Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Asked Questions

RICHARD: It is surprisingly easy and simple to live and function without any ‘I’ (identity, persona, personality, ego, id, self, soul, spirit) whatsoever ... in fact it is such a vast improvement upon ‘I’ doing all the daily tasks that it is a delight to just contemplate the difference. ‘I’ unnecessarily complicate this otherwise simple living with ‘my’ needs, demands, wants, shoulds, musts, beliefs, morals, values, principles, ideals, and so on. Not to mention ‘my’ sadness and empathy, ‘my’ likes and dislikes, ‘my’ loves and hates, ‘my’ fears and trusts, ‘my’ revenges and pardons, ‘my’ jealousies and faithfulnesses, ‘my’ blamings and forgiveness, ‘my’ lonelinesses and ‘my’ loves ... the list goes on and on.

This body is eminently capable of functioning of its own accord: the stomach tells the brain (the nerve-organising organ of the body with its data-correlating ability) when it is empty, the bladder tells the brain when it is full, and so on. ‘I’, thinking and feeling that ‘I’ am an important part of the process, step in and say, incorrectly: ‘‘I’ am hungry’, or ‘‘I’ want to got to the toilet’, etc. ‘I’ am not hungry – the stomach is simply signalling its emptiness; ‘I’ am not busting for a pee – the bladder is merely indicating its fullness. And it is not at all like having ‘a frontal lobotomy’ because thinking happens of its own accord ... it is the function of the brain to do so. The empty stomach instructs the legs, via the brain, to walk it to the cupboard for food. The eyes, seeing an empty cupboard, will advise the legs, via the brain, to walk the body to a shop. An empty wallet will tell the legs to take the body to a bank ... and an empty bank account will demonstrate that it is time to get a job (or a pension). I am not being pedantic here – it is actually this simple. Without an ‘I’ one is this body living in the actual world of people, things and events – not an ‘I’ living in the real world, forever cut off from the magnificence of the actual.

‘I’ can never be here in this actual world for ‘I’ am an interloper, an alien in psychic possession of the body. ‘I’ do not belong here. All this is impossible to imagine which is why it is essential to be confident that the actual world does exist. In order to mutate from the self-centred licentiousness to a self-less sensualism, one must have confidence in the ultimate beneficence of the universe. This confidence is born out of knowing, which is derived from the peak experience, and is an essential ingredient to ensure success. In a peak experience everything is seen, with unparalleled clarity, to be already perfect ... that humans are all living in perfection ... if only one would act upon one’s seeing. In these moments, Good and Bad, Love and Hate, Generosity and Parsimony, Fear and Trust ... all these and more, are simply irrelevant. Gods and Goddesses, Devils and Demons, all the battles that have raged throughout the ages are but a nightmare of passionate human fantasy. There is a marked absence of hierarchy; no Religious or Spiritual Figure can match the matter-of-fact equality that pervades everything. A quality of kindly understanding prevails, dispensing forever with the need for Authority and Love and Truth. And ... of course man and woman live together in perennial peace and harmony.

One does not have to generate confidence oneself – as the religious/spiritual/mystical/metaphysical people require of one with regard to their blind faith – the purity of the actual world, seen and lived in the peak experience, bestows this confidence upon one. The experience of purity is a benefaction. Out of this blessing comes a pure intent, which will consistently guide one through the travails of daily life, gently ushering in an increasing ease and generosity of character. With this growing magnanimity, one becomes more and more anonymous, more and more self-less. With this expanding altruism one becomes less and less self-centred, less and less egocentric. Eventually the moment comes wherein something definitive happens, physically, inside the brain and ‘I’ am nevermore. ‘Being’ ceases – it was only a psychic apparition anyway – and war is over, forever, in one human being.

