RESPONDENT: Richard, before I hit the road again, I have a question that seems pretty important. Re-reading some of your selected writings, I rediscovered this:

[Richard]: ‘The ‘process’ was both prosaic and extraordinary: on the one hand I began undoing all the social conditioning that I had been subject to since birth and on the other hand I generated love for all and sundry. I examined all the social traditions and customs etc., one by one, and released myself from their iron grip. I diminished hate and anger and sadness and loneliness by surrendering to and living in love and oneness ... which is the best that a normal human could do by virtue of the socialisation process. I moved in and out of Sacred States of Heavenly Bliss and Love Agapé and Divine Compassion and immersed myself in the entire ‘process’ with dedication and resolution. I adopted the principle of pacifism (‘turn the other cheek’) and developed Goodness of the highest order. I cleansed and purified myself of all impure thoughts and deeds and worked both hard and industriously in my daily work. I practised honesty and humility in all my interactions with other people and pondered the significance and ramifications of the Divine Order’. (www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/selectedwriting/sw-asc.htm).

If the activation of love, compassion, humility, goodness, moral purity, and a passionate faith in the Divine Order etc is not 180 degrees opposite from what you now recommend, it’s pretty damn close, no?

RICHARD: What I now recommend is essentially no different to what I have recommended ever since first becoming apparent on the thirtieth of October 1992 and which is basically the same as what the identity in residence recommended, to anyone prepared to listen at the time, when ‘he’ set about imitating the actual – as evidenced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) in late July 1980 – on and after the first of January 1981 ... to wit: being relentlessly attentive to, each moment again, and scrupulously honest about, how that only moment of ever being alive was experienced so as to feel as happy and as harmless (as free of malice and sorrow) as was humanly possible inasmuch any deviation from such felicity/innocuity was attended to with the utmost dispatch in order to live as peacefully and as harmoniously as ‘he’ could with ‘his’ then wife and children, in particular, and with anyone and everyone who came into ‘his’ presence.

And all that came about – albeit nowhere nearly spelled-out so clearly and concisely – more or less spontaneously on that day as during the PCE, where identity in toto was in abeyance, the affections played no part at all and, moreover, there was such an utter intimacy as to render any trace of a separation needing to be affectively bridged simply risible.

Furthermore, that way of living was so successful, for the first three months or so of that year, that ‘he’ was wont to exclaim, to all and sundry, that ‘he’ had discovered the secret to life (for that is how far beyond normal human expectations the felicitous/innocuous state which has nowadays become known as being virtually free truly is) and ‘he’ was perplexed as to why, it being such a simple thing to do, no-one had ever done it before.

Then an event occurred of such impact as to be the turning-point, in regards no longer going directly to what numerous PCE’s evidenced (namely that what is now known as an actual freedom from the human condition was possible here on earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body), and relates back to the initial PCE which set in motion the whole process wherein, unbeknownst to the experiencing due to a total lack of any precedent, it had devolved into an altered state of consciousness (ASC) when a new identity had all-of-a-sudden come into existence ... a grand ‘Me’, a glorious ‘Me’, a fulfilled ‘Me’ who was none other than the long-awaited Saviour Of Humankind!

That impactive event took place whilst keenly watching the sunrise casting its brilliant rays earthward, one otherwise-experienced-as-perfect morning in mid-autumn, upon seeing an ornamental bush thus lit, in the garden alongside the ex-farmhouse, luminously aglow, fiercely afire from within as it were, wherefrom it was revealed to ‘Me’ that there was to be a death and a rebirth and, consequently, a catatonic state ensued that resulted in ‘Me’ being carted off to hospital, and kept under intensive care for four hours, until coming out of it in a state of Radiant Bliss (which quite overwhelmed the duty-nurse by the way). ‘He’ was never to be the same again, as Divinity had been working on ‘him’ whilst catatonic, and from that date forward ‘he’ was permanently in a state of human bliss and love ... ‘he’ could do no wrong.

As ‘he’ had surrendered to, and thus lived in, love and oneness ‘he’ moved in and out of sacred states of Heavenly Bliss, Love Agapé and Divine Compassion; ‘he’ immersed ‘himself’ in the entire process with dedication and resolution; ‘he’ adopted the principle of pacifism (‘turn the other cheek’) and developed a goodness of the highest order; ‘he’ cleansed and purified ‘himself’ of all impure thoughts and deeds; ‘he’ worked both hard and industriously in ‘his’ daily work; ‘he’ practised honesty and humility in all ‘his’ interactions; ‘he’ pondered the significance and ramifications of the Divine Order; ‘he’ totally believed in and had supreme faith in The Absolute – ‘he’ never doubted the ability of That to bring about the Peace On Earth so long promised – and that ‘he’ was to play the central role in that Divine Plan no longer came as a surprise to ‘him’ as ‘he’ realised that ‘he’ had long yearned to be part of the Salvation Process.

The following more or less sums it up:

• [Richard]: ‘... back in 1981 I had umpteen number of peak experiences – sometimes two-three times a day varying from minutes to hours – and they were wild and woolly times. Somewhere along the line I had lost sight of the four hour pure consciousness experience [PCE] that had triggered my whole incursion into becoming free of the human condition and there was certainly a ‘difference in degree’ of the affective element in each experience ... ranging from virtually non-existent to full-blown grandiosity for the ‘me’ that was inhabiting this body. The PCE stayed pristine in its own domain, however, and stood me in good stead some eleven years later ... as I have recorded in ‘A Brief Personal History’:

• ‘It troubled me deeply that I was in such a situation because I seem to be driven by some force to ‘Spread the Word’ and that was never my intention all those years ago when I first had what is known as a ‘Peak Experience’ which initiated my incursion into all matters Spiritual, culminating in the ‘death’ of my ego and catapulting me into this Absolute State. My intent back then had been to cleanse myself of all that is detrimental to personal happiness and interpersonal harmony ... in other words: peace on earth in my life-time. Instead of that rather simple ambition, I found that I was impelled on an odyssey to be the latest Saviour of Humankind in a long list of Enlightened Beings ... and this imposition did not sit well with me’.

RESPONDENT: The method you now recommend (minimising ‘good’/’bad’ feelings, activating felicity/ sensuousness) is what you used only after the ego had already dissolved.

RICHARD: The method I now recommend is essentially no different to the course of action I have recommended ever since first becoming apparent and which is basically the same as the way the identity in residence recommended a normal life be lived, when ‘he’ first devised and put into practice what has now become known as the actualism method, on and after the first of January 1981.

