Richard’s Selected Writings

These pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s) which usually occur in a ‘peak experience’, as they are sometimes called, change one’s life forever. In a PCE everything is seen, with unparalleled clarity, to be already perfect ... that humans are all living in perfection ... if only one would act upon one’s seeing. In these moments, ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’, ‘Love’ and ‘Hate’, ‘Generosity’ and ‘Parsimony’, ‘Fear’ and ‘Trust’ ... all these and more, are simply irrelevant. Gods and Goddesses, Devils and Demons, all the battles that have raged throughout the ages are but a nightmare of passionate ‘human’ fantasy. There is a marked absence of hierarchy; no Religious Figure can match the matter-of-fact equality that pervades everything. A quality of kindly understanding prevails, dispensing forever with the need for Authority and Love and Truth and Beauty. And ... of course man and woman live together in perennial peace and harmony.

These pure consciousness experiences are so actual, so ultimate yet immediate, so relative yet so absolute, that they cannot be ignored. They leave a lasting impression upon one ... which can take the form of a pure intent. Pure intent is a palpable life-force; an actually occurring stream of benignity that originates in the perfect and vast stillness that is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe. It is no longer a matter of choice ... it is an irresistible pull. This pure intent is so impelling that it has kept us together for virtually twenty-four-hours-a-day from the moment we met on that sunny beach, a few short years ago ... and we are utterly pleased to have found one another. To have as a companion someone who shares the identical goal in life to oneself is occasion enough in itself for celebration. Then to have the success after success that we have had throughout our time together, is proof indeed of the benevolence and wisdom of a life well-lived.

The river-washed stones of the gravel path, which we have laid from the shed to the verandah, make a satisfying scrunching sound under my feet. Depositing the basket of eggs and tomatoes on the table in the miniature kitchen of the quaint little caravan that is home, I busy myself with the domestic tasks I enjoy so much. It is exquisite to be always doing things together, for my relationship is eminently satisfying. Soon enough, the aroma of freshly-brewed coffee is filling the air, enhancing the atmosphere.

There is time aplenty for our morning cup.

In spite of the fact that every single human being has had at least one pure consciousness experience – and usually more – in their lifetime, they somehow cannot differentiate between that peak experience of apperception (wherein ‘I’, the thought and felt ‘being’, temporarily quits the scene and the actual world becomes apparent) and their pre-conceived notions that everyday reality is an illusion disguising some metaphysical Greater Reality. The Glamour and the Glory and the Glitz of the Altered State Of Consciousness have a tenacious grip upon the minds and hearts of a benighted ‘humanity’. It is indeed strange, to the point of being bizarre, that so many persons will turn their backs on the purity of the perfection of being here now – of being fully alive – at this moment in time. Here in this actual world, which is where this body is living anyway, is the peace that everyone says they are searching for. All that is required is that one comes to one’s senses – both literally and metaphorically – and spend the rest of one’s life without malice and sorrow. One will be blithe and benign ... that is, carefree and harmless.

It is, of course, a bold step to forsake lofty thoughts, profound feelings and psychic adumbrations and enter the actuality of life as a sensate experience. It requires a startling audacity to devote oneself to the task of causing a mutation of consciousness to occur. To have the requisite determination to apply oneself, with the diligence and perseverance born out of pure intent, to the patient dismantling of one’s accrued social identity indicates a strength of purpose unequalled in the annals of history. It is no little thing that one does ... and it has enormous consequences, not only for one’s own well-being, but for humankind as a whole. With an actualism spread like a chain letter, in the due course of time, global freedom would revolutionise the concept of ‘humanity’. It would be a free association of peoples worldwide; 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.

It would be the pipe dreams come true.

