ... Sages known as ‘The Immortals’). Indeed, Mr. Lao-Tzu viewed it as being vastly different from ordinary (Confucian) virtue:
The ‘superior virtue’ of Taoism is a latent power that never lays claim to its achievements; it is the ‘mysterious power’ (‘Hsuan Te’) of Tao present in the heart of the sage:
I have no need for any virtue whatsoever ... either the common or garden variety or the superior model. I have written about this previously:
RESPONDENT: Are other aspects of actualism also derived from Ancient Wisdom? RICHARD: You are yet to establish that these aspects of actual freedom are derived from the ‘Ancient Wisdom’. RICHARD: I am not saying that if you bring ‘peace to yourself’ that ‘peace on earth will follow’ ... like they say. Peace-on-earth is already here; it always has been here and always will be here ... now. It is ‘me’ that stands in the way of this already always existing peace-on-earth being apparent. When ‘I’ self-immolate in ‘my’ totality, then the individual peace-on-earth is evident ... for one person. Then one is living in this actual world ... the value-free world of the senses. RESPONDENT: This sounds very much like basic Tantra teaching. Just replace your term ‘peace-on-earth’ with ‘enlightenment’ or ‘my Buddha nature’. ‘Enlightenment is already here, my Buddha nature is already here; it always has been here and always will be here ... now. It is ‘me’ that stands in the way of this already always enlightenment being apparent, it is ‘me’ that stands in the way of my Buddha nature being apparent’. RICHARD: Agreed ... so far. RESPONDENT: ‘When ‘I’ self-immolate in ‘my’ totality, then the individual enlightenment, the individual Buddha nature is evident ... for one person’. RICHARD: Not so ... when ‘I’ self-immolate in ‘my’ totality – and totality is the operative word – then one is beyond enlightenment and living an actual freedom. To become enlightened – to realise one’s ‘Buddha-nature’ – it is important that only ‘I’ as ego dies ... thus leaving ‘me’ as soul the licence to expand like all get-out in a veritable frenzy of self-glorification. RESPONDENT: ‘Then one is living in this actual world ... the value-free world of the senses’. Is it so? RICHARD: No way ... then one is living in the ‘Greater Reality’ (by whatever name) which is the value-packed world of the psyche ... powered by the affective faculty. I like your approach here! RICHARD: Being here now is to put your money where your mouth is, as it were. All other actions are methods, devices, techniques ... which are, in effect, delaying tactics. The most sincere form of flattery is not, as is commonly practised, imitating all the other people’s performance of standing back and expressing a feeling. To feel an emotion or be passionate about life is nowhere near the same as actually being here now. In being here now one is completely involved. Being here now is total inclusion. One demonstrates one’s appreciation of life by partaking fully in existence ... by letting this moment live one so that one is doing what is happening. One dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here now as the universe’s experience of itself. When ‘I’ willingly and voluntarily sacrifice ‘myself’ – the psychological or psychic identity residing inside this body – ‘I’ am gladly making ‘my’ most supreme donation, for ‘I’ am what one holds most dear. RESPONDENT: Did you read the ‘Being Here Now’ book by Ram Das? Do you recall the bit where the young Richard Alpert is off to find the truth and comes across a holy man who just is not interested in his stories of the past, in his emotions or imaginings, only in ‘Being Here Now’. Hence the title of the book. Could you explain how ‘your’ ‘Being Here Now’ is different than the ‘Being Here Now’ of Richard Alpert, who, I am assuming, is, in your estimation, one of those gurus who has caused the whole bloody mess this planet is in? RICHARD: First off, I do not point the finger at the Gurus and God-men for creating all the mess but for perpetuating it forever and a day with their specious solution. It is ‘blind nature’ that is the root cause of all the anguish and animosity. Secondly, Mr. Richard Alpert does not claim to be enlightened – or he did not the last time I looked at his work about 12 years ago – but his influence has encouraged many an otherwise intelligent person to trek eagerly off to the Himalayas for that permanent ‘high’. The phrase ‘being here now’ has become rather hackneyed, yet there is no other expression that conveys the immediacy of experiencing what ‘I’ used to call ‘the cutting edge of reality’ back in the days that there was an ‘I’ inhabiting this body ... and therein lies the clue to the difference: reality. Mr. Richard Alpert’s ‘being here now’ lies in a ‘Mystical Reality’ that is ‘spaceless and timeless’. This is where mystics deceive both themselves and their gullible listeners ... this blurring of distinction between the physical and the metaphysical. There is a lack intellectual rigour in all this in that time and space is actual and ‘being here now’ can only be at this place in space and this moment in time. The