Actual Freedom ~ Commonly Raised Objections

RESPONDENT: You offer a method to attain actual freedom and that does allow for verifiable results – but again this cannot prove that no else has previously attained actual freedom before you – how can it?

RICHARD: As nowhere do I say that the actualism method proves anything of the sort (it just happens to be the method which worked for me) this is a pointless question.

RESPONDENT: Richard, with respect, just because you say so does not make it so.

RICHARD: You do seem to be under some misapprehension: I am not in the business of proving to you (or anyone else for that matter) that an actual freedom from the human condition is entirely new to human experience ... I am simply providing a report of how I know it is.

What another does with my report is their business.

RESPONDENT: How can you speak of a way towards ‘actual freedom’ not via the ‘Rock of Enlightenment’ if you haven’t walked that route yourself?

RICHARD: It is quite simple: provided the soul is not resurrected/does not resurrect itself from the waste-bin (and that proviso is of vital importance) there is then only a direct route to an actual freedom from the human condition ... thus no need for me to have walked that route myself.

RESPONDENT: There is still proof to come for this route to actually exist ...

RICHARD: If I may interject again? As you say (further below) that you can ‘can intellectually figure out a major difference between a PCE and an ASC’ can you not also intellectually figure out that the proof for the direct route lies in the very fact that a PCE can happen in the first place?

RESPONDENT: ... and then we can speak of an efficient viable method of riding ourselves from the human condition.

RICHARD: And just what is not efficient and viable about altruistic ‘self’-immolation, for the benefit of this body and that body and every body, brought about by asking oneself, each moment again, how one is experiencing this moment of being alive (the only moment one is ever alive) with the pure intent to have the already always existing peace-on-earth stunningly evident in the PCE become apparent sooner rather than later?

RESPONDENT: Till now the logical conclusion based on ‘facts’ is that there will be no ‘peace-on earth’ if this is a method unintentionally designed for the One in 10.000.000.

RICHARD: The actualism method, first put into practice in 1981 by a normal person with a normal wife and a normal family and a normal mortgage and so on, is not designed for the ‘One in 10,000,000’ person (not even unintentionally) as it was born out of the initial four-hour PCE in June 1980, which set the whole process in motion in January 1981, and not out of the enlightened state which came about in September 1981 as a result of the vitally important proviso not yet being known (someone has to be the first to discover something new in any field of human endeavour) let alone being remembered/applied under all circumstances ... circumstances such as falling in love, for example, and being bitten badly by the enlightenment bug as a direct result of the love being unrequited.

I kid you not ... the only danger on the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom is that one may become enlightened instead.

RESPONDENT: There is still evidence to come for a person to safely arrive to ‘actual freedom’ and then to convey how it was ‘via the non-enlightenment route’.

RICHARD: As I safely arrived via the massive delusion called spiritual enlightenment why would arriving via a non-delusory path be any less safe?

I would easily estimate it to be more safe ... far, far more safe.

RESPONDENT: I bet it would be a very interesting account.

RICHARD: The account of the next person to become actually free would indeed be interesting ... maybe this is an apt moment to put this hoary subject to bed, pat it on the head and send it to sleep, until somebody new to this mailing list raises it again as if it has never occurred to Richard that an actual freedom from the human condition has not yet been replicated (even though they may say, in the next breath, that it has been lived before)? Vis.:

• [Richard]: ‘Let us be realistic, though. When you talk about .00001 percent ... we have not yet demonstrated that anyone can replicate my condition. (...) Can my condition be replicated? Who knows? Only time will tell. (...) So we can say that we can demonstrate that something [virtual freedom] is actually possible, but it has not yet been demonstrated that it is possible to replicate me. I may be a freak.

Those words were spoken somewhere between May-July 1997 ... and even before I went public I wrote the following in my journal:

• [Richard]: ‘... even if one does not immediately self-immolate psychologically and psychically there is a truly remarkable virtual freedom that can be attained through application and diligence borne upon pure intent. For those that would seek to excuse themselves on the grounds that I am freak, an aberration of nature, this factor belies this justification. (page 143, ‘Richard’s Journal’; ©The Actual Freedom Trust 1997).

