Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Asked Questions

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: Either the man or the woman is going to have the dominant role in the relationship. I say that if it is the woman, it means serious problems for sure. If in your marriages, you did not see anything about this, I doubt I could convince you otherwise. You could have observed it. If you did not, I wonder why?

RICHARD: Oh, but I did much more than merely ‘observe’ it: I lived it out (in my first marriage I was ‘masculine’; in my second marriage I was ‘feminine’).

RESPONDENT: What happened was that you started out masculine ...

RICHARD: Yes ... in my first marriage I was more or less like virtually any other man I met; I was a normal man, well bought-up and educated, a decent and responsible citizen in that I was a typical western youth, raised to believe in God, Queen and Country. I was what is called ‘happily married’ with four ‘lovely children’ owning my ‘own house’ and running my ‘own business’ successfully. People who were into things like what is discussed on this Mailing List were the ‘lunatic fringe’ and were not worth even listening to. All that ‘Love and Truth’ stuff was just ‘pie-in-the-sky’ idealism ... I knew better than they. Which is: if only other people would stop doing ... [insert whatever complaint here] ... then all would be well.

In short, I was run by both an ego and a soul; I did not want to look at my instinctual passions or my sorrowful and malicious feelings or my corrupted thoughts or identity-controlled actions and behaviour at all.

RESPONDENT: ... and wound up feminine ...

RICHARD: Yes ... in the fourteenth year of my marriage I had an experience that showed me who ‘I’ was. ‘I’ was nothing but a lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning entity inside this flesh and blood body. So I acted upon this and, as the result of an earnest and intense process, my ‘ego’ disappeared entirely in an edifying moment of awakening to an Absolute Reality. That is, I underwent a monumental transformation into an Altered State Of Consciousness (ASC) which can only be described as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’. I called this ASC an ‘Absolute Freedom’ because there was definitely a metaphysical Absolute in all this – as distinct from the temporal and spatial and material – that was ever-present, and this Divine state of being immediately imbued me with Love Agapé and Universal Compassion for all sentient beings.

In short, I became very feminine indeed.

RESPONDENT: ... so you found a masculine wife to match the new you.

RICHARD: Yes, but that was not for another five years ... in the meanwhile I went through a time I call my ‘puritan period’. I whittled my worldly possessions down to three sarongs, three shirts, a cooking pot and bowl, a knife and a spoon, a bank book and a pair of nail scissors. I possessed nothing else anywhere in the world and cut all family ties. During that period I was homeless, itinerant, celibate, vegan, (no spices; not even salt and pepper), no drugs (no tobacco, no alcohol; not even tea or coffee), no hair cut, no shaving, no washing other than a dip in a river or the ocean ... in short: whatever I could eliminate from my life that was an encumbrance and an attachment, I had let go of. Then, one sunny morn, I met the woman who was to become my second wife on a long, deserted beach. She was determined to ‘unmask the guru’ (her words) and, whilst remarking that while it was certainly something outstanding to ‘love everybody and everything unconditionally’, could I love one person totally, completely and utterly.

In short, could man and woman live together in peace and harmony twenty four hours a day.

RESPONDENT: The first wife won.

RICHARD: Won what?

RESPONDENT: You lost the power struggle.

RICHARD: If you fondly imagine that becoming ‘God On Earth’ is to ‘lose the power struggle’ then you are certainly living in a vacuum.

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RICHARD: I went through a time I call my ‘puritan period’. I whittled my worldly possessions down to three sarongs, three shirts, a cooking pot and bowl, a knife and a spoon, a bank book and a pair of nail scissors. I possessed nothing else anywhere in the world and cut all family ties. During that period I was homeless, itinerant, celibate, vegan, (no spices; not even salt and pepper), no drugs (no tobacco, no alcohol; not even tea or coffee), no hair cut, no shaving, no washing other than a dip in a river or the ocean ... which means: whatever I could eliminate from my life that was an encumbrance and an attachment, I had let go of. Then, one sunny morn, I met the woman who was to become my second wife on a long, deserted beach. She was determined to ‘unmask the guru’ (her words) and, whilst remarking that while it was certainly something outstanding to ‘love everybody and everything unconditionally’, could I love one person totally, completely and utterly. In short, could man and woman live together in peace and harmony twenty four hours a day.

RESPONDENT: Did you live in harmony 24 hours a day?

