Richard’s Selected Writings

It is possible to live in this post-modern era, freed from out-dated Philosophy and Psychiatry, challenging every Spiritual and Metaphysical tenet and surpassing any of the Altered States Of Consciousness. 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 and no-thing. It is now possible for any human being to be totally free from sorrow and malice; the two fundamental elements that prevent one from being happy and harmless. Gone now are the days of having to assiduously practice humility and pacifism in an ultimately futile attempt to become free by transcending the opposites ... the traditional and narrow path of denial and fantasy, negation and hallucination.

A wide and wondrous path of blitheness and gaiety is now available for one who wishes to live in the freedom of the actual world.

It is, of course, a bold step to forsake lofty thoughts, profound feelings and psychic adumbrations and enter into 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 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.

It would be the pipe-dreams come true.

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 is no more power battles over whose belief is ‘Right’. Separation is no more ... equity prevails.

The result is actual intimacy between autonomous individuals.

All is not so well in the local community. When we first took this position, over a year ago, we were warned by a committee member not to become ‘politically involved’ – as had, apparently, the previous caretaker. We were a trifle mystified by his statement at the time – so ignorant were we of intra-community tensions and factionalisms – but we have come to learn full well what lay behind his lugubrious prognostication. Instead of the much-vaunted ‘community spirit’ we have found such vicious in-fighting that we are thankful to have heeded his warning and chosen instead to work on our own agenda with the gardening.

So perverse are people that, despite the vast improvement over the weed-choked wasteland that we inherited, we are accused of not joining into the ‘community spirit’. What community sprit? I ask, somewhat cheekily, for it exists in their imagination and ideals only. It is rarely, if ever, translated into action. People come occasionally, to do some work on a Saturday morning, but apart from two or three dedicated regulars once a month, hardly anyone comes. Community spirit seems to be dead on the ground. I am not to point out this fact, however, for it upsets everybody’s sensibilities. They are adamant that it exists ... if only ...

One member of the committee, a woman, has become suspicious about the existence of a flourishing community spirit. She has just turned up for a working bee – no one else has arrived – but even she is three hours late. She comes to join us now, where it is cool in the shade of the trees. <snip> We did join in at several working bees when we were first here, but we soon found the ambience to be dragging, debilitating. It was crippling to our free-flowing zest for getting things done in a joyful and therefore expedient manner. I experience the others and the actual world directly, not via emotions, and the much-touted community spirit always goes for intimacy by way of love. Actual intimacy has no use for passions – which are fickle, unreliable, and consequently they can not be depended upon to get the job done with the authentic ease arising from the perfection of actual intimacy. When I ask her why she feels there to be a need for ‘community spirit’ she seems to be a trifle taken aback by the question, but being eager to explain, she recovers quickly, stating that fostering a sense of belonging is the aim of the whole project; to bring people together as a community, putting into practice their common desires and goals. By building a communal hall they can participate in group activities like Theatre Performances, Yoga Classes, Tai-Chi Sessions, Dance Parties and so on. And when there is a lot of people turning up for a big get-together there is a sense of belonging – a community spirit. The more the merrier. Surely, I must be in agreement with these ideals?

Frankly, no I am not. Nor do I see it in practice. From where we live we hear a lot of bickering, quarrelling and arguing going on in the hall. Once there was even a drunken fist-fight. So much for the sense of belonging; so much for the intimacy of love; so much for community spirit. If people feel the need to come together out of separation, which is loneliness, then that togetherness – the sense of belonging – is doomed to failure. It is togetherness with the wrong motivating factor and the wrong goal. There is such an intense charm in the association of free individuals forming a loose-knit affiliation to improve upon ‘blind nature’ and to interact with each other in a dynamic, lively and vital way. But to come together in an attempt to resolve the problems caused by separation, with love, has never worked. It has been tried, without success, for thousands of years. When will people stop using the ‘tried and true’ ... which has proved to be the tried and failed?

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 can not 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.

‘I’ am the sole cause of the tried and failed systems, such as ‘community spirit’, being considered essential if humans are to have peace on earth. ‘I’ am the arch-villain in this world-wide scenario ... ‘me’ and billions of other ‘me’s. Solutions and cures are not necessary when the cause is eradicated. Without ‘me’ there is no problem to be solved. However, what initially stands in the way of implementing these words, translating them into action, is the fear that one will become an outcast. The whole thrust of humanity is to foster the sense of belonging – it is a large part of one’s social identity. One automatically feels that by no longer belonging one will live in isolation. Nothing could be further from the truth, because this is a feeling, not a fact.

