THE INVISIBLE NET OF DESIRES AND FEARS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE FALSE SELF. PART 3– SITE CO-HOST: LOUISE STERLING

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.

Nothing is wrong with you, but the ideas you have of yourself are altogether wrong. It is not you who desires, fears and suffers, it is the person built on the foundation of your body by circumstances and influences. You are not that person. – Nisargadatta Maharaj

Observe yourself. Can you discern the desires and fears that drive your primary persona? Can you see the constantly fluctuating desires and fears that give apparent life to the multitude of roles you play?

To repeat, Maharaj says: It is not you who desires, fears and suffers, it is the person built on the foundation of your body. So – if you are not the person who desires, fears and suffers, who is? The person he is referring to is the false self – a construction built out of a network of desires and fears, all imagined and designed to protect, preserve and reinforce this false identity. Many seekers, trapped at the level of personality identification, are so entranced that they are unable to discern the personas at play, or the desires and fears that fuel them. To them the false self “feels” natural and normal, just as the conditioned kitten may feel natural and normal behaving like a dog.

Interestingly for the Advaitin seeker, there is a tool that can assist with the identification of the primary persona and its debilitating influence. The tool of the Enneagram identifies nine main personality types or false selves and pinpoints the primary desire and fear that motivates each type with uncanny accuracy. As Floyd explains: The first false self that will be adopted as a persona develops in reaction to exposure to various abnormal circumstances. That earliest persona will be one of the nine most basic personality types, such as “The Helper,” “The Performer,” “The Boss” or “The Peacemaker.” Later, so many roles will be assumed as identities that most persons of adult age cannot even begin to make a complete list of all the personas they have adopted.

The Advaitin seeker can make use of the Enneagram to make the invisible net of desires and fears and the hidden conditioned influences visible. When the earliest or primary personality is deconstructed, the seeker, with detachment, is able to see how the relative life has been spent robotically driven by the winds of these desires and fears. In this way, the seeker can observe that the desires and fears and suffering are of the person and not the Real Self. Once this tool is understood, it is not difficult to identify the remaining parade of personas or “crowd of changeable fools” with their clamouring attractions and aversions. Entranced by personality, you are being controlled by this crowd of fools anyway; far more useful to get to know what makes these personas “tick”, so that their reactive patterning while still in place can be witnessed with detachment, rather than acted out with intoxication.

[Note: while we refer here to “seeker” – this too is a persona/false self that will be eliminated; however, often it is the last to go, after the more primary personas are seen and abandoned]

Remember, within the context of these Teachings, there is no suggestion to fix or improve any personas, as is the bread and butter of the personal development movement. Since the personas represent the false self, the invitation is to watch with keen observation, and simply witness the false personas, with the knowledge that this is not who you are. When they are seen directly as phantom roles born out of adaptive behaviour and conditioning, they lose their power, and like whisps of smoke, they dissipate.

Maharaj reminds you: Realize that whatever you think yourself to be is just a stream of events; that while all happens, comes and goes, you alone are, the changeless among the changeful, the self-evident among the inferred. Separate the observed from the observer and abandon false identifications.

Can you see that the so-called hopes, dreams and experiences of each role are just a random collection of memories and thoughts that provoke patterned behaviour, giving the appearance of reality? What are these memories, thoughts, impressions when they are not collected or grouped around a central organizing point? As Maharaj explains, there is just a stream of events. You are the silent witness of these dramas and comedies, the highs and lows of relative life. You are not the person who plays the part. Remind yourself again and again: the person who desires, fears and suffers – that is not you.

To be continued.

Please enter the silence of contemplation.

For extending teaching on the Advaitan Understanding – and the removal of the false that obscures Your Real Nature, see the links on the right hand side of this blog. Seekers trapped in personality identification may find an Ennegram reading of assistance. See the option: Understanding Your Personality By Using the Enneagram (scroll through the services offered at The Official Website of Floyd Henderson)

Comments / clarifications may be sent to louise.advaita@gmail.com

THE INVISIBLE NET OF DESIRES AND FEARS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE FALSE SELF. PART 2– SITE CO-HOST: LOUISE STERLING

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.

