Richard’s Selected Writings

The Divine ‘Beings’ have been peddling their snake oil for centuries to no avail. Their time has come to either put up or shut up ... how much longer than these thousands of years do peoples need to further test the efficaciousness of their failed Divine Message? If Love Agapé and Divine Compassion, for example, were the way to go, then there would already be global peace, as they have had two to three thousand years to demonstrate their effectiveness as being the ultimate solution. There is no ‘Peace On Earth’ ... nor has there ever been; there has only ever been a truce from time to time between warring parties. To call these periods ‘peacetime’ is to misuse the word and make it mean something it does not.

In actualism it is readily experienced and understood that Divine Compassion – which is born out of sorrow – is but a paltry substitute for the over-arching benevolence of the actual world. Similarly, Love Agapé is seen and known to be a pathetic surrogate for the actual intimacy of direct experiencing ... Love Agapé and Divine Compassion are deep feelings which the psychological or psychic identity within creates in order to sustain itself and perpetuate its self-centred existence. Love is born out of loneliness ... or in the case of the Enlightened Ones, out of Aloneness ... and is touted as being the cure-all for humankind’s failings because it imitates the intimacy of the actual via a feeling of Oneness. The feeling of Oneness creates an erroneous impression that separation is ended ... but the self survives triumphant, only to wreak its havoc in the real world once again. Life can be a grim and glum business in the real world, for separation ceases only when the psychological and psychic entity inside the body – the ego and the soul – is extirpated. In actual freedom there is a universal magnanimity which is so vastly superior to petty forgiveness or pardon that any comparison is worthless.

Actual intimacy – being here now – does not come from love, for love stems from separation. The illusion of intimacy that love produces is but a meagre imitation of this direct experience of the actual. In the actual world, ‘I’ as ego, the personality, and ‘me’ as soul, the ‘being’ – both subjectively experienced as one’s identity – have ceased to exist; whereas love accentuates, endorses and verifies ‘me’ as being real. And while ‘I’ am real, ‘I’ am relative to other similarly afflicted persons; vying for position and status in order to establish ‘my’ credentials ... to verify ‘my’ very existence. To be actually intimate is to be without the separative identity ... and therefore free from the need for love with its ever un-filled promise of Peace On Earth. There is an actual intimacy between me and my companion. Actual intimacy is a direct experiencing of the other. I am having a superb time ... and it is a well-earned superb time, too. Nothing has come without application – apart from serendipitous discoveries because of pure intent – and I am reaping the rewards which are plentiful and deliciously satisfying. Actual intimacy frees one up to a world of actual splendour, based firmly upon sensual and sexual delight. The candid and unabashed sensate enjoyment of one’s body and the world around one is such a luscious and immediate experience, that the tantalising but ever-elusive promise of the mystique of love fades into the oblivion it deserves.

I already know that the divided world-view does not work ... there is no peace and harmony anywhere in the world, nor at any time in history. It can only promote war and truce. I am extremely interested in why it does not work. To find the answer, I clearly saw the need to question – to scrutinise – each component, each belief and each value that made up ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’, ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’. It was, at times, rather daunting and alarming for us to ask such questions as: ‘If we women intuitively understand ourselves and each other unequivocally, as we would have everyone believe, why then are we so unable and unwilling to explain ourselves to men?’ Or, conversely: ‘If we men are so convinced of our authority and our ability to solve problems using its power, then why have we been unable to solve our conflict with each other and with women?’ These queries lead to more specific questions like: ‘Why is love manipulative?’ ... ‘Why is authority deemed essential?’ ... ‘Why is love so fickle, unreliable?’ ... ‘Why does problem-solving create more problems?’ ... ‘Why is the promise of love so elusive; does love actually subvert intimacy?’ ... ‘Why is power corrupt; does authority actually subvert peace?’

It is well-known that the war between the sexes is a power-battle. It is kept alive by the woman’s identification with Love as being the Ultimate and by the man’s identification with Authority as being the Ultimate. Both the power of Love and Authority vie for supremacy ... Love has its intrinsic Authority and Authority has its intrinsic Love. Both provide the illusion of security so desperately sought for by billions of people throughout the ages. Whenever we trip over an issue of man-woman differences and find ourselves falling back into our gender identities we notice, while looking at each other over a gulf of separation, a marked lack of equity and mutual intimacy between us. Then again, in our long periods of mutual intimacy, we experience that neither Authority nor Love plays any role. Can we contemplate a life together where intimacy and equity are paramount? Wherein the power of Love and Authority become irrelevant? Any Authority precludes equity ... and therefore intimacy. Any Love precludes intimacy ... and therefore equity.