We are sitting, a male and a female together, on the balcony over-looking the vast Pacific Ocean spread out to the front, in the early morning sunlight. The sun is sparkling and glittering atop a deep turquoise blue; the ocean’s foaming white waves steadily crashing with a deep roar, a mere hundred metres away, to the blinding-white sand of the beach; a beach which stretches virtually unbroken by headlands for kilometres in either direction from where I sit. I have just taken a shower and the sun’s warmth is a joy to my body. At this time of the year – about six weeks past mid-winter – although the nights are cold, the days are warm. It is very pleasant to be sitting here, basking in the gentle rays of sunshine streaming down upon the balcony. Its warmth seems to soak through the skin in a way that a hot shower or an artificial heater cannot. It is a tangibly intimate and palpable sensation, bringing with it a simple joy.

A drift of a breeze circulates around the balcony’s confines, ruffling my hair and hastening the drying process. It also ruffles the leaves of the potted plants, causing them to dance delightfully in the air about ... only to cease again, leaving all still once more. A neighbour’s radio is playing softly, the muted music coming pleasantly enough from their near distance. An occasional car goes past in the street below and far away, off near the blue horizon, a commercial jet-liner glints in the sunlight as it circles far out to sea preparatory to coming in to land at the airport nearby. The world of people, things and events is busy around me, as I sit here, in tranquil peace and ease.

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.

One cannot think or feel one’s way into actual freedom ... which is what I call living in the actual world, the world as-it-is in actuality. If one imagines, visualises, a world of purity, then all one will do is end up living in that passionate mental image. Anything imagined is not the actual. One does, however, need an absolute conviction that such a world does exist. This conviction comes out of a pure consciousness experience ... experiences that all humans have had at some stage in their life. These peak experiences are momentary glimpses into the actual, the world of perfection. In that PCE, it is immediately seen that ‘I’ do not actually exist. What one can do is induce another peak experience by pure contemplation of the existence of ‘that’ world ... which will initially be seen as being other than ‘here’. Indeed, from a ‘human’ point of view it is as if it was another dimension entirely. It is of the utmost importance to realise that ‘I’ cannot shift from the real to the actual; ‘I’ am as much of an illusion as the real world. ‘I’ and the real world both disappear and then – and only then – does the actual become apparent. ‘I’ do not manifest the actual world ... it is already always here. Because ‘I’ am living in an illusion, ‘I’ can only manifest yet another illusion ... or a massive delusion if ‘I’ am so crazed as to invoke the Greater Reality, as the spiritually inclined people do. Actuality is not to be confused with any Other-Worldly Reality in some Timeless Dimension ... actuality is here-and-now and on-the-ground. Actuality is physical, not metaphysical. It is perennial, not Timeless. It is perpetual, not Spaceless.

Pure contemplation is absolutely free from any pre-conceived concepts ... it lies beyond ‘human’ beliefs and ideals. There is a dare in pure contemplation ... daring to expect the utter best. Actual freedom is far superior to anything ‘I’ can aspire to; it makes ‘me’ and ‘my’ world obsolete. The actual world has nothing to do with ‘me’ and ‘my’ machinations: ‘my’ hopes, ‘my’ dreams, ‘my’ ideals, or ‘my’ longings. All these things come from the heart ... and the heart has led humankind astray for countless centuries. Passion, coupled with imagination, can only produce variations on that Timeless Reality so beloved by the Religious, Spiritual and Mystical peoples. Being ‘human’ is a feeling; being Divine is a passion. Feelings – emotions and passions – are a liability to one who is going to be actual. In actual freedom I am neither ‘human’ nor Divine, for I am not metaphysical. I am the third alternative: this very actual body.