confusion lies around the nature of time: time is eternal ... eternal as in physically without beginning and without end. Now I know that the word ‘timeless’ can mean eternal, but it is a metaphysical use of the word because it implies time stopping or vanishing. In that context, the mystics use it in conjunction with ‘spaceless’ ... ‘I am Timeless and Spaceless; Unborn and Undying; Birthless and Deathless’ and so on. As this physical body has a limited life-span, they can only be referring to a psychic entity receiving its post-mortem reward of immortality. Thus the reality of their psychic ‘being here now’ is vastly different to the actuality of sensately being here now. There is no ‘spacelessness’ here or ‘timelessness’ now, in actuality. Living here, at this moment in time, there is only this moment that is actual. As it is already always this moment, time has no duration when ‘I’ am not ... and to the unaware it appears to be ‘timeless’. It is not. This moment is hanging in eternal time like this planet is hanging in infinite space. There is no beginning or end to the infinitude of this universe’s space and time, therefore there is no middle, no centre. Thus, here and now is nowhere in particular and one is easily always here as it is already now. In apperceptive awareness – which is this flesh and blood body being conscious sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul – there is the direct experience of the immediate being the ultimate and the relative being the absolute. This is what I describe by saying ‘being here now’. RICHARD: Do you see what I mean when I repeatedly write about morals being those ‘unliveable edicts handed down by bodiless entities’? RESPONDENT: I see your point and elect to focus instead on right living in the moment rather than considering your version of ‘ain’t it awful’. RICHARD: If I may point out? Your ‘right living’ is based upon re-hashed pithy aphorisms (which may or may not include ‘right’ views, ‘right’ intention, ‘right’ speech, ‘right’ action, ‘right’ livelihood, ‘right’ effort, ‘right’ awareness and ‘right’ concentration). Thus you are ‘electing to focus’ upon ‘Ancient Wisdom’ instead of thinking for yourself. RESPONDENT: Excuse me if this sound rude. What do I know? Nothing to speak of. RICHARD: You can be as rude as you wish ... I never take offence. As for your query ‘What do I know?’ and your NDA answer ‘Nothing to speak of’ ... for one who professes to know nothing to speak of, you spoke plenty already. Vis.:
Thus by agreeing to ‘love’s success; compassion’s effectiveness and beauty’s encouragement’ you make out that you know that the ‘Tried and True’ is effective in curing all the ills of humankind. You say this despite the fact that the Gurus and the God-Men; the Avatars and the Saviours; the Masters and the Messiahs; the Saints and the Sages have had 3,000 to 5,000 years to demonstrate the effectiveness of ‘love’s success; compassion’s effectiveness and beauty’s encouragement’ ... and peace on earth is nowhere to be found. Therefore I ask, just how much longer will a ‘Tried and Failed’ system continue to be so highly revered despite its abject failure to produce the goods? Is it because these attitudes and attributes form a ‘web’ of solace and succour wherein ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul can be comforted, stroked, endorsed and perpetuated? Is this why nobody will put love and compassion and beauty under a microscope? If thought can get such rigorous scrutiny as the Mailing List gives it ... why not feelings? Are feelings sacrosanct? RICHARD: Coincidentally, Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti recommends the same course of action ... as do all the Saints and Sages, Gurus and God-men, Messiahs and Masters, Avatars and Saviours down through the ages. This is the ‘Tried and True’ ... it has had thousands of years to demonstrate its efficacy for bringing about peace-on-earth and it has failed again and again. The time-honoured methods of living a life happily and harmoniously have failed miserably, yet peoples persist in travelling the hoary path, again and again, thinking it is they who are doing something wrong by not applying ‘The Teachings’ correctly. Nobody has the temerity to question the ‘wisdom’ of the ages. RESPONDENT: I don’t need to question the wisdom of the ages. I question myself because whatever is of the ages is what I am. Why should I waste energy wading through endless ideas of antiquity and modernity trying to discover what is so? If all that had any value, we would have become an enlightened species long ago. I look at what is happening NOW. That is where the real energy is, the real possibility of comprehension – not the words of others. RICHARD: Okay ... ignore the evidence of history if you wish. Remake the mistakes of the past ... at least you will be able to say that you failed all of your own accord. RESPONDENT: You say you were spontaneously enlightened and that you searched to see the meanings others had attributed to that state, ‘to see where they had gone wrong’. That sounds rather arrogant to me because you are