You will recognize that you have returned to your natural state by a complete absence of all desire and fear. After all, at the root of all desire and fear is the feeling of not being what you are. Just as a dislocated joint pains only as long as it is out of shape, and is forgotten as soon as it is set right, so is all self-concern a symptom of mental distortion which disappears as soon as one is in the normal state. – Nisargadatta Maharaj

The suffering individual, the seeker who desires to find, the earnest academic and scholar – all these are examples of the false self characterized by the net (however refined) of desires and fears. The self in pain (or pleasure), fractured by duality, is like the pain of the dislocated joint. How do you become free? Find where you are attached. What do you long for? What are your afraid of? What are the invisible desires and fears you are reluctant to relinquish? What are the appearances you seek to preserve?

In the absence of realization or Self-knowledge, you believe you are continuous. This sense of being a person with all its attributes appears to persist. You imagine that you have watched yourself “evolve” or “develop” over time. You are sure that this mind-body-personality entity is who you are, a fixed reality. Not true. These ideas are all fiction; a collection of beliefs glued together to shape an identity, like grains of sand stuck together to create a manikin of sand. You are simply regurgitating the tale spun by others and rote learned by you, just as you recite other tales. What you think you perceive is filtered by your beliefs. When you believe you are a limited person, bound by the beliefs of body, mind and personality identification, then this is how the world appears to you – an external world populated by persons including the separate individual you think you are.

However, this false self or image does not actually hold up under examination …because it is not real. The Advaitan Teachings invite you to examine and question all of the tales spun by you about your identity (tales originally spun by society’s spin doctors.) What do you know for sure? Even what you believe is the fact of your birth is second-hand knowledge. Do you have absolute proof that this sense “I Am” came into being with the birth of the physical body – and that it is unique to that physical body? Just because your parents and the society sprout this perspective does not make it true. And that unique sense of self that you think learns, develops, evolves, becomes smarter and more refined – is this who you are? At the level of mind and personality, are you simply this collection of attributes (book learning, preferences, desires and fears) – changeable, temporary and inconstant? At the level of the body, are you this limited temporary physical body that persists only from babyhood to adulthood to old age?

Another line of questioning is offered by Maharaj: Of course the self based on memory is momentary. But such self demands unbroken continuity behind it. You know from experience that there are gaps when your self is forgotten. What brings it back to life? What wakes you up in the morning? There must be some constant factor bridging the gaps in consciousness. If you watch carefully you will find that even your daily consciousness is in flashes, with gaps intervening all the time. What is in the gaps? What can there be but your real being, that is timeless; mind and mindlessness are one to it.

Once this line of dispassionate questioning begins, it will not cease. The spell or hypnotic trance of self-identity is broken not by finding answers – but by questioning and eliminating all answers. Remember the advice offered yesterday -- The old grooves must be erased in the brain, without forming new ones. You cannot know the answer to who you are; but you can know all that you are not.

This fine-tuned enquiry or investigation is not the preserve of the academic and learned or those who claim “spiritual wisdom”. The realized state is freely available to all who seek. Yet not many are willing to pay the price --which is relinquishing this precious notion of individual selfhood and the desires and fears that create the appearance of a unique self.

To be continued.

Please enter the silence of contemplation.

For extending teaching on the Advaitan Understanding – and the removal of the false that obscures Your Real Nature, see the links on the right hand side of this blog or go directly to the Advaitan ebook series at The Official Website of Floyd Henderson )


Comments / clarifications may be sent to louise.advaita@gmail.com

THE INVISIBLE NET OF DESIRES AND FEARS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE FALSE SELF. PART 1– SITE CO-HOST: LOUISE STERLING

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.

