|
Richard’s Selected Correspondence On Imagination
RESPONDENT: I’m curious as to what Richard, Peter or Vineeto might have to say about this ‘Images In PCE’ thread. RICHARD: Where imagination is operating in a peak experience – including forming images/picturing in the mind’s eye – it is not, or is no longer, a pure consciousness experience (PCE) as the imaginative/intuitive facility, intrinsic to the affective faculty, has no existence in actuality. Put simply: unless identity is in total abeyance there is no way it can be a PCE. RESPONDENT: Is introspection/ creativity still possible in actual freedom? RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: How, given absence of the imaginative faculty? RICHARD: As to be introspective is to be looking into/closely inspecting/intellectually examining, in detail, the perceptive process then the way it is done, sans the imaginative/intuitive facility, is with the cognitive, ratiocinative/conceptive, and insightful faculty operating freely under an overall apperceptive attentiveness/awareness. And as to be creative is to be innovative, inventive, initiative, resourceful, and so on, then the way it is done, sans the imaginative/intuitive facility, is with apperceptive awareness giving free reign to whatever ingenuity/novelty and talent/aptitude, in conjunction with all the acquired knowledge/understanding and expertise/skills and proficiency/ability and dexterity/competence, may come up with. It all operates a whole lot better, actually, as the difference between imagination and hallucination is a difference in degree and not of kind. RESPONDENT: How can you have any project without imagining the desired outcome (goal) and the way to get there (means)? RICHARD: Easily ... with pure intent the means become progressively apparent, after taking the initial step, and the appropriate process unfolds accordingly as a consequence. RESPONDENT: Do you just execute what bubbles up – from wherever – spontaneously? RICHARD: There is a marked distinction betwixt spontaneity and impetuosity (aka impulsiveness) ... acuity and/or perspicacity, in the applied form of discrimination, discernment (as in being expedient, provident, judicious, prudent) in conjunction with pragmatism, practicality, sensibility, simplicity, and so forth, gives ready access for any introspective/creative process to take place. With no identity in situ/no affective faculty extant, to stuff things up, it is all quite effortless. CO-RESPONDENT: Richard, if thinking is neural activity how does this activity transform into words? RICHARD: As feelings are primal and primary then words, and thus thought, most likely developed ever-so-slowly out of intuitive cognitions as an extension of the growling, grunting, groaning, moaning, whimpering sounds which are so expressive of the feeling of what is happening ... most histrionic words have an affective etymological root. Thus the ‘first’ thoughts in proto-humans quite possibly would have been nascent expressions of the primal feelings patently evident in what is known as the higher order animals. CO-RESPONDENT: The ongoing process of thinking appears mostly as words and words and more words and just like the mental pictures that are also a part of thinking I wonder how is it that we get this ‘internal-hearing’ and ‘seeing’ from nerve conduction. It seems metaphysical. RICHARD: What you are referring to – the mental pictures and sounds, and so on, which are part and parcel of thought in most peoples – have no existence in this actual world ... thought occurs as words-only here. RESPONDENT: When you are looking at something linear (like a shelf) and trying to gauge its length, or looking at something planar (like a cardboard box) and trying to gauge the proportion between its width and its length, or shading a drawing and determining how dark to make this bit or that bit, are you thinking? And are these thoughts word-only? If not thinking, what do you call the mental process that’s taking place? RICHARD: What I am reporting above, as having no existence in this actual world, is the mental imagery – be it visual, audile, haptic, olfactory or kinaesthetic imagery – which is a feature of thought, thoughts and thinking in most normal human beings because of the intuitive/ imaginative facility ... hence my words-only characterisation of how thought operates here. Furthermore, this non-imagic thought functions only as required (mostly things get done on automatic pilot, so to speak, due to habituation) and for the main a general awareness operates. Thus specific to your examples, when estimating length, width, proportion, chiaroscuro, and so on, thought plays little part in the process. RESPONDENT: Also, in another recent post, you referred to ‘intuitive cognition’ when someone asked you about thought. RICHARD: Here is the exchange you are referring to:
RESPONDENT: What do you mean by this difference? RICHARD: In that instance I am using the word intuitive as opposed to the word discursive – ‘proceeding by argument or reasoning; ratiocinative; not intuitive’ (Oxford Dictionary) – for the very simple reason that dogs do not have thoughts, period (be they either of the rudimentary or possessive kind). More generally, the word intuitive refers to the thoughtless sensing (as in an instinct or a feel for something) which is eloquently expressed in the colloquialism gut-instinct (aka gut-feeling/ gut-reaction). Vis.:
RESPONDENT: Richard, is it possible for you to ‘have a tune’ in your head or a melody? RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: What happens if you try to ‘think how a song goes’? RICHARD: If it has words I can recall the way they go up and down the scale so as to provide a reasonable facsimile ... this is nothing like how there used to be the capacity to ‘have a tune’ in the head all those years ago (whereupon a snippet of a melody would often lodge and rerun itself over and again). These days consciousness is epitomised as a vast silence and/or stillness. RESPONDENT: Do you have to hum or sing it to remember? RICHARD: Yes, though I rarely sing as I have a flat singing voice (music has never been my forté). RESPONDENT: Is there no ‘rehearsing’ in your head first? RICHARD: No ... I can ‘hum it under my breath’, as the saying goes, or go dum-de-dah-de-dum (or whatever) in a rather atonal manner. * RESPONDENT: Also, when I think – it’s as if I can hear myself talking in my head. Can you ‘hear’ your ‘talking’ in your head when you think? RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: So, it would seem that even my very own thinking process involves imagination? (If I pronounce each word in my head). RICHARD: If so then it is not only imagination as there is a thinker (‘I’ as ego) who has taken up residence and is chattering and listening ... I can recall it having an on-going dialogue with itself, all those years ago, and other peoples’ comments on the subject reflect this tendency. RESPONDENT: You talk about thoughts you have, are they ever ‘said’ or ‘pronounced’ in your head? RICHARD: I can think of a particular word or a series of words – if memorising a phrase or verse – as in a silent pronouncing (if that is what you mean). RESPONDENT: When you read text on the screen, are you scanning without ‘pronouncing the words in your head’ in any way? RICHARD: There is a scanning of the words – chunks of words or sentences – such as to gain an overall impression. RESPONDENT: Normally, I automatically say each word as I type it. If I understand correctly – that is not happening for you. Right? RICHARD: When I start a sentence I have no means of knowing in advance what will transpire, let alone how it will end. All I need to know is the topic and the subject matter unfolds of its own accord. I do have a reliable and repeatable format and style, which has developed over the years, so it is not an ad hoc or chaotic meandering. It is all very easy. RESPONDENT: Also, in your Journal you give fairly vivid descriptions of what the sky looked like on a particular day, what the breeze was like. It’s amazing to me that can be done without imagination. It seems like I have to pull up a visual image of a memory to describe it ‘properly’. RICHARD: Apparently most people do. RESPONDENT: But you seem to have no problem with that. Truly amazing. RICHARD: Ahh... what is even more ‘ truly amazing’ is an actual freedom from the human condition itself (neither a ‘thinker’ in the head nor a ‘feeler’ in the heart). It means peace-on-earth, in this life time, as this flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: Perhaps all there is, is just the sensations themselves, nothing more, and organizing principles which guide their movement. Do you have any proof to the contrary? RICHARD: If all there is, is your subjective sensations, then there is no point in asking me
for verification because I am yet another of your subjective sensations. This is called solipsism RESPONDENT: I disagree again. Merely because you are a figment of my imagination does not mean I cannot discover anything interesting by talking to you. RICHARD: I had an experience of solipsism back in 1984 (I did not know the word then and called it ‘extreme subjectivity’) which lasted for three days. In such an experience it is of no use to ask anyone something – or check anything against anything – because one is creating everything and anyone. Thus if you ask me something, I will only answer whatever you make me answer (as you are creating me and my answers) hence nothing is verifiable in any meaningful way. It is an alarming experience to have, by the way. Subsequently I discovered that other peoples have experienced and written about ‘extreme subjectivity’ and that it has a name (solipsism) ... Mr. Leo Tolstoy was one such person that I remember reading about. Thus you would not ‘discover anything interesting by talking’ to either me or anyone else ... other than the experience itself is fascinating. RESPONDENT: You are however free to not provide evidence, but I would ask you to simply state you have none, if indeed you do not. RICHARD: I was not avoiding your question in any way whatsoever ... I was demonstrating the futility of asking for verification from someone who is your own creation. Therefore, if you fully acknowledge my factual existence (that there is a flesh and blood body that is not of your creation) that writes these E-Mails (traceable electronically to an address in Australia) then I am only too happy to answer any questions. Therefore, as your original question was ‘do you have any proof to the contrary’ that ‘all there is, is just the sensations themselves, nothing more, and organizing principles which guide their movement’ then I would suggest that you:
Now, as you rip the plaster from your mouth and gulp in that oh-so-sweet and objectively actual air, I ask you: Do you still want proof that all this is ‘just the sensations themselves, nothing more, and organizing principles which guide their movement’?
