Actual Freedom – The Actual Freedom Mailing List Correspondence

December 29 2005

RESPONDENT: If your intentional self-immolation and the ‘sensational’ event was not effective in eliminating the ‘soul’ in toto, what part does the ‘sensational’ event play in the eventual elimination?

RICHARD: There were two events which precipitated much sensational activity at the nape of the neck – at the top of the brain-stem/the base of the brain (popularly known as the ‘lizard brain’/ ‘reptilian brain’) – and it was in the first of such incidences, in 1981, that the ego/ self (aka ‘the thinker) died whereas the soul/ spirit (aka ‘the feeler’), or ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself), did not similarly die until 1992 whereupon then, and only then, could it be said that identity in toto was extinct.

RESPONDENT: The quote below doesn’t make it clear that the intention to fully self-immolate did not achieve the desired end. It in fact tends to reinforce the idea that the deed was done.

[Richard]: ‘(...) To cut a long story short ‘he’ psychologically and psychically (ontologically and autologically) ‘self’-immolated in ‘his’ totality (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) for the benefit of this body and that body and every body. This altruistic action, set in motion with knowledge aforethought, precipitated *much sensational activity* at the top of the brain-stem/base of the brain (popularly known as the ‘lizard brain’/‘reptilian brain’). (...) as there was *much sensational activity* at the top of the brain-stem/base of the brain during the extinction of identity in this flesh and blood body, it makes sense to me to suggest that this speculation [amongst various professionals in the field that the Substantia Nigra was the seat of consciousness/the location of identity] could very well be the case. Plus, as reptiles (and birds and fishes) do not have a ‘mammalian’ brain and/or a ‘cortical’ brain it seems obvious that the ‘seat of consciousness’ be located in what is popularly known as the ‘lizard brain’/ ‘reptilian brain’. An instinctual self, in other words, is the root of the problem’. [emphasises added]. (Richard, List B, No. 55, 20 July 2001).

RICHARD: I did preface the above text with the qualifier ‘to cut a long story short’ as that was a response to a query about the amygdalae in relation to fear and the source of the instinctual self and/or of the instinctual passions ... rather than when and how extirpation of same happened. Here is the text in full:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Richard, we can take for granted that the temporal amygdalae are essential to feel fear in front of a frightening face. According to what I believe to understand, the sight of a frightening face or another thing, has not frightened you any more for several years. How do you explain this phenomenon?
• [Richard]: ‘For the first thirty-four years of my life there was a parasite living inside this body (an identity). This ‘walk-in’ dominated so much that I could hardly get a word in edgeways. Then one day ‘he’ had a pure consciousness experience (PCE) and saw ‘himself’ for the very first time ... a lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning entity. Furthermore, ‘he’ saw that ‘he’ was standing in the way of the already always existing peace-on-earth becoming apparent. To cut a long story short ‘he’ psychologically and psychically (ontologically and autologically) ‘self’-immolated in ‘his’ totality (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) for the benefit of this body and that body and every body.
This altruistic action, set in motion with knowledge aforethought, precipitated much sensational activity at the top of the brain-stem/base of the brain (popularly known as the ‘lizard brain’/ ‘reptilian brain’). However, the amygdalae are located further up into the skull (just in from behind each ear) and there was no activity happening there. As the reflex function still operates (if a hot stove is inadvertently touched the hand jerks away automatically) it is obvious to me that that the ‘seat of consciousness’ is located in the brain-stem. I would suggest the ‘Substantia Nigra’ in or near the top two thirds of the ‘Reticular Activating System’ (sometimes known as the ‘Reticular System’) as being the source of the instinctual self/ the instinctual passions.
To put it simply: as ‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’, the extinction of ‘I’/‘me’ is simultaneously the extinction of fear’. (Richard, List B, No. 55, 20 July 2001).

And:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘You know as me that the neurons of the Substantia Nigra are destroyed during the Parkinson’s disease what causes stereotyped neurological disorders. Which arguments make you think that Substantia Nigra could be the source of the instinctual self and/or of the instinctual passions?
• [Richard]: ‘What caught my interest was the encephalitis that numerous people contracted as a result of the outbreak of what is popularly known as the ‘Spanish Flu’ epidemic that spread world-wide towards the end of World War I. In their case the Substantia Nigra was affected (which could be described as being ‘eaten away’ by the encephalitis), leaving them in what is popularly known as a ‘vegetative’ state ... yet large amounts of L-Dopa administered temporarily brought them out of their state into varying degrees of normality (there was a movie made about this phenomenon) complete with an intact identity.
This gave rise to speculation amongst various professionals in the field that the Substantia Nigra was the ‘seat of consciousness’ (the location of identity) and, as there was much sensational activity at the top of the brain-stem/ base of the brain during the extinction of identity in this flesh and blood body, it makes sense to me to suggest that this speculation could very well be the case. Plus, as reptiles (and birds and fishes) do not have a ‘mammalian’ brain and/or a ‘cortical’ brain it seems obvious that the ‘seat of consciousness’ be located in what is popularly known as the ‘lizard brain’/ ‘reptilian brain’.
An instinctual self, in other words, is the root of the problem’. (Richard, List B, No. 55, 22 July 2001).

RESPONDENT: I do understand that the intention is to put the emphasis on the reptilian brain as the source of the instincts and the origin of beingness and ego selves. Am I all wet and the quote refers only to the final (1992) event?

RICHARD: No, it is simply a composite of the two events, both of which precipitated much sensational activity at the nape of the neck, so as to not complicate the issue being discussed with unnecessary detail.

Perhaps if I were to put it this way: the process whereby identity in toto went into oblivion was hijacked halfway through its course ... thus necessitating eleven more years before completion (before the hijacker, too, went into oblivion) as it is incredibly difficult to bring the massive delusion of being the source of everything (an institutionalised insanity known as spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment) to an end.

December 29 2005

RESPONDENT: The ‘sensational’ event did not remove the survival drives?

RICHARD: The event in 1981, which also precipitated much sensational activity at the nape of the neck, did not remove the basic survival passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) ... there was, in effect, a sublimation/ transcendence of them.

RESPONDENT: Was the experience of transcendence of the passions sufficiently entrancing enough to fool you into thinking that the passions were truly vanished and you had achieved the desired ends?

RICHARD: No ... immediately after the 1981 event it was obvious that the nature, or character, of experiencing was not that of a pure consciousness experience (PCE) but of an altered state of consciousness (ASC) which I was soon to be made cognisant of as being popularly known as spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment. Viz.:

• [Richard]: ‘I had never heard the words ‘Enlightenment’ or ‘Nirvana’ and so on until 1982 when talking to a man about my breakthrough, into what I called an ‘Absolute Freedom’, via the death of ‘myself’ in September 1981. He listened – he questioned me rigorously until well after midnight – and then declared me to be ‘Enlightened’. I had to ask him what that was, such was my ignorance of all things spiritual. He – being a nine-year spiritual seeker fresh from his latest trip to India – gave me a book to read by someone called Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti. That was to be the beginning of what was to become a long learning curve of all things religious, spiritual, mystical and metaphysical for me. I studied all this because I sought to understand what other peoples had made of such spontaneous experiences and to find out where human endeavour had been going wrong.
I found out where I had been going wrong for eleven years ... self-aggrandisement is so seductive’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 16, 8 January 2001).

RESPONDENT: Is it only in retrospect that you viewed your intended self-immolation as both ego and being selves dying? In other words, did you have the clear distinction of the two types of identity in mind when you originally chose to get rid of your SELF?

RICHARD: Basically, all that I knew (from the four-hour PCE in mid 1980 which set the entire process in motion) was that there were two types of identity – specifically labelled, then, as a social ‘me’ and a grand ‘Me’ – and that there was someone/something else which had observed those two ‘me’s.

*

RESPONDENT: [The ‘sensational’ event did not remove the survival drives?] Or if it did, somehow a vestigial self/identity remained?

RICHARD: In essence what remained, as is the case with any spiritually enlightened/ mystically awakened being, was the rudimentary animal ‘self’ (an inchoate affective presence, an embryonic feeler, an incipient intuiter), which virtually all sentient beings are per favour blind nature’s rough and ready survival software hereditarily endowed at conception, aggrandised like all get-out.

RESPONDENT: Presumably, in spite of the ‘aggrandising’, it took you 11 years to get what was happening sufficiently to do something about it.

RICHARD: I got what was happening after about six years ... for instance:

• [Richard]: ‘(...) love is usually considered sacrosanct ... yet just as sorrow is essential for its antidotal compassion to flourish love is the antitoxin for malice: without malice, love has no raison d’être. I started to empirically encounter this, whilst sailing my yacht around tropical islands off the north-east coast of Australia with a choice companion, towards the end of 1987 and by about mid 1988 the unfolding of experience came to its inevitable realisation. Strangely enough it was the disclosure of the intrinsically manipulative nature of love – and ‘unconditional love’ at that – in 1987 which triggered the expansion of comprehension and experiential understanding of the composition of the affective faculty ... with the concomitant growth of awareness.
It was with Love Agapé being such a ‘sacred cow’ that there had initially been considerable uneasiness about a direct investigation – my initial enquiry had begun in India in 1984, whilst single and celibate, upon becoming suss about the Buddhist ‘karuna’ (pity-compassion) and ‘metta’ (loving-kindness) – hence there was a three year-long gestation period before the fact could be addressed squarely. Eventually what happened was that at anchor one velvety night with an ebbing tide chuckling its way past the hull what I then called ‘The Absolute’ presented itself as being feminine – a Radiant Being initially seen to be Pure Love – which femininity I would nowadays consider to be a product of me being of masculine gender. Due to an intensity of purpose there was the capacity to penetrate into the nature of this ‘Radiant Being’ and I was able to see ‘Her’ other face:
It was Pure Evil – the Diabolical underpins the Divine – and upon such exposure ‘She’ (aka Love Agapé) disappeared forever ... nevertheless it was not until 1992 that it all came to fruition.
There is a vast difference between ‘realisation’ and ‘actualisation’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 41, 10 February 2003).

Somewhere around 1989-90 it increasingly dawned upon me that I was being dilatory – putting-off going that extra step – for a number of reasons ... the main one being that it was all uncharted territory/ untraversed terrain.

‘Twas no little thing to do, to venture where none had gone before, and the apprehension was considerable.

December 30 2005

RESPONDENT: Did your ‘sensational’ event have any of the aspects of my event?

RICHARD: Oh, yes ... for instance I can recall [quote] ‘flashes of light and crackles and pops of sound and feeling of pressure’ [endquote] as well as affective energy [quote] ‘flowing freely like 2 hoses left on the ground (waving and twisting in the space around my head)’ [endquote].

RESPONDENT: Presumably the 1992 sensational event had somewhat different qualities to it.

RICHARD: Somewhat ... in most respects, though, it was more or less a repeat of the 1982 effects (only more so).

RESPONDENT: What particulars about the two events seem to be significantly different?

RICHARD: Oh, the finality of the 1992 event (as in the finality of death, when someone close dies, as contrasted to their temporary departure).

RESPONDENT: Was passionate altruism as motivating as previously?

RICHARD: Not at the moment, no.

RESPONDENT: Or was disgust with the trap of ‘being’ more to the forefront?

RICHARD: No.

What specifically initiated the final event was the salutary realisation that the received knowledge of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ was but a house of cards ... an ornate edifice built upon shifting sands. Viz.:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘You answered my question about what the right thought was that caused AF in you. I’m saying because of the seminal question, you had to admit you had been fooling yourself when you realized your enlightened motivation (survive!) to plant trees was no different than your unenlightened motivation (survive!) to plant grass.
• [Richard]: ‘Oh no, planting grass really was the right thing to do all those years ago – it is only modern-day peoples who castigate the pioneers for doing what was right then – just as planting trees is the right thing to do nowadays ... what is the right thing to do, in any era, changes into another right thing to do as changes caused by doing the previous right thing happen.
What I really realised, at that moment and in that context, was that I no longer knew what the right thing to do was anymore ... and at that moment I was, finally, ripe and ready to be what I actually am’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 50, 11 October 2003).

Of course, the situation and circumstances (cutting down long grass in an abandoned cow-paddock preparatory to planting trees) were peculiar to me and my context at that time and had I been some other person in some other context I could very well have been washing the dishes, for example, or riding a bicycle.

And had I been some other person in some other context the salutary realisation would have been different too ... meaning that only the particular person can know what they must do – and they will not know what that is until it happens – and when they do know what to do it will be too late to stop the happening.

Hence all the procrastination – it means the end of ‘me’ – because it can, and will, happen just here right now.

*

RESPONDENT: I ask because I am wondering if there are myriad types of events or they follow a certain pattern.

RICHARD: Over the eleven years (1981-1992) I heard about/read of numerous accounts of similar events to the 1981 incident ... but none even vaguely like the 1992 incident (either before or since).

RESPONDENT: What in particular stands out as entirely unique to the 1992 event that makes you confident that it was unknown to all other humans?

RICHARD: The resultant complete absence, and markedly so, of the entire affective faculty/the identity in toto.

RESPONDENT: I have read your statements regarding the lack ‘psychic footprints’ as proof of the uniqueness of your state.

RICHARD: That is how I can personally know that, prior to 1992, no one else had ever gone beyond spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment.

RESPONDENT: Is it the sudden lack of basic survival drives and emotions?

RICHARD: Yes, upon an actual freedom from the human condition one has no instinctual urges, drives, or impulses at all – the biological imperative is null and void – nor any emotions/ passions whatsoever.

RESPONDENT: What other specifics are unique to Richard?

RICHARD: Presuming you mean unique to an actual freedom from the human condition, and not what is idiosyncratic to this flesh and blood body, the main characteristics are delineated at the following link: (Richard, Articles, 180 Degrees Opposite).

December 31 2005

RESPONDENT: Is it only in retrospect that you viewed your intended self-immolation as both ego and being selves dying? In other words, did you have the clear distinction of the two types of identity in mind when you originally chose to get rid of your SELF?

RICHARD: Basically, all that I knew (from the four-hour PCE in mid 1980 which set the entire process in motion) was that there were two types of identity – specifically labelled, then, as a social ‘me’ and a grand ‘Me’ – and that there was someone/ something else which had observed those two ‘me’s.

RESPONDENT: So this ‘third’ party observer is what remains? (or another way of looking at it: the ‘second’ party observer was able to see the two components of the self).

RICHARD: What remains is, of course, this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware ... but that is not what you asked: you specifically wanted to know whether there was [quote] ‘the clear distinction of the two types of identity’ [endquote] prior to the 1981 event wherein only the ego-self died.

I did not know that what was then specifically labelled as a grand ‘Me’ was the genetically-inherited rudimentary animal ‘self’ (an inchoate affective presence, an embryonic feeler, an incipient intuiter) aggrandised like all get-out; I did not know that what was then specifically labelled as a social ‘me’ arose per favour that rudimentary ‘me’ irregardless of socialisation/ acculturation; I did not know that what I nowadays label as a ‘social identity’ (aka conscience) is layered over that ego/self which arises from the soul/spirit (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being or ‘being’ itself) which that inchoate affective presence/ embryonic feeler/ incipient intuiter automatically forms itself into as blind nature’s rough and ready survival package (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’).

Furthermore, nobody knew any of that: had there been such knowledge/ had there been such a precedent I would not have had to waste a large section of my life stuck in the institutionalised state of insanity popularly known as spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment as it could have all been over within, maybe, 6-10 seconds in 1981 ... instead of 6 seconds plus eleven years.

Which is essentially why The Actual Freedom Trust web site/ The Actual Freedom Trust mailing list exists: I like my fellow human being and am only interested in their suffering coming to an end, once and for all, sooner rather than later.

Nobody, but nobody, need ever venture up that blind alley ever again.

December 31 2005

RICHARD: Perhaps if I were to put it this way: the process whereby identity in toto went into oblivion was hijacked halfway through its course ... thus necessitating eleven more years before completion (before the hijacker, too, went into oblivion) as it is incredibly difficult to bring the massive delusion of being the source of everything (an institutionalised insanity known as spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment) to an end.

RESPONDENT: I think that you have failed to appreciate the necessity of your 11 years of ‘delusion’.

RICHARD: I can assure you, for whatever that is worth, that I do indeed fully appreciate the necessity of that eleven-year journey through spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment ... and so did the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago. Viz.:

• [Richard]: ‘After the ‘something turning over in the base of the brain/ nape of the neck’ event of September 1981 (as detailed in ‘A Brief Personal History’), and as the western-style mysticism I was experiencing moved deeper into being an eastern-style mysticism (I can recall telling my then wife at that time I was jumping out of the frying pan into the fire as somebody had to sort this mystery out), I just knew that, in order to be able to speak meaningfully about going beyond enlightenment I had to go through enlightenment so as to, not only understand it experientially for myself, but to be able to have insider information, so to speak, to pass on to my fellow human beings.
For what is the point of enabling peace-on-earth, and thus demonstrating the actual way to live life for a benighted humanity, if one cannot explain the how and why and what for, of it?
Thus being a whistle-blower was my express intention all those years ago ...’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25d, 26 October 2003).

RESPONDENT: And you do your readers a disservice in declaring enlightenment to be worthless.

RICHARD: I would be doing my fellow human being no favour – and nor would I be being true to the legacy that identity left – were I not to continue to expose spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment for being the crock it is.

RESPONDENT: It is the journey that can’t be totally eliminated.

RICHARD: I can see no reason whatsoever why identity in toto (both ‘I’ as ego/self and ‘me’ as soul/spirit) cannot become extinct in one fell-swoop.

RESPONDENT: In my opinion you have to meet the dragons on their own turf.

RICHARD: As neither the dragons nor their turf are actual you do not have to do anything of the sort: just one short step and !poof! it is all over, done with, finished ... the end.

‘Twas all an illusion/ delusion ... I have been here, all along, simply having a ball.

December 31 2005

RICHARD: In essence what remained [after the 1981 ego-death event], as is the case with any spiritually enlightened/ mystically awakened being, was the rudimentary animal ‘self’ (an inchoate affective presence, an embryonic feeler, an incipient intuiter), which virtually all sentient beings are per favour blind nature’s rough and ready survival software hereditarily endowed at conception, aggrandised like all get-out.

RESPONDENT: Presumably, in spite of the ‘aggrandising’, it took you 11 years to get what was happening sufficiently to do something about it.

RICHARD: I got what was happening after about six years ... for instance:

• [Richard]: ‘(...) love is usually considered sacrosanct ... yet just as sorrow is essential for its antidotal compassion to flourish love is the antitoxin for malice: without malice, love has no raison d’être. I started to empirically encounter this, whilst sailing my yacht around tropical islands off the north-east coast of Australia with a choice companion, towards the end of 1987 and by about mid 1988 the unfolding of experience came to its inevitable realisation. Strangely enough it was the disclosure of the intrinsically manipulative nature of love – and ‘unconditional love’ at that – in 1987 which triggered the expansion of comprehension and experiential understanding of the composition of the affective faculty ... with the concomitant growth of awareness’. [snip]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 41, 10 February 2003).

RESPONDENT: So you were learning things along the way.

RICHARD: No, I was discovering things along the way ... I travelled the country – and overseas – talking with many and varied peoples from all walks of life; I watched television, videos, films, whatever media was available; I read about other people’s experiences in books, journals, magazines, newspapers, and so forth, during that period, in order to learn about what I nowadays call an actual freedom from the human condition, but to no avail.

In short: there was absolutely no precedent ... the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago did not have the millions of words now available on The Actual Freedom Trust web site to refer to.

RESPONDENT: It seems as if each and every one of us has to learn these same or similar things in our own way.

RICHARD: There is a distinct difference between learning something and discovering something ... for instance, I can learn from what Mr. Galileo Galilei had to say about what he discovered when he looked through a telescope at the moon, Jupiter, Venus, and the sun, and see for myself that he was correct in saying that the moon has hills and valleys on it, that satellites orbit Jupiter, that the planet Venus has phases, and that the face of the sun has sunspots moving across it – and that, therefore, the earth must revolve around the sun – but I am in no way discovering that.

RESPONDENT: It is helpful to know that the affective system is at the root of things.

RICHARD: Hmm ... in the same way that it is helpful, for example, to know that malaria fever is caused by parasitic protozoans of the genus Plasmodium, transmitted by the bite of a mosquito of the genus Anopheles, and not by the exhalations of marshes to which such fevers were once ascribed?

And the reason I ask is because, speaking personally, I would say it is essential to know that ... not merely helpful.

RESPONDENT: But we can’t make progress just by believing you and your experience.

RICHARD: Yet I do not ask anyone to just believe me and my experience ... I specifically warn against that. Viz.:

• [Richard]: ‘... I do not want any one to merely believe me. I stress to people how vital it is that they see for themselves. If they were so foolish as to believe me then the most they would end up in is living in a dream state and thus miss out on the actual. I do not wish this fate upon anyone ... I like my fellow human beings. What one can do is make a critical examination of all the words I advance so as to ascertain if they be intrinsically self-explanatory ... and only when they are seen to be inherently consistent with what is being spoken about, then the facts speak for themselves. Then one will have reason to remember a pure conscious experience (PCE), which all peoples I have spoken to at length have had, and thus verify by direct experience the facticity of what is written.
Then it is the PCE that is one’s lodestone or guiding light ... not me or my words. My words then offer confirmation ... and affirmation in that a fellow human being has safely walked this wide and wondrous path’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 12d, 23 November 2000).

RESPONDENT: Or trying to replicate it.

RICHARD: I would be inordinately pleased if somebody were to replicate my condition – become actually free from the human condition – as that would increase the possibility for others (nothing inspires quite like repeatable success).

RESPONDENT: This whole class of information and experience is not as fully available to a person if they are not immersed in it.

RICHARD: All it takes is to recall a PCE, which all peoples I have spoken to at length have had, and the information will all fall into place.

January 02 2006

RICHARD: In essence what remained [after the 1981 ego-death event], as is the case with any spiritually enlightened/ mystically awakened being, was the rudimentary animal ‘self’ (an inchoate affective presence, an embryonic feeler, an incipient intuiter), which virtually all sentient beings are per favour blind nature’s rough and ready survival software hereditarily endowed at conception, aggrandised like all get-out.

RESPONDENT: Presumably, in spite of the ‘aggrandising’, it took you 11 years to get what was happening sufficiently to do something about it.

RICHARD: I got what was happening after about six years (...) Somewhere around 1989-90 it increasingly dawned upon me that I was being dilatory – putting-off going that extra step – for a number of reasons ... the main one being that it was all uncharted territory/untraversed terrain. ‘Twas no little thing to do, to venture where none had gone before, and the apprehension was considerable.

RESPONDENT: I fully appreciate the ‘daring to go where no one had gone before’.

RICHARD: Your next sentence gives the lie to what you are professing to be appreciating in such a manner.

RESPONDENT: I think that you are mistaken about the singularity of your journey.

RICHARD: I have travelled the country – and overseas – talking with many and varied peoples from all walks of life; I have been watching television, videos, films, whatever media is available; I have been reading about other people’s experiences in books, journals, magazines, newspapers (and latterly on the internet) for twenty four years now, for information on an actual freedom from the human condition, but to no avail. If you could provide web page links, book titles, magazine articles, newspaper reports, manuscripts, pamphlets, brochures or whatever it is that you are privy to, wherein the words of the people can be found who have written about being actually free from the human condition, I would be most pleased.

We could compare notes, as it were, so as to determine what is idiosyncratic, and what is species specific, and thus advance human knowledge.

RESPONDENT: But that doesn’t discount the daring in the least.

RICHARD: To venture into uncharted territory/ untraversed terrain, where none have gone before, is distinctly different to setting off with a guide-book/ travel-guide, maps/charts, compass bearings/ points of reference, recommended route options/warnings of possible dangers, and the sure knowledge, from having had some form of interactive correspondence with them, that another human being is alive and well at one’s intended destination.

RESPONDENT: Taking your first sky-diving jump isn’t much easier just because others have gone before.

RICHARD: As no others had gone before, into the uncharted territory/ untraversed terrain beyond spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment, your analogy to what Mr. Fauste Veranzio made possible about 500 years ago has no application to what is being discussed ... to wit: one of the reasons (the main one) why the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago was dilatory, for a couple of years, after getting what was happening regarding what remained after the 1981 ego-death event sufficiently to do something about it.

RESPONDENT: The departure from the general consensus and the human condition is as radical as a person can get.

RICHARD: Aye, and as no such radical departure had ever been made before it was no little thing, for the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago, to do ... the apprehension was considerable.

RESPONDENT: I get the heebie jeebies just contemplating it.

RICHARD: Sure ... now multiply same by, say, a factor of ten and you may very well gain that full appreciation this time around.

January 03 2006

RESPONDENT: Presumably the 1992 sensational event had somewhat different qualities to it [the 1981 sensational event].

RICHARD: Somewhat ... in most respects, though, it was more or less a repeat of the 1981 effects (only more so).

RESPONDENT: What particulars about the two events seem to be significantly different?

RICHARD: Oh, the finality of the 1992 event (as in the finality of death, when someone close dies, as contrasted to their temporary departure).

RESPONDENT: Was passionate altruism as motivating as previously?

RICHARD: Not at the moment, no.

RESPONDENT: I find this to be more significant than you seem to think.

RICHARD: Oh? I had better set the record straight, then, because it does not have the significance you attribute to it at all.

RESPONDENT: You can do the altruism trick once.

RICHARD: Just as, when as a youth (replete with a full suite of affective feelings and instinctual impulses, drives and urges) that self-sacrificing trait had impelled me to go to war for what was then experienced as ‘my’ country – as in ‘to readily lay down one’s life for kith and kin’ – so too was it altruism which had set in motion the process which led to that moment.

I have written about this before ... for example:

• [Richard]: ‘... it is ‘me’ who is responsible for an action that results in ‘my’ own demise – without really doing the expunging itself (and I am not being tricky here) – as it is ‘me’ who is the initiator of bringing about this sacrifice in that ‘I’ deliberately and consciously, and with knowledge aforethought from a pure consciousness experience (PCE), set in motion a ‘process’ that will ensure ‘my’ demise (‘I’ do not really end ‘myself’ in that ‘I’ do not do the deed itself for ‘I’ cannot end ‘myself’). What ‘I’ do, voluntarily and intentionally (cheerfully and blessedly), is press the button which precipitates an, oft-times alarming but always thrilling, momentum which will result in ‘my’ irrevocable ‘self’-immolation in toto. What one does is that one dedicates oneself to the challenge of being just here, right now, as the universe’s experience of itself ... peace-on-earth is the inevitable result because it is already always existing (‘I’ was merely standing in the way of it being apparent).
The act of initiating this ‘process’ is altruism, pure and simple ...’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 60, 3 December 2003).

January 03 2006

RICHARD: In essence what remained [after the 1981 ego-death event], as is the case with any spiritually enlightened/ mystically awakened being, was the rudimentary animal ‘self’ (an inchoate affective presence, an embryonic feeler, an incipient intuiter), which virtually all sentient beings are per favour blind nature’s rough and ready survival software hereditarily endowed at conception, aggrandised like all get-out.

RESPONDENT: Presumably, in spite of the ‘aggrandising’, it took you 11 years to get what was happening sufficiently to do something about it.

RICHARD: I got what was happening after about six years (...) Somewhere around 1989-90 it increasingly dawned upon me that I was being dilatory – putting-off going that extra step – for a number of reasons ... the main one being that it was all uncharted territory/ untraversed terrain. ‘Twas no little thing to do, to venture where none had gone before, and the apprehension was considerable.

RESPONDENT: You were convinced that it was uncharted terrain.

RICHARD: I knew that is was all uncharted territory/ untraversed terrain.

(...)

RESPONDENT: I am not being flip when I say I admire your gumption for ‘going where no one had gone before’.

RICHARD: You did not say [quote] ‘I admire’ [endquote] ... you specifically said [quote] ‘I fully appreciate’ [endquote]. Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘I fully appreciate the ‘daring to go where no one had gone before’.

Look, all I was doing when responding to what you freely acknowledged as being a presumption (that it took eleven years to get what was happening sufficiently to do something about it) by providing information as to what did occur – and when and how – was to clarify why it took another five years after getting what happened to actually do something about it.

If, as it appears, you are not really interested in just what exactly happened – and when and how and why – but would rather hold on to your version instead then just say so.

It sure would save a lot of to-ing and fro-ing of e-mails.