The Advaitan teachings tell you that you do not need to change, improve, get, obtain, acquire, transform, metamorphize. All action takes you further away from your true self. How can you improve what is beyond improvement? How can you change what is beyond change? How can you obtain what you already are? All that is required is to remove the false, the layers of conditioned muck that obscure your already present true nature. It is like the kitten raised with a litter of puppies and that believes it is a dog. The kitten may mimic dog-like behaviour; it may attempt to “bark” at strangers or chew on a bone. However this conditioned sense of being a dog and the mimicked behaviours are false. The kitten does not need to do anything to be a kitten. This is already its identity. All that is required is the removal of the false conditioning that obscures its real identity.

While there may be resonance with these teachings, with layers of conditioning in place, statements like these can simply seem like irritants; pieces of jargon that are useless to the personally identified seeker. How then can the seeker understand, when the reality that is pointed to seems so inaccessible and remote?

Listen carefully – the instructions offered are crystal clear: all that is required is the removal of the false – the false ideas you have about yourself. Accept that the false ideas you hold are extensive – layer after layer of deeply cherished beliefs or uninvestigated concepts. How then to “get at” these concepts, to find the hidden or invisible beliefs?

Maharaj says: “Self-interest and self-concern are the focal points of the false. Your daily life vibrates between desire and fear. Watch it intently and you will see how the mind assumes innumerable names and shapes, like a river foaming between the boulders. Trace every action to its selfish motive and look at the motive intently till it dissolves. Discard every self-seeking motive as soon as it is seen and you need not look for truth; truth will find you.”

In other words, an invisible net of self-centred desires and fears are what construct the false self, this mistaken notion of identity. Your parents (the first teachers in the society) teach you language (dualistic and separative by definition) and then use this language to bottle, shape, define and confine you. You are told you are a person confined to a physical body and defined by gender, culture, race, religion, social and economic class, nationality. Further, as you develop a personality to survive the family environment, the traits, preferences and quirks you exhibit become further bars on the confining prison of self-constructed identity. (Yet, even amongst the non-realized there is always the sense of this self as temporary, shifting, unstable because it is false, constructed – the not real.) In this way the movement of desire and fear takes root. Desires motivated by attraction and greed seek to bolster this fictional identity by reinforcing, entrenching, solidifying, and improving. On the other hand, fears motivated by aversion and terror seek to shelter, protect and preserve the false self. Like the programming on a mainframe computer, this invisible data stream of desires and fears runs constantly, delineating this non-existent centre as special, different and separate from the river of life.

According to Maharaj, this is the function of the Guru – to tell you that your conditioned beliefs about your identity are not true and to offer you pointers to your actual identity – formless, borderless, changeless, limitless, beyond birth and death.

So, reverse the threads that trap you in the net of fears and desires. Examine those falsehoods taught to you early on, and unhook from them. Ask yourself:

• What if you are not a person?
• What if you are not confined to a physical body?
  
• What if you have no gender, culture, race, religion, social and economic class, nationality?
• What if you are not your personality and its traits and preferences and quirks?
• What if desires are superfluous – for in reality you lack nothing?
• What if fears are not necessary – for there is no separate self to protect?

These radical statements are thorns used to remove the false sense you have about yourself. As Maharaj says: "You must give yourself time to brood over these things. The old grooves must be erased in the brain, without forming new ones. You must realize yourself as the immovable, behind and beyond the movable, the silent witness of all that happens."

Brood on what you are not. Examine yourself, your beliefs and your fears and desires ceaselessly. Abandon the futile attempt of applying your "mind" to the beliefs individually. Accept that NONE of these beliefs are true; they are ALL false lies that make up the bars of your cage. Reflect on the unanswerable question: When all that is false is removed, What remains?

To be continued.

Please enter the silence of contemplation.

(For extending teaching on the Advaitan Understanding – and the removal of the false that obscures Your Real Nature, see the links on the right hand side of this blog.)

Comments / clarifications may be sent to louise.advaita@gmail.com

WILLING TO DIE, Part Five, 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.