Seeing the fact will set you free to live in actuality. RESPONDENT: I have many questions, but would like to start with one which I find most pressing. You wrote how the imagination is no longer active in your brain and that if you were to draw a picture of a cow you would not be able to imagine it, but would just start drawing and gradually it would take form on paper. But from my observations, thought requires mental visual imagery, i.e.; in order to write this letter I am graphically visualising mental concepts and visually recalling data relevant to what I wish to convey, before forming the sentences I type. RICHARD: Okay ... when I start a sentence I have no means of knowing in advance what will transpire, let alone how it will end. All I need to know is the topic and the subject matter unfolds of its own accord. I do have a reliable and repeatable format and style, which has developed over the years, so it is not an ad hoc or chaotic meandering. It is all very easy. RESPONDENT: I am a designer by profession. RICHARD: I used to make a living as a practising artist (as well as being a qualified art teacher) so I can relate to your profession more than just a little bit. RESPONDENT: Could you please elaborate on how the brain can think without visually imaging, or perhaps I have misunderstood what you mean? Your time is most appreciated. RICHARD: Oh, no ... you have not misunderstood at all. You must be referring to this passage:
The brain thinks perfectly well without ‘visually imaging’ ... much, much better than any ‘I’ can do. It all started over 20 years ago when the ‘I’ who was made a living as an artist ... ‘my’ greatest work came when ‘I’ disappeared and the painting painted itself in what is sometimes known as an ‘aesthetic experience’. This is the difference between art and craft – and ‘I’ was very good as a craftsman – but craft became art only when ‘I’ was not present. All art is initially a representation and, as such, is a reflection funnelled by the artist so that he/she can express what they are experiencing in order to see for themselves – and show to others – what is going on ‘behind the scenes’ as it were. However, when one is fully engrossed in the act of creating art – wherein the painting paints itself – the art-form takes on a life of its own and ceases to be a representation during the event. It is its own actuality. One can only stand in amazement and wonder – which is not to negate the very essential patiently acquired skills and expertise – and this marvelling is what was experienced back when I was a normal person. It was this magical way of creativity that led ‘me’ into this whole investigation of life, the universe and what it is to be a human being. ‘I’ desired to live my whole life like these utter moments of artistic creation. ‘I’ wanted my life to live itself just like the paintings painted themselves and consequently here I am now ... and what I am (what not who) is 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 ... this is a direct experiencing of the actual in all its pristine freshness. 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 ... which is an indirect experiencing of the actual (through a translucent veneer of what is called ‘reality’). As the perfection of the purity of the actual is inaccessible, the intuitive/imaginative facility is required to enhance experience ... an ersatz picture, in other words. An aesthetic experience is somewhat akin to a pure consciousness experience (PCE). RICHARD: 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 ... which is an indirect experiencing of the actual (through a translucent veneer of what is called ‘reality’). As the perfection of the purity of the actual is inaccessible, the intuitive/imaginative facility is required to enhance experience ... an ersatz picture, in other words. RESPONDENT: Yes exactly. At the moment I’m reading Joseph LeDoux’s book ‘The Emotional Brain’, very interesting, but it is Win Wenger’s book ‘The Einstein Factor’ which prompted my question on imagination, coupled with my interest in creative thought (Win Wenger is an advocate of Image Streaming as a method to increase ones intelligence). In his book he gives these examples; Tesla’s Gift. • [quote]: ‘1. The intensity of Tesla’s Image Stream appeared to stimulate his genius. Among his many talents, Tesla possessed the remarkable ability to visualize his inventions in minute detail before even beginning to write them down. He would mentally build a new device part by part and test-run it, all in his imagination. So accurate were Tesla’s mental blueprints that he could diagnose a problem with a machine by the way it ran in his mind. ‘It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop’, he wrote. ‘I even note if it is out of balance. There is no difference whatever, By this means, Tesla developed all the basic mechanisms of today’s global electric power grid, including high-voltage transformers, long-distance transmission lines, hydroelectric generators, and alternating current’. • 2. ‘A Baseball Genius: Some years ago, I visited a friend in Chicago. My friend’s son was trying out for the high school baseball team but feared he wouldn’t make the cut because of his poor batting average. I worked with the boy for about an hour, employing many of the techniques that you will learn to use later in this book. In the course of our session, the boy discovered that he had the greatest success when he imagined a tiny flyspeck on the baseball and aimed his bat at that flyspeck rather than at the ball itself. This flyspeck gave him just the extra focus he needed to connect with the ball. It may seem a trivial insight, but its effect on the boy’s game was astonishing. In baseball, a .250 to .300 batting average is considered quite good. But