Pure contemplation is not thinking ‘about’ something ... which is the usual way of thought. Pure contemplation does not take a duration of time. It is instant thought, a realisation, a flash of seeing. In pure contemplation ‘I’ do no thinking ... thinking does itself. ‘I’ have no substance, therefore in pure contemplation there is thinking without a ‘thinker’. Thought operates freely ... and in immaculate wonder. Pure contemplation is a state of unsullied wonderment: ‘how can this world happen?’, or ‘what is this universe doing here?’, or ‘where does this body come from?’. These questions are posed in such a way so as not to get a thought-out answer, but to simply wonder, in a pure contemplation of the actual. One stays with the notion: ‘I am this body’ and regards that magical world of the PCE. Opening up to that fairy tale-like world by seeing that it is indeed possible now makes it close ... so close as to be already here. It is already always here. Regard the very best as possible for oneself ... and for all human beings. There is a must in pure contemplation that something amazing can happen: all of a sudden ‘I’ am no more and the actual is already here. I am here where I always have been.

One has always been here ... one has never been anywhere else. Where else is there but here? Here is perfection for there is no sorrow or malice anywhere. One realises that there is nothing outside of perfection ... humans are all unwittingly living their life already in perfection. It is as if everybody is playing a game called ‘Let’s pretend we are lost’, knowing it will only ever be an illusion. Humans are creating the illusion so well that they take it for real ... wrongly implying it to be actual. In actuality there is no animosity or anguish, only perfection. This perfection does not come from anywhere. It is already always here. I am not making it happen as ‘I’ did Reality, it is happening of itself. All is self-generating ... and so exquisitely intricate.

This is actual intimacy. To be actually intimate is to be without the separative identity. I am not apart from the universe ... I am the universe experiencing itself. Whereas ‘I’ can never be intimate for ‘I’ am distanced from the actual by ‘my’ very ‘being’ ... ‘I’ stand in the way of actual intimacy. It is inevitable that this pure intimacy prevails in the actual for in actual freedom lies benignity; which literally means to be kindly, gentle, harmless, propitious. The intimacy that ‘I’ as a personality can have, as a feeling for another in a relationship, pales into insignificance when compared with the actual intimacy of the universe. There is no need for a relationship here. Relationship requires separate entities in order to do the relating. I am not separate from the universe. This body is literally made of the very stuff of the universe ... there is no difference whatsoever between this stuff and me.

I am physically and actually it.

I have arrived at my destination and am wandering through this vast warehouse, packed from end to end with all that anyone could require ... in the way of household furnishings. There is simply an abundance of goods and chattels here; a multitude of beds to choose from. A friendly staff member comes to assist me and is proving to be a fund of useful information. Eventually I settle for an orthopaedic ensemble and buy some sunny yellow sheets and pillowcases with a matching valance. I set off to examine the varied styles of bed-side tables ... there are so many and I am happy to be taking my time choosing, for it is a joy to be here, doing all this. The man is not hurrying me at all and is patiently showing me through the diversity he has available. It seems almost too soon, yet I have been here for ages, and I have opted for a pine-wood setting with a compatible bookcase-come-television-cabinet for the set I have in the bedroom. The blonde pine will complement the sunny yellow bedding and create a cheerful ambience. I pay for it all and arrange for delivery sometime in the late afternoon. Bidding the gregarious salesman farewell, I repair to the nearby café to sit in the sun with a welcome cappuccino. All in all it is being a felicitous morning ... faultless in its simple pleasure. Every day is like this in this actual world, although I can occasionally meet unhelpful people, unhappy people, even rude people ... the entire gamut of ‘human’ expression. I can easily make allowances for them for I know that they all live in reality ... and life can be a grim and glum business there.

Here, all is benevolent, friendly and kind; no perversity has ever existed in actual freedom.

It is important to realise that a peak experience is not to be confused with an Aesthetic Experience, a Spiritual Revelation, a Religious Vision, an Intellectual Insight, or an Emotional Intuition. It is in a category of its own. It may last for only a few seconds or it may stretch into minutes ... many people have had it last for hours. It does not matter how long, what matters is what one does with it. The experience is indelibly locked away in memory but is generally overlooked in the press of everyday life. Yet it works away, giving rise to thoughts such as ‘there must be more to life than this’, or something similar. It is what drives ‘humanity’ on to seek a better way of living, a better way of doing whatever it is that humans are all doing whilst being here on this planet. The search for fulfilment stems from the PCE, for humans all know, or hope, that it must surely come about some day. Why not make that day now?

