|
Richard’s Selected Correspondence On Here and Now
Here RESPONDENT: Are words really self-explanatory? RICHARD: Yes ... the word ‘coffee-cup’, for example, refers to that small container that coffee is drunk out of. The word ‘here’ literally means ‘this physical place in space’ – unless one is a mystic – and the word ‘now’ literally means ‘this moment in time’ ... unless one is spiritual. The word ‘intelligence’ literally means ‘the human brain thinking and reflecting’ ... unless one is enlightened. RESPONDENT: (For the ‘I’ everything stops, but for the native intelligence, doesn’t everything come together in a manner of speaking?). RICHARD: In a manner of speaking ...yes (except that it has been together all along but could hardly get a word in edgeways, so to speak, and in those moments has no hindrance). RESPONDENT: I experience that as something seemingly supremely-fine, and massively so (beyond massively), over and over and over and over ... as I’ve been reading. So, for what it’s worth, it’s clear to me what you are intending to do with your writing (as far as I’ve been able to see into it so far), and that it is having exactly the intended effect here. RICHARD: The way I have put it previously is this:
RESPONDENT: It appears that Actual Freedom is akin to the effects of psychotropic drugs when not overdosed ... RICHARD: That is how my condition appeared to the psychiatrist mentioned above ... when he was not likening it to Mr. Buddha’s experience that is. Vis.:
RESPONDENT: ... and when one does not loose oneself in the imagination, but stays in the here & now ... RICHARD: As the term [quote] ‘here & now’ [endquote] is extensively used in religio-spiritual/mystic-metaphysical texts to refer to a metaphysical dimension (a spaceless and timeless realm) the utilisation of that spatial and temporal terminology is disingenuous to say the least. For example:
RESPONDENT: ... and without addicting qualities ... RICHARD: As I understand it lysergic acid diethylamide is not addictive. RESPONDENT: Hi, this is all very interesting and delightful! I have been wondering if anyone else was having an experience similar to mine ... for the last year I have felt the barrier between the here and now and the illusory self-created now slowly but surely becoming transparent. RICHARD: Welcome to The Actual Freedom Mailing List, ... I usually wait for a week or two before replying, so that others can respond first, as I do not wish to dominate the mailing list anymore than I already do by being what I am (nor can I respond to each and every e-mail anyway) but as three-plus weeks have gone by it looks as if nobody else is going to pick-up on your query. As I would have to recall events of over two decades ago, in order to relate to your experience of this past year, your query may be better served if I were to give a more general response: I can appreciate that, upon directly experiencing being just here, at this place in infinite space, right now, at this moment in eternal time, the normal here and now (what you describe as ‘the illusory self-created here’ and now) as experienced by maybe 6.0 billion peoples is seen as having been but an illusion. I can also appreciate that, whilst once more living in ‘the illusory self-created here’ and now, there seems to be a barrier betwixt the two worlds ... and that, further, the barrier can become ‘slowly but surely’ transparent. What I would like to point out, though, is that any barrier is as illusory as ‘the illusory self-created here’ and now ... and, furthermore, so too is any transparency. In other words: there is either the direct experience ... or there is not. RESPONDENT: If you have arrived at your ‘destiny’ you should know that you have arrived at the height of your self-invented illusion. RICHARD: May I ask? Are you of that school of thought that says that the journey is the thing ... that one never arrives? RESPONDENT: Destiny? What is that? RICHARD: Destination, of course. Which is here ... now. Where one is living at this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space one is experiencing the purity and perfection of the infinitude of this very actual universe. One is this universe’s experience of itself as a sensate and reflective human being. This is one’s destiny. RESPONDENT: Somebody in charge has created a state of being especially for you? RICHARD: Contrary to popular belief, there is no one in charge of the universe. It is perfectly capable of looking after itself. There is no disembodied ‘intelligence’ that is creating anything. This universe is already here ... and it is always now. RESPONDENT: I am familiar with the term ‘already always here’. Da Free John, the ‘enlightened one’ from California used it often. It was probably his destiny too. RICHARD: He is a prime example of someone deluded enough to not only believe that there is god but to fondly imagine that he is it. He thus denies any ultimate reality to this material universe. Consequently his ‘here’ or his ‘now’ is a spiritual or mystical ‘here and now’ ... a dimension that is beyond time and space. Mr Mohan Rajneesh used the term ‘herenow’ ... which is also a metaphysical dimension that has nothing to do with the actuality of this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space. RESPONDENT: What is self-centred is the idea that I am the centre of the universe. RICHARD: Aye ... that is indeed self-centred. However, there is no centre to the universe. As I have written before:
In other words: I am always here and it is already now. RESPONDENT: I disagree because ‘Timeless, Spaceless and Formless’ has nothing to do with an other worldly experience. Rather, it is the here and now experience of the ‘actual world’ when one is free of excess emotional and intellectual baggage and able to be simply aware. RICHARD: Yet the ‘here and now’ of the God-Men and Gurus is a metaphysical ‘here and now’ that has nothing to do with literally being here now in actual space and actual time. Indeed, there is oft-times the use the metaphysical word ‘herenow’ to distinguish it from the spatial and temporal location ... and it is anywhere but here as this place in infinite space and anywhere but now as this moment in eternal time. When the mystics say: ‘I am Timeless and Spaceless; Unborn and Undying; Birthless and Deathless’ and so on, what do you take it that they mean? Because, as this physical body has a limited life-span, they can only be referring to themselves as being a non-physical ‘whatever’ receiving its post-mortem reward of immortality. Thus the reality of their immaterial ‘here and now’ is vastly different to the physical actuality of sensately being here now. RESPONDENT: Creation ... which has never been before and will never be again. RICHARD: The only thing that has never been before and never will be again is this moment in time and this place in space. By being here – as this body – at this moment in time and at this place in space, one experiences the infinity of space now and the eternity of time here. This is actual. You see, what one is as this body is this material universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being. The physical space of this universe is infinite and its time is eternal ... thus the infinitude of this very material universe has no beginning and no ending ... and therefore no middle. There are no edges to this universe, which means that there is no centre, either. We are all coming from nowhere and are not going anywhere for there is nowhere to come from nor anywhere to go too. We are nowhere in particular ... which means we are anywhere at all. In the infinitude of the universe one finds oneself to be already here, and as it is always now, one can not get away from this place in space and this moment in time. By being here as-this-body one finds that this moment in time has no duration as in now and then – because the immediate is the ultimate – and that this place in space has no distance as in here and there – for the relative is the absolute. As I am always here and it is already now, the spurious immortality of some specious after-life fades into the oblivion it deserves. RICHARD: Because there is no good or evil in the actual world of sensual delight – where I live as this flesh and blood body – one then lives freely in the magical paradise that this verdant earth floating in the infinitude of the universe actually is. Being here at this moment in time and this place in space is to be living in a fairy-tale-like ambience that is never-ending. RESPONDENT: Does this fairy-tale-like ambience of yours have any borders? RICHARD: None whatsoever ... the physical space of this universe is infinite and its time is eternal ... thus the infinitude of this very material universe has no beginning and no ending ... and therefore no middle. There are no edges to this universe, which means that there is no centre, either. You see, what one is as this body is this material universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being. We are all coming from nowhere and are not going anywhere for there is nowhere to come from nor anywhere to go too. We are nowhere in particular ... which means we are anywhere at all. In the infinitude of the universe one finds oneself to be already here, and as it is always now, one can not get away from this place in space and this moment in time. By being here as-this-body one finds that this moment in time has no duration as in now and then – because the immediate is the ultimate – and that this place in space has no distance as in here and there – for the relative is the absolute. In other words: I am always here and it is already now.
RICHARD: Meanwhile, here on earth in this never-changing moment, this ever-changing materiality keeps right on keeping on – ever-dynamic/never static, ever-fresh/never-stale, ever-new/never-old, ever-novel/never-hackneyed – being the veritable perpetuus mobilis it is. Have you really never noticed that this moment is eternal (aka beyond change)? RESPONDENT: If it is the experiencer that makes efforts to be aware and stay aware, the centre is strengthened, not dissolved, right? RICHARD: Since when has naiveté been sudorific? RESPONDENT: A PCE means that the centre is momentarily dissolved. RICHARD: No, a pure consciousness experience (PCE) is when the identity in toto, and not just its centre, is temporarily in abeyance ... so that one is nothing other than a flesh and blood body living life intimately on this verdant and azure paradise. As one has been all along. RESPONDENT: In order for that to occur, the illusion of being in time has to stop. RICHARD: No, in order for a PCE to occur the identity in toto goes into abeyance ... then one is where one has always been: just here right now at this moment in eternal time. Have you not ever noticed that it is never not this moment? RESPONDENT: That is why awareness of death or impermanence can be a trigger. Whatever is being experienced now is not ‘going’ anywhere. It is just a mind thing, a movement of thought. RICHARD: What one is as this flesh and blood body only is this material universe experiencing itself as an apperceptive human being and, as its physical space is infinite, and as its time is eternal, and as its matter is perpetual, then the infinitude which this universe actually is has no beginning and no ending and therefore no middle. As there are no edges to this universe, which means that there is no centre either, one is neither coming from anywhere nor going anywhere for there is nowhere to come from nor anywhere to go too. By being here as-this-body now one is nowhere in particular – which means one is anywhere at all – and in the infinitude of the universe one finds oneself to be already here and, as it is always now, one cannot ever get away from this place in space and this moment in time anyway. Furthermore, one finds that this moment in time has no duration as in now and then – because the immediate is the ultimate – and that this place in space has no distance as in here and there – for the relative is the absolute. In other words: one is always here as it is already now. RESPONDENT: Psychologically there is no tomorrow. Tomorrow is just a projection and yesterday is just memory. RICHARD: Aye, the past, although it was actual whilst it was happening, is not actual now; the future, although it will be actual when it happens, is not actual now. Only this moment is ever actual. RICHARD: I have never made a secret of what my agenda is in writing to this mailing list (peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body) and I have no reservations whatsoever about endeavouring to persuade another to read with both eyes ... but to describe this pastime as ‘pushing a particular set of conclusions’ is to miss the point entirely. RESPONDENT: I agree that if there is a PCE, for some people the memory itself can be a trigger for the actuality. But that doesn’t seem to be the case for most people. RICHARD: One of the many things I did, in the years before I went public, was to ascertain whether people from all walks of life could recall having had a pure consciousness experience (PCE) – as distinct from an altered state of consciousness (ASC) – for obvious reasons. Sometimes it took a quite a while for them to remember – once it took over three hours of intensive description/discussion – as being sans any affective content whatsoever the PCE cannot be stored in the affective memory banks (which is where the ASC is primarily located) ... plus they are much more common in childhood and require further reach. Everybody I spoke to at length – everybody – could recall at least one PCE ... and usually more RESPONDENT: Some of us find keen awareness of death or the truth of impermanence tends to trigger PCE but again, that does not seem to be so for most others I have talked with, unfortunately. RICHARD: Mostly PCE’s happen for no demonstrable reason at all – as in being a serendipitous event – and quite often occur in everyday surroundings doing everyday things ... I can recall being on a farmhouse verandah at age eight, looking into the glistening white of a full glass of milk in the early morning sunshine, when it happened for the entity within. As for ‘impermanence’ ... as the PCE evidences that it is never not this moment then permanence is already always here. RESPONDENT: When I was in ASC under the influence of Ecstasy, I was confused trying to sort out what had been going on. Then my friend said ‘BE HERE’ and hit the floor just in front of me. RICHARD: Then your friend has hopelessly misunderstood what the sages having been saying for millennia ... the ‘be here’ of the god-men and gurus (and their ‘now’) is a metaphysical ‘here and now’ (a timeless and spaceless void) that has nothing to do with literally being here – now – in actual space and time. Indeed, Mr. Mohan Rajneesh oft-times used the metaphysical word ‘herenow’ to distinguish it from the (physical) spatial and temporal location ... and it is anywhere but here as this place in infinite space and anywhere but now as this moment in eternal time. When the mystics say: ‘I am Timeless and Spaceless; Unborn and Undying; Birthless and Deathless’ and so on, what do you take it that they mean? Because, as this physical body has a limited life-span, they can only be referring to themselves as being a psychic entity receiving its post-mortem reward of immortality. Thus the reality of their psychic ‘being here’ is vastly different to the actuality of sensately being here. RESPONDENT: And I got it with a belly laughter that the very searching itself is the hindrance of finding. RICHARD: Yet if one does not seek one will never find; if one does not explore one will never uncover; if one does not investigate one will never discover that this moment is hanging in eternal time like this planet is hanging in infinite space. There is no beginning or end to the infinitude of this universe’s space and time, therefore there is no middle, no centre. Thus, here is nowhere in particular and now is nowhen specifically ... one is easily always here as it is already now. In apperceptive awareness – which is this flesh and blood body being conscious sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul – there is the direct experience of the immediate being the ultimate and the relative being the absolute. RESPONDENT: If you can, try asking that question without moving your tongue. Not moving your tongue is very effective in meditation. When we cease moving our tongue, our thinking quiets. As our thinking quiets, we merge more and more with the Now in the present. RICHARD: I have never meditated (either with or without moving the tongue) so I cannot comment on your advice. However, if you are advocating this technique as being an effective method to ‘merge more and more with the Now’ it does expose the lie of your protestations about how you ‘do not ‘become love’; you are already Love’. In other words:
But never mind ... you would make a good engineer. RESPONDENT: Richard, according to his own articulated dialogue, has not, in this lifetime, ever been in the Now. RICHARD: Except that I repeatedly say that the ‘Me’ that was did live ‘in the Now’ for eleven years ... thus I have intimate knowledge of what you speak of. The exchange you are referring to went like this:
This is because there are three ‘I’s altogether ... but only one is actual. RESPONDENT: [quoting Rajneesh]: ‘Religion is not any ideology. Religion does not believe in any ideals. Religion is to become aware of the impossibility of idealism – of all idealism. Religion is to live here and now, and idealism goes on conditioning your mind to live somewhere else’. RICHARD: By clearly defining religion as ‘to live here and now’ then his ‘here and now’ is a metaphysical ‘here and now’ (a timeless and spaceless void) and has nothing to do with the secular ‘here’ – as in walking and talking, eating and drinking; urinating and defecating – and the secular ‘now’ as in the clock marking the passage of the sun through the sky ... would you not agree? Secondly, as a secular consciousness is happening at this place in material space and in this moment in phenomenal time as a tangible flesh and blood body only, then where do you consider a religious person’s consciousness resides? Remember, Mr. Mohan Rajneesh repeatedly said: ‘I am not the body’ ... and the body is most definitely here in physical space and now in observable time. Could you throw some light upon this matter for me? Interestingly enough, Mr. Buddha said: ‘The Tathagata (...) is the essence which is the reality of matter, but he is not matter (...) he is neither here, nor there, nor anywhere else’. Is it not strange that he would clearly say that he is ‘not here’? How about this one: ‘The Tathagata has neither whence nor whither, and therefore He is called ‘Tathagata’. Is it not curious that he is ‘not whence or wither’ because a flesh and blood body has certainly come and gone? And last, but not least, Mr. Buddha said: ‘Since I became Buddha, there have passed infinite, boundless, hundreds, thousands, millions, trillions, myriads of eons’. As the Buddhists text place him circa 500 BCE (2,500 years ago) would you say that he comprehends time, as measured by the physical phenomenon of day and night, as we mere mortals do ... or is he highly confused? RICHARD: The future, though it will happen, is not actual now. Only now is actual. Yesterday’s happiness and harmlessness does not mean a thing if one is miserable and malicious now ... and a hoped-for happiness and harmlessness tomorrow is to but waste this moment of being alive in waiting. All you get by waiting is more waiting. Thus any ‘change’ can only happen now. The jumping in point is always here ... it is at this moment in time and this place in space. Thus, if you miss it this time around, hey presto ... you have another chance immediately. Life is excellent at providing opportunities like this. What ‘I’ did, all those years ago, was to devise a remarkably effective method of ridding this body of ‘me’. (I know that methods are to be actively discouraged, in some people’s eyes, but this one worked). It takes some doing to start off with, but as success after success starts to multiply exponentially, it becomes automatic to have this question running as an on-going thing ... because it delivers the goods right here and now ... not off into some indeterminate future. Plus the successes are repeatable – almost on demand – and thus satisfies the ‘scientific method’. ‘I’ asked myself, each moment again: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’? Being ‘alive’ is to be paying attention – exclusive attention – to this moment in time and this place in space. This attention becomes fascination ... and fascination leads to reflective contemplation. Then – and only then – apperception can occur. Apperceptive awareness can be evoked by paying exclusive attention to being fully alive right now. This moment is your only moment of being alive ... one is never alive at any other time than now. And, wherever you are, one is always here ... even if you start walking over to ‘there’, along the way to ‘there’ you are always here ... and when you arrive ‘there’, it too is here. Thus attention becomes a fascination with the fact that one is always here ... and it is already now. Fascination leads to reflective contemplation. As one is already here, and it is always now ... then one has arrived before one starts. The potent combination of attention, fascination, reflection and contemplation produces apperception, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. RESPONDENT: What one does in the present moment, obviously effects what one ‘incarnates’ as in the next moment. RICHARD: Why do you put the word < incarnates > in quotes for? If it was the appropriate word to use it would stand on its own merits. The fact that you have to do so indicates that you are making a mystical word do something it is not intended to do. RESPONDENT: One ends conflict now, or suffering has continuation through time. RICHARD: It is possible to be free of the Human Condition in this life you are living now. In fact, if you do not become free of the Human Condition in this life you never will. Physical death is the end. Finish. Not that it matters at all then as physical death is oblivion. RESPONDENT: Now is key. Death cuts the chain. RICHARD: The ending of identity – ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul – can only happen now at this moment in eternal time and here at this place in infinite space ... yes. This death, however, does not ‘cut the ch ain’ ... it means the end of the chain. RESPONDENT: Future lives in a physical sense is only a way of (falsely) procrastinating one’s responsibility. RICHARD: If future lives are a false procrastination ... then what is a true procrastination? RICHARD: One is always here and it is already now ... there can be nothing more permanent, more perpetual a continuity, than this very place here in infinite space now at this very moment in eternal time. What ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul was searching for in the ‘timeless and spaceless and formless’ dimension was already always here in time and space as form ... for there is nothing else than this actual world. And this actual world is an ambrosial paradise. RESPONDENT: Are you saying that form is realized as formless, or that there is no formlessness to be realized? RICHARD: There is no ‘formless’ outside of a person’s intuitive/imaginative faculty. RESPONDENT: You said above that what I was searching for in the formless was always here in time and space as form. That seems to be saying form is emptiness. But then you clarify that you mean there is no actual formlessness. RICHARD: Yes, ‘formlessness’ resides only in the intuitive/imaginative faculty ... for where else could it reside? As the physical infinitude that this very material universe actually is, is comprised of an unlimited amount of matter perpetually arranging and rearranging itself in endless varieties of form all over the unbounded reaches of infinite space throughout the immeasurable extent of eternal time, then one must posit another realm other than actuality. Therefore it can only be fantasy and not fact ... and from whence comes fantasy? The intuitive/imaginative faculty. RESPONDENT: Isn’t an interpretation of what is constantly changing as consisting of solid, static, and unchanging forms an image-based fantasy? RICHARD: Yes ... because everything is actually in a constant state of flux. Nothing stays the same, each moment again everything is novel, fresh, vital, dynamic. One can never, ever be bored. RESPONDENT: We know that in fact there is no ‘thing’ that exists separately in time, yet that is the way that reality is ordinarily perceived. RICHARD: Yes ... the form, time and space of this very material universe is seamless. RESPONDENT: The tree is never twice the same, each moment the tree is unique just as it is. RICHARD: The tree has never been here before ... right now. We are all being in this particular moment at this particular place for the very first time ... this particular moment and this particular place has never been before and therefore exists at the ‘cutting-edge’ of certainty each moment again. This is thrilling, to say the least. RESPONDENT: So is the form of tree perceived as on-going real or is it but a projection of thought and memory? RICHARD: All form (an unlimited amount of matter perpetually arranging and rearranging itself in endless varieties) is as actual as the immeasurable extent of eternal time is actual and is as actual as the unbounded reaches of infinite space is actual. And this actuality is enormous ... staggeringly stupendous. So staggering that it makes the humility (pride standing on its head) so praised by mystics seem trite in comparison. There is no comparison, actually. RESPONDENT No. 33: I don’t understand this. Krishnamurti repeatedly said that if someone found the root cause of sorrow, sorrow ends, completely, once and for all. He also said that irritation (anger) is violence and if you see the danger of it, it ends, completely, and for all time. Do you think he was talking about a theoretical ending of sorrow and violence? RICHARD: It is useful to bear in mind that primarily what he was talking about was stepping out of the stream so that it does not go on after physical death (just as all the saints, sages and seers have said in their own way throughout recorded history). RESPONDENT No. 20: Stepping out of the stream is not ‘so that it does not go on after physical death’. But so it does not continue in the here and now. RESPONDENT: That is correct, for this is the only time there ever is to be timeless. RICHARD: Where one lets the moment live one – rather than what is called ‘living in the
present’ – it will be seen with startling clarity that this moment is eternal ... and not ‘timeless’.
Anyone who succeeds in ‘living in the present’, which is experienced as being that fleeting moment sandwiched
between the past and the future, is present as a self (albeit an impersonal self) in/as an oceanic This moment is not ‘timeless’ ... for, although the fact that it has no duration, as ‘then’ and ‘now’ and ‘then’ (was here then, is here now , will be here then), does not negate that this moment is already always here now (eternally here). It is never not this moment ... ‘tis not fleeting at all.
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 |
