Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Asked Questions

RICHARD: By being here, right now, as this flesh and blood body. A feeling is not a fact; it is an identity’s interpretation of the actual and to be standing back and expressing a feeling – to feel an emotion or be passionate about life – is nowhere near the same as being here now as an actuality. In actually being just here – right now – one is completely involved, utterly concerned; being here now is total inclusion. One demonstrates one’s appreciation of life by partaking fully in existence ... by letting this moment live one (rather than ‘living in the present’) so that one is the doing of what is happening. One dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here now as the universe’s experience of itself.

Initially one is deathly afraid to actually be here now, as it can feel rather rudely raw ... one feels more naked and exposed than taking off one’s clothing in the market place. However, feeling rudely raw about the prospect of being here now is not the same as actually being here now ... feelings are notoriously unreliable for ascertaining a fact. Being here now is to be at the place in infinite space and eternal time where all is pristine. This pristine place is this, the actual world ... and it is already always here. This actual world is original; unmarred, uncorrupted, unspoiled, spotless, fresh and perpetually new. It is alarming to feel this immaculateness – it is frightening in its immediate intimacy – which is why one backs off, initially denying its very existence. What happens though, if one takes the risk to actually be here now – instead of standing back and feeling it out in order to make up one’s mind – is that one discovers that oneself is also pristine.

Then one is actually benevolent (harmless), actually concerned (happy) for all peoples ... no one is special. There is a vast gulf betwixt feeling benevolent (with feelings such as pity, sympathy, empathy, compassion and so on) and actually being benevolent (free of malice). Similarly, the concern one feels for others (worry, distress, anxiety, grief, anguish, torment and all the rest) is far removed from the actual interest one has in one’s fellow human being’s welfare (free of sorrow).

RESPONDENT: What do you say to your grandchildren when they are hurt, desolate, crying?

RICHARD: The same as I say to any body and every body – no body is special – which is: all mental-emotional-psychic suffering is an unnecessary and self-inflicted wound. Any mental-emotional-psychic viciousness on the part of another, first and foremost, lies in the heart of the ‘giver’ and inevitably turns in on itself as existential sorrow. Thus, in the final analysis, it is the ‘giver’ who suffers the most intimately. As for the ‘receiver’ of any nastiness, it is entirely up to them what they do with it ... apart from physical brutality, no-one can force their cruelty on another without the other’s acquiescence and compliance.

It is a truly and remarkably free world we live in.

RICHARD: ... faking care is not the distinction being referred to as the person feeling caring is being true to their feelings. It is not their fault that the truth is insincere.

RESPONDENT: I see now that ‘faking care’ isn’t what you mean by ‘feeling caring’. I’m curious, what would it take to be sincere? Is all feeling caring insincere – or are you saying that the person being true to their feeling of caring could be sincere by realizing that their caring is ‘self’ centred? Is it only possible to be sincere if one is actually free? Or ‘imitating’ the actual? Could you say more about what you mean – ‘It is not their fault that the truth is insincere’. What exactly is insincere about feeling that one cares for another? Is all feeling caring insincere? Or is insincerity due to one’s ignorance of the actual genesis of feeling caring? If all feeling caring is actually insincere – then it doesn’t seem we ‘beings’ have any choice about it, do we? If this is the case, the path to actual freedom would be becoming as sincere as possible, yet one couldn’t be completely sincere until once actually free. Is this how you see it? Or is one ‘imitating’ the actual also sincere – since they know all feeling caring is ‘self-centred’? Thus, anyone could be sincere just by realizing the ‘self-centeredness’ of feeling caring.

RICHARD: Unless a realisation is actualised, meaning that it operates spontaneously each moment again, it remains just that ... a realisation.

All I am indicating by saying that the truth is insincere is that, as the truth holds the promise of an after-death peace for the feeling being inside the flesh and blood body (as in ‘The Peace That Passeth All Understanding’), the truth is not sincere in regards to bringing about peace on earth ... which peacefulness is what caring is all about.

In short: feeling caring is incapable of delivering the goods.

As being sincere in the context under discussion is to have the pure intent to enable peace-on-earth, in this lifetime as this flesh and blood body, it would therefore take a perspicuous awareness of what is unadulterated, genuine, and correct (seeing the fact) to be sincere ... rather than an instinctive feeling of what is unadulterated, genuine, and correct (intuiting the truth). The feeling of caring (be it a pitying caring, a sympathetic caring, an empathetic caring, a compassionate caring or a loving caring), being primarily the feeling being inside one flesh and blood body caring for the feeling being inside another flesh and blood body (or for an anthropomorphised feeling being called mother earth for instance), is insincere by its very nature. And to realise that such feeling caring is a ‘self’-centred caring – and thus corrupt and/or tainted – is the first step towards sincerity.

Anybody can be sincere (about anything) – all it takes is seeing the fact (of anything) – and in this instance the perspicacity born out of the pure consciousness experience (PCE) ensures sincerity in regards to enabling the already always existing peace-on-earth into becoming apparent. The basis of such sincerity lies in comprehending the fact that caring starts with oneself – if one is incapable of caring for oneself one cannot care about others (or anything for that matter) – lest it be a case of the blind leading the blind.

There are two forms of ignorance about the genesis of the affective feelings: nescience and ignoration – wherein the former is to be incognisant of the root cause and the latter is to be disregardant of the root cause – and the latter has much to do with what is often expressed as ‘you can’t change human nature’ (only recently on another mailing list the sentence ‘we can’t change biological predisposition’ was pithily presented as if it were a valid reason not to discuss the genetic inheritance of aggression). Meaning that, apart from fanciful notions about genetic engineering, it is generally held that as human nature (biology) cannot be changed therefore biology cannot be the root cause of all the ills of humankind ... or so the bizarre rationale goes.

Obviously part of the first step towards sincerity is the acknowledgement of blind nature’s legacy.

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RICHARD: ‘I’ cannot experience the actuality of being caring ... ‘I’ can only experience the feeling of being caring. For example, the last time I visited my biological parents (1984) I was told ‘we worry about you’ ... which fretful feeling of apprehension/anxiety is, to them, being caring. They mean well, of course, as do most people.