Why not stop procrastinating and putting it off into some imagined future?

One can induce a peak experience – with practice on a daily basis – by pure contemplation based securely on the previous PCE’s. One of the main characteristics of the peak experience is purity. An unimaginable purity permeates the whole of existence, showering its blessing over all and sundry. From the condition of being ‘human’, one can plug into that purity with a pure intent. Pure intent is the connection between the intimate aspect of oneself, that one usually keeps hidden away for fear of seeming foolish, and the purity of the peak experience. In ‘normal’ life one avoids acting in a way that invites scorn from the insensitive philistines, who would rather perpetuate misery than admit they were wrong in their judgement on life, but the time eventually comes when one can stay quiescent no longer. The urge wells up to penetrate into the ‘Mystery of Life’, to find that ultimate fulfilment, and to achieve peace-on-earth. Pure intent is the highway to this utter freedom, to one’s destiny ... and it is a wide and wondrous path.

The peak experience provides an objective standpoint to view the identity from. It is easily seen from here that ‘I’ stand in the way of ultimate fulfilment ... of ‘my’ destiny. Pure contemplation is the means to provide one with repeated opportunities to make this examination thorough; all doubt is removed and only surety remains. This is the only way one will be convinced that ‘I’ must vanish altogether. This is why I can say, confidently, that the ‘death of the ego’ is not sufficient, for it only means substituting an impersonal ‘I’ – now called ‘Being’– for the personal ‘I’. ‘Being’, whether it goes with a capital to denote Divinity or not, means an ‘I’ is still in existence. Therefore the ‘death of the ego’ people’s ‘discoveries’ about the fate of ‘humanity’ are questionable, to say the least, and their ‘solutions’ to life’s problems are equally suspect. Unless there is an end to ‘being’, which is what death is, one cannot say one has penetrated into the ‘Mystery of Life’, one has not found ultimate fulfilment, one has not achieved peace-on-earth.

One is only fooling oneself – and some other gullible people – if one is so easily satisfied.

In order to facilitate a peak experience happening, one needs to see the place pride and humility plays in one’s life. ‘I’ am proud of ‘my’ major achievement ... which is maintaining ‘myself’ as an identity. ‘I’ will do anything but relinquish ‘my’ grip on this flesh-and-blood body, including humbling ‘myself’ before some God in order to ameliorate the pernicious effects of pride. However, humility is merely the antidote to pride ... and they feed of each other, continuously. For example, one cannot but feel proud of one’s accomplishment of self-abasing humility ... it is in the nature of the entity to do so. A humbled self is still a self, nonetheless, leaving one proud of one’s performance. When one realises how silly all this is; when one sees that pride and humility are standing in the way of freedom from all self-centred activity, something astounding occurs. ‘I’ vanish. I am simply here where I have always been ... and pride, with its companion in arms, humility, has disappeared along with all the other feelings. I am free to be here now in the world as-it-is. Unadorned and unencumbered, I can stand on my own two feet, owing allegiance to no-one.

Although each pure consciousness experience brings a fresh beginning, an absolute newness, the condition of freedom from ‘I’ has indubitable character traits ... each time discovered anew with the same delight as if it were the first time. With each experience one finds oneself here in this ever-fresh, never contaminated moment. Here is an atmosphere free from ‘human’ feelings, from ‘humanity’s truisms, from religion’s morals and from civilisation’s mores ... all of which are humanistic and cultural coping-mechanisms and agreements. There is a delicious surprise to be found in actualism: it is so liveable. It is living, here on earth, as this actual body, simply brimming with sensory organs ... yet completely devoid of emotions and passions manifesting as hallucinatory thoughts and utopian idealism.

It is indeed possible to live peacefully, at ease and undisturbed by these futile feelings and delusive thoughts.

