THE LEVELS OF WITNESSING: “Personal,” Subject-Object, and Pure, Part Two

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 yesterday]

FROM A SITE VISITOR: f, As If living is the norm now, but occasionally something will be seen that will bring about feelings of outrage. Must be the last stubborn "justice" or "fairness" persona? Mind still exists?

F.:There is something more happening here, however, that is all too typical: as noted on this site time and again, no seeker can complete the entire seven-step “journey” from identification with the false I to an understanding of the Absolute without a willingness to question, meaning…

…to question all beliefs, all ideas, all concepts, all dogma, all so-called spiritual teachings, to question everything one has ever been taught, to question all content of the “mind,” and to challenge every effect of programming and conditioning and acculturation and domestication.

Yet there must come a time when questioning the false ends and the solid assurance of knowing You have finally seen Truth and Reality begins. That is what happens during the post-peripetia period of the manifestation.

However, if the peripetia [see the March 27, 2010 post] has not happened completely—if there is not a 100% conviction that it has all been just so much nonsense and BS—then more questioning and additional investigation and further S-O witnessing and more seeking will happen.

When that happens, there will often be a “stepping back” along the “path” that is induced by one or more ego-states that have not yet been fully abandoned. Fully Realized, there is no requirement for further evidence that there is no Truth to be found in the relative;

that persons are insane; that persons are functioning under the auspices of personality defects, and that—to use Maharaj’s word—there is vast “stupidity” among the non-Realized masses that is observable. If the 100% understanding does not come and is not then transcended, then more and more evidence and examples will be sought.

At the level of Pure Witnessing, there will be no more projecting of one's own ignorance to "others." Yes, the cataloguing of examples of ignorance and insanity must happen on the “journey,” but it must also end at some point.

There is a familial relative who watches the news constantly and points out the ignorance of “others” without seeing her own. She was asked, "How many examples of insanity do you need to witness and repeat until you get it, once and for all…until you know for a fact that such is indeed the warped condition of the masses?"

Again, though, it is fact that such accumulating of evidence of the condition of the masses and all of that witnessing of personality defects and insanity must happen in the earlier stages (which must also include a witnessing of "one's own self / selves" and the defects there as well).

Here’s the way it was explained to one seeker that was just entering into the willingness-to-witness-his-own-ignorance-due-to-programming-stage in addition to the witnessing-of-"their"-ignorance-greed-insanity-stage:

“It means you are beginning to question and therefore beginning to see. You are reviewing the vast quantity of lies and nonsense that you were made to wallow in after having been tossed into “their” pigpen of concepts. Seeing that, witnessing it without a need to react to it, will allow you to be free of belief in all of “their” nonsense.

“In order for the full extent of freedom that awaits You to manifest, however, does not require that you judge anyone, resent anyone, or try to destroy anyone. Quite to the contrary, in fact. When I saw how I had been lied to on every count, the sense of relief and freedom that swelled within me forced laughter to replace the decades of tears and fears that "their" programming had generated. The relief from guilt and dogma and concepts and distortion and ignorance was so well-received that any feelings about the way "their" ideas had imprisoned me fell away.

“I met a man who had been imprisoned in the Hanoi Hilton. When he was released, he was so happy in his new state of freedom that he never wanted to go back there. [See? He did not take steps back along the "path."] He never thought he needed to go back to Vietnam and find again the people who had picked him up after he parachuted into a field near their village so they could once again turn him over to the authorities for additional imprisonment. He was just damn glad to be free.”

At some point, if the full peripetia manifests completely, then You will no longer feel an urge to find more examples of insanity and ignorance and greed and meanness for You will have found your own past insanity and ignorance; witnessing will indeed continue, but insanity and ignorance will be observed without the triggering of emotional intoxication;

You will understand how insanity and ignorance were forced upon you with no choice on your part; will have become free of the influence of insanity and ignorance; and You will then relax into that same joy of being damn glad to be free.

After that, all will happen spontaneously, in a nisarga fashion. It will be AS IF you have walked quietly up to the deer that is lying among the trees and is resting in the cool blue shade, AS IF you have lain beside it, and AS IF you are both merely witnessing without agenda or motive while abiding side-by-side in a most natural fashion.

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.

THE LEVELS OF WITNESSING: “Personal,” Subject-Object, and Pure, Part One

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.

FROM A SITE VISITOR: f, As If living is the norm now, but occasionally something will be seen that will bring about feelings of outrage. Must be the last stubborn "justice" or "fairness" persona? Mind still exists?