[Please visit tomorrow when site co-host Louise will be posting.]

FROM A SITE VISITOR: Thanx for the joint series -- right on. Speaking of stupid or insane, I have been hearing talk for years now (I’m in the U.S.) of people being “willing to die for their country.” Qualifies as insane doesn’t it?

F.: So, let it be concluded, relatively speaking, that all talk by the non-Realized about “being willing to die” is nonsense, all based in programming and conditioning and persona-assumption and acculturation.

Why is such talk so pervasive? Because (with the exception of a few pockets of sanity) the earth is now a logic-and-rationality-free zone. So many are willing to die (and, therefore, willing to kill) for “their causes” (while having no ability to understand the cause / causes of anything).

What is the understanding regarding “death” (and even “birth”) among the Realized? Maharaj said, “My true state, which is whole, undifferentiated, is beyond birth and death. I am never bound by my body and mind. I am limitless” and “When you are thoroughly knowledgeable, you will come to the conclusion that this beingness is also an illusion.”

In the book FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE, which identifies the seven steps from identification with the false I to abidance as the Absolute, the following is offered early on in order to allow persons to begin to sense that there is "something" beyond the body (which persons erroneously believe was created, born, lives, and dies) "something" that has the ability to be aware of ItSelf as well as an ability to witness what presently is while knowing that What Is is not anything that is witnessed phenomenally:

“The Arms-Legs-Organs” Consideration can help people become free of the limiting, false belief that they are the body. Of the various self-concepts that block most humans from Realizing Who We Truly Are, body identification is the most basic and least sophisticated identity. Belief that one is the body preempts engagement in Self-Inquiry and—unless transcended—will prevent one from ever coming to know THAT Which We Absolutely Are. I offer the consideration now to you: If you were to lose your right arm, would You still be You? You would still be You, right, even without that arm? If you were to lose your left arm, would You still be You? You would still be You, even without that arm…correct? If you were to lose your left leg, would You still be You? You would still be You, right, even without that leg? If you lose your other leg, wouldn't You still be You? You would still be You, right, even without that leg? Would You still be You if you have a heart transplant? You would still be You, yes? If you have a lung transplant, are You still You? You would still be You, right, even without your original lung or your original heart? And if you looked into your own eyes in a mirror, wouldn't You still know that You are You, even though your physical body is only a shadow of what it once was? Then...Who Are You? Who or What You Truly Are must be something beyond the physical body.

If more than half of what most consider to be “you” were to be lost, Who Is That You that remains? Moreover, Who is that You that is sensing that You would still be You, and would still be complete, even after the loss of four body appendages and the replacement of two original organs?

Past Site Contributor Dennis Waite put it this way “...We can each lose bits of our bodies and even go blind or deaf, yet 'we' remain. Similarly, we are not the thoughts or emotions, which come and go. We are not the mind - we continue to exist even when its operation ceases during deep sleep or under anesthetic. Even the I-thought is just that - another idea. The only constant aspect in all of this is consciousness, so that is what I must be....”

Dennis said, “In reality, since we are not the body or mind, we cannot be born or reincarnate.”

What refreshing freedom and clarity come when the notions of birth and death and rebirth go; when it is understood that what persons call "death" involves nothing more than the fact that at some point the body elements will return to the universal pool of elements; the breath shall return to the universal pool of air; and the conscious-energy shall return to the universal pool of energy-awareness (which is not even aware of itself).

If that is understood, note how all of the former complexities of the relative existence disappear and how simple the functioning becomes: wherefore any need for bells and smoke and knelling and prayers and worship and religious dogma and spiritual exercises when freed of belief in the duality-based delusions of birth and death, life and afterlife, and reward vs. punishment?

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

Wherefore any supposed need for any “one” to "do" anything when these pointers from Maharaj are understood?

** "Once You know that death happens to the body and not to You, You just watch your body falling off like a discarded garment”

and

“The Real does not die, the unreal never lived”

and

“The Real You is timeless and beyond birth and death.”