during the first ten games of the season, this boy batted .800! He not only made the team but went on to be named Most Valuable Player for both the team and the league for that year. In a single one-hour session, we had succeeded in identifying a technique that made this boy a baseball genius’. • 3. ‘Genius does seem to be linked to the intensity of our subconscious imagery, but to be effective we must strike a balance. In striving to gain access on demand to intense and vivid imagery, we must also preserve the ability to squelch it at appropriate times. This balance is best achieved through a controlled process like Image Streaming, which allows us to choose the time and place of our imaging and to remain completely conscious and alert throughout the session’ [endquote]. RICHARD: If one is going to accept the status-quo for what it is and ‘make the best of a bad situation’ then such concentrated and focussed effort as described above would probably be the better way to go. However, the way freedom works, and the basic theory/philosophy to formalise it, is this simple: Back when I used to be able to visualise, what would happen is that it is all mapped out, planned in advance, and all that was left was a ‘colouring-in-by-numbers’ style of painting and/or drawing and/or whatever. All the creativity was confined to mental-emotional imagery department – a dream-like fantasy – which rarely, if ever, translated into pen and paper or paint and canvas ... with the resultant frustration in being unable to manifest the vision into actuality. The main reason was that the mental picture was not constrained by the physical medium and thus compromises inevitably creep in, even early in the piece. One is then left with trying to force actuality into fitting the fancy ... with less than desirable results. What I discovered, when the ‘painting painted itself’, was that actuality ruled the roost, as it were, and magically manifested perfection ... such as to leave me, as I remarked (further above) standing in amazement and wonder, marvelling at this magical creativity. Modesty – especially false modesty – disappeared along with pride ... ‘I’ was not doing this. I saw and understood that we humans were trying to make life fit our petty demands; our pathetic dreams; our desperate schemes ... and who am ‘I’ to know better than this infinite, eternal and perpetual universe how to do it. Because all the while, perfection was abounding all about ... magically unfolding, each moment again, if only one would give oneself permission to ‘let go the controls’ and allow it all to happen of its own accord. Again, none of this is to negate the very essential patiently acquired skills and expertise ... otherwise one is as a leaf blowing in the wind (‘think not of the morrow’ and all that nonsense). Initially I described it as ‘being like a child again but with adult sensibilities’. Of course, time would show me that being ‘child-like’ is not it ... but that was ‘my’ beginning explanation back then when seeking to understand. Back in 1980 ‘I’ looked at the stars one night and temporarily came to my senses: there are galaxies exploding/imploding (or whatever) all throughout the physical infinitude where an immeasurable quantity of matter is perpetually arranging and rearranging itself in endless varieties of form all over the boundless reaches of infinite space throughout the limitless extent of eternal time and ‘I’ – puny, pathetic ‘I’ in an ant-like-in-comparison and very vulnerable 6’2’’ flesh and blood body – disapprove of all this? That is, ‘I’ call all this a ‘sick joke’, or whatever depreciative assessment? And further: so what if ‘I’ were to do an about-face and graciously approve? What difference would that make to the universe? Zilch. Ergo: ‘I’, with all my abysmal opinions, theories, concepts, values, principles, judgements and so on, am not required at all ... ‘I’ am a supernumerary. ‘I’ am redundant; ‘I’ can retire; fold ‘my’ hand; pack in the game, die, dissolve, disappear, disintegrate, depart, vamoose, vanish – whatever – and life would manage quite well, thank you, without ‘me’ ... a whole lot better, in fact, as ‘I’ am holding up the works from functioning smoothly .. ‘I’ am not needed ... ‘my’ services are no longer required. RESPONDENT: As an aside, I also thought you might be interested in the following, which (after reading about your ‘thirtieth of October 1992 curious event’) perhaps helps me understand why the imaging faculty (so connected to feelings) is no longer active in your neo-cortex. • [quote]: ‘A Synesthetic World Neurologist Richard Cytowic has spent years studying synesthetes, people who are born fully synesthetic. Such people may see golden balls when hearing a vibraphone or a glass column when they taste spearmint. Some feel geometric shapes pressing against their skin on tasting certain foods or even twist their bodies involuntarily into characteristic shapes in response to hearing specific words. This condition brings to mind the splashes, lines, and colours the Russian journalist Shereshevesky (the man who remembered everything) saw when certain words were pronounced. Shereshevesky was, in fact, a classic synesthete. While conducting a radioactive brain scan on one synesthetic subject, Cytowic was shocked to see a wholesale diversion of blood flow from the cerebral cortex as the man entered a synesthetic experience. ‘We have never, never seen anything like it’, Cytowic later remarked. The cortex, or ‘grey matter’ is usually considered the most human part of the brain, responsible for higher intellectual thought. Because blood was diverted from the cortex during synesthesia, Cytowic hypothesized that commingling of the senses must occur deep in the limbic system, the instinctive portion of the brain that gives rise