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Richard’s Correspondence On The Actual Freedom Mailing List With Correspondent No. 90
RESPONDENT: This is a fairly trivial point I think. RICHARD: If you wish to have me discuss what you think is a fairly trivial point then that is your business ... you may find the following to be of interest:
RESPONDENT: But it’s fun to wrestle it out. RICHARD: What I find rather cute is that you do not even know what it is that you are having fun wrestling out ... for example:
The impression conveyed, then, is that this is but an academic discussion for you about an abstract principle – the purely logical principle that nothing can be known with 100% certainty – and virtually any subject matter would serve towards that end. * RESPONDENT: Richard (...) one quick question: How do you KNOW that a tribesman of Papua New Guinea twelve thousand years ago didn’t become actually free? RICHARD: Unless you can provide suitably referenced information which unambiguously demonstrates that a tribesman of Papua New Guinea twelve thousand years ago did become actually free from the human condition your query is about a hypothetical person – an intellectual creation, an abstract person, an imaginative entity – who has no existence outside of your skull. In other words, your query currently looks something like this: [example only]: ‘How do you KNOW that a hypothetical person/an intellectual creation/an abstract person/an imaginative entity who has no existence outside of my skull didn’t become actually free? [end example]. (...) RESPONDENT: On the one hand you are saying that people in the past actually did exist, and on the other you are saying they are inventions of my mind. RICHARD: The peoples of the New Guinea highlands, for example, certainly did exist ... I have seen both black and white footage of the first contact with peoples from elsewhere in the world circa 1932-33 and several interviews, on colour video, of some of them still recently alive (being but 70-odd years out of isolation they could still clearly remember the first contact). It is the person designated by you as being a male (and not a female) living in a tribe (and not living alone) on the eastern half (and not the western half) of the land-mass nowadays known as New Guinea (the western half is currently called Irian Jaya) in the year 10005 BCE (and not some other date) whom you are positing as having been actually free from the human condition – else why ask me how I know to the contrary – that is an invention of your mind ... that hypothetical person is an intellectual creation, an abstract entity, a theoretical personage, an imaginative figure. RESPONDENT: Lots of people have existed who I don’t know anything about. RICHARD: Indeed so ... just as there are billions of people alive at this very moment you know nothing about (and never will). RESPONDENT: If I start to think about details, then yes, they become abstract entities/ intellectual creations. RICHARD: Exactly. RESPONDENT: But whether I think about them or not, they did once exist. RICHARD: Those [quote] ‘abstract entities/intellectual creations’ [endquote] did not once exist – they have no existence outside of your skull – it is only the lots of people whom you know nothing about who did. RESPONDENT: It is POSSIBLE that one of them was actually free of the human condition. RICHARD: How do you know it is possible that one of the lots of people whom you know nothing about was actually free from the human condition? RESPONDENT: I can’t see how you can deny this. RICHARD: What do you think my words ‘as experientially determined by the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago’ referred to, then? RESPONDENT: Perhaps you are not denying it? RICHARD: I am most certainly denying it ... unambiguously and unequivocally. RESPONDENT: You say that ‘as far as [you] have been able to ascertain by regular research and as experientially determined by the identity inhabiting [that] flesh and blood body all those years ago, nobody either living or dead prior to 1992 has ever been actually free of the human condition’. RICHARD: Indeed so ... perhaps it would have been even more clear to have said that no *flesh and blood* body either living or dead prior to 1992 has ever been actually free of the human condition (rather than just ‘nobody’)? RESPONDENT: In other words, to the limits of your knowledge, there is and hasn’t been anyone actually free of the human condition. RICHARD: Hmm ... I was working on the (apparently erroneous) assumption that you had actually read my