RESPONDENT: So, all affective caring stems from separation – the need to ‘solve’ isolation and loneliness.

RICHARD: Yes, it does stem from separation – from being a separative identity – and it does have the effect of ‘solving’ (not dissolving) isolation and loneliness, albeit temporarily, but further to the point affective caring verifies, endorses, and consolidates ‘me’.

Not only am ‘I’ thus authenticated, sanctioned, and substantiated ... ‘my’ presence has meaning.

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RESPONDENT: Are you saying this [taking care of other people and things] only happens in a selfish sort of way? That all feeling caring is selfish – therefore not really caring at all?

RICHARD: I would rather say ‘self’-centred than ‘selfish’ ... when someone is touched by another’s suffering, as in being moved sufficiently to stimulate caring action, it is their own suffering which is being kindled and quickened. Thus feelings are being aroused, which motivate the activity of caring, and taking care of the other works to assuage the aroused feelings (as well as working to help the other of course). Shall I put it this way? They are missing-out on experiencing the actuality of the caring action, the helpful activity itself, which is taking place.

RESPONDENT: OK, so ‘self’-centred caring (feeling caring) actually works to eliminate one’s own suffering?

RICHARD: Not ‘eliminate’ ... mitigate, alleviate, lessen, diminish.

RESPONDENT: Even so, the other person suffering is getting cared for.

RICHARD: Aye ... the other person does get physically taken care of but both persons miss out on the direct experience of the caring action, the helpful activity itself, which is taking place.

RESPONDENT: So properly caring for the other person is a prerequisite for ‘assuaging’ one’s own aroused feelings.

RICHARD: Yes ... else there be feelings of guilt, compunction, shame, ignominy and so on.

RESPONDENT: Isn’t this actually caring about the other person?

RICHARD: The physical act of caring – the helpful activity itself – is certainly happening but actually caring (an inseparate regard) is not ... there is only feeling caring (a unifying solicitude) occurring.

RESPONDENT: Admittedly, it is caring via one’s own feeling, but one actually does care about the other, since it is only through proper care of the other that one’s own feelings are ‘assuaged’.

RICHARD: No, one does not actually care about the other – one feels that one cares about the other – which is not to deny that ‘proper care’ does occur ... it is remarkable what physical assistance is achieved despite all the hindrances.

RESPONDENT: I’m never quite sure how to take the word, ‘actually’ when you use it – whether it’s sometimes the normal usage – or whether it’s always the ‘actualism’ usage. For example, I am tempted to say that even when one is empathetic and works to resolve another’s suffering – then one actually cared about their suffering – about the other person – again admittedly, via one’s own suffering, yet there is caring taking place – but it’s not actual caring (in the ‘actualism’ usage).

RICHARD: When empathy works to resolve another’s suffering an empathetic caring occurs – this is not under dispute – but it is occurring as a feeling activity ... in the form of affective vibes and/or psychic currents. However, it is only occurring in the real world – there is no empathetic caring here in this actual world – which is a salutary point few comprehend.

For instance, some ‘born-again’ people bailed me up in the street some time ago in order to save me from their devil (only they called it ‘The Devil’ so as to make their fantasy universal): as the conversation waxed they grew more and more intense, their words became loving words, their eyes became radiant eyes, their faces became soft and suffused with a glowing shade of pink, and if my companion had been with me at the time she could have verified, as she has on other occasions, that feeling vibes and psychic currents were swirling and eddying all about.

Eventually they gave up as they could not ‘reach’ me (aka establish a feeling connection).

RESPONDENT: I’m still trying to pin down exactly how feeling caring is an ‘illusion’ of caring. I’m still tempted to think that one does care even in empathy – though not in the actualist sense. Does the illusion come in where one thinks that that sort of caring is (or can be) not self-centred?

RICHARD: That is partly so – an unselfish ‘self’ is still a ‘self’ nevertheless and is perforce ‘self’-centred in all its activities – but there is also the factor of just who it is that is caring for who it is that is being cared for to take into account. In other words: it is an illusory identity inside one body which is caring for an illusory identity in another body. Which is what the born-again people in the above example were (futilely) attempting to do ... and I say ‘futilely’ because there is no entity inside this flesh and blood body to be stroked by their blandishments.

Or to be goaded by intimations of perdition, of course.

RESPONDENT: And in your conversations, more often than not, the impression is that of a prick, not a caring human being.

RICHARD: As I said at the beginning: I have been discussing these matters with my fellow human being for 25 years now and have had that particularly insidious argument (an argument which rests upon no evidence whatsoever but relies solely upon intuition and imagination) presented to me on many an occasion.

This is one of those occasions.

If I might ask: have you actually read the conversation in question – spanning at least 34 e-mails – from beginning to end? Have you familiarised yourself with the preceding discussions which took place prior to that particular exchange? Are you thus cognisant of where my co-respondent was coming from, what their stated agenda on that occasion was and, therefore, where they were heading to?

Also, are you aware that they reappeared on the mailing list almost a year later and were caught red-handed upon having resorted to fraudulency and outright mendacity?

Just curious.

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RICHARD: Also, are you aware that they reappeared on the mailing list almost a year later and were caught red-handed upon having resorted to fraudulency and outright mendacity?

RESPONDENT: That is besides the point under discussion right now ...

RICHARD: The point under discussion is seeing [quote] ‘the big picture’ [endquote] is it not? Have you read every e-mail my co-respondent at that time wrote to this mailing list? Did you follow-up every URL they posted? Did you access every book reference they quoted? Did you look for and read what they wrote on other forums (where the focus is not the same as this mailing list)? Do you keep all their correspondence in an easily accessible folder so as to refresh your memory as to what they have said and thus, where they are coming from, what their agenda is, and where they are heading to?

You see, the difference between you and me is that I actually care about my fellow human being and will leave no stone unturned, if that be what it takes, to understand them, to comprehend why they say what they do, so as to facilitate clarity in communication ... I like my fellow human being and prefer that their self-imposed suffering come to an end, forever, sooner rather than later.