to primitive drives such as hunger, emotion, and sexual desire. In nonsynesthetic people, the cortex acts as a Squelcher, suppressing synesthesia and keeping it safely corralled in the limbic brain. On a conscious level, most of us therefore perceive sharp boundaries between the senses. But our unconscious minds apparently function in a fully synesthetic world’ [endquote]. I find it quite viable as you say, that ‘thought needs no ‘I’ to operate and function’, but I cannot help but wonder whether there isn’t a skerrick of imagination which also needs no ‘I’ to operate and function? RICHARD: No ... if there is a ‘a skerrick of imagination’ then there is guaranteed to be a skerrick of ‘I’ lurking about somewhere cunningly disguised as ‘naturalness’ or ‘spontaneity’ or ‘unaffectedness’ or whatever. Guaranteed. RESPONDENT: Is all imagery connected to the limbic system, to feeling, as the synesthetes above? RICHARD: All imagery is a product of the imaginative/intuitive facility contained within the psyche – the affective faculty – born of the instinctual passions. When the instinctual passions are deleted, the entire psyche itself ceases to exist ... thus the imaginative apparatus also disappears in toto. RESPONDENT: Could it be that there are non feeling images, that we create an image of sorts, in our mind for each and every thought? RICHARD: There is no such thing as ‘non-feeling images’ ... without the affective faculty there is no visualising, no forming images, no picturing, no ‘seeing in my mind’s eye’, no intuiting, no feeling, no envisioning, no falling into a reverie, no daydreaming, no conceptualising, no envisaging in any way, shape or form. There is only the magical unfolding of the actual ... actuality is far, far better than anything ‘I’ could imagine, dream, contrive or concoct. RESPONDENT: Still reading through your web site, most appreciated, and having a great laugh about the Konrad dialogue. RICHARD: I thoroughly enjoyed my dialogues with Konrad (for all his preoccupation with logical principles) because he dared to have experiences that pushed the envelope more than a little (possibly dangerously) for him. Those conversations were about two years ago ... he still lobs an E-Mail into my mail box, every six months or so, which is a copy of an exchange he is having with someone else to whom he is giving his latest understanding/explanation of the ‘Richard’s Metaphysics Of Actualism’ that he has invented. As nothing fundamental has changed I have not been inclined to respond. It is all good fun ... and very informative. RICHARD: Succinct means concise, pithy, to the point. I was amused by the use of the word ‘succinct’ when seen in the context of who made the request, that is all ... and I capitalised on it. I happen to like the English language, you see. RESPONDENT: You may like to read the English language, but it is much more fun to read people. The English language is a tool which is used to ‘read’ others or things. Perhaps this is what you are not reading, whilst being ‘hung up’ on just reading the words. Her posts may be abstruse in the sense of ‘difficult to understand’ in the way she puts her words together, but in no way are they concealing her. I feel as though I know her from reading her posts because she has been very open, vulnerable, and has shared her ‘self’ with everyone. RICHARD: Golly ... what can I say? Apparently I am ‘hung up’ on ‘just reading words’ ... yet that is all there is to read. I do not – and can not – ‘read’ people ... that is called forming an image about the other. The ‘image-maker’ has vanished out of me. The humour was in the writing style – the words themselves as arranged together – and not in poking fun at the (unknown) person writing them. My style had just been accurately dubbed ‘compressed format’ – which I found humorous because it is – and I extended this humour to include another person’s style, which by no stretch of the imagination could be called ‘succinct’. It’s no big deal ... humour is just finding something funny. RESPONDENT: Is your imaginary peace so vulnerable to contamination? RICHARD: It is not my peace-on-earth nor anybody else’s. It is freely available. And it is not ‘vulnerable to contamination’ because nothing dirty can get in ... therefore it is wide-open and unprotected. I have no imagination whatsoever ... the intuitive/imaginative faculty is not extant in this flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: Or so you would have us imagine. RICHARD: No, I always advise against using imagination ... and idealising, visualising, believing, trusting, hoping and having faith and so on. * RESPONDENT: That is what I am asking you (to imagine). RICHARD: I have no imagination whatsoever ... the intuitive/imaginative faculty is not extant in this flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: Descriptions do not apply to the actual, actual world like they do to the actual conceived (by thought) world – do they? RICHARD: May I suggest? Publish this rewrite of the dictionaries, that you are busy with, as soon as possible so that others can know what you mean? In the meanwhile, the word ‘actual’ means: ‘already occurring; existing as factually true; as in act; deed’ ... which means physically existing here on earth, visible to the senses. RESPONDENT: But I do each time I write ... it is like a river though: always changing (which is very convenient for a sophistry wizard like myself. LOL). Do you believe in the little man up in the control room of the brain who receives all the incoming data from the senses and then plans, predicts/orchestrates his reactions to Life? If so, LOL). RICHARD: I have no intuitive or imaginative faculties whatsoever ... that all disappeared in 1992. I am incapable of the activity of believing ... let alone