responses to others on this matter, at the link you were advised to access RESPONDENT: I can accept that. RICHARD: As your [quote] ‘in other words’ [endquote] exegesis of what my words ‘as experientially determined by the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago’ refer to bears no resemblance to what they did refer to then what you say you can accept is your [quote] ‘other words’ [endquote] ... not mine. RESPONDENT: But isn’t it POSSIBLE that beyond those limits there MIGHT have been or be someone who is actually free of the human condition that, in your investigations you’ve not come across? RICHARD: As those limits are the limits you educed from what you go on to describe as [quote] ‘whatever’ [endquote] I am unable to answer your query. RESPONDENT: I mean, just because you’ve not encountered someone through research or whatever doesn’t mean they didn’t exist. RICHARD: If I may point out? To describe my explicit account of what the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago experientially determined as merely being [quote] ‘whatever’ [endquote] is not indicative of an engaged dialogue. RESPONDENT: They did exist. RICHARD: Unless you can provide suitably referenced information which unambiguously demonstrates that they – the ‘someone’ you referred to who [quote] ‘MIGHT have been’ [endquote] actually free of the human condition – did indeed exist you are just asserting that they did. RESPONDENT: Lots of people have existed who left no trace of their existence. RICHARD: Given the ubiquitous nature of the human condition it is reasonable to assume there have been lots of instinctually-driven people who have existed without leaving any trace of their existence ... what is not reasonable, in light of what the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago experientially determined, is to assert that one of them might have been actually free of the human condition. RESPONDENT: I’m not giving them any abstract attributes. RICHARD: If I may point out? You gave one of them the abstract quality of having possibly – as expressed by your capitalised usage of the auxiliary verb ‘might’ (a variation on the auxiliary verb ‘may’) further above – been actually free of the human condition. RESPONDENT: I’m just saying they existed. RICHARD: If you are solely referring to instinctually-driven people who have existed without leaving any trace of their existence then it is reasonable to assume they existed ... more than likely there were, as you say, lots of them. RESPONDENT: Lots of them. As they were all humans like you (to the extent that you are a human) and me, I assume they were all capable of being actually free of the human condition, like you and me. RICHARD: Whether they were capable or not is beside the point ... the point is that, as experientially determined by the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago (and verified for as far as is possible to ascertain by regular research), no flesh and blood body either living or dead prior to 1992 has ever been actually free of the human condition. RESPONDENT: Thus, no matter how improbable, it is to some degree possible that they achieved freedom from the human condition. RICHARD: It is not a case of either probability/ improbability or possibility/ impossibility (or even plausibility/ implausibility) ... your academic argument has no application in this instance.
RESPONDENT: ... I wonder why you have these matters to answer over my PCE questions? RICHARD: For no other reason than it being the very thing you asked me to do. Viz.:
Incidentally, in reference to your [quote] ‘please let me know when you’ve dealt with everything I asked’ [endquote] request: a computer search, through the 10 e-mails you have specifically addressed to me on this mailing list, for all the occasions you have typed in the question mark symbol shows that you have asked 325 questions in total. In view of the fact you wrote to another Providing you did not ask any more ‘before that’ quick questions, that is. RESPONDENT: Certainly they are of interest to me (despite perhaps relative triviality), and I do feel that if you cannot give me a good answer to these then perhaps there is a reason to doubt you. RICHARD: As I have been doing nothing else but giving a good answer to [quote] ‘these matters’
[endquote], and as the same or similar goodly answer has been provided before in response to many and various others’ same or
similar question – more than a few of which exchanges have been collected together at the link you were advised to access It sure would save a lot of to-ing and fro-ing of e-mails.
RESPONDENT: I wonder why you have these matters to answer over my PCE questions? RICHARD: For no other reason than it being the very thing you asked me to do. Viz.: [snip quote]. RESPONDENT: Crikey! So I did! RICHARD: Am I to take it, then, that it was a good (to you) answer to your question ... inasmuch it satisfied one of your doubts? Viz.:
* RESPONDENT: Certainly they are of interest to me (despite perhaps relative triviality), and I do feel that if you cannot give me a good answer to these then perhaps there is a reason to doubt you. RICHARD: As I have been doing nothing else but giving a good answer to [quote] ‘these matters’
[endquote] and as the same or similar goodly answer has been provided before in response to many and various others’ same or
similar question – more than a few of which exchanges have been collected together at the link you were advised to access RESPONDENT: I have read your answers to others’ questions. I do not understand those answers. I ask for clarification. RICHARD: Okay ... what good (for me) answer in particular is it that is not good (to you) which you would have me clarify?
RESPONDENT: ... I do feel that if you cannot give me a good answer to these [matters] then perhaps there is a reason to doubt you. RICHARD: As I have been doing nothing else but giving a good answer to [quote] ‘these matters’ [endquote] ... RESPONDENT: ‘Good answers’ for you I presume. Often you have satisfied my doubts (to me: ‘good’), sometimes you haven’t (to me: ‘not good’). (...) RICHARD: ... and as the same or similar goodly answer has been provided before in response to many and
various others’ same or similar question – more than a few of which exchanges have been collected together at the link you
were advised to access RESPONDENT: I have read your answers to others’ questions. I do not understand those answers. I ask for clarification. RICHARD: Okay ... what good (for me) answer in particular is it that is not good (to you) which you would have me clarify? RESPONDENT: Not quite sure right now. RICHARD: Yet only 6 hours and 48 minutes earlier you were most categorical about having understood none of those twenty five collected-together answers of mine to others’ same or similar questions that you read at the link you were advised to access before your first response to my reply to your initial query. You do realise, do you not, that unless you provide at least one of those twenty five answers which you would
have me clarify to your satisfaction then your sweeping averment to have not understood any of them will be disregarded for being
but a variation on the but-why/ but-how sophisma It is your call.
RICHARD: ... only 6 hours and 48 minutes earlier you were most categorical about having understood
none of those twenty five collected-together answers of mine to others’ same or similar questions that you read at the link you
were advised to access RESPONDENT: If I was categorical about understanding none of those answers, it was an error. RICHARD: There is no [quote] ‘if’ [endquote] about it ... you were indeed categorical
It is this simple: all that is needed is for you to provide one particular answer, of those twenty five collected-together answers of mine, which you do not understand (such as to warrant you asking for further clarification) and all this footling around will be over and done with ... finished. Over to you.
RESPONDENT: Richard (...) one quick question: How do you KNOW that a tribesman of Papua New Guinea twelve thousand years ago didn’t become actually free? (...) RESPONDENT: I will look, as you suggested, to the answers you have given ... RICHARD: No, I did not suggest you [quote] ‘look to’ [endquote] the answers I have given, to many
and various others’ same or similar questions as your questions, which you read at the link you were advised to access On the contrary ... I specifically asked, as an immediate and unequivocal response to your averment that you did not understand those answers, and your request for clarification of same, what answer in particular is it that you would have me clarify. Indeed, I have been most explicit about just what it is which needs to be done all through your tergiversations ... here is my latest explication, once again, for your perusal. Viz.:
The ball is in your court.
RESPONDENT: ... I do feel that if you cannot give me a good answer to these [matters] then perhaps there is a reason to doubt you. RICHARD: As I have been doing nothing else but giving a good answer to [quote] ‘these matters’
[endquote] and as the same or similar goodly answer has been provided before in response to many and various others’ same or
similar question – more than a few of which exchanges have been collected together at the link you were advised to access RESPONDENT: ‘Good answers’ for you I presume. Often you have satisfied my doubts (to me: ‘good’), sometimes you haven’t (to me: ‘not good’). (...) I have read your answers to others’ questions. I do not understand those answers. I ask for clarification. RICHARD: Okay ... what good (for me) answer in particular is it that is not good (to you) which you would have me clarify? (...) RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘In 1985 I had the first of many experiences of going beyond spiritual enlightenment (as described in ‘A Brief Personal History’ on my part of The Actual Freedom Trust web site) and it had the character of the ‘Great Beyond’ – which I deliberately put in capitals because that is how it was experienced at the time – and it was of the nature of being ‘That’ which is attained to at physical death when an Enlightened One ‘quits the body’ ... which attainment is known as ‘Mahasamadhi’ (Hinduism) or ‘Parinirvana’ (Buddhism). Thus I knew even before becoming actually free that this condition was entirely new to human experience while still alive ...’. [endquote]. It is your ‘thus’ which I do not grasp. RICHARD: It is my [quote] ‘while still alive’ [endquote] words which are the key ... I will draw your attention to the following:
For example:
For another example (from Mr. Satya Goenka’s accredited master):
Or, in Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s own words, even:
Do you see ‘the end of suffering’ (editorial note RESPONDENT: How does entering the Great Beyond equal knowing that nobody has ever been there before? RICHARD: Because physical death is the end, finish ... kaput (there is no after-life in actuality). Viz.:
RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘... furthermore, in the ensuing years, as I proceeded to penetrate deeper and deeper into the state of being known as spiritual enlightenment, the psychic footprints, as it were, of those who had explored some of the further reaches of ‘Being’ itself gradually became less and less in number and finally petered out altogether leaving only virgin territory wherever the (psychic) eye would look’. [endquote]. What did these psychic footprints ‘look’ like? RICHARD: They looked more or less like the footsteps to be found in the metaphorical term ‘follow in another’s footsteps’. RESPONDENT: I am quite willing to accept that you entered a state where the whole history of human experience revealed itself to you ... RICHARD: As nowhere in those quotes do I say that I entered a state where the whole history of human experience revealed itself to me then what you are being quite willing to accept is your own invention. RESPONDENT: ... (‘extraordinary proof’), but as I am not in that state I cannot be sure if you are right. RICHARD: This is really quite a simple matter to comprehend: prior to those experiences of going beyond spiritual enlightenment/mystical awakenment, whilst paddling a canoe around a group of uninhabited islands in the tropics off the north-eastern Australian seaboard for about three months in 1985, ‘the end of suffering’ was universally considered to be only possible after physical death (peace on earth was just not possible); those experiences demonstrated just what was required to have that most salubrious condition come about (the extinction of identity in toto and not just ego dissolution); the experiential penetration deeper and deeper into the further reaches of ‘Being’ itself only served to reinforce what was already known from a four-hour pure consciousness experience (PCE) six months prior to the commencement of the path that would eventually lead to an actual freedom from the human condition (that such a freedom was entirely new to human experience). RESPONDENT: You say you ‘traversed territory which no enlightened being has ever navigated’. RICHARD: Presumably you are referring to the words I wrote immediately following the above quote? Viz.:
RESPONDENT: Can you explain, in greater depth, how you knew that no enlightened (or unenlightened) being had ever been there? RICHARD: To keep with the metaphor: not only were there were no footprints there were no markers at all indicating the passage of another ... no blazes, no droppings, no trampled undergrowth, no abandoned campsites, no discarded equipment, no parched skeletons, and so on, and so forth. It truly was virgin territory. Which is not at all surprising in view of the fact that ‘the end of suffering’ (aka ‘The Peace That Passeth All Understanding’) had previously been considered to be only possible after physical death ... the ‘Requiescat In Pace’ (R.I.P.) ubiquitously inscribed upon tombstones, for another example, most certainly does not refer to life before death. Viz.:
* RESPONDENT: You say that ‘it was manifestly obvious that what the human race had made of such (PCE) experiences was a degradation of the actual’. RICHARD: Presumably you are referring to this:
A pure consciousness experience (PCE) is, of course, not an actual freedom from the human condition. Viz.:
RESPONDENT: I guess you were witnessing (‘extraordinary proof’) what the human race had made of PCE experiences, the residue (‘psychic footprints’) of their expressions and explanations. RICHARD: Nope ... that four-hour PCE was in 1980, whilst being a normal person, whereas experientially determining the petering-out of other enlightened/ awakened beings’ psychic footprints was during the latter part (1985-1992) of being an abnormal person, night and day, for eleven years. RESPONDENT: Thus somebody you had never met, who had left no record of their PCE, who had privately PCEd perhaps just before dying, left a ‘psychic footprint’ which you picked up and deemed a degradation. RICHARD: There is no psychic ability operating in a PCE (when the affective faculty is in abeyance so too is its epiphenomenal psychic facility). * RESPONDENT: If you were able to pick up on the ‘psychic footprints’ of those who entered or nearly entered or did not enter the state of actual freedom, are you able to still do that? RICHARD: The following should be self-explanatory
RESPONDENT: If I became actually free tomorrow would you feel my footprint? RICHARD: I will draw your attention to the following:
In other words, it was the ‘being’ possessing this flesh and blood body in 1985 who experientially discovered that no-one had gone beyond enlightenment before then ... not me (I am simply providing a report of ‘his’ experience). * RESPONDENT: One respondent says that your ‘proof’ (‘no one had ventured into this terrain before’) does not tell him/her about anyone else. RICHARD: Presumably you are referring to this:
RESPONDENT: As your proof was a subjective and extraordinary experience which I am not having nor, as far as I can positively identify, had before, it also does not tell me about anyone else. RICHARD: You are simply repeating the same inconsistent argument as my co-respondent came out with ... they make out that take my word for it about me (‘it tells me that you have attained actual freedom’) yet, conversely, will not take my word for it about no-one having ventured in the terrain before (‘but does not tell me about anyone else’). RESPONDENT: It tells me about your subjective experience. RICHARD: You have written elsewhere that at the age of 20 you embarked upon 10 years of spirituality/ mysticism ... are you trying to make out that you do not know the ‘Great Beyond’, by whatever name, has been proposed heretofore to only be possible at physical death (and not whilst the flesh and blood body is still alive)? RESPONDENT: Again, fair enough, I haven’t got a problem with that. RICHARD: Then why bring it up in the first place? RESPONDENT: As you say, you are not in the business of proving to me that what you have experienced is so. RICHARD: Presumably you are referring to this:
RESPONDENT: I do not require proof from you, rather I would like to be sure, of what you are reporting, I can and cannot currently know. RICHARD: As it is blindingly obvious to all but the most intellectually challenged person that one cannot personally know what goes on in the further reaches of ‘Being’ itself unless one is spiritually enlightened/ mystically awakened then if it is indeed the case that all you are wanting to be sure of, of what I am reporting, is what you can and cannot *currently* know this entire exchange has been much ado about nothing. * RESPONDENT: For example I can know of the kind of knowledge you appeal to in such statements as ‘in those six years nobody has ever come back to me with a single instance where somebody else is already actually free from the human condition.’ That kind of knowledge is, I think, familiar to me. But the ‘extraordinary proof’ is not. I can know, along with you, that nobody has left any record of having discovered a cure for cancer, but I cannot know, as you seem to, that one solitary man or woman, somewhere far away in space and time, discovered the cure and died without leaving any record of it. RICHARD: I have no knowledge whatsoever that the cure for cancer was not discovered by one solitary man or woman, somewhere far away in space and time, who died without leaving any record of it ... and neither have I any knowledge, for that matter, that Mr. Edmund Hillary and Mr. Tenzing Norgay were not the first to have ascended Mt. Everest, on May 29 1953 (someone from Tibet/ Nepal/ Mongolia/ Wherever may have already done so 10/100/ 1000/ 10,000 years ago and just never got around to informing their fellow human beings). Nor have I any knowledge that someone from, say, Outer Gondwanaland might have not already been to the South Pole long before Mr Roald Amundsen travelled there or whether Mr. Yuri Gagarin was indeed the first human being to leave the planet’s atmosphere or whether Mr. Neil Armstrong was certainly the first human being to set foot on the moon or whether ... and so on, and so on, through the entire Guinness Book Of Records. In short: your argument is a variation on what is known as an agnostic argument (that nothing can ever be
known with 100% certainty) such as what Mr. Karl Popper made popular and stems, as I understand it, from the occasion wherein,
prior to the exploration of Australia’s west coast, all (European) swans were white ... meaning that, somewhere, somewhen, in an
infinite and eternal universe a purple swan may very well exist. RESPONDENT: So you seem to be relying on two modes of knowledge, the regular look-it-up-in-a-book type and the highly irregular picking-up-on-psychic-footprints type. RICHARD: No, I am relying (to use your phrasing) solely upon what was experientially determined by the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago ... the regular research was purely for the sake of verification by another means (for as far as it is possible to ascertain). RESPONDENT: As the latter informs you about every person who ever did (or does) live, why bother with the former? RICHARD: Since when has the entirely sensible procedure of verifying something by some other means been a bother? RESPONDENT: Is it to offer something ordinary to those who do not have access to the extraordinary? RICHARD: Also ... I prefer my fellow human beings to not have to take my word for anything. RESPONDENT: That would seem reasonable. Again, I’m not claiming that what you know is false, just trying to be clear about how you know it. RICHARD: Yet I was clear about how I know it right from the very beginning:
RESPONDENT: I’m sure that’s about it. RICHARD: So endeth the feeling-fed doubt
RESPONDENT: ... I do feel that if you cannot give me a good answer to these [matters] then perhaps there is a reason to doubt you. RICHARD: As I have been doing nothing else but giving a good answer to [quote] ‘these matters’
[endquote] and as the same or similar goodly answer has been provided before in response to many and various others’ same or
similar question – more than a few of which exchanges have been collected together at the link you were advised to access RESPONDENT: ‘Good answers’ for you I presume. Often you have satisfied my doubts (to me: ‘good’), sometimes you haven’t (to me: ‘not good’). (...) I have read your answers to others’ questions. I do not understand those answers. I ask for clarification. RICHARD: Okay ... what good (for me) answer in particular is it that is not good (to you) which you would have me clarify? (...) RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘In 1985 I had the first of many experiences of going beyond spiritual enlightenment (as described in ‘A Brief Personal History’ on my part of The Actual Freedom Trust web site) and it had the character of the ‘Great Beyond’ – which I deliberately put in capitals because that is how it was experienced at the time – and it was of the nature of being ‘That’ which is attained to at physical death when an Enlightened One ‘quits the body’ ... which attainment is known as ‘Mahasamadhi’ (Hinduism) or ‘Parinirvana’ (Buddhism). Thus I knew even before becoming actually free that this condition was entirely new to human experience while still alive ...’. [endquote]. It is your ‘thus’ which I do not grasp. RICHARD: It is my [quote] ‘while still alive’ [endquote] words which are the key ... I will draw your attention to the following:
For example:
For another example (from Mr. Satya Goenka’s accredited master):
Or, in Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s own words, even:
Do you see ‘the end of suffering’ (editorial note RESPONDENT: How does entering the Great Beyond equal knowing that nobody has ever been there before? RICHARD: Because physical death is the end, finish ... kaput (there is no after-life in actuality). Viz.:
RESPONDENT: This doesn’t answer my question I don’t think. How does entering the Great Beyond equal knowing that nobody has ever been there before? RICHARD: Because there is no after-life (physical death is the end, finish ... kaput). RESPONDENT: What you say above is that ‘death is the end’ ... RICHARD: What I say above is that *physical* death is the end. RESPONDENT: ... and that your condition was that. RICHARD: No, I did not say that (this flesh and blood body is quite obviously still alive). RESPONDENT: As you haven’t died yet I can’t see how you can be sure that this was so ... RICHARD: That which was previously considered to survive physical death has no existence in actuality. RESPONDENT: ...but that aside, you don’t explain how this condition revealed the fact that nobody had ever been there before. RICHARD: If identity in toto does not become extinct before physical death it will at physical death.
CORRESPONDENT No. 90 (Part Four) RETURN TO THE ACTUAL FREEDOM MAILING LIST INDEX RETURN TO RICHARD’S CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
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