F.: First, kudos for use of a tool you were offered when here last year during a retreat: when experiencing emotional intoxication, seek “the WHO,” that is, the persona that thinks it is being hurt or insulted or interfered with or offended or overly-concerned or attached. Find where a desire or a fear or both are involved and find which persona or personas are being driven by desire or fear or egotism or all three.

In this case, has the role of “The One Desiring Justice” been assumed? (By the way, that one would actually hate it if the relative justice he deserves were meted out!) Is “The One Desiring Fairness” truly concerned about the manifestation of universal fairness, or is there an ego-state that thinks it has been treated unfairly (or might soon be)?

So, you might be spot on with the “self”-assessment mentioned in your e-mail, in which case, seeking to uncover the personas at play would be the appropriate undertaking. Until the relative existence happens spontaneously as a result of Reality having been overlaid upon it completely, and until fixed totally in the AS IF mode of living you mention, then those occasions when some “person” feels outraged will call for additional consideration and understanding.

Understand this as well: while the Realized will feel, and will witness feelings as they rise and fall, only ego-states can emote. Understand, too, that Realization does not erase the relative. Understand that the relative still IS even after Reality has been overlaid upon it; yet, whatever happens during the remainder of the manifestation will happen without emotional intoxication. Meaning? When Realized, feelings are felt but “outrage” certainly has a ring of emotional intoxication which indicates, in turn, the assumption of one or more ego-states.

However, there is even more involved as well as much that is misunderstood about all that is involved in such scenarios as you describe and about what is really happening in such instances. It might appear that the Realized can experience outrage. Some conclude that was the case when Maharaj tossed visitors from the loft. Was outrage involved? Was emotional intoxication involved? Not in the least.

For a more complete understanding, consider the levels of witnessing. First, there is the delusion-based form of witnessing (which can be labeled “personal witnessing” for the sake of discussion) where the non-Realized believe that they are persons who are witnessing something.

Next, there is what can be called “level one” witnessing, but even that should happen without emotional intoxication. While it is “level two” witnessing, or Pure Witnessing, that sees the Oneness, it is level one witnessing that is dualistic, subject-object witnessing.

As an example, the deer in the neighborhood here have been seen to run away when they (subject) see a child (object) running toward them, trying to pet them. The teachings do not try to end such S-O witnessing. The teachings merely make clear that (a) whatever appears before the eye is not what it seems to be and that (b) perceptions among the non-Realized about anything in the relative are never accurate.

Next, even as I AM and I AM THAT are "simultaneously" valid (and are actually free of any element of duality since they are "not two") so too shall relative, level one witnessing continue to happen even as Realization has happened. What will not happen is the belief that what is being witnessed in a subject-object manner is what it might appear to be.

To know the Oneness does not suggest that there is some part of the teachings that says:

“If you are Realized and understand the atonement (the ‘at-one-ment’), then a oneness that does not exist should still be acknowledged as Oneness.” If Realized, You understand that You are not at-one-with lies and distortions and warped thoughts and nonsensical words and perverse behaviors.

For example, the teachings would never suggest that the Realized should say, “Throughout this relative existence, I see injustice and an absence of fairness and corruption and warped thinking and personas and phoniness and persons being driven by desire and greed or by fear and by all sorts of distorted behaviors, and I, being at-One with all, am automatically at one with all of that; furthermore, since I am at one with that, I accept it all.”

How could the Realized be at-one-with that which is a mirage? Moreover, the notion that everything in the relative is acceptable is nonsense. If that were the case, why Realize? The notion that “everything in the relative is all good because it is all god” is a double dose of nonsense.

Additionally, the teachings do not suggest that, post-Realization, the Realized do not see nonsense as nonsense, will not know that the unacceptable is unacceptable, and must conclude that mind-noise and insanity and ignorance and arrogance are welcome. They are not welcomed here, and they were not welcomed in the loft.

Therefore, Realization does not suggest that the Pure Consciousness must accept, and even approve of, exposure to relative nonsense that is witnessed. To the contrary, the Pure Consciousness rejects outright the warped, blocked consciousness and rejects outright all of the perverse, relative conduct of those trapped in ego-states (which are always driven by egotism and other ego-defense mechanisms).

It was the Pure Witnessing's rejection of the blocked consciousness—as a result of understanding that the blocked consciousness is the sustainer of all distortions and delusions and false identities and bogus concepts and insane beliefs—which led that Realized speck of pure consciousness called “Maharaj” to expose the illusions of the “mind” and the “mind’s” content for what it is.

