Tuesday, February 09, 2010

“I AM THAT; I AM” or just “I AM THAT”? Part Eighteen

An Advaita forum focusing on Realisation, enlightenment, non-duality, Real Love, peace, freedom, Your original nature, abiding naturally, the Oneness, the Nothingness, and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Here, there is nothing that is believed, so there is no one here who wants you to believe anything, either. Here, the invitation is to be free of all that you have been programmed, conditioned, acculturated, and domesticated to believe so that you can be free, period.

[IN RESPONSE TO SEVERAL QUERIES: Louise will be posting again in two weeks.]

F.: [Continued from yesterday] While many Advaitins admit that it was a willingness to question all of their old beliefs which allowed them to move to another level of freedom, few are willing to question their new understanding (a.k.a., "new beliefs," sometimes).

If you are not willing to question it all—even including what you think you know about Advaita, Vedanta, or Advaita Vedanta—then no part of the Direct Path, Nisarga message will be for you. The suggestions in this series will not be considered objectively even by those declaring that they are truly “open-minded.” So it is.

If continued questioning does not happen, however, then even those exposed to some of these teachings may never find the only “real reason” for completing the “journey.” So how might seekers find what it is “really about” after believing for some time that they already understand everything that can be understood about these teachings?

Revisit the early stages of the “journey” and recall that finding Who / What You Truly Are began with finding all that You Are not—but that you and others had taken yourself to be.

Similarly, finding the only “reason” or “basis” or “rationale” or “justification” for completing the “journey” (i.e., the "journey" from identification with the false “I” to an understanding of the Absolute and beyond) begins with being free of all that you have been taught or told or concluded on your own about what the “journey” involves.

So to continue: yesterday, this was offered for consideration:

The fact is that there is only one reason for taking the “journey,” for completing all of the steps to Full Realization, and the reason has nothing at all to do with being religious or spiritual or THAT or lofty or special or amazing or knowledgeable or grand or impressive or metaphysical or saintly or exalted or elevated or higher or noble or better or godly or perfect or divine or holy or supernatural or ultra-conscious.

It has nothing at all to do with joining, worshipping, knelling, gathering, praying, meeting, chanting, rolling, singing, waving, swaying, swooning, improving self, improving others, helping, increasing, serving, saving, humming, glorifying, beseeching, magnifying, praising, rescuing, achieving, analyzing, controlling, or accumulating things or accumulating new and improved roles.

Furthermore, the "journey" has nothing to do with what most of the “big names” will tell you that it involves. [NOTE: Last September, Maharaj’s warning was shared, namely, that one way to assure that you will never Realize is to seek out a “big name” teacher.

He said that if you seek out the big name teachers, you will get what you deserve (that being a reinforcement of ego and egotism by aligning with the famous rather than ending ego and egotism completely). Maharaj’s warning was modified here to suggest that, "If you seek via the big name teachers, you will never get what you do 'deserve' or seek."]

Thus, it should be understood that the reason for completing the “journey” to Full Realization has nothing to do with the talking points offered by the big name teachers, their messages having been custom-designed to attract mass consumption and to guarantee mass appeal, something that Maharaj would discount instantly.

Ironically many of those big names quote Maharaj and declare how much they learned from him even though they contradict his message. Because their contradictory claims are mass-marketed and so widespread, it should be noted that the "reason" for following the Direct Path to its end, and thereby Realizing Fully, has nothing to do with:

ambition, meaning, or changing your thoughts (all thoughts being fabrications of the fiction-filled “mind” which must end if there is to be a delusion-free, insanity-free existence).

Nor does the “journey” have anything to do with finding a “calling” (being called by whom? it must be asked). Nor does it involve being incredible or being inspired or being inspirational. It has nothing to do with success or powerful intentions or advanced spiritually or purpose, especially purposes that are supposedly divinely assigned.

It has nothing to do with sacred contracts or special secrets or finding a self or a Self that is “infinite” (Krishna having spoken of that which is beyond both beingness and non-beingness, beyond a being or a Being, beyond self-ness and Self-ness).

The "journey" has nothing to do with gaining power now (or forever), and it has nothing to do with finding the way to love. (Maharaj made clear that when the Oneness is understood, You will know that You Are Love and that there can be no subject-object aspect to that. There is no way to do love. There is merely understanding that Love Is and that understanding comes when this is understood: “Love is knowing that You are everything.”)

The “journey” is also not about an ageless body or ageless mind or about fulfilling desires or about learning spiritual laws that will give you “success.” It is not about clinging to dreams and is not about knowing God or gods. Nor is it about spinning the truth about relative events and then concluding that “It’s all good because it’s all God” or “You must accept everything” or “You must love whatever is.”

Tell that to the child who had over three hundred burns on her body where her mother had tortured her repeatedly with the tip of her red-hot cigarettes. Tell that to the woman who called several nights ago who had been beaten by "her lover."

Tell that to the woman who came here to attend a retreat, a woman who had been brutally raped. (In fact, that was told to her by her big name mentor: "Love the rape, love the rapist. Everything is God. Everything is good.")

Additionally, the reason for the “journey” has nothing to do with trying to “create a new world,” it having been made clear by Maharaj that those persons speaking of “this world” are not in what they take to be this world; instead, “this world” is in them…merely in their “minds.”

Furthermore, the reason for the "journey" has nothing to do with creating a new world via personal transformation, Maharaj having made clear that there is no person to transform at all. As optimistic and appealing as that sounds to some, especially alongside assertions that there is now a huge expansion of “higher consciousness” on the planet, the facts show something quite to the contrary:

More than 97% of the persons on the planet (nearly 6.5 billion persons) claim an affiliation with one of the major organized religions. With their dogma rooted in the falsehoods of duality, in the insanity of mythomania, and in their sky-cult mentality, predictions about some wholesale shift taking place on a large-scale basis is nothing more than a pipe dream.

[Would it not take but a second to pause and ask, "Who has polled the 6.7 billion people on the planet, gauged previous levels of enlightenment, measured the present levels, and then come up with any sound, factual basis to support the claim that a huge increase has occurred in the number of persons now Realized?" The answer: No one. So who makes such claims that cannot possibility be proved? The big names whose assertions are accepted by the masses without question.]

At most, as Maharaj said, there will never be more than a tiny fraction of the population that is ever Realized at any given time. “Ages of Enlightenment” have come and gone, and so have “Ages of Darkness.”

There is an ever-swinging pendulum that tracks periods of widespread ignorance and alternating periods where some shift away from ignorance happens, but the pendulum has never fixated at one end or the other.

The suggestion is to abandon dreams about planet-wide Realization and about any part you intend to play in bringing that to fruition. Find Truth Yourself, within, by taking pointers into quiet consideration, alone...not en masse as happens with the big names or with organized religions or via so-called "spiritual programs" that are really just religion incognito.

Nor does the reason for undertaking and completing the “journey” have anything to do with anything that is post-manifestation. The discussion has now reached the point where it is time to consider the triad that is involved in the “reason” for Realization: the brain, the consciousness and the “mind.” All three of those are only “relevant” to seekers during the manifestation.

Post-manifestation, the elemental brain will return to the universal pool of elements; the consciousness will return to the universal pool of energy from whence it “came” (a.k.a., the Absolute); and the “mind” will merely fade away.

[Consider the pointer from the one called “The Christ” after he turned his back on the organized religion that he was exposed to in his youth and after he was taught the Advaitin message and then said, “Heaven and earth shall fade away.”

Of course they will, being nothing more than concepts that are stored in the programmed “mind,” the seat of all lies and distortions and illusions. He could as easily have added “hell” to the list as well.]

As for the elemental brain and the manifest consciousness (both of which are natural and by which all forms function, except for present-day humans) both shall remain post-manifestation as elements and energy, respectively.

“The “mind,” however, which is the seat of what Maharaj called “stupidity” and that which is “verging on insanity,” shall end. Until it comes to an end, it shall generate distortion and delusion and misery and suffering or the constant instability of being happy and sad, joyous and distraught, manic or depressed.

Thus, it is the “mind” problem that must be addressed during the relative existence, and the way to address that is via the “journey” to Realization. Now, as the discussion narrows, the real “reason” for the “journey” should become more obvious.

The “mind” (which is merely a perversion that has been added to the original, natural, brain-consciousness equation that worked quite well for millions of years for all forms on the planet) is what must be addressed via the “journey.”

There being no “one” to experience any problems or pleasures post-manifestation, then the only “reason” or “basis” or “rationale” or “justification” for Realization is to address the condition of the “mind,” NOW (during the Am-ness) because it determines the state of the relative condition as a result of the thought-leading-to-word-leading-to-deed progression.

Addressing the “mind” problem via Realization will bring about a solution that is only relevant during the Am-ness and that will be totally meaningless as far as the post-manifestation THAT-ness is concerned.

Consider: last night a daughter began a journey to leave New Mexico in order to reach her home in Austin, Texas. To accomplish her goal, she had to travel through Houston in order to eventually reach Austin. The journey was not easy:

there were weather delays, a re-routing to Corpus Christi, and delayed flights all along the path. But she understood that her journey could not be completed without first arriving in Houston. Houston was in her sights…she was focused on Houston…but never did she lose sight of the fact that Houston was not the final destination of the journey.

Nor did she decide along the way that she would abandon the existence that she so enjoys in Austin and abide instead in the Houston airport for the remainder of her life. The Houston airport offered nothing more than a means by which she could reach Austin and then continue to enjoy her life there.

It was never the final destination and was always recognized as nothing more than a means to an end, namely, leaving Austin, taking a journey, seeing some things she had never seen before, and then returning to Austin by way of an intermediate locale.

That is the way this Direct Path, Nisargan “journey” is to happen, and the “justification” as identified above is the only real “reason” that the “journey” should be completed. Anything else that is claimed to be a result of the “journey” is based in the assumption of one or more ego-states, is based in egotism, and is based in delusion and distortion.

And that is the case even as many claim to have rejected the Am-ness (including the post-Realization Am-ness), even as many assert that the Am-ness does not even exist, and even as they report that it is their identification “with the THAT-ness only” that is their key to freedom from delusion and distortion.

For them, they have re-written the summative statement of Advaita to: "I AM THAT, PERIOD." And that re-writing is coming from seekers who claim that "Realization has brought to an end all ego and egotism."

Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

Now you can receive for $40 a downloadable computer file version of the same 7-hour satsang that seekers receive when they visit for the Advaita Retreat with Floyd. You will be guided through the seven steps from identification with the false "I" to the Absolute (and beyond).
For more information or to order, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

SIX WAYS THAT SEEKERS HAVE REALIZED:

1. BY WATCHING the 4-Disk Video (DVD) Set, or the same retreat available as a downloadable file. Either will provide an entire seven-hour retreat / series of satsang sessions showing three seekers being guided through all seven steps by Floyd and can provide viewers with an “experiential,” step-by-step series of satsang meetings that will move the viewers from identification with the I to abidance as the Absolute and then to abidance as That Which Is beyond

Some seekers are already using the computer file version and the DVD sets for meetings in groups in homes, playing the retreat, pausing for discussion, etc.

To find out more or to purchase the DVD set or the downloadable computer file version of the retreat, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

Option “A” is for the downloadable file version, Option “B” is used to order the DVD set for delivery inside the U.S., Option “C” for international orders.

For the download, Paypal will send me a notice that payment has been received and then I will send by e-mail the downloading instruction, password, etc.

[It is recommended that you watch the video with pen and paper in hand. Write whatever you need clarified. You'll see that there are constant reviews and you might find an answer later in the seven-hour presentation. Then, after you watch it all, there will be a common ground for discussion. Purchase of the DVD’s or the file will include the right to clarifications and answers to your specific questions via e-mail.]

2. BY READING these books in this exact order:
IT'S ALL BULLSHIT (And Why Knowing It Sets You Free)
SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (Recovering What Religions Lost)
[Those two prepare the seeker to question it all]
THE MEDITATION GUIDES
[Provide a broad overview of the understanding]
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?
[Begins to free the seeker of body identification and the desire for body continuity]
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS "PEACE OF MIND" (There Is Only Peace if You're Out of Your Mind)
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of the false content of the “mind”]
LIBERATION
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of personas]
THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS
[Provides the final preparation for the seeker to be directed along the “path”]
FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)
[Directs the seeker along the “path”]
CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS: The Nature of Reality Beyond Self-Realization (Peace Every Day When Abiding as The Absolute)
[Allows the seeker to understand the functioning of the totality, the manifestation, and what is involved with the un-manifestation]
FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS
[Provides the seeker the wisdom to understand the Noneness as well as the Oneness]
Purchase an e-Book now and begin reading it in minutes (except with e-checks that can take 7-10 days). Trusting our clients as we do, all e-Books are provided to you in printable form.
SAVE IF YOU BUY ALL ELEVEN AT ONCE:
(You may order the books one at a time or you may use the following link to acquire the entire 11-e-Book set on sale for $99 if ordered at one time with the “Buy Now” button below. For this option, there will be no download links provided; once the near-instant notice of payment is received from PayPal, your e-Books will be sent to you as e-mail attachments. All are printable for your convenience.)
You may visit The Official Website of Floyd Henderson for information on each book.

3. BY ENROLLING in the Online Advaita Classes
For information, visit Information on the Advaita Classes on the Internet
To enroll visit Enroll in the Advaita Internet Course

4. BY ATTENDING an Advaitin retreat for satsang with floyd and being guided through all seven steps. For details of the retreats offered, please visit the retreat information site.

5. BY ARRANGING satsang by telephone in the U.S. or by Skype internationally:
Use the Contact link for details or for information on making arrangements for a session

6. BY ARRANGING for floyd to travel to your location and meet with you or your group. Use the contact link above to discuss details.

Monday, February 08, 2010

“I AM THAT; I AM” or just “I AM THAT”? Part Seventeen

An Advaita forum focusing on Realisation, enlightenment, non-duality, Real Love, peace, freedom, Your original nature, abiding naturally, the Oneness, the Nothingness, and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Here, there is nothing that is believed, so there is no one here who wants you to believe anything, either. Here, the invitation is to be free of all that you have been programmed, conditioned, acculturated, and domesticated to believe so that you can be free, period.

F.: The play-actors who take themselves to be “Spiritual Giants” are not limited to performing on the stage of their “spiritually-based programs” or on the stage of a packed auditorium or on the stage of a public-broadcast studio or on the stages inside temples and churches and synagogues and ashrams or on the stage when they are gathered with friends or family or “their pigeons” or “their protégés.”

If “their journey” has led them to a place where they are now supposedly loftier than others or more cerebral than others, they have not followed anything close to the direct path to nisarga living.

If they are now dressing in a special fashion, behaving in a mystical manner, engaging in spiritual talk and spiritual exercises throughout the day, then they have not followed anything close to the direct path to nisarga living.

If they now take themselves to be THAT while rejecting the Am-ness, if they now take themselves be other-worldly, or if they have now assumed a posture that is supposedly all-noumenal-with-no-trace-of-anything-phenomenal, then they have not followed anything close to the direct path to nisarga living.

If they believe that they have now been bestowed with psychic and sacred and divine power, or if they believe that they now have the ability to tap into a supernatural power that will respond to their beck and call, they have not followed anything close to the direct path to nisarga living.

If they scorn others for being “secular” or for being mere “lay persons” or for enjoying post-Realization the full spectrum of that which is sensuous and sensual, then they have not followed anything close to the direct path to nisarga living.

It would be tantamount to criticizing the deer for eating the tastier flowers from the planters at this house rather than eating the less-appealing grass only. It would be no different from criticizing two deer for copulating without any intent to bring about a pregnancy.

It would be no different from believing that some deer can be better than other deer or loftier than other deer. It would be as insane as believing that some deer are to be praised for engaging in higher-level exercises while others are to be devalued because they are obviously doing nothing at all to better themselves.

When a supposedly “new path” leads to a claim that the former “bad characters” are being discarded and replaced with a set of new and improved roles, then nothing more has happened except this:

The formerly-manifested personality defects, insanity, and—what Maharaj called—“stupidity” merely take on a new cachet among those persons who now think they have attained a “higher status, a prestige, a distinction”;

and all of that can lead to a greater sense of separation than when their earlier "bad" personas were playing out what they now obsequiously admit was "a mean and vile and destructive mode of living."

That false sense of distinction is nothing more than evidence of duality and arrogance: “We do not sin, as they do”; or, “we sin but we ask forgiveness, which they do not”;

or, “our unblemished and noble record of abstinence affords us higher status among our membership and distinguishes us from those who have not abstained as long and who therefore have not reached the high rank we hold in this group”;

or, “we are the proud parents of the one whom we raised so well that he was willing to martyr himself to help lead our religion (and our specific sect within that religion) to world dominance”; or, “we are better than others because we are going on mission trips to spread our religion to the four corners of the earth.”

Every ego-states does “love” its sense of distinction that separates it from all of the “others.”

Yet Maharaj spoke factually when he said that “Insanity is universal” and “Sanity is rare” and “This is our stupidity.”

If one lives long enough, something like the following may well be heard:

“I cannot believe that I was so stupid as to get into that _____ …

… (fill-in-the-blank with) “relationship,” “business deal,” or “cult.”

“I was insane to ignore all of the red flags and marry him / her!”

“How crazy was I to stay with that person and to put up with that mental and emotional and physical abuse for so many years!”

“I was so stupid to break that law and end up paying the consequences!”

“I was so stupid to _____ …

… (fill-in-the-blank with) “gamble away my check”; “put those substances into my body and do such physical and mental harm”; “treat those people so poorly”; or “take for granted those who truly cared about me.”

Yet what is the reaction of those same people when they visit this site and read a pointer about “personality defects” or “stupidity” or “insanity”? “How dare you!” or “How dare Maharaj!”

But again, a key pointer that Maharaj offered regarding the subject is worth repeating now:

Yet there is hope, because the moment we perceive our insanity, we are on the way to sanity. This is the function of the Guru - to make us see the madness of our daily living. Life makes you conscious, but the teacher makes you aware.

Insanity, it should be seen by the “Spiritual Giants,” can take the form of dissociation where one believes that “nothing exists”; that “there is only THAT”; and that “the Am-ness (including the post-Realization version?) is to be rejected.”

The fact is that there is only one reason for taking the “journey,” for completing all of the steps to Full Realization, and the reason has nothing at all to do with being religious or spiritual or THAT or lofty or special or amazing or knowledgeable or grand or impressive or metaphysical or saintly or exalted or elevated or higher or noble or better or godly or perfect or divine or holy or supernatural or ultra-conscious.

It has nothing at all to do with joining, worshipping, knelling, gathering, praying, meeting, chanting, rolling, singing, waving, swaying, swooning, improving self, improving others, helping, increasing, serving, saving, humming, glorifying, beseeching, magnifying, praising, rescuing, achieving, analyzing, controlling, or accumulating things or accumulating new and improved roles. More on that tomorrow.

Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

Now you can receive for $40 a downloadable computer file version of the same 7-hour satsang that seekers receive when they visit for the Advaita Retreat with Floyd. You will be guided through the seven steps from identification with the false "I" to the Absolute (and beyond).
For more information or to order, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

SIX WAYS THAT SEEKERS HAVE REALIZED:

1. BY WATCHING the 4-Disk Video (DVD) Set, or the same retreat available as a downloadable file. Either will provide an entire seven-hour retreat / series of satsang sessions showing three seekers being guided through all seven steps by Floyd and can provide viewers with an “experiential,” step-by-step series of satsang meetings that will move the viewers from identification with the I to abidance as the Absolute and then to abidance as That Which Is beyond

Some seekers are already using the computer file version and the DVD sets for meetings in groups in homes, playing the retreat, pausing for discussion, etc.

To find out more or to purchase the DVD set or the downloadable computer file version of the retreat, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

Option “A” is for the downloadable file version, Option “B” is used to order the DVD set for delivery inside the U.S., Option “C” for international orders.

For the download, Paypal will send me a notice that payment has been received and then I will send by e-mail the downloading instruction, password, etc.

[It is recommended that you watch the video with pen and paper in hand. Write whatever you need clarified. You'll see that there are constant reviews and you might find an answer later in the seven-hour presentation. Then, after you watch it all, there will be a common ground for discussion. Purchase of the DVD’s or the file will include the right to clarifications and answers to your specific questions via e-mail.]

2. BY READING these books in this exact order:
IT'S ALL BULLSHIT (And Why Knowing It Sets You Free)
SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (Recovering What Religions Lost)
[Those two prepare the seeker to question it all]
THE MEDITATION GUIDES
[Provide a broad overview of the understanding]
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?
[Begins to free the seeker of body identification and the desire for body continuity]
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS "PEACE OF MIND" (There Is Only Peace if You're Out of Your Mind)
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of the false content of the “mind”]
LIBERATION
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of personas]
THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS
[Provides the final preparation for the seeker to be directed along the “path”]
FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)
[Directs the seeker along the “path”]
CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS: The Nature of Reality Beyond Self-Realization (Peace Every Day When Abiding as The Absolute)
[Allows the seeker to understand the functioning of the totality, the manifestation, and what is involved with the un-manifestation]
FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS
[Provides the seeker the wisdom to understand the Noneness as well as the Oneness]
Purchase an e-Book now and begin reading it in minutes (except with e-checks that can take 7-10 days). Trusting our clients as we do, all e-Books are provided to you in printable form.
SAVE IF YOU BUY ALL ELEVEN AT ONCE:
(You may order the books one at a time or you may use the following link to acquire the entire 11-e-Book set on sale for $99 if ordered at one time with the “Buy Now” button below. For this option, there will be no download links provided; once the near-instant notice of payment is received from PayPal, your e-Books will be sent to you as e-mail attachments. All are printable for your convenience.)
You may visit The Official Website of Floyd Henderson for information on each book.

3. BY ENROLLING in the Online Advaita Classes
For information, visit Information on the Advaita Classes on the Internet
To enroll visit Enroll in the Advaita Internet Course

4. BY ATTENDING an Advaitin retreat for satsang with floyd and being guided through all seven steps. For details of the retreats offered, please visit the retreat information site.

5. BY ARRANGING satsang by telephone in the U.S. or by Skype internationally:
Use the Contact link for details or for information on making arrangements for a session

6. BY ARRANGING for floyd to travel to your location and meet with you or your group. Use the contact link above to discuss details.

Sunday, February 07, 2010

“I AM THAT; I AM” or just “I AM THAT”? Part Sixteen

An Advaita forum focusing on Realisation, enlightenment, non-duality, Real Love, peace, freedom, Your original nature, abiding naturally, the Oneness, the Nothingness, and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Here, there is nothing that is believed, so there is no one here who wants you to believe anything, either. Here, the invitation is to be free of all that you have been programmed, conditioned, acculturated, and domesticated to believe so that you can be free, period.

F.: [Continued from yesterday]

Why, the longer that he taught, did Maharaj’s estimates of the number of persons on the planet who will ever realize shift from 1 in 100,000 to 1 in 1,000,000 to 1 in 10,000,000?

Why will so few ever seek to understand these teachings, and why will the few who find “Advaita” or “the Nisargan invitation” never accept either, completely? Why will so few in the latter group ever understand that the summative statement “I AM THAT; I AM” is a statement of non-duality and then view "equally" the THAT-ness and the post-Realization Am-ness?

Among the masses searching for peace or God or metaphysical knowledge or eternal continuity or eternal reward, is it any wonder that the pointers offered via the Direct Path Teachings and the Nisarga Yoga would draw such comments as, “The problem here is that I speak English but you speak Swahili”?

Is it any wonder that those (specifically, those persons who have been trained, conditioned, acculturated, programmed, and often re-programmed to engage in “corporate worship-style activities” either in religious venues or in “spiritual self-improvement groups”) would conclude that a teacher is speaking nonsense when it is suggested that:

(1) “what you seek can only be found alone by taking certain pointers into silent contemplation” or when it is suggested that (2) “what you seek can never be found in large gatherings where you behave as if you are one among a flock of starlings that are swooping about in unison”?

Consider how many persons who are members of cult-like groups or who have joined one of the flocks of death-in-life-type-worshippers are actually rendered semi-conscious or unconscious as a result of years of daily or weekly participation in such repetitive, sleep-inducing rituals as...

...reciting the same recitations en masse, chanting the same chants en masse, singing the same songs en masse, praying the same prayers en masse, rising at the same time en masse, sitting at the same time en masse, and kneeling at the same time en masse.

Yet consider by way of comparison the child mentioned previously on this site who fought to stay in her familiar surroundings with a mother who was burning her regularly with the tip of a red-hot cigarette rather than leave that abusive environment with social workers to go to a sane but unfamiliar locale:

the perversities that characterize the relative existence of non-Realized persons include one especially perverse mindset, and it is this: namely, they feel “comfortable” (because of familiarity) with the most uncomfortable circumstances or with the most perverse teachings and practices imaginable.

If a child is exposed repeatedly to an environment where cannibalism and vampirism are normalized (“eat the body and drink the blood, darling”) then that will not be seen to be perverse nonsense.

If a child is exposed repeatedly to an environment where men beat themselves with spikes and beat women with sticks if the females expose an ankle, then those mentally and emotionally and physically abusive behaviors will be normalized and will not be seen to be perversely abnormal behaviors at all.

So what does that have to do with the fact that most will never seek to understand completely the statement “I AM THAT; I AM,” even when the expression appears in what billions of worshippers consider to be their “holy” texts?

Persons will cling to any nonsense that has been normalized in their minds via the method of conditioning-by-repetition, so it is a most effective tool (among those who desire to control other persons) to program those persons to all do the same thing in unison, think the same thing in unison, and say the same words in unison.

As a result, the questioning of anything outside the "group conscience" is prevented. (And that willingness to accept the group conscience as truth, without question and on faith alone, will get you vast, worldwide memberships in cult-like groups operating in the name of God;

will get you a European Holocaust with 12,000,000 killed in the name of Christians vs. Jews; will get you an American Holocaust with 150,000,000 killed in the name of God or Christ; will get you airplanes flown into buildings in the name of God; and will get you billions of dollars worth of bombs dropped on other nations in the name of God.)

Furthermore, those who would control the masses will pass along their nonsense as truth, and most really believe their nonsense to be true because of their own programming and conditioning. They will shun any that would march to the beat of a different drummer, and they will reinforce those who participate in group-think, group-speak, and group-endorsed behaviors.

Is it any wonder, then, that so few persons on the planet are willing to consider the Advaitin / Nisargan invitations offered here (or any other invitations that contradict their dogma or practices) when billions have now been lulled into a semi-conscious state via years of daily or weekly exposure to rote recitations by those in their same flock?

Of course Maharaj was probably correct in his final estimate that only 1 in 10,000,000 will ever break free of the bonds of dogma or spiritual programming and conditioning and thereafter Realize. After all of that programming and conditioning, how insane it must sound when a Realized teacher suggests to persons (specifically, to persons who are playing holy or exalted roles) that they need not…

…join, worship, knell, gather, pray, meet, chant, roll, sing, wave, sway, swoon, improve, help, increase, serve, save, hum, glorify, beseech, magnify, praise, rescue, achieve, analyze, control or accumulate.

And how insane it must sound to those subsumed in their dogma (and, yes, to those who are involved in their spiritual programs or even some versions of the Advaitin teachings) to hear an invitation to give up:

trying to be something or to give up trying to be religious or spiritual or THAT or lofty or special or amazing or knowledgeable or grand or impressive or metaphysical or saintly or exalted or elevated or higher or noble or better or godly or perfect or divine or holy or supernatural.

That must sound so much like an invitation to go back...to forfeit all their “gains.” At its core, though, the Direct Path Method and the Nisargan Yoga do include invitations to (a) see that there has been no gain and to (b) go back…

…go back in the exact, reverse order which resulted in persons having been lulled to sleep, (that is, having been lulled into a state of semi-consciousness or no-consciousness because the pure consciousness has been blocked and / or contaminated with false concepts and ideas and beliefs).

How could anything other than mass sleepwalking and mass sleep-talking happen when billions of persons will continue to live out their relative existence as if in a coma because they prefer familiar venues where so much is being offered and being promised rather than a loft (or electronic loft) where what is being offered is…nothing…Nothingness?

Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

Now you can receive for $40 a downloadable computer file version of the same 7-hour satsang that seekers receive when they visit for the Advaita Retreat with Floyd. You will be guided through the seven steps from identification with the false "I" to the Absolute (and beyond).
For more information or to order, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

SIX WAYS THAT SEEKERS HAVE REALIZED:

1. BY WATCHING the 4-Disk Video (DVD) Set, or the same retreat available as a downloadable file. Either will provide an entire seven-hour retreat / series of satsang sessions showing three seekers being guided through all seven steps by Floyd and can provide viewers with an “experiential,” step-by-step series of satsang meetings that will move the viewers from identification with the I to abidance as the Absolute and then to abidance as That Which Is beyond

Some seekers are already using the computer file version and the DVD sets for meetings in groups in homes, playing the retreat, pausing for discussion, etc.

To find out more or to purchase the DVD set or the downloadable computer file version of the retreat, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

Option “A” is for the downloadable file version, Option “B” is used to order the DVD set for delivery inside the U.S., Option “C” for international orders.

For the download, Paypal will send me a notice that payment has been received and then I will send by e-mail the downloading instruction, password, etc.

[It is recommended that you watch the video with pen and paper in hand. Write whatever you need clarified. You'll see that there are constant reviews and you might find an answer later in the seven-hour presentation. Then, after you watch it all, there will be a common ground for discussion. Purchase of the DVD’s or the file will include the right to clarifications and answers to your specific questions via e-mail.]

2. BY READING these books in this exact order:
IT'S ALL BULLSHIT (And Why Knowing It Sets You Free)
SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (Recovering What Religions Lost)
[Those two prepare the seeker to question it all]
THE MEDITATION GUIDES
[Provide a broad overview of the understanding]
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?
[Begins to free the seeker of body identification and the desire for body continuity]
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS "PEACE OF MIND" (There Is Only Peace if You're Out of Your Mind)
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of the false content of the “mind”]
LIBERATION
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of personas]
THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS
[Provides the final preparation for the seeker to be directed along the “path”]
FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)
[Directs the seeker along the “path”]
CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS: The Nature of Reality Beyond Self-Realization (Peace Every Day When Abiding as The Absolute)
[Allows the seeker to understand the functioning of the totality, the manifestation, and what is involved with the un-manifestation]
FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS
[Provides the seeker the wisdom to understand the Noneness as well as the Oneness]
Purchase an e-Book now and begin reading it in minutes (except with e-checks that can take 7-10 days). Trusting our clients as we do, all e-Books are provided to you in printable form.
SAVE IF YOU BUY ALL ELEVEN AT ONCE:
(You may order the books one at a time or you may use the following link to acquire the entire 11-e-Book set on sale for $99 if ordered at one time with the “Buy Now” button below. For this option, there will be no download links provided; once the near-instant notice of payment is received from PayPal, your e-Books will be sent to you as e-mail attachments. All are printable for your convenience.)
You may visit The Official Website of Floyd Henderson for information on each book.

3. BY ENROLLING in the Online Advaita Classes
For information, visit Information on the Advaita Classes on the Internet
To enroll visit Enroll in the Advaita Internet Course

4. BY ATTENDING an Advaitin retreat for satsang with floyd and being guided through all seven steps. For details of the retreats offered, please visit the retreat information site.

5. BY ARRANGING satsang by telephone in the U.S. or by Skype internationally:
Use the Contact link for details or for information on making arrangements for a session

6. BY ARRANGING for floyd to travel to your location and meet with you or your group. Use the contact link above to discuss details.

Saturday, February 06, 2010

“I AM THAT; I AM” or just “I AM THAT”? Part Fifteen

An Advaita forum focusing on Realisation, enlightenment, non-duality, Real Love, peace, freedom, Your original nature, abiding naturally, the Oneness, the Nothingness, and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Here, there is nothing that is believed, so there is no one here who wants you to believe anything, either. Here, the invitation is to be free of all that you have been programmed, conditioned, acculturated, and domesticated to believe so that you can be free, period.

“Just be.”

—Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

F.: [Continued from yesterday]

Did Maharaj say:

“Just join”?

“Just worship”?

“Just knell”?

“Just gather”?

“Just pray”?

“Just meet”?

“Just chant”?

“Just roll”?

“Just sing”?

"Just wave"?

"Just sway"?

"Just swoon"?

“Just improve”?

"Just help"?

“Just increase”?

“Just serve”?

"Just save"?

“Just hum”?

“Just glorify”?

“Just beseech”?

“Just magnify”?

“Just praise”?

“Just rescue”?

“Just achieve”?

“Just analyze”?

“Just control”?

“Just do”?

NO.

NO TO ALL OF THE ABOVE.

Did Maharaj say:

“Just be...someone”?

NO.

“Just be...something”?

NO.

“Just be...religious”?

NO.

“Just be...spiritual”?

NO.

“Just be...THAT”?

NO.

"Just be...lofty"?

NO.

"Just be...special"?

NO.

"Just be...amazing"?

NO.

"Just be...knowledgeable"?

NO.

"Just be...grand"?

NO.

"Just be...impressive"?

NO.

"Just be...metaphysical?"

NO.

"Just be...saintly"?

NO.

"Just be...celibate"?

NO.

"Just be...exalted"?

NO.

"Just be...elevated"?

NO.

"Just be...higher"?

NO.

"Just be...noble"?

NO.

"Just be...better"?

NO.

"Just be...godly"?

NO.

"Just be...perfect"?

NO.

"Just be...god"?

NO.

"Just be...divine"?

NO.

"Just be...holy"?

NO.

“Just be...supernatural”?

NO.

“Be...nothing”?

OK.

“Be...natural”?

OK.

Above all, for NOW, “Just be”?

YES.

Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

Now you can receive for $40 a downloadable computer file version of the same 7-hour satsang that seekers receive when they visit for the Advaita Retreat with Floyd. You will be guided through the seven steps from identification with the false "I" to the Absolute (and beyond).
For more information or to order, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

SIX WAYS THAT SEEKERS HAVE REALIZED:

1. BY WATCHING the 4-Disk Video (DVD) Set, or the same retreat available as a downloadable file. Either will provide an entire seven-hour retreat / series of satsang sessions showing three seekers being guided through all seven steps by Floyd and can provide viewers with an “experiential,” step-by-step series of satsang meetings that will move the viewers from identification with the I to abidance as the Absolute and then to abidance as That Which Is beyond

Some seekers are already using the computer file version and the DVD sets for meetings in groups in homes, playing the retreat, pausing for discussion, etc.

To find out more or to purchase the DVD set or the downloadable computer file version of the retreat, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

Option “A” is for the downloadable file version, Option “B” is used to order the DVD set for delivery inside the U.S., Option “C” for international orders.

For the download, Paypal will send me a notice that payment has been received and then I will send by e-mail the downloading instruction, password, etc.

[It is recommended that you watch the video with pen and paper in hand. Write whatever you need clarified. You'll see that there are constant reviews and you might find an answer later in the seven-hour presentation. Then, after you watch it all, there will be a common ground for discussion. Purchase of the DVD’s or the file will include the right to clarifications and answers to your specific questions via e-mail.]

2. BY READING these books in this exact order:
IT'S ALL BULLSHIT (And Why Knowing It Sets You Free)
SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (Recovering What Religions Lost)
[Those two prepare the seeker to question it all]
THE MEDITATION GUIDES
[Provide a broad overview of the understanding]
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?
[Begins to free the seeker of body identification and the desire for body continuity]
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS "PEACE OF MIND" (There Is Only Peace if You're Out of Your Mind)
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of the false content of the “mind”]
LIBERATION
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of personas]
THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS
[Provides the final preparation for the seeker to be directed along the “path”]
FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)
[Directs the seeker along the “path”]
CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS: The Nature of Reality Beyond Self-Realization (Peace Every Day When Abiding as The Absolute)
[Allows the seeker to understand the functioning of the totality, the manifestation, and what is involved with the un-manifestation]
FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS
[Provides the seeker the wisdom to understand the Noneness as well as the Oneness]
Purchase an e-Book now and begin reading it in minutes (except with e-checks that can take 7-10 days). Trusting our clients as we do, all e-Books are provided to you in printable form.
SAVE IF YOU BUY ALL ELEVEN AT ONCE:
(You may order the books one at a time or you may use the following link to acquire the entire 11-e-Book set on sale for $99 if ordered at one time with the “Buy Now” button below. For this option, there will be no download links provided; once the near-instant notice of payment is received from PayPal, your e-Books will be sent to you as e-mail attachments. All are printable for your convenience.)
You may visit The Official Website of Floyd Henderson for information on each book.

3. BY ENROLLING in the Online Advaita Classes
For information, visit Information on the Advaita Classes on the Internet
To enroll visit Enroll in the Advaita Internet Course

4. BY ATTENDING an Advaitin retreat for satsang with floyd and being guided through all seven steps. For details of the retreats offered, please visit the retreat information site.

5. BY ARRANGING satsang by telephone in the U.S. or by Skype internationally:
Use the Contact link for details or for information on making arrangements for a session

6. BY ARRANGING for floyd to travel to your location and meet with you or your group. Use the contact link above to discuss details.

Friday, February 05, 2010

“I AM THAT; I AM” or just “I AM THAT”? Part Fourteen

An Advaita forum focusing on Realisation, enlightenment, non-duality, Real Love, peace, freedom, Your original nature, abiding naturally, the Oneness, the Nothingness, and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Here, there is nothing that is believed, so there is no one here who wants you to believe anything, either. Here, the invitation is to be free of all that you have been programmed, conditioned, acculturated, and domesticated to believe so that you can be free, period.

“Just be.”

—Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

F.: The Direct Path Method used in conjunction with the Nisarga Yoga can lead to an exact style of living. There is no variance. What does that type of living look like, exactly? Above all, it is stable. For specifics, turn again to the model used by Maharaj, the deer: they do not live self-constructively at times but self-destructively at other times.

They do not prefer quietude at times and chaos at other times. The manner in which the post-Realization Am-ness unfolds among the Realized is how it unfolds, spontaneously, just as with the deer. Deer do not live naturally at times but then unnaturally or supernaturally (i.e., spiritually) at other times.

Deer do not see themselves as being special, lofty, celestial, different-from, or better-than. They do not think that they have gained something supernatural, and they do not believe that now they must work to maintain their gains.

Maharaj: Just be. When you stabilize in that beingness, it will give all the knowledge and all the secrets to you, and when the secrets are given to you, you transcend the beingness, and you, the Absolute, will know that you are also not the consciousness. Having gained all this knowledge, having understood what is what, a kind of quietude prevails, a tranquility. Beingness is transcended, but beingness is available.

Notice the irony, the supposed paradox: Beingness is transcended, but beingness is available. [I AM THAT; I AM.] Thus the irony of AS IF living when the Reality is overlaid on the Am-ness:

1. beingness is transcended to the degree that there is no belief that I am limited to the Am-ness and no belief in the false identities that had been generated by the contaminated or blocked consciousness;

2. yet the beingness—this Am-ness—is still very much available (and seemingly dualistic to the uninformed observer) who cannot understand the not-two-ness of phenomenal-noumenal; of physical-metaphysical; of unadulterated-sensuous; or of pure-sensual.

Having gained all this knowledge, having understood what is what, a kind of quietude prevails, a tranquility.

Did he say, “You need to read the Vedas daily and study them and go to teachers who are Veda experts and listen to them for months or years or a lifetime”? No, though he would not have discouraged those who so desired. Did he say, “You must attend a meeting here every day or you will lose what you have ‘gained’”? No. Instead, he said, a kind of quietude prevails, a tranquility.

Did he say, “You must come here weekly and donate a percentage of your income?” No. Did he say, “Seek out the most famous teachers on the circuit because...

(1) mass approval is the surest sign that a teacher is offering truth and because...

(2) the masses most assuredly love to hear the truth and to be told that their concepts and ideas and beliefs and behaviors are all nonsense”? Hardly.

Did he say, “You must now read holy scriptures to stay spiritual”? No. Did he say, “You will be more spiritual if you knell, bow, and smell holy smoke; if you present yourself to be sprinkled regularly with holy water; if you sit in groups and discuss how spiritual you have become”? No. Instead, he said, a kind of quietude prevails, a tranquility.

Did he say, “Go now and ponder THAT and THAT alone”? No. Did he say, “Let your days be filled with a focus on nothing except that which is beyond the relative existence, and always remain preoccupied with Realization”? No. Instead, he said, a kind of quietude prevails, a tranquility.

Did he say, “You are now elevated and have seen the light and have become a wonderful, knowledgeable, spiritual person, so now you must give away to others what you have ‘gained’”? No. Instead, he said, a kind of quietude prevails, a tranquility.

Why continue to search if one has found? Maharaj did not say to do anything. He said, “Just be.” Only ego-states think they must do—that they must do activities to sustain the illusion that they are real—but in the absence of delusional beliefs that false identities are real, then no doingness is required. Instead of becoming embroiled in anything, just be so that a kind of quietude prevails, a tranquility.

Contrast that with the woman playing the role of “The Spiritual Giant” who believes her “spiritual adviser” has shown her "the right way" to live by telling her that her spiritual work will never be done and that she must spend all day "finding God in everything, whether it is good or bad."

She was robbed early on of quietude and tranquility by those who programmed and conditioned her before she was of an age to question their nonsense. Yet now, she has been re-programmed in a program and robbed again of any chance to ever enjoy the quietude, the tranquility.

A song by one among the few remaining indigenous peoples begins: “Winds of life are blowing across the reservation and I can hear the voice of a new generation…and it’s time, yes it’s time, to live.”

Not time to knell, bow, smell holy smoke, be sprinkled with holy water, sit in groups and discuss how spiritual you have become”? No. Not time to read The Bible, the al-Qur’an, the Torah, the Talmud, the Vedas, ad infinitum, ad nauseum? No.

Time “to live”? Yes. Time to “just be”? Yes. Not time, per Maharaj, to “just be spiritual?” No. Not time, per Maharaj, to “just be religious?” No. Not time, per Maharaj, to “just be an Advaitin?” No. Not time, per Maharaj, to “just be THAT only?” No. Time to “just be.”

Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

Now you can receive for $40 a downloadable computer file version of the same 7-hour satsang that seekers receive when they visit for the Advaita Retreat with Floyd. You will be guided through the seven steps from identification with the false "I" to the Absolute (and beyond).
For more information or to order, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

SIX WAYS THAT SEEKERS HAVE REALIZED:

1. BY WATCHING the 4-Disk Video (DVD) Set, or the same retreat available as a downloadable file. Either will provide an entire seven-hour retreat / series of satsang sessions showing three seekers being guided through all seven steps by Floyd and can provide viewers with an “experiential,” step-by-step series of satsang meetings that will move the viewers from identification with the I to abidance as the Absolute and then to abidance as That Which Is beyond

Some seekers are already using the computer file version and the DVD sets for meetings in groups in homes, playing the retreat, pausing for discussion, etc.

To find out more or to purchase the DVD set or the downloadable computer file version of the retreat, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

Option “A” is for the downloadable file version, Option “B” is used to order the DVD set for delivery inside the U.S., Option “C” for international orders.

For the download, Paypal will send me a notice that payment has been received and then I will send by e-mail the downloading instruction, password, etc.

[It is recommended that you watch the video with pen and paper in hand. Write whatever you need clarified. You'll see that there are constant reviews and you might find an answer later in the seven-hour presentation. Then, after you watch it all, there will be a common ground for discussion. Purchase of the DVD’s or the file will include the right to clarifications and answers to your specific questions via e-mail.]

2. BY READING these books in this exact order:
IT'S ALL BULLSHIT (And Why Knowing It Sets You Free)
SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (Recovering What Religions Lost)
[Those two prepare the seeker to question it all]
THE MEDITATION GUIDES
[Provide a broad overview of the understanding]
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?
[Begins to free the seeker of body identification and the desire for body continuity]
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS "PEACE OF MIND" (There Is Only Peace if You're Out of Your Mind)
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of the false content of the “mind”]
LIBERATION
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of personas]
THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS
[Provides the final preparation for the seeker to be directed along the “path”]
FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)
[Directs the seeker along the “path”]
CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS: The Nature of Reality Beyond Self-Realization (Peace Every Day When Abiding as The Absolute)
[Allows the seeker to understand the functioning of the totality, the manifestation, and what is involved with the un-manifestation]
FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS
[Provides the seeker the wisdom to understand the Noneness as well as the Oneness]
Purchase an e-Book now and begin reading it in minutes (except with e-checks that can take 7-10 days). Trusting our clients as we do, all e-Books are provided to you in printable form.
SAVE IF YOU BUY ALL ELEVEN AT ONCE:
(You may order the books one at a time or you may use the following link to acquire the entire 11-e-Book set on sale for $99 if ordered at one time with the “Buy Now” button below. For this option, there will be no download links provided; once the near-instant notice of payment is received from PayPal, your e-Books will be sent to you as e-mail attachments. All are printable for your convenience.)
You may visit The Official Website of Floyd Henderson for information on each book.

3. BY ENROLLING in the Online Advaita Classes
For information, visit Information on the Advaita Classes on the Internet
To enroll visit Enroll in the Advaita Internet Course

4. BY ATTENDING an Advaitin retreat for satsang with floyd and being guided through all seven steps. For details of the retreats offered, please visit the retreat information site.

5. BY ARRANGING satsang by telephone in the U.S. or by Skype internationally:
Use the Contact link for details or for information on making arrangements for a session

6. BY ARRANGING for floyd to travel to your location and meet with you or your group. Use the contact link above to discuss details.

Thursday, February 04, 2010

“I AM THAT; I AM” or just “I AM THAT”? Part Thirteen

An Advaita forum focusing on Realisation, enlightenment, non-duality, Real Love, peace, freedom, Your original nature, abiding naturally, the Oneness, the Nothingness, and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Here, there is nothing that is believed, so there is no one here who wants you to believe anything, either. Here, the invitation is to be free of all that you have been programmed, conditioned, acculturated, and domesticated to believe so that you can be free, period.

“Wisdom is knowing I am nothing,
Love is knowing I am everything,
and between the two my life moves.”

—Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

F.: Most never undertake the “journey” to find Truth, satisfied that they have already found truth and now know it all. In fact, they searched for nothing, so how could they have possibly found anything? Instead, they were raised in a family and / or enrolled in a group; thereafter, they merely parroted what they were told.

Or they later joined a group and now parrot what they hear there. How delusional for persons to believe that they have found something when they have never even consciously searched for anything.

Or how delusional to have been unconsciously searching, to have then found a group who tells you that they have all the answers for you, to listen to them when they tell you that there is much that you must learn, and to believe them when they tell you that they can teach you what you need to know.

The Realized Advaitin will tell you something that you will never hear in a church, temple, mosque, or “support group”: “There is nothing you need to learn, but there is much that you need to unlearn” and "There is nothing here to join...no memberships are available."

And of the few who do search, most will never Realize and abide naturally because most want to know something special, want to be some special, want to feel something special, or want to have some cloud-opening experience that assures their feet will never be planted on the ground but that they will abide in some lofty and extraordinary and astounding manner, now and forevermore.

If they happen to be introduced to the summative statement I AM THAT; I AM,” most will eventually upgrade THAT and will downgrade the Am-ness so they will never be able to enjoy the peace and freedom and spontaneity of Nisarga living.

And be clear: natural living is not happening if spontaneity is not happening, and abidance in a spontaneous manner is not happening when habitual actions are planned. The deer do not make plans to gather regularly at a special place, be it daily or weekly or annually. [Most persons must work some of the time, just as deer must graze, but with the deer, what happens happens spontaneously.]

Only the corrupted consciousness will buy into the notion that many persons are selling, namely, the notion that you need to attend their gatherings or meetings both regularly and "for as long as you shall live" in order to gain something and then hang on to it.

The Realized de-accumulate as opposed to the accumulation of gains and knowledge and commitments and personal growth and self-improvement. All of that happens only when the “I AM” is yet blocked.

Review how that blockage happened—via programming and conditioning with words and "meaning" and "purpose"—to find the way to be free of the effects of programming and re-programming and more and more programming administered in programs:

the “I AM” would have done quite well, except for the streams of words that are heard early on; except for such words which amount to nothing more than faulty programming; except for the words that suck persons into being involved with their meanings; and except for the fact that persons allow those words and ideas and concepts to be stored and then form a “mind” (which is the storehouse of nonsense).

Is it becoming clear why Realization happens in the silence? Here is the way Maharaj described the disintegration into delusion and the process by which the consciousness becomes blocked and warped via the use of words by those talking in their sleep and by others who are listening to them in their sleep:

Maharaj: From deep sleep to the waking state - what is it? It is the "I Am" state with no words. Later, the words start flowing and you get involved with the meaning of the words and carry out your worldly life with the meaning of those words - that is “mind.” But before this "I Am" and waking state, that borderline, there you have to be. It is only a rare one who understands what I am driving at. To a normal spiritual person we have to say, “You do this or that and you will get this benefit.”

He made clear how the I AM THAT and the I AM are not exclusive when abidance happens “at the borderline”:

Maharaj: This is the stage where You Are / you are not - that is the borderline. The moment you know you are, duality is there. [Of course he is speaking of the pre-Realization condition of the Am-ness.]

M.: When you do not know you are, you are perfect, but you must go through this process. In deep sleep you do not know you are, but that is a grosser state. In this alive state you must recede into the state of no-knowingness. [In the post-Realization state, there is no longer any concern with words, with meanings, with knowing. After wisdom manifests, it becomes clear that the closest thing to an actual identity is rooted in the no-knowingness, in identifying with nothing.]

Ironically, the Advaitin knowingness (that is, understanding) is the portal to the no-knowingness…to the nothingness. That same understanding is also the portal to awareness of the Oneness…an awareness that leads to the understanding that You Are Love.

Note, however, that neither wisdom nor Love nor an understanding of the Oneness nor an understanding of the Noneness can happen as THAT; it can only happen via the post-Realization Am-ness. Note, too, that the pre-Realization Am-ness blocks an understanding of THAT as well as an understanding of The Void—the Nothingness—but the post-Realization Am-ness happens (and happens with peace) following an understanding of both the Absolute and the Nothingness.

Pre-Realization, the Am-ness is not seen to be artificial; post-Realization, all that is artificial is seen to be artificial, but there is no longer any concern with the artificial and no longer any continuation of efforts to find the artificial. The deer does not move about in a state of constant examination, determining “This is real but that is not.”

There is no concern at all. Post-Realization, it is understood that the beingness is merely happening in a totally natural manner. Eventually, even that understanding is irrelevant because the beingness just happens, automatically and spontaneously. In this post-Realization state, I Am not the Am-ness, but the Am-ness in this moment most assuredly IS.

In the neighborhood here, the deer move about—move through the relative existence—occasionally dodging an automobile, occasionally being struck by an automobile, on occasion moving away from noisy persons, and always witnessing during the waking state.

They grow; they survive for brief periods or, in some cases, for longer periods; they copulate; they reproduce; they eat. Some of the plants which they eat, they enjoy; some other plants they try but abandon.

Why is that not enough for those who are driven to ennoble their “spiritual” or “religious” condition, their “Realized status,” their arrival in some “Ultimate state” or their newly-assumed "specialness"?

1. Because they are still attached to the concepts of the (corrupted) Am-ness and to the “good” and “elevated” and “now special” personas which they have assumed.

2. Because they are mythomaniacs.

3. Because they are involved in the business of improvement or reform and have become involved in the busy-ness of improvement or reform. Rather than following Maharaj’s suggestion to “just be,” the ones involved in the busy-ness of their spirituality will seldom even consider just being—and being done with all of their activity.

Recall the one playing the role of “The Spiritual Giant” and “The Rescuer” and “The Savior” who spoke of all of the work that she was doing. Remember she was asked, “So when will you be through?” Remember she replied, “What?” Remember that the question was rephrased: “At what point will you be done with all that work?” Remember her answer: “Never.”

Among those obsessed with their religions, spiritual groups, self-improvement groups, ideologies, or organized philosophical groups (which re-program rather than de-program), old hooks may have been discarded but new hooks have been set.

And those new hooks now allow those who are controlling the lines with hooks to also control the thoughts and words and deeds of those who have been hooked. There is, therefore, no freedom among those claiming to be offering freedom when old hooks are replaced with new hooks...when old dependencies are replaced with new dependencies.

The pre-Realization Am-ness is the food on which delusions and mirages and illusions and doingness and dependency and misery feed; the post-Realization Am-ness is the only platform from which the no-concept, non-dual, no-misery, no-delusion, all-free bliss of beingness can be enjoyed with awareness.

Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

Now you can receive for $40 a downloadable computer file version of the same 7-hour satsang that seekers receive when they visit for the Advaita Retreat with Floyd. You will be guided through the seven steps from identification with the false "I" to the Absolute (and beyond).
For more information or to order, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

SIX WAYS THAT SEEKERS HAVE REALIZED:

1. BY WATCHING the 4-Disk Video (DVD) Set, or the same retreat available as a downloadable file. Either will provide an entire seven-hour retreat / series of satsang sessions showing three seekers being guided through all seven steps by Floyd and can provide viewers with an “experiential,” step-by-step series of satsang meetings that will move the viewers from identification with the I to abidance as the Absolute and then to abidance as That Which Is beyond

Some seekers are already using the computer file version and the DVD sets for meetings in groups in homes, playing the retreat, pausing for discussion, etc.

To find out more or to purchase the DVD set or the downloadable computer file version of the retreat, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

Option “A” is for the downloadable file version, Option “B” is used to order the DVD set for delivery inside the U.S., Option “C” for international orders.

For the download, Paypal will send me a notice that payment has been received and then I will send by e-mail the downloading instruction, password, etc.

[It is recommended that you watch the video with pen and paper in hand. Write whatever you need clarified. You'll see that there are constant reviews and you might find an answer later in the seven-hour presentation. Then, after you watch it all, there will be a common ground for discussion. Purchase of the DVD’s or the file will include the right to clarifications and answers to your specific questions via e-mail.]

2. BY READING these books in this exact order:
IT'S ALL BULLSHIT (And Why Knowing It Sets You Free)
SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (Recovering What Religions Lost)
[Those two prepare the seeker to question it all]
THE MEDITATION GUIDES
[Provide a broad overview of the understanding]
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?
[Begins to free the seeker of body identification and the desire for body continuity]
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS "PEACE OF MIND" (There Is Only Peace if You're Out of Your Mind)
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of the false content of the “mind”]
LIBERATION
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of personas]
THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS
[Provides the final preparation for the seeker to be directed along the “path”]
FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)
[Directs the seeker along the “path”]
CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS: The Nature of Reality Beyond Self-Realization (Peace Every Day When Abiding as The Absolute)
[Allows the seeker to understand the functioning of the totality, the manifestation, and what is involved with the un-manifestation]
FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS
[Provides the seeker the wisdom to understand the Noneness as well as the Oneness]
Purchase an e-Book now and begin reading it in minutes (except with e-checks that can take 7-10 days). Trusting our clients as we do, all e-Books are provided to you in printable form.
SAVE IF YOU BUY ALL ELEVEN AT ONCE:
(You may order the books one at a time or you may use the following link to acquire the entire 11-e-Book set on sale for $99 if ordered at one time with the “Buy Now” button below. For this option, there will be no download links provided; once the near-instant notice of payment is received from PayPal, your e-Books will be sent to you as e-mail attachments. All are printable for your convenience.)
You may visit The Official Website of Floyd Henderson for information on each book.

3. BY ENROLLING in the Online Advaita Classes
For information, visit Information on the Advaita Classes on the Internet
To enroll visit Enroll in the Advaita Internet Course

4. BY ATTENDING an Advaitin retreat for satsang with floyd and being guided through all seven steps. For details of the retreats offered, please visit the retreat information site.

5. BY ARRANGING satsang by telephone in the U.S. or by Skype internationally:
Use the Contact link for details or for information on making arrangements for a session

6. BY ARRANGING for floyd to travel to your location and meet with you or your group. Use the contact link above to discuss details.

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

“I AM THAT; I AM” or just “I AM THAT”? Part Twelve

An Advaita forum focusing on Realisation, enlightenment, non-duality, Real Love, peace, freedom, Your original nature, abiding naturally, the Oneness, the Nothingness, and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Here, there is nothing that is believed, so there is no one here who wants you to believe anything, either. Here, the invitation is to be free of all that you have been programmed, conditioned, acculturated, and domesticated to believe so that you can be free, period.

F.: Obviously, this series is for those farther along the “path.” Any pointers ever offered by a Realized Advaitin teacher can vary from other pointers offered by that same teacher because they will always be level-appropriate;

therefore, if a visitor finds the teachings in this series to be “totally off the mark,” the fact is that the one drawing that conclusion has not yet reached a point on the “path” when these pointers will be appropriate and when they will make perfect sense and when they will shift that speck of consciousness to the next step.

As with Maharaj, the level-appropriate pointers offered here could move the consciousness to tell seekers in the earliest stage of “the journey” that the Am-ness is a fraud, that the Real is not the Am-ness. Those lost in the dream, attached to the manifestation, might well hear the consciousness report that the manifestation (i.e., the Am-ness in its present form) is all a fraud, that What the Seeker Is is beyond this illusory manifestation.

Some may be told to move beyond the spiritual, while on other occasions it has been pointed out by both this speck and Louise that the third step—the religious and / or spiritual speck—must be taken.

It has also been pointed out by Maharaj, however, that the religious or spiritual step can only move seekers as far as the dawn, never all the way into the full light of the noonday sun. Thus:

Questioner: Then should all spiritual disciplines be dropped?
Maharaj: At the highest level this is so; at the earlier levels you have to do your homework. Those who are able intuitively to grasp this lose their interest in worldly affairs. Having lost it, what will they get? Whatever they have lost, they will have lost as an ordinary person, but what they get in return will be fit for a King. Those who have comprehended and who have reached a certain stage will not ask for anything, but everything will come to them spontaneously. There will be no wish for it; nevertheless, it will be there.

This does not happen for an individual — it happens for the universal manifestation, or for the one who has become one with his true nature. For the jnani, only witnessing is taking place. You must melt down the old jewellery into formless gold before you can mould a new one.

Consider:

M.: Having lost it, what will they get? Whatever they have lost, they will have lost as an ordinary person, but what they get in return will be fit for a King.
F.: Of course Maharaj knew there was no one to “get” or “gain” anything, but the point was made in its level-appropriate fashion. As for as the subject of this series, do you think that which they “get in return" which will be "fit for a King" refers to what they will “get” post-manifestation or during the Am-ness? Obviously, it is only during the Am-ness that anything “fit for a King” can be appreciated.

M.: There will be no wish for it; nevertheless, it will be there. This does not happen for an individual — it happens for the universal manifestation, or for the one who has become one with his true nature.
F.: Post-manifestation, the former seeker will no longer be perceived as one of many specks of manifested Am-ness or consciousness. It will know the (now-)"Pure Self" or "True Self" only as the “universal manifestation,” at one with the true nature. That can only happen during the Am-ness.

At a certain point on “the journey,” the teacher might say, “You have now become at One with All,” but the deeper understanding can manifest eventually and it can be understood that there is no “A” that has joined some “B” (or trillions of “B’s”) but that there is Advaita (there is only “not two”).

That understanding of One comes only during the I AM after having understood the THAT. The not wishing for but “receiving” can only happen during the Am-ness, but it can only happen during the Am-ness after the unblocked and re-purified Am-ness has understood the THAT-ness and after THAT has been overlaid onto the Am-ness.

M.: You must melt down the old jewellery into formless gold before you can mould a new one.
F.: The "old jewelry" (the corrupted Am-ness with its personal idenfications) is melted down via Full Realization, via understanding THAT, but the “re-molding” happens totally in the realm of the Am-ness, post-Realization.

The “old jewelry” believed it was the Am-ness which had undergone a blocking and corrupting process. Only the unblocked and re-purified Am-ness can understand THAT, but only the re-molded jewelry—the unblocked and re-purified Am-ness—understands...

(a) the truth of THAT-ness, (b) the lies of the corrupted Am-ness, and (c) the truth that can only be known during the post-Realization Am-ness. Again, level-appropriate pointers will devalue the corrupted Am-ness early on, but the only chance to revel in Love and bliss is during the period while the purified Am-ness is manifest.

And what is it that persons want to revel in more than anything if not Love? Understand that the reference here is not to the “false love” which the masses misperceive as "love" but to True Love, to Real Love, instead.

Maharaj said that Love is knowing that he is everything. That knowing can only happen during the Am-ness. True Love can only be known via the unblocked and re-purified Am-ness, so it is during the manifestation only that Love can be known and that the Am-ness can understand that It Is Love.

M.: Without Love, and will inspired by Love, nothing can be done. There must be love in the 'relation' between the person who says 'I am' and the observer of that 'I am'. [NOTE: See how essential both the I AM and the I AM THAT are in the process by which Love is known and enjoyed?] As long as the observer…considers himself apart from the observed, the situation is hopeless.

It is only when the observer (vyakta) accepts the person (vyakti) as a projection or manifestation of himself, and, so to say, takes the self into the Self, the duality of 'I' and 'this' goes and in the identity of the outer and the inner the Supreme Reality manifests itself.


F.:
Again, the pointer is to both I AM and to THAT, and neither is given "higher status" than the other in M.'s statement. Is it clear why the AM-ness is required, in its unblocked and re-purified and manifested condition, if bliss and Love are ever to be understood and appreciated?

All who speak of Love but disparage the Am-ness have failed to understand the post-manifestation THAT-ness and the post-Realization Am-ness as well. There will be no “one” to understand Love or to appreciate the bliss when the manifested consciousness returns to THAT field. It is the NOW-ness and the Am-ness (post-Realization) that provide the only opportunity that will ever exist for Love or for bliss.

You (this present speck of consciousness and also that long series of specks which have manifested during what persons will call "your lifetime") can only know Love and appreciate bliss now, and only now if unblocked and re-purified.

To see that the pre-Realization Am-ness is valueless is no call to consider the post-Realization Am-ness to be worthless. The latter is the only vehicle by which bliss can be appreciated and by which Love can be known. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

Now you can receive for $40 a downloadable computer file version of the same 7-hour satsang that seekers receive when they visit for the Advaita Retreat with Floyd. You will be guided through the seven steps from identification with the false "I" to the Absolute (and beyond).
For more information or to order, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

SIX WAYS THAT SEEKERS HAVE REALIZED:

1. BY WATCHING the 4-Disk Video (DVD) Set, or the same retreat available as a downloadable file. Either will provide an entire seven-hour retreat / series of satsang sessions showing three seekers being guided through all seven steps by Floyd and can provide viewers with an “experiential,” step-by-step series of satsang meetings that will move the viewers from identification with the I to abidance as the Absolute and then to abidance as That Which Is beyond

Some seekers are already using the computer file version and the DVD sets for meetings in groups in homes, playing the retreat, pausing for discussion, etc.

To find out more or to purchase the DVD set or the downloadable computer file version of the retreat, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

Option “A” is for the downloadable file version, Option “B” is used to order the DVD set for delivery inside the U.S., Option “C” for international orders.

For the download, Paypal will send me a notice that payment has been received and then I will send by e-mail the downloading instruction, password, etc.

[It is recommended that you watch the video with pen and paper in hand. Write whatever you need clarified. You'll see that there are constant reviews and you might find an answer later in the seven-hour presentation. Then, after you watch it all, there will be a common ground for discussion. Purchase of the DVD’s or the file will include the right to clarifications and answers to your specific questions via e-mail.]

2. BY READING these books in this exact order:
IT'S ALL BULLSHIT (And Why Knowing It Sets You Free)
SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (Recovering What Religions Lost)
[Those two prepare the seeker to question it all]
THE MEDITATION GUIDES
[Provide a broad overview of the understanding]
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?
[Begins to free the seeker of body identification and the desire for body continuity]
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS "PEACE OF MIND" (There Is Only Peace if You're Out of Your Mind)
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of the false content of the “mind”]
LIBERATION
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of personas]
THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS
[Provides the final preparation for the seeker to be directed along the “path”]
FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)
[Directs the seeker along the “path”]
CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS: The Nature of Reality Beyond Self-Realization (Peace Every Day When Abiding as The Absolute)
[Allows the seeker to understand the functioning of the totality, the manifestation, and what is involved with the un-manifestation]
FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS
[Provides the seeker the wisdom to understand the Noneness as well as the Oneness]
Purchase an e-Book now and begin reading it in minutes (except with e-checks that can take 7-10 days). Trusting our clients as we do, all e-Books are provided to you in printable form.
SAVE IF YOU BUY ALL ELEVEN AT ONCE:
(You may order the books one at a time or you may use the following link to acquire the entire 11-e-Book set on sale for $99 if ordered at one time with the “Buy Now” button below. For this option, there will be no download links provided; once the near-instant notice of payment is received from PayPal, your e-Books will be sent to you as e-mail attachments. All are printable for your convenience.)
You may visit The Official Website of Floyd Henderson for information on each book.

3. BY ENROLLING in the Online Advaita Classes
For information, visit Information on the Advaita Classes on the Internet
To enroll visit Enroll in the Advaita Internet Course

4. BY ATTENDING an Advaitin retreat for satsang with floyd and being guided through all seven steps. For details of the retreats offered, please visit the retreat information site.

5. BY ARRANGING satsang by telephone in the U.S. or by Skype internationally:
Use the Contact link for details or for information on making arrangements for a session

6. BY ARRANGING for floyd to travel to your location and meet with you or your group. Use the contact link above to discuss details.

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

“I AM THAT; I AM” or just “I AM THAT”? Part Eleven

An Advaita forum focusing on Realisation, enlightenment, non-duality, Real Love, peace, freedom, Your original nature, abiding naturally, the Oneness, the Nothingness, and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Here, there is nothing that is believed, so there is no one here who wants you to believe anything, either. Here, the invitation is to be free of all that you have been programmed, conditioned, acculturated, and domesticated to believe so that you can be free, period.

F.: Maharaj said:

…what I call nisarga yoga, the Natural yoga…, is the art of living in peace and harmony…. The fruit of it is happiness, uncaused and endless.

Consider the implications: if the endless happiness that comes post-Realization via the Nisarga Yoga is uncaused happiness, then what is with all of the persons who are claiming that they are Realized but continue to do all sorts of things to maintain the happiness or to cause the happiness to continue?

The "art of living in peace and harmony" that comes for the remaining period of post-Realization, Nisargan Am-ness is uncaused. There is no cause...no requirements. It is not caused by knowing, joining, worshiping, meeting, sharing, learning, tithing, being "good," receiving, going, doing, zooming, smelling scents, wearing special clothes, entering special buildings or regions, ringing special bells, humming, chanting, swooning, swaying, rolling, ad infinitum.

That remaining period of Am-ness is marked by happiness, and post-Realization there is nothing, according to the words of Maharaj, that must be done to cause the happiness or to cause the happiness to continue. It happens automatically and spontaneously, unplanned in the absence of any planner.

Maurice Frydman said of this natural yoga,

The Nisarga Yoga, when persevered in and brought to its fruition, results in one becoming conscious and active in what one always was [active in, but] unconsciously and passively. There is no difference in kind - only in manner - the difference between a lump of gold and a glorious ornament shaped out of it. Life goes on, but it is spontaneous and free, meaningful and happy.

Maharaj most lucidly describes this natural, spontaneous state, but as the man born blind cannot visualise light and colours, so is the unenlightened mind unable to give meaning to such descriptions. Expressions like dispassionate happiness, affectionate detachment, timelessness and causelessness of things and being - they all sound strange and cause no response.


Additionally, Nisarga (natural) living will never happen if you believe that your post-Realization state is a special state. In fact, you have not Realized at all if you believe anything, including the ego-based notions of being special, of being good and no longer bad, or of being better than you were or better than others.

Few persons on the planet will ever undertake “the journey”; fewer still will ever “finish,” meaning most will never abide for the remainder of the manifestation in a non-dual, non-personal, no-concept, no-thinking, no-identity state of post-Realization, unblocked, re-purified Am-ness.

Therefore, few will ever know the bliss that can happen when the remaining period of manifested Am-ness is passed “something like a deer taking rest in the shadow of a tree,” a bliss state which can only be known during the Am-ness.

Having been fooled and thus having no clue at all regarding the beingness and non-beingness, most involved in religion, spirituality, philosophy, or ideology will never grasp that the only time the bliss can be enjoyed in NOW.

Most—having been fooled—will (A) downgrade the potentialities of the post-manifestation Am-ness and will (B) upgrade the illusion of “this world” and believe in some really wonderful post-manifestation world and existence where they will finally experience non-stop bliss.

Little do they know that if there is no experiencer NOW, there most assuredly will be no post-manifestation experiencer LATER. [For further explanation of that pointer, please visit the archives and see the October 2009 series entitled “The Bliss Myth.”]

The Nisarga Yoga is the yoga that offers a means by which natural-being-abidance can happen. With Nisarga Yoga, there is no working-to-join-a-personal-individual-with-a-universal-spirit plan;

there is no engaging-in-all-the-acts-of-worshipping plan; there is no working-to-control-and-discipline-a-personal-self plan; there is no staying-forever-focused-on-the-Self plan; and there is no forever-seeking-knowledge plan.

There is, post-Nisargan-Realization, no plan at all, no planner at all, and no “one” to carry out any plan at all. Does that mean that "post-Realization, nothing is"? Of course not. What is, is; but what is not is any belief in any personal identity such as:

the worker, the one improving, the one that has been improved, the improver, the knower, the worshiper, the one joined with someone or something else, the holy one, the one who is holier than thou, the one engaged in self-discipline, the one in the self-improvement group, ad infinitum.

WHO would want that, right? No WHO would want that. WHO’s find even the suggestion to abandon their WHO-ness to be anathema. WHO’s want to set themselves apart from all aspects of the Am-ness (which they downgrade) and abide only as THAT (which they upgrade).

For them, the summative statement is, “I AM THAT; I AM NOT.” It is one thing to understand I am not this and I am not that...to understand the neti-neti. It is another thing entirely to assert “I AM NOT” and “Nothing Is.” Either assertion would beg the question, "WHO is making that observation?"

Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

Now you can receive for $40 a downloadable computer file version of the same 7-hour satsang that seekers receive when they visit for the Advaita Retreat with Floyd. You will be guided through the seven steps from identification with the false "I" to the Absolute (and beyond).
For more information or to order, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

SIX WAYS THAT SEEKERS HAVE REALIZED:

1. BY WATCHING the 4-Disk Video (DVD) Set, or the same retreat available as a downloadable file. Either will provide an entire seven-hour retreat / series of satsang sessions showing three seekers being guided through all seven steps by Floyd and can provide viewers with an “experiential,” step-by-step series of satsang meetings that will move the viewers from identification with the I to abidance as the Absolute and then to abidance as That Which Is beyond

Some seekers are already using the computer file version and the DVD sets for meetings in groups in homes, playing the retreat, pausing for discussion, etc.

To find out more or to purchase the DVD set or the downloadable computer file version of the retreat, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

Option “A” is for the downloadable file version, Option “B” is used to order the DVD set for delivery inside the U.S., Option “C” for international orders.

For the download, Paypal will send me a notice that payment has been received and then I will send by e-mail the downloading instruction, password, etc.

[It is recommended that you watch the video with pen and paper in hand. Write whatever you need clarified. You'll see that there are constant reviews and you might find an answer later in the seven-hour presentation. Then, after you watch it all, there will be a common ground for discussion. Purchase of the DVD’s or the file will include the right to clarifications and answers to your specific questions via e-mail.]

2. BY READING these books in this exact order:
IT'S ALL BULLSHIT (And Why Knowing It Sets You Free)
SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (Recovering What Religions Lost)
[Those two prepare the seeker to question it all]
THE MEDITATION GUIDES
[Provide a broad overview of the understanding]
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?
[Begins to free the seeker of body identification and the desire for body continuity]
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS "PEACE OF MIND" (There Is Only Peace if You're Out of Your Mind)
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of the false content of the “mind”]
LIBERATION
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of personas]
THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS
[Provides the final preparation for the seeker to be directed along the “path”]
FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)
[Directs the seeker along the “path”]
CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS: The Nature of Reality Beyond Self-Realization (Peace Every Day When Abiding as The Absolute)
[Allows the seeker to understand the functioning of the totality, the manifestation, and what is involved with the un-manifestation]
FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS
[Provides the seeker the wisdom to understand the Noneness as well as the Oneness]
Purchase an e-Book now and begin reading it in minutes (except with e-checks that can take 7-10 days). Trusting our clients as we do, all e-Books are provided to you in printable form.
SAVE IF YOU BUY ALL ELEVEN AT ONCE:
(You may order the books one at a time or you may use the following link to acquire the entire 11-e-Book set on sale for $99 if ordered at one time with the “Buy Now” button below. For this option, there will be no download links provided; once the near-instant notice of payment is received from PayPal, your e-Books will be sent to you as e-mail attachments. All are printable for your convenience.)
You may visit The Official Website of Floyd Henderson for information on each book.

3. BY ENROLLING in the Online Advaita Classes
For information, visit Information on the Advaita Classes on the Internet
To enroll visit Enroll in the Advaita Internet Course

4. BY ATTENDING an Advaitin retreat for satsang with floyd and being guided through all seven steps. For details of the retreats offered, please visit the retreat information site.

5. BY ARRANGING satsang by telephone in the U.S. or by Skype internationally:
Use the Contact link for details or for information on making arrangements for a session

6. BY ARRANGING for floyd to travel to your location and meet with you or your group. Use the contact link above to discuss details.

Monday, February 01, 2010

“I AM THAT; I AM” or just “I AM THAT”? Part Ten

An Advaita forum focusing on Realisation, enlightenment, non-duality, Real Love, peace, freedom, Your original nature, abiding naturally, the Oneness, the Nothingness, and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Here, there is nothing that is believed, so there is no one here who wants you to believe anything, either. Here, the invitation is to be free of all that you have been programmed, conditioned, acculturated, and domesticated to believe so that you can be free, period.

F.: Yesterday’s post ended with this:

Once that natural condition has been restored, then any occupation with Full Realization will end and the remainder of the manifestation will be marked by freedom and peace. Your existence can then happen in the style noted by Maharaj; specifically, it can unfold naturally in a mode that is “something like a deer taking rest in the shadow of a tree.”

Occupation with Realization will end after Full Realization happens? "Surely not," most will claim. Yet consider: have you ever been so sick that you had to take some medicine? Did the medicine restore your health? Once the medicine made you well, are you claiming that you continued to take the medicine?

Are you suggesting that, even to this day, you are still taking medicine for an illness that is no more? Are you suggesting that you are not now simply moving along through the existence and enjoying the resulting wellness that was brought about by the medicine?

If you have undergone surgery to have a tumor removed and the surgery was successful and the tumor was totally removed, have you continued to go back monthly or weekly or even on a daily basis for more and more surgeries?

Post-Realization, the Ultimate Medicine has done its job and there is no need for more medicine. The deer never develop the Ultimate Sickness, so the deer never have to take the Ultimate Medicine. Once the Ultimate Medicine works for You and removes entirely the Ultimate Sickness, then You will be like the deer and need no medication.

If you would understand what it is to be like a deer that is well and at rest, consider: have you ever seen a deer that thought it was better than other deer because the other deer are all living naturally while it is, by contrast, not at rest but is living supernaturally or religiously or spiritually (or in a way that is actually being controlled by magical thinking and the illness of mythomania)?

Have you ever seen a deer that thought it was better than other deer because it does supernatural, spiritual things based in such magical beliefs?

Have you ever seen a deer that thought it could not be happy by living in a natural manner but believed, instead, that it needed to smell some special smoke, ring some special bells, strike some special bowls, recline on a special rug rather than a bed of pine straw, go to "special deer" services or to "special deer" meetings regularly, or be driven blindly by false roles assigned by a culture?

That would all be most unnatural, and persons will live unnaturally or supernaturally if they do not Realize and see the personality / personalities that are driving them to think what they think, say what they say, and do what they do.

Maharaj guided Me to the understanding that personality is the bane of human existence. Then, the man who provided me with a scientifically-based set of tools for identifying the specific personality type (or, more often, personality types) of any given individual and to understand the very specific ways that personality drives every thought and word and deed of every non-Realized person said,

"A growing number of people are aware [that the tools serve as] as an accurate and profound map of human personality. The nine basic types…are based on the three primary centers of human thinking, emotion, and instinct;

however, in almost all human beings, distortions or blockages in these centers have led to a loss of connection with our essential nature, the very ground of our Being, and to the arising of ego structures to compensate for this loss. Thus, while [personality] obscures our true nature with a web of...identifications, [understanding the personality influences] can serve as an opening to the deeper reality….”


No one shall move along the entire "path" to Full Realization if personality and it influences are not understood; however, in the end, Realization is not about learning more, nor about becoming a better person, nor about inspiring you to do more for yourself, nor about doing more for the sake of supporting a false self or selves, nor about doing more to improve “others.”

Realization is not about “getting yourself into gear” so you can move forward and accomplish more; it is about shifting the gear into reverse and then eventually into neutral. Reverse? Yes. The “path” is about going back, in the exact reverse order, of the way You “came in”…the way You initially came to be manifested but were soon thereafter corrupted and blocked and warped.

Once You have reversed—moved back and found where You were prior to manifestation and found What You Were prior to manifestation—then it is about moving into neutral, that is, remaining neutral around every happening (the witnessing of feelings notwithstanding).

It is about remaining neutral because of the post-Realization understanding that there is no “one” left to form opinions and thoughts and beliefs; thus, it is not about learning more but is about unlearning all of the cultural ignorance that has been learned.

After that, happenings still most certainly happen, and the non-Realized observer will swear that there is "a you" and that you are doing things. Contrary to their misperceptions, whatever happens merely happens while no longer being driven by distortion and personality defects and insanity or by the notion that there is someone with an identity that is the do-er of things.

It is about operating in the natural way with the brain and consciousness functioning in tandem without any of the former insane influences that were based in a fiction-filled “mind” which—post-corruption but pre-Realization—drove every unnatural thought and myth-based word and supernatural or unnatural deed.

It is about understanding Reality, thereby being free of all of the effects of personality defects and near-insanity which made for misery during the pre-Realization Am-ness and then...

...overlaying that Reality on the Am-ness for the remainder of the manifestation. Then, the remainder of the manifestation will, as noted, happen in a mind-less, spontaneous mode that is “something like a deer taking rest in the shadow of a tree.”

Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

Now you can receive for $40 a downloadable computer file version of the same 7-hour satsang that seekers receive when they visit for the Advaita Retreat with Floyd. You will be guided through the seven steps from identification with the false "I" to the Absolute (and beyond).
For more information or to order, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

SIX WAYS THAT SEEKERS HAVE REALIZED:

1. BY WATCHING the 4-Disk Video (DVD) Set, or the same retreat available as a downloadable file. Either will provide an entire seven-hour retreat / series of satsang sessions showing three seekers being guided through all seven steps by Floyd and can provide viewers with an “experiential,” step-by-step series of satsang meetings that will move the viewers from identification with the I to abidance as the Absolute and then to abidance as That Which Is beyond

Some seekers are already using the computer file version and the DVD sets for meetings in groups in homes, playing the retreat, pausing for discussion, etc.

To find out more or to purchase the DVD set or the downloadable computer file version of the retreat, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

Option “A” is for the downloadable file version, Option “B” is used to order the DVD set for delivery inside the U.S., Option “C” for international orders.

For the download, Paypal will send me a notice that payment has been received and then I will send by e-mail the downloading instruction, password, etc.

[It is recommended that you watch the video with pen and paper in hand. Write whatever you need clarified. You'll see that there are constant reviews and you might find an answer later in the seven-hour presentation. Then, after you watch it all, there will be a common ground for discussion. Purchase of the DVD’s or the file will include the right to clarifications and answers to your specific questions via e-mail.]

2. BY READING these books in this exact order:
IT'S ALL BULLSHIT (And Why Knowing It Sets You Free)
SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (Recovering What Religions Lost)
[Those two prepare the seeker to question it all]
THE MEDITATION GUIDES
[Provide a broad overview of the understanding]
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?
[Begins to free the seeker of body identification and the desire for body continuity]
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS "PEACE OF MIND" (There Is Only Peace if You're Out of Your Mind)
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of the false content of the “mind”]
LIBERATION
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of personas]
THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS
[Provides the final preparation for the seeker to be directed along the “path”]
FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)
[Directs the seeker along the “path”]
CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS: The Nature of Reality Beyond Self-Realization (Peace Every Day When Abiding as The Absolute)
[Allows the seeker to understand the functioning of the totality, the manifestation, and what is involved with the un-manifestation]
FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS
[Provides the seeker the wisdom to understand the Noneness as well as the Oneness]
Purchase an e-Book now and begin reading it in minutes (except with e-checks that can take 7-10 days). Trusting our clients as we do, all e-Books are provided to you in printable form.
SAVE IF YOU BUY ALL ELEVEN AT ONCE:
(You may order the books one at a time or you may use the following link to acquire the entire 11-e-Book set on sale for $99 if ordered at one time with the “Buy Now” button below. For this option, there will be no download links provided; once the near-instant notice of payment is received from PayPal, your e-Books will be sent to you as e-mail attachments. All are printable for your convenience.)
You may visit The Official Website of Floyd Henderson for information on each book.

3. BY ENROLLING in the Online Advaita Classes
For information, visit Information on the Advaita Classes on the Internet
To enroll visit Enroll in the Advaita Internet Course

4. BY ATTENDING an Advaitin retreat for satsang with floyd and being guided through all seven steps. For details of the retreats offered, please visit the retreat information site.

5. BY ARRANGING satsang by telephone in the U.S. or by Skype internationally:
Use the Contact link for details or for information on making arrangements for a session

6. BY ARRANGING for floyd to travel to your location and meet with you or your group. Use the contact link above to discuss details.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

“I AM THAT; I AM” or just “I AM THAT”? Part Nine

An Advaita forum focusing on Realisation, enlightenment, non-duality, Real Love, peace, freedom, Your original nature, abiding naturally, the Oneness, the Nothingness, and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Here, there is nothing that is believed, so there is no one here who wants you to believe anything, either. Here, the invitation is to be free of all that you have been programmed, conditioned, acculturated, and domesticated to believe so that you can be free, period.

F.: What possible justification for completing the “journey” to full Realization if not to overlay it upon the relative existence, to unblock the blocked Is-ness, to de-contaminate the contaminated Am-ness? WHO (other than a person / persona trapped in an ego-state being supported by egotism) would re-write the summative Advaitin statement and, consciously or unconsciously, eliminate the I AM part?

What possible justification for completing the “journey” to Full Realization if not to bring about a shift in the way that the relative existence unfolds for the remainder of the post-Realization Am-ness, namely, in a way that is free of nonsense, irrationality, stupidity, insanity, and being blindly driven by programming and conditioning as well as by body and mind and personality identification?

Once the consciousness has been restored to its original no-identity, non-dual, no-concept condition, then the former seeker will function in a fashion that differs little overall from the way that all other forms abide:

naturally and spontaneously, with no unnatural desires, with no unnatural fears, with no occupation or preoccupation with "Realization," and with none of the pomp and circumstance associated with persons who think they are better as a result of their supernatural beliefs and practices and explanations.

THEN WHY IS THE RELIGIOUS / SPIRITUAL STEP EVEN REQUIRED ON THE "PATH"?
The entire purpose of moving beyond the second step of the seven-step “path” to Realization is to enter into a religious and / or spiritual role-playing stage that generates not a sense of merely being but a sense of being “really special”;

a stage that allows persons to finally abandon what they took to be their "bad" roles; that brings about the assumption of religious and / or spiritual identities that reinforce the dualistic sense of "good vs. bad" and now being "good" and being "better-than";

which sets the stage for eventual transcendence of the belief in any and all personas, especially the ones believed to be "the really good ones"; and that allows for eventual freedom from the belief that one is...

...(a) “special” and (b) different from non-religious or non-spiritual people and (c) separate from those in lesser roles and (d) that one living supernaturally is better than “others” living naturally.

The entire purpose of moving beyond the religious or spiritual role-playing stage is to enter into a state where there is a total loss of a sense of being special, where there is only a sense of being, and where an AS IF manner of abidance manifests which allows pure witnessing (which is free of any culture’s maddening influence and misery-producing distortion).

So what is the state of those who make claims about how special it is to be “aligned with THAT” or to “be THAT,” devaluing the post-Realization Am-ness? They are as much in a state of ego-state attachment, supported by egotism and other ego-defense mechanisms, as any person who has not even begun the “journey.”

Those emmeshed in such a state of arrogance will believe, “I have been on a ‘journey’ that moved me away from false identities and arrogance and all sense of being ‘special.’ So where am I now that I am ‘fully realized’? I am in the most special state of all—a supreme state, the ultimate state, the highest self state.”

Really?

If anyone is seeking to Realize Fully in order to be something or someone that is special, then that person might as well abandon the “journey” right now.

If anyone is seeking to Realize Fully in order to receive benefits now, or to set the stage for some post-Realization existence later, then that person might as well abandon the “journey” right now.

If anyone is seeking to Realize Fully in order to please some Supreme Being, then that person might as well abandon the “journey” right now.

If anyone is seeking to become a better person, then that seeker might as well abandon the “journey” right now.

If anyone is seeking to earn some post-manifestation reward or to avoid some post-manifestation punishment, then that seeker might as well abandon the “journey” right now.

If anyone is seeking to prepare for some “other levels” or for a series of arduous reincarnations, then that seeker might as well abandon the “journey” right now.

If anyone is seeking to Realize Fully in order to improve so that he / she can please a spouse or friends or fellow members of a group, that seeker may as well abandon the “journey.”

If anyone is seeking to Realize Fully in order to impress someone whom she / he considers “special,” then that person might as well abandon the “journey” right now.

If anyone is seeking to Realize Fully in order to help others or to help make the world a better place, then that person might as well abandon the “journey” right now.

If anyone is seeking to Realize Fully in order to get closer to some Power that can help and protect, then that person might as well abandon the “journey” right now.

If anyone is seeking to Realize Fully in order to gain knowledge that can be used to benefit himself or herself or others, then that person might as well abandon the “journey” right now.

If you determine to understand why each of those considerations are offered, then consider them in light of this:

Post-manifestation, there is no “one” to know anything, to be anything, to “survive” the de-manifestation, to face any judge or Judge, to be rewarded, or to be punished.

You were not born, so You will not die; since You were not born, then You most assuredly shall not be re-born. If you prefer to challenge that pointer (a preference that can only be rooted in programming and conditioning) then You are invited to study something beyond your religious and spiritual beliefs.

Your beliefs can never be substantiated by facts—only by “blind faith”—so You are invited to study the science that is relevant to the topic. Study the Laws of Thermodynamics.

Study the science that proves that elements cycle but that neither energy nor matter can be created or destroyed. Study the science that shows nothing more is being created or destroyed, that shows that what is has always been and shall always be. See, then, that there has been no creation, no birth, and no Creator...just a series of elemental forms coming together temporary and naturally and coming apart naturally at some point as well.

See that there is no “world” to improve because You are not in the “world”…the world is in you.

Understand that there is no personal self to improve, no others to improve, no Personal Being to impress, and no Personal Power to call on when in fear or when selfishly wanting something. Belief in such entities is a symptom of the Ultimate Sickness and a symptom of the mental illness of mythomania that is so widespread around the globe.

SO WHY REALIZE?
The only justification for completion of the “journey” to Full Realization is to overlay it on the relative; then, the relative for You will not be marked by nonsensical thoughts and stupid words and insane actions.

Once that natural condition has been restored, then any occupation with Full Realization will end and the remainder of the manifestation will be marked by freedom and peace. Your existence can then happen in the style noted by Maharaj; specifically, it can unfold naturally in a mode that is “something like a deer taking rest in the shadow of a tree.”

Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

Now you can receive for $40 a downloadable computer file version of the same 7-hour satsang that seekers receive when they visit for the Advaita Retreat with Floyd. You will be guided through the seven steps from identification with the false "I" to the Absolute (and beyond).
For more information or to order, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

SIX WAYS THAT SEEKERS HAVE REALIZED:

1. BY WATCHING the 4-Disk Video (DVD) Set, or the same retreat available as a downloadable file. Either will provide an entire seven-hour retreat / series of satsang sessions showing three seekers being guided through all seven steps by Floyd and can provide viewers with an “experiential,” step-by-step series of satsang meetings that will move the viewers from identification with the I to abidance as the Absolute and then to abidance as That Which Is beyond

Some seekers are already using the computer file version and the DVD sets for meetings in groups in homes, playing the retreat, pausing for discussion, etc.

To find out more or to purchase the DVD set or the downloadable computer file version of the retreat, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

Option “A” is for the downloadable file version, Option “B” is used to order the DVD set for delivery inside the U.S., Option “C” for international orders.

For the download, Paypal will send me a notice that payment has been received and then I will send by e-mail the downloading instruction, password, etc.

[It is recommended that you watch the video with pen and paper in hand. Write whatever you need clarified. You'll see that there are constant reviews and you might find an answer later in the seven-hour presentation. Then, after you watch it all, there will be a common ground for discussion. Purchase of the DVD’s or the file will include the right to clarifications and answers to your specific questions via e-mail.]

2. BY READING these books in this exact order:
IT'S ALL BULLSHIT (And Why Knowing It Sets You Free)
SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (Recovering What Religions Lost)
[Those two prepare the seeker to question it all]
THE MEDITATION GUIDES
[Provide a broad overview of the understanding]
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?
[Begins to free the seeker of body identification and the desire for body continuity]
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS "PEACE OF MIND" (There Is Only Peace if You're Out of Your Mind)
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of the false content of the “mind”]
LIBERATION
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of personas]
THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS
[Provides the final preparation for the seeker to be directed along the “path”]
FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)
[Directs the seeker along the “path”]
CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS: The Nature of Reality Beyond Self-Realization (Peace Every Day When Abiding as The Absolute)
[Allows the seeker to understand the functioning of the totality, the manifestation, and what is involved with the un-manifestation]
FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS
[Provides the seeker the wisdom to understand the Noneness as well as the Oneness]
Purchase an e-Book now and begin reading it in minutes (except with e-checks that can take 7-10 days). Trusting our clients as we do, all e-Books are provided to you in printable form.
SAVE IF YOU BUY ALL ELEVEN AT ONCE:
(You may order the books one at a time or you may use the following link to acquire the entire 11-e-Book set on sale for $99 if ordered at one time with the “Buy Now” button below. For this option, there will be no download links provided; once the near-instant notice of payment is received from PayPal, your e-Books will be sent to you as e-mail attachments. All are printable for your convenience.)
You may visit The Official Website of Floyd Henderson for information on each book.

3. BY ENROLLING in the Online Advaita Classes
For information, visit Information on the Advaita Classes on the Internet
To enroll visit Enroll in the Advaita Internet Course

4. BY ATTENDING an Advaitin retreat for satsang with floyd and being guided through all seven steps. For details of the retreats offered, please visit the retreat information site.

5. BY ARRANGING satsang by telephone in the U.S. or by Skype internationally:
Use the Contact link for details or for information on making arrangements for a session

6. BY ARRANGING for floyd to travel to your location and meet with you or your group. Use the contact link above to discuss details.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

“I AM THAT; I AM” or just “I AM THAT”? Part Eight

An Advaita forum focusing on Realisation, enlightenment, non-duality, Real Love, peace, freedom, Your original nature, abiding naturally, the Oneness, the Nothingness, and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Here, there is nothing that is believed, so there is no one here who wants you to believe anything, either. Here, the invitation is to be free of all that you have been programmed, conditioned, acculturated, and domesticated to believe so that you can be free, period.

F.: In this series, you are being invited to see that, among other things, the Direct Path Method of teaching Advaita with the Nisarga Yoga approach can bring to an end not only

a) all belief in duality but also an end to

(b) all of the confusion that had dominated religious and spiritual debate for five millennia or more, namely, the debate about the supposed conflict between “the spirit and the flesh.”

The debate ends here because, post-Realization, there is neither a “Truly Religious One” nor a “Spiritual Giant” that would advocate transcending “the flesh,” that is, that would advocate disparaging the post-Realization Am-ness while upgrading the Absolute in comparison.

Last night, the “flesh” reveled in the sharing of a gourmet dining event with a daughter. The “flesh” here can revel in all of the delights that can only happen while “the flesh” is manifest, including both the sensory and the sensual, "in spite of" having understood that which is beyond the phenomenal.

It must be asked: "Why seek and find an appreciation of the Essence if one is driven to avoid appreciation of…the essence? Why taste the sweet Nectar of Immortality ('I AM THAT') but refuse to taste the sweet nectar of…mortality ('I AM') as well?"

WHO would choose the former only and reject the latter? Only one who has been deceived to believe that there will be some “one” that will be able post-manifestation to know, to understand, to taste, and to enjoy. It is not so. It shall not be.

Why else this planet-wide willingness to upgrade some illusory “life after” while scorning the post-Realization Am-ness? Why a devaluing of “this” while only valuing THAT? Why the rejection of joy, now?

THE ENNOBLING OF SUFFERING
For 4000 years since Abraham endorsed God-induced suffering as part of “His” plan to inspire the Jews to “get closer to Him,” misery has been given lofty status among the members of that group.

For 2000 years since the crucifixion of an Advaitin called Jesus, and for the two billion persons who now call themselves his followers but have not the slightest clue of what he was really pointing to, there has been an elevated status assigned to suffering. ("I am made Christ-like by way of my suffering. I suffer now as He suffered on the cross for me.")

For more than a millennium, certain Muslims have touted the benefits of bloodletting and self-flagellation. One Muslim male explained the practice this way:

Those adults who engage in self-flagellation with knives, chains or blades, do so with a consciousness of the ceremonial nature of the act, keenly watched by onlookers, children and adults alike, who, though they have seen it all before, continue to be mesmerised by the sheer spectacle of it – the display. This excitement is, for most, mixed with an actual sense of profound identification with the suffering of Imam Hussain, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.

Last week, the headlines revealed that Pope John Paul II kept a belt by his side whether at home or on the road, beating himself regularly while depriving himself of a comfortable bed and even food in order to be "more perfect." If the belief is that suffering can make one more perfect, then most certainly the dualistic belief must be that "suffering is good."

For the 6.5 billion who claim to be members of one of those groups or members of groups with similar beliefs, the dualistic message is “Deprivation is good.” [NOTE: Confuse not the sanity of de-accumulation with the silliness of dogma-or-belief-based deprivation in regards to the basic needs of the space or form.]

Add to those the millions more who are members of “self-help” or “step” groups (really just pseudo-religious organizations that reject that fact and claim to be “spiritual”). They spin distortion into dualistic pseudo-truth: “My suffering is now good, for it allows me to help others who are suffering.”

Add in the hundreds of thousands—many drawn from among the ranks of those same step groups, who listen to one of the big names tell them to "Love What Is." One of those charges reported at a retreat here: “She taught me to love my rapist and to accept that it’s all good and that I should love whatever is.”

No, that’s not all good. That's all stupid, all insane. Maharaj: This is our stupidity, verging on insanity.

Why did he point out such insanity as the examples above? Why even mention them here if they might be unpopular? Again, Maharaj: This is the function of the Guru - to make us see the madness of our daily living.

The function of the Advaitin guru is to point out the insanity that is not questioned and to extend the invitation to question, to see, and maybe to conclude: You know, it may just be that all of these beliefs and practices really are insane!”

THE DENIAL OF SUFFERING
Another obstacle that will prevent persons from enjoying the post-Realization Am-ness is to deny the suffering that exists. Dissociation is often upgraded to “stoic detachment”; “becoming robotic” is subjected to the spin doctor’s distortions and upgraded to “calm acceptance of all”;

and the ego / egotism of taking one’s self to be a “Super Religious Person” or “Spiritual Giant” can easily inspire some—especially the obsessive types—to discount everything in the relative, to claim that they are living in another realm, or to claim that nothing exists.

IGNORING, DENYING, OR UPGRADING SUFFERING
At the extreme, it becomes a short step for some to be sociopathic around their detachment: “Care not a whit about others; have no compassion; what does it matter since they do not exist anyway.”

Do they mean nothing matters once the manifested consciousness is no longer manifested, or do they means that nothing matters even during the currently manifested Am-ness? “Kill, bomb, maim rape, love those who toss babies into fires, and / or love your rapist”? Is that all good? Is all of that in the "Love What Is" category?

You are invited to see this: "They" fooled you, but there is no need for your continuing to take over where “they” left off. There is no need to be fooled by those who reverse the non-duality teachings by twisting “I AM THAT; I AM” back into the realm of duality by believing that THAT is good but that this (Am-ness) is bad.

There are no beliefs here, including the belief that suffering is “good,” that misery and pain can make a person stronger, or that suffering now will be balanced out later with eternal reward.

Some are “saving themselves” for eternal bliss later. The pointer: that is a boat you have already missed. If anything is to be “experienced” and known and reveled in, it can only happen via the manifest consciousness—via the post-Realization Am-ness, NOW.

Waiting for a future time? Futile. Waiting for a “higher level experience” in an “afterlife?” Dream only. Waiting for the “right time” and the “right way” to enjoy what is to be enjoyed now? Oops…missed it.

Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

Now you can receive for $40 a downloadable computer file version of the same 7-hour satsang that seekers receive when they visit for the Advaita Retreat with Floyd. You will be guided through the seven steps from identification with the false "I" to the Absolute (and beyond).
For more information or to order, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

SIX WAYS THAT SEEKERS HAVE REALIZED:

1. BY WATCHING the 4-Disk Video (DVD) Set, or the same retreat available as a downloadable file. Either will provide an entire seven-hour retreat / series of satsang sessions showing three seekers being guided through all seven steps by Floyd and can provide viewers with an “experiential,” step-by-step series of satsang meetings that will move the viewers from identification with the I to abidance as the Absolute and then to abidance as That Which Is beyond

Some seekers are already using the computer file version and the DVD sets for meetings in groups in homes, playing the retreat, pausing for discussion, etc.

To find out more or to purchase the DVD set or the downloadable computer file version of the retreat, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

Option “A” is for the downloadable file version, Option “B” is used to order the DVD set for delivery inside the U.S., Option “C” for international orders.

For the download, Paypal will send me a notice that payment has been received and then I will send by e-mail the downloading instruction, password, etc.

[It is recommended that you watch the video with pen and paper in hand. Write whatever you need clarified. You'll see that there are constant reviews and you might find an answer later in the seven-hour presentation. Then, after you watch it all, there will be a common ground for discussion. Purchase of the DVD’s or the file will include the right to clarifications and answers to your specific questions via e-mail.]

2. BY READING these books in this exact order:
IT'S ALL BULLSHIT (And Why Knowing It Sets You Free)
SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (Recovering What Religions Lost)
[Those two prepare the seeker to question it all]
THE MEDITATION GUIDES
[Provide a broad overview of the understanding]
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?
[Begins to free the seeker of body identification and the desire for body continuity]
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS "PEACE OF MIND" (There Is Only Peace if You're Out of Your Mind)
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of the false content of the “mind”]
LIBERATION
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of personas]
THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS
[Provides the final preparation for the seeker to be directed along the “path”]
FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)
[Directs the seeker along the “path”]
CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS: The Nature of Reality Beyond Self-Realization (Peace Every Day When Abiding as The Absolute)
[Allows the seeker to understand the functioning of the totality, the manifestation, and what is involved with the un-manifestation]
FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS
[Provides the seeker the wisdom to understand the Noneness as well as the Oneness]
Purchase an e-Book now and begin reading it in minutes (except with e-checks that can take 7-10 days). Trusting our clients as we do, all e-Books are provided to you in printable form.
SAVE IF YOU BUY ALL ELEVEN AT ONCE:
(You may order the books one at a time or you may use the following link to acquire the entire 11-e-Book set on sale for $99 if ordered at one time with the “Buy Now” button below. For this option, there will be no download links provided; once the near-instant notice of payment is received from PayPal, your e-Books will be sent to you as e-mail attachments. All are printable for your convenience.)
You may visit The Official Website of Floyd Henderson for information on each book.

3. BY ENROLLING in the Online Advaita Classes
For information, visit Information on the Advaita Classes on the Internet
To enroll visit Enroll in the Advaita Internet Course

4. BY ATTENDING an Advaitin retreat for satsang with floyd and being guided through all seven steps. For details of the retreats offered, please visit the retreat information site.

5. BY ARRANGING satsang by telephone in the U.S. or by Skype internationally:
Use the Contact link for details or for information on making arrangements for a session

6. BY ARRANGING for floyd to travel to your location and meet with you or your group. Use the contact link above to discuss details.

Friday, January 29, 2010

“I AM THAT; I AM” or just “I AM THAT”? Part Seven

An Advaita forum focusing on Realisation, enlightenment, non-duality, Real Love, peace, freedom, Your original nature, abiding naturally, the Oneness, the Nothingness, and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Here, there is nothing that is believed, so there is no one here who wants you to believe anything, either. Here, the invitation is to be free of all that you have been programmed, conditioned, acculturated, and domesticated to believe so that you can be free, period.

[Continued from earlier this week]

F.: Some (who claim to have realized) also claim that they now abide “in the Absolute.” Of course that is an impossibility. As Maharaj pointed out, “Presently you have to abide in the Am-ness.”

For those who want to argue the point, consider:

** The consciousness now manifested could be said to have been “in the Absolute” prior to manifestation

** The consciousness is now manifested within trillions of forms / spaces on this planet

** The Absolute is limitless and omnipresent—here, now, everywhere—so to that extent, okay, it can be said that the body-cum-consciousness is technically “in the Absolute” since that field of energy is omnipresent, but that is not what such persons are asserting when they reject the Am-ness and claim to be living in the Absolute only

** For the sake of teaching, the distinction is made between the consciousness manifested within a confined space and the consciousness that is not manifested within a confined space

[NOTE: In May of 2007, the following was offered:

In the expanse of space, energy can move via wave and/or particle form. Subatomic particles of specialized energy exist and are moving through that expanse freely. Because the expanse is so vast (limitless in fact), the particles are not forced together into large-quantity clusters or groupings of energy within that space. Consciousness only 'happens' when large-quantity clusters or groupings of energy occur in compact spaces with nervous systems. Otherwise, the background of Awareness IS and energy is moving without confinement in that vast space labeled "the Absolute"; however, by definition at least, "consciousness" capable of being conscious of (as a result of manifestation) is not. Awareness is, even when there is no "one" to be conscious of.

You may visit the archives to read the full explanation in a May 2007 series.]

So for those who want to be technical and to argue the issue, yes, all is “in the Absolute,” but that is not how post-Realization abidance happens. Post-Realization, abidance happens as the natural state and in the natural manner, enjoying the Am-ness...not denying that it exists.

There are, however, other motives that prevent the masses from realizing and that prevent some who suppose that they have realized from living in a Nisarga—natural—fashion.

Among those claiming to be realized but who are trying to live supernaturally rather than naturally, it is grandiosity that can block natural living, that will inspire identifying with THAT only, that can lead to a devaluation of the post-Realization Am-ness, and that can even result in a rejection of the Am-ness itself.

Among the billions who will never realize and who will never live naturally—the billions who are attached to their third-step-of-seven-steps religious and spiritual roles—there is another reason that will prevent their ever living naturally:

MYTHOMANIA
The ignorant have been driven for 5000 years or more by their belief in myths and in mythological gods and goddesses. Such beliefs have led to the most insane words and the most insane deeds imaginable.

Such insanity has always accompanied belief in myths. The effects have only now generated impact on a global basis because there have never before been so many suffering from the form of insanity identified here as mythomania.

[For the thousands of years since persons combined all of their mythological gods into the concept of “a single god” as a result of Abraham’s teachings, the attachment to myth has continued. So pervasive are mythomaniacs now, numbering 6.5 billion or more all around the globe, that the insanity of believing in myths is no longer the domain of the ignorant alone. Now, intelligent persons as well are suffering from the mental illness of mythomania. Why? Because of their having been programmed and conditioned to believe ancient myths and to believe that the mythical god or gods or some Supreme Being or Supreme Beings which are at the heart of those myths are actual, real entities.]

Some claim that various forms of insanity are genetic, but most insanity is rooted in environment; that is, insanity can become the abnormal norm in cultures where myths are passed along early on as truth to children by persons in their environment who also accepted as truth the lies that they were told to believe as children...and told to believe without question.

That conditioning is now pervasive and happens among those who are walking about unconsciously, trapped in the Dream / Nightmare of the Planet. Consider: a married woman invited her college roommate and the roommate’s husband to spend a weekend with her and her husband. While the men were on the golf course, the women began preparing a roast for dinner that night.

While the woman was preparing the vegetables that would be cooked along with the roast, she asked her college friend to use the cutting board and a huge knife to cut the roast in half; to season both parts of the roast; to take out two small pans and fill them with a few inches of water; and to place the two pans in the oven.

The guest said, “You have a large roasting pan like the one I use at home. Why not put the roast in that for cooking?” The woman said, “I’m not really sure, but that’s the way mom always cooked roast when I was growing up at home.”

The guest said, “I don’t get it,” inspiring the hostess to call her mom and inquire. Her mom explained, “I’m not exactly sure why, but that’s just the way your grandmother always cooked roast, so it’s the way I have always cooked roast.”

The hostess then called her grandmother and asked, “Grandmother, you know how you always cut a roast in half and put it into two small pans for cooking? Did you do that to shorten the cooking time, or maybe to help the roast absorb the seasonings? Why have we always done it that way?”

The grandmother said, “I don’t know why you and your mom do it that way, but I always did it that way because we only had two small pans—we never had a large roasting pan.”

Maharaj: This is our stupidity, verging on insanity.

Why have you believed what you have believed? Why did you not question the things that could have been seen as totally senseless if you had investigated objectively? What stifled your willingness to investigate objectively? (Usually, threats of punishment accompany the charge to accept teachings with blind faith, and even if a child is curious enough to inquire, inquiries are soon stymied.)

What inspires the widespread acceptance of nonsense as fact? Why do persons accept it, without question, when persons claim that natural events (hurricane, earthquakes, floods, etc.) have some supernatural cause and some Supernatural Causer and some Supernatural Motive?

If you still accept as truth the 5000-year-old myths that were dreamed up by totally ignorant persons, then is it not time to begin a thorough investigation that is free of the constraints of the “blind faith” that has left you mentally and emotionally handicapped because of faulty programming and conditioning?

Is there any hope at all for a sane existence to happen, is there any hope at all for one to stabilize in the Am-ness, if your thoughts and words and deeds are being driven by your belief in lies and in fictional entities and in supernatural causes being assigned to natural events?

Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

Now you can receive for $40 a downloadable computer file version of the same 7-hour satsang that seekers receive when they visit for the Advaita Retreat with Floyd. You will be guided through the seven steps from identification with the false "I" to the Absolute (and beyond).
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2. BY READING these books in this exact order:
IT'S ALL BULLSHIT (And Why Knowing It Sets You Free)
SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (Recovering What Religions Lost)
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THE MEDITATION GUIDES
[Provide a broad overview of the understanding]
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?
[Begins to free the seeker of body identification and the desire for body continuity]
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS "PEACE OF MIND" (There Is Only Peace if You're Out of Your Mind)
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of the false content of the “mind”]
LIBERATION
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of personas]
THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS
[Provides the final preparation for the seeker to be directed along the “path”]
FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)
[Directs the seeker along the “path”]
CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS: The Nature of Reality Beyond Self-Realization (Peace Every Day When Abiding as The Absolute)
[Allows the seeker to understand the functioning of the totality, the manifestation, and what is involved with the un-manifestation]
FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS
[Provides the seeker the wisdom to understand the Noneness as well as the Oneness]
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