Then there is something precious in living itself ... something ultimately precious. Something beyond compare. It is the essential character of the universe – which is the life-giving foundation of all that is apparent. That something precious is me as-I-am ... me as I actually am as distinct from ‘me’ as ‘I’ really am. I am the universe experiencing itself. The perfection and purity of being here, as-I-am, is akin to the perfection and purity seen in a dew-drop hanging from the tip of a leaf in the early-morning sunshine; the sunrise strikes the dew-drop with its warming rays, highlighting the flawless correctness of the tear-drop shape with its bellied form. One is left almost breathless with wonder at the immaculate simplicity so exemplified ... and everyone I have spoken with has experienced this purity and perfection in some way or another at varying stages in their life. It is not difficult to conceive – just impossible to imagine – that this is one’s essential character. One has to dare to live it – for it is both one’s birth-right and destiny.

When one lives the magical perfection of this purity twenty-four-hours-a-day; when one has ceased being ‘I’ and is being genuine, one can see clearly that there is no separation between me as this body and that something which is precious. The perfection of life emerges from the purity that wells up constantly due to the immense stillness of the infinity of the universe which is limitless in its scope and magnitude. This stillness is that something which is precious. It is the life-giving foundation of all that is apparent. This stillness happens as me as this body. This stillness is my essential disposition, for it is the principle character, the intrinsic basis of everything. It is this universe at its source. It is not, as it might commonly be supposed, at the centre of everything ... there is no centre here. This stillness, which is everywhere all at once, is the be all and end all of life itself. I am the universe experiencing itself as a human being.

RESPONDENT: I wonder what it means to be the first to find something when there is no identity to do the finding.

RICHARD: I have been asked a similar query before:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘You have qualities. In the main page of the actualfreedom website, is written: ‘in this area are miscellaneous corespondents with the DISCOVERER of the method’ so you are something.
• [Richard]: ‘You can only be referring to the following (copy-pasted from the main page): 

‘This website [‘The Third Alternative’] encompasses selections from the writings of the ‘discoverer’ of actual freedom and includes a substantial, wide-ranging correspondence. The journey into the institutionalised insanity of Spiritual Enlightenment and the emergence of actual freedom is clearly described in unambiguous terms’. [endquote].. (Richard, Homepage)

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘You are a discoverer ...

• [Richard]: ‘The word ‘discoverer’ is put in scare-quotes because I never discovered anything – it was the identity within that did all the work – as well you already know. Viz.: [Co-Respondent]: ‘Richard, one sentence attracted my attention in your email. [quote]: ‘I never discovered anything ... the ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul discovered both the actualism method and the wide and wondrous path’. [endquote]. So it follows logically that ...’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44e, 11 October 2003).

Apart from that ... are you really suggesting that discovering something – anything – proves that a flesh and blood body is not ‘self’-less (aka sans ‘self’ in toto)?’ (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44g, 8 July 2004a).

RESPONDENT: And if you have no identity what replaces it?

RICHARD: Nothing ... all that is inside this flesh and blood body is heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, and so on, and so forth.

RESPONDENT: After all you still have memories of what your flesh and blood body has done, do you not?

RICHARD: No, it is this flesh and blood body which has memories of what this flesh and blood body has done.

RESPONDENT: Is this not in itself a form of identity?

RICHARD: No, this is simply what this flesh and blood body has memories of.

RESPONDENT: Is this newness not simply the newness of experiencing life as-it-is?

RICHARD: No, the newness being referred to is that an actual freedom from the human condition is now available for the first time in human history/ human experience.

RESPONDENT: Would you clarify something for me in this arena? On Aug. 14, 2001 Richard responds to Correspondent 19, ‘and away you went on a nonsensical discussion about the word uttered as ‘Richard’’. When you call something nonsensical ‘who’ is assessing whether something makes sense or not. Doesn’t that imply some identity whether you want to label it as one or not?

RICHARD: Where there is an actual freedom from the human condition there is neither a ‘who’ to assess whether something makes sense or not nor is there a ‘who’ that wants to label or not ... it is the flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware that makes assessments and applies labels.

RESPONDENT: When you say life is ‘perfect’ that also is an assessment of a situation. ‘Who’ is assessing that life is perfect?