For a brief period, the pure consciousness will tolerate the presence of the blocked consciousness if it is seeking to have the blockages removed. If any other agenda is exposed, then the welcome mat will be withdrawn and the location of the exit will be noted.

In addition, while it might have appeared that level one witnessing was happening when persons were sent from the loft, and while it might have appeared that some “Maharaj” (subject) was outraged after observing some “self-important person” (object), such was never the case.

The pure consciousness will only tolerate the presence of blocked consciousness if enough light is seeping through the blockages for the blocked consciousness to understand to at least some degree that it is blocked and is seeking to be unblocked.

Meanwhile, throughout the post-Realization relative existence, level one (S-O) witnessing will continue to happen, but there will never be a belief that the object observed is real or that it is as it appears to be. The pure consciousness differentiates between the true and the false, and even as the relative continues—along with all sorts of relative nonsense—whatever feelings might be generated are witnessed as they rise and fall.

What does not happen among the Realized, though, is any degree of emotional intoxication. The consciousness can only witness and cannot be outraged. What was happening with Maharaj (that speck of pure consciousness) as a visitor was being sent forth from the loft?

That speck was observing it all, just as last night while “floyd” slept, I (the consciousness) watched that sleep as it happened. As it happened, I saw to it that the heart continued to beat, that the lungs continued to contract and expand, and that all other natural functionings of the plant food body continued.

But there was no one doing anything; there was no one emoting about anything; there was no one glad or sad. All was simply being witnessed.

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.

PLEASURE-PAIN vs. BLISS, Part Two, The Conclusion

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.: So, questions and comments in e-mails have revealed that the Nisargan teachings are misunderstood by some in regards to pleasure, pain, misery, suffering, and bliss as well as in terms of how the natural, post-Realization abidance unfolds.

While bliss has to do with the Realization of the nothingness, pleasure has to do with something…with something in the relative existence. The deer that pause in the front yard here can be seen enjoying the pleasure of grazing; they can be seen enjoying the pleasure of shade and rest during the heat of the afternoon;

they have been witnessed while in a clearing in the woods nearby this house as they enjoy the pleasures of sex. All of that is natural, and to avoid that which is natural is unnatural—even when done in the name of being “religious” or “spiritual” or “supernatural”—and is a part of the sickness that is addressed with the Ultimate Medicine.

Abuse yourself with a mace if you like in your efforts to be more religious or spiritual; accept the distorted view that suffering is an asset rather than something unacceptable that is to be addressed and removed and avoided;

eat your bitter herbs or tasteless roots; dip your food in salt water and vinegar; avoid sexual relations; but here, now that natural living is happening spontaneously, the pleasures of succulent meals will be enjoyed:

tasks that are to happen for sustenance shall happen, but the pleasures of rest will also be enjoyed; deprive yourself of the joys of sex if you want, but here, all natural things will continue to happen and be enjoyed.

Consider how truly sick and distorted and insane any teachings or beliefs are if they drive persons to abide in a painful, miserable, pleasureless manner. Functioning in either (A) the unnatural extreme of unfettered hedonism and “self”-indulgence or functioning in

(B) a manner at the opposite extreme of the spectrum that involves total deprivation in the name of being “religious” or “spiritual” or “better” or “better than” or “improved” might be (and is) considered supernatural living by many, but such a manner of living will not be considered natural by the sane and sound and stable and Realized.

Unnatural and supernatural living will only be mistakenly seen as a natural means of living by those functioning under the auspices of a warped mind and warped personas that are driven by personality (or personalities) and by the defects and disorders that personality always generates.

Finally, understand that pleasure and pain and misery and suffering and bliss are the “stuff” of NOW only—the “stuff” of the limited period of manifestation during the relative existence—and the relative existence will happen in a natural manner if Reality is overlaid upon it.