All this is born only out of pure intent. Pure intent is derived from the PCE experienced during a peak experience, which all humans have had at some stage in their life. A peak experience is when ‘I’ spontaneously cease to ‘be’, temporarily, and this moment and place is here and now. Everything is seen to be perfect as-it-is. Diligent mindfulness paid to the peak experience gives rise to pure intent. With pure intent running as a ‘golden thread’ through one’s life, reflective contemplation rapidly becomes more and more fascinating. When one is totally fascinated, reflective contemplation becomes pure awareness ... and then apperception happens of itself. With apperception operating more or less continuously in ‘my’ day-to-day life, ‘I’ find it harder and harder to maintain credibility. ‘I’ am increasingly seen as the usurper, an alien entity inhabiting this body and taking on an identity of its own. Mercilessly exposed in the bright light of awareness – apperception casts no shadows – ‘I’ can no longer find ‘my’ position tenable. ‘I’ can only live in obscuration, where ‘I’ lurk about, creating all sorts of mischief.

‘My’ time is speedily coming to an end, ‘I’ can barely maintain ‘myself’ any longer.

Can you remember any pure consciousness experiences? Can you remember experiencing a moment – or moments – wherein everything falls into place correctly and perfectly? Wherein everybody, oneself included, and everything, is utterly pure? There is an ambience of total peace and harmony. Kindliness and spontaneous generosity of character come spontaneously and easily. One knows, with an absolute certainty, that it is possible to be free of all the ills of humankind ... to become free of the ‘Human Condition’ is the only solution to life’s troubles worth pursuing. In the PCE, ‘I’ temporarily abdicated the throne and I knew, by direct experience, that freedom was already actual. It was ‘me’ that was the problem, not the absence of perfection. When ‘I’ ceased to be, perfection became, as always, apparent. One sees that there is only one person who can actually manifest your own freedom from failure in human relationship. Me, myself ... yours truly. It is very important to have confidence in one’s own ability to discriminate between current ‘human’ knowledge and what one personally knows from the PCE’s. This will give one that essential optimism and assurance ... it is the ability to plough on regardless of whatever stands in one’s way until one evokes one’s destiny. It is all to do with a certainty ... the solid knowing, born out of the PCE, that it is here for oneself and anyone ... if only one will act upon this sureness.

Can you relate to this?

Are you able to contemplate the atmosphere of your pure consciousness experience? By contemplation I do not mean trying to feel the experience; a peak experience is not a matter of emotions and passions, it is in a realm of its own, as you may remember. Contemplation, to work successfully, needs to be pure ... stripped of emotive thought. For a moment allow yourself to set aside – not give up – your psychological state of ‘being’, which is occupied by the latest accumulation of worries and preoccupations. Make all of your identity unimportant, for now, and contemplate the perfection of being here now. Allow this moment to live you, instead of you living in the present. Experience yourself as being the doing of what is happening. An immediate peace and calm emerges and all is wiped clean, allowing a three-hundred-and-sixty degree awareness to operate. It is like having eyes in the back of your head. In this clean atmosphere you can freely allow the pure quality of the immediacy of this moment to become paramount.

It is of itself not at all concerned with the culturally defined personality you were just before; it takes no notice of any ‘problem’ that has just been plaguing you and is calmly unperturbed by any psychological interference. Instantly the friendly solution to all humankind’s problems lies open all around. It is a condition which cannot be mistaken as anything else than authentic, as it is your very character. It is the simple, actual quality of the universe itself ... it is a magical world ... a fairytale-like wonderland. In this, the actual world, love, worship and adulation – the whole Spiritual gamut of surrender and obedience – do not play a role. Divinity has become obsolete as a solution, because what you are seeing and experiencing now is pre-eminent. An intimacy closer than you have ever been with yourself, as you normally are, has replaced everything else ... this kind familiarity has superseded all what humans have ever believed as being The Truth.

This is actuality, this, the world as-it-is, this is what you actually are.

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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