RICHARD: When I say that life is perfect it is a question of what is assessing rather than ‘who’ is assessing ... specifically the apperceptive brain is doing the assessing.

RESPONDENT: This is not meant in an argumentative fashion. From my level of understanding for someone to do this it means some identity is in place whether the party chooses to acknowledge it or not!

RICHARD: That is the normal state of affairs for maybe 6.0 billion peoples, yes. However, where there is an actual freedom from the human condition it is not a case of lack of acknowledgement of some identity in place – of being in a state of denial about it – as it is simply an experiential fact that there is no identity in any way, shape or form.

Put simply: there is no director whatsoever in charge of this body.

RESPONDENT: Richard, if I were to knock-knock on your brain there will be no-one to answer, let alone your heart?

RICHARD: My previous companion would oft-times say ‘there is no-one in there’ or ‘there is no-one home’ when feeling me out whilst looking at me quizzically ... she also would explain to others that, contrary to expectation, it was sometimes difficult to live with Richard (it could be said that living with some body that is not self-centred would always be easy) as it was impossible for her to have a relationship because there was no-one to make a connection with.

She would also say that Richard does not support her, as an identity that is, at all ... which lack of (affective) caring was disconcerting for her, to say the least, and my current companion has also (correctly) reported this absence of consideration.

Put simply: I am unable to support some-one who does not exist (I only get to meet flesh and blood bodies here in this actual world).

RICHARD: Mostly peoples are rightly suspicious of another’s hidden agenda for there is indeed something ‘underneath the surface’ ... even in those who have purportedly gone deep and have attained to a superior virtue that transcends normal morality. I would guess that what is motivating you to ‘chip away’ is in order to see – and thus expose – this ‘being’ that is underneath the surface in 6.0 billion human beings ... plus the 0.0000001 of the population who are ‘Self-Realised’ and have identified as ‘Pure Being’. You will find no ‘being’ here – or ‘Being’ – only a flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. This body called Richard hosts no identity whatsoever ... I use the first person pronoun for convenience.

RESPONDENT: You claim that ‘this body called Richard hosts no identity whatsoever’. I would like to understand more deeply what it is that the body called Richard does not host. What do you mean by ‘identity’?

RICHARD: I was born in Australia, of an English/ Scottish Hong Kong-born father and an English/ English Australia-born mother. With this British background, I was enculturated into believing that I was, literally, an Australian citizen ... but with British blood. Now, blood is blood ... there is no such ‘thing’ as an ‘Australian’, an ‘American’, a ‘German’, a ‘Japanese’ and so on. Thus the wars and the suicides – the blood shed and the tears shed – are precipitated because of the absurdity of identification ... is not all this acculturation ridiculous! However, as an infant, a child, a youth and then a man, I was so programmed as to be unable to discriminate fact from fiction. I had no terms of reference that I could use as a standard to determine which was which, as every single human being on this planet was not simply a flesh and blood body ... but similarly conditioned into being an ‘ethnic’ human being.

Thus I bought the whole package. Hook, line and sinker.

As I slowly started to unravel the mess that humankind was deeply mired in by unravelling it in me, I discovered a second layer under ‘my’ acculturated ethnicity ... ‘I’ was brainwashed into being a ‘man’ and not simply a flesh and blood male body. Under the enculturated layers lies a further identity ... the genetically-inherited animal ‘self’. It took me years and years of exploration and discovery to find out that ‘I’ was a ‘me’ – a ‘being’ – and not simply a flesh and blood body. By identification as ‘me’, a psychological/ psychic entity was able to ‘possess’ this body. It is not unlike those Christians who are said to be possessed by an evil entity and require exorcism. Only this ‘possession’ was called being normal. Therefore, every human being is thus possessed by an ‘alien entity’ ... I discovered that a ‘walk-in’ was in control of this body and that this ‘walk-in’ was ‘me’.

