Actual Freedom – The Actual Freedom Mailing List Correspondence

Richard’s Correspondence

On The Actual Freedom Mailing List

with Correspondent No. 89

September 14 2005

RESPONDENT: I am not an adherent of the doctrine that knowledge is derived from the action of the intellect or pure reason. I am not an intellectualist.

RICHARD: (...) Just as a matter of interest ... what is a suitable word for a person of this ilk? Viz.:

• [Respondent] (quoting Mr. Rene Guenon): ‘Metaphysics is essentially knowledge of the Universal [the ‘Self’] ... a genuinely transcendent knowledge contains no trace of any ‘phenomenalism’ and is depending only on *pure intellectual intuition*, which alone is pure spirituality’. [bracketed insertion and emphasis in original].

RESPONDENT: Rene Guenon is a metaphysician par excellence.

RICHARD: I will sketch out some scenarios:

1. Suppose a theologian were to say, because a genuinely transcendent knowledge is depending only on pure intellectual intuition, and which alone is pure spirituality, that Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene was a dupe of his own imagination as the mistake to confuse mysticism and spirituality is a very fundamental one ... would that person be a theologian par excellence?
2. Suppose a metaphysician were to say, because a genuinely transcendent knowledge is depending only on pure intellectual intuition, and which alone is pure spirituality, that Mr. Venkataraman Aiyer (aka Ramana) was a dupe of his own imagination as the mistake to confuse mysticism and spirituality is a very fundamental one ... would that person be a metaphysician par excellence?
3. Suppose a student of metaphysics were to say, because a genuinely transcendent knowledge is depending only on pure intellectual intuition, and which alone is pure spirituality, that Richard had been a dupe of his own imagination as the mistake to confuse mysticism and spirituality is a very fundamental one ... would that person be way, way out of their depth?

September 14 2005

RESPONDENT: I don’t know why I should be labelled as a ‘spiritualist’ or an ‘intellectualist’ by doing what I do. I don’t see, for example, the postulation of a ‘noumenon’ as the outcome of an intellectual and/or a spiritual attitude.

(...)

RESPONDENT: You would have to read Rene Guenon’s writings to understand that ‘pure intellectual intuition’ is not identical with the intellect or with reason.

RICHARD: As I have no intention of reading all that Mr. Rene Guenon ever wrote perhaps you could provide some text of his where he explains why, then, he uses the word ‘intellectual’ and does not just say ‘pure intuition’?

RESPONDENT: I am currently staying with friends away from home and my library; all I can give you for the time being are quotes I found on a quick search on the internet: ‘... the Westerners of today no longer know what pure intellect is; in fact they do not even suspect that anything of the kind can exist; ...’.

RICHARD: As that is in response to my query about you having just said ‘pure intellectual intuition’ is *not* identical with the intellect then why are you providing that quote?

Here is the definition again which started this:

• ‘intellectualist (philosophy): an adherent of intellectualism [the doctrine that knowledge is derived from the action of the intellect or pure reason]’. (Oxford Dictionary).

Given that further below you say Mr. Rene Guenon tries to gain (transcendental) knowledge by means of ‘pure intellectual intuition’ would it be correct, then, to say that it is knowledge derived from the action of the pure intellect?

RICHARD: For example: [example only]: ‘Metaphysics is essentially knowledge of the Universal [the ‘Self’] ... a genuinely transcendent knowledge contains no trace of any ‘phenomenalism’ and is depending only on pure intuition, which alone is pure spirituality’ [end example].

RESPONDENT: ‘Pure intellectual intuition’ (as understood by Guenon) is close to what is called ‘marifah’ (in Arabic term, sometimes translated as ‘Gnosis’). [Addendum]: That is incorrect what I wrote here. Not ‘pure intellectual intuition’ but the transcendental knowledge that Rene Guenon tries to gain by means of ‘pure intellectual intuition’ is close to what is termed ‘marifa’ (Gnosis) in Arabic.

RICHARD: You have missed the point of that example: if, as you say, ‘pure intellectual intuition’ is not identical with the intellect then why does Mr. Rene Guenon not say that a genuinely transcendent knowledge of the Universal (the ‘Self’) is depending only on pure intuition, which alone is pure spirituality, instead of saying it is depending only on pure *intellectual* intuition?

Here is the full paragraph from which you obtained your quote (with the section you provided highlighted for convenience):

• [Mr. Rene Guenon]: ‘The civilisation of the modern West appears in history a veritable anomaly: among all those which are known to us more or less completely, this civilization is the only one which has developed along purely material lines and this monstrous development, whose beginning coincides with the so-called Renaissance, has been accompanied, as indeed it was fated to be, with a corresponding intellectual regress; we say corresponding and not equivalent, because here are two orders of things between which there can be no common measure. This [intellectual] regress has reached such a point that *the Westerners of today no longer know what pure intellect is; in fact they do not even suspect that anything of the kind can exist*; hence their disdain, not only for eastern civilization, but also for the Middle Ages of Europe, whose spirit escapes them scarcely less completely. How is the interest of a purely speculative knowledge to be brought home to people for whom intelligence is nothing but a means of acting on matter and turning it to practical ends, and for whom science, in their limited understanding of it, is above all important in so far as it may be applied to industrial purposes?’ (page 23, ‘East and West’; by Rene Guenon; first published in 1924).

