An Advaita forum focusing on Realisation / Realization, enlightenment, non-duality, Real Love, peace, freedom, Your original nature, natural abidance, the nothingness, and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.
Now available on DVD or downloadable computer file:
seven hours of satsang with floyd guiding seekers through all seven steps (in their exact order) to Realization. See details at the end of this post.
seven hours of satsang with floyd guiding seekers through all seven steps (in their exact order) to Realization. See details at the end of this post.
F.: Recently, several visitors have asked why there is not a greater effort on this site to inspire everyone to love everyone else and why there is not a greater emphasis on "service" and "helping others" and on "making the world a better place."
To those who think that their “purpose” is to try to change the world for the better and who cling to an idealized view of a "world" in which everyone loves everyone else, consider the pointers offered by M. in this exchange:
Questioner: Every morning I pick up the newspaper and read with dismay that the world's sorrows—poverty, hatred and wars—continue unabated. My questions are concerning the fact of sorrow, the cause, the remedy. Don't brush me off saying that it is Buddhism! Don't label me. Your insistence on causelessness removes all hope of the world ever changing.
Maharaj: You are confused, because you believe that you are in the world, not the world in you. Who came first...you or your parents? You imagine that you were born at a certain time and place, that you have a father and a mother, a body and a name. This is your sin and your calamity! Surely you can change your world if you work at it. By all means, work. Who stops you? I have never discouraged you. Causes or no causes, you have made this world and you can change it.
Q: A causeless world is entirely beyond my control.
M: On the contrary, a world of which you are the only source and ground is fully within your power to change.
Q: All I want to know is how to deal with the world's sorrows.
M: You have created them out of your own desires and fears. You deal with them. All is due to your having forgotten your own being. Having given reality to the picture on the screen, you love its people and suffer for them and seek to save them. It is just not so.
And later:
M.: You cannot change the course of events, but you can change your attitude, and what really matters is the attitude and not the bare event. The world is the abode of desires and fears. You cannot find peace in it. For peace you must go beyond the world.
So, first, to the desire that everyone love everyone else: to think there is any possibility that all “A’s” can love all “B’s” and vice-versa is duality. Real Love IS; subject-object love is not real, based in duality as it is.
Because there is no separation into “A’s” and “B’s,” then there can be no case in which any “A” can love “B.” It can simply be understood that there are no “A’s” and “B’s” and that Real Love simply IS. Love is, but it is known only when the Oneness is understood.
Next, if you have a notion or belief that you can change the world, you are ignoring one fact pointed to by Maharaj in the quote above that, namely, you are not in the world but that the world is in you—in your “mind”—instead. Furthermore, that belief will generate only misery.
Since all misery is based in desire and or fear (both of which can only be perceived when one or more personas are assumed), the very wanting / desiring to change the world will be a source of misery among those who want / desire to bring about such change.
To confess such a goal is to admit that you cannot be satisfied with things the way they are and that in order for you to finally relax and take it easy is dependent upon "an entire world" changing.
To tie a sense of fulfillment or happiness to an impossible dream is to fail to recognize a dream as a dream and to recognize the impossible as being impossible. Why not visit a pair of rams that are each intent upon bashing the other's brain and yell, "Fellows, stop! Why can't we just all get along?" Why not visit a sociopath and ask, "How about just loving everybody instead of behaving the way you're behaving?"
More revealing, though, is what is implied by one wanting to change the world. What level of arrogance and egotism are evidenced by one who wants to change the world, the very notion itself revealing the fact that you think you know what the world needs, that you know how it should be, and that you know exactly who should change and in what ways in order for each to be “improved” and thereby eventually “improve the world”?
The longer the pure consciousness witnesses personality—which is the driving force among the non-Realized—the clearer it becomes that personality is the bane of the relative existence and that all of the beliefs above about "love" and "changing the world" are rooted in nothing more than personality and the egotism that tries to support personality.
Personality will make persons who have assumed a religious or spiritual persona/identity egotistically believe that they can successfully treat the sociopaths of the world who are generating “sorrows, poverty, hatred and wars” even though trained professionals have almost no history of success at all in their efforts to treat persons with the Psychopath/Sociopath Personality Disorder.
It becomes clearer—the longer that the relative results of personality are witnessed—that only personality can generate a desire or fear; that only personality can set the stage for the triggering of the use of ego-defense mechanisms that manifests alongside every ego-state that is assumed as an identity;
that all misery and suffering is rooted in personality; and that the basic personality types which drive persons are the masks that blind persons and that bind them and that strip away all ability to choose by determining every word that the non-Realized speak, every thought that the non-Realized use their fiction-filled “minds” to think, and every deed that the non-Realized "do."
So find WHO wants to reform, WHO wants to save and rescue, WHO thinks he/she knows things that everyone should know, WHO wants to bring about their idealized views, WHO wants there to only be "love" in order to feel more secure in what is perceived to be “a dangerous world,” WHO would avoid all pain, WHO would control others and lead them to change, and/or WHO would be known as the one who finally brought "peace to the world."
And find WHO erroneously believes that if only the world could be more spiritual, or if only people would all become religious, then “the world's sorrows, poverty, hatred and wars” would end.
If that is your belief, know that the persons who invented and used the torture devices known “the Judas Cradle,” “the Inquisitor’s Chair,” “the Heretic’s Fork,” and “the Virgin of Nuremberg” were all self-proclaimed spiritual and religious people; yet, understand this:
It is impossible to try to “change my mind” or to change the mind of any Realized person since I do not have a mind and since no other Realized person has a mind—it having been realized that “the mind” and its content was fictional, a conglomeration of illusions;
likewise, it is also impossible to try to change the mind of non-Realized persons since they do not have a “mind” either, but they believe they do and they do most assuredly love the concepts and beliefs and learned ignorance and ideas that have been accumulated in that part of the brain that is called “the mind.”
If you want reform, therefore, re-form the perceptions you have about who/what you are; if you want change, cast aside your own misperceptions; if you want to bring about peace, bring it about in the only place possible (namely within, not without) and via the only means possible (namely, Full Realization and abidance as the natural state, not by changing others or trying to change an illusory "world").
Would-be physician, heal thyself. How? By reading a thousand books about Realization or Enlightenment or Liberation? No.
It can only happen by using the map provided by a Realized teacher who knows the steps on the “path” in their exact order and who can guide You through the steps on the “path” in the exact order. All else is diversionary nonsense for any seekers who would truly complete the "journey." Please enter into the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
To those who think that their “purpose” is to try to change the world for the better and who cling to an idealized view of a "world" in which everyone loves everyone else, consider the pointers offered by M. in this exchange:
Questioner: Every morning I pick up the newspaper and read with dismay that the world's sorrows—poverty, hatred and wars—continue unabated. My questions are concerning the fact of sorrow, the cause, the remedy. Don't brush me off saying that it is Buddhism! Don't label me. Your insistence on causelessness removes all hope of the world ever changing.
Maharaj: You are confused, because you believe that you are in the world, not the world in you. Who came first...you or your parents? You imagine that you were born at a certain time and place, that you have a father and a mother, a body and a name. This is your sin and your calamity! Surely you can change your world if you work at it. By all means, work. Who stops you? I have never discouraged you. Causes or no causes, you have made this world and you can change it.
Q: A causeless world is entirely beyond my control.
M: On the contrary, a world of which you are the only source and ground is fully within your power to change.
Q: All I want to know is how to deal with the world's sorrows.
M: You have created them out of your own desires and fears. You deal with them. All is due to your having forgotten your own being. Having given reality to the picture on the screen, you love its people and suffer for them and seek to save them. It is just not so.
And later:
M.: You cannot change the course of events, but you can change your attitude, and what really matters is the attitude and not the bare event. The world is the abode of desires and fears. You cannot find peace in it. For peace you must go beyond the world.
So, first, to the desire that everyone love everyone else: to think there is any possibility that all “A’s” can love all “B’s” and vice-versa is duality. Real Love IS; subject-object love is not real, based in duality as it is.
Because there is no separation into “A’s” and “B’s,” then there can be no case in which any “A” can love “B.” It can simply be understood that there are no “A’s” and “B’s” and that Real Love simply IS. Love is, but it is known only when the Oneness is understood.
Next, if you have a notion or belief that you can change the world, you are ignoring one fact pointed to by Maharaj in the quote above that, namely, you are not in the world but that the world is in you—in your “mind”—instead. Furthermore, that belief will generate only misery.
Since all misery is based in desire and or fear (both of which can only be perceived when one or more personas are assumed), the very wanting / desiring to change the world will be a source of misery among those who want / desire to bring about such change.
To confess such a goal is to admit that you cannot be satisfied with things the way they are and that in order for you to finally relax and take it easy is dependent upon "an entire world" changing.
To tie a sense of fulfillment or happiness to an impossible dream is to fail to recognize a dream as a dream and to recognize the impossible as being impossible. Why not visit a pair of rams that are each intent upon bashing the other's brain and yell, "Fellows, stop! Why can't we just all get along?" Why not visit a sociopath and ask, "How about just loving everybody instead of behaving the way you're behaving?"
More revealing, though, is what is implied by one wanting to change the world. What level of arrogance and egotism are evidenced by one who wants to change the world, the very notion itself revealing the fact that you think you know what the world needs, that you know how it should be, and that you know exactly who should change and in what ways in order for each to be “improved” and thereby eventually “improve the world”?
The longer the pure consciousness witnesses personality—which is the driving force among the non-Realized—the clearer it becomes that personality is the bane of the relative existence and that all of the beliefs above about "love" and "changing the world" are rooted in nothing more than personality and the egotism that tries to support personality.
Personality will make persons who have assumed a religious or spiritual persona/identity egotistically believe that they can successfully treat the sociopaths of the world who are generating “sorrows, poverty, hatred and wars” even though trained professionals have almost no history of success at all in their efforts to treat persons with the Psychopath/Sociopath Personality Disorder.
It becomes clearer—the longer that the relative results of personality are witnessed—that only personality can generate a desire or fear; that only personality can set the stage for the triggering of the use of ego-defense mechanisms that manifests alongside every ego-state that is assumed as an identity;
that all misery and suffering is rooted in personality; and that the basic personality types which drive persons are the masks that blind persons and that bind them and that strip away all ability to choose by determining every word that the non-Realized speak, every thought that the non-Realized use their fiction-filled “minds” to think, and every deed that the non-Realized "do."
So find WHO wants to reform, WHO wants to save and rescue, WHO thinks he/she knows things that everyone should know, WHO wants to bring about their idealized views, WHO wants there to only be "love" in order to feel more secure in what is perceived to be “a dangerous world,” WHO would avoid all pain, WHO would control others and lead them to change, and/or WHO would be known as the one who finally brought "peace to the world."
And find WHO erroneously believes that if only the world could be more spiritual, or if only people would all become religious, then “the world's sorrows, poverty, hatred and wars” would end.
If that is your belief, know that the persons who invented and used the torture devices known “the Judas Cradle,” “the Inquisitor’s Chair,” “the Heretic’s Fork,” and “the Virgin of Nuremberg” were all self-proclaimed spiritual and religious people; yet, understand this:
It is impossible to try to “change my mind” or to change the mind of any Realized person since I do not have a mind and since no other Realized person has a mind—it having been realized that “the mind” and its content was fictional, a conglomeration of illusions;
likewise, it is also impossible to try to change the mind of non-Realized persons since they do not have a “mind” either, but they believe they do and they do most assuredly love the concepts and beliefs and learned ignorance and ideas that have been accumulated in that part of the brain that is called “the mind.”
If you want reform, therefore, re-form the perceptions you have about who/what you are; if you want change, cast aside your own misperceptions; if you want to bring about peace, bring it about in the only place possible (namely within, not without) and via the only means possible (namely, Full Realization and abidance as the natural state, not by changing others or trying to change an illusory "world").
Would-be physician, heal thyself. How? By reading a thousand books about Realization or Enlightenment or Liberation? No.
It can only happen by using the map provided by a Realized teacher who knows the steps on the “path” in their exact order and who can guide You through the steps on the “path” in the exact order. All else is diversionary nonsense for any seekers who would truly complete the "journey." Please enter into the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
Now available for those who would attend
“The Advaitin Retreat / Four-Day Satsang with floyd” but cannot do so for time or cost considerations:
Andy Gugar had attended some 10-12 hours of satsang with Floyd and determined at some point that the clear-cut, seven-step path to Realization as presented during the four-day retreats should be accessible to all that might be interested.
As a result of Andy’s vision and his willingness to pay for the necessary recording equipment, the entire retreat is now available via DVD’s or via a downloadable computer file version.
The downloadable file version is available to all and eliminates the expensive shipping costs, especially for international seekers. Currently, editing and production and duplication costs being what they were, only 25 sets of the DVD version are available.
Also as a result of Andy’s support, the first 25 DVD sets ordered will receive a complimentary copy of the “Spirit Journey to Your True Self” CD without charge.
The 4-Disk Video (DVD) Set, or the same retreat available as a downloadable file, 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.
“The Advaitin Retreat / Four-Day Satsang with floyd” but cannot do so for time or cost considerations:
Andy Gugar had attended some 10-12 hours of satsang with Floyd and determined at some point that the clear-cut, seven-step path to Realization as presented during the four-day retreats should be accessible to all that might be interested.
As a result of Andy’s vision and his willingness to pay for the necessary recording equipment, the entire retreat is now available via DVD’s or via a downloadable computer file version.
The downloadable file version is available to all and eliminates the expensive shipping costs, especially for international seekers. Currently, editing and production and duplication costs being what they were, only 25 sets of the DVD version are available.
Also as a result of Andy’s support, the first 25 DVD sets ordered will receive a complimentary copy of the “Spirit Journey to Your True Self” CD without charge.
The 4-Disk Video (DVD) Set, or the same retreat available as a downloadable file, 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.