It all stems from separation. There is a separation of male and female from each other by gender identification as ‘man’ and ‘woman’ – two distinct social identities – leading to a localised discontent and resentment, causing the battle between the sexes. Then there is the separative ‘I’ or ‘me’ – a psychological and psychic identity – forever alienated from one’s body and from the world of people things and events, leading to a generalised discontent and resentment, causing wars between tribal groups. To end the separative social identity, one can whittle away at all the social mores and psittacisms ... those mechanical repetitions of previously received ideas or images, reflecting neither apperception nor autonomous reasoning. One can examine all the beliefs, ideas, values, theories, truths, customs, traditions, ideals, superstitions ... and all the other schemes and dreams. One can become aware of all the socialisation, of all the conditioning, of all the programming, of all the methods and techniques that were used to control what one finds oneself to be ... a wayward ego and compliant soul careering around in confusion and illusion. A ‘mature adult’ is actually a lost, lonely, frightened and cunning psychological entity overlaying a psychic ‘being’. However, it is never too late to start in on uncovering and discovering what one actually is.

The cycle I have discovered lies in how humans have been taught to deal with this learned behaviour. It starts at the beginning of the relationship: A man and a woman are initially separate, they meet, fall in love, feel totally accepted, appreciated and loved for being who they are ... everything is rosy. They want to spend all their time together, the sex is marvellous ... until the love diminishes, the ‘honey-moon’ is over, and they start feeling their separation once more. This brings frustration, they blame each other for not being loving enough. ‘You never bring me flowers any more’, or ‘You are no longer the sexy woman you once were’.

One starts to become irritated by the other’s character traits – which one used to find so endearing when one were in love – one starts to niggle, one begins to pick fault, one attempts to hurt the other. One picks a fight, after which there is often a silent going your separate ways. One feels bad. The one who ostensibly started the fight begins to feel sorry: if there is sufficient remorse, the other will forgive. The love flows again, one makes promises, trust is restored – one has ‘made-up’ – until next time, that is. This entire process of love, hurting, anger, remorse, forgiveness and then love again is learned behaviour. And nobody seems to question the validity of this time-honoured process. Does it work? Does it produce a lasting intimacy? Does it produce perennial peace and harmony? Does it produce perfection? Is there something original, authentic, genuine, that will?

‘Man’ and ‘woman’ are in two separate camps; it is as if they are two different races. So they start from separation ... and love seems to promise to bring them together, to provide the intimacy they all long for. But my question is: why are humans separate to start of with? Is it an actual separation – apart from the physical differences – or have humans been trained into an artificial separation? Is one not conditioned to think – and feel – as a ‘man’ and as a ‘woman’? Has one not taken on a gender identity and think and feel it to be ‘me’? So is there not an artificial entity, an ‘I’, that one takes to be me as I actually am? One’s most intimate ‘being’ is a fiction anyway, so any gender identity overlaid is equally false. If ‘I’ am false, artificial, then any connection – a bridge – between two psychological entities can only be as artificial as the separation itself.

Love is this bridge. Love is artificial. Being artificial it needs constant stimulus to keep it ‘alive’. Therefore, the moment it starts to sag, the cycle automatically swings into action; frustration, niggles, fights, hurt, resentment, remorse, repentance, forgiveness, promises ... then back to love and trust again. Although everybody promises each time, in contrition, to forgive and forget, they never do. The promise to forgive and forget is never carried out. The hurt, frustration and anger is unconsciously stored away, adding to the already existing resentment that ‘man’ and ‘woman’ feel toward each other for being separative in the first place. This entire process has no chance of producing anything other than an artificial intimacy.