To make clear, there will be no post-manifestation pleasure or pain or misery or suffering or bliss. NOW, is the only time that pleasures can be enjoyed in a non-destructive and non-self-destructive fashion among the sane and stable;

NOW is the time that misery and suffering can be eliminated if you take the Ultimate Medicine that dissolves the "mind" but leaves the brain and consciousness and natural instincts in tact so that natural, spontaneous abidance can happen;

And NOW is the only time that the bliss can be understood. To that end, here are some pointers offered previously about bliss, which is probably misunderstood more than any of the other teachings:

Bliss is freedom from all thoughts

Bliss is a no-need state, a state where no needs are felt at any time, where nothing is useful for anything (Maharaj)

Bliss is being free of desires and fears though natural drives such as thirst and hunger and sex will continue to happen

Bliss is compatibility with nature, observable when freedom from anxiety and tension and discontentment are gone and when there is no drive or desire to harm or kill (be it birds or animals or pets or frogs or crickets or humans or entire species or entire races or all of the members of a religion that is not one’s own)

Bliss is freedom from the false sense of being split, divided, separated, incomplete

As Louise wrote: Bliss is what follows having been immersed in this “River of Truth”; bliss is having been exposed to the “bubbles of dissolution” that allow for identification with the nothingness until even that identity falls away; bliss is “the absence of the filter of a suffering individual”

Bliss is abiding as that original, natural state without any “trace of an individual”

Maharaj taught: “To know one's Real Self is bliss” and “Bliss is more of the nature of a great peace”

Maharaj said, “Don't say that you are an individual; just stay in the beingness. The whole problem is the sense of being a separate entity. Once that subsides, that is true bliss”

Bliss is not continuous, rapturous joy and has nothing to do with “birth and rebirth” or with cycle-after-cycle or “being better” or “getting better” or “being more and more pure”

Bliss is being Love while also being nothing.

Please enter the silence of contemplation.

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.

PLEASURE-PAIN vs. BLISS, Part One

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.:Recently, a couple of questions were received regarding what the teachings have to say about pleasure and pain and bliss. One lengthy e-mail boiled down to the confusion around the Advaita pointer that “pleasure leads to pain” on one hand and comments about “Realization leading to bliss” on the other.

In another letter received last month, a man promoted abstinence as opposed to the Nisarga / natural style of functioning that is offered here. (Later, he would contradict himself and promote "tantric sex.")

His writings exposed (1) debilitating levels of angst and strum und drang and distortion around sexuality in general, (2) much confusion around “his sex and love experiences,” and (3) a near-total misunderstanding of what post-Realization, natural living looks like, specifically.

He, too, has failed to grasp the differences in pleasure and bliss, the differences in suffering and misery vs. pain, and the difference in pre-Realization living vs. post-Realization, Nisargan (natural) abidance.

So, to clarify: pain is of the body, that is, it is a sensation which can be experienced by a plant food body. To continue with Maharaj’s teachings that science and the Advaita teachings are not only compatible but that science can facilitate the understanding, understand this:

At the nerve endings in the skin, the pain process begins as a neuron sends a signal toward the spinal cord where that signal connects with nearby neurons and eventually connects via a synapse to a second-order neuron that rises to the thalamus. The thalamus forwards the pain signal through fibers that reach the cortex, which results in the brain being conscious of pain.

As long as the consciousness is manifested in a body-cum-consciousness, then pain can be experienced. Nerves and skin and neurons and cords and the brain and fibers and pain are all natural. Conversely, misery and suffering are the product of the “mind,” which is totally unnatural.

Here is the distinction as offered in prior posts: “Consciousness is rooted in the Absolute; the brain is rooted in the elements; the ‘mind’ is rooted in wrong programming and faulty conditioning and lies and concepts and ideas and superstitions and falsehoods.”

To the estimated five million to one-hundred million species on the planet, add in also all of the species that have come and gone, then know this: only one of all of the species that have come and gone, and only one species among the millions that presently exist, has ever developed a “mind.”

That fact alone should make clear that the “mind” is most unnatural. What is “natural”? Specifically, that which is natural is defined as “that which exists in, or is in conformity with, nature—which is neither supernatural nor magical.”

So pain requires the presence of elemental nerves and an elemental brain and manifest consciousness if it is to be sensed; misery and suffering, conversely, require the presence of a “mind,” which is merely the conglomeration of all of the false ideas and beliefs and concepts and attitudes and identities that are taught via programming and conditioning.

Now, to the pleasure-pain conundrum. The teaching is that whatever leads to pleasure can lead to pain and that whatever gives the most pleasure will often produce the most pain. (Consider such pain as that associated with AIDS or other diseases that are transmitted when an elemental body is experiencing physical pleasure and can later experience physical pain).

That all deals with the elemental body and brain and consciousness only. (If unconscious, a doctor can cut open your chest, remove your heart, insert another in its place, and you will feel nothing at all, if not conscious.)

Contrast that with the teaching that whatever leads to pleasure can lead to misery and suffering and that whatever gives the most pleasure will often produce the most misery and suffering.

In that case, considering the earlier pointer that “misery and suffering are the product of the ‘mind,’ which is totally unnatural,” it should be seen that the teaching in the second case refers to the miserable, relative results that can manifest when being driven by the desires and fears generated by the warped content of the “mind.”

Thus, pain can be quite natural (unless self-inflicted) whereas misery and suffering and anything that is thought to be “supernatural or magical” are all totally unnatural. So, to the several that e-mailed about that part of the discussion:

pain can be natural when it occurs in an elemental body; can be unnatural if self-induced; and can be unnatural if potentially-threatening pleasures are engaged in—in ignorance—after having been warned of the relative dangers or in the ignorance of having no awareness of the relative dangers.

Suffering and misery, on the other hand, are a product of the content of the "mind." As long as the consciousness is manifested, it will register pain on occasion. If suffering and misery are to be eliminated, then the attachment to the content of the “mind” must be eliminated.

Tomorrow, the differences in “pleasure” and “bliss” will be discussed along with what is natural about both.

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.

WHY EVEN THE MOST DILIGENT SEEKERS SELDOM “GET IT” AND “HANG ONTO IT” UNEQUIVOCALLY, Part Two, The Conclusion

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.:Why does the pattern with most seekers move from “I’ve got it! I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” to “Oh no—I don’t have it!”?

Maharaj said:

“You are so used to the support of concepts that when your concepts leave you, although it is your true state, you get frightened and try to cling to them again.”

Yesterday, this was offered for consideration:

Most persons will remain asleep for the entirety of the manifestation; (b) a few seekers will awaken partially; but (c) few among will awaken fully and then remain fully awake for the remainder of the manifestation.

Two obstacles are involved that lead to "getting it" but not being able to "hang onto it":

1. Even when persons discover that someone lied about one issue, they do not conclude that the rest of what they are told by the same source might also be a lie; or

2. even as seekers see multiple lies from multiple sources of influence or from many sources throughout their culture or throughout history, they waste their effort by seeking to discount one lie at a time rather than experiencing that moment of peripetia and then abandoning piecemeal investigations and mini-realizations, and concluding accurately once and for all: “My gosh! It’s all a lie!”

As an example of point #1: in cultures around the globe, prevaricating parents are joined by relatives and friends and neighbors and their entire culture when they lie to their children about there really being a “Santa Claus” or “St. Nicholas” or “Pere Noel” or “Julemanden” or “Sinterklaas.”

All of the adults telling that tale know that they are lying, but they tell the lie anyway. If they are questioned by a child that is becoming suspicious or that is hearing older children exposing the lie, the parents and relative and friends and neighbors and their society will often assure the child for another year or two that the lie is truth.

Yet when the parents finally admit that it was not true, they never see it as a lie or as one of the earliest traumas to which children are subjected. They upgrade it to “a wonderful fantasy,” “a tale that gave you a lot of fun and pleasure,” or “a morality lesson”:

“Okay, there’s no Santa in another place who can see you every minute, even though you can’t see him. And there’s no Santa who knows if you’re being good or bad and who will only give you gifts if you’re good.

“But see, we told you that story so you would know that there really is a man—actually, a male god—that’s in another place and he can see you every minute, even though you can’t see him. And he knows if you’re being good or bad and he will only reward you with gifts if you’re good.”

So the child takes that explanation and dismisses the earlier conclusion that her / his parents are liars and sees them as some kind of play-actors who were just having a little fun with the child’s naiveté.

The child at that early age does not have the reasoning skills to consider, “Hey, I wonder if it’s possible that the second story is also a lie? In fact, I have to wonder now if anything they tell me is true." No, the naïve child moves right along throughout the relative existence after having been taught that some lies are okay.

And someday, that child will probably tell the same lie to his / her child and will also program children to believe that some lies which adults tell children are okay; furthermore, the child will usually take every piece of misinformation that is told as truth by parents and society and will eventually repeat it all as truth as well.

Maharaj addressed the effects of such lying:
"After the information given to you by the mother, that you are a boy or girl, all your further acquisitions are by hearsay."

As an example of point #2: seekers who are able to see the deceit involved with certain ideas they have been taught about body or mind or personality identification can shift to the religious or spiritual level…the third of seven steps from identification with the body to an understanding of the Absolute.

Yet most will fixate there at the third level, ending the "journey" to Full Realization before it even reaches the halfway point.

Maharaj said:
“When the birth is disproved, the great noble meaning of spirituality and the meaning of this world—everything—is disproved.”

Yet the few wary seekers that begin to question religious tales and spiritual tales that are taught throughout their culture can spend years looking at one lie at a time. They will enter into research and investigation and they might find that what Moses wrote was a pack of plagiarized myths (a.k.a., lies):

Five hundred years before Moses, there was a god of a pagan religion who was named Ram. The mythical account that Moses heard and plagiarized reported that Ram lived underground, having not fully pleased the gods; was called forth by superior gods to free some of their chosen people in captivity; led them across a desert; used a magic stick to tap rocks and produce water; survived on food dropped by the gods from heaven; and after decades of wandering, led them to a “land of milk, honey, and wine”; however, Ram could not stay with them in that land, having not fully pleased the gods, and was ordered back to his underground lair.

After reading that, some might exclaim, “Oh my gosh! That was all a lie. I wondered how people who had been beaten down during enslavement could survive forty years of wandering in a desert, especially on a journey that should have only taken a month or so by direct route.

“And I wondered how it could be that a god who could guide a man to Egypt and through a hostile encounter with a pharoah could not also guide the man directly to the land that was promised. What was the purpose of wasting forty years of their lives?”

And then, “Hey, wait a minute! The average lifespan of poor people back then wasn’t forty years total! Oh my gosh! Another lie!” As the seeker engages in more and more research, it is seen that there is not a single piece of historical evidence that the Jews were freed from Egyptian captivity and led anywhere.

So with the uncovering of the story of Ram and with the exposure of Moses as a plagiarist, one idea that was taught and believed is discarded. Then, the typical seeker moves along to the next lie to question and investigate and discard.

Becoming trapped in that strategy, many seekers will spend the remainder of the relative manifestation ticking off one lie at a time rather than coming to the realization that it is all a lie, all delusion, all distortion...all as fictional as the Santa Claus tale.

Maharaj said:

“The world is nothing but the picture of your own 'I' consciousness”

and that applies to every idea and concept and belief about "the world."

He said:
“When you are thoroughly knowledgeable, you will come to the conclusion that this beingness is also an illusion”

and

“I have no faith in anything which has ever been told, not even what has been told by the Vedas. Only my own experience.”

As long as you still give credibility to so much as a single role, a single personality, a single concept, a single belief, a single idea, a single piece of dogma, a single spirituality-based teaching reported to be an expression of truth, then even the most diligent seeker who might experience even a fleeting glimpse of Reality or who might realize even the slightest hint of Truth or who might uncover hundreds or thousands of fabrications and falsehoods and deception will never fixate as the Absolute or as that which is beyond beingness and non-beingness.

Maharaj said:
“Go to zero concepts”

Only if attachment to any and all beliefs and concepts are discarded can the seeker understand Truth and abide therein and finally start functioning naturally, freed of all supernatural beliefs and concepts.

Maharaj:
"Whatever spiritual things you aspire to know are all happening in this objective world, in the illusion. All this is happening in the objective world. All is dishonesty. There is no truth in this fraud."

Please enter the silence of contemplation.

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.

WHY EVEN THE MOST DILIGENT SEEKERS SELDOM “GET IT” AND “HANG ONTO IT” UNEQUIVOCALLY, Part One

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.: Most persons will never seek any understanding that would go beyond that which they presently believe. A few will actually seek, but even among those, few will ever truly grasp the full understanding.

That is, (a) most persons will remain asleep for the entirety of the manifestation; (b) a few seekers will awaken partially; but (c) only a very few among the small number of those that do seek will experience that moment of peripetia (see below) and awaken fully and then remain fully awake for the remainder of the manifestation.

With the moment of peripetia, it becomes clear that it has all been nothing more than much ado about nothing, that it was all just so much relative nonsense, that it was all just one big conglomeration of delusion, illusion, and distortion.

If it is fully understood that it has all been just so much delusion, illusion, and distortion, then it would all be devalued, it would all be discarded, it would all be rejected until nothing—the Nothingness—remains. And once discarded, truly discarded, it would never be picked up again.

After that point, what kind of “living” could possibly happen, other than a nisarga, natural mode? How could spontaneous functioning not replace completely any previous forms of living that involved dogma or practices or exercises, if the Truth has truly been seen absolutely? It would, and it does, and then even the "seeing of Truth" and "Realizing" and "being enlightened" have no value.

[Does the naturally-abiding deer gave a whit about "seeing Truth" and "Realizing" and "being enlightened"? No. It is only persons that must seek all of that, but once found, it too is valueless. There is no clinging to or valuing the paper towel that has cleaned up a mess. Once that which was to happen with the paper towel has happened, there is nothing else to be done with the towel. It is discarded, never to be picked up again. The exception: if a person has a mess that needs cleaning up but is not aware that paper towels are available, then that fact might be shared; hence, those cases whereby the consciousness speaks via what some call "A Realized Teacher."]

In the post-peripetia and post-Full Awakening and post-Full Realization period, all that was going on prior to that point comes abruptly to an end. No identity is left, and functioning happens under the auspices of the same pure consciousness that moves deer to do what deer do and that moves acorns to do what acorns do.

The moment of peripetia was discussed in an excerpt from the novel THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF WARS, a passage shared earlier on this site and now posted on several other Advaita sites:

“You seem at peace in the middle of this chaos. I want that peace,” Brett almost demanded.

“Brett, you’ve been shown the answer all your life. It was there for you to see in every play, in every movie, in every mystery you’ve ever read. Shakespeare borrowed the dramatic technique from the Greeks,” Kirk began. “Today, it’s the basis of all mystery and suspense stories, and it’s also the basis of realization.”

“I’m lost,” Brett confessed.

“Well look at every drama you’ve ever seen. The main character, who represents you and me and everyone, runs around like a chicken with its head cut off. He is confused and in the dark. Those who are in a position to sit back and witness the drama objectively can see that he’s just an actor on the stage and that none of the drama is real. But for entertainment’s sake, he and the witnesses can pretend it’s real. Both, in fact, can get so absorbed in the role that they take it to be the real for a time.

“But even amidst all of the drama, a time comes, that moment in the play when even the actor finds out the truth. It is called the peripetia in drama—that moment in the play or the movie when the lead actor finds out that everything he thought to be true is really false; when he sees that he was being misled at every turn; when those he thought he could trust the most, and who thought they were telling him the truth, were also wrong.

“It’s the moment of freedom that comes when one finds out that everything he ever thought or believed or held sacred (or thought worth fighting for) was a lie. The freedom comes when he gives up all of the concepts he bought into, drops his head in relief and amazement, shakes his head back and forth, wonders for a moment at how he had bought into all their crap, smiles at how easily he was duped, watches how all of the rest of the play unfolds automatically until its end, and leaves the stage after saying to himself, ‘Well, sonofabitch. I’ll be damned.’ And then he laughs. He laughs at it all. And then he’s done with it, once and for all.”

Now, you are invited to consider the pointers in the passage, maybe even using pen and paper as you review the excerpt and writing a note about every point offered that you could relate to if you were to study objectively the way each pointer can be applied to your relative experiences. List what applies to you. Then, list what applies to You.

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

For those who read the Advaita-based novel The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders, The Board of Directors of Wars is the sequel. This summary is from the book link on Amazon.com:

This sweeping epic uncovers a half-century of entertainment, murder and mysterious deaths involving politicians, starlets, billionaires and royals. Celebrity scandals linked by sex, sin and assassination also share a connection with international governments, corrupt businessmen, organized crime and organized religion, but certain coded messages must be deciphered first to expose the truth. When Kirk Wildman travels to southern Italy to conduct a routine deathbed interview of an Italian man, he has no clue of his ties to a multi-continent organization that has manipulated global events and shaped world history for decades. Thus he stumbles blindly into the crossfire between a man ready to expose a group's past and that group's willingness to kill any who interfere with their newest plans to trigger World War III.

M.E. Tran said, “The Board of Directors of Wars struck me as The DaVinci Code meets 'The Most Mysterious Deaths of the Last Fifty Years'.”

In the end, the novel is Advaita-based, offering such pointers as in the excerpt above and an overall message that exposes the primary sources of disharmony on earth while also offering an “experiential” urging or subtle invitation to find “the separate peace” that is only available via Full Realization and that is only available to one seeker at a time.

The novel offers readers the opportunity to "experience" first-hand the effects that come when living under the influence of governments, big business, religion, and the other unnatural, supernatural, and criminal forces evidenced in any objective study of the history of most cultures during the last several thousand years on the planet.

(For more information about the novel, you may click the picture)

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.

SILENCE AND TRUTH vs. NOISE AND DECEPTION, Part Four, The Conclusion

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.: How “persons” (“the non-Realized” or “those identified with ego”) abhor the silence; therefore, they seldom ever find Truth because Truth can only be accessed during the silence.

The Truth might set persons free—from beliefs, concepts, ideas, and false identities—but how the non-Realized hate the truth in the meantime, clinging firmly to the false and to all that the false supports. Consider a sampling of lines from a few poems dealing with the subject of silence to see the attitude that the masses have regarding the quiet:

From James Adair’s “Silent Echoes”: “Silence makes my heart break.”

From Erica German’s “Silence”: “Silence is the deepest cut…silence is the thing that’ll make you cry.”

From Mayra Cespedes in “Silence, Part III”: “Silence is what I fear.”

From Nyki Thomas in “Silence”: “Silence tells me of my failures and lets me have no pleasures.”

Persons do detest the silence, seeking to use noise to try to drown out the blaring noise of the mind; to try to convince others to accept their beliefs; to try to control people; to try to show how much knowledge they have accumulated;

to try to fabricate and support false images and roles; and to try to treat anxiety by chattering away in what is not a “stream of consciousness” manner but in a stream of unconsciously-verbalized nonsense.

The more one talks, the more evidence there is that the person is completely trapped in the restlessness that leaves persons finding the silence to be completely intolerable.

And the more words that persons hear, and the more that persons repeat what was heard, the more that lies are disseminated around the globe. Why so? (1) Because talk—verbalized mind-speak—is the language of the lie; the silence is the non-language of the Truth; and (2) because the Truth, which can be known, cannot be spoken.

Consider what has been spoken over the ages as well as more recently:

“Lightning and thunder are expressions of the anger that is being felt by a god in another world that controls everything in this world”;

“The great, worldwide flood that killed every human on the planet except for the members of one family was divine punishment, an instrument of God’s anger”;

“Women today suffer during their periods because Eve misled Adam and drove him to sin”;

“Having dark skin is a sign of God’s displeasure with those people who are descendants of Adam and Eve’s evil son Cain”;

“God wants homosexuals killed”;

“New Orleans was flooded during Hurricane Katrina because of the negative karma of the people there”;

“God is pleased when we kill ourselves in the process of killing people of other religions”;

“Love your rapist and use as your mantra, ‘It’s all good…it’s all god’.”

“All life is precious, embryos must be protected by law, abortion is evil, but I do support capital punishment”;

“God says ‘thou shalt not kill,’ but that has nothing to do with the fact that I voted for the war and for annihilating people in other countries by carpet bombing them out of existence.”

The examples of ignorance and insanity and falsehoods that are spread by talk are endless, and as long as myth-based talk and mind-speak and the verbalization of ignorance continues, then the only thing that can prevail is what Maharaj pointed to when he said, “This is our stupidity, verging on insanity.”

The masses are suffering from the mental illness referred to on this site as “mythomania,” still believing even today in the outrageous and irrational superstitions that were dreamed up 5000 years ago by ignorant persons who claimed that natural events are really supernatural events being controlled by supreme beings residing in another world.

As long as the focus is on beliefs based in that which is not real, how can there ever be any chance at all to understand that which is Real? Drive along a highway and focus on the rainbow overhead and see what the result is when a collision with other vehicles happens. Stand in the desert for days admiring the mirages and see what happens to the skin that is burned by the rays of the sun.

While the Realized enjoy a natural affinity for the silence, in most cultures nowadays the silence must be guarded. Is it “cold” to refuse to listen to an ego-state that is talking time and again about a particular fear concerning what might happen or what is happening? Is it cold to refuse to listen to an ego-state that wants to talk constantly about a thwarted desire?

Is it cold to refuse to listen to persons who are convinced that mirages are real and who want you to join in with them as they commiserate about what has supposedly happened to an illusory ego-state?

Is it sane to engage in a conversation with a barren woman about what has been going on recently in the life of her son? What is spoken, and said to be the truth, is false by default. There is the banal noise of non-reality or the deep silence of reality.

Maharaj: When you understand that names and shapes are hollow shells without any content whatsoever, and what is real is nameless and formless, pure energy of life and light of consciousness, you will be at peace - immersed in the deep silence of reality.

There is a one-to-one correlation between silence and Truth, between noise and deception, and between talk and distortion. May You find peace in the deep silence of Reality.

Please enter the silence of contemplation.

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.