RICHARD: For the first six years of my second marriage I was still endeavouring to extract myself from the Altered State Of Consciousness (ASC) which is known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ ... and as this divine ‘State Of Being’ imbued me with Love Agapé and Universal Compassion for all sentient beings, I was unable to live in total peace and harmony for the twenty four hours of the day. For the latter five years of the marriage, since going beyond enlightenment and breaking through into an actual freedom from the human condition (wherein malice and sorrow is eliminated and not transcended as in spiritual enlightenment), I have consistently lived in total peace and harmony. This has been my condition since 1992, thus I have had eight years to compare it with the enlightened state ... I can find no fault anywhere. In the enlightened state there were occasional ‘bleed-throughs’ from the transcended ‘I’ as ego entity ... brief flashes of fear, irritation, anguish, desire and so on (a close examination of what is written regarding various Enlightened Masters’ day-to-day lived experience will verify this as being typical). I have had nary a hint nor a glimmer or even a whiff of the faintest trace of a ‘bleed-through’ in actual freedom ... and I am relentless in my examination of myself. After all, I am going public with an outrageous and outstanding claim that could – and should – set the squalid complacency of the religious, spiritual, mystical and metaphysical communities on their ears ... and for those eleven years in the ASC I was determined to be ‘squeaky-clean’ before doing so. Five years without a single hitch satisfied me beyond any doubt whatsoever – not only beyond reasonable doubt – that this is that which is the answer to all the ills of humankind ... and I started writing of my experience in public.

RESPONDENT: If so why was she your second wife?

RICHARD: Because my first wife, being conventionally religious, and upon being faced with her husband’s spiritual enlightenment in the fifteenth year of a normal marriage, chose for the status-quo and, as far as I know, to this very day is still faithfully waiting for the ‘Second Coming’ of her God-Man (he who has a different notion of what a ‘generation’ means than virtually anyone else).

RESPONDENT: What I meant was, why did you end your second marriage if you had found such a harmonious state of existence while with your second wife?

RICHARD: Because my second wife, being mystically feministic, and upon being faced with her husband’s actual freedom from the human condition in the sixth year of an abnormal marriage, chose for ‘True Love’ (Matrilineal not Patrilineal) and, as far as I know, to this very day is still faithfully waiting for the ‘True Peace’, that only a female can manifest via ‘True Intimacy’, to manifest itself.

RICHARD: The utter peace of the perfection of the purity welling endlessly as the infinitude this eternal and infinite universe actually is.

RESPONDENT: Who made peace with who?

RICHARD: There is no ‘who’ – ‘who’ can never, ever be at peace – it is me as-this-body that is peace personified ... and no one else, as far as I can ascertain, is experiencing this. And, as this peace is so perfect, it does not require anybody else’s cooperation ... mutuality and reciprocity in relationship neither adds to perfection nor does their absence detract from perfection.

RESPONDENT: Were you both perfect?

RICHARD: What is with this ‘were’ business? The identity in toto (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) is extinct ... annihilated, expunged, liquidated, extirpated. As dead as the dodo but with no skeletal remains. There is no phoenix to arise from the ashes ... there are no ashes.

This is final, complete and total.

RESPONDENT: Richard, when talking with a female friend about your Journal she asked the following questions: 1) Were all three people in the three-way relationship with Irene, yourself and Grace engaging in sexual relations ...

RICHARD: Yes, although the ménage à trois – ‘an arrangement or relationship in which three people live together’ (Oxford Dictionary) – started out as a platonic association for my current companion.

RESPONDENT: ... (i.e. were Irene and Grace sexually active together, etc.)?

RICHARD: As I do not have permission from my previous companion to publicly disclose personal information I will not be responding, be it either in the negative or the affirmative, to queries such as that.

RESPONDENT: 2) Was there any hint that Irene may have been jealous of your sexual relationship with Grace?

RICHARD: No, the fundamental, or pivotal, reason for what ensued is as detailed in ‘Richard’s Journal’ (of which my previous companion has had a copy ever since it was first published) and in various places throughout my correspondence ... to wit: having fallen in love with a person who loved another she energetically transformed that unrequited love into being Love Agapé ... and the rest is history.

RESPONDENT: 3) Why, if you had a ‘perfect’ relationship with Irene, would you want to add a third party?

RICHARD: This is the way I described how it all began:

• [Richard]: ‘... my current companion shared a house in a large coastal city with my previous companion before either of them ... (1) ever met me ... and (2) moved to the seaside village where I reside. My previous companion and I, whilst living together, happened to meet the woman who was to become my current companion when strolling along a village street one day and stopped to chat (as peoples everywhere are wont to do): in the midst of the conversation the woman who was to become my current companion experienced what she described, as it was occurring, as an intimacy closer than she had ever had with herself ... which closeness prompted her to move in with me and my then companion (her previous house-mate).