And even more explicitly:

• [Richard]: ‘My keenness for another’s experience always accords to the following sequence:

1. I am primarily interested for your sake (for the sake of the particular flesh and blood body) as you are a fellow human being.
2. I am secondarily interested for everybody’s sake (for the sake of flesh and blood bodies in general) as another person being actually free increases the possibility of setting a chain-reaction in process.
3. I am lastly interested for my own sake (for then not only am I am no longer arguably a ‘freak of nature’ but I can compare notes, as it were, so as to more reliably separate out what is species specific from that which is idiosyncratic).

Furthermore I have acknowledged there may be other methods:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘The reason I ask this is because the one question method of Actualism is way too simplistic to be effective.
• [Richard]: ‘It is the only method, in all of human history, which has worked to deliver the goods ... there may be other methods, yet to be discovered, but this is the only one so far proven to be effective.

And:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘[Your method] is not new ...’.
• [Richard]: ‘As an actual freedom from the human condition is new to human history then any method to enable this to come about is also new’.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘... it is not the only method that works but it is fine’.
• [Richard]: ‘As no one else is actually free from the human condition, as yet, then other methods are still in the experimental stage. Until one of them works then this method I offer – which worked for me – is the only one available’.

And:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘I ask this as there are now almost 6 years since you went public with your discovery and the method to achieve it, you must have some feedback ...
• [Richard]: ‘The only feedback is what can be read publicly ... I rarely, if ever, conduct a private correspondence these days.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘... or is it a perfect method needing no improvement?
• [Richard]: ‘There may be other methods, yet to be discovered, but this is the only one so far which has delivered the goods.

There are other references but maybe these will do for now ... put succinctly the replication of my condition presently calls for pioneers, people with the necessary derring-do to pilot a one-seater aeroplane by the seat of their pants to this pristine wonderland, and not for those who will follow in their wake in air-conditioned comfort, eating hygienically prepared food and watching an in-flight movie into the bargain.

And nobody knows who that pioneer aviator is until that person actually lands here ... not even me.

RESPONDENT: It’s the reason why I’ve asked about Alan (a practicing actualist), as his site (www.actualfreedom.co.uk) is out-of-reach.

RICHARD: As it is a reasonable assumption to make, that if somebody subscribed to this mailing list (or even anybody previously subscribed) has become actually free from the human condition they will present an account of it, I do not see the point in writing to somebody – let alone anybody – every now and again only to ask if it has happened yet.

Furthermore, it is pointless to ask why another person is not yet actually free because if another person – any person – knew why they were not yet actually free they would be actually free ... and there is something strange, almost to the point of being weird, about an attitude which has it that until somebody else has walked a path one will not walk that path because such a path has not yet been demonstrated to exist.

Put simply: how on earth can something be done if nobody will do it because it has not yet been done?

RESPONDENT: In a PCE, there is no need for a relationship as everything is already perfect. There is an enormous feeling of well being and there seems to be no particular motivation to go and find another person and prove that two people of the opposite gender can live together in peace, harmony, equity, etc.

My question is: ‘What motivates Richard to be in a relationship with a woman if he is living in Actual Freedom (which I understand to be more or less a permanent PCE)?’ I mean, why bother?

RICHARD: It is not to ‘prove’ that two people can live together in peace and harmony that I am currently living with a female companion – it is impossible to be anything other than happy and harmless here in this actual world – and it is no ‘bother’ at all to live in marriage-like association with a fellow human being of either gender (according to sexual orientation) ... it is both a delight and a privilege.

RESPONDENT: – My observation is that if Richard (who claims to live in Actual Freedom) and Devika/Irene (who claimed to have lived in Virtual Freedom) could not really make a go of it, than there are no observable facts to show that two people of the opposite gender who practice/live actualism can indeed live in peace, harmony and equity.