The fact of being on one’s own is vastly different from the feeling of being alone ... which is loneliness. Yet one is already lonely, is this not so? Otherwise why the need to belong? By daring to be an outcast – that is, standing on one’s own – one discovers that loneliness vanishes. I do not belong to this community, nor do I belong to any other group. Yet I live here, in the hub of this market-place, in the public eye. Because I have found intimacy – with myself, with the other and with all people – the need to belong has become absurd. Besides, the sense of belonging is a dangerous illusion. Losing oneself in the crowd renders one susceptible to not only group highs but to mass hysteria ... and mob riots. Just as marital disharmony can lead to domestic violence, so too can neighbourhood disputes lead to civil unrest and communal violence. International riots are called war.

So much for belonging!

Humans live only here, in this physical world. Actual intimacy – the direct experience of the other – is a factual experience, a sensible experience. It is down-to-earth ... objectively verifiable. It is not some airy-fairy, far-removed-from-here affective dream-world conjured up out of abstinence and sublimation. To project a fantasy and then yearn to live in it is simply an insult to clear intelligence! Human beings eat corporeal food, drink physical water and breathe molecular air, in order to be here, to be alive at all. Humans are here only because of sexual intercourse: the joining of the spermatozoa and the ova – there is no other way of becoming a human being and living in this world. All this living is necessary in order to discuss these very matters. One has to just try holding one’s breath for as long as possible to discover what actuality is. One is certainly here on earth, living this life.

And this earth, this life, is already perfect ... if only one will start living it instead of waiting in vain – and sorrow – for some Supernatural miracle to occur.

Human beings are born into an already established cultural framework of beliefs, with its rules and regulations on the behaviour to be learned. As this process is cruel, hurtful and insensitive to the young child – who must learn to love its particular culture and defend it to the death – this is indeed institutionalised insanity. Such insane societies could but invent two main ways for Deliverance: the death-of-the-body After-Life of Glory – for the masses; and the death-of-the-ego Supernatural Life of Glory – for the rare few. These States could be well-described as being a contempt for the body and its bodily delights ... delights such as sexual pleasure, meat-eating, smoking, drinking ... to name but a few. Recently, a new age of illusion and delusion has come into fashion – but it has the same old threats and promises, cruelties and loves, hopes and despairs, the same petty dietary regimens, as before ... merely in a ‘new’ guise. It is all based upon the same old hierarchical structure which one can see repeated in each and every culture – and in each and every family.

Having been started in a family and society, being shaped by its structures, its rules on dependency and conformity, ‘I’ know of no other way of living but in a group. ‘I’ have learned to fear being an outcast, alone and lonely without the continuous endorsement of being a member. ‘I’ have ‘my’ particular – but adopted – beliefs and values, dogmas and creeds, ideals and ‘truths’, myths and superstitions, and so on, that make ‘me’ an accepted member of the group. The adult life of each new recruit to the human race is already laid out before one – and having been dis-empowered for all of ‘my’ life, ‘I’ am now looking forward to climbing further up the hierarchical ladder. ‘I’ will start ‘my’ own family – dependent upon ‘me’ this time – and ‘I’ will reinforce all of ‘my’ brainwashing by indoctrinating ‘my’ children. ‘I’ will make them, like ‘me’, into social identities ... and wards of ‘our’ culture.

However, the stirrings of wanting to discover just exactly what one is, outside of being a group member, are stronger than the fears about loneliness and being an outcast. To be able to relate to oneself and one’s partner, each moment again with impunity, as to what one actually feels, thinks and experiences is a luxury and freedom never possible within the group. The group does not allow for frank discussion about – and an honest questioning into – the venerated causes for its very existence. My way of living has taken a while to become accustomed to as I often feared to drown, to dissolve in a vast freedom wherein there are no boundaries. Here is a total lack of conformity and compromise. This is my life as-it-is ... and what a magical life it is.

What I have is a complete confidence in is the purity and perfection of this universe which, to my never-ending delight, brings about serendipity.

The main characteristic of the identity and self 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 whole group’s, or the individual’s, position, 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 and self, 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 can not 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, the loss of love and its implied security, resulting from 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 and self 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 and self 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 alienation from being me. By not being me, but being, instead, an identity and a self, ‘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. Me as-I-am, 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 and self: 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.