My previous companion was, of course, well aware of such an intimacy. Vis.:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘As to [an actual intimacy with every body and every thing and every event] I wonder if you could give any description as to this hmm experience of ‘intimacy with every body and every thing and every event’.
• [Richard]: ‘Perhaps the words my current companion used, when experiencing an actual intimacy upon serendipitously meeting me in the street one day in 1996 (which experience prompted her to move in with me and my then companion), would convey it in a way you may be able to relate to ... she described it as a closeness which was more intimate than she had ever experienced with her own self.
Or, for another description, my previous companion likened it to being closer than her own heartbeat was to her’.

In short: the ménage à trois was initiated by, and primarily based upon, an actual intimacy ... and not sex and sexuality.

RESPONDENT: I don’t remember this being covered thoroughly in past correspondence and now that I think about it, that is rather surprising to me.

RICHARD: Oh? Are you not aware then, that were your female friend’s question to be asked in a world-wide context, rather than from a parochial point of view, it would look somewhat odd ... as in rather unusual or out of place?

Mr. George Murdock, an anthropologist by profession, catalogued 853 societies globally: 83.5% of them permitted or preferred polygyny, with but 16% (mainly western) imposing monogamy by law (yet which, by allowing divorce, permit successive polygamy) and only four societies, out of the 853 catalogued, permitted polyandry. (Source: Murdock, G. P. Ethnographic atlas: a summary. Ethnology 6:109-236.).

In other words a ménage à deux is not the norm.

RESPONDENT: Richard, I’m interested to know how knowing and experiencing your partner changed over the years, as it probably closely mirrors the changes in your condition. I know that love allows one to enter into direct contact with the other’s being and thus experience him/her.

RICHARD: As I have been here all along my experiencing/knowing has been essentially the same all the while (I only get to meet flesh and blood bodies here in this actual world) ... to wit: an actual intimacy/an apperceptive awareness.

However, as you are obviously enquiring about how the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago experienced/knew ‘his’ first wife (for 15 years as a normal ‘being’ and for 2 years as an abnormal ‘Being’) and ‘his’ second wife (for 6 years as an abnormal ‘Being’) then the experiencing/knowing took two main forms ... egoistically (for 15 years) and holistically (for 2 + 6 years).

RESPONDENT: Holistically as in whole or holly? What do you mean by whole?

RICHARD: The word ‘holistically’ comes from the Greek ‘holos’ (whole, entire) meaning ‘complete, whole; completely, wholly’. Vis.:

• ‘holistically (adv.): as a whole [complete, comprising or involving all parts, aspects, etc.]’. (Oxford Dictionary).

However, I am meaning the word ‘holistically’ – essentially as opposed to ‘atomistically’ (to be divided into separate and disparate elements) – in its popular metaphysical sense ... as the following will convey:

• ‘Holistic – as in Holistic Model of Reality or holistic awareness, etc., to refer to any experience or philosophical understanding that is based on Oneness as in One Consciousness as the Source, substratum or foundation of reality. Also, inclusiveness of all dimensions from subtle to dense’. (www.synchronicity.org/Glossaryp.html).

*

RESPONDENT: I don’t know how to put it more to the point ... do you now know/experience your partner’s character (the third I so-to-speak), the actual person?

RICHARD: Aye ... just as I have all along.

RESPONDENT: So, it can be said that you experience the third I (actual character) of any other person you come in contact with ...

RICHARD: I was responding as much to your ‘the actual person’ description as to that way of putting it.

RESPONDENT: ... immediately or only after some time spent with that person?

RICHARD: I experience the actual person immediately ... their actual character, being both hereditarily and environmentally determined, becomes more apparent the more the experiencing continues.

RESPONDENT: Given the fact that every ‘other’ is different, it must be fun meeting people. What I don’t understand is why you say that no body is special ... yet it is clear that your current partner is a special person and maybe not only to you ... different from the rest by some character traits that you prefer/like. Or maybe you meant something else by ‘special’.

RICHARD: Yes ... presumably you are referring to this (re-posted earlier this year):

• [Richard]: ‘It is impossible to not like somebody, whatever the mischief is they get up to, as an actual intimacy does not switch on and off and operates unilaterally in regards every man, woman and child without exception ... nobody is special because everybody is special simply by being alive as a flesh and blood body’.