believing in something. * RICHARD: Whereas the word ‘fantasy’, being derived from ‘phantasy’ means: ‘phantom made visible by imagination’ ... and etymologically, the word ‘believe’ means: ‘fervently wishing to be factually true’. I only mention this because a world ‘conceived (by thought)’ can never be actual. RESPONDENT: Well it (the thought conceived world) is actual in the sense that it is superimposed onto the actual world and thus actually divides one (conceptually) from the actual world. RICHARD: Given that a conceptual world is not the actual world (being a fantasy) to then superimpose a conceptual world onto the actual world cannot be actual in the sense that it ‘actually divides one (conceptually) from the actual world’ because the superimposition renders the actual world invisible. Thus you are being divided (conceptually) from a conceptualised actual world and not from the actual world itself. Therefore, it is not actually a separation from the actual world at all but a conception of being actually divided (conceptually) from the conceptually imposed superimposition. Pray tell me ... do you practice detachment? RESPONDENT: Do you really expect me to believe that you have not thought in images for a year or more? Having a hard time imagining that. RICHARD: I am factually free the intuitive/imaginative faculty irrespective of whether person (A) believes my words to be true or whether person (B) believes my words to be false. My freedom from the intuitive/imaginative faculty has nothing whatsoever to do with what other people believe or disbelieve. However, their own freedom from the human condition – which is what is of crucial importance here – is dependent upon their remembering at least one of their PCE’s accurately ... and herein I can play a part in affirming and confirming their personal experience of the perfection of the infinitude of this material universe. I do not want any one to merely believe me. I stress to people how vital it is that they see for themselves. If they were so foolish as to believe me then the most they would end up in is living in a dream state and thus miss out on the actual. I do not wish this fate upon anyone ... I like my fellow human beings. Of course, if they believe my words to be false they close the door on their own freedom from the human condition and have to invent a synthetic freedom ... be it a conceptual freedom or whatever substitute for the actual they manage to spin out of their intuitive/imaginative faculty. RESPONDENT: You are not a machine (computer) are you? Do you have a heart? RICHARD: A physical heart that pumps blood, yes ... a ‘bleeding heart’ as in piteous sentimentality, no. You see, I actually care about my fellow human being ... not merely feel that I care. * RESPONDENT: I am afraid I do not take you seriously. First you claim to have no beliefs or images (‘I have no intuitive or imaginative faculties whatsoever ... that all disappeared in 1992’.), then you write: ‘And this freedom from the human condition would revolutionise the concept of humanity. It would be a free association of peoples world-wide; a utopian-like loose-knit affiliation of like-minded individuals (etc.)’ The above quote is your image of what ‘this freedom’ would be like (it is very much like the famous song John Lennon’s wrote: ‘Imagine’ (image-ine). RICHARD: Hmm ... why do you write to a Mailing List, ostensibly set-up to explore ways to end all the appalling misery and mayhem that is the human condition, if this is the best you can come up with? Can you possibly move on from this ‘you have an image’ retort you keep applying? Can you not sincerely address yourself to the question? RESPONDENT: So you obviously do have images. How do you explain (rationalise?) this discrepancy in the credibility of your claims? RICHARD: Because by being this flesh and blood apperceptive brain I am/have full use of this apperceptive thinking brain’s capacity for rational (sensible) thought. It is obvious that if (‘if’) each and ever human being were to free themselves from the human condition then this unilateral action would result in a free association of peoples world-wide; a utopian-like loose-knit affiliation of like-minded individuals. One would be a citizen of the world, not of a sovereign state. Countries, with their artificial borders would vanish along with the need for the military. As nationalism would expire, so too would patriotism with all its heroic evils. No police force would be needed anywhere on earth; no locks on the doors, no bars on the windows. Gaols, judges and juries would become a thing of the dreadful past. People would live together in peace and harmony, happiness and delight. Pollution and its cause – over-population – would be set to rights without effort, as competition would be replaced by cooperation. No longer need people lament the futility of trying to escape from the folly of the ‘Human Condition’. Never again would fear rule the earth; terror would stalk its prey no more ... and another 160,000,000 human beings would not be killed in wars by their fellow human next century. But even if global peace was a long time coming – as is most probable due to stubbornly recalcitrant identities – the most appealing aspect of actual freedom is its instant bestowal of universal peace upon the individual daring enough to go all the way. RESPONDENT: See my statements above in which I request you to explain the contradiction between your claim that you are image free and your image of ‘peace on earth’. RICHARD: Golly ... you do go on. Why are you doing this? Is this all too difficult to see as a simple cause and effect? RESPONDENT: Cause and effect are images superimposed onto the perceived world to make ‘sense’ out of it, are they not? RICHARD: Shall I put it this way?
Given that rain falling/ground wet and sun warming/seeds germinating and vegetation growing/animals eating and animals eating/animals flourishing is an already existing process, do you still maintain that what humans call ‘cause and effect’ are just ‘images superimposed onto the perceived world to make ‘sense’ out of it’ or a description of an actuality that happens whether you imagine it, conceptualise it, believe it or in any other way concoct it out of ‘No. 25 as Consciousness’? What I am getting at is that all this stuff that is happening – this body and that body and mountains and streams and planets and stars – is happening independent of your superimpositions or lack of superimpositions. Plus I took the opportunity to slip in a little bit of much-needed patting-on-the-back for human intelligence. * RICHARD: I will attend to the second issue, regarding how a simple seeing of a certainty (that if each and every human being freed themselves from the human condition there would be a global peace on earth) can be a rational and sensible observation without such a reasonable and level-headed appraisal having to be an image (‘a mental picture of something not real or present’ – the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language) as both you and No. 14 seem to be insisting it must be. RESPONDENT: You are now using the word image in a way that would not be common in a group of listeners familiar with Krishnamurti. RICHARD: No ... it was No. 14 who posted the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language definition of the word ‘image’ (at the top of this post) and to which post you responded with self-congratulatory preening. To now say that I am ‘using the word image in a way that would not be common in a group of listeners familiar with Krishnamurti’ is you being disingenuous, to say the least. RESPONDENT: You are mistaken (about everything but the preening). No. 14 posted the definition of image (in my opinion) because it is you who are fond of dictionaries and because there was a contradiction between what you were writing and your claim to be without images. RICHARD: I always start a communication from an established agreement as to the meaning of a word – the general dictionary meaning – and then when we put a particular twist on a word (like I do with ‘actual’ and ‘real’ or ‘fact’ and ‘truth’ for example) we know where we started from. And I have no objection to the definition (as above) ... but I was responding to you saying that I was ‘using the word image in a way that would not be common in a group of listeners familiar with Krishnamurti’ where I was not doing that ... it was No. 14 who posted a definition to which you responded. As I have said, over and over again, that ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul (the ‘identity’ is the ‘image-maker’ in K-speak) is extinct and that the intuitive/imaginative faculty has vanished, I did not consider it necessary to say it again in the context that No. 14 and yourself were presenting. But so we do not get bogged down in what is/was meant in a sentence (like the ‘peace is nowhere to be found’ shemozzle) allow me to explain that I could not form a ‘mental picture of something not real or present’ if my life depended upon it. I literally cannot visualise, cannot make images ... whereas for the first 34 years ‘I’ could get a picture in ‘my mind’s eye’ of ‘my’ absent mother, wife, children and so on or the painting ‘I’ was going to paint or the coffee-table ‘I’ was going to build or the route ‘I’ was going to take in ‘my’ car and so on and so on. If I were to close my eyes and ‘visualise’, what happens is the same velvety-smooth darkness – as looking into the infinite and eternal space of the universe at night – that has been the case for eighteen years now. I cannot visualise, imagine, conceptualise ... when I recall my childhood, my young manhood, my middle ages or yesterday it is as if it were a documentary on television but with the picture turned off: words only. It is the affective content that makes memories ‘real’ ... and it is the self-same process that makes imagining a future ‘real’. RESPONDENT: If ‘peace’ is a deduction (however reasonable and level-headed) you are making then it is an image (both in K-speak and in the source No. 14 cited). You are dancing, and yet claiming you’re feet are not moving – so you are either mesmerizing my perceptive ‘faculties’ with your brilliance, or, alas, once again my attention span is waning. RICHARD: Shall I put it this way?
A practical example disposes of the need for images even if the image-maker is still extant. RESPONDENT: What exactly then do you mean when you claim to be free of images? Are you (instead) claiming that you live completely ‘reasonably and level-headedly’? RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: Then why say you are ‘free of image-making?’ RICHARD: Mainly because I am free of ‘image-making’. It is an accurate self-report. RESPONDENT: Don’t you see the false perception you cause in the listener who takes you at your word? RICHARD: No ... I see instead the ‘false perception’ that ‘the listener’ causes by not reading with both eyes. RESPONDENT: Why not simply say ‘I am completely reasonable and level-headed?’ RICHARD: Because there is much, much more to being free of ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul than being ‘completely reasonable and level-headed’ ... sensibility is a by-product, as it were. RESPONDENT: Though you would probably be responded to with ‘lots of laughter’. RICHARD: Aye ... if the ‘Richard’ that was for 33 years could have met me face-to-face (or read my words) ‘he’ would have dismissed me as being ‘off with the fairies’ or ‘up yourself’ ... ‘he’ was quite cynical and sarcastic. But ... one night ‘he’ had a PCE that made ‘him’ sit up and pay attention. Thus I am freed to be here ... now. * RESPONDENT: Forgive me sir for being inattentive, but please define exactly what you mean by ‘images’ once again. (I ask this because the above sentence reads somewhat like an oxymoron). RICHARD: In the context being discussed, an image is any plan (a strategy contemplated for future activation with reflection on past experience so as to effect the optimum considered result) which is contaminated by an identity skulking about inside the body making it ‘real’ in imagination because of the influence of the entire affective faculty. In another context, an image is ‘who I think and feel I am’ as distinct from what I actually am. In another context, an image is a drawing, a painting, a photograph or any