People are afraid to show who they ‘really are’, which is why some attend Women’s Groups, or Men’s Groups, or Couple’s Groups. There is a burgeoning interest in such matters these days, as people seek to ‘find myself’ and learn how to be ‘open’. There are at least two meanings popularly ascribed to the word ‘open’: the first being ‘I haven’t made my mind up yet’, and the second being ‘I am emotionally receptive’, or in other words ... ‘vulnerable’. The main problem with attending one of these courses – and there are many such retreats in the Human Potential Movement and for those undertaking the Spiritual Quest – is that, having been able to be ‘vulnerable’ amongst the like-minded persons attending the course, one has to return to the ‘real world’ when it is over. Without the emotional guards that all people carry in order to function there, the newly-endowed apostle for peace finds it difficult, to say the least, to maintain their ‘vulnerability’. Such are the ways of the ‘real world’ that it drags one down to its mediocre level of petty power-battles, requiring the need for ardent defences. One needs to be staunch to withstand the wiles of humanity at large – which negates the ability to be ‘open’. Within a very short space of time after re-entry into the ‘real world’, a disappointment sets in at the inevitable let-down ... in finding oneself alone in this just acquired ‘vulnerability’. So, only unless everybody changes and becomes ‘open’ simultaneously, the entire project is doomed to fail, again and again. What to do?

It is possible to be sensitive without being vulnerable. People mistakenly take the word ‘sensitive’ to mean being ‘emotionally open’ ... with unfortunate consequences. When I use the word ‘sensitive’ I mean being keenly aware of the other and oneself. Consideration, of both oneself and others, does not have to be an emotional involvement. The actually sensitive person has freed themselves from the loyalty to pathos, with all its ensuing pity, sympathy, empathy and compassion, by renouncing one’s own stake in personal sorrow. This means relinquishing the option of deriving sympathy, pity, empathy and compassion from others, when in sorrow oneself – be it melancholy, loneliness, sadness, grief, or whatever. The key factor in all this, is in the phrase ‘who I am ‘. Does not the use of the word ‘who’ impose limits upon one’s exploration into the psyche and therefore any resultant ‘discoveries’? Why not discover ‘what I am’, instead? ‘Who’ presupposes a ‘being’, a lone soul, a psychological entity – commonly known as ‘me’. To presuppose anything, to accept something as a basic premise upon which to build a case, is to commit the vulgar error of intellectual unscrupulousness.

When one belongs to a group, any group at all, one tacitly supports and endorses one’s identity and self ... which is the ‘who’ one is seeking to find. Strangely, this ‘who’ is remarkably elusive, only a rare few have ‘found who they really are’, and they are known as being in an Altered State Of Consciousness. They will then set themselves up as being God’s Gift To Humankind; forming yet another group they hand out all kinds of specious advice on ‘how to discover, in Silence, who you really are instead of who you take yourself to be’ ... as they are fond of stating. I say it to be specious advice for I strongly question the validity of their ‘discovery’. They still have an identity – Divine now, instead of human, but an identity all the same. They live in a state of Love Agapé and Divine Compassion, which, by any stretch of the imagination, is to be truly ‘open’ and ‘vulnerable’. Their state is the genesis of the notion that one must attend retreats, women’s groups and the such-like, in order to ‘find myself’, or to be ‘open and vulnerable’, or to bring ‘peace on earth’. So, instead of rushing off to do yet another course, it behoves one to look at the efficacy of the Master’s ‘discovery’.

Shortly after our guest left the rain cleared away and some patches of blue sky appeared. We go for an evening ramble along the sea-shore, where the sun, setting over the buildings on the sand dunes, is colouring the cloud-filled sky with brilliance. All is washed clean and clear by the rain and it is pleasing to be here, where life happens in all its splendour. The unnecessarily complicated world of normal human behaviour, which I was prompted to remember today, has vanished along with the past. I have been reminded, once again, of where I used to be – and just how far I have travelled. I understand full well the difficulties involved in making the first move from ‘there’ to here. I know, soundly, the resistance encountered when one begins being me rather than what people want one to be. It all seems so long ago, though.

We stroll on in the sunset together.

I experience the universe as being here in all its benignity. The world of people, things and events is no longer at a distance. Without the defences of the entity I can stand proud, as I do not need to maintain myself as ‘someone’ in particular with relation to others. An unusual anonymity has freed me from the normal responsibility and onerous task of sustaining ‘myself’. A marked absence of severity has replaced the need for moral guidance and Spiritual Discipline, for I am already always harmless. I have never been harmed, psychologically, nor have I ever known sorrow. The self, ‘I’ as ego and soul, can best be described as a psychological parasite living inside the body. In a valiant and understandable attempt to solve the plight of humankind, ‘I’ cease identifying as the ego and identify as the soul ... a shift in consciousness which manifests Divine Compassion. Unfortunately for its success, Divine Compassion has its roots in sorrow and therefore can not provide the ultimate solution: freedom from sorrow.