Now, you can say your impression is that Richard is [quote] ‘a prick’ [endquote], and [quote] ‘not a caring human being’ [endquote], but have you ever considered that were it to actually be the case both The Actual Freedom Trust web site and The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List would not exist? I am retired and on a pension and am free to live virtually any lifestyle within my means yet I sit here at my computer hour after hour, day after day, year after year, being quite often the recipient of derision, disparagement, scorn, mockery, disdain, belittlement, vilification, denigration, contempt, castigation, disapprobation, denunciation, condemnation and discrimination (as evidenced by bad-mouthing, backbiting, slander, libel, defamation and a whole range of slurs, smears, censures, admonishments, reproaches, reprovals, and so on). I have had my credit card strung out the max, over the years, in order to establish and maintain all the words and writings pertaining to both an actual freedom from the human condition and a virtual freedom in practice on-line so as they be accessible totally free of charge for anyone at all to access and it is only in the last year or so that the whole enterprise has come anywhere near to being self-supporting ... and thus freeing up any surplus cash so as to pay off a modest home to live-out my declining years in.

And the same applies for Peter and Vineeto, by the way, but they are not currently the target of vilification.

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RICHARD: Also, are you aware that they [my co-respondent at the time of the exchange in question] reappeared on the mailing list almost a year later and were caught red-handed upon having resorted to fraudulency and outright mendacity?

RESPONDENT: That is besides the point under discussion right now ...

RICHARD: The point under discussion is seeing [quote] ‘the big picture’ [endquote] is it not? Have you read every e-mail my co-respondent at that time wrote to this mailing list? Did you follow-up every URL they posted? Did you access every book reference they quoted? Did you look for and read what they wrote on other forums (where the focus is not the same as this mailing list)? Do you keep all their correspondence in an easily accessible folder so as to refresh your memory as to what they have said and thus, where they coming from, what their agenda is, and where they are heading to?

You see, the difference between you and me is that I actually care about my fellow human being ...

RESPONDENT: I presume you want to say that I do not ‘actually care about my human being’ whereas you do. Do you have any evidence to back up your above claim about me?

RICHARD: Unless you are now either actually free from the human condition or currently having a pure consciousness experience (PCE) there is no way you can be actually caring .

RESPONDENT: Where have you perceived my uncaring attitude towards my fellow human beings? Just curious.

RICHARD: I never said anything about you being (affectively) uncaring ... I distinctly said that the difference between you and me is that I *actually* care.

RESPONDENT: What is the difference in saying ‘I feel’ for my mother, and ‘I care’? Main Entry: 2care: Function: verb: 1 a : to feel trouble or anxiety b : to feel interest or concern (care about freedom).

RICHARD: You have asked me before about this and I responded then by saying that one can actually care as contrasted to feeling that one cares ... and there is a world of difference between the two.

As for the dictionary meaning: dictionaries give alternate meanings to a particular word and different dictionaries can give differing meanings than in other dictionaries and I notice that you have selected two of the several meanings ascribed to the word ‘care’ in the Merriam-Webster ... whereas I would have chosen their [quote] ‘to be concerned about or to the extent of’ [endquote] meaning so as to convey what I personally mean by it. The Oxford also gives various meanings ... the ones that I would choose are [quote] ‘an object or matter of concern; a thing to be done or seen to; attention, heed, regard, inclination’ [endquote].

Regarding this word – and the other words I use to describe the qualities of experiencing life as this flesh and blood body only – it is sobering to come to understand that all of the 650,000 words in the English language were coined by peoples nursing malice and sorrow and love and compassion to their bosom ... hence most of the expressive words have an affective component. When I first began describing my on-going experience to my fellow human beings I chose words that had the least affective connotations ... coining too many new words would have been counter-productive.

Consequently, the etymology of words can be of assistance in most cases to locate a near-enough to being a non-affective base to start from ... taking the word ‘care’ as an example it will be seen that etymologically the word comes from the Old English ‘caru’ meaning ‘charge’ or ‘oversight’ (‘charge’ as in the Latin ‘carricare’ from ‘carrus’ meaning ‘wagon’ – thus ‘carry’ – and ‘oversight’ as in ‘overseeing’) and basically means ‘an object or matter of concern’ as in ‘a thing to be done or seen to’ or ‘protective overview’ or ‘guardianship’. The only way to make it a particular feeling is by linking it with the Gothic and Germanic word ‘kara’ meaning ‘grief’ or ‘lament’ (as derived from ‘karar’ meaning ‘bed of sickness’). In popular use it appears to mean worrying about the other.

Incidentally, the word ‘consideration’ is from the Latin ‘considerare’ meaning ‘examine’ (perhaps from the Latin ‘sider’ or ‘sidus’ meaning ‘constellation’ or ‘star’) and basically means ‘the action or fact of examining and taking into account of anything as a reason or motive with regard for the circumstances of another’ ... in popular use, however, it generally means ‘don’t hurt my feelings’.

It is pertinent to comprehend that dictionaries are descriptive (and not prescriptive as are scriptures) and reflect more about how words came about, how they have changed, and how they have expanded into other words, rather than what they should mean. I tend to provide dictionary definitions only so as to establish a starting-point for communication ... from this mutually agreed-upon base each co-respondent can apply their own specific nuance of meaning to words as are readily explainable and mutually understandable (such as I do with ‘real’ and ‘actual’ and with ‘truth’ and ‘fact’, for example). Generally I can suss out what the other means by a word via its context and both where they are coming from and what they are wanting to establish ... if not I ask what they are meaning to convey.

Ain’t life grand!

RICHARD: Oh, I am well aware that you live in some abstract world and paste that metaphysicality over the world as-it-is. Whereas I live in this actual world of the senses ... and paste nothing over it. However, it is not impersonal – as you maintain – for people are consistently hurting each other in the ‘Land of Lament’. 160,000,000 people killed in wars this century alone ... all because they will not take the malice and sorrow of the human species personally.