Why does one feel the need to have faith and to trust another? To trust someone indicates a lack of confidence in oneself, and faith indicates a lack of certainty about living in general. All things happen for many reasons and it is useless to apportion blame ... the emotional investment in blaming is debilitating and prevents the clarity necessary for honest appraisal. Likewise the ardent stake one places in faith and trust to produce the desired effect is also enervating ... and it leaves one open to self-induced feelings of betrayal. People have been taught have faith and to trust – or not have faith and not to trust – somebody or some event, without ever questioning whether the action of faith and trust itself is an appropriate tool for living one’s life. Can humans dispense with faith and trust altogether? It is not set in stone that faith and trust is a must; one can make one’s own way in life without carrying all that baggage of belief that humankind has been burdened with for centuries. What about knowing? With knowing, one has confidence. Confidence and certainty renders faith and trust irrelevant. To know oneself – and others – is to be original, authentic and, of course, sincere. Such a person is fascinating to be with. Each moment again is full of freshness and delight for oneself and for the other. Where there is deceit – selling oneself out to fit society’s straitjacket – there is a need for faith and trust. Faith and trust in another is nothing but the hope that somebody else believes as much in self-deceit as oneself does. By ‘blue-print’ I mean conditioning into society at large.

With no beliefs to defend, I have no differences to resolve. Most people try to resolve their different beliefs through compromise. Two people, holding on to their own beliefs, will get into an argument, a fight. They are separate. One is always trying to get the other to believe in their own belief through manipulation and persuasion ... and by giving or withholding love. The one who is stronger, the most adept in this, wins the other over. As neither can stand separation, they will grab any means to come together ... even if this means mutual concessions, or the swapping of one’s belief for the other’s.

Seeing that both beliefs are irrelevant, by virtue of the fact that they are beliefs anyway, they can dissolve completely. Then there is nothing to resolve, the problem itself is eliminated. Hence a permanent lack of conflict. With the absence of belief there are no more power battles over whose belief is ‘Right’. Separation is no more ... equity prevails.

The result is actual intimacy between autonomous individuals.

People get married with love as the basis of their relationship, hoping that love will cure the desperate loneliness caused by separation. If this love cannot make a marriage work – and by work I mean promoting peace and harmony and a lively zest for living – then how can it be expected to work on a community level? The same applies to a country; patriotism and nationalism are but a larger version of belonging, of community spirit. And on an international level the rot becomes obvious, humanitarian ideals notwithstanding. Just look at the incurable failure of the ‘International Community’ to achieve peace and harmony and prosperity for all. The United Nations Organisation, and its fore-runner, The League of Nations, are prime examples of the failure of the ‘cure’ of community spirit. It is only the individual person who can facilitate effective change, bringing peace, vitality and vividness into daily life. A person’s character is formed by the essence of their ‘being’... and ‘being’ itself is the root-cause of all the ills of humankind.

One has ‘been’ in the past, one is ‘being’ in the present, and one will ‘be’ in the future. That ‘being’ is what one calls ‘I’, taking it to be me; me as-I-am. ‘I’ was, ‘I’ am, ‘I’ will be ... this sense of continuity, an instinctual entity called ‘me’ existing over time, is not me as-I-am. I do not exist over time; I exist only as this moment exists, and now has no duration. Therefore I am never lonely, for there is no separation; there is only actual intimacy. Whereas ‘I’, out of loneliness, attempt to bridge the separation between ‘myself’ and others similarly afflicted with ‘being’, via emotions – be it affection, love, pity, sympathy, empathy or compassion – to induce an artificial intimacy. The problem with emotion is that it is fickle; one can switch it on and off. A person can be said to be generous with their love ... or parsimonious. Such illusory intimacy is unreliable, dependent upon predilection, mood and receptivity. Actual intimacy – the direct experience of the other – is ever-constant; it is not in the control of a wayward ego or a compliant soul. It cannot be switched on or off, given or withheld. It is not ‘mine’, it is simply here, all of the time.

Please, do not confuse what I am talking of, which is an actual intimacy, with True intimacy. True intimacy lies in the delusory nature of Love Agapé, with its Divine Bliss. One can become lost in the Eternal Mystery, the Great Unknown. Beguiled and bewitched by the promise of Glory and Glamour and Glitz, one has every reason to be afraid ... one will have fallen under a Divine spell, intoxicated by The Sublime. Actual intimacy is innocence personified; a self-less experience characterised by blitheness and gaiety because of the marked lack of separation. There is no distance, psychologically speaking, between me and these birds, these flowers, these trees ... and between me and you. Actual intimacy has nothing to do with love ... love is a bridge between two separate social identities, creating the illusion of intimacy. And Love – Love Agapé or Divine Love – gives one a feeling of Oneness, a feeling of Unity ... an intuitive sense of ‘Being’. Then we are back to ‘being’ again, this time ‘Being’ with a capital to denote Divinity. ‘Being’, in whatever form, is the root-cause of all the ills of humankind.