RICHARD: As I did ‘really make a go of it’ – and still do, of course, in my current association – your observation makes no sense at all.

RESPONDENT: Apologies to Peter and Vineeto as they have been together for only a few short years and, once again, we cannot observe their daily lives to sort out fact from fiction (besides, they do not claim to live in Actual Freedom anyway).

RICHARD: Neither did my previous companion ... I will pass on your apologises to her the next occasion we happen to meet.

RESPONDENT: – Another observation from Richard’s correspondence with Irene (his ex-wife Devika) is that his perception of their 11 year relationship was starkly different from Irene’s perception/experience of it.

RICHARD: The ‘perception/experience’ of my previous companion – regarding her 11-year association with me – which you are referring to was being made from the state of Love Agapé and Divine Compassion ... which she described as ‘Matriarchal/ Matrilineal’ Love/ Compassion (as contrasted to Patriarchal/ Patrilineal Love/ Compassion).

RESPONDENT: Richard’s perceptions/experiences of a perfect relationship documented in his journal could perhaps even be called ‘delusions’ of sorts (much like delusions of enlightenment) given Irene’s subsequent criticism of Richard, his character, his state of freedom and his method.

RICHARD: As my experience with my previous companion is, of course, still of the perfect kind (no matter how she experiences me) then what you are saying is, in effect, that life here in this actual world is delusional.

Here is my question: where, then, is life not delusional?

*

RESPONDENT: As Richard chooses to remain anonymous, it is impossible to observe his behaviour in every day life and make any conclusions about it.

RICHARD: Whereas those who have observed can (and that includes accredited psychiatrists/psychologists).

RESPONDENT: So far, I have not seen any of this information. Is it on the web site?

RICHARD: Yes ... for instance:

• [Richard]: ‘... it is openly displayed on my portion of The Actual Freedom Trust web site that I was examined by two accredited psychiatrists (one of which was over a three-year period), face-to-face in their rooms, as well as by an accredited psychologist for the same three-year period, person-to-person in my own home, and repeatedly and consistently found to have no emotional/passional response/reaction whatsoever (amongst other official findings).

And for another instance:

• [Richard]: ‘... I have not been reticent about having been closely examined, over a three-year period by both an accredited psychiatrist and psychologist, and found to be having the following symptoms: 1. Depersonalisation (no sense of identity) as in no ‘self’ by whatever name. 2. Derealisation (lost touch with reality) as in reality has vanished completely. 3. Alexithymia (inability to feel the affections) as in no affective feelings whatsoever. 4. Anhedonia (inability to feel pleasure/pain) as in no affective pleasure/pain facility.

There are many more instances ... but maybe that will do for now.

RESPONDENT: Besides, you know that many ‘enlightened masters’ have had psychiatrists/psychologists as their disciples.

RICHARD: As I am not an enlightened master, nor have any disciples (let alone psychiatrists/psychologists), this can only be a gratuitous comment.

RESPONDENT: In addition to that psychiatrists/psychologists do not live with you 24 hours a day ...

RICHARD: Indeed not ... are you suggesting that makes any psychiatrist’s/psychologist’s official diagnoses invalid (else why mention it)?

RESPONDENT: ... [In addition to that psychiatrists/psychologists do not live with you 24 hours a day] as Irene/Devika did for 11 years. And so, the one person who has observed you 24 hours a day for 11 years claims that you are not actually free.

RICHARD: My previous companion lived with me for five years (for the first six years she was living with an enlightened being) and my current companion has lived with me for nigh-on eight years ... I suppose there is no prize for guessing which companion’s description you would take as being the accurate one? Vis.:

• [Respondent to Co-Respondent]: ‘... to conduct an objective investigation of a so called ‘enlightened master’ it would seem pointless to interview ‘the master’ or their ‘chief disciples’ because they would be biased and you would bet the propaganda. Right? (Friday 22/10/2004 AEST).