Yet even that “Real You” that manifests from the Absolute is not the antecedent state. That original state is the Void, the Nothingness; therefore, Maharaj could report accurately: “From my angle, you are nothing. You have no identity.”

Only one assuming the illusion of “Who-ness” can be willing to die for illusions, including the illusions of country and possessions and “love” and dogma and values and a god or gods and heaven and hell and reward and punishment and beliefs and concepts and ideas and ideals.

Fact is, those illusions should only be discussed in a conversation that also includes unicorns; tooth fairies; Santa Claus; eternal salvation and reward; and a god or gods of creation and sustenance and destruction and punishment.

Enjoy the peace and freedom that only come with the no-concept, non-dual Realization. Then, the death of the body is meaningless but is not sought in a senseless way that would run contrary to the natural tendencies of the manifest consciousness.

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.

WILLING TO DIE, Part Four

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:Thanx for the joint series -- right on. Speaking of stupid or insane, I have been hearing talk for years now (I’m in the U.S.) of people being “willing to die for their country.” Qualifies as insane doesn’t it?

F.: (Continued from yesterday) So of all the nonsensical things that persons claim they are willing to die for—beliefs, values, possessions, country, love, and their God / their dogma—the latter generates more duality and, therefore, more chaos and delusion and deception that any other source.

That is why Maharaj did not hesitate to speak very clearly about the negative impact, relatively speaking, of religion, asserting that "recorded religions are mere heaps of verbiage."

He knew their outlets (temples and churches and mosques, etc.) to be the primary vendors of duality...the most active purveyors of dualistic beliefs and concepts on the planet...the key disseminators of ideas about "separate from-ness" and "better than-ness."

That is why he responded as he did in the following exchange:

Q: You seem to have little use for religion.
M: What is religion? A cloud in the sky.

He also said:

We believe in so many things on hearsay. We believe in distant lands and people, in heavens and hells, in gods and goddesses, because we were told. Similarly, we were told about ourselves, our parents, name, position, duties and so on. We never cared to verify. The way to truth lies through the destruction of the false. To destroy the false, you must question your most inveterate beliefs. Of these the idea that you are the body is the worst. With the body comes the world, with the world - God, who is supposed to have created the world and thus it starts - fears, religions, prayers, sacrifices, all sorts of systems - all to protect and support the child-man, frightened out of his wits by monsters of his own making. Realise that what you are cannot be born nor die and, with the fear gone, all suffering ends.

As always with Maharaj, facts trump hearsay and science trumps myth-based religion and so-called spirituality, and in spite of the claims by such "religious and spiritual persons" to the contrary, their beliefs do not foster the civil and humane behavior that comes when the Oneness is understood, when an awareness of what True Love is manifests.

Maharaj: "In a humane society people will be humane; besides, science provides the answer to many questions which formerly were in the domain of religion."

The most salient pointer, though, is reemphasized: people who report that they are willing to die for their country, beliefs, values, "love," or dogma are actually, above all, willing to kill for their country, beliefs, values, "love," or dogma.

Is it any wonder at all, then, that news reports each and every day are a cataloguing of beatings, murders, rapes, wars, suicide bombings, and one example after another of humanity's inhumanity to humanity? Maharaj noted that whatever gives you pleasure will eventually give you misery.

Thus, a willingness to die always follows a willingness to kill...it never precedes it. Is there a willingness to die for "love"? Then beware: there is already a willingness to kill for "love," so the "love" that gives pleasure can most assuredly give misery as well.

Evidence? In the U.S., it might sound noble and even endearing during the courting process for a man to say that he is "willing to die for you," but he is actually warning you that he is capable of killing for you; therefore, 59% of all women murdered in the U.S. every year are killed by "The Lover" or "The Spouse."

When identification with a parcel of land is assumed as an identity, then is it any wonder that those same types are willing to invade foreign lands and kill people there, being "willing to die for their country" as they are?