It is indeed very pleasant to be sitting here, discussing life and what human beings get up to. To while away the afternoon promoting peace and harmony and serenity is a delightful pastime, for there are days like this where I am inspired to simply sit and talk ... and I can talk plenty. This is just as significant – if not more so – than mowing and weeding and mulching. It is all on a par when one is living life as it is meant to be lived. It is truly wonderful to be here now, doing this.

Life is a most marvellous experience.

It is simply exquisite to be sitting here, with an easy relaxation, secure not only in my own company, but in this glorious world I live in. There is an actual intimacy between me and my companion. Actual intimacy is a direct experiencing of the other. It is an actuality born out of pure intent. Pure intent is activated by paying intense attention – exclusive attention – to one’s peak experiences. This unwavering attention, without mincing words, amounts to an obsession; for how can a person possibly allow themselves to be unhappy and discontented when this world is such a marvellous place to be in? What a shame, what a pity ... no, what a sin it is to be disconsolate and miserable when this world is so glorious. To be here now, intimately here, is a satisfaction and fulfilment unparalleled in the annals of history.

Actual intimacy – being here now – does not come from love, for love stems from separation. The illusion of intimacy that love produces is but a pale imitation of this direct experience of the actual. In this, the actual world, ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul, the subjectively experienced identity busily ‘being’, has ceased to exist; whereas love accentuates, endorses and verifies ‘me’ as being real. A chief characteristic of the pure consciousness experience is the seeing through of the belief in ‘my’ existence. And while ‘I’ am real, ‘I’ am relative to other, similarly afflicted, persons; vying for position and status in order to establish ‘my’ credentials ... to verify ‘my’ very existence. In the actual world, I am already factual ... I do not have to prove myself. Hence an indifference to hierarchy, with its corruptible Authority and Power.

The main characteristic of the identity is its need, its must, to belong to the group. The group is the dominant authority, each member being forced into a role within the group according to the already existing hierarchical structure, which is common to all groups. Once the member has established its place – be it leadership or subservience – it feels ‘safe’, appreciated ... even loved. In order to preserve this ‘safety’, this belonging, this love, the member will not only defend and assert the group against other groups, but also its own role within the group. The moment this ‘safety’ is threatened, be it the individual’s position or the whole group’s, the identification with both the role and the group manifests itself as a matter of life and death. ‘I’ am at stake and ‘I’ will defend that ‘safety’ to the death if necessary. Conflict or war is the inevitable result.

However, the eternal cry of each group-member, each identity, is: ‘But what about me? You only love me for what I do, for what role I play, for my looks, for my bank-balance ... or for whatever attribute that has secured my place. I want to be loved for me, a unique individual!’ Yet this ‘unique individual’ only knows itself as a group-member. It defends itself as being part of the whole. All that area of ‘myself’ which cannot be displayed publicly must be kept secret. ‘My’ deepest feelings, ‘my’ objections, ‘my’ goals, must be suppressed in order not to upset the status-quo of the group ... and therefore, ‘my’ precious ‘safety’. Their love for ‘me’, their acceptance, is paramount. ‘I’ must sell-out me as-I-am in order to belong. This is ‘my’ uneasy perversion. ‘I’ would rather carry on being corrupted – and corrupting others – than risk the dreaded loneliness resulting from the loss of love and its implied security through alienation from the group to which ‘I’ belong.

The esteemed goal within each group is to reach for the leadership. There lies, seemingly, more power, more love, more acceptance and more individuality. There, it appears, ‘I’ can finally be myself. Supremacy, be it found in Spiritual Enlightenment, Religious Illumination, Mystical Union, or Philosophical Truth, is the Ultimate goal of the largest group within humankind: the Metaphysical Group. The Master, the Saint, and the Sage have all achieved the rewards of leadership: power over others, loving worship, fame and adulation ... and, quite often, wealth. Their sense of identity has fully expanded into identifying as a Divine Self. It is all at the expense of being me, however, for it is also lonely at the top. Loneliness may seem to diminish by belonging to the group, but it actually does not. Rather, it becomes more and more poignant the higher one climbs. The identity is alone and seeks Union with the Divine, thereby becoming a Universal Self.