What stands out in that paragraph is him bemoaning the *intellectual* regress, of the westerners circa 1924, so much so that he claims they no longer know what pure *intellect* is.

Again, given you say he tries to gain (transcendental) knowledge by means of ‘pure intellectual intuition’ would it be correct, then, to say that it is knowledge derived from the action of the pure intellect?

RESPONDENT: Guenon himself attacked intellectualism vehemently.

RICHARD: Okay ... you do realise, do you not, that had it not been for the word ‘intellectual’ in that edited quote of Mr. Rene Guenon’s you provided I would never have assumed he was speaking of intellectualism [the doctrine that knowledge is derived from the action of the intellect or pure reason]?

RESPONDENT: What you call intellectualism is called ‘pseudo-intellectualism’ by Rene Guenon.

RICHARD: Ah, maybe there is the clue to it all ... what is true-intellectualism, then, according to Mr. Rene Guenon?

September 15 2005

RESPONDENT: (...) It takes imagination to come up with the ‘idea’ that the earth revolves around the sun, does it not?

RICHARD: (...) I do not know whether it took imagination for Mr. Aristarchus to extend the speculations of Mr. Philolaus and Mr. Hicetas two centuries earlier, that the earth was a sphere revolving daily around some mystical ‘central fire’ which regulated the universe, by proposing that the earth and other planets moved around a definite central object (the sun) ...

RESPONDENT: How could it be any other?

RICHARD: As a normal person, for nigh-on 34 years, ‘I’ came up with many ideas without recourse to imagination – simply by thinking something through to its obvious conclusion (as did/as do many other people) – which is why I answered your query truthfully ... to wit: I do not know whether it took imagination for Mr. Aristarchus to propose that the earth and other planets moved around a definite central object (the sun).

Besides which, Mr. Aristarchus’ original work on heliocentrism has not survived and is known only from others’ accounts – notably from Mr. Archimedes – hence there is uncertainty even as to his arguments on its behalf.

RESPONDENT: How can somebody come up with ‘some mystical ‘central fire’’ if he had not imagined that?

RICHARD: If you were to re-read what I wrote you might see, the second time around, that Mr. Aristarchus did not come up with [quote] ‘some mystical ‘central fire’’ [endquote] ... it was Mr. Philolaus and Mr. Hicetas two centuries earlier who speculated about that.

RICHARD: ... what I do know is that imagination is not required to have ideas ...

RESPONDENT: Where do the ideas come from if not from the affective, imaginative and intuitive faculty?

RICHARD: From the cognitive, ratiocinative and insightful faculty, of course.

RICHARD: ... [what I do know is that imagination is not required] to suppose (to presume/ assume), to conceptualise, to formulate theories, to calculate mathematically ...

RESPONDENT: How do you come up with mathematical theorems in the first place?

RICHARD: Not being a mathematician I have not come up with mathematical theorems.

RESPONDENT: How do you come up with solutions to geometrical problems without the affective, imaginative and intuitive faculty?

RICHARD: By thinking them through rationally, practically, sensibly, judiciously, and so on.

RESPONDENT: Can you imagine a circle, a sphere, a triangle?

RICHARD: No ... and so as to forestall similar queries I will re-post the following:

• [Richard]: ‘To be actually free of the human condition is to be sans ‘I’ as ego (the ‘thinker’) and ‘me’ as soul (the ‘feeler’) which is to be this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. And where there is no ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul (no psyche) there is no imaginative/intuitive faculty ... hence no ‘this other ‘mind’’ metaphysical projection. It is all so simple here in this actual world.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Why do you say that there is no imaginative faculty?
• [Richard]: ‘Because it is my on-going experience, night and day since 1992, that the entire imaginative/ intuitive faculty has vanished. I literally cannot visualise, form images, envision, ‘see in my mind’s eye’, envisage, picture, intuit, feel, fall into a reverie, daydream or in any way, shape or form imaginatively access anything other than directly apprehending what is happening just here right now. I could not form a mental picture of something ‘other’ if my life depended upon it. I literally cannot make images ... whereas in my earlier years ‘I’ could get a picture in ‘my mind’s eye’ of ‘my’ absent mother, wife, children and so on ... or the painting ‘I’ was going to paint, or the coffee-table ‘I’ was going to build, or the route ‘I’ was going to take in ‘my’ car or whatever. If I were to close my eyes and ‘visualise’ now, what happens is the same velvety-smooth darkness – as looking into the infinite and eternal space of the universe at night – that has been the case for all these years now. I cannot visualise, imagine, conceptualise ... when I recall my childhood, my young manhood, my middle ages or yesterday it is as if it were a documentary on television but with the picture turned off (words only) or like reading a book of someone else’s life.
It is the affective content that makes memories ‘real’ – the entire psyche itself – and it is the self-same process that makes imagining a past or a future ‘real’ that makes an ‘otherness’ even more ‘real’ than everyday reality.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘To ‘imagine’ is a sane faculty of this multi-media-brain-mind.
• [Richard]: ‘I have not been sane for many, many years. It is pertinent to acknowledge that sane people killed 160,000,000 of their sane fellow human beings in wars this century alone ... and then there is all the murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides to further give pause to reconsider whether sanity is such a desirable state of being as sane peoples make out.
Sanity is personally insalubrious and socially reprehensible.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘I can imagine a cow right now – with or without an I or ‘me’.
• [Richard]: ‘I cannot ... I can intellectually know what a cow is like in that I can draw a reasonable facsimile; yet as I am drawing I cannot visualise what the finished drawing will be like ... it becomes apparent as the drawing progresses’. (Richard, List B, No. 34c, 12 November 1999).

RICHARD: ... [what I do know is that imagination is not required] as I have many years experience in doing so sans the imaginative/intuitive facility.

RESPONDENT: I don’t doubt that you are able to calculate mathematically; what I doubt is that we had mathematics without the affective, imaginative and intuitive faculty. The mathematicians that came up with the formulas that you use to calculate mathematically needed intuition and imagination to come up with these formulas and mathematical solutions in the first place.

RICHARD: I do not know whether the mathematicians who came up with the formulae I use to calculate mathematically needed intuition and imagination to come up with them in the first place ... what I do know is that imagination is not required to have ideas, to suppose (to presume/assume), to conceptualise, to formulate theories, and so on, as I have many years experience in doing so sans the imaginative/intuitive facility.

RESPONDENT: I am talking about coming up with an invention not about the application of the invention.

RICHARD: There is no reason why a person sans the entire affective faculty (which includes its imaginative/intuitive facility) could not come up with an invention ... even mathematical formulae, for that matter. Viz.:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘... if you are wholly immersed in the actual world 24/7, and have no ability to be otherwise, how is it possible to understand systems and processes whose meaning and purpose is only comprehensible at higher levels of abstraction?
• [Richard]: ‘What part of my response in regards to the query, three days ago, on this very topic are you having difficulty in comprehending? Viz.:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘(I suppose I am asking whether conceptualising is actual or just a feature of the identity)’.
• [Richard]: ‘I can intellectually conceptualise (formulate, configure, theorise, and so on) – as in 2+2=4, for instance, or ‘if this, then that’, for another – as it is the intuitive/imaginative conceptualising (visualising, idealising, romanticising, fantasising, and soon), which is a feature of identity’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 54, 5 November 2003).

Although I have never learned calculus, for instance, I did learn basic algebra and trigonometry and thus could expand my capacities if there were sufficient motivation.
As my interest (and thus expertise) lies elsewhere that is highly unlikely’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 60, 7 November 2003).

RESPONDENT: You might be able to drive a car, but can you invent one without affective, imaginative and intuitive faculty.

RICHARD: As the automobile already exists there is no need to ... it is great not having to rediscover the wheel.

RESPONDENT: I doubt that.

RICHARD: Has it ever occurred to you that you may very well have a vested interest in doubting that? Perhaps a re-post of something I wrote a couple of months ago may throw some light upon something of import:

• [Richard]: ‘(...) it is impossible to either imagine or form images where there is no identity (the affective faculty in its entirety – which includes its imaginative/ intuitive facility – has no existence whatsoever in this flesh and blood body).
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘This is what I don’t understand: What does imagination have to do with intuition or affective feelings?
• [Richard]: ‘First of all, where I say ‘imaginative’ I am not meaning conceptive and where I say ‘intuitive’ I am not meaning insightful ... plus where I say ‘the affective faculty’ I am not referring to only the affective feelings but all of it in its entirety (complete with its epiphenomenal psychic ability).
Indeed, by ‘the affective faculty in its entirety’ I am referring, all-inclusively, to the human psyche itself.
Here in this actual world, where there is no psyche, the ability to imagine/ envision/ hallucinate is non-existent (the difference between imagination and hallucination is a difference in degree and not of kind) ... just as the facility of believing, of being delusional, is not extant either’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 74d, 7 July 2005).

RESPONDENT: Kopernicus didn’t start out with ‘I know for fact that the earth revolves around the sun’?