taking for granted that you, Richard, are in fact, enlightened or clear; you don’t question this, and you move from there to the belief that you know what is right and that you are capable of disclosing who, through-out history was wrong, and why and how they were wrong. You will pardon me if I find that belief wanting. RICHARD: You can only say all this by conveniently ignoring the fact that I wrote [quote]: ‘I thus found out via personal experience where I had been going wrong for eleven years’ [endquote]. RESPONDENT: Krishnamurti was wrong. RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: Buddha was wrong. RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: Everybody has been wrong but you. RICHARD: No ... I too was wrong for eleven years. RESPONDENT: Only you know truth. RICHARD: No ... I knew truth for eleven years – like Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti and Mr. Buddha and so on – and now I am free from the self-aggrandisement that all that is. RESPONDENT: My god, man, don’t you see what you are doing to yourself? RICHARD: Indeed ... I am free of the human condition. I have gone beyond enlightenment into an actual freedom. I am autonomous; beholden to no one and no thing I stand on my own two feet ... instead of prostrating myself in abject humility and self-abnegation. This actual perfection is excellent and free. It is the freely available bonus of daring to be me as-I-am. Unadorned I am more free than a bird on the wing and cleaner than a sea-breeze on a sweltering summer’s day. To be me as-I-am is to be fresh, each moment again. RESPONDENT: 1. The man that really knows, doesn’t speak. 2. The man that speaks, doesn’t really know. RICHARD: Who first spoke these ancient ‘Words of Wisdom’? Man No. 1? Or ... Man No. 2? I am just curious. Because it can not be Man No. 1 ... he does not speak. Therefore it must be Man No 2. As Man No. 2 does not really know what he is talking about, then this pithy aphorism is not worth even the paltry piece of rice-paper that it was written upon all those years ago. Great stuff, is it not, to think for oneself instead of relying upon some hallowed but specious ‘wisdom of the ancients’? RESPONDENT: For sure at this point this is a lost, violent, confused world and something is needed soon. RICHARD: Not so ... it is only the real world – as manifested by normal human beings – that is ‘a lost, violent, confused world’. The real world is an illusion pasted over the top of the actual world. This actual world – which is apprehended sensately when there is no ‘I’ present in any way, shape or form – is clean and clear and pure and perfect because there is no good or evil here. In this actual world of sensual delight one then lives freely in the magical paradise, which this verdant earth floating in the infinitude of the universe, actually is. Being here at this moment in time and this place in space is to be living in a fairy-tale-like ambience that is never-ending. RESPONDENT: Yes agreed we seem, at least to me to be speaking with different words of the same thing. RICHARD: Not so ... words like ‘Oneness’, ‘Love’, ‘Compassion’, ‘Truth’, ‘Openness’ and so on play no place here. Nor what those words ‘point to’, as you are also fond of saying. Here all can be described cleanly and with clarity ... and with no ambiguity whatsoever. Here thought and thinking, knowledge and knowing, seeing and understanding all have their place because the ‘thinker’ has vanished ... not thought. Thus it is entirely possible, throughout the vast majority of one’s time, for there to be no thoughts running at all ... none whatsoever. If thought is needed for a particular situation, it swings smoothly into action and effortlessly does its thing. All the while there is an apperceptive awareness of being here ... of being alive at this moment in time and this place in space. No words occur in the brain – other than when necessary – for it is a wordless appreciation of being able to be here now. Consequently, one is always blithe and carefree, even if one is doing nothing. Doing something – and that includes thinking – is a bonus of happiness and pleasure on top of this on-going ambrosial experience of being alive and awake and here on this verdant earth now. RESPONDENT: From the rest of your writing I can only detect that actual completeness in the process of consciousness is not something you have ever experienced consciously. It can be compared to beauty, it can also be called integration in full awareness. I have reached an haven in heaven (thanks to you) and have decided to go back to earth to find out if heaven can also be found in the Beauty of Music or the Completeness of Logic or even in the Acceptance of Arrogance. There are some things wonderful beyond actuality. But it sure as Hell isn’t the ‘tried and true’. RICHARD: For a start, an ‘actual completeness’ in a ‘process of consciousness’ is a contradiction in terms. A process is never complete ... if it was it would no longer be a process. Secondly, I have experienced beauty; I have experienced integration; I have experienced full awareness and I lived in