That was in response to about how I am with children/how I treat children ... I have responded with similar in regards a query about friends:

• [Richard]: ‘(...) it is impossible to not like someone whatever the mischief is they get up to ... an actual intimacy is impossible to switch off. (...) it is impossible to have ‘friends’ as an actual intimacy operates unilaterally in regards every man, woman and child without exception ... no body is special because every body is special’.

The same, or similar, applies to both a choice companion and select associates.

*

RESPONDENT: Is someone’s actual character original (in the sense that it’s an unique combination of elements)?

RICHARD: Yes ... both hereditarily and environmentally.

RICHARD: Yes ... both hereditarily and environmentally.

RESPONDENT: Are your preferences in regards to choosing/living with a partner mainly influenced by this ...

RICHARD: Indeed so ... my current companion has no equal.

RESPONDENT: No equal ... in what area?

RICHARD: In the area your [quote] ‘this’ [endquote] referred to, of course ... to somebody’s actual character being original (in the sense that it is an unique combination of elements both hereditary and environmental).

Even identical twins are not exactly alike in that area.

*

RESPONDENT: ... or simply by your heterosexual orientation (any partner will do, as you experience intimacy with any body)?

RICHARD: This flesh and blood body’s sexual orientation simply determines what gender a potential companion will be; as an actual intimacy is with every body (and every thing/every event) it is that person’s character/ disposition/ constitution/ temperament which appeals.

As does their vital interest in an actual intimacy for themselves, of course.

RESPONDENT: I see ... do you find in the actual world human characters/ dispositions/ constitutions/ temperaments that do not appeal to you or even you personally dislike?

RICHARD: Perhaps if I were to rephrase the passage you partly referred to (further above) by way of example? Vis.:

• [example only]: ‘It is impossible to not like somebody, whatever that person’s character/disposition/constitution/temperament may be, as an actual intimacy does not switch on and off and operates unilaterally in regards every man, woman and child without exception ...’. [endquote].

Similarly, it is impossible for anybody, whatever that person’s character/disposition/constitution/temperament may be, to not appeal.

RESPONDENT: A preference is a discriminatory process ...

RICHARD: Here is what that word can mean:

• ‘discriminatory: discriminative [having the quality or character of observing or making distinctions with accuracy; showing discrimination, discerning]; esp. practising or evincing racial, sexual, or similar discrimination (Oxford Dictionary).

Thus I would rather say that a preference is discriminative – in that it is a process which involves observing distinctions accurately – as the word ‘discriminatory’ has popular connotations such as those especially expressed (racism, sexism, ageism, and so on) ... and the example I most often give is that of preferring to sit upon cushion (if available) than directly on the brick pavers of a patio or the such-like.

In other words, a preference sensibly-based upon creature-comforts.

RESPONDENT: ... it means assessing the quality of something over something else ...

RICHARD: Given that the word ‘quality’ (from the Latin ‘qualis’ meaning ‘of what kind’) literally means ‘character, disposition, nature, constitution, make-up’ a preference for a like-minded companion (to use a colloquial phrase to convey congruity) means assessing both their character/disposition/constitution/temperament and where their interests lie – and in what order of priority such interests take – in terms of compatibility.

RESPONDENT: ... does the quality of people’s actual character vary?

RICHARD: No, what does vary is different persons’ actual character/disposition/constitution/temperament (and their vital interest of course).

RESPONDENT: Is this not the recipe for creating a personal hierarchy in terms of taste?

RICHARD: A preference for *a companion*, whose character/disposition/constitution/temperament and vital interest coincides with one’s own (as in having correspondence), is in no way a recipe for creating a personal hierarchy, in terms of taste or otherwise, amongst peoples at large.

Speaking personally ... I take people as they come (as in literally accepting them as-they-are).

RESPONDENT: The current and democratic thoughts (i.e. multiculturalism, relativism) are quite against hierarchies, but for me they are an intrinsic aspect of life and are linked with judgement and quality, not to mention the possibility for evolution ... I don’t mean hierarchy in the sense of a power structure. A western style society is functionally more advanced/beneficial than its Arab/Chinese counterpart.