RICHARD: What Mr. Nicolaus Copernicus started out with was ‘Disputations Against Divinatory Astrology’ by Mr. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola – a book which challenged the very basis of planetary divination (in particular the charge that, because astronomers could not agree on the actual order of the planets, astrologers could not be certain about the strengths of the powers issuing from them) – and the acquired knowledge of a thirteenth century mathematical device, formulated by a group of astronomers in Persia, which attempted to resolve a problem (planetary ‘wobbles’) caused by the equant in Mr. Claudius Ptolemy’s model.

RESPONDENT: No, he started out with ‘I have an idea … I have a hunch … I believe ... I am convinced that ... I have the feeling, … it could be, … imagine … my intuition tells me … I have a theory … my mathematical calculations show me … – that the earth revolves around the sun’.

RICHARD: May I ask? Does that precise amount of detail, about how Mr. Nicolaus Copernicus worked out his postulation (that if the sun is assumed to be at rest and if the earth is assumed to be in motion then the remaining planets fall into an orderly relationship whereby their sidereal periods increase from the sun) come from acquired historical knowledge or your imagination? If it be the former the provision of (suitably referenced and attributed) text to that effect would be appreciated.

RESPONDENT: Usually I would have thought Richard is arrogant or wants to bother me or something else with such a request.

RICHARD: Whereas all Richard ever wants with such a request is something of substance to be put on the table, so to speak, so as to save speculating about that which may not exist/might never have happened.

RESPONDENT: But today I know that he cannot imagine that it took Copernicus imagination (and intuition) to come up with the idea that the earth revolves around the sun.

RICHARD: As Mr. Nicolaus Copernicus did not come up with the idea that the earth revolves around the sun – the theory of heliocentricity had been around for centuries – then what you are so sure that you know was not even worth taking the time to type-out (let alone send) ... as was the remainder of your e-mail for that matter.

Do you not see, that in your efforts to argue for the retention of the affective faculty/the identity, you are effectively arguing against peace-on-earth, in this lifetime as that flesh and blood body, inasmuch the very root of same – the instinctual passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) – will ensure that all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides, and so on, will continue on forever and a day?

Furthermore, is not the case you present (above and elsewhere in other e-mails) nothing other than a smokescreen to cover-up the real issue? For example:

• [Respondent]: ‘Personally speaking, I believe that if the body goes also the particular presence to oneself goes. Even the masters of the different traditions state the same. If the candle (body) is gone, so is the flame (individual consciousness). But there is the Principle and the Principle is immortal’. (Wednesday 27/04/2005 9:09 PM AEST).

Just so there is no misunderstanding: that is an example of the vested interest referred to further above.

I will repeat, for emphasis, the crux of that re-post: here in this actual world, where there is no psyche, the ability to imagine/ envision/ hallucinate is non-existent (the difference between imagination and hallucination is a difference in degree and not of kind) ... just as the facility of believing, of being delusional, is not extant either.

It is all so peaceful here.

September 17 2005

(...)

RESPONDENT: When the Sage says ‘I am God’ or ‘Everything is God’ he means that everything is noumenon BUT not as an object, not as a phenomenon!!! Because the noumenon is not an object the Sage doesn’t mean – like some ill-minded people – that he as a phenomenon is God or that this particular phenomenon is God or that all phenomena together are God. For a metaphysician that is all clear, but if you are a mystic (which I believe Richard was) you make statements like ‘I am God’ in the delusion to be God as an object, as a phenomenon. And that is the mistake of the mystics and all the people that are in ASC’s. A person in ASC still deals only with the phenomenal side of existence. Hence, when he believes himself to be the Divine he mistakes a phenomena, an object for the noumenon.

RICHARD: Perhaps if I were to re-post the following you might take notice of it this time around ... and thus finally desist from repeating the preposterous notion that metaphysicians know better than the mystics whose reports/ descriptions/ explanations they studiously review and make erudite pronouncements about:

• [Richard to Respondent]: ‘You may find the following informative in this regard:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘What do You understand by being enlightenment?’
• [Richard]: ‘There is nothing other than The Absolute’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25, 30 July 2001).
And this:
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘I invite all of you who have had a Self experience to try describing it.
• [Richard]: ‘Sure ... there was only The Absolute (the Self by whatever name) and nothing else existed’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25, 6 August 2002).
And this:
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘As an example [of a description of ‘Self’], is the description ‘a very old child’ valid in your case?’
• [Richard]: ‘No, the description ‘there is nothing other than The Absolute’ is what is valid in my case (...)’.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘If you can provide a brief description for your particular Self image, so as to compare notes, I would be pleased to read it’.
• [Richard]: ‘Sure ... there was only The Absolute (the Self by whatever name) and nothing else existed’.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Or is it indescribable?’
• [Richard]: ‘No, it is easily described: there was nothing other than The Absolute’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25c, 25 August 2003).
In other words, in full-blown spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment, there is only ‘That’ (the unmanifest by whatever name) and the manifest – all time and all space and all form – is but a dream/an illusion/an appearance ... meaning that in reality there is neither creation nor destruction, and thus, neither bondage nor liberation/ neither a seeker after liberation nor the liberated’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 89b, 13 May 2005).