heaven – and on earth into the bargain – for eleven years. Thirdly, ‘Beauty of Music’ and ‘Completeness of Logic’ and ‘Acceptance of Arrogance’ is nothing but fancy words. Fourthly, anything beyond actuality can only be fantasy. And lastly, it is guaranteed to be some re-hash of the ‘Tried and True’ dressed up to look different. RESPONDENT: There are some things wonderful beyond actuality! RICHARD: The only thing ‘beyond actuality’ is fantasy. This physical universe – being infinite in space and eternal in time – is all there is ... and it is what is wonderful. You see, you give yourself away with that statement ... this is what the Sages and Gurus have been saying for centuries. They say that there is something beyond time and space ... and that when you die you cast off your body like a suit of old clothes and go into the ‘Greater Beyond’. And here is you saying that there is something beyond actuality ... something beyond this physical universe. This is why I have been saying that you are coming out with a re-hash of the ‘Tried and True’. Do you see it now? RICHARD: I am autonomous and free; beholden to no one and no thing I stand on my own two feet ... instead of prostrating myself in abject humility and self-abnegation. This actual perfection is excellent and free. It is the freely available bonus of daring to be me as-I-am. Unadorned I am more free than a bird on the wing and cleaner than a sea-breeze on a sweltering summer’s day. To be me as-I-am is to be fresh, each moment again. Owing nothing to no one I am free from corruption ... perversity has vanished forever. Unpolluted as I am by any alien entity, my thoughts and my deeds are automatically graceful. Goodwill, freed of social morality, comes effortlessly to me for all internal conflict is over. I am gentle and peaceful in character. Freeing myself of the altered state of consciousness called spiritual enlightenment was the last step into actuality. RESPONDENT: ‘I’ am the thought of being somehow separate in time apart from everything else. If there seems to be someone in time free from anything, that is duality. If ‘I’ am aware that I am aware, or aware that I am ‘free’, that is division. RICHARD: So, according to you, if someone is aware that they are free ... then that is proof that they are not free? Are you for real? This is but a variation on that pithy aphorism: ‘He who knows does not speak’. Next you will be coming out with that tired and hoary maxim about ‘he who knows nothing, really knows’. Perhaps you may care to again peruse the following:
This is written by one who is aware that he is free – and says so unabashedly – and one who knows that he knows and is unrepentantly speaking. My attitude is this: if you know something, then say it ... and say it with firmness and boldness; say it with verve and vivacity; say it with daring and audacity. All this being humble business is only for the faint of heart and the weak of knee, who piously hope to earn their way into some god’s good graces by deprecating and humiliating themselves like all get-out. It is arrant selfishness to discover peace-on-earth ... and keep it to yourself! RESPONDENT: Observation and reflection from memory of limited past experience is thought is it not? RICHARD: Yes ... only in a normal person there is always an affective component that makes it real. RESPONDENT: The intelligence that is the universe is not limited to memory stored in a particular brain. RICHARD: Just what ‘intelligence that is the universe’ is this that you are referring to? The only intelligence that the universe has is as a human being ... which means this brain. Surely you are not bringing the ‘intelligence’ that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti revered into this discussion ... that ‘intelligence’ is nothing but what is known in the West as the ‘Omniscience of God’. RESPONDENT: When the brain is operating from programming, is there any room for that energy and intelligence of the universe to contact the brain? RICHARD: You are talking about becoming one with god ... by whatever name. RESPONDENT: There is not. Because there is no silence, no space (and thus no contact), intelligence is thought to exist outside of what is, beyond the universe structured by thought. But that is like saying the ocean is outside of the wave. The movement of a wave is particular but there never was a wave apart from ocean. RICHARD: I have heard all this before – I lived it for eleven years – and it is self-aggrandisement. This is Eastern Mysticism ...