*

RESPONDENT: Richard’s interactions with people on the mailing list do not seem to be consistent with his claim that he lives in actual freedom and that he is happy and harmless 24 hours a day.

RICHARD: And just how should the interactions on a mailing list of a person actually free from the human condition be, then (according to you)?

RESPONDENT: I do not claim to have an answer as I do not live in actual or virtual freedom.

RICHARD: In which case how can you say that my interactions do not seem to be consistent with being actually free from the human condition?

*

RESPONDENT: In my view, all of this points to a significant presence of malice and a probability of a very big ego. Of course, I cannot prove this conclusion, but in Richard’s own words ‘If it looks like a duck; if it waddles like a duck; if it quacks like a duck ... it is a duck’.

RICHARD: If you could provide an example of where I have indeed had ‘a typical emotional argument’ it might throw some light upon what your conclusion is based upon.

RESPONDENT: – This behaviour (in point above) seems to be at odds with my observations in PCE. In PCE there is no need to argue with people, to win at all cost, to prove that one is the best, etc. One feels so good, at ease, benevolent, fulfilled (as in nothing is missing) and secure that it seems to me inconceivable to be involved in endless arguments with people with a strong desire to win (and probably prove how smart one is) and prove one’s point of view (again and again and again).

RICHARD: As this is the second occasion wherein you have described your peak experience as affective – as in your ‘feels’ phrasing just above (and your ‘enormous feeling’ phrasing further above) – it is pertinent to point out, at this stage, that if there be any feelings whatsoever in such an experience one thing is for sure ... it ain’t a PCE. I cannot put it any more plainly than that.

RESPONDENT: As I have pointed out above, instead of answering my direct question (which relates to an observation from a PCE) you proceed to nit-pick with definitions and language and going off on a tangent.

RICHARD: And, as I have pointed out above, just what ‘direct question’ would that be?

RESPONDENT: How constructive is that?

RICHARD: If you do not see how constructive it is to ascertain just what the nature of the experiences you are basing your conclusion on – which you said were ‘or perhaps excellence experiences’ (and thus certainly affective in nature) – then nothing I can add at this stage will make any difference.

RESPONDENT: Do you disagree with my observation that in PCE there is no need to argue with people, to win at all cost, to prove that one is the best, etc., or are you simply avoiding the question by seeking to discredit the questioner?

RICHARD: Again ... there was no ‘the question’ to answer (let alone avoid).

RESPONDENT: Is this how an actually free person interacts with other people in their everyday life?

RICHARD: No ... that is what you make of it.

RESPONDENT: If it is, of course, a long term relationship cannot be sustained with ‘normal’ or even ‘virtually free’ people. Richard, isn’t there a more sensible way to interact with ‘normal’ people who are not actually free?

RICHARD: Yes ... the way I actually do it.

RESPONDENT: May I ask what is actual/factual and thus irrefutable about your claim that your method ‘has a proven track record that delivers the goods’?

RICHARD: I see that I have explained my usage of the term ‘track-record’ before:

• [Richard]: ‘By ‘a proven track-record’ I am referring to the actualism method not only delivering, first a virtual freedom then an actual freedom for this flesh and blood body, but a virtual freedom for those who have applied the method with pure intent’.

Here is what a dictionary has to say about the term:

• ‘track record: a record of actual performance or accomplishment’. (American Heritage® Dictionary).

Thus if I were to substitute the words ‘a record of actual performance or accomplishment’ for the term ‘track record’ in the above instance it would look like this:

• [example only]: ‘By ‘a record of actual performance or accomplishment’ I am referring to the actualism method not only delivering, first a virtual freedom then an actual freedom for this flesh and blood body, but a virtual freedom for those who have applied the method with pure intent’. [end example].

And I use the term for this kind of reason:

• ‘track record: a record of past performance often taken as an indicator of likely future performance’. (Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary).

Incidentally, I also allow that it may not be the only method:

• [Richard]: ‘The only way of becoming virtually free/actually free which has been demonstrated to work is the one on offer on The Actual Freedom Trust web site ... there may be other ways yet to be discovered but this is the only one so far with a successful track record.

And:

• [Richard]: ‘As it is the only method so far (for as far as I have been able to verify) that has delivered the goods it has no peer ... obviously I cannot endorse any method which does not have a proven track-record.

RESPONDENT: Would you mind pointing us in the direction of this lengthy actual/factual and thus irrefutable track record? Thankyou.

RICHARD: I am not aware that a track-record has to be ‘lengthy’ (a rather ambiguous term) to be ‘thus irrefutable’ and, as the actualism method, initially put into practice in 1981, has been demonstrated to be efficacious in not only delivering, first a virtual freedom then an actual freedom for this flesh and blood body, but a virtual freedom for those who have applied the method with pure intent, it does not necessarily need to be ... it is the results, not the number of them, which are significant.

*

RESPONDENT: May I ask what is actual/factual and thus irrefutable about your proposed mystical phenomenon of ‘self-immolation’?

RICHARD: As the altruistic ‘self’-immolation (aka ‘self’-sacrifice) of, and by, the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago which set this flesh and blood body actually free from the human condition is neither mystical nor proposed your question cannot be answered as-is. Here is what your query sans those commentitious intransitive verbs might look like:

• [example only]: ‘... what is actual/factual and thus irrefutable about ‘self’-immolation? [end example].

The result of the identity previously inhabiting this flesh and blood body doing just that, quite obviously, speaks for itself ... for nigh on twelve (12) years now this flesh and blood body has actually/factually (and thus irrefutably) been actually free from the human condition.

*

RESPONDENT: May I ask what is actual/factual and thus irrefutable about your claim to be the one and only one ever free of what you dub, ‘the human condition’?

RICHARD: First of all I did not ‘dub’ the situation human beings find themselves in, upon emergence on this planet as babies, the human condition ... it was a well-established literary/philosophical term long before I was born.

Second, I do not claim to be ‘the one and only one ever to be free of the human condition’ ... I report being, for as far as I have been able to ascertain since 1992, the only flesh and blood body to be actually free from the human condition (and the distinction is not a minor one).

A philosophical freedom, for instance, or a spiritual freedom (for another) is a freedom for the identity inhabiting the body.

RESPONDENT: Please point us in the direction of your actual/factual and thus irrefutable evidence. Thankyou.

RICHARD: As all it would take to refute my report (of being the first flesh and blood body to be actually free from the human condition) is a recorded instance – be it on paper, carved in stone, impressed into clay tablets, or painted on a cave wall, for example – of another flesh and blood body being so prior to 1992 it can be equally said that the evidence to the contrary is remarkably unforthcoming.

We have been down this path (of abstract logic) before, you and I, in previous discussions inasmuch as, similarly, the evidence that Mr. Edmund Hillary and Mr. Tenzing Norgay were not the first to have ascended Mt. Everest, on May 29 1953, has yet to be found ... to say, by way of illustration, that someone from Tibet/Nepal/Mongolia/Wherever may have already done so 10/100/1000/10,000 years ago (and just never got around to informing their fellow human beings) is to also say they may not have done so, too, as the usage of ‘may’ in such an argument automatically includes ‘or may not’ when spelled-out in full.

As does the word ‘might’: for example, if a person were to argue that someone from, say, Outer Gondwanaland might have already been to the South Pole long before Mr Roald Amundsen travelled there they are also saying they might not have, too.

For an instance of spelling-out such an argument in full:

• [example only]: ‘Mr. Yuri Gagarin may, or may not, have been the first human being to leave the planet’s atmosphere. [end example].

And:

• [example only]: ‘Mr. Neil Armstrong might, or might not, have been the first human being to set foot on the moon. [end example].

In short: it is a variation on what is known as an agnostic argument (that nothing can ever be known with 100% certainty) such as what Mr. Karl Popper made popular and stems, as I understand it, from the occasion wherein, prior to the exploration of Australia’s west coast, all (European) swans were white ... meaning that, somewhere, somewhen, in an infinite and eternal universe a purple swan may very well exist.
Or not, of course, which is why, by and large, Mr. Karl Popper’s logic has been discarded as merely abstract and/or irrelevant and/or useless by many thoughtful human beings.

*

RESPONDENT: May I ask what is so actual/factual and thus irrefutable about your theory that there is only one moment and all happens in that one moment, for example, the typing of this correspondence is happening in the same exact moment that one hundred thousand humans were vaporized during the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, nearly 60 years ago and that took place in the same moment that those unlucky aforementioned vaporized were dining unawares of their fate a mere 24 hours later? Thankyou.

RICHARD: First of all it is not a ‘theory’ that time itself (time as an actuality) is without duration/is eternal ... it is a direct experience, here in this actual world.

Second, I do not report that ‘there is only one moment’ ... for example:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘If there is only one single moment (...)’.
• [Richard]: ‘If I may point out? I did not say there is only ‘one single moment’ ...’.

Which means that the event you refer to (typing the above and below correspondence) happens in eternity ... just as any other event (such as a uranium bomb being used to kill, injure, and maim, human beings) does.

Thus what is so actual/factual, and thus irrefutable, about my direct experience that it is never not this moment here in this actual world – as contrasted to it being but a fleeting moment among many such moments in the real world – is the very actuality, and thus factuality, of the eternity of time itself (as contrasted to time, as in past/ present/ future, as a convention) ... as evidenced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE).

RESPONDENT: So, being that your obviously the antichrist ...

RICHARD: Ha ... as the scriptural text (1 John 4: 1-3) which specifically refers to ‘antichristou’ (literally ‘instead of the anointed one’) delineates such a being as ‘pneuma’ (aka spirit) your apostatical bellowing is not really worth hearing.

RESPONDENT: ... [being that your obviously the antichrist] you’ve got some work ahead of you before you can lead the world into darkness ...

RICHARD: As the scriptural text (1 John 2: 10-11) which specifically refers to ‘antichristos’ (literally ‘instead of the spirit who anoints’) clearly describes being in that (spiritual) darkness as hating one’s fellow human being – instead of loving them and thus being in the (spiritual) light – it would appear that some fleshing-out of just what the third alternative (an actual intimacy) is may be in order. Here is what the ‘null’ of the word nullify can mean:

• ‘null: annul [cause to exist no longer], cancel [obliterate/abolish], make void; reduce to nothing; destroy or efface completely’. (Oxford Dictionary).

When the affective being inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago altruistically ‘self’-immolated, in toto, for the benefit of this body and that body and every body, the ability to either feel loving/hateful or to lead others into feeling same was similarly nullified/ annulled/ cancelled/ made void/ reduced to nothing/ destroyed/ effaced completely.

Put succinctly: as there is no separative ‘being’ whatsoever in this flesh and blood body there is no separation to be bridged via the affections.

RESPONDENT: ... (108 Correspondents isn’t going to cut it).

RICHARD: Presuming that you are referring to the (current) number of subscribers to The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List this is an apt place to point out that (a) quite possibly up to half of those currently subscribed have forgotten they ever did ... and (b) the number of subscribers either previously or presently enrolled does not reflect written interaction anyway (in any given period only about 20% of subscribers actively participate) ... and (c) being publicly accessible it is not necessary to be subscribed to read the ‘Topica’ archives (and there are those who do follow the correspondence that way) ... and (d) it is not necessary to read the ‘Topica’ archives even (there are those who follow the core correspondence via the ‘Latest Correspondence’ pages on The Actual Freedom Trust web site) ... and (e) there were 65,289 unique hits on the homepage of The Actual Freedom Trust web site last year (with 1,378,546 hits all told).

To pay any heed at all to a myopic analysis of the on-line influence of actualism is to squander heedfulness.

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