September 18 2005

RESPONDENT: ... based on my theoretical understanding I have just found myriads of quotes which indicate that they clearly taught the overcoming of the affective faculty.

RICHARD: Hmm ... eradicating is vastly different to overcoming, non?

RESPONDENT: First quote: [Un]-self-ishness, from the Indian point of view is an amoral state, in which no question of ‘Altruism’ can present itself, liberation being as much from the notion of ‘others’ as it is form the notion of ‘self’, and not in any sense a psychological state, but a liberation from all that is implied by the ‘psyche’ in the word ‘psychology’. [Ananda Coomaraswamy, Hinduism and Buddhism].

RICHARD: The experiential state which lies behind those words is (initially) one of union – a state of oneness as expressed in ‘We are all One’ for instance – and (ultimately) one of solipsism – a state of aloneness as expressed in ‘There is only That’ for example – so of course there is liberation from the notion of ‘others’ as well as ‘self’.

RESPONDENT: Here again you confuse a metaphysical realisation with a mystical state.

RICHARD: The following is what Mr. Ananda Coomaraswamy has to say on the page immediately prior to the one you quoted from above:

• ‘When the Indians speak of the Comprehensor (evamvit) of a given doctrine, they do not mean by this merely one who grasps the logical significance of a given proposition; they mean one who has ‘verified’ it in his own person, and *is* what he knows; for so long as we know only of our immortal Self, we are still in the realm of ignorance; we only really know it when we *become* it; we cannot really know it without *being* it’. [italics in original; emphasis added]. (page 65, ‘Hinduism and Buddhism’ by A. K. Coomaraswamy; ISBN 81-7304-227-6, Publ. Manohar 1999).

He unambiguously states that such a person [quote] ‘is’ [endquote] it; that such a person has [quote] ‘become’ [endquote] it; that such a person is [quote] ‘being’ [endquote] it.

RICHARD: In regards to altruism: the word altruism can be used in two distinctly different ways – in a virtuous sense (as in being unselfish), such as the author you quoted is using it, ...

RESPONDENT: How can you misrepresent the words of the author in such ways?

RICHARD: I am not misrepresenting the words of the author ... he is clearly speaking of morality and/or ethics in the section of his book ‘Hinduism and Buddhism’ from which you quoted. Viz.:

• ‘When the Indians speak of the Comprehensor (evamvit) of a given doctrine, they do not mean by this merely one who grasps the logical significance of a given proposition; they mean one who has ‘verified’ it in his own person, and is what he knows; for so long as we know only of our immortal Self, we are still in the realm of ignorance; we only really know it when we become it; we cannot really know it without being it. There are ways of life dispositive to such a realisation, and other ways which prevent it. Let us, therefore, pause to consider the nature of the ‘mere morality’, or as it is now called, ‘Ethics’, apart from which the contemplative life would be impossible. What we should call a ‘practical holiness’ is called alike in the old Indian books and in Buddhist a present and timeless ‘Walking with God’ (brahmacariya). But there is also a clear distinction of the Doctrine (dharma) from its practical Meaning (artha), and it is with the latter that we are for the moment concerned’. [italics in original]. (page 65, ‘Hinduism and Buddhism’ by A. K. Coomaraswamy; ISBN 81-7304-227-6, Publ. Manohar 1999).

Furthermore, there is this:

• ‘Death to one’s self is death to ‘others’; and if the ‘dead man’ seems to be ‘unselfish’, this will not be the result of altruistic motives, but accidentally, and because he is literally un-self-ish. Liberated from himself, from all status, all duties, all rights, he has become a Mover-at-will (kamacari), like the Spirit (Vayu atma devanam) that ‘moveth as it will’ (yatha vasami carati), and as St Paul expresses it, ‘no longer under the law.’ [italics in original]. (pages 17-18, ‘Hinduism and Buddhism’ by A. K. Coomaraswamy; ISBN 81-7304-227-6, Publ. Manohar 1999).

RESPONDENT: The author is using the word altruism not in a virtuous sense ...

RICHARD: Mr. Ananda Coomaraswamy is indeed using the word altruism in a virtuous sense ... he is clearly referring to the moral and ethical conduct he writes of in the two sentences immediately preceding the sentence from which you quoted. Viz.:

• ‘Before we return to the Doctrine we must carefully guard ourselves from thinking that the Buddha attaches an absolute value to moral conduct. We must not, for example, suppose that because the means are partly ethical, Nirvana is therefore an ethical state. So far from this, un-self-ishness, from the Indian point of view is an amoral state, in which no question of ‘Altruism’ can present itself ...’. (page 66, ‘Hinduism and Buddhism’ by A. K. Coomaraswamy; ISBN 81-7304-227-6, Publ. Manohar 1999).