KONRAD: May I ask you a question? Since you say this so often about this ‘160,000,000 people killed in wars this century alone ...’, since you make such a big thing about being without feelings, in what way can this fact be significant to you, if you have no feelings about this fact?

RICHARD: Quite simply: We are all fellow human beings and because I am free from malice and sorrow I can happily and harmlessly experience all of us people with undiminished enjoyment and unqualified delight. This ensures an on-going and uninhibited magnanimity and benevolence ... meaning that I can only wish the utter best for everyone and anyone. So I do not need feelings to consider it senseless that humans kill each other. However, in regard to feelings: back in June 1966 at aged nineteen in a foreign country – when there was an ‘I’ inhabiting this body complete with a full suite of feelings – a Buddhist monk killed himself in a most gruesome way. There was I, a callow youth dressed in a jungle-green uniform and with a loaded rifle in my hand, representing the secular way to peace. There was a fellow human being, dressed in religious robes dowsed with petrol and with a cigarette lighter in hand, representing the spiritual way to peace.

I was aghast at what we were both doing ... and I sought to find a third alternative to being either ‘human’ or ‘divine’.

This was to be the turning point of my life, for up until then, I was a typical western youth, raised to believe in God, Queen and Country. Humanity’s inhumanity to humankind – society’s treatment of its subject citizens – was driven home to me, there and then, in a way that left me appalled, horrified, terrified and repulsed to the core of my being with a sick revulsion. I saw that no one knew what was going on and – most importantly – that no one was ‘in charge’ of the world. There was nobody to ‘save’ the human race ... all gods were but a figment of a feverish imagination. Out of a despairing desperation, that was collectively shared by my fellow humans, I saw and understood that I was as ‘guilty’ as any one else. For in me – as is in everyone – was both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ ... it was that some people were better than others at controlling their ‘dark side’. However, in a war, there is no way anyone can consistently control any longer ... ‘evil’ ran rampant. I saw that fear and aggression and nurture and desire ruled the world ... and that these were instincts one was born with.

Thus started my search for freedom from the Human Condition ... and my attitude, all those years ago was this: I was only interested in changing myself fundamentally, radically, completely and utterly. Twenty six years later I found the third alternative ... and it is my delight to share this discovery with my fellow humans. What they do with this is entirely up to them.

What are you doing with it, Konrad?

RESPONDENT: I find it logical that a jump will take place when is needed.

RICHARD: Nobody is twisting your arm to become free of the human condition ... all that blind nature is on about is survival of the species (and any species will do as far as blind nature is concerned). Blind nature does not care two hoots about your condition ... the question is: do you?

RESPONDENT: Actually blind nature cares about me, that’s why it gave me the condition.

RICHARD: If being born as such passions as fear and aggression and nurture and desire is what the word ‘cares’ means to you then so be it.

RESPONDENT: Blind nature cares about species, that’s why I told you that when it find out that is the right time will evolve the whole species.

RICHARD: And in the meanwhile, as you are going to do nothing about the passions that you are, such as the fear you say you need more than ever today, all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides, and so on, will keep on keeping on.

As will all the crocodile tears being wept at all the (self-inflicted and thus unnecessary) misery and mayhem.

RESPONDENT: Richard, on www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/listafcorrespondence/listaf44a.htm, you write the following:

• [Respondent]: ‘Why you have a companion and you don’t change one every day?
• [Richard]: ‘Primarily because of fellowship regard ... and specifically because of how my current companion is.
• [Respondent]: ‘You don’t have any feelings for her, so what a difference makes?
• [Richard]: ‘A whole lot of difference ... just for starters I actually care, rather than merely feel that one cares, and thus have genuine consideration for her integrity. Plus I have no interest whatsoever in toying with my fellow human being, anyway, no matter who they are’. [endquote].

Can you explain further?

RICHARD: Sure ... I was responding an e-mail which started with the following question:

• ‘In which way one person that lost his being and ego, is different than a robot?’

I do not read/ watch science fiction but as I get these type of questions from time to time, from peoples who either conveniently overlook or are oblivious to what is known as ‘theory of mind’, I have gradually been made aware of various ‘Star Trek’ characters, for instance, and it is pertinent to point out that the stuff of science fiction (creations of imagination) is entirely different to actuality ... a writer replete with identity/ feelings trying to visualise life sans identity/feelings can, it would seem, only conceive of a robotic/ automated android-like organism speaking in a flat, monotone voice and devoid of both a sense of humour and any caring/consideration for other sentient creatures (aka fellowship regard).

To ask why not change companions every day, as if by having no affective feelings it makes no difference just who it is, is to cavalierly disregard the integrity (aka the soundness of character, the honesty, the sincerity) of, not only my current companion, but each and every one of those (365 per year) fellow human beings ... adroitly assuming, of course, as my co-respondent presumably did, that a steady stream of females would indeed be knocking on my door each morning wanting admission as soon as the previous day’s female-in-residence departed for places unknown (an instinctually-driven archetypal male-fantasy if there ever was).

Not to mention, of course, the (presumed) total lack of integrity on my part ... but, then again, a robotic-like automaton would be devoid of same anyway, eh?

RESPONDENT: In what way does her integrity suffer if you change your partner?

RICHARD: It is not case of having another’s integrity suffer – it is a case of (presumably) having so little regard/no regard at all for another’s integrity that they could be changed daily – and it speaks volumes for the parlous state of the human condition that such a scenario would even be entertained for a moment ... let alone typed-out and sent to me.

RESPONDENT: Also, how would you changing your partner ‘toy’ with your fellow human being?

RICHARD: The part of the exchange you quoted at the top of this page followed immediately on from this:

• [Respondent]: ‘I have two parrots in a cage home, and I see them flirting and playing. You said that you are not able for flirting but able for sex.
• [Richard]: ‘You must be referring to this:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Do you joke, laugh, flirt (...)?
• [Richard]: ‘I like to joke, yes and I laugh a lot ... there is so much that is irrepressibly funny about life itself. I have no ability to flirt, however, as my libido is nil and void ... yet I have an active sexual life (...)’.

• [Respondent]: ‘I can’t understand that. I really can’t.
• [Richard]: ‘The word ‘libido’ (Latin meaning ‘desire’, ‘lust’) is the psychiatric/ psychoanalytic term for the instinctual sex drive, urge, or impulse, and the word ‘flirt’ refers to behaving in a superficially amorous manner, to dally sexually with another ... what is so difficult about understanding that, sans the instinctual passion to procreate (and nurture) the species, the ability to be sexually amorous (either superficially or deeply) ceases to exist?
With no passions driving behaviour one is able to treat the other as a fellow human being ... and not a sex-object’.

Here is what a dictionary has to say about flirting:

• ‘flirt: behave in a superficially amorous manner, dally; she’s always flirting with the boys, toy with, trifle with, make eyes at, ogle, lead on; philander with, dally with’. (Oxford Dictionary).

For one to actually care, rather than merely feel that one cares, means that one is incapable of toying with/trifling with/dallying with one’s fellow human being ... let alone one’s live-in companion.

RESPONDENT: Actualism won’t spread like a chain letter till we ‘actually care’ enough to learn how to observe and examine human instincts without ‘investigating’ them as though they are criminal.

PETER: Your comment ‘till we ‘actually care’ enough’ caught my eye as I recently had a wide ranging conversation with someone about the topic of caring and sensitivity. We soon fell to swapping stories about certain events in our lives which proved to be significant in widening our outlook from purely self-centred to including a concern for the antagonism and despair that we both saw as inherent to the human condition. I particularly enjoyed the conversation, not only because my friend was willing to relate his stories but also that it set me thinking about the topic in general. As such I thought it worthwhile to share some of my stories of the significant events that served to set me caring about what is often called the ‘plight of humanity’.

The first event of significance happened to me when I was about 9 or 10 years old. My parents had bought a television for the first time and I developed a habit of sneaking into the living room and watching it with the sound turned down after they had gone to bed. One night, as I sat on the floor in front of the set, a documentary about the Nazi extermination camps came on. For a little boy who had a sheltered life in a ‘fortunate’ country that had never directly experienced a war fought on its territory, the sudden appearance of irrefutable evidence of what human beings were capable of doing to each other was both shocking and appalling. Not a loss of innocence but a loss of ignorance.

The next event of significance was leaving the working class suburbs that I had lived in all my life and heading off to other side of town to go to university. I was then confronted with the inequities of class, privilege, power and wealth that typify every society and again this left a lasting impression. In the middle of my studies at university, I travelled by ship to London to do a practical year in an architect’s office, stopping off in Durban, South Africa. Durban was a wealthy seaside holiday town for Whites during the Apartheid years and I remember seeing a little dark-skinned boy peeking through a gap in the fence of a Whites-only amusement park on the sea-side promenade. Bus stops had shelters for Whites-only and restaurant toilets had signs that said Whites only. Again the extent of man’s inhumanity to man was shockingly evident.

When I eventually got to Europe and travelled around I remember being taken aback not only at how old and ‘set in aspic’ human culture is but also of being aware that literally every square metre of Europe’s soil had been drenched in blood from millennia upon millennia of almost continuous tribal warfare and reigns of terror imposed by autocratic and theocratic regimes.

Travelling overland on my way home to Australia, I left what could loosely be termed ‘civilized Europe’ and travelled through what was largely at the time a dark, feudal, tribal, superstition-ridden land between Europe and Asia to eventually arrive in the mayhem of an over-populated India. Here I was confronted by poverty the likes of which I had never seen before as well as levels of squalor and disease that were mind-numbing. An incident I found particularly disturbing was being confronted in the streets of Madras by children thrusting the leprosy-ridden stumps of what remained of their hands at me, shouting ‘please Saab’ and begging for money.

From Madras I then flew from a poor, unhygienic, unhealthy and over-crowded India to a wealthy, clean, healthy and sparsely populated Australia in a matter of hours … and the sudden contrast was shocking, to say the least. I remember musing for a long time at what seemed the inherent unfairness that I should be born into a position of privilege whilst billions of my fellow human beings were born less privileged than I. In the end the experience had such a profound effect on me that it was one of the reasons that led me not to pursue a materialist life – the other reason being that I had observed first-hand, and experienced first-hand, that accumulation of possessions and wealth with its subsequent power are by no means prerequisites for happiness.

The next significant event in my life was marriage and child-rearing, both of which failed to quell by what was now a underlying discontent – a background sometimes-subtle, sometimes-more-evident feeling of ‘Is this all there is to life?’ In hindsight, it is quite a radical change to leave the childhood family nest and strike off on one’s own into the world at large and discover by trial and error and circumstance that, to put it bluntly, ‘the real world sucks’. And not only that, it was evident to me that everybody else was more or less in the same boat – everybody’s happiness was both conditional and brittle and harmony amongst human beings was surface-deep at best. Again in hindsight, this lack of contentment with materialism meant I was ripe for the next turning point in my life.

The event that instigated this change of course was the collapse of my marriage. I was plunged into a ‘dark-night-of-the-soul’ despair as my world collapsed around me … and lo and behold, I found Spirituality. I say ‘lo and behold’ because finding God is a common occurrence after a dark night of the soul experience, so my experience was in no way as unique or as special as I though t it was at the time. A whole alternative world opened up to me and in my despair fairy tales similar to those I thought to have been weird as a kid suddenly seem to be revelations to me. Of course, my desperation at the time made me blind to the fact that what I had unwittingly fallen into was the honey-trap of religious belief largely because the stories, myths and legends were different to those of the monotheistic religion I was familiar with. At the time however, I was hooked, so much so that I left the real-world behind and plunged into living in a spiritual commune and living the spiritual life.

The next event of consequence that occurred was the ending of the Rajneesh empire in the U.S. with the subsequent revelations of despotism, corruption, murder, xenophobia and acts of terrorism. I was shocked at what blind faith en masse can manifest within the human condition – indeed the combination of faith and loyalty has produced some of the most horrendous acts in humanity’s long history of heinous brutalities. After this the order of the day for Rajneesh and Rajneesh’s followers became individual responsibility, which by and large meant an individual faith.

I have described what effect the death of my teenage son had on me in my Journal but that was a seminal event in my life in that it gave my search for freedom both impetus and urgency. I then knew it was up to me as an adult to be able to pass on – by example, not by theory – that it is possible to become free of the torments that typify the human condition.

Within a few months of my son’s death I had an insight one evening which allowed me to clearly see that the spiritual world that I had got myself into was nothing other than ‘Olde Time Religion’ albeit one of the Eastern varieties as opposed to one of the Western versions. It took a few years and a good deal more trial and error experimenting with yet more variations of spirituality before I was finally convinced that any form of metaphysical/spiritual/mystical belief is an impassioned escapist charade perpetuated by the eons-old myth that ‘I’ can survive physical death.

I then found myself at a cusp in my life – I had thoroughly road-tested the two basic alternative life pursuits that were available for a human being, materialism and spiritualism, for many years of my life and found them both to be lacking credibility and sensibility.

As I looked around I found many of my friends taking the middle path of compromise – a foot in both camps as it were. Most of them went back to materialist pursuits, some of them accumulating wealth and power by inculcating yet another unsuspecting generation into Eastern Spiritualism and Mysticism, others turned snake-oil sellers by offering healings, readings and therapies to the many who have a penchant for superstition, whilst the majority became full-time materialists and part-time spiritualists – still talking the talk but having given up walking the walk.

The death of my son had ruled such compromise out for me and the next serendipitous event proved another of life’s major turning points. It proved to be the most significant event because it presented me with the chance to put into action the legacy of caring I had built up from all of the preceding events in my life that had left me with both a burning discontent with the human condition and the impetus to find a way to finally bring an end to the tenacious instinctual grip it imposes upon each and every human being born.

Needless to say you know what that event was so I have no need to go on. I realize that this is rather a long post, but I thought it appropriate that at least someone on this list said something substantive about actually caring.

I, for one, care enough about peace on earth to actually do something about bringing an end to my malice and my sorrow – that’s what I call actually caring.

RESPONDENT to Richard: Your inability to discern the difference in impact between individuals dying daily of old age accident disease or ignorance, and this on-going horror as millions of human beings try to deal with a mass tragedy on a scale never experienced in our lifetimes reveals you to be a callous and mentally dissociated sick human being.

PETER: I thought it might be an opportune moment to continue our conversation on the topic of actual caring given that you have weighed in on the current ‘lets-put-the-boot-into-Richard-because-he-doesn’t-care’ posts to the list.

And just to remind you of some of what you said to me in reply –

[Respondent]: Well thanks for that Peter, I appreciate the effort. So often AFers assume no one else is capable of comprehending that actual, practical caring is minus the self-indulgent warm fuzzies and that neither does it kowtow to protect the self or others from the [dreaded] facts.

Quite a change to see you step off the AF pedestal and simply share instead of preach or coach, even though there is still an element of it in your reply. No doubt the ulterior motive is to get me to engage in dialogue, so you can indulge your favorite pass-time, arguing. Not a hope. I will share this though, as I am free to.

From my observations Peter, Vineeto and yourself come across as a little simple to put it mildly. You both seem to have a type of mentality that is very easily impressed, therefore easily psychologically infested/corrupted. <…> Now this particular virus [Richard’s] is a rather insidious one since it seems to delete or translocate the play function and present as a serious case of cloned mannerisms.

I shan’t pretend that ‘its got me beat’ why an instinctually aggressive self would want to emulate Richard’s moronically alienating debating techniques for it is after all only the survival instincts at work. <…>

>On close inspection, although Actualism claims to be 180 degrees in the opposite to spiritualism, it also does an about face by focus on the self thereby inflating its naaasty behaviour, as evidenced by the three of you and therefore peace is not at the top of its agenda either. <…>

… there is a serious short-sightedness and lack of generosity in AFers so I for one (and most probably many others) will continue each day to share, minus the AF aggro, what I learn here and without one reference to this motley site ever passing my lips. Re: actually caring 7.12.2004

When I read your reply it became clear to me that your idea of sharing is radically different to mine, which is why I didn’t bother to continue the conversation at the time.

As I said at the start, the time does now seem ripe to share a few more stories about certain events that have proved to be significant in widening my outlook from purely self-centred to actually caring about the antagonism and despair that is instinctually-intrinsic to the human condition.

As you may have noticed the events I previously shared with you were events that occurred prior to my coming across actualism and were some of those that in hindsight proved to be significant in my making the decision to set off on the path to becoming both happy and harmless. I would like to now move on to some insights that I gleaned from watching reports on natural disasters after becoming an actualist as the topic of natural disasters has been raised on the list following the under-sea earthquake and the subsequent flooding of many low-lying coastal areas in the Indian Ocean.

Several years ago I remember watching news reports of the devastation following an earthquake in Turkey that resulted in an estimated 17,118 deaths and over 50,000 injuries. As I watched the reports and the struggles of the local people, government officials and aid-workers to cope with the crisis, I was struck by the fact that, as I was watching this, all over the planet there are literally millions of trained men and mountains of equipment on permanent stand-by ready to be deployed in case they are needed to defend against the attack of another army or to attack another army, not to mention the millions of men and women who are employed in other aspects of ‘keeping the lid on human malice and violence’ – police, security guards, lawyers, judges, prison guards and so on. It then occurred to me that if only human beings weren’t so utterly pre-occupied with being malevolent towards their fellow human beings these very same men and women and resources could then be available as a world-wide natural disaster rapid-response team that would not only provide immediate aid but would easily have the capacity to then totally rebuild and renew houses, towns, cities and infrastructure.

Given that I had been a practicing actualist for a few years at the time I watched the reports of the 1999 earthquake, I knew that such an ‘if only’ scenario need not necessarily be a pipe dream because I knew by my own experience that it is possible for anyone, given sufficient intent, to become at least virtually free of malice and sorrow. As more and more people decide to do likewise the need for the likes of armies, police, security guards, lawyers, judges, prison guards, social workers, psychologists, and so on to ‘keep the lid on human malice and violence’ and deal with the outcomes will subsequently and proportionately diminish.

So the facts that I came to clearly see was that the pain and suffering that human beings inflict upon each other is far, far more substantial than the pain and suffering that result from natural disasters and as a consequence the amount of people and resources devoted to attempting to rectify or cope with the aftermath of human-inflicted misery and mayhem is many, many times more than that devoted to preparing for and coping with the aftermath of earthquakes, floods, droughts and the like.

The next fact then follows from this fact. If I really want to make a practical difference in my lifetime to elevating suffering then I need to do what I can do that will have the most practical effect – to devote my life to ending ‘my’ malice and sorrow. And since ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’ this process will inevitably result in the ending of ‘me’, thereby ensuring what I have long sought since I first became aware of the insidious nature of the human condition – an actual freedom from the human condition.

The other insight also relates to what are termed ‘natural’ disasters (presumably human-inflicted disasters are considered somehow unnatural). At the time I was watching television reports of severe bushfires that ringed a city some 500 hundred kilometres to the south of where I live and I became aware of the proficiency of the response of the fire fighters, police and so on who were involved. I was particularly interested because I had been involved in fighting several large fires as a teenager so I was impressed at how much progress had been made in training, equipment, co-ordination and effectiveness. I became absorbed in watching the response to the situation and was particularly struck by the comments made by the chief fire officer in an interview conducted when the fires were finally brought under control.

He said that the emergency services had learnt much from the natural disasters that had happened in this country over the years and that they had recently set up a response system that was world-class, so much so that many countries had emulated it or wanted to emulate it. Basically the approach involved the establishment of a single emergency-response command-and-control centre which acts as the co-ordinating hub of all the specialist branches of emergency response, be they metropolitan fire brigade, rural volunteer fire brigades, police, volunteer emergency response teams, ambulance, army, army reserve, health services, electricity, water, gas and telephone services and so on. Whenever an emergency arises or a natural disaster happens the appropriate emergency service immediately takes the commanding role within the centre – if it is a rural fire, then the rural fire service takes charge with the other services providing whatever support is required; if it is a terrorist attack then the police take charge; if it is an epidemic, the health service takes charge, and so on.

I was struck by the practicality of the system that had been worked out and with the efficiency with which it worked in practice. Here was an example of human ingenuity, co-operation and practicality at its best. Seeing what human beings are capable in such situations despite the human condition (many of the fires were in fact deliberately lit by human beings) brought a tear to my eye at the time because I could see not only altruism in action but also the unfettered actual caring and consideration that individual members of the human species are sometimes capable of. Whilst I was aware that this potential is very often only realized in times of adversity and disaster, it did beg a question for me – if it can be so in those circumstances, why can it not be so in every moment of my mundane experience and in every interaction with my fellow human beings?

As you can see, these events – or rather clearly seeing the facts that were there for the seeing in these events – acted as spurs along the path of becoming free of malice and sorrow. And if I can just return to your comment that instigated this thread –

[Respondent to Vineeto]: Actualism won’t spread like a chain letter till we ‘actually care’ enough to learn how to observe and examine human instincts without ‘investigating’ them as though they are criminal. Re: Investigating Feelings, 4.12.2004

– what you may have noticed from this post is that I do not ‘observe and examine human instincts … as though they are criminal’, I observe and examine them by simply taking a clear-eyed look at the facts of the human animal instincts in action.

RICHARD: Seeing that you have brought the conversation to an end, I would like to express my appreciation for your taking the time, in a discussion with me spanning 10 E-Mails, to give your attention to the most fundamental issues pertaining to human life on earth today.

RESPONDENT: I wonder whether this is sarcasm or what? Seems like it could be.

RICHARD: Indeed not ... I am entirely sincere. I like my fellow human beings and wish only the best for them ... each and every one. Hence this discussion and other public dialogues of the same nature and with the same topic. To wit: peace-on-earth, as this flesh and blood body, in this lifetime.

It is not possible to have an honest, candid and frank discussion until both parties place their cards on the table. Now that you have done so we can proceed with expedition – and without resorting to time-wasting and petty undergraduate debating techniques à la standard internet protocol – if that be of mutual agreement. If not, I will simply use a copy of this page (anonymously) as an established starting point in another discussion with another person on another day ... which is why I am particularly appreciative that you were able to consider, clarify and publicly state both your affirmation and seal of approval to these extremely important issues.

It demonstrably shows other people that I am not making all the details of this mysticism up, you see.

*

RESPONDENT: Right, like you believe that or respect it. Ha, ha. The truth is Richard, if you actually believed that, we would be having a whole different conversation.

RICHARD: If I may interject? I neither need to ‘believe that’ nor ‘respect it’ as I have so far only had dialogues with two self-acknowledged realised beings, in a public forum on the internet such as this, whilst I have had hundreds of discussions on-line with wannabe angelic beings ... therefore it is indeed rare.

As for a ‘whole different conversation’ ... they both responded by attempting to defend the indefensible somewhat the same as you are.

RESPONDENT: One doesn’t even need to be telepathic or self-realized to see your insincerity.

RICHARD: I beg to differ ... I am entirely sincere. Because I actually like my fellow human beings, and not merely feel that I do, then I wish only the best for them ... each and every one.

I actually care, you see, and not merely feel that I care.

RICHARD: It is really very, very simple (which is possibly why it has never been discovered before this): one felt good previously; one is not feeling good now; something happened to one to end that felicitous/ innocuous feeling; one finds out what happened; one sees how silly that is (no matter what it was); one is once more feeling good.

RESPONDENT: Just as an example, Richard? I was feeling good till today morning. When I came to office today at 9.30am, I came to know that I have been dismissed due to a false complaint of a co-worker. I am not feeling good, in fact I am feeling shaken and insecure and thinking hard as to how to take care of my family. I am not vengeful or spiteful towards the complainant. For the life of me I can’t see how this sudden state of insecurity or of worry about my financial future is ‘silly’. I am considering it a justifiable reaction to a crisis. Hence, I am feeling as-is (worried, insecure and nervous). Any comments?

RICHARD: Just for starters:

1. In what way is feeling shaken going to take care of your family?
2. In what way is feeling insecure going to take care of your family?
3. In what way is feeling worried going to take care of your financial future?
4. In what way is feeling nervous going to take care of your financial future?

Now, you also report [quote] ‘thinking hard’ [endquote] ... in what way is feeling shaken/ feeling insecure/ feeling worried/ feeling nervous going to enable you to sensibly and thus judiciously think, reflect, appraise, plan, and implement the considered activity which such a situation, as being dismissed in such circumstances as being falsely complained about, quite obviously requires?

In other words would not feeling good, as you were prior to today morning, be much more conducive to intelligence operating in such an optimum manner?

If so, then what is standing in the way of feeling good again, as you were prior to today morning, is nothing else other than your shaken/ insecure/ worried/ nervous consideration that feeling shaken/ feeling insecure/ feeling worried/ feeling nervous is a justifiable reaction to a crisis.

Surely there is nothing, but nothing, which can ever sensibly justify having one’s intelligence being run by feelings?

RESPONDENT: Grief is one thing oddly enough that I am afraid of losing the propensity for.

PETER: I do understand that this is a tough one, for compassion is upheld as being the most noble of all human traits. A few things helped me move past this loggerhead. One, I have experienced grief as one of my sons died in his teens so I know the feeling well – it’s a bottomless pit of sorrow that I could see would ruin my life if I clung on to it and didn’t let it go. The second was that it simply made sense that unless I let go of grief, and its associated grievous feelings, I would never be free of sorrow …

RESPONDENT: Makes sense to me too, though I fear not caring more than sorrow.

PETER: Does it make sense that one does not need to feel sad in order to actually care?

RESPONDENT: So if Vineeto were to pass on before you, what would actually caring mean in the wake of her death?

PETER: If Vineeto were to ‘pass on’ as you put it she would cease to exist as a flesh and blood body and it is impossible to actually care for someone or something that does not actually exist.

RESPONDENT: You would not feel sad (I don’t know maybe you would at this point), you would not indulge in memories, so how would you describe the experience of someone close to you dying in terms of actually caring rather than being sad?

PETER: As I said, it is impossible to actually care for something or someone that does not actually exist, what actually happens is an actual sense of loss in that the person or thing that you were accustomed to being around no longer exists. If this experience of loss is an affective experience then I would experience it as a personal feeling of grief – an utterly self-centred feeling that can do nothing to reverse the situation, nor do anything at all for the person for whom I grieve because they no longer exist.

I remember the first time I came across the futility of grief was when my father died. I watched my mother go through the usual grieving process until it finally wore out and she started to get on with her life again. It struck me at the time that the last thing my father would have not wanted was for her to suffer simply because he, through no fault of his own, had died.

Of course an intellectual understanding is one thing and it took the death of my son before I fully experienced that grief is an utterly selfish feeling that obviously can’t do a skerrick of good for the person who is dead yet did a good deal of harm both for my own well-feeling and also for the well-feelings of those who I choose to inflict my grief upon or share my grief with.

RESPONDENT: At this point, virtually everything about AF makes sense to me intellectually. (The exceptions are minor). All remaining reservations have a common thread: the fear of inhumanity & madness, the fear of losing capacity for fellow-feeling, compassion, intuition, empathy, etc. (Same old shit that everyone on this list must be facing – or dithering about – in their own way).

VINEETO: When you think straight about the ‘fear of losing capacity for fellow-feeling’ – and this is what it takes for me to eventually overcome a deep-seated fear – then you will find that there is obviously a difference between fellow-*feeling* aka compassion and recognizing fellow-ship as in actually caring for and considering one’s fellow human beings who I actually meet.

Take a situation where you arrive as the first at a road-accident – you would stop, secure the road, assess immediate danger such as fire, inform police and ambulance, assist the people involved in the accident with first aid and do whatever is necessary to alleviate your fellow man’s or woman’s situation. In an actual situation the course of action is usually obvious and often feelings of compassion don’t arise until afterwards, as they would interfere with doing what needs to be done.

Now meeting someone who needs help at a road accident is a rather rare situation in order to practice actual caring – help as action rather than feeling sympathy – whereas when I started to pay attention to my daily routine of interactions with people, and became more sensitive how my words and actions where affecting not just myself but even more so my fellow human beings, I could easily see in what way I could replace a feeling compassion for the suffering all of human kind (which has no tangible effect whatsoever except on me who is feeling it) with an active and tangible change in the way I treat people in my immediate surrounding.

Take driving – I’m sure you know the difference between being followed by an angry, impatient or even reckless driver and a reasonable sensible driver who drives according the given conditions and considers his/her fellow drivers.

Take work – I’m sure you enjoy work much more when your colleagues are pleasant, polite, forthcoming, cooperative, considerate or even happy rather than grumpy, don’t want to be here, sullen, competitive, petty, bossy, bored and so on.

Take living together – it was always my dream to live in perfect peace and harmony with a man but prior to actualism I never managed to do so. Now not only do I get the benefit myself from having sorted out my emotional problems, my partner equally benefits from living with a happy woman who is actively committed to an equitable harmonious partnership.

In short, fact is that people actually tangibly benefit from me being happy and harmless whilst in my pre-actualism years they may have *felt* temporarily comforted by my expressed sympathy and compassion but given that one cannot change the human condition for somebody else, feelings were all I had to offer. This insight was the very reason why I left my job as a social worker and went off to the East searching for the solution to the riddle of life.

Additionally, paying ongoing attention to my own feelings and passions had the result that I became far less ‘self’-centred, ‘self’-oriented and busy being involved in my own problems and was therefore far more able to actually notice other people around me as my fellow people living out their own lives as opposed to seeing them as players on the stage of ‘my’ life and automatically classifying them as competitors or possible benefactors, as a business opportunity, as a possible love-interest, as a friend or an enemy, as a co-spiritualist or as aliens, and so on.

The process of actualism is not one big heroic jump into oblivion, not at the start anyway, but about *practically* doing something about all the little things in daily life that prevent me from being harmless and considerate.

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