srid :
notwithstanding richard's private matters, i'm not sure what you are getting at. given that i've known you from years ago via your email interactions on the yahoo list, i'd be interested in having a private conversation (in chat? skype?) with you specifically regarding the part "very clear to me ... from experience ... about getting something, avoiding something".
Private conversations have a habit of becoming public sooner or later anyway, so it might be better to do it here to avoid the 'Chinese whispers' effect.
To clarify what I was getting at: Your question centered on precisely what happens in so-called "actual freedom from the human condition" (hereafter AF): specifically, whether AF precludes affective reactions in toto or whether it merely precludes the subjective experience of instinctual-passionate influences at some fairly basic level while still leaving them functionally operating. I believe you are right to question these things; it is by no means a certainty that Richard has got it right, and/or that he tells it like it is.
My comment was a more general elaboration on that theme. It's reasonable to question not only whether AF is blindness to affect (which it may or may not be), but also whether it constitutes a blindness to self-centered instinctual-passionate-driven behaviour in toto,
regardless of whether affect is subjectively experienced. It's reasonable to ask whether, for example, the will to power and primacy still operates at the heart of a person's motivation in life, despite them having no subjective experience of any associated affective pushes and pulls. It's definitely an open question in my opinion.
Even more fundamentally: it's reasonable to ask whether there's anything more here than an idiosyncratic psychotic condition and set of supporting world views.
If people are interested in AF for its supposed altruistic value -- rather than "just give me something, anything, to get me out of my own suffering forever" -- these things shouldn't be taken as given. The claim that AF is the answer to all the ills of humankind, the best thing you can do not only for yourself but for your fellow human being, should definitely not be taken for granted based on a person's possibly self-serving and possibly highly deluded testimony. But it often is.
And I think we both know the reason why. That's what the rest of my comment was about. People want release from suffering, and they want it so badly that they'll willingly overlook a great deal, no matter how starkly obviously bizarre it might be to an outsider, when it undermines the result they're seeking.
Even if we limit this discussion to stuff that's already entirely on the public record (which I myself cannot, but you must), it should be pretty clear to any reasonable minded person that AF leads to some questionable psychological results. To take just a handful of examples:
- Look at the bizarre magical thinking, ideas of reference, delusions of grandeur that have shown up in Richard's writings since late 2009 (and obviously featured in his thinking long before that). Richard believes that when he first became AF he was so vulnerable and defenseless that his then-wife Irene/Devika put up a protective psychic force field around him, a force field so powerful that nobody could get to him. But when Devika later turned against him and repudiated AF, the protective force field no longer served to protect Richard from others; rather, it served to protect them from him! Devika --- (sorry, by then she had become transmogrified into 'Irene') --- had become a psychic obstacle to peace-on-earth, a veil or a buffer that prevented people from seeing Richard as he actually is. But upon her death in late 2009, world rejoice! the veil is lifted, and behold, people can now see Richard in all his magical-prodigious splendour. And as a consequence, we're on the cusp of a global change the likes of which the world has never seen before.
(Heard that one before? No, you can't have. This is all new to human history, remember).
Such magical thinking, ideas of reference and delusions of grandeur are classic features of psychosis. It's by no means certain that he has been diagnosed that way by two psychiatrists because they fail to understand "an actual freedom from the human condition"; there's every possibility that he
is incurably psychotic, and lacks insight into it. (And as is pretty common in such cases, that lack of insight is reinforced by a shitload of deluded ideation casting that person as having a unique role in a situation of global significance that no one understands, except him and a handful of enablers).
- Richard believes that when he became AF, the Absolute ('Love Agape', 'Divine Compassion') died. That's why, according to his bizarrely self-centred world view, there aren't any genuinely enlightened masters any more. (There are only pale imitations of the "just add water and stir" variety, as he calls them). So there you have it: what happens in Richard's life, in Richard's mind, determines what happens, what
can happen, to other people for all eternity. Ideas of reference, delusions of grandeur, Richard as a magical figure playing a pivotal role in world history, Richard as the primary determinant of other people's psychic potential, even people who haven't been born yet. That's quite a mythological role he's playing there, isn't it?
- Magical prodigies. Perhaps we could ask Claudiu if he managed to take a photograph of the 'actual' 'caloric energy', the fine golden energy emanating from Richard that Justine experiences on the other side of the world when Richard is having his magical prodigies. I doubt it though. I was on-site in December '09 and February '10, and the only thing I saw that remotely resembled a golden glow in Richard was a slight jaundice. (In February he looked tired and ill compared with when I'd seen him in December). And it wasn't because I wasn't in a so-called PCE. I was.
- I have it on good authority that while in India Richard experienced a certain mall as a "toy town" with people as robots, and children as toy dolls. (Quite common among trippers and psychotics). I'm told he was staring transfixed by the sight of two porters who were glowing with golden energy. Too much coffee that morning, apparently. Add hallucinations to the list of classic psychotic symptoms.
- And socially: If you'd known five years ago -- or however long ago it was that you were first introduced to AF -- that the relationship between Peter and Vineeto, which was portrayed as a demonstration of and a template for a new kind of human relationship -- would turn out to be a relationship with Richard instead, would that have mattered? Maybe, maybe not.
- And who in their right mind could believe that Justine, who weeps at the sight of Richard's portrait and experiences his magical (supposedly "actual", "caloric") energetic emanations on the other side of the globe, exemplifies a post-psychic, post-spiritual condition that is entirely new to human history? Come on now.
- And that Justine's daughter became AF within a few hours of touching down at Coolangatta airport, but you people who have faithfully read his every word and practiced his methods for years (including people like Tarin and Trent, the latter of whom does a passing good imitation of orthodox AF advocacy despite not being endorsed by Richard) are not only nowhere near, they're 180 degrees opposite.
I could go on and on... but there wouldn't be much point, would there? Anybody who's willing to see this stuff has already seen it. For that vast majority, what matters more is a favourable result for themselves, and if contemplation of these things isn't conducive to that result, they'll turn a blind eye. And hang anybody out to dry in the process.
So be it.
As for me, I'm between a rock and a hard place on this subject: if I engage with anyone at all on the subject of AF, it requires me to drag in a whole lot of stuff that I don't really want to talk about in order to fully justify my views. The alternative is silence. Neither is a great option. The latter is the smarter choice, but sometimes clearly I'm not that smart.
I guess I'd better make an early new year's resolution. There's nothing in this for me, and probably nothing in it for anyone else either, for reasons above.
I'll now ask one of the mods to unsubscribe me, because I've done my dash here. Neither AF nor Theravada Buddhism are ultimately the best fit for my aims and preferences. But it's certainly been interesting learning about what the rest of you are up to, and I wish everyone here the best of luck, on whatever path.
Cheers,
Jack.