Plus there is the word amoral – ‘unconcerned with or outside morality; non-moral’ (Oxford Dictionary) – in the portion of the sentence you quoted anyway.

RESPONDENT: ... that is – as he emphasises himself in the above mentioned quote – NOT as a psychological state ...

RICHARD: What he emphasises, in the abovementioned quote, is that *liberation* is not in any sense a psychological state.

RESPONDENT: ... but, he explains further, as a ‘liberation from all that is implied by the ‘psyche’ in the word ‘psychology’’. This certainly includes the second meaning of altruism you cite below.

RICHARD: It does no such thing. Viz.:

• ‘Because the word atman, used reflexively, can only be rendered by ‘self’ we have adhered to the sense of ‘self’ throughout, distinguishing Self from self by the capital, as is commonly done. But it must be clearly understood that the distinction is really of ‘spirit’ (pneuma) from ‘soul’ (psyche) in the Pauline sense’. [italics in original]. (footnote No. 33, page 34, ‘Hinduism and Buddhism’ by A. K. Coomaraswamy; ISBN 81-7304-227-6, Publ. Manohar 1999).

Nowhere in his book does he ever even imply, let alone state, that liberation is from the capitalised self (‘Self’) in the second meaning of altruism (as epitomised in the honey-bee inasmuch when it stings to protect/ defend the hive it dies) given in my response: Viz.:

• [Richard]: ‘... the word altruism can be used in two distinctly different ways – in a virtuous sense (as in being unselfish), such as the author you quoted is using it, or in a zoological/ biological sense (as in being diametrically opposite to selfism) – and it is the latter which is of particular interest to a person wanting to enable the already always existing peace-on-earth to being apparent, in this lifetime as this flesh and blood body, as it takes a powerful instinctive impulse (altruism) to overcome a powerful instinctive impulse (selfism) ... blind nature endows each and every human being with the selfish instinct for individual survival and the clannish instinct for group survival (be it the familial group, the tribal group, or the national group).
By and large the instinct for survival of the group is the more powerful – as is epitomised in the honey-bee (when it stings to protect/ defend the hive it dies) – and it is the utilisation of this once-in-a-lifetime gregarian action which is referred to in my oft-repeated ‘an altruistic ‘self’-sacrifice/ ‘self’-immolation, in toto, for the benefit of this body and that body and every body’. [endquote]. (Richard, Abditorium, Altruism).

Put succinctly: the liberation Mr. Ananda Coomaraswamy speaks of is nothing other than selfism (aka self-centredness) writ large or, in other words, solipsism.

September 19 2005

RESPONDENT: Richard believes in ‘scientific facts’ as long as they don’t conflict with his ‘direct experiences’ of ‘actual facts’; therefore, he rejects quantum physics (‘the observation incarnates the observed’), the Big Bang theory (‘finitude of the universe’), and Einstein’s relativity theory (‘space/time are relative’).

RICHARD: First of all, after nearly 6 months of being subscribed to the mailing list, and after having posted 280+ e-mails receiving extensive feedback, it is just silliness masquerading as sensible discussion to say that Richard [quote] ‘believes’ [endquote] in anything ... let alone in facts.

Second, I copy-pasted <actual fact> into the search-engine of this computer and sent it through every e-mail I have ever written, to this and other mailing lists, only to return nil hits ... your distinction between ‘scientific facts’ and ‘actual facts’ is obviously just that (your distinction).

Third, quantum theory is not a fact (mathematical models do not describe the universe/do not exist outside of the ratiocinative process).

Fourth, the ‘Big Bang’ theory is not a fact (mathematical models do not describe the universe/do not exist outside of the ratiocinative process).

Fifth, Mr. Albert Einstein’s relativity theories are not facts (mathematical models do not describe the universe/do not exist outside of the ratiocinative process).

Lastly, direct experience (aka apperceptive awareness) is the unmediated perception of the actual world ... the physical world sans the veneer identity imposes over it (there is no ‘inner world’/‘outer world’ in actuality).

RESPONDENT: In this regard Richard is not different from a spiritual person ...

RICHARD: As your [quote] ‘in this regard’ [endquote] does not refer to anything even remotely relating to what Richard has to report/ describe/ explain it is not at all surprising that you do not see any difference.

It has got me beat why you are still persisting with the following:

• [Respondent]: ‘I SEE that Richard’s Third Alternative gives a completely new perspective altogether BUT I THINK (actually HOPE) that his experience can be *explained and reduced to fit into a spiritual framework*’. [emphasis added]. (Friday 1/04/2005 7:19 AM AEST).