RICHARD: As you have moved away from what my experiencing/knowing of my companion is, and what my preferences in regards to choosing/living with same are, into the topic of humankind itself, and societies in particular, the following part of a thread may be of interest:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘You say ‘equity and parity is the key to success’.
• [Richard]: ‘Yes, the ‘theory of mind’ signifies both equity and parity to be involuntarily automatic in any social situation. [Dictionary Definition]: equity: even-handed dealing; fairness, impartiality; unbiased. [Dictionary Definition]: parity: on a par; equivalence; similarity; correspondence. The question is: what is preventing this spontaneous recognition of being fellow human beings from flowing-on into all areas in common?
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘The notions of equity and parity are seemingly at the core of democratic institutions, with the idea that ‘all men are created equal’ and that there are certain ‘natural’ rights of human beings, stemming from the thinking of philosophers like John Locke.
• [Richard]: ‘I questioned whether all humans are born equal ... there are talents one has which leads to an ease in the acquisition of skills that another has to struggle to master and vice versa. The rapid shuffling of the DNA molecules at conception (before the doubling takes place) leads to a disparity betwixt one foetus and another. The same applies to physical stature (muscularity, stamina and so on) which all combine to produce a staggering array of differences ... and none of this I have detailed so far has anything to do with where one is born (climate) or in what era (progress) let alone social inequality such as what class of society one is born into (educational and career opportunities) and so on. As for ‘natural rights’ ... without question there are none: there is only ‘human rights’. And ‘human rights’ are a human construct – an agreement between human beings to conduct themselves in a certain way in relation to other human beings – and are designed to counter the insalubrious effects of the instinctual passions bestowed upon all sentient beings by blind nature via genetic inheritance. A ‘right’ is a legal entitlement ascribed to a person or persons with a reasonable or just claim to the terms of that agreement. A ‘right’ is therefore something ‘given’ by humans to humans – and to a certain extent to other animals – but what is given can be taken away ... at the point of a gun. There are no ‘rights’, in actuality, other than what human beings agree on ... and ‘rights’ have to be enforced at the point of a gun, anyway.
Any philosophical thinking (such as that of Mr. John Locke) which starts with a false premise is going to produce an elaborately false outcome (the falseness of which is concealed in the mass of concepts required to prop up the entire edifice). That there is some useful notions scattered hither and thither gives the thesis an air of respectability.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Equity. Parity. Are these just high-minded ideals, political theories divorced from the reality of everyday life in human societies?
• [Richard]: ‘Yes and no (and I am not being tricky here) in that yes, they are ‘just high-minded ideals’ when applied as a discipline, a practice, a duty ... and no, they are not ‘divorced from the reality of everyday life’ when they come spontaneously, involuntarily, of their own accord.
In a word: artlessly.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Naturally, there is a dark side of democratic institutions that is well known: the history of oppression and slavery, actual slavery, political and economic slavery, that democratic ideals, cleverly managed, conceal. And there is the actuality that we are quick to the trigger, to pick up a machine gun or a grenade launcher when the music stops and infringe on the ‘rights’ of others in territorial conquests or economic competition.
• [Richard]: ‘And here you have put your finger on the nub of the issue: the spontaneity of equity and parity that comes with the recognition of being fellow human beings is hijacked, subverted, sabotaged.
And by what?
(...)
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘So, where do equity and parity come into the picture?
• [Richard]: ‘Only unilateral action will do the trick.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Are these just hollow ideals?
• [Richard]: ‘No ... or, rather, they were not for me, anyway.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Do they have any actual meaning in our lives?
• [Richard]: ‘My experience says: if you want it too it will have meaning in your life ... and bucket-loads of meaning into the bargain.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘I would appreciate you expanding on these words.
• [Richard]: ‘This was my position all those years ago: just as I cannot change the weather to ensure a sunny day on the beach, how can I live with equity and parity in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are?’

All-told the thread spans several e-mails ... yet that last sentence is the essence of it.

RESPONDENT: After so much of what you write about the wonderfulness of living, etc., I inject ‘he obviously hasn’t had to deal with a teenager’. Don’t write me back that you are blissfully swimming in a house full of them.

RICHARD: No, I do not have a house full of children. I am a fifty year old father of four adult children and seven grandchildren from my first marriage. My current companion and I are, by choice, childless and will stay so ... enough is enough! I am also retired and on a pension, so I am able to thoroughly enjoy all the household tasks if only simply because this is made so much easier now that the children are grown up. However, I know full well what is involved in raising teenagers ... I raised four of them. In fact, when my first marriage ended in 1983, I became a single parent, looking after three children (the oldest son having already left home and got work) and I raised a teenage son and two daughters on my own.

