@rick I can’t speak to your intentions of course, be they devious or otherwise - and I have to point out that it’s notoriously difficult to distinguish between ignorance and malice - but I can go by what you’ve written here and elsewhere and I can fully appreciate (as in understand) the consequences and ramifications of what you are doing.
Firstly, regardless whether it was your intent or not, or whether you are aware of it or not – both of which are besides the point with regards to what your actions entail – you have presented this topic in a devious manner (devious: “not straightforward : cunning” , “deceptive”; cunning: “characterized by wiliness and trickery”).
It is not straightforward to present a selection of quotes from someone’s account, that all apparently agree with the experience of being actually free, and to not present any other quotes from that person’s account that reveal the differences. (By the way, cherry-picking does not refer to just snipping parts of quotes, but rather, also to presenting a limited selection of quotes, even full ones, that in and of themselves don’t present the full picture.)
It is not straightforward to leave out the author’s name such as to deprive people of the context, if they have heard of this person before, which context would allow them to fully appreciate what that person is saying.
It is not straightforward to then put a disclaimer in the post that essentially amounts to “once you know more about the person you can dismiss them so only read what I’ve written here to form your opinion”. (I’ll point out that, even though you wrote “Once the identity of this author is revealed… [they can be] politely dismissed” – in my first post I did not reveal the identity of the author, but rather, quoted more of what they wrote from the same source you quoted from – which you then replied to as if I had revealed the identity of the author. So it was not actually the identity of the author you wanted to hide from people, but also other things that they wrote… i.e. you wanted to prevent a full understanding of where the author is coming from.)
It is also not straightforward to claim your intent was to merely “share something of interest for, if nothing else, enjoyment” when what you’ve later written indicates that your intent was more than just that.
Because though that is the stated goal at first, you later attempt to evoke fascination with the account (“C’mon this doesn’t spark anyone’s fascination?”), to have your correspondents engage with the subject matter. And to what end? One stated reason is “for keeping humankind’s chronicle of events nice and accurate”, later elaborated with “Accuracy in posterity, record-keeping, facts, data, etc.”.
Now this is a real doozy, because you must certainly have already been aware of all of the discussions regarding the author (Bernadette Roberts) that have already occurred and been archived on the AFT website (link: Selected Correspondence: Ms. Bernadette Roberts), which AFT site, as Richard put it:
And you already must surely have been aware that Richard had not only discussed Bernadette Roberts thoroughly, but concluded that her authentic reports , descriptions, and explanations agree, coincide with, find concordance with, and concur with his experience of being Enlightened, not of being actually free:
So by providing a deviously-cherry-picked version of a person’s account and mis-presenting it as an account of an actual freedom from the human condition as described on the AFT website – when that very AFT website (that is “guaranteed-to-be-accurate”) already contains conversations covering that very same person and elucidates how what they experience is not an actual freedom but rather is Spiritual Enlightenment – for the purposes of “keeping humankind’s chronicle of events nice and accurate”, what you are saying is that the AFT website is… not accurate.
And specifically in this case, you are saying Richard is not accurate, in his evaluation of Bernadette Robert’s state.
That is, you are saying that you, Rick, the feeling-being who is neither awakened, Enlightened, nor actually free, and thus do not have much experiential knowledge of the matters being discussed are accurate about Bernadette Robert’s state being an actual freedom and not Enlightenment… while Richard, who was fully Enlightened for 11 years and was actually free for 13 years at the time of the latest quote and thus has intimate experiential experience on these matters is not accurate.
The continuation of the last quote from Richard is particularly apropos:
Now, although this is your intent or not, and whether you are aware of it or not, to undermine the accuracy of the AFT site like this is quite insidious (insidious: “proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with very harmful effects.”) and highly damaging with regards to others becoming free of the human condition.
Of course, it is the PCE, and the pure intent one connects with from there, is what ultimately guides someone to an actual freedom from the human condition. The AFT site could go up in flames, or be hacked to write “Richard is a delirious poopface”, and that wouldn’t change what the facts of the matter are, as in what a PCE is, and what an actual freedom is.
And the people that wrote the material on the AFT site are humans, they are fallible, capable of making mistakes. Which is why for example they went through all the writings to correct misuses of the “pure intent” that cropped up over the years. If there is something that is inaccurate on the site, then the authors are entirely amenable to correcting it, as they do not want to mislead their fellow human beings.
But the AFT site, such as it is, is of vital importance to enable people who have not yet gotten a firm connection to pure intent to accurately establish what it is that a PCE is, and to know when they experience what is not a PCE, so that they can follow the it there.
And by undermining either the capabilities or the integrity of those whose writings are archived on the AFT site (i.e. either they are either mistaken/incompetent/incapable of correctly discerning things, or they purposefully/willfully misrepresent things to make an inaccurate point), one opens the door for people to simply pick and choose whatever they want from it, ignore other parts, and foolishly claim that they are experiencing precisely that which is written there.
And it is not just me saying that this is what would happen, you yourself literally wrote it in the very next sentence:
Though you say this is of “less importance” and this is only “incidental”, this is precisely what is most insidious about this. As it opens the door to people being misled and misinformed as to what an actual freedom is.
In essence you have joined the ranks of the affers from ~2010-2012, who, as Richard put it, reacted to the ‘good news’ of Peter and Vineeto and the others becoming free with “a subversive attempt to maintain the status-quo vis-á-vis the human condition”.
That is, whether this is your intent or not, and whether you are aware of it or not, you are making the same claim the affers did (albeit by different means) that actual freedom == spiritual Enlightenment:
That is, you are saying that any differences one might find between a spiritually Enlightened person, and an actually free person, as “trivial. Inconsequential.” As in, they are essentially the same thing.
And I know the consequences of such a thing from personal experience, as I was one of the many people that those affers misled into believing that actual freedom == Enlightenment, and that therefore I can follow the usual paths to Enlightenment in order to become free – much like one could read Bernadette Robert’s report, mistake her end-point to be actual freedom, and then go ahead and follow her path towards what she called the mid-point of bliss and unity, etc., only to then further go into the delusion of what she called no-self.
And I also remember immediately realizing, as soon as it dawned on me the Richard and Vineeto were right about the affers and that what they were doing were misinforming and misleading people, that I myself was also misinforming and misleading people by the words that I spoke and wrote and the actions I took indicating that actual freedom == Enlightenment. And with that realization, there was no further choice to be made - I simply could not continue to mislead my fellow human beings.
Luckily the damage is not so great now as it might have been in the past, going on what most fo the other forum-goers here are writing… but it is clear not everybody has been immunized.
Incidentally, it has not escaped my notice that one of the “incidental implications regarding the value of the assurances that people may give about what is or is not factual” is nothing other than that emotions, feelings, passions, and ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety as a ‘self’, do actually exist, are indeed actual and factual… which implications would mean that therefore nothing has to be done with regards to ‘Rick’ self-immolating, in order to experience the actual world (as properly described on the AFT site and by other genuinely actually free people)… as such all of this “hoopla” likely stems from nothing more and nothing less than that self-centered survival mechanism that we are all genetically endowed with at birth.
Also as this idea (actualism/actual freedom == spirituality/Enlightenment) is clearly out there (also likely fueled at its source by that very same self-centered survival mechanism), and very strong and vibrant, in the collective psyche - as evidenced by the increasingly aversive and nonsensical reactions on the DhO thread - Richard’s words here are apropos:
In any case, I urge you @rick to take a close look at what has been written here, and to similarly cease misleading your fellow human beings… the effect of which is to deprive them of the ability to experience, for themselves, that which they read on the AFT site of what’s reported to be PCEs and actual freedom.
Cheers,
Claudiu