So, superficially there is a composite conditioned social identity that encompasses:

1. A vocational identity as ‘employee’/ ‘employer’, ‘worker’/ ‘pensioner’, ‘junior/ ‘senior’ and so on.
2. A national identity as ‘English’, ‘American’, ‘Australian’ and etcetera.
3. A racial identity as ‘white’, ‘black’, ‘brown’ or whatever.
4. A religious/ spiritual identity as a ‘Hindu’, a ‘Muslim’, a ‘Christian’, a ‘Buddhist’ ad infinitum.
5. A ideological identity as a ‘Capitalist’, a ‘Communist’, a ‘Monarchist’, a ‘Fascist’ and etcetera.
6. A political identity as a ‘Democrat’, a ‘Tory’, a ‘Republican’, a ‘Liberal’ and all the rest.
7. A family identity as ‘son’/ ‘daughter’, ‘brother’/ ‘sister’, ‘father’/ ‘mother’ and the whole raft of relatives.
8. A gender identity as ‘boy’/ ‘girl’, ‘man’/ ‘woman’.

These are related to roles, rank, positions, station, status, class, age, gender ... the whole organisation of hierarchical control. But behind all that – underlying all socialised classifications – is the persistent feeling of being an identity inhabiting the body: an affective ‘entity’ as in a deep, abiding and profound feeling of being an occupant, a tenant, a squatter or a phantom hiding behind a façade, a mask, a persona; as a subjective emotional psychological ‘self’ and/or a passionate psychic ‘being’ (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) inhabiting the psyche; a deep feeling of being a ‘spirit’; a consciousness of the immanence of ‘presence’ (which exists immortally); an awareness of being an autological ‘being’ ... the realisation of ‘Being’ itself. In other words: everything you think, feel and instinctually know yourself to be.

Your feeling of being – the real ‘me’ – is evidenced when one says: ‘But what about me, nobody loves me for me’. For a woman it may be: ‘You only want me for my body ... and not for me’. For a man it may be: ‘You only want me for my money ... and not for me’. For a child it may be: ‘You only want to be my friend because of my toys (or sweets or whatever)’. That deep feeling of ‘me’ – that ‘being’ itself – is at the core of identity. It arises out of the basic instincts that blind nature endowed all human beings with as a rough and ready ‘soft-ware’ package to make a start in life. These instincts – mainly fear and aggression and nurture and desire – appear as a rudimentary self common to all sentient beings. This is why it is felt to be one’s ‘Original Face’ – to use the Zen terminology – when one accesses it in religious/ spiritual/ mystical meditation practices and disciplines. This is the source of ‘we are all one’, because ‘we’ are all the same-same blind instinctual self that stretches back beyond the dawn of human memory. It is a very, very ancient genetic memory.

Hoariness does not make it automatically wise, however, despite desperate belief to the contrary.

RESPONDENT: You also claim that there is ‘a flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware’. Is not that bodily apperceptive awareness, your identity?

RICHARD: No. This brain is these sense organs being conscious: these eyes seeing is this brain ‘on stalks’, as it were, being aware. Thus these ears hearing, this tongue tasting, this skin touching, this nose smelling and these thoughts thinking are all the brain being directly aware of being alive and being awake and being here ... now. Whereas ‘I’, the entity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain. Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the actual world ... the world as-it-is.

RESPONDENT: Identity is ‘the state or fact of remaining the same one, as under varying aspects or conditions’, ‘the condition of being oneself or itself, and not another’ (Macquarie, 2^nd ed.). Are you claiming that there is nothing that remains the same (in you) as (your) sense and reflective experience changes?