September 20 2005

RESPONDENT: My usage of the word *believes* is mis-understandable. I beg for pardon, English is not my mother-tongue; what I meant and better had said and say is the following: ‘Richard uses ‘scientific facts’ to support his case as long as they don’t conflict with his ‘direct experiences’ of ‘actual facts’ ...’.

RICHARD: I will first draw your attention to the following:

• [Respondent]: ‘Your facts might be right ...
• [Richard]: ‘If I may interject? As there are no such things as ‘your facts’ (or ‘my facts’ or ‘his facts’ or ‘her facts’, and so on) and neither is a fact either ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ – a fact is nothing other than that (a fact) – might it be possible that you are really referring to ‘truths’?
• [Respondent]: ‘No I mean ‘facts’ ... ‘facts you talk about’ if you like this more than just ‘your facts’.
• [Richard]: ‘Okay, then the facts which I report/ describe/ explain are neither ‘right’ nor ‘wrong’ ... they are nothing other than that (facts)’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 89c, 10 September 2005).

In a similar fashion to there being no ‘right’ versus ‘wrong’ facts there are no ‘actual facts’ as opposed to ‘scientific facts’ – a fact is nothing other than that (a fact) – and, moreover, as you modify ‘scientific facts’ into meaning ‘scientific theories’, further below in this e-mail being responded to, then by taking out the word ‘actual’, and by replacing ‘scientific facts’ with ‘scientific theories’ (as per your amendment), what you are saying looks something like this:

• [example only]: ‘Richard uses scientific theories to support his case as long as they don’t conflict with his ‘direct experiences’ of facts ...’. [end example].

And as ‘direct’, in this context, is another way of referring to apperception then what you are saying, in effect, looks something like this:

• [example only]: ‘Richard uses scientific theories to support his case as long as they don’t conflict with facts experienced apperceptively ...’. [end example].

If you could provide an instance of a scientific theory being used, by the flesh and blood body writing these words, as support for the facts experienced apperceptively – as reported/ described/ explained by this flesh and blood body – it might throw some light upon what it is you are wanting to convey.

Otherwise the impression remains that you are still equating a flesh and blood body sans the entire affective faculty/ identity in toto with a flesh and blood body inhabited by a realised/ enlightened/ awakened identity. Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘In this regard Richard is not different from a spiritual person who will believe in ‘scientific facts’ as long as they don’t conflict with his/her mediated experiences of ‘spiritual truths’. (Monday 19/09/2005 6:57 PM AEST).

Incidentally, as there is no such thing as an affective faculty sans identity – a self-realised identity (aka the Self, the Absolute, and so on) is still an identity no matter how realised it may be – such mediation simultaneously includes same.

September 21 2005

(...)

RICHARD: If you could provide an instance of a scientific theory being used, by the flesh and blood body writing these words, as support for the facts experienced apperceptively – as reported/ described/ explained by this flesh and blood body – it might throw some light upon what it is you are wanting to convey.

RESPONDENT: What I want to convey – I try it again (see also my recent email: interpretations) – is the following: Let’s say a person ‘sees’ a bottle of coke.

RICHARD: So far it is only you saying that: if you want us to say that you will (1) need to explain why you have put the pivotal word in scare-quotes ... and (2) have to explain just what it is that you are referring to (which, given that your whole argument is that nothing can be known/ everything is an interpretation, you may find somewhat difficult without being intellectually dishonest).

Apart from that ... is it reasonable to presume that you are not going to provide an instance of a scientific theory being used, by the flesh and blood body writing these words, as support for the facts experienced apperceptively and reported/ described/ explained by this flesh and blood body?

If so, would that be because no such instance exists?

More to the point, however, is it not the case that your initial usage of [quote] ‘believes in’ [endquote] in this current exchange was but a continuation of your ‘superstition of facts’ theme ... despite your ostensible comprehension a scant week ago?

September 21 2005

RESPONDENT: What I want to convey – I try it again (see also my recent email: interpretations) – is the following: Let’s say a person ‘sees’ a bottle of coke.

RICHARD: So far it is only you saying that: if you want us to say that you will (1) need to explain why you have put the pivotal word in scare-quotes ...

RESPONDENT: I don’t understand what you refer to? What pivotal word do you mean?

RICHARD: I am referring to the word on which your sentence hinges ... and which can have at least two meanings even without scare-quotes:

• ‘see: perceive with the eye (...) have the faculty of sight’.
• ‘see: perceive mentally (...) attain to comprehension, understand’. (Oxford Dictionary).

RESPONDENT: If you mean to ask why I put the word ‘sees’ in scare-quotes here is the answer: [quote] ‘Most people assume that what you see is pretty much what your eye sees and reports to your brain. In fact, your brain adds very substantially to the report it gets from your eye, so that a lot of what you see is actually ‘made up’ by the brain’. (http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/latinhib.html).

RICHARD: Hmm ... if that is the line you would like to pursue then obviously we cannot say what you want us to say as the person you postulate may very well be making up all manner of things about the proposed object (that it might really be a wheelbarrow, for instance, and not a bottle after all).

Provided there be, of course, an object in the first place (as that would require being able to know that objects exist).

RICHARD: ... [so far it is only you saying that: if you want us to say that you will] ... (2) have to explain just what it is that you are referring to (which, given that your whole argument is that nothing can be known/everything is an interpretation, you may find somewhat difficult without being intellectually dishonest).

RESPONDENT: I don’t understand that.

RICHARD: You want us to say something (as per your abbreviated form of ‘let us say ..’ further above) do you not? Yet the something you want us to say is, according to you, unable to be known as knowledge is interpretation. Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘Knowledge’ is ‘interpretation’, either the brain’s interpretation or the entity’s reinterpretation of the brain’s interpretation’. (Wednesday 21/09/2005 3:09 AM AEST).

It is your call.

RICHARD: Apart from that ... is it reasonable to presume that you are not going to provide an instance of a scientific theory being used, by the flesh and blood body writing these words, as support for the facts experienced apperceptively and reported/ described/ explained by this flesh and blood body?

RESPONDENT: Ok, here it is. [snip link].

RICHARD: You may find the following useful:

• [Richard]: ‘... the way the web site is set-up and maintained, other than my portion of it, is all Vineeto’s doing and the content of the web pages which do not have my name in the URL is either by Peter or Vineeto (unless otherwise referenced) – the entire library, for instance, or the introduction to actual freedom, for another, is not of my doing at all’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 76, 28 Spetember 2004).

In the meanwhile, and more to the point, is it not the case that your initial usage of [quote] ‘believes in’ [endquote] in this current exchange was but a continuation of your ‘superstition of facts’ theme ... despite your ostensible comprehension a scant week ago?

September 21 2005

RESPONDENT: One of the biggest problems in conversing with Richard is his inability to understand the content of your argument unless you use his terminology ...

RICHARD: Speaking of terminology ... I notice you have written the following (further below in that e-mail of yours):

• [Respondent]: ‘Even if we are in no-self, the world we perceive is ...’. [endquote].
• [Respondent]: ‘Richard will say that the first example is not a theory but a direct experience in no self ...’. [endquote].
• [Respondent]: ‘Even if I am in no self, I still should be able to ...’. [endquote].
• [Respondent]: ‘I am not contesting reality but I am contesting Richard’s claim to know reality. BR is ‘intellectually more honest’ when she says that we don’t know ...’. [endquote].

You may find this exchange informative:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘You just couldn’t help your no-self with that last barb, could you?
• [Richard]: ‘If I may draw the following to your attention? Viz.:

• [ Co-Respondent]: ‘Tis only a suggestion, though’. Your typical rather condescending, smug ending. Kind of strange for a no self to be feeling ‘smugness’. Or is it? Can a no self feel smug? Just curious. I sure as hell wouldn’t know’.
• [Richard]: ‘As the phrase ‘no self’ is a term used by some mystics (self-realised spiritualists), usually of a buddhistic persuasion, to refer to an ego-less state of being there is nothing strange about such a ‘being’ feeling something ... after all they are that affective being. Whereas an actual freedom from the human condition only happens when that affective being – which is ‘being’ itself – altruistically ‘self’-immolates in toto ... hence any feeling of either condescension or smugness you are reading into my words can only be a projection of your own feelings’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 53, 27 October 2003a).

Essentially the only difference between ‘no-self’ and ‘no self’ is the hyphen’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 53a, 28 October 2003a).

Just so that there is no misunderstanding: whilst the altered state of consciousness (ASC) Ms. Bernadette Roberts experiences can indeed be categorised as a ‘no-self’/‘no self’ state of being there is no way that an actual freedom from the human condition can be classified in such a manner ... as evidenced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) where identity in toto, and not just the ego-identity, is in abeyance.

Incidentally, I do understand the content of your argument – just because it is fallacious does not mean it cannot be comprehended – inasmuch I have had the same and similar arguments presented to me, face-to-face, long before coming onto the internet in 1997.

It is the word ‘fact’ which bugs more than a few religionists and/or spiritualists and/or mystics and/or metaphysicians because they cannot dismissively say, for example, ‘that is only your fact’, as a variant on the hoary ‘that is only your truth’ or ‘that is only your belief’ or ‘that is only your interpretation’, and so on, without being silly about it.

In short: contrary to what you say Ms. Bernadette Roberts has to say (further above) physicality can indeed be known.

CORRESPONDENT No. 89 (Part Six)

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