Incidentally, that way of living/that course of action did not ... um ... officially become a method until early 1998. And it only came about because of being told to either send more information or draw a clearer map to paradise, on a mailing list set-up under the auspices of the teachings Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti brought into the world, for no other reason than (despite the fact that they are rife throughout most, if not all, of those teachings) any and all methods, ways, paths, and so on, were anathema to his readers/listeners. Vis.:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘You’re going to have to send more information or draw a clearer map to paradise.
• [Richard]: ‘(...) What ‘I’ did, eighteen years ago, was to devise a remarkably effective method of ridding this body of ‘me’. (Now I know that methods are to be actively discouraged, in some people’s eyes, but this one worked). ‘I’ asked myself, each moment again: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ (...)’.

RESPONDENT: It worked, but *only when you were in an Altered State Of Being*, having permanently dissolved your sense of personal identity in an oceanic feeling of oneness with all creation.

RICHARD: Just so that there is no misunderstanding: what really worked, when the identity was that ‘Altered State Of Being’, was

(1) a continuation of the totally dedicated and/or devoted pure intent to evince what the PCE’s evidenced ... and

(2) a furtherance of the irreversible momentum, or inevitability, already set in place on day one as the process is, essentially, that of escaping from one’s fate and attaining to one’s destiny ... and

(3) a prolongation of the attentiveness as to how the only moment of being alive was experienced ... and

(4) an utter lack of dignity in being so far up oneself (narcissistic) as to render the term ‘egotistical’ a mere bagatelle in comparison ... and

(5) a sense of humour which, if nothing else, made possible (6) a delightful resurgence of the earlier felicity/innocuity which again brought about, in combination with sensuousness, an outstandingly ingenuous sense of amazement, marvel and wonder.

And it was that last-named – the wide-eyed wonder of naiveté – which resulted in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception).

RESPONDENT: To put it mildly, that [an altered state of being] is not my starting point ...

RICHARD: Neither was it ‘my’ starting point ... for instance:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘… but I have a lot of taxes to pay to the society, family, etc., which give me no time to sit and watch the rising sun ...
• [Richard]: ‘Speaking personally, the ‘I’ that was made freedom the number one priority in ‘his’ life. ‘He’ was a married man, with four children, running ‘his’ own business, with a house mortgage to pay off and a car on hire purchase ... working twelve-fourteen hour days, six-seven days a week.
In other words: normal.
And all the while the enabling of freedom took absolute precedence over all other matters and dominated ‘his’ every moment’.

And for another instance:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘I find myself in a situation where I am raising two children and I am married.
• [Richard]: ‘So? I found myself in a situation where I was married and raising four children.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘I am doing my best to raise the kids – but how could I possibly be pleased with raising them only to be in ‘abysmal’ situation – only to live in a ‘grim and glum’ reality where the best they can do is live on the better side of misery?
• [Richard]: ‘Indeed ... being married and raising four children was one of the many incentives for the ‘me’ who was to get off ‘his’ backside and do something about the whole sorry mess.
And now, as a direct result of that altruistic action, the possibility exists for those five fellow human beings to also live fully (as is anybody else) if they so choose’.

RESPONDENT: ... and neither is it the starting point of anyone else around here.

RICHARD: I have had on-line discussions with quite a few self-realised beings (albeit mostly of the just-add-water-and-stir-thoroughly variety) ... plus several face-to-face discussions over the years.

Quite simply: one starts wherever one is at.

RESPONDENT: I well understand that you reject enlightenment as a tried and failed solution to the ills of humankind, and I understand why. BUT, my question concerns the method, not the goal. In one of our early conversations, you said to me that when your ego ‘died’ you were only seconds away from an actual freedom, if only you had known at the time that such a thing was possible:

• [Richard]: ‘... if I had known, back in 1981 at the moment of ego-dissolution, what I now know I would not have let the process stop halfway through its happening (...) by my reckoning it would have all been over in a matter of maybe 6-10 seconds (rather than 6 seconds plus eleven years)’.
• [Respondent]: ‘So electro-chemical ‘self-immolation’ is not just metaphorical, eh?’
• [Richard]: ‘Indeed not: it is all very, very real ... more real than anything has ever been’.
• [Respondent]: ‘You were really that close?
• [Richard]: ‘Yes ... I have written before about how I unwittingly discovered yet another way to become enlightened ...’.

So ... you activated the process of self-immolation by activating powerful passions.

RICHARD: The identity inhabiting this body activated the process of *partial* ‘self’-immolation – the ego-dissolution, or death of the ego, referred to in the above exchange – by activating love and compassion (and rapture and euphoria and ecstasy and bliss and so on) ... whereas the process of ‘self’-immolation *in toto* involved the deactivation of those antidotal pacifiers for malice and sorrow (and all those others).

RESPONDENT: Not innocuous felicitous feelings but powerful, red-hot passions.

RICHARD: The felicitous/ innocuous feelings are in no way docile, lack-lustre affections ... in conjunction with sensuosity they make for an extremely forceful/ potent combination as, with all of the affective energy channelled into being as happy and harmless as is humanly possible (and no longer being frittered away on love and compassion/ malice and sorrow), the full effect of ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being – which is ‘being’ itself – is dynamically enabled for one purpose and one purpose alone.

RESPONDENT: No wonder you were able to engage the whole of your being in this process.

RICHARD: So as to inject a modicum of commonsense into your train of thought: the identity inhabiting this body was able to engage the whole of ‘his’ being in the process which led to ‘self’-immolation in toto, via first undergoing an ego-death/ ego-dissolution, primarily and ultimately because of pure intent.

And the key to unlocking such naiveté is sincerity, pure and simple.

RESPONDENT: And from where I stand, there’s little wonder that no-one else has.

RICHARD: Where one stands does, of course, determine what one sees.

RESPONDENT: (9 months of intense ‘self’-immolation vs. 10 years of mere reconditioning is what it comes down to as I see it).

RICHARD: Ha ... there is much more to an entirely-new model than just ripping the engine of the ole hog apart and giving it a reco so that it will be good for another few hundred thou or so.

Much, much more ... do you realise that what you are saying, in effect, is that all what is required for any realised/ enlightened/ awakened being, to become actually free from the human condition, is but a re-working what remains of identity (the deeper and most fundament part) after partial ‘self’-immolation?

RESPONDENT: So why, if you were mere seconds away from ‘self’-immolation using the original method, do you now recommend an altogether different one (almost 180 degrees opposite) that only worked after your ego had dissolved?

RICHARD: Hmm ... if what you really want is to become realised/ enlightened/ awakened then it is not all that difficult. Vis.:

• [Richard]: ‘There is a sure-fire way to become enlightened ... if that is what one really wants. It is important to realise, deeply, that not only can ‘you’ not find Love Agapé ... Love Agapé does not come to ‘you’, either. The way it works is that when ‘you’ become ‘love’ then Love becomes You ... Love Agapé is You As You Really Are.
Here is how to be Love Agapé:
1. First, get out of your head and feel deep within yourself, past the emotions, into the deeper feelings – the core of your ‘being’ – for there you will feel intense human love (the nurturing/desiring instinctual passion).
2. Identify totally with this love as pure feeling – live it as being it fully every moment of your day – and surrender your will to existence itself.
3. Your identity as ‘me’ as soul (‘me’ at the core of ‘being’) will transmogrify itself into the Absolute in an edifying moment of awakening as ‘The Truth’.
4. You will then realise that this is your ‘True Self’ ... the ‘Me’ that exists Timelessly and Spacelessly and Formlessly.
5. You will then be Love Agapé ... You will have come to bring Your message of ‘Truth and Love’ to a suffering humanity.
6. You will be utterly convinced that You will succeed because all the others who came before You were not as Enlightened As You Are.
7. The whole world has been waiting for You.
It is quite easy, really’.

And if that intense human love cannot immediately be felt (as in step No. 1 above) then the quickest way to activate it is to go deeply into personal sorrow (which can readily be done just by feeling sad about the whole sorry mess which is the human condition and empathy will take over) until it becomes universal sorrow – the essential pathos of all sentient creatures – whereupon it flips over and turns into compassion ... which passion, upon fully flowering in all its goodness and charity, becomes a radiant love for all suffering beings.

Then move on to step No. 2.

RESPONDENT: It seems to me that using the first method would be *heaps* more potent than second because it engages the passions instead of (trying to) systematically undermine them – which, in my personal experience, only takes the wind out of one’s sails.

RICHARD: The actualism method is not about undermining the passions ... on the contrary, it is about directing all of that affective energy into being the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (that is, ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being, which is ‘being’ itself) in order to effect a deliberate imitation of the actual, as evidenced in a PCE, so as to feel as happy and as harmless (as free of malice and sorrow) as is humanly possibly whilst remaining a ‘self’.

Such imitative felicity/ innocuity, in conjunction with sensuosity, readily evokes amazement, marvel, and delight – a state of wide-eyed wonder best expressed by the word naiveté (the nearest a ‘self’ can come to innocence whilst being a ‘self’) – and which allows the overarching benignity and benevolence inherent to the infinitude, which this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe actually is, to operate more and more freely. This intrinsic benignity and benevolence, which has nothing to do with the imitative affective happiness and harmlessness, will do the rest.

All that was required was ‘my’ cheerful, and thus willing, concurrence.

RESPONDENT: Richard, you claim you were once enlightened.

RICHARD: Yes.

RESPONDENT: You also claim that in that altered state of consciousness that you call enlightenment you imagined you could save the world.

RICHARD: Yes.

RESPONDENT: Richard; my hearing is you were in psychosis.

RICHARD: Yes ... ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ is a psychotic state of mind; a dissociated state of consciousness, replete with delusions of grandeur that are tempered only by it being a solipsistic state. A person who believes they are enlightened when they are not do not have this temperance ... hence out-of-control megalomania is both possible and probable.

RESPONDENT: That is ok; many people move in and out of psychosis; but some recognise and acknowledge it.

RICHARD: If only the ‘Enlightened Beings’ would ‘recognise and acknowledge it’, eh?

RESPONDENT: Now you claim to be out of the state that you call enlightenment ...

RICHARD: Yes.

RESPONDENT: ... and that was characterised by a belief that you could save the world, a state I would call psychosis ...

RICHARD: Yes ... we are in agreement on this point.

RICHARD: It is impossible to imagine, not only the complete and utter cessation of ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety, but the end of any ‘Ultimate Being’ or ‘Absolute Presence’ in any way, shape or form. It means that no one or no thing is in charge of the universe ... that there is no ‘Ultimate Authority’. It means that all values are but human values, with no absolute values at all to fall back upon. It is impossible for one to conceive that without a wayward ‘I’ there is no need for either a compliant ‘me’ or any values whatsoever ... or an ‘Ultimate Authority’.

This is what freedom from the Human Condition is.

RESPONDENT: Are saying that you have been touched by sacredness?

RICHARD: Not only ‘touched by sacredness’ but being ‘The Sacred’ for twenty four hours of the day as an on-going reality. Nearly eighteen years ago I underwent a monumental transformation into an Altered State Of Consciousness which can only be described as Spiritual Enlightenment. I became Enlightened as the result of an earnest and intense process which commenced in the January of that year. At approximately six o’clock on the morning of Sunday, the sixth of September 1981, my ‘ego’ disappeared entirely in an edifying moment of awakening to the ‘Absolute Reality’.

In 1980 I had a pure consciousness experience (PCE) wherein I saw that everything was already perfect as-it-is and that ‘I’, the psychological entity, was standing in the way ... and no-one else was preventing me from achieving the ultimate goal of being a human. In that peak experience I saw ‘myself’. ‘I’ was the end product of society and nothing more. ‘I’ was an emotional construct of all of the beliefs, values, moral, ethics, mores, customs, traditions, doctrines, ideologies and so on. ‘I’ was nothing but an emotional-mental fabrication ... a sense of social identity with its conscience. I also saw that ‘I’ was a lost, lonely, frightened – and a very, very cunning – entity. Just as those Christians who are said to be possessed by an evil entity and need to be exorcised, I saw that every human being had been endowed with a social entity ... and it was called being ‘normal’. To say that I was amazed rather fails to adequately describe the feeling of relief that after all there was a solution to the human situation here on earth.

Three nights later I had a similar experience and what I had witnessed on the first revelation was confirmed. Then nothing untoward happened for the next five months – this had been in late July 1980 – until on the first day of January in 1981 when I began a ‘process’ that was to last for nine months, culminating in my ‘Divine Awakening’ on that September morning. The night before I could hardly maintain myself as a thinking, functioning human being as a blistering hot and cold burning sensation crept up the back of my spine and entered into the base of my neck just under the brain itself. I went to bed in desperation and frustration at my apparent inability to be good enough to carry this ‘process’ through to its supreme conclusion.

The next morning I awoke and all was calm and quiet. Expressing relief at the cessation of the intensifying ‘process’ that had reached an unbearable level the night before; I lay back on my pillows to watch the rising sun (my bedroom faced east) through the large bedroom windows. All of a sudden I was gripped with the realisation that this was the moment! I was going to die! An intense fear raced throughout my body, rising in crescendo until I could scarcely take any more. As it reached a peak of stark terror, I realised that I had nothing to worry about and that I was to go with the ‘process’. In an instant all fear left me and I travelled deep into the depths of my very ‘being’. All of a sudden I was sitting bolt upright, laughing, as I realised that this that was ‘IT!’ was such a simple thing ... all I had to do was die ... and that was the easiest thing in the world to do. Then the thought of leaving my family and friends overwhelmed me and I was thrust back on the bed sobbing. Then I was bolt upright once more laughing my head off ... then I was back on the pillows sobbing my heart out ... upright, laughing ... pillows sobbing ... upright laughing ... pillows sobbing. At the fifth or sixth time something turned over in the base of my brain ... in the top of the brain-stem. I likened it to turning over a long-playing record in order to play the other side ... with the vital exception that it would never, ever turn back again.

It was over. I had arrived. I had become Awakened to the Greater Reality. I was Love Agapé and Divine Compassion ... there was no separation between me and The Absolute.

RESPONDENT: So what is the significance of sound in this state?

RICHARD: When the ego dies, all noise ceases forever. Sound resonates in a vast Silence. Yet beyond The Silence lies an utter stillness ... only extinction of identity in its entirety makes this infinitude apparent.

RESPONDENT: Do you actually see this energy with the eyes?

RICHARD: When the ego dies, separation dissolves into Oneness ... I am Everything and Everything is this Energy. I am this Energy and this Energy is Me. The eyes seeing is Me looking at Me. I am The Absolute.

But beyond Me – beyond The Absolute – lies the actual ... and the actual is already always here now. In actuality there is no ‘Me’ and/or ‘The Absolute’. When the soul dies the need for oneness – unitary perception – dissolves ... as does any ‘Otherness’. Then I am this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. Now I am the sense organs: this seeing is me, this hearing is me, this tasting is me, this touching is me, this smelling is me, and this thinking is me. Whereas ‘I’, the identity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain. Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the actual world ... the world as-it-is. ‘I’ am eternally separate from the benignity of the actual, where the utter absence of any angst and anger at all is infinitely more rewarding than the deepest, the most profound, Divine Compassion and Love Agapé. The purity of the actual world owes its excellence to the fact that there is no sorrow and malice here ... hence no need for succour.

The ‘everyday reality’ of the ‘real world’ is an illusion. The ‘Greater Reality’ of the ‘Mystical World’ is a delusion. There is an actual world that lies under one’s very nose ... I interact with the same kind of people, things and events that you do, yet it is as if I am in another dimension altogether. There is no good or evil here where I live. I live in a veritable paradise ... this very earth I live on is so vastly superior to any fabled Arcadian Utopia that it would be impossible to believe if I was not living it twenty four hours a day ... there is no use for belief here. It is so perfectly pure and clear here that there is no need for Love or Compassion or Bliss or Euphoria or Ecstasy or Truth or Goodness or Beauty or Oneness or Unity or Wholeness or ... or any of those baubles. They all pale into pathetic insignificance ... and I lived them for eleven years.

There are three ‘I’s altogether, but only one is actual.

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, Moksha, 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.

RESPONDENT: Well, thanks for the response, I think I may not have communicated well. The fact that you have split my ‘one’ response into two parts and then responding to the two parts does not seem to get anywhere. All I wanted to ask is how does one know one is ‘enlightened’? And I didn’t mean oblivion is doing nothing about the plight of one’s fellow human beings.

RICHARD: One most definitely knows when one is enlightened. The chief characteristics of Enlightenment are: the presence of ‘The Absolute’, union with the ‘Divine’, ‘Universal Compassion’, ‘Love Agapé’, ‘Rapturous Bliss’, ‘Ineffable Ecstasy’, ‘Exalted Euphoria’, ‘The Truth’, ‘Timelessness’, ‘Spacelessness’, ‘Immortality’, ‘Aloneness’, ‘Oneness’, ‘Pacifism’, ‘Surrender’, ‘Trust’, ‘Beauty’, and ‘Goodness’. An enlightened person is driven by a ‘Divine Sense Of Mission’ to bring ‘The Truth’, ‘Universal Love’ and ‘Divine Compassion’ to the world in order to ‘set humankind free’.

This is by no means an exhaustive list ... one will be ‘Unborn and Undying’ or ‘Never-born and Never-dying’ and so on.

Probably the most significant characteristic – which should set the alarm bells ringing for any intelligent person who has the misfortune of becoming enlightened – is an over-arching delusion of grandeur in which one fondly feels that one can ‘save the world’. One will gather many disciples ... people want somebody else to do it all for them.

Nobody, but nobody, can set you free but yourself.

RESPONDENT: And does your freedom entail the total and complete erasure of the human consciousness that moves the common herd or just only the moral conditioning – the sense of right and wrong, good and evil?

RICHARD: Yes, the total and complete erasure of the ‘human’ consciousness ... not just conditioning. The moral conditioning – the sense of right and wrong and what you called the knowledge of good and evil – are well-meant endeavours by countless peoples over countless aeons to seek to curb the instinctual passions. By and large this enterprise has proved to be relatively effective ... only a minority of citizens fail to behave in a socially acceptable manner. And although well-meant, it is but an ultimately short-sighted effort to prevent gaols from being filled to over-flowing, because people are irked by the restraints imposed upon what they indulgently imagine is the freedom of the natural state. Now, while most people paddle around on the surface and re-arrange the conditioning to ease their lot somewhat, some people – seeking to be free of all human conditioning – fondly imagine that by putting on a face-mask and snorkel that they have gone deep-sea diving with a scuba outfit ... deep into the human condition. They have not ... they have gone deep only into the human conditioning. When they tip upon the instincts – which are both savage (fear and aggression) and tender (nurture and desire) – they grab for the tender (the ‘good’ side) and blow them up all out of proportion. If they succeed in this self-aggrandising hallucination they start talking twaddle dressed up as sagacity such as: ‘There is a good that knows no evil’ or ‘There is a love that knows no opposite’ or ‘There is a compassion that sorrow has never touched’ and so on. This is because it takes nerves of steel to don such an aqua-lung and plunge deep in the stygian depths of the human psyche ... it is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee. For the deletion of the software package is the extinction of ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’. That is, ‘being’ itself expires.

The reward for so doing is immeasurable, however.

The altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ needs to be talked about and exposed for what it is so that nobody need venture up that blind alley ever again. There is another way and another goal. The main trouble with enlightenment is that whilst the identity as ego dissolves, the identity as soul remains intact. No longer identifying as a personal ego-bound identity, one then identifies as an impersonal soul-bound identity ... ‘I am That’ or ‘I am God’ or ‘I am The Supreme’ or ‘I am The Absolute’ or ‘I am The Buddha’ and so on. This is the delusion, the mirage, the deception ... and it is extremely difficult to see it for oneself, for one is in an august state. This second identity – the second ‘I’ of Mr. Venkataraman Ramana fame – is a difficult one to shake, maybe more difficult than the first; for who is brave enough to voluntarily give up fame and fortune, reverence and worship, status and security? One has to be scrupulously honest with oneself to go all the way and no longer be a someone, a somebody of importance. One faces extinction; ‘I’ will cease to be, there will be no ‘being’ whatsoever, no ‘presence’ at all. It is impossible to imagine, not only the complete and utter cessation of ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety, but the end of any ‘Ultimate Being’ or ‘Absolute Presence’ in any way, shape or form. It means that no one or no thing is in charge of the universe ... that there is no ‘Ultimate Authority’. It means that all values are but human values, with no absolute values at all to fall back upon. It is impossible for one to conceive that without a wayward ‘I’ there is no need for either a compliant ‘me’ or any values whatsoever ... or an ‘Ultimate Authority’.

This is what freedom from the Human Condition is.

*

RESPONDENT: So, tell me, how have you arrived, how does that Greater Reality fit into the basic reality of life that I have outlined?

RICHARD: I would have thought that you would at least have read the basic thrust of what a person has written ... I am not in a ‘Greater Reality’ . I was for eleven years ... and I found it wanting. Eastern ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ is commonly considered to be the Summum Bonum of human experience. It is not. By being born and raised in the West I was not steeped in the mystical religious tradition of the East and was thus able to escape the trap of centuries of eastern spiritual conditioning by going beyond enlightenment – which turned out to be an Altered State Of Consciousness – into the actuality of being here on earth and now in time as this flesh and blood body. For many years I sought genuine exploration and discovery of what it means to live a fully human life, and in October 1992 I discovered, once and for all, what I was looking for. Since then I have been consistently living an incomparable condition which I choose to call actual freedom – and I use the word ‘actual’ because this freedom is located here in this very world, this actual world of the senses. It is not an affective, cerebral or psychic state of being; it is a physical condition that ensues when one goes beyond spiritual enlightenment’s ‘Greater Reality’ .

Beyond the ‘Greater Reality’ lies the actual ... and the actual is already always here now. In actuality there is no ‘Greater Reality’. When the soul dies the need for transcendental realms disappears. Then I am this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. Now I am the sense organs: this seeing is me, this hearing is me, this tasting is me, this touching is me, this smelling is me, and this thinking is me. Whereas ‘I’, the identity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain. Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the actual world ... the world as-it-is. ‘I’ am eternally separate from the benignity of the actual, where the utter absence of any angst and anger at all is infinitely more rewarding than the deepest, the most profound, Divine Compassion and Love Agapé. The purity of the actual world owes its excellence to the fact that there is no sorrow and malice here ... hence no need for succour.

The ‘everyday reality’ of the ‘real world’ is an illusion. The ‘Greater Reality’ of the ‘Mystical World’ is a delusion. There is an actual world that lies under one’s very nose ... I interact with the same kind of people, things and events that you do, yet it is as if I am in another dimension altogether. There is no good or evil here where I live. I live in a veritable paradise ... this very earth I live on is so vastly superior to any fabled Arcadian Utopia that it would be impossible to believe if I was not living it twenty four hours a day ... there is no use for belief here. It is so perfectly pure and clear here that there is no need for Love or Compassion or Bliss or Euphoria or Ecstasy or Truth or Goodness or Beauty or Oneness or Unity or Wholeness or ... or any of those baubles. They all pale into pathetic insignificance ... and I lived them for eleven years.

It is remarkably easy to live in actuality.

RICHARD: If you still wish to become enlightened, you will need to sublimate your passions – surrender your wilful self – and move into accord with some metaphysical Absolute, like Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti did in 1922 under a pepper tree, as detailed by Ms. Mary Lutyens. Abject subjugation of the will should produce the essential servitude – great cunning is required – and the rest is up to the ‘Grace of God’.

RESPONDENT: In a previous post I remarked that Krishnamurti spoke differently before his speech disbanding ‘The Order of the Star’. That speech was in 1929. Whatever happened in 1922 under a pepper tree sounds like many so-called enlightenment experiences.

RICHARD: It does not only ‘sound like’ one ... it was one. And it is not a ‘so-called’ enlightenment ... it was enlightenment. One only has to do some comparative reading of other people’s Self-Realisation to recognise the obvious similarities.

Tell me, please, because I am so curious: If he did not become enlightened then – as you say he did not – then when did he ... in your opinion?

RESPONDENT: He concluded his speech in 1929, saying: ‘So these are some of the reasons why, after careful consideration for two years, I have made this decision. It is not from a momentary impulse. I have not been persuaded to it by anyone. I am not persuaded in such things. For two years I have been thinking about this, slowly, carefully, patiently, and I have now decided to disband the Order, as I happen to be its Head. You can form other organisations and expect someone else. With that I am not concerned, nor with creating new cages, new decorations for those cages. My only concern is to set men absolutely, unconditionally free’. Whatever happened in 1922 could not have been too enlightening if he spent a few years prior to 1929 ‘thinking about this, slowly, carefully, patiently’.

RICHARD: Oh, I was not aware that enlightened people were not allowed to think ‘slowly, carefully and patiently’. Do you really consider that they make lightening-like decisions on the spot?

RICHARD: The blame for the continuation of human misery lies squarely in the lap of those inspired people who, although having sufficient courage to proceed into the ‘Unknown’, stopped short of the final goal – the ‘Unknowable’.

RESPONDENT: There can no blame outside one’s own. You have failed to understand the message if you continue to wait for ‘it’ to work for you.

RICHARD: I was working on the – obviously wrong – assumption that you might have noticed at least some of my writings. Apparently my assumption is just that ... an assumption. So, to fill you in I will provide a very brief personal history to explain: I entered into an on-going Altered State Of Consciousness on Sunday, the sixteenth of September 1981, becoming ‘Enlightened’ in the Eastern spiritual sense of the term. Spiritual Enlightenment has been around for some thousands of years ... and there is still no peace on earth. I spent the next eleven years endeavouring to discover why it did not work ... why it did not deliver the global Peace On Earth it seemed to promise ... and why it was not for everyone. Accordingly I sought to go beyond Spiritual Enlightenment into a condition I had glimpsed on many an occasion during those eleven years. On Friday, the thirtieth of October 1992, I succeeded and landed in actuality ... as distinct from either ‘reality’ or the ‘Greater Reality’. Nowadays I know, intimately, why an Altered State Of Consciousness does not deliver the goods, for it is but a delusion ... and, of course, I now know what does. I am not an ‘Enlightened Master’ sitting in an exalted position, driven by a ‘Divine Sense Of Mission’ to bring ‘Truth and Love’ to the world ... and what a relief that is. I am a fellow human being, albeit neither ‘normal’ nor ‘divine’, living in a condition of perfection and purity offering my discoveries to whomsoever is vitally interested in peace-on-earth.

Thus you will see why I am not ‘waiting’; you will see that I do understand ‘the message’ because I lived it – and I found it wanting – and you will see why I lay ‘blame’. Because it is possible to be actually free of the Human Condition, as this body, in this life-time, here on earth. If those ‘Great Sages’ had had the intestinal fortitude to face their own extinction, there would already be global peace. Mr. Buddha, for example, was around two and a half thousand years ago ... if he had had the gumption to take the ‘final step’ then maybe nobody would have been killed in wars this century. Maybe the atom bomb would not have been dropped. After all, two and a half thousand years is long enough for a genuine peace to spread from person to person. That is why I wrote (above):

• ‘The blame for the continuation of human misery lies squarely in the lap of those inspired people who, although having sufficient courage to proceed into the ‘Unknown’, stopped short of the final goal – the ‘Unknowable’.

RICHARD: It is simply a case that enlightenment has been the province of the East for so long that it has become an integral part of the culture, but only recently has it gained some credence in the West. Previously, in the West, the most one could aspire to – with society’s support – was to become an illuminated saint ... a situation somewhat similar to the Hare Krishna devotees ... but enlightened? No way!

However, there are more and more Westerners discovering enlightenment these days ... and a lot of material is being generated, both in the printed word and on audio and video tape.

KONRAD: But I do not deny what I do understand and what I know I understand, just because others say it is impossible. Still, I offer what I have to offer. I am prepared to stand corrected by anybody who does this, no matter who this is. For every honest person can contribute to any other honest person.

RICHARD: I like your approach, for the entire subject of enlightenment needs to be brought out into the open and discussed freely and without reservation. Here in the West we have a vital opportunity to put our rational minds to work and iron out all those mystical and other metaphysical aspects of freedom from ‘I’ that permeates Eastern Enlightenment so badly.

RESPONDENT: I am interested now in what you are saying. I will attempt again to ‘read’ if you are saying that you change often into other forms – sometimes humorously or grotesquely? This must be lots of fun! Is this a description of creation?

RICHARD: No, I am not saying that, but it is simple to put your understanding of what I wrote to rights. By putting ‘I’ into smart quotes I was following the convention that one is referring to that ‘self’ inside the body that is causing all the ills of humankind. It is this ‘I’ that can transform itself – often with ‘grotesque or humorous effect’ – into a ‘Me’. This ‘Me’ is usually capitalised to indicate divinity and the resultant ‘Enlightened State’ is either ‘grotesque’ (when one considers all the religious wars with the hideous hatred and bloodshed ... what is happening in Israel, for example) or ‘humorous’ (when one considers the degree of megalomania involved in proclaiming oneself to be God ... Mr. Franklin Jones, for example).

RESPONDENT: I have experienced some of the sensual delights, but I thought they were just hallucinations. Is this of which you speak?

RICHARD: Sensual delights are most definitely not hallucinations ... they are very, very, earthy. What are hallucinations are the chief characteristics of Enlightenment – ‘Union with the Divine’, ‘Universal Compassion’, ‘Love Agapé’, ‘Ineffable Bliss’, ‘The Truth’, ‘Timelessness’, ‘Spacelessness’, ‘Immortality’, ‘Aloneness’, ‘Oneness’, Goodness’ ... to name but a few.

RESPONDENT: Is this anything like ‘shamanism’ which seems to be making quite a come back in the alternative life styles community? I even heard Dr. Andrew Weil speak about this yesterday.

RICHARD: In that shamanism is concerned with altered states of consciousness – and spiritual enlightenment is a particular altered state of consciousness – yes, transmogrification is like that ... a massive delusion. Mr. Carlos Castaneda popularised shamanistic rituals some time ago ... I can not recall, at this moment, what he called it ... was it ‘non-ordinary reality’? Ms. Isabel Allende was another; she wrote in the style of magic realism, which incorporated fantastic and mythical elements into realistic fiction. It is all psychic in nature, however, and has nothing to do with actuality. A lot of it comes out of psychotropic substances, which unless handled appropriately, can take one into the mystical and miraculous dimensions of one’s super-charged imagination ... coupled with access to the ‘collective unconscious’ which Mr. Carl Jung spoke of (the bizarre and haunting and fantastic world of myths and legends that is contained in the human psyche).

RESPONDENT: I am still curious. Are these sensual experiences ‘hallucinations’ or the creation of a transmogrified ‘I’?

RICHARD: As I have already partly answered above: this sensual experience is actual. By actual, I do not mean the real-world of normal human experience. Actuality is only seen by people in glimpses ... it is as if everyday reality is a grim and glum veneer pasted over the top of this actual world of the senses. When ‘I’ vanish in ‘my’ entirety – both the ego and the soul – the normal everyday reality disappears and the underlying actuality becomes apparent. It was here all along. To experience the metaphysical Reality – usually with capitalisation – is to go further into the illusion of normal everyday reality, created by ‘I’, and further create a supernatural ‘True Reality’ ... which one could call an abnormal reality.

Thus normal everyday reality is an illusion and the abnormal metaphysical Reality is a delusion born out of the illusion ... a chimera, as it were. This is why only about .000001 of the population ever become enlightened ... it is extremely difficult to live in a hallucination permanently. Speaking personally, I was so deluded, that for eleven years I lived in humanity’s greatest fantasy, before the dissolution of ‘me’ as soul finally brought salubrity through release from the human condition itself.

RESPONDENT: Do you think that this is the ‘transformation’ of which Krishnamurti spoke.

RICHARD: If you are referring to what I am living, most definitely not ... although he spoke out against Gurus and Gods, he himself was indeed enlightened. He worshipped [quote]: ‘that which is sacred, holy’. [end quote].

RESPONDENT: Is this the ‘freedom’ of which he spoke?

RICHARD: No. He did somehow know, however, that there was something else. One of Ms. Mary Lutyen’s biographies relates how he had an intimation (at age eighty nine if I remember correctly) that he would live for a few – or was it five – more years because ‘something new’ would come into the ‘teachings’. He died without anything changing, however. Other enlightened persons have spoken about ‘going beyond enlightenment’ ... but their teachings remained the same. Mostly, the ultimate state is put after physical death: the Buddhist ‘Parinirvana’ (Complete Nirvana) and the Hindu ‘Mahasamadhi’ (Great Samadhi) being two that spring to mind. It means the end of ‘being’, you see.

In other words: extinction.

RESPONDENT: Is this transmogrification what freedom means?

RICHARD: No, the freedom of enlightenment is not an actual freedom ... it is a solution found within the human condition, for there is still an identity; be it as a self or a being or a presence. Once again, speaking personally, I am none of these ... I am this body being apperceptively aware. An actual freedom means freedom from the human condition. This what I experience is the same as is experienced in a PCE (pure consciousness experience) which generally happens spontaneously in what is called a peak experience. This has been my condition since October 1992, twenty four hours a day. This is the perfection and the purity of the infinitude of this physical universe personified. I am the universe – this material universe – experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being.

This on-going experience is ambrosial, to say the least.

RESPONDENT: Or is ‘heavenly’, to say the most.

RICHARD: Why ‘heavenly’? It is possible to be actually free of the Human Condition, here on earth, in this life-time, as this flesh and blood body.

This on-going experience of perfection personified is earthly ... there is no need of anything metaphysical whatsoever here.

RESPONDENT: It seems that you want to think you are saying something original, and you are not really. You talk about an ego and a soul that both must die in order for one to be free. I take it to mean that this soul you talk about is the idea that Masters and Messiahs have about ‘something else’, i.e., ‘enlightenment’, occurring between the enlightenment and the freedom, that also must die.

RICHARD: I am not too sure what you are getting at here with ‘i.e., enlightenment’ . I will plunge on regardless, and you tell me if I have misunderstood what your point is.

Various masters have spoken about a ‘something else’. Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti said that there was ‘Something beyond Love’. Mr. Mohan Rajneesh spoke of an ‘Unknowable’ and talked of going beyond enlightenment (and as his Teachings never changed he obviously did not do this) Mr. Franklin Merrell-Wolff spoke briefly about a ‘Greater Beyond’ that lay past enlightenment ... and so on. Hints, allusions, suggestions ... but nothing substantial, nothing demonstrable, nothing lived. Buddhists posit the ultimate reality to be after physical death ... and have made a virtue out the fact that Mr. Buddha was too pusillanimous to take the ‘final step’ (what they call the ‘Bodhisattva Principle’). For Hindus it is also after the death of the body ... Mahasamadhi.

*

RESPONDENT: All you are saying is that all of the Masters and Messiahs and the Sages, etc. have had all kinds of metaphysical solutions for thousands of years and nothing has been solved here on Earth. This is exactly the same thing that Krishnamurti was saying.

RICHARD: He may have said it but he did not live it. To be enlightened is to transcend duality. ‘Transcend’ means to rise above, which implies that what you have transcended still exists, only it is beneath you now. This is borne out by the ‘Enlightened Beings’, who generally state that they have eliminated the ego and transcended duality ... I have yet to come across any enlightened master who consistently states that they have eliminated duality ... if there any at all who say that. In an actual freedom, both sorrow and malice are eliminated – not transcended – along with the ego and the soul. Evil does not exist in the world, it exists only in the human psyche ... eliminate the psyche in its entirety and you have eliminated both Good and Evil (because ‘Good’ is a psychic phenomenon created to combat ‘Evil’). As the enlightened beings have only transcended duality, they have to cling to ‘The Good’ in order to resist ‘The Bad’. Hence also their pacifism, but that is another story.

RICHARD: Spiritual Enlightenment has been around for some thousands of years ... and there is still no peace on earth.

RESPONDENT: Although teachers pointing to the truth have been around, not many are interested in hearing what they say. This lack of interest is not the fault of teachers. We have no interest in exposing our misconceptions to the light of truth and escape in any way possible.

RICHARD: No way do I buy this ... millions of well-meaning followers have diligently put their Teachings into practice, prostrating and belittling themselves like all get-out in a hopeful attempt to live the unliveable. Yet no-one, it seems, dares to question the Teachings themselves; instead the humiliated penitents obligingly blame themselves for failing to achieve release from the human condition. The blame for the continuation of human misery lies squarely in the lap of those inspired people who, although having sufficient courage to proceed into the ‘Unknown’, stopped short of the final goal – the ‘Unknowable’. Bewitched and beguiled by the promise of majesty and mystery, they have led humankind astray. Preaching submission or supplication they keep a benighted humanity in appalling tribulation and distress. The death of the ego is not sufficient: the extinction of the self in its entirety is the essential ingredient for peace and prosperity to reign over all and everyone.

The Divine Beings have been peddling their snake oil for centuries to no avail. Their time has come to either put up or shut up ... how much longer than these thousands of years do peoples need to further test the efficaciousness of their failed Divine Message?

*

RICHARD: I entered into an ongoing Altered State Of Consciousness on Sunday, the sixth of September 1981, becoming ‘Enlightened’ in the Eastern spiritual sense of the term. I spent the next eleven years endeavouring to discover why it did not work ... why it did not deliver the Peace On Earth it seemed to promise ... and why it was not for everyone. Accordingly I sought to go beyond Spiritual Enlightenment into a condition I had glimpsed on many an occasion during those eleven years. On Friday, the thirtieth of October 1992, I succeeded and landed in actuality ... as distinct from either ‘reality’ or the ‘Greater Reality’.

RESPONDENT: The notion of an ‘I’ that enters Altered States, becomes enlightened, glimpses or can land in actuality seems like an expression of the same old egocentric framework based on the misconception of some real self that can do those things.

RICHARD: It is simply a matter of convenience to use the first person pronoun: I, my, me ... or even more impersonally ... one. Otherwise the above paragraph would wind up looking like this: ‘This flesh and blood body entered into an ongoing Altered State Of Consciousness on Sunday, the sixth of September 1981, becoming ‘Enlightened’ in the Eastern spiritual sense of the term. This flesh and blood body spent the next eleven years endeavouring to discover why it did not work ... why it did not deliver the Peace On Earth it seemed to promise ... and why it was not for everyone. Accordingly this flesh and blood body sought to go beyond Spiritual Enlightenment into a condition this flesh and blood body had glimpsed on many an occasion during those eleven years. On Friday, the thirtieth of October 1992, this flesh and blood body succeeded and landed in actuality ... as distinct from either ‘reality’ or the ‘Greater Reality’.

RESPONDENT: It sounds like there have been a few glimpses beyond the framework of a ‘me’, but those experiences were quickly added to the structure of misconceptions that now obscure life.

RICHARD: It may sound like that to you, I realise, given the way that you experience your own life ... but not everyone thinks like you do. I, for one, do not. When I glimpse something, I go for it – boots and all – and actualise the glimpse so that I am living it in my daily life. I do not make the mistake of imagining that all this appalling animosity and anguish that grips every single human being on this planet is the result of the mind merely imputing an apparently real but seeming self ... and fondly considering that anger, for example, can be overlooked as a ‘misconception’ , or part of a ‘structure that can be quickly added to’ . Wake up and smell the coffee.

RESPONDENT: Glimpsing from a structure is different than dropping the structure.

RICHARD: The immediate question that springs to mind is who is dropping the structure? And please ... do not tell me that it is the mind merely imputing a ‘me’ ... we have flogged that subject to death. It is male bovine faecal matter and you know it is.

RESPONDENT: No position to view from. No one to enter or leave. No one to land anywhere. Nothing to do and nowhere to go. Yet it is time to go make breakfast.

RICHARD: Ah, yes ... the ancient Japanese art of the Tanka (sort of). Not being a poet myself, I will build upon an associate’s lampooning, for how else can I respond in kind?