‘I am everything and Everything is Me’. RICHARD: Yet I do not have an ‘wholistic intelligence’ ... therefore I present facts. The fact is that human suffering has at least a 3,000 to 5,000 year recorded history – and as peoples everywhere are relying upon an ‘Ancient Wisdom’ that is 3,000 to 5,000 years old – all it takes is a simple observation to see that everybody is going in the wrong direction. To wit: How come it has taken 3,000 to 5,000 years ... and peace on earth is nowhere to be found? RESPONDENT: Look at the idea of people relying on an ‘Ancient Wisdom’. What is old is what is known, memorized, and conceptualised. RICHARD: Yes ... and what is more it has failed to deliver the goods. RESPONDENT: Wisdom is a readiness or openness to see what is ever-changing; a motiveless passion to understand through direct observation. RICHARD: Speaking personally, the ‘I’ that was inhabiting this body was motivated like all get-out to put an end to 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 inside this flesh and blood body ... and succeeded. Thus I thoroughly recommend motivation. How are you going with attempting to fool yourself that you have no motivation? RESPONDENT: Ancient Wisdom is a contradiction in terms. RICHARD: Only if one believes the ‘Ancient Wisdom’s’ denial of the actuality of this infinite universe’s eternal time ... surely you are not one of those who do deny time? RICHARD: For those who are ‘that’, punctuating this pithy aphorism should be a breeze. For those who are not ‘that’, punctuating the witty doggerel should be an eye opener. For those who are not interested in ‘that’ at all, clicking the delete button should bring great satisfaction. Vis.: ‘I am that that is I am that that is that that is is and is not simultaneously I am that that is and is not and that is it it is it really is it’. RESPONDENT: ‘I am that. That is, I am that that is. That that is is and is not simultaneously. I am that that is and is not and that is it. It is, it really is it’. Is that it? RICHARD: Near enough: (‘I am that. That is, I am that that is. That that is, is and is not simultaneously. I am that that is and is not – and that is it. It is. It really is it!’) RESPONDENT: Is that all there is to it? RICHARD: That is not ‘all there is to it’ for those who believe in this eastern mystical thought ... it is their whole ground of being. It is their passion, their very core identity. RESPONDENT: What’s it to you? RICHARD: It is one of the main causes of the promotion and perpetuation of all the anguish and animosity that has beset this fair planet since time immemorial. Many years ago – nearly a quarter of a century ago – back in my ‘hippy’ days when I lived in and travelled around this country in a psychedelic bus for five years, I had that painted along the sides. Not many passer’s-by could work it out ... eastern mystical thought had not infiltrated into the West so thoroughly then as now. Anyway, I believed in it through and through ... so much so that I lived it as a reality for eleven years. I was situated in a living nightmare of what I came to see was nothing short of institutionalised insanity. Any altered state of consciousness was a delusion born out of the illusion of self ... but only because of humankind’s ignorance. It is truly dreadful to be trapped in a massive delusion for eleven years, unable to find any way out and knowing that no other human being can help, for the altered state has been held up for millennia as being the Summum Bonum of human existence. All the literature on the subject praised the state of consciousness I was in (Enlightenment, Illumination, Moksa, Samadhi, Satori, Nirvana, Sunyata and so on) and yet I just knew it was a mirage that I was living. I am simply sharing my experience for others to do what they will with. Is that not what this List is here for? RESPONDENT: Do you really want to go at it with me? Let’s have a go at it, what do you say? RICHARD: Have a go at what? A self-centred (and therefore selfish) belief system devised by our stupefied ancestors? Is it really worth fighting over? RESPONDENT: Seriously, isn’t the above little exercise a waste of time? RICHARD: I think not. RESPONDENT: What are you trying to prove with such statements, how witty one can be? RICHARD: Oh ... wit. Yes, that comes next. You have only solved the ‘pithy aphorism’ part. (For those who are ‘that’, punctuating the pithy aphorism should be a breeze) The ‘wit’ lies in the second solution. (For those who are not ‘that’, punctuating the witty doggerel should be an eye opener: ‘I am that. That is, I am that that is. That that is, is and is not. Simultaneously, I am that that is – and is not – and that is ‘It’. It is? ‘It’ really is ‘It’?’ Seeing that you appear a trifle disappointed, maybe you should have followed the sensible advice: ‘For those who are not interested in ‘that’, clicking the delete button should bring great satisfaction’. You still can, you know. RICHARD: Are you saying: ‘No, I do not, nor will not, defend myself with physical force’? RESPONDENT: I find it much clearer to say; I will not harm in order to avoid being harmed. Moreover, I can not defend myself, I am myself. RICHARD: Hmm ... so if and/or when an assailant physically attacks you, he and/or she is really you physically attacking you, eh? RESPONDENT: Without question, yes. RICHARD: There is a name for this attitude: fatalism. RESPONDENT: (...) there is no fate, nor any agency that might predetermine experience, recognized here, thus no fatalism. When you (I) want to feel differently you (I) will. RICHARD: If, as you say, there is ‘no fate, nor any agency that might predetermine experience’ then why are 6.0 billion human beings