The cause of loneliness and aloneness is not, as is commonly believed, alienation from others. The single reason for being alone and lonely is from not being me as-I-am. By not being me, but being, instead, an identity, ‘I’ am doomed to perpetual loneliness and aloneness. ‘I’ am fated to ever pursue an elusive Someone or Something that will fill that aching void. When I am me, there is no void. By being me as-I-am, I have no need for others; hence I also have no need to place the burden upon them to fulfil that what was lacking. Not only do I free myself from that perpetual pursuit, but I also free others in my company from the task ‘I’ impose upon them. Being me is actual fulfilment, each moment again. Nevermore will I be needy, greedy and grasping. Nevermore will I plot and plan and manipulate others. Nevermore will I have to prostitute myself to others to assuage those main attributes of the identity: being lost, lonely, frightened and cunning. Not only am I free, but I set all others free of ‘my’ grace-less demands. Being me is to be free-flowing, spontaneous, delightful ... and it is fun.

Actual freedom needs no protection. If it does, it is not worthy of the name. The ‘freedom’ that is attained by those who have only dissolved the ego is as about as useful as fools gold is: it is all glitter and no substance. The allure of the psychic world – the world of the Collective Unconscious – has seduced those ‘graced’ few with its seductive Powers. Enchanted and bewitched by the promise of Glamour and Glory and Glitz, they have succumbed, entranced, to the most insidious of the fantasies of humankind. From the most ancient of Gods and Goddesses, which humans know of from classical history, to their modern counterparts, the Spiritual Leaders of humankind have a common vulnerability: just like secular leaders they are stuck in a pecking order. Their passion for Power, their lust for Love and their fervour for Fame, comes from the inevitable hierarchical structure dictated by the Power and Authority situated unmanifest behind the throne. This hierarchy, needed and created by the psychic entity’s need to maintain its identity and grow even bigger, has no end to it. It persists even into the spurious After-Life. The entity’s very existence as a Spiritual ‘Being’ is dependent upon it.

Inevitably, another religion grows up around them ... they are the genesis of yet another group. Another group means a new member in the wars between the existing groups. Thus Love Agapé and Divine Compassion do not deliver on their oft-repeated promise of Peace On Earth for the very obvious reason that they cannot. They never have done and never will. On the contrary, Love Agapé and Divine Compassion has produced war after war ... slaughter and cruelties unimaginable have been the sorry history of religious groups throughout the ages and into the current era. And just as Spiritual Love and Compassion cannot deliver perfection and excellence, so too does personal love and compassion fail just as miserably. A man and a woman meet, fall in love, and all is rosy. Their love and compassion for each other can conquer all ... it seems. Yet it never does because, just like Spiritual Love and Compassion comes from the instinctualised psychic entity, personal love and compassion is but a product of the socialised psychological entity. Love and compassion are not actual. In the same way that the identity is a creation, so too is its love and compassion ... in whatever form. There is no such thing as Real Compassion and True Love ... no matter how much the religious and the romantics may protest it to be so. The evidence of the centuries does not substantiate their claim. Love and compassion simply cannot produce perfection and excellence because it has its built-in manipulation and corruption. Love and compassion does not come freely.

In a valiant attempt to remove doubt, passion can be brought into the search. Passion can produce love.

When ‘I’ experience love ‘I’ feel that life has meaning after all. Some brash souls have attained a state of Love Agapé, thereby believing that they have found the Ultimate Meaning. They have disseminated their findings to all and sundry down through the ages ... with ruinous results. They have led humankind astray, propelling people into the heights of hope ... before plunging them into the depths of despair, when their prognostications turn out to be invalid. Yet they continue to dish out rays of hope to their desperate believers ... the demand for hope by an ever increasing population in despair creates the marketing of ‘feel-good’ enterprises, giving rise to a lucrative market for Spiritual entrepreneurs. Their product is love ... and the feelings that love induces: self-acceptance, self-worth, self-esteem and the feeling of being needed. All these feelings serve to prop up an ailing self ... yet love, however lofty, is fickle and manipulative and ‘I’ must be ever vigilant. ‘I’ consist of a kaleidoscope of emotions and passions and therefore doubt is still not far away. This can hardly be called a satisfactory destination for the quest into finding the meaning of life.

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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