Personality disorders...insanity...learned ignorance, playing out daily across the globe and then being reported on the evening newscast. A counselor shared recently how consistently it has happened over the years that the women who marry men who are trained to kill for a living later show up in her office for counseling and are shocked that those same men have become violent with them.

So it is among the masses who walk about without even the slightest degree of being awake and aware and conscious, dreaming the dream of the planet, only to awaken at some point to the nightmare of the planet (but still having no clue regarding the causes behind any of what is marking and marring their relative existence).

They have no ability at all to grasp (a) the understanding among the Realized that leads to non-attachment to the body and to no fear of death while at the same time leading to (b) the humane and civil behavior that accompanies a Realization of the oneness and that preempts any desire-based or fear-based willingness to die or kill.

No fear of death? No pointness desire for death? No belief in death at all? Yet no senseless willingness to die or to kill? No, not at all, post-Realization.

TOMORROW, The Conclusion: The Advaitin understanding regarding no birth and no death, an understanding that does not interfere at all with the overlaying of Reality upon the relative, that allows for a manner of functioning that treats the relative AS IF it does matter, and that allows for the manifestation of freedom from the fear of death without devaluing the relative lives of anyone or anything.

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.

WILLING TO DIE, Part Three

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: Thanx for the joint series -- right on. Speaking of stupid or insane, I have been hearing talk for years now (I’m in the U.S.) of people being “willing to die for their country.” Qualifies as insane doesn’t it?

F.: Persons can claim that they are willing to die for their god, but actually, that willingness to die for their god is always superseded by a willingness to kill for their god.

And that willingness among the pious and devout to kill and to die in order to spread their dogma's dualistic beliefs accounts for the present pervasiveness of the doctrinaire-inspired killings by members of the various sky cults which for the last several thousand years have caused more "deaths" that all except natural causes.

Further, there is no need to rely on what some would dismiss as "dated evidence" such as the millions killed during the Catholics' inquisition or during the Christian vs. Muslim Crusades or during the American Holocaust when European Christians killed 150,000,000 native inhabitants

or during the WWII Holocaust when mainly German and Austrian Lutherans began a campaign that killed 6,000,000 Jews in a war that eventually "took 55,000,000 lives" (as the non-Realized characterize it). No, more recent evidence is available:

Witness the thousands killed because a Christian president claimed that he talked to God ("The Father") and was told to shock and awe Muslim Iraq with massive bombing raids, an act that led to the killing of thousands of Muslims by Christian soldiers who have Bible verses written on their bombs and rifles. More recently, add to that total the scores who were killed there last week as Muslim Sunnis bombed Muslim Shi'ites.

Add in those who have died by suicide in recent years as a result of the trauma of being abused sexually by Catholic priests while the protests by victims are being dismissed by the Vatican as whining and idle gossip.

As recently as last week, a comedy show entitled "South Park” was targeted by a Muslim group that claimed an episode “outright insulted” the prophet, adding: “We have to warn Matt and Trey (the two writers of the show) that what they are doing is stupid, and they will probably wind up like Theo van Gogh for airing this show. This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them.”

(Theo van Gogh was killed in 2004 by a Muslim in Amsterdam who was upset that van Gogh had produced a film that exposed the often-brutal treatment of women by Islam.)

An Iraqi woman recruiting female suicide bombers in Iraq admitted that she arranged to have eighty women raped so that she could convince them that the only way to redeem themselves from the shameful guilt of being raped (which is always considered to be the female's fault) was via martyrdom.

Why address such dogma-based behavior? Because it is stupidity and insanity that the Advaitin would eliminate and because it is the task of the Advaitin teacher to offer pointers that can purge the rubbish-filled "mind" of the refuse that inspires such conduct.

"But Realized Advaitins know what Maharaj pointed to when he said, 'The Real You is timeless and beyond birth and death. The body will survive as long as it is needed. It is not important that it should live long'."

