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Richard’s Selected Correspondence On Guilt
RICHARD: Just taking one example out of what you quoted back at me – ‘innocence prevails only where time has no duration’ – would send your students into an intellectual paroxysm. RESPONDENT: Well, it sent me into one as well. Time has no duration? Innocence prevails? Watchatalkin’boutman? RICHARD: Time has no duration when the immediate is the ultimate and the relative is the absolute. This moment takes no interval at all to be here now. Thus it appears that it is as if nothing has occurred, for not only is the future not here, but the past does not exist either. If there is no beginning and no end, is there a middle? There are things happening, but nothing has happened or will happen ... or so it seems. Only this moment exists. This moment has no term, it takes no time at all to occur ... which gives rise to the inaccurate notion that it is timeless. This is an institutionalised delusion, for it stems from the egocentric feeling that ‘I’ am Immortal, that ‘I’ am Eternal. Apperception – which is the mind’s perception of itself – reveals that this moment is hanging in eternal time ... just as this planet is hanging in infinite space. This moment and this place are in the realm of the infinitude of this actual physical universe. This moment is perennial, not timeless. I am perpetually here – for the term of my natural life – as this moment is; I am not Eternally Present. It is the universe that is eternal ... not me. As one is the universe experiencing itself as a sensate human being, any ‘I’ – always on the look-out for self-aggrandisement – grabs the universe’s eternity for itself. Also, what helps to create the feeling that the present is timeless is that human beings – as an identity – are normally out of this universe’s eternal time. Yet time is as intimate as this body being here now at this moment. It is so intimate that I – as a body only – am not separate from it. Whereas ‘I’, as a human ‘being’, have separated ‘myself’ from eternal time by being an entity. To be an ontological ‘being’ is to mistakenly take this body being here as containing an ‘I’, a psychological or psychic entity. To ‘be’ is to take this moment of being alive personally ... as being proof of ‘my’ subjective existence. ‘I’ am an illusion; if ‘I’ think and feel that ‘I’ do exist, then ‘I’ am outside of eternal time. ‘I’ am forever complaining that there is ‘not enough hours in the day’, or ‘I am always running out of time’, or ‘I am always catching up with time’, or ‘I am always behind time’. With no ‘I’ whatsoever to keep one out of this moment in time, one is pure innocence personified, for one is literally free from sin and guilt. One is untouched by evil; no malice exists anywhere in this body. One is utterly innocent. Innocence, that much abused word, can come to its full flowering and one is easily able to be freely ingenuous – noble in character – without any effort at all. The integrity of an actual freedom is so unlike the strictures of morality – whereupon the entity struggles in vain to resemble the purity of the actual – inasmuch as probity is bestowed gratuitously. One can live unequivocally, endowed with an actual gracefulness and dignity, in a magical wonderland. To thus live candidly, in arrant innocence, is a remarkable condition of excellence. None of the supposed ‘innocence of children’ comes anywhere near to the matchless purity of the innocence of the actual. Nor does the assumed ‘innocence’ in the status generously and wrongly attributed to those old men, women and children classified as ‘innocent victims of war’; for these ‘victims’ are all guilty of instinctive anger and vicious urges themselves. As much as one might be sensitively considerate about their suffering, they cannot be labelled as innocent whilst they remain being ‘human’. They are not to blame: nobody is born innocent, all humans are already ‘guilty’ at conception. Fear and aggression and nurture and desire are built into the ‘Human Condition’ ... this is the ‘human nature’ that is said ‘cannot be changed’. These intrinsic urges and drives are known as the ‘instinct for survival’. The ‘self’ is born out of the instinctual passions. * RICHARD: With no ‘I’ whatsoever to keep one out of this moment in time, one is pure innocence personified, for one is literally free from sin and guilt. RESPONDENT: That is very nice. However, I rejected ideas like innocence, sin and guilt a long time ago. They are mental constructs. The old Zen fogies talk about carrying water, chopping wood, eating when you are hungry, and sleeping when you are tired. That’s your ‘innocence’ in action. RICHARD: You are, of course, entirely free to reject them as being ‘mental constructs’, as it is your life you are living and only you can live the consequences of whatever you do ... or do not do. * RICHARD: As much as one might be sensitively considerate about their suffering, they cannot be labelled as innocent whilst they remain being ‘human’. They are not to blame: nobody is born innocent, all humans are already ‘guilty’ at conception. RESPONDENT: Now here we have an interesting Christian notion creeping in: all human are already guilty at conception? I am sure that next you will drag in that slut Eve and put the blame on her. RICHARD: This comment shows that you have not ‘rejected ideas like innocence, sin and guilt a long time ago’ as this is a strong reaction. Incidentally, this old fogy merely depresses a lever to obtain instant hot or cold water, watches the automatic heater turn itself up and down, goes to a restaurant when hungry and sleeps on an orthopaedic bed with an electric blanket under a feather-down doona when sleepy. Ain’t technology grand! * RESPONDENT: Richard, dear. I was being sarcastic and/or ironic in regard to your concept of ‘already guilty at conception’. It struck me as an unhelpful kind of concept for one like you. Please explain what you mean. RICHARD: I deliberately used the expressive phrase ‘‘guilty’ at conception’ (and
elsewhere ‘Born in Sin’) Hence: ‘‘guilty’ at birth’ (or ‘Born in Maya’) RESPONDENT: As of now I am a vegetarian, if I discard this belief, what would happen? Would I eat meat without guilt? The reason I am vegetarian is that I don’t think I should cause pain and suffering to fellow sentient beings just for a burger. So what would happen to this belief and action if I self-immolated? RICHARD: There are two ways to answer this question about guilt ... and they are contained in what I have already written. Allow me to paraphrase for ease and clarity. Vis.: (1) When ‘I’ am no longer extant there is no ‘believer’ inside the mind and heart to have any beliefs or disbeliefs. As there is no ‘believer’, there is no ‘I’ to be guilty ... one is then free to not eat meat, or eat meat, as the circumstances permit. It is an act of freedom, based upon purely practical considerations such as the taste bud’s predilection, or the body’s ability to digest the food eaten, or meeting the standards of hygiene necessary for the preservation of decaying flesh, or the availability of sufficient resources on this planet to provide the acreage necessary to support the conversion of vegetation into animal protein. It has nothing whatsoever with the avoidance of ‘pain and suffering to fellow sentient beings’. (2) Whilst ‘I’ am still extant ‘I’ can face the very fact that one is alive means consuming nutrients ... and staying alive means that something, somewhere must die in order to supply these nutrients. This is a fact of life ... and the marvellous thing about a fact is that one can not argue with it. One can argue about a belief, an opinion, a theory, an ideal and so on ... but a fact: never. One can deny a fact – pretend that it is not there – but once seen, a fact brings freedom from choice and decision. Most people think and feel that choice implies freedom – having the freedom to choose – but this is not the case. Freedom lies in seeing the obvious, and in seeing the obvious there is no choice, no deliberation, no agonising over the ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ judgment. In the freedom of seeing the fact there is only action. If you followed the discussion thoroughly and see for yourself – not merely believing me – the actuality of being alive then your feelings of guilt will be long gone. For all that I am demonstrating is that feeling guilty is born out of holding on to a belief system that is impossible to live ... as all belief systems are. I am not trying to persuade you to eat meat or not eat meat ... I leave it entirely up to you as to what you do regarding what you eat. It is the guilt that is insidious ... feeling guilty is a sure sign that one is being controlled. * RESPONDENT: I don’t know how you wove religion, sages and an afterlife into E-Mail, as they have nothing to do with my views. RICHARD: I beg to differ. You wrote to me about guilt and morals regarding meat eating and non-meat eating. Morals – with their attendant feelings of guilt, condemnation, blame, opprobrium, censure, reproach, reproof, reprehension, shame, disgrace, mortification, humiliation, contrition, ignominy, dishonour, regret, remorse, mortification, embarrassment, abasement, self-consciousness, repentance and so on – have every thing to do with your views. I ‘wove’ (as you so cutely put it) ‘religion, sages and after-life into my reply’ because it is religion – and the Saviour or Messiah, the Avatar or Prophet, the Saint or the Sage – who invented this entire insidious edifice of negative feelings (and if you think that I am making this up or exaggerating, just reflect upon Mr. Jesus who went about declaiming: ‘Repent ye, for the Kingdom of God is at hand’. As repentance requires that one goes through guilt, regret, remorse and then repentance ... and on to forgiveness and remission of sins, thus enabling one to enter into his After-Life, then I consider that what I wrote was not ‘woven’ in but fundamental to a clear understanding as to why a person would feel guilty about anything at all (eating meat for example). These ‘God-intoxicated’ people invented morals ... and they are all dead and buried ... if they lived at all. The peoples alive today are living – and feeling – the dictates of dead deities. It is utter nonsense, upon sober reflection, to be ruled by the morals of deluded persons who may, or may not have lived, two, three or four thousand years ago! RESPONDENT: When I was seven years old I asked my mother where meat came from. The answer was: animals. I felt guilty after I knew the facts. It was a choice I made, a moral choice. Just as I try not to harm or kill humans so too with animals. So I guess that means you’d kill 5 year old children by the dozen, without guilt, for any reason at all. Of course if you would not eat homemade human hamburgers you’d show a BELIEF that humans are ‘superior’ animals, as I remember the Christians saying for centuries. RICHARD: Where you say: ‘I try not to harm ...’ you give the game away. In actual freedom I do not harm anything or anyone whatsoever. I do not have to ‘try’ not to ... harmlessness is my basic nature. It is all so effortlessly easy. With actual freedom, I am pure innocence personified, for I am literally free from sin and guilt. I am untouched by evil; no malice exists anywhere in this body. I am utterly innocent. Innocence, that much abused word, has come to its full flowering in me. I am unequivocally able to be freely ingenuous – noble in character – without any striving at all. The pure intent, born out of coupling one’s intrinsic naiveté with the perfection of the infinity of the universe as unveiled in a peak experience, is so unlike the strictures of morality – whereupon ‘I’ the entity struggles in vain to resemble the purity of the actual – inasmuch as probity is bestowed gratuitously. I can live unequivocally, endowed with an actual grace and dignity, in a magical wonderland. To thus live candidly, in arrant innocence, is a remarkable condition of excellence. So why do you ‘guess’ that I would kill children RESPONDENT No. 3: Realize that and be enlightened. RICHARD: If I may ask? What motivates you to advise me to ‘be enlightened’ ... and, in particular, what will be the result of entering into the ‘Enlightened State’? Does doing so mean an end – an absolute end – to anger and anguish forever? Which means: will I be happy and harmless (free of malice and sorrow) for the remainder of my life? RESPONDENT: Have you redefined harmless? RICHARD: Not at all ... the word ‘harmless’ Contrary to popular belief a pacifist is not harmless: it is malice and sorrow that is the problem and a coping-mechanism such as pacifism does not work to ensure peace and harmony. This is because pacifism is an ideal; in an idea of peace people are into altering behavioural patterns (rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic) whereas what I speak of is the elimination of that which causes the aberrant behaviour in the first place. As pacifists and their ilk (those who live the doctrine of non-violence) do not eliminate the source of aberrant behaviour then they have to imitate the effortless ease of an actual freedom from the human condition by making a big splash about their ‘goodie-goodie’ behaviour. Where there is no identity extant there is no malicious ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ to be harmful ... and one is harmless only when one has eliminated malice – what is commonly called evil – from oneself in its entirety (the ‘dark side’ of human nature which requires the maintenance of a ‘good side’ to eternally combat it). By doing the ‘impossible’ – everybody tells me that you cannot change human nature – then one is innocent (free from sin and sinning) and thus automatically harmless ... which means that no act is malicious, spiteful, hateful, revengeful and so on. It is a most estimable condition to be in: one is then free to act or not act, in response to something or someone, as the state of affairs require. Thus, when there is no ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul there is no need for pre-conceived truths or beliefs ... then one clearly sees the fact of the situation. The fact will tell one what is the most appropriate course of action. For example: if one were to be devious enough to be a pacifist, RESPONDENT: Can you guarantee that you would not harm another individual? RICHARD: There is a 100% guarantee of being totally and reliably capable of spontaneously interacting in the world of people, things and events, in a way that is neither personally insalubrious nor socially reprehensible, at all times and under any circumstance without exception. An actual freedom enables the ability to always be harmless (free from malice) at any time, at any place, in any situation. The Christians, for just one example, purport to comprehend this salient point:
But as even their saviour-hero could not live-up to his own ‘Teachings’ no one has taken much notice of this admonition. But, then again, as their ‘Heavenly Father’ is an angry (yet antidotally loving), vengeful (yet antidotally compassionate) and jealous (yet antidotally forgiving) god, then the ‘Source’ of the ‘Teachings’ is also corrupt ... so who can blame them for being recalcitrant? For it is nobody’s fault ... ‘tis the once-necessary survival instincts that is the root cause. RICHARD: This is a truly remarkable freedom. RESPONDENT: Only if it is the right kind of freedom. RICHARD: Goodness me ... I long ago abandoned ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ because far too many of my fellow human beings have been killed because of what is ‘right’ ... or savagely punished because they were ‘wrong’. It is far better – and much more understandable – to appraise one’s feelings, thoughts and actions as being either ‘silly’ or ‘sensible’. It is simply silly to drive on the wrong side of the road, for example, because of the obvious danger to one’s own life and limb and to others ... not ‘wrong’ with all its judgemental condemnations of one’s implicit wickedness and badness. It is sensible to find out why one is driven to perform socially unacceptable acts, for instance, rather than to refrain from committing these deeds because such restraint is the ‘right’ thing to do. Because ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are emotive words loaded with reward and punishment connotations – which is poor motivation for salubrious action anyway – then one has dignity for the first time in one’s life. So, the question is: Is an actual freedom a silly freedom ... or a sensible freedom? It is a freedom well worth living indeed, for in actual freedom lies not only an actual peace but
an actual innocence. One is pure innocence personified, for one is literally free from sin and guilt. One is untouched
by evil; no malice or sorrow exists anywhere in this body. One is utterly innocent ... innocence, that much abused word,
can come to its full flowering and one is easily able to be freely ingenuous – noble in character – without any
effort at all. The integrity None of the supposed ‘innocence of children’ This ‘instinct for survival’ is an animal necessity to ensure the blind continuation of the species. It served the human animal well until the emergence of the cerebral cortex brain, situated over the top of the primitive animal brain ... the ‘reptilian brain’. This thinking, reflective brain – corrupted by affective feelings – gave rise to a brain pattern known as ‘the mind’. In here the ‘instinct for survival’ becomes the passion-driven ‘will to survive’. Thus the biologically necessary blind instinctual patterns spilled over into the psychological arena ... with disastrous results. For five thousand years or more, human beings have been struggling to overcome the emotion-laden ‘will to survive’ with moralistic injunctions – derived from any Divine Being’ s ‘Teachings’ – to no avail. The ‘Teachings’ were – and are – fatally flawed. Although well-meant, they were abysmally improper. They have led to many appalling absurdities such as institutionalised human sacrifices to numerous gods; exalted martyrdoms for futile ideals; honourable deaths through valour in wars; emotional sufferings whilst contemplating the torments of hells; inspired self-flagellations ... the list goes on and on. The culpability for these preposterous catastrophes must be laid squarely at the feet of those highly revered but sadly deluded Divine Beings. Their futile ‘Teachings’ are but inimical fulminations ... ignorant railings against the neuro-biology of the Human Condition. The time has come, with the world population as large and as cosmopolitan as it is, to discard the passionate and emotional ‘will to survive’ – with all its biologically-based inherited savagery – and move on to a new paradigm. This paradigm I call actualism, which works to disempower the instinctual passions one is encumbered with by blind nature at birth. One can come upon an actual freedom – the third alternative – which is the actuality that delivers the goods so long yearned for: peace-on-earth, as this body, in this life-time. And it delivers it now at this moment in eternal time and here at this place in infinite space, for it is already always here ... now. It is yours for the choosing. RICHARD: It is a freedom well worth living indeed, for in actual freedom lies not only an actual peace but an actual innocence. One is pure innocence personified, for one is literally free from sin and guilt. One is untouched by evil; no malice or sorrow exists anywhere in this body. One is utterly innocent ... innocence, that much abused word, can come to its full flowering and one is easily able to be freely ingenuous – noble in character – without any effort at all. RESPONDENT: If one is free from the standard whereby innocence would be defined or understood, the freedom would just be ignorance, wouldn’t it? RICHARD: No, no, no ... to be free from sin and guilt one has free from the ‘sinner’ who has a pernicious existence within this body. That is, ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul is a ‘walk-in’ (if I may use some current jargon) and is corrupting the thoughts and actions of this flesh and blood body. Then there is no need for a standard ‘whereby innocence would be defined’ because one would be innocence personified. RESPONDENT: Freedom from guilt does not necessarily mean compliance with or union with the principles of innocence. RICHARD: Once again, I am not talking about principles ... I am talking about freedom from the state of being wherein principles are a necessity to stop one from carrying out actions that are either personally insalubrious or socially reprehensible. I am not talking about ‘compliance with principles’ ... I am talking about being free of the instinctual urges, impulses and drives that necessitate ‘compliance with principles’. I am talking about a truly remarkable freedom. RESPONDENT: If I were to kill someone in a fit of anger, should I say to myself ‘darn! ... what a silly thing I just did’? ‘Should I clean up now or later?’ RICHARD: Well, only if you wish to remain a sorrowful and malicious psychological and psychic identity living a parasitical existence inside this flesh and blood body ... busily perpetuating all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide. So, tell me: do you consider murder sensible then? RESPONDENT: There were wars that needed to be fought. RICHARD: Actually, the question was ‘do you consider murder sensible’ ? Do you? RESPONDENT: I consider some wars to be extremely sensible. RICHARD: Goodness me ... you not only think that peace-on-earth is silly but you are now telling me that some wars are sensible! RESPONDENT: Have you ever noticed that is such a thing as a tyrant or dictator? RICHARD: Yes ... when I was but a boy in short pants at state school such people were called ‘bully-boys’. The girls had their own variety called ‘catty-bitches’. RESPONDENT: Do you consider the country fighting in self defence to be equal in causality to the perpetrator that started the whole thing? RICHARD: As a country is nothing but a grouping of peoples complete with the entire software package of fear and aggression and nurture and desire, then they are as covertly ‘guilty’ as the bully-boys and catty-bitches are overtly ‘guilty’. RESPONDENT: It is silly to categorise all wars as the same, not sensible. RICHARD: All wars are silly. RESPONDENT: That stand exudes a self righteous ‘above it all’ stand. RICHARD: Not so ... when one is ‘right’ or ‘good’ one is inevitably self-righteous. It is much better to be a sensible person. RESPONDENT: You may be able to reason with the one defending but you will never get anywhere with the tyrannical aggressor. RICHARD: As no country – which is each and every citizen – has rid itself of sorrow and malice then such speculation can only be that ... speculation. I would rather speak from my personal experience. Dealing sensibly with another is infinitely more effective than any self-righteous anger any day. RESPONDENT: His ‘natural’ or animal state, that you refer to, puts him in a state of conflict, unlike the animals. The animal has anger or fear, kills, fights or runs and returns to rest or goes to sleep in peace. RICHARD: Being born and raised on a farm, and having a life-long interest in animals, I have been able to observe over time that, by and large, animals generally do not rest or sleep ‘in peace’ ... they are constantly on the alert, vigilant, scanning for attack. Some, like ducks for example, ‘sleep’ half of the brain at a time. Apart from bears and the such-like in hibernation (oblivion) it is not very restful being an animal. RESPONDENT: I should have just said that animals have no psychological conflict over their actions. RICHARD: Okay ... this is because animals are not intelligent (they cannot think). Thus they
are not aware of their instinctually passionate behaviour ... and, not having a ‘theory of mind’ RESPONDENT: Many animals will engage in a fight to the death and in a short time be licking their paws in a relaxed manner. RICHARD: Yep ... totally unaware of any consequences of their instinctually passionate behaviour (ignorance is bliss). There are more than a few peoples who ascribe similar ‘ignorance is bliss’ qualities to an infant human (the supposed ‘innocence’ of childhood) with their hoary Tabula Rasa theory. RESPONDENT: The child’s underlying or potential nature has not had time to develop. Until it develops there is a kind of grace period where they are kind of angelic until their parents begin to corrupt them which does not take long at all. Compared to the adults, they are innocent. RICHARD: Uh-huh ... more ‘god-words’, I see (‘grace, ‘angelic’). Shall we move into this or not? Apart from the many, many proper studies done on this very issue, I have personally seen an 11 month infant pinching her sibling maliciously ... which is not ‘angelic’ behaviour by any standard. Similarly, a child’s temper tantrum makes the term ‘grace period’ look either silly or meaningless. And if you are going to compare the human infant to human adults to get some imitation of innocence up and running then you must be referring to their animal behaviour (as already discussed). If you are going to classify animal behaviour as being innocent then you are equating ignorance (not knowing) with the legal definition for culpability (wherein the offender has to know that they are doing wrong in order to be guilty). This is not a court of law ... this is biology. As for ‘angelic until their parents begin to corrupt them which does not take long at all’ ... if you have ever been a parent yourself you will know by direct experience that society requires that you instil values and principles in your children through reward and punishment. Usually, by about the age of seven, your child knows ‘right’ from ‘wrong’ (as is evidenced in an exasperated parent taking the child to task with an oft-repeated ‘you should know better by now’). This implies, under your definition of culpability, that you ‘corrupt’ your children by making them guilty for doing what comes natural (what you called ‘innocent’). It is this simple. RESPONDENT: The imputed appearance of such a one does not mean there is actually a separate person that can have qualities or achieve. RICHARD: There is indeed an actual flesh and blood body ... unless you believe that Eastern mystical twaddle about this world of people, things and events being an illusion. Therefore, if by ‘person’ you mean ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul (or any other description) then there is certainly psychological separation. This causes sorrow. Combine this with malice and then we have all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide. If you personally do not wish to participate in peace-on-earth, then that is your business ... yet realise, the next time you complain about all the violence you see on TV, that you are as ‘guilty’ as the next person. RESPONDENT No. 19: When we go against what we know in our heart and stomach is the wrong thing to do; when we choose to do it anyway, we will suffer the guilt (some may not). It is certainly not a ‘belief’, as you suggest, that I am the initiator of a wrong or right action. It is a fact. How do I know I know it is a fact? I can only know that by listening to the feelings I get when I do it. It is wrong because it ‘feels’ wrong. It is not just something that I have to be told. This is the essence of right and wrong. Are you suggesting that there is no right and wrong, that right and wrong exist only by judgement brought on by conditioning? Surely not! RICHARD: After all your years of sincere self-investigation are you really going to go on record as saying that feelings are to be relied upon as the final arbiter for living a salubrious and sociable life? Feelings are notoriously unreliable ... people have been living according to their feelings for millennia ... just look at the mess the world is in. Calenture is no better than the conditioned judgement you rightly put aside. ‘Right and Wrong’ is nothing but a socially-conditioned affective and cognitive conscience instilled by well-meaning adults through reward and punishment (love and hate) in a fatally-flawed attempt to control the wayward self that all sentient beings are born with. RESPONDENT: So is there a suggestion about the ‘absence’ of feelings for a ‘peaceful’ life? What about the Unabomber? I presume the Unabomber had no ‘guilt’. Is the world a mess because of ‘feelings’? Or the non understanding of these ‘feelings’? RICHARD: A partial absence of feelings – guilt, for example – leads to socially reprehensible acts ... like the Unabomber example you give. A sociopath (psychopath) has no feelings of shame or guilt ... and look what they get up to. It is the feelings that lie under the socially-imposed controls that need to be eliminated ... the deep feelings. These are the passions that all sentient beings are born with. It is the ‘being’ – the rudimentary self that arises out of the instinctual passions of fear and aggression and desire and nurture – that is the root-cause of all the ills of humankind. It is through the ending of ‘being’ that one can live freely without either the animosity or anguish that epitomises the sense of identity that infiltrates from the affective faculties into the cognitive ... and needing to be controlled. A conscience is a social identity ... a psychological creation manufactured by society to act as a guardian over the wayward self one was born with. Everyone is born with a biologically coded instinctive drive for personal physical survival which, when one is operating and functioning with a group of people, is potentially a danger to the survival of other group members. Hence the need for moral rules and ethical laws to regulate the conduct of each person ... with appropriate rewards and punishments to ensure compliance. In a well-meant but ultimately short-sighted effort to prevent gaols from being filled to over-flowing, the social identity – a psychological guardian – is fabricated in an earnest endeavour to prevent the offences from happening in the first place. This ‘guardian’ is programmed with a set of values and charged with the role of acting as a conscience over the wayward self. A conscience is made up of a sure knowledge of what is Right or Wrong and Good or Bad ... as determined by each society. By and large this enterprise has proved to be effective – only a small minority of citizens fail to behave in a socially acceptable manner – but the price for this effectiveness is the lack of the ability to be unique. The lack of uniqueness results in a generalised suffering for all of ‘humanity’. ‘Humanity’ is faced with the invidious choice between curbing aggression and ensuring suffering, or curbing suffering and ensuring aggression ... or so it has been up until now. Something can definitely be achieved in regards to this culturally-imposed social identity ... one
can readily do something about it if one is suitably motivated to do so. One can bring about a benediction from that
perfection and purity which is the essential character of the universe by contacting and cultivating one’s original
state of naiveté Societal values are a psychological method of control. RESPONDENT: The fundamental and most important aspect of a human being, Richard, concerning the overall effects to the mind of mankind – and consequently to mankind as a collectivity – is his ability to overcome fragmentation. All violence and incongruities in our planet are a direct consequence of fragmentation, isn’t it? RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: Please keep in mind that I have some difficulties with the language. It is the fact that one feels to be an isolated being that brings with it this sense of isolation, insecurity, fear and the following violence. RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: If a man keeps an eye on pacifism, the other eye will be focused in his own right for peace. If a man looks at human rights with one eye, the other will be on his own ones obviously. RICHARD: Aye ... but ‘human rights’ are a human construct – an agreement between human beings to conduct themselves in a certain way in relation to other human beings – and are designed to counter the insalubrious effects of the instinctual passions bestowed upon all sentient beings by blind nature via genetic inheritance. A ‘right’ is a legal entitlement ascribed to a person or persons with an equitable or fair claim to the terms of that agreement. A ‘right’ is therefore something ‘given’ by humans to humans – and to a certain extent to other animals – but what is given can be taken away ... at the point of a gun. There are no ‘rights’, in actuality, other than what human beings agree on ... and ‘rights’ have to be enforced at the point of a gun, anyway. Thus, where you say ‘if a man keeps an eye on pacifism, the other eye will be focused in his
own right for peace’ the flaw in this argument becomes immediately obvious: nobody actually has any ‘right’
for peace – apart from whatever pseudo-peace others are inclined to grant – so long as they nurse malice (and
sorrow) to their bosom. To adopt a policy of pacifism When the cause of malice (and sorrow) is eliminated, then the already always existing peace-on-earth becomes apparent ... and it far exceeds any pseudo-peace obtained with a hypocritical vow and/or policy of pacifism (non-violence). RESPONDENT: Integrity, non-fragmentation, is a ‘quality’ (sorry) that agglutinates all possible good qualities for mankind, according to natural intelligence. RICHARD: Hmm ... ‘good qualities’ only exist to counter the ‘bad qualities’. When the source of malice and sorrow is eliminated, the ‘good’ vanishes along with the ‘bad’ ... then there is a freed intelligence. A ‘natural intelligence’ is an intelligence hindered by the instinctual passions, like fear and aggression and nurture and desire, and will seek to heighten the tender feelings so as to diminish the savage feelings. RESPONDENT: When you say: ‘Incidentally, the ‘innocent’ do not suffer ... innocence is something totally new to human experience’, I wonder. RICHARD: I am, of course, using ‘innocence’ To be incapable of suffering is a blessing. RESPONDENT: Would it be because the innocent do not resist death or anything else they may meet in the course of life? Does lack of resistance mean no suffering? RICHARD: A person nursing malice and sorrow to their bosom may very well ‘not resist death or anything else’ until they are blue in the face and never, ever come across innocence. Quite the obverse, in fact: their ‘lack of resistance’ actively perpetuates suffering. RESPONDENT: Perhaps the acceptance of death is the key for the true appreciation of life. Without including (enclosing) death we miss the essence of life. RICHARD: All peoples I have spoken with at length deep down resent being here (‘I didn’t ask to be born’) and one cannot embrace death until one first appreciates the marvel of being alive. I would be particularly inclined to examine your sentence ‘... one could, of course, ask God why he has arranged things in this blatantly unfair way’ in this respect (with a view to locating the basic resentment). Indignation (a feeling associated with unfairness) is usually an indication of resentment, for example. RESPONDENT: One other point. I hadn’t equated ‘the glorification of sorrow’ (your term) with ‘comforting the self’. But in a new book by Sunanda Patwarden about her life with the k factor, she stresses how insistent he was on the subject of psychological hurt as the centre of the self. And thus ‘the perpetuation of suffering’ that you point to above. RICHARD: Yes, this is what I mean by the term ‘nursing malice and sorrow to one’s bosom’ ... which brings me back to your central point where each and every person, who continues to do nothing about their ‘pathology’ , thus rightfully earns the full fruits of their culpability. I am specifically interested in exploring: ‘furthermore, hasn’t he [God] hidden the miracle of love in the deepest sorrow?’ for therein lies the key to understanding both the origin of the glorification of sorrow and the perpetuation of suffering.
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 |