Sitting quietly
(Prevaricating)
Doing nothing
(Procrastinating)
Spring comes
(Middle age arrives)
And the grass grows of itself
(The mid-life crisis unfolds)
The delicate sound of lawn-mowers
(The suburban dawning);
Hanging on in quiet desperation ... .

*

RICHARD: I entered into an on-going Altered State Of Consciousness on Sunday, the sixth of September 1981, becoming ‘Enlightened’ in the Eastern spiritual sense of the term. Spiritual Enlightenment has been around for some thousands of years ... and there is still no peace on earth. I spent the next eleven years endeavouring to discover why it did not work ... why it did not deliver the global Peace On Earth it seemed to promise ... and why it was not for everyone. Accordingly I sought to go beyond Spiritual Enlightenment into a condition I had glimpsed on many an occasion during those eleven years. On Friday, the thirtieth of October 1992, I succeeded and landed in actuality ... as distinct from either ‘reality’ or the ‘Greater Reality’.

RESPONDENT: How about this: I thought I was enlightened on 6/9/81. Still seeking for peace, I chased after various transcendental experiences for the next 11 years. On 30/10/92 I finally landed in what I call actuality (not to be confused with reality).

RICHARD: Or even better ... how about this: The imputed ‘I’ had a misconception that there was such an ascribed state as enlightenment and apparently seemed to attain to it on 6/9/81. Seemingly under the assumption of a seeking for a separate peace that does not exist, the same old ego-centric framework presumed after various transcendental falsely attributed experiences for the next 11 apparently real years. On 30/10/92, the habitual thought construction finally landed in what the structure labels an actual unreality which, if the body/mind is observed carefully, cannot be found. It is not to be glimpsed with a confused reality which believes like a seems and ... .

RESPONDENT: Glimpsing from a structure is different than dropping the structure.

RICHARD: The immediate question that springs to mind is who is dropping the structure? And please ... do not tell me that it is the mind merely imputing a ‘me’ ... we have flogged that subject to death. It is male bovine faecal matter and you know it is.

RESPONDENT: Just as there is no ‘who’ to glimpse or land in altered states or be enlightened, there is no ‘who’ to drop anything. The structure is all the habitual thought constructions that tend to view life as if there indeed is some real ‘who’ that can drop, land, glimpse or be enlightened.

RICHARD: Yes ... and, of course, there is no enlightenment because for enlightenment to exist there has to be un-enlightenment. As un-enlightenment is imputed by a ‘me’ that is a thought construction, therefore one falsely attributes such a state as enlightenment where there really isn’t one.

I get the drift, now.

RESPONDENT: No position to view from. No one to enter or leave. No one to land anywhere. Nothing to do and nowhere to go. Yet it is time to go make breakfast.

RICHARD: Ah, yes ... the ancient Japanese art of the Tanka (sort of). Not being a poet myself, I will build upon an associate’s lampooning, for how else can I respond in kind? Sitting quietly (Prevaricating) Doing nothing (Procrastinating) Spring comes (Middle age arrives) And the grass grows of itself (The mid-life crisis unfolds) The delicate sound of lawn-mowers (The suburban dawning) Hanging on in quiet desperation ... .

RESPONDENT: Nice.

RICHARD: Nice? Nice?? Nice??? No, it’s not nice ... it’s everyday reality for millions of people.

RESPONDENT: When you recognise that as your true nature – that is awakening. Then you see others as the same – because that ONE-NESS is all there is. You then see unity in creation – and you have true love for all.

RICHARD: As love is an affective feeling (arising out of the ‘tender’ instinctual passions) any ‘true love’ (and any ‘true compassion’ for that matter) is sourced in the rudimentary animal ‘self’ that forms of survival necessity in the womb. To become free of the human condition one must dig deep into one’s affective feelings, deep down past the superficial emotions into the depths of one’s being and see that malice and sorrow antidotally generates love and compassion.

Because if one does not, one may find oneself as malice and sorrow sublimating oneself into Love and Compassion – one will cease having one’s feelings happen to oneself as ego and instead become those sublimated feelings as soul in an on-going transcendent State Of Being – one will be Love Agapé and Divine Compassion as a ‘Supreme Being’. In other words: an infinitely expanded identity that is ‘Timeless’ and ‘Spaceless’ and ‘Formless’. To become free of the human condition requires the elimination of the instinctual passions ... not merely a transcendence of malice and sorrow.

It does mean the end of ‘me’, however, as an identity in ‘my’ totality (‘being’ itself) and not just ‘I’ as ego surrendering and/or dissolving.

RESPONDENT: So ... http://altzen.freeyellow.com/page7.html: (snipped from article): ‘Once Ejo asked: ‘What is meant by the expression ‘Cause and effect are not clouded’?’ This expression is found in the famous Koan known as ‘The Wild Fox’ or ‘Hyakujo’s Fox’ and the following is the first part of the story as it appears in the Mumonkan: When Hyakujo Osho delivered a certain series of sermons, an old man always followed the monks to the main hall and listened to him. When the monks left the hall, the old man would also leave. One day, however, he remained behind and Hyakujo asked him, ‘Who are you, standing there before me?’ The old man replied, ‘I am not a human being. In the old days of Kaashyapa buddha, I was a head monk living here on this mountain. One day a student asked me, ‘Does a man of enlightenment fall under the yoke of causation or not?’ I answered ‘No, he does not’. Since then I have been doomed to undergo five hundred rebirths as a fox. I beg you now to give the turning word to release me from my life as a fox. Tell me, does a man of enlightenment fall under the yoke of causation or not?’ Hyakujo answered, ‘He does not ignore [cloud] causation [cause and effect]’. No sooner had the old man heard these words than he was enlightened’. (end article). So the obvious question is to be: ‘Does a man of apperception fall under the yoke of causation or not?’

RICHARD: Actually it is not such an obvious question after all as the words ‘a man of enlightenment’ and the words ‘a man of apperception’ refer to two entirely different things: enlightenment is the release from the otherwise endless round of birth/death/rebirth and apperception is the release from the human condition.

‘Tis only from within the human condition that such concepts as karma and samsara arise (along with their rebirth/reincarnation implications).

RESPONDENT: I’d say: be careful with your response here ... ‘five hundred rebirths as a fox’ ... wow! On the other hand better then ‘five hundred rebirths as a roach’.

RICHARD: It essentially makes no difference (be it either as a fox or a roach) because, according to eastern spirituality, it is only as a human being that a sentient being has a chance for enlightenment (which is the main point of being sent back down the metempsychosical path).

RESPONDENT: To be fair on that my guess is ‘Yes’ ... but then again the risk is high.

RICHARD: The only risk on the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom is that one may be enticed to wander off the path and become enlightened instead.

I kid you not.

RESPONDENT: So ... I say I don’t know.

RICHARD: Okay ... here is a hint: both karma and samsara have no existence here in this actual world.