RICHARD: Indeed, I am stating that unequivocally ... there is no subjective psychological ‘entity’ existing in this flesh and blood body to either remain the same or change. There are many words to describe ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ ... shall I just present them here for clarity? I do not have the Macquarie Dictionary but I presume it is somewhat similar as I have the Webster’s Merriam Dictionary to check the Oxford Dictionary against. I also use the Britannica Encyclopaedia as being a generally recognised and acceptable academic standard. Viz.:

• Identity: ‘The condition or fact of a person or thing being that specified unique person or thing, especially as a continuous unchanging property throughout existence; individuality, personality’.
• Personality: ‘The quality or fact of being a person as distinct from a thing or animal; the quality which makes a being a person’.
• Person: ‘The self or being of an individual’.
• Individual: ‘Existing as a separate indivisible identity; one’s individual person, self.
• Individuality: ‘An individual thing or personality’.
• Self: ‘True or intrinsic identity; personal identity, ego; a person as the object of introspection or reflexive action’.
• Ego: ‘Oneself, the conscious thinking subject. That part of the mind which has a sense of individuality and is most conscious of self’.
• Soul: ‘The principle of thought and action in a person, regarded as an entity distinct from the body; a person’s spiritual as opposed to corporeal nature regarded as immortal and as being capable of redemption or damnation in a future state. The disembodied spirit of a dead person, regarded as invested with some degree of personality and form. The seat of the emotions or sentiments; the emotional part of human nature. Intellectual or spiritual power; high development of the mental faculties. Also, deep feeling, sensitivity, zest, spirit. The vital, sensitive, or rational principle in plants, animals, or human beings. A person, an individual’.
• Entity: ‘Existence, being, as opposed to non-existence; the existence of a thing as opposed to its qualities or relations. Essence, essential nature’.
• Identity Crisis: ‘A period of emotional disturbance in which a person has difficulty in determining his or her identity and role in relation to society’. (All definitions from Oxford Dictionary).

And it is so good to be rid of that lot!

RESPONDENT: Surely there are patterns associated with your reflectivity. You tend to reflect on things in a certain way, and I have a different tendency. Does not that tendency define your identity? Or do you have no such tendency?

RICHARD: I certainly have that tendency ... and I revel in it. These are attributes, traits, quirks, idiosyncrasies, features, peculiarities, flavours, mannerisms, gestures and so on. They are not the ‘thing-in-itself’.

RESPONDENT No. 6: If you will indulge my question: is it possible still to have actual intimacy, even if the partner (man/ woman) is evidently inhibited by self and survival instincts?

RICHARD: Actual intimacy – no separation (no separative self whatsoever) cannot wax and wane/ come and go/ switch on and off here in this actual world (the world of the senses). Upon an actual freedom from the human condition an actual intimacy is the norm with every body and every thing regardless of whatever their or its current situation and circumstances might be.

(Some peoples have looked at me blankly upon being informed there is an actual intimacy with, say, an ashtray or a polystyrene cup or a pebble or whatever).

In terms of human sexuality, and due to its utter proximity, sexual congress sans identity/ affections is the exquisite experience of two flesh and blood bodies sensuously delighting in being sensually and sexually aroused.

(As there are no identities in actuality I actually interact only with flesh and blood bodies; at times this can be quite disconcerting, to say the least, for any identity feeling itself to be other than illusory). (Richard, List D, No. 6, 10 November 2009).

RESPONDENT: Your comment about ‘As there are no identities in actuality I actually interact only with flesh and blood bodies’ – was extremely useful in detecting some slippery and subtle identification in my interactions with others.

RICHARD: Good ... (as I am never annoyed there is never any need for giving vent). Another poster offered their experience on it recently (Message X) when observing how an intuitive resistance to non-recognition as ‘me’ is even more powerful than the fear of engulfment.

My second wife would oft-times say to others how it was not always easy to live with me as ‘she’ was totally ignored (in ‘her’ view) by me. (Please note it is an impossibility to ignore anything at all which has no existence in actuality and how I do pay lip-service, just as I am now, to the apparent existence of any identity feeling itself to be real). What my second wife was really referring to is the total absence of any supportive identity rapport/ affective connection.

As this was amply corroborated by my third wife, it is a primary consideration when contemplating any potential man-woman type of association which comes into my purview (in my experience the ménage a trois provided what a ménage a deux cannot).

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