suffering (as in malice and sorrow) in the first place? RESPONDENT: They fail to acknowledge their responsibility. RICHARD: Are you saying that a squalling baby in distress, a frightened infant waking in the dark of night, a spiteful toddler pinching their sibling, a nervously shy pre-schooler quaking in anxiety on their first day, a terror-stricken four-year-old lost in the forest and so on are all experiencing this malice and sorrow simply because ‘they fail to acknowledge their responsibility’? * RICHARD: If the end of human suffering is so simple, as you say, that all that they (as you) have to do is to ‘want to feel differently’, then what is determining that 6.0 billion human beings should want to feel the way that they currently do? RESPONDENT: They fail to acknowledge their responsibility. RICHARD: May I ask? How old would a human being need to be to be able to comprehend that ‘they fail to acknowledge their responsibility’? What is the age of understanding that it is ‘without question, yes’, that when an assailant physically attacks you, he and/or she is really you physically attacking you? How would a sexually abused baby, a sexually abused infant, a sexually abused toddler – a sexually abused child of any gender – have any notion that all this is happening because ‘they fail to acknowledge their responsibility’? * RICHARD: If, as you so clearly state, that human suffering is not due to the human condition but is due to ‘not acknowledging responsibility for what one creates’ then what, may I ask, causes one (as god) to create it in the first place? RESPONDENT: That is decided as me in each instance. The explanation is in the action. RICHARD: Could you please clarify by explaining more carefully who ‘decided as me’ is ... so that I do not fall victim to the ‘hypnosis of poorly used language’? Is it the flesh and blood body called No. 14 that ‘decides as me’ or is it the flesh and blood body called ‘Richard’ that ‘decides as me’ ... or is it a bodiless ‘Universal Mind’ (by whatever name) that ‘decides as me’. I ask this because this physical universe, this material planet and the various carbon-based life-forms – including sentient beings called human beings complete with malice and sorrow – all already existed prior to when I first emerged on this planet as a baby in 1947. Thus it is clear that the flesh and blood body called ‘Richard’ did not create the suffering that the billions of human beings were experiencing in 1947 ... and neither did they create the suffering, as their experience – each and every one of them – was identical to my experience in 1947. That is, that the suffering of sentient beings existed prior to each and every human being emerging on this planet as a baby. * RICHARD: Why is one (as god) so reluctant to acknowledge responsibility for what one (as god) creates? RESPONDENT: That is decided as me in each instance, however, that is the first meaningful question you have asked. RICHARD: I am sure that you (as god) know the answer. Would you care to give forth of your wisdom to a benighted humanity? RESPONDENT: Yes, of course, I do, and the answer is evident in every instance. The explanation is in the action. Humanity does not need the answer – it simply needs to acknowledge it. RICHARD: Hmm ... yet the answer is not ‘evident in every instance’ and the explanation is not ‘in the action’ for maybe 6.0 billion human beings. Why will you not share with ‘humanity’ your knowledge? Would you have 6.0 billion human beings remain in ignorance whilst you alone know the cause of all the suffering of the sentient beings that existed prior to each and every human being emerging here as a baby? Your answer of ‘yes of course I do’ followed by ‘humanity does not need the answer’ smacks to me of elitism and contumely ... especially as you said that it ‘is the first meaningful question you have asked’. Am I to take it, then, that you will patiently answer all my meaningless questions ... yet prevaricate upon being faced with my ‘first meaningful question’? * RICHARD: What I am getting at is: why are you (as god) doing/being all this mayhem and misery? RESPONDENT: That is decided as me in each instance. The explanation is in the action. RICHARD: Hmm ... unless this is the ‘hypnosis of poorly used language’, are you artfully avoiding saying that you do not know why there is malice and sorrow in 6.0 billion human beings in the first place? Do you actually know the cause of all the suffering of sentient beings that existed prior to each and every human being emerging here as a baby? If not, you are in illustrious company ... neither did Mr. Buddha. RICHARD: May I suggest? Stop being abhorrent and then your imaginary friend ‘Ol’ Dick’ will stop finding you to be abhorrent. Speaking personally ... I find what you say (that you are god) to be so silly that I re-post it every now and then so as to show would-be eastern spiritual mystics what wanking looks like in print. Vis.:
SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE ON ANCIENT WISDOM (Part Two) RETURN TO RICHARD’S SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust 1997-2001 |