Compassion actually perpetuates sorrow, for sorrow is the essential progenitor of Divine Compassion.

Although obnoxious people may still appear, from time to time, and attempt to wreak their havoc, my response to them is not hostile and reactionary. One of the amazing attributes of actual freedom is its far-reaching benevolence; an attribute which allows my responses to be appropriate to the circumstances and sometimes unpredictable ... even to me. To be benevolent – which literally means well-wishing – is to be free to act in a way that is of benefit to one and all. Benevolence acts freely, I am not driven by Universal Sorrow as are the Compassionate Ones. When what is known as ‘That Which Is Sacred’ – which has no existence outside of human imagination – is no longer able to meddle in the affairs of humankind, humans can finally have a realistic chance of peace-on-earth. Peace is certainly possible for the individual right now. It has been here all along, freely available for anyone to discover. Daring to investigate, explore and uncover, I had to be willing to venture where no one had travelled before – beyond the Altered State Of Consciousness. I had to be intrepid to abandon all the accrued ‘wisdom of the ages’ ... a ‘wisdom’ that has proved itself to be patently absurd. In actualism this universe is experienced as it actually is: it is perfection. Upon reflection, how can it be not perfect? There is no outside to perfection – and hence no centre, either.

The purity of this perfection provides for the ultimate satisfaction; the satisfaction that Love Agapé seems to promise but can never deliver.

Something much, much better than profound thoughts and sublime feelings awaits one right here on earth. An actual world is already here; it is vastly superior to the real world with its most prized rewards of Love Agapé, Divine Justice, Infinite Compassion and all the other sacred baubles held dear by a blighted humanity for aeons. Here, in this actual world, dangle no glittering carrots ... nor the dreaded sticks, either. For there is nobody in charge, here, to dish them out. All the Metaphysical and Supernatural Authorities ever dreamed up by humans, are an exact reflection of a crazed humanity ... a humanity well worthwhile being dispensed with. ‘I’ am ‘humanity’, therefore ‘I’ am crazed. ‘I’ have even learned to be proud of ‘my’ madness. ‘My’ thoughts and feelings have no chance of ever being united into a guaranteed integrity which would be beneficial to one and all. ‘I’ am ‘humanity’ personified – the end product of all humankind’s wisdom. ‘Humanity’ is the sole cause of humankind’s sorrow, just as ‘I’ am the sole cause of all ‘my’ misery. With ‘me’ no longer assuming authority, ‘humanity’ ceases to exist in me. The blight is eradicated, ‘humanity’ has irrevocably come to its end where ‘I’ am extinct. Now this universe can experience itself as me, unimpeded by ‘my’ fantasies and realities. Unlike within the ancient human purview on life, compromise, allegiance, authority, hierarchy, tolerance, acceptance and other methods of coping, play no part here.

What does play a part here is consensus, independence, autonomy, equity, mutual understanding based on clear articulation and a general ease of living together in mutual peace and harmony.

As for the supposed ‘innocence’ of children ... a cursory study is all that is required to disabuse oneself of the notion that therein lies the genesis of the myth of a ‘Golden Past’. Just watch a three month old baby bellowing its distress; just watch a five year old stamping its foot in a temper tantrum; just watch a ten year old child fighting with its peers for supremacy; just watch what happens at puberty ... where in all this is the fabulous ‘innocence’ with its supposed peace and harmony and tranquillity? The imposition of social mores – moral virtues, ethical values, honourable principles, decent scruples and the like – are essential to curb the instinctive anger and vicious urges that are part and parcel of the essential traits of being ‘human’. To repeat: a ‘Golden Past’ has never existed at any period, or at any stage, of development. To achieve a truly golden age, something entirely new must come into existence. All peoples must cease being ‘human’.

They must give-up, voluntarily, their precious identities.

The time has come, with the world population as large and as cosmopolitan as it is, to discard the psychological ‘will to survive’ – with all its inherited anger and savagery – and move on to a new paradigm. Actual freedom, the third alternative, is the actuality that delivers the goods so long yearned for: peace-on-earth. And it delivers here and now.

War is over ... if you want it.

RETURN TO RICHARD’S SELECTED WRITING INDEX

RICHARD’S HOME PAGE

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