other pictorial representation of the world of people, things and events. In another context, an image is what is seen in a mirror, a sheet of still water, a burnished metal plate and so on. In another context, an image is an undesired radio signal whose frequency is as much above that of the local oscillator of a superheterodyne receiver as the signal sought is below it, and which therefore may cause interference. Which is a similar kind of ‘interference’ to the impediment ‘you’ are causing that prevents these words being read with both eyes. RICHARD: It is no wonder that you say ‘I sense that something is not quite ‘right’’ when you read what I have to say ... I am a thorough-going atheist through and through; there is not the slightest trace of religiosity, spirituality or mysticality in me whatsoever. To be actually free of the human condition is to be sans ‘I’ as ego (the ‘thinker’) and ‘me’ as soul (the ‘feeler’) which is to be this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. And where there is no ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul (no psyche) there is no imaginative/intuitive faculty ... hence no ‘this other ‘mind’’ metaphysical projection. It is all so simple here in this actual world. RESPONDENT: Why do you say that there is no imaginative faculty? RICHARD: Because it is my on-going experience, night and day since 1992, that the entire imaginative/intuitive faculty has vanished. I literally cannot visualise, form images, envision, ‘see in my mind’s eye’, envisage, picture, intuit, feel, fall into a reverie, daydream or in any way, shape or form imaginatively access anything other than directly apprehending what is happening just here right now. I could not form a mental picture of something ‘other’ if my life depended upon it. I literally cannot make images ... whereas in my earlier years ‘I’ could get a picture in ‘my mind’s eye’ of ‘my’ absent mother, wife, children and so on ... or the painting ‘I’ was going to paint, or the coffee-table ‘I’ was going to build, or the route ‘I’ was going to take in ‘my’ car or whatever. If I were to close my eyes and ‘visualise’ now, what happens is the same velvety-smooth darkness – as looking into the infinite and eternal space of the universe at night – that has been the case for all these years now. I cannot visualise, imagine, conceptualise ... when I recall my childhood, my young manhood, my middle ages or yesterday it is as if it were a documentary on television but with the picture turned off (words only) or like reading a book of someone else’s life. It is the affective content that makes memories ‘real’ – the entire psyche itself – and it is the self-same process that makes imagining a past or a future ‘real’ that makes an ‘otherness’ even more ‘real’ than everyday reality. RESPONDENT: To ‘imagine’ is a sane faculty of this multi-media-brain-mind. RICHARD: I have not been sane for many, many years. It is pertinent to acknowledge that sane people killed 160,000,000 of their sane fellow human beings in wars this century alone ... and then there is all the murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides to further give pause to reconsider whether sanity is such a desirable state of being as sane peoples make out. Sanity is personally insalubrious and socially reprehensible. RESPONDENT: I can imagine a cow right now – with or without an I or ‘me’. RICHARD: I cannot ... I can intellectually know what a cow is like in that I can draw a reasonable facsimile; yet as I am drawing I cannot visualise what the finished drawing will be like ... it becomes apparent as the drawing progresses. RESPONDENT: And when I say ‘this other mind’, I mean that I am not referring to the brain function, but to this dimension here – the human dimension. Blood and flesh are just particular contents of this dimension, it is not correct to posit it the other way around – meaning that the human dimension is a product of the brain. RICHARD: Why? Mystics are notorious for doing what you talk of ... fervently imagining something awesome, projected from the flesh and blood brain, that they then adoringly say is the source of the flesh and blood brain that is hallucinating the source’s ‘reality’. This material universe is the source of this flesh and blood brain – it is this flesh and blood brain itself – and this infinite and eternal universe is already always here ... now. I am this universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being. RESPONDENT: ‘Object estrangement’ is a prerequisite to the Unconditionality of Enlightenment. RICHARD: Yes ... my point exactly. RESPONDENT: The concept of objects, of ‘self’ and ‘other selfs’ is a condition that must be ‘trail-blazed’. RICHARD: In other words: imagination? RESPONDENT: No, not imagination. There Really is no self ... as ego has defined self that is. There are no ‘objects’. RICHARD: Just so that it is crystal clear what you are saying (because this is the second time you have said ‘there are no objects’): do you not acknowledge this body and that body and every body are actually happening? Are you saying that one should deny the very existence of the flesh and blood bodies called ‘Richard’ and ‘Mary’ and ‘John’ and so on? Are you saying that the mountains and the streams; the trees and the flowers; the clouds in the sky by day and the stars in the firmament by night and so on and so on ad infinitum are not actual? Are you saying that the object, called a computer monitor, you are reading these words on is not actual? If you reply to these questions – especially the last – you are acknowledging the actuality of the object called ‘computer monitor’. * RESPONDENT: Concepts arise when subject separates ‘self’ from objects, ‘other selfs’. RICHARD: Conceptualising is only problematic as long as imagination operates. RESPONDENT: Conceptualising is a product of ego. Its not problematic, because concepts are delusions of ego. RICHARD: A flesh and blood body can conceptualise sans ‘I’ as ego ... mathematics, for example (2+2=4). RESPONDENT: Its not problematic, because concepts are delusions of ego. RICHARD: What I was referring to by conceptualising only being problematic as long as imagination is extant is this whole delusion which you call ‘Unconditional Light’. This which you say is ‘who we Are’ exists only in the psyche ... imagination running riot with concepts, in other words. Commonly called beliefs.
SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE ON IMAGINATION (Part Two) RETURN TO RICHARD’S SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust 1997-2001 |