Actually, I had a wonderful time. I never sent any of my children to full-time school until aged eleven-twelve (so as to avoid the inevitable indoctrination cunningly disguised as socialisation) and taught them at home instead. With the freedom from authority that this brings the children and I were able to be ‘best friends’, in those latter years of parenthood, as I was thus able to experience them as fellow human beings living this life for the very first time. Consequently I had no need to be a disciplinarian, which is the invidious position parents usually place themselves in, as in my early years. Being radical as I am, we travelled all over the east coast of Australia for some years before heading west and, after some time there, going to India. By this time my second-eldest son had ‘left home’ and obtained work and my youngest daughter decided to live with her mother. Thus my nine year old daughter accompanied me on an exhilarating trip through Singapore, Madras, Delhi and up into the Himalayas where we rented a stone hut about one hundred kilometres from the Nepalese/Tibetan border in Northern India. She thoroughly enjoyed everything.

I currently live on the most easterly point of the Australian seaboard in a small village called Byron Bay. I have an affinity for the small-town life as I was born and raised on a dairy farm in the south-west of Australia.

RESPONDENT: Seriously, I am really interested in what you are saying.

RICHARD: I am genuinely glad to hear this, because I write not only for myself but for my fellow human being. This is my position: We are all fellow human beings who find ourselves here in the world as it was when we were born. We find war, murder, torture, rape, domestic violence and corruption to be endemic ... we notice that it is intrinsic to the human condition ... we set out to discover why this is so. We find sadness, loneliness, sorrow, grief, depression and suicide to be a global incidence ... and we gather that it is also inherent to the human condition ... and we want to know why. We all report to each other as to the nature of our discoveries for we are all well-meaning and seek to find a way out of this mess that we have landed in. Whether one believes in re-incarnation or not, we are all living this particular life for the very first time, and we wish to make sense of it. It is a challenge and the adventure of a life-time to enquire and to uncover, to seek and to find, to explore and to discover. All this being alive business is actually happening and we are totally involved in living it out ... whether we take the back seat or not, we are all still doing it. I, for one, am not taking the back seat.

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

RESPONDENT: Richard, another question thread from same friend: 1) How old were your children when you became enlightened and how did that event affect them and their/your relationship?

RICHARD: The eldest was around fourteen years old, the second eldest thirteen, the second youngest six years old, and the youngest five; at the time they were all affected differently, and to varying degrees, ranging from incomprehension to indifference; my relationship changed from one of parentage to one of friendship (and they all appreciated that immensely ... as exemplified by the youngest often saying how glad she was that the ‘bossy-boots dad’ was gone).

RESPONDENT: 2) How old were your children when you became actually free and how did that event affect them and their/your relationship?

RICHARD: They would have been, respectively, about twenty five years of age, twenty four, seventeen and sixteen; at the time none of them were affected as they were not around to notice anything (they were all scattered far and wide living their own lives); my association – there is no relationship in actuality – with them is no different than with any other fellow human being ... and which fellowship regard they all have, to varying degrees, had some perplexity in accommodating themselves to (as exemplified by the second-youngest saying, at age twenty two or thereabouts, that she sometimes wished she had had a normal father as, unlike her then girlfriends who were getting married and having children of their own, she had ‘inherited’ a quest to pursue and could not settle down).

RESPONDENT: 3) What is your current involvement with your offspring?

RICHARD: The same as with any other of my fellow human beings.

To explain: when a person – any person – no longer has familial ties or kinship bonds to pull or be pulled by then any interaction, if there be any, is a freely made choice arising out of common interests ... indeed, even though my own progenitors are both still alive I never have reason to call them by telephone nor ever go to visit.

There is nothing mysterious about it ... it is more or less the same as not interacting with that elderly couple Mr./Ms. Smith, of High Street, Any-Town, with whom I also have no interests in common with.

RESPONDENT: 4) If someone were to ask your offspring about you, what might they say?

RICHARD: I really do not know ... plus it would depend upon which one them it was who was asked (and, quite possibly, on how they were feeling about me at the time).

RESPONDENT: How do they view you and an actual freedom from the human condition?

RICHARD: I have neither asked how they (any of them) view me nor how they (any of them) view an actual freedom from the human condition.

RESPONDENT: I remember a correspondence where you said something like: ‘it took 5 years to unravel the legacy of Richard the identity in relation to ‘his’ family’.

RICHARD: I found two references to my then-children which include the word ‘legacy’ ... here is the one you are referring to:

• [Richard]: ‘Speaking personally, ‘I’ lost everything: ‘my’ wife, ‘my’ children, ‘my’ business, ‘my’ house, ‘my’ car ... the lot. But, most importantly, I lost ‘me’ ... and they were ‘his’ wife, children, business, house, car and so on, anyway ... not mine. I inherited all ‘his’ stuff when ‘he’ disappeared, and I took five years to taper-off all of ‘his’ legacy. Nowadays, being me as-I-am, I have an entirely new life that is infinitely better ... vastly superior. That lifestyle was ‘his’ choice, not mine, and suited ‘his’ temperament only’.

And here is the other one ... perhaps more relevant to what your female friend is enquiring about:

• [Richard]: ‘... for the first 34 years of my life I was sane (the ordinary, normal, common, or everyday sanity of people in general all over the world) and peace-on-earth was nowhere to be found; for the next 11 years I was in a transformed state of being (which I gradually came to realise was an institutionalised insanity) called The Absolute or Truth, God, Being, Presence, Self, and so on, which was exemplified by love – Love Agapé – compassion, bliss, rapture, ecstasy, euphoria, goodness, beauty, oneness, unity, wholeness and a timeless, spaceless, formless immortal otherness which was a peace that passeth all understanding ... yet all the while peace-on-earth was still nowhere to be found.
By ‘institutionalised’ I mean altered states of consciousness that have become institutions over the aeons: instituted as being states of consciousness which are universally accepted as the summum bonum of human existence ... a model to either live by, aspire to, become, or be.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘(...) How are you with children, after you became insane?
• [Richard]: ‘For most of the 11 years I was more than loving with children, more than compassionate, as I was love, I was compassion ... or, better put, there was only love, there was only compassion.
At least one of the children in my care, custody and control at the time (I was a single parent for a number of years) bears the legacy of that era to this very day due to the powerful influence of such intense affection.
(...) These days children are, like everybody else, my fellow human beings and fellowship regard epitomises all interaction: with the cessation of the institutionalised insanity, and its pathetic intimacy, an actual intimacy lies open all around.
It is impossible to not like somebody, whatever the mischief is they get up to, as an actual intimacy does not switch on and off and operates unilaterally in regards every man, woman and child without exception ... nobody is special because everybody is special simply by being alive as a flesh and blood body’.

RESPONDENT: I am interested in a more in-depth explanation of this topic by yourself.

RICHARD: Okay ... nationalism, and thus patriotism with all its heroic evils, is an amplified form of tribalism: tribalism is an augmentation of clanism; clanism, being familistical, is but a much larger extension of the extended-family; and the extended-family stems, of course, from where blood is the thickest it can ever possibly be than water ... to wit: the core family group itself.

Now, although the root cause of war itself is the instinctual passions in action, the primary impulse for warfare at large is, more often than not, none other than kinship bonds (or any extension thereof no matter how attenuated in modern-day nations) and yet the ties of consanguinity are widely held in high esteem, almost to the point of being subject to taboo, and thus generally exempt from an investigation into the human condition (as is evidenced from time-to-time both on this mailing list and others, for example, by derogatory comments about the way I interact with the fellow human beings who happen to be my progeny).

Here in this actual world, where everybody is special simply by being alive as a flesh and blood body, kinship ties/family bonds are nowhere to be found ... which means that, not only is the root cause of war eliminated, the fundamental impulse for warfare at large, generally speaking, has been similarly eradicated.

It is all so simple, here.

RESPONDENT: From actualfreedom.com.au/richard/listafcorrespondence/listaf68b.htm#06May05a. [Richard]: ‘For most of the 11 years I was more than loving with children, more than compassionate, as I was love, I was compassion ... or, better put, there was only love, there was only compassion. At least one of the children in my care, custody and control at the time (I was a single parent for a number of years) bears the legacy of that era to this very day due to the powerful influence of such intense affection’. [endquote]. Can you elaborate on this?

RICHARD: I have already elaborated (in the original e-mail exchange which that above quote was excerpted from). Vis.:

[Richard]: ‘For most of the 11 years I was more than loving with children, more than compassionate, as I was love, I was compassion ... or, better put, there was only love, there was only compassion. At least one of the children in my care, custody and control at the time (I was a single parent for a number of years) bears the legacy of that era to this very day due to the powerful influence of such intense affection.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘And what might that legacy be?
• [Richard]: ‘A sense of mission to search for The Absolute (or Truth, God, Being, Presence, Self, and so on), which is exemplified by love – Love Agapé – compassion, bliss, rapture, ecstasy, euphoria, goodness, beauty, oneness, unity, wholeness and a timeless, spaceless, formless immortal otherness which is a peace that passeth all understanding, of course.
The powerful influence of such intense affection in a child’s formative years takes some shaking off ... it almost amounts to an imprinting’.

RESPONDENT: What was the influence/effect of your parenting during that era on the child you mention?

RICHARD: As mentioned at the beginning of that e-mail you found the above quote in the relationship had changed, during that era, from one of parentage to one of friendship ...

RESPONDENT: Do you think this change benefited your children ...

RICHARD: No, I know that it did ... if nothing else it was much more fun.

Essentially, all what is required of any progenitor is to ensure that their off-spring are adequately equipped for adulthood (are able to effectively operate and function independently in the environment they are born into).

RESPONDENT: ... is it any better to be a friend to one’s child than a parent?

RICHARD: It certainly is ... just for starters: being much more fun it readily promotes open learning (children are congenitally curious).

RESPONDENT: If so, in what ways? I have already read this part: [quote] ‘(and they all appreciated that immensely ... as exemplified by the youngest often saying how glad she was that the ‘bossy-boots dad’ was gone)’ [endquote].

RICHARD: By not being either authoritarian (as distinct from authoritative) or disciplinarian a child’s innate inquisitiveness is not stifled – and many such educators have bemoaned the lack of motivation in their subject students – inasmuch curiosity’s concomitant keenness for discovery provides more than enough incentive.

Apart from being innately curious children are also inherently imitative – as indicated by the term ‘role-model’ – and it should not take genius to suss out the advantages friendship has over parentship (or any other form of kinship for that matter).

*

RICHARD: ... and (as also mentioned in that same e-mail) at age twenty two or thereabouts she said that she sometimes wished she had had a normal child/father relationship as, unlike her then girlfriends who were getting married and having children of their own, she had ‘inherited’ a quest to pursue and could not settle down.

RESPONDENT: Do you know what happened to the quest she inherited, presumably, from your enlightened years?

RICHARD: Having openly and frankly discussed the events of her formative years on both that occasion and another a year or two later – plus having given her a copy of ‘Richard’s Journal’ and the address of The Actual Freedom Trust web site – there is every possibility that it has been shaken off.

RESPONDENT: What has that drive led her to investigate?

RICHARD: I do not know – being now an adult for many years she lives her own life completely independent of her erstwhile father – but going by what I recall, from the age twenty two or thereabouts conversation, she had investigated what some spiritual/mystical peoples have had to report ... specifically, and not surprisingly, where it pertained to love (in all its forms and variations).

GARY: Specific questions that arise might be the following: do you belong to any groups or organizations of any kind?

RICHARD: I neither belong to any public organisation, club, guild, or fraternity/sorority by whatever description, nor go to parties, bars, dances, or any other similar social venue ... neither do I play competitive sports, support any team or player, or even watch any such sporting events.

GARY: Do you have a more active social life now or less active?

RICHARD: An entirely different social life: no integration is required as the world as-it-is endows any activity with all its completion ... a plenitude that far exceeds any social event which seeks to divert the jaded from their creeping ennui.

GARY: What happened to you socially when you self-immolated?

RICHARD: I have tended to be individualistic all my life – although I could party-on with the best of the revellers on occasion – so, basically, all that happened socially was that gregariousness, or the urge to socialise, has vanished completely ... just as sexual congress sans the libidinous impulse is a luscious intercourse so too is social congress without the gregarian urge a delightful interaction.

All in all an estimable situation.

RESPONDENT: 2. My female partner said after some months of practice: ‘Your libido are too much to me!’. But we still married and happy together. So, if you permit one correlated impertinence: Why are you single now?

RICHARD: As libido is null and void for me then being sexually active or not is purely a matter of preference. What this means in effect is that sexual congress, because of its utter proximity, has more to do with intimacy than anything else.

Now, here is where it becomes quite an intriguing matter because, and as a generalisation only, women tend to place more emphasis on intimacy than men. Indeed, many a woman has bewailed the dearth of men prepared to make the big commitment required for such connubial accord.

Yet they are deathly afraid of intimacy – the fear of intimacy is a subject most women have talked to me about – for it means loss of self.

And therein lies the rub: the survival instincts can kick in big-time, especially during sexual congress, and the very opposite of the longed-for intimacy takes place (as in pulling-back, turning-away, closing-off, shutting-down, and so on).

As peculiar as it may sound, on a purely intellectual level, the very thing peoples most want is the very thing they most fear. When their very survival (as an identity) is at stake all manner of weird behaviour can take place – to the point of utter bizarrerie – as is readily evidenced in the archived correspondence on The Actual Freedom Trust website.

I have said before, and will say it again, how actualism is not for the faint of heart or the weak at knee as it requires nerves of steel to delve the stygian depths of the human psyche.

Put briefly: unless or until such a woman comes into my purview being single, in this respect, will remain my ongoing status.

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