True, and Maharaj also said that "once You know that death happens to the body and not to You, You just watch your body falling off like a discarded garment"; however, what he did not say was "you should just watch others' bodies fall off like a discarded garment and even bring that about if their religious beliefs differ from yours."

To understand the Reality behind the pointer that "the Real does not die" and behind the pointer that "the unreal never lived" is not to suggest that the understanding offers a license to kill.

When the wisdom that You Are everything manifests and when Reality is overlaid on the relative, those happenings remove the Realized's attachment to the corporeal body but they do not remove the option to see the insanity of being willing to die for beliefs or to kill of beliefs.

Instead, the Advaitin message to those willing to die for such illusions as country and beliefs and values and dogma and eternal life and eternal rewards and religion and possessions and things thought to be worth dying for is this:

Imagine there's no Heaven,
It's easy if you try.
No hell below us—
Above us only sky.
Imagine all the people
Living for today.

Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to do—
Nothing to kill or die for,
And no religion too.
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace.

You may say that I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one.
I hope someday you'll join us,
And the world will be as one.

Imagine no possessions...
I wonder if you can.
No need for greed or hunger—
A brotherhood of man.
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world.

You may say that I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one.
I hope someday you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.

John Lennon's "Imagine"

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.
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.

WILLING TO DIE, 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.

FROM A SITE VISITOR: Thanx for the joint series -- right on. Speaking of stupid or insane, I have been hearing talk for years now (I’m in the U.S.) of people being “willing to die for their country.” Qualifies as insane doesn’t it?

F.: Yesterday's post looked at some of what the non-Realized claim they are willing to die for:

**country

**love

**principles

and then ended with this:

Tomorrow—as pointed to in the last series—the case which produces more belief in “better-than” and “separate from-ness,” and which generates more insanity and hated and murder than with any other source namely, “I am willing to die for my God.”

There is no "form" on the planet—no animal, no bird, no fish, no "space" of any kind—that is "willing to die," except human forms (specifically the non-Realized, vast majority) that functions not under the auspices of natural instincts and nisarga-style inclinations but under the influence of learned ignorance.

That learned ignorance takes the forms of beliefs and concepts and ideas and attitudes and (in 97% of all cases) the dictates of their dogma. Since all of that learned ignorance has been stored in a part of the brain called the "mind," then it is the "mind" that must go (leaving a space that functions under the auspices of the brain and consciousness only).

The "mind" is the seat of all distortion and of all of the blockages that prevent the pure consciousness from seeing clearly, honestly, accurately...from seeing It Self rather than seeing all of the false characters on the stage of "The Theatre of the Lie" (which this planet has become) and thinking that those play-actors are real.

In the Advaita-based novel The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders, the Far East / Native American connection is explored, along with their common teachings—teachings that point to that which is immutable and eternal—which have been offered by members of both groups (who originally shared a common homeland).

In James Cameron's Avatar, offering some of the same, timeless teachings from those two groups, the "seeing" mentioned above is central to the plot as Realized characters and characters that come to Realization say, "I see You."

I see You because I have seen Me, an event that only came after the dissolution of the "mind" which allowed for the ending of the belief in all previously-learned ignorance, concepts, ideas, attitudes, and dogma as well as all of the nonsense that is embodied in the teachings that are offered at the "kindergarten spirituality" level.

By seeing reality and Reality and Truth and Me and You, I—the temporarily-manifested "experiencer," the light that allows the clear seeing of both (a) the temporary and the "dying" as well as (b) the unending and the undying—can now also see all that is necessary for an understanding of the functioning of the totality.

In that clear seeing, there are no countries, no subject-object "love," no eternal punishment, no eternal reward, no "one" to be punished or rewarded eternally, and, as a result, no rules to live by to please a God for "gain" or to avoid "loss."

Clear seeing, therefore, prevents any possibility of seeing a country worth dying for, any subject-object "love" worth dying for, any set of rules or cultural values worth dying for, any false personality worth dying for, or any mirage of eternal continuity that makes a god worth dying for.

It is the will of the impure consciousness to attain eternal continuity, attached as it is to the body and mind and personality; it is also the will of the pure consciousness to extend itself, but without attachment.

What did Maharaj have to say that could allow persons to see clearly that no God created man, that man created God / gods?

"First of all you identify something as being good or bad for yourself. Then, in an effort to acquire good or to get rid of the bad, you have invented a God. Then you worship such a God and ... you pray to that God for something good to happen to you."

How insane, indeed, is that? Now apply that to the current discussion: imagine a parent in the desert with a child, looking at what the sane would label as "nothing more than a mirage." Then imagine the parent's instruction unfolding thusly:

"The mirage you saw yesterday, child, was a country. The one the day before was "love"; the one the day prior to that was the set of principles by which all good people in this society live; and this one today is a god that will allow you to acquire good and to get rid of bad and that will allow something good to happen to you."

It's all a mirage, and only stupidity, insanity, and / or persona-identification would allow a mirage to reverse the will of the consciousness. Persons willing to die for their god have been warped to a degree far beyond the warping that comes with the type of misinformation illustrated in that desert scenario that plays out daily around the planet in spite of its near-laughable silliness;

the result is that those willing to die for their God or gods, contrary to the natural instinct of the consciousness to extend its manifestation, have been warped far more than usual.

So, to the e-mailer, yes...the will of the impure consciousness to attain eternal continuity, believing that a body and a mind and false roles can be forever, is insane (or at least ignorant), as is the will of the impure consciousness to die for any relative concept.

Yet those seeking what seems to run contrary to the natural tendencies of the manifested consciousness and who claim that they are willing to die for their god (as a result of warped programming and perverted conditioning) are nevertheless seeking "something good to happen to them" via their willingness to die for a deity.

And what they are seeking is not only societal admiration and gratitude ("thank you for dying for god's cause and for helping to impose on all people the will of the right god") but also hero status now and forever; eternal reward; everlasting praise; and unending aggrandizement of the self.

"But wait, floyd, you said that kind of dogma-based thinking leads to more 'hatred and murder than any other source'." Really?

Really.

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.

WILLING TO DIE, 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: Thanx for the joint series -- right on. Speaking of stupid or insane, I have been hearing talk for years now (I’m in the U.S.) of people being “willing to die for their country.” Qualifies as insane doesn’t it?

F.: Later, the total distortion of the notion of dying will be addressed (along with the distortion of having been born) but for now, this:

In most cases—and to the degree that the natural inclination is to extend the manifestation—yes, the talk of being “willing to die” as used among the non-Realized does qualify as nonsense.

Exceptions do exist if it is understood that, when the term is used to offer certain pointers, the Realized know, in fact, that they cannot die (which will be explained in more detail tomorrow):

Maharaj was “willing to die” long before he took mahasamadhi.

Maharaj was “willing to die” at the end when the pain of cancer was excruciating.

After I Realized and became “willing to die,” only then did I become “willing to live, fully.” The Realized will know exactly what that means and will know that it has nothing to do with a physical death.

Also, there were people who were racked by pain 24-7, with no relief in sight, and they were willing to have Dr. Kevorkian arrange for a quiet and peaceful de-manifestation.

At retreats here, persons trapped in the fear of body identification and religious conditioning, a level of fear that has left them afraid of the prospect of eternal punishment, have been invited to “die now and get it over with.” Those with post-Realization wisdom know what that invitation really means.

So all of that having been said, for you to suggest in your e-mail that all of this “willingness to die”-talk among the non-Realized is insane is certainly valid, relatively speaking. Take for example:

“I am willing to die for my country.” The fact, is, they have no country. Borderlines are imaginary and fictional, reinforcing belief is separation, so the concept is dualistic and, therefore, false.

Moreover, what is a country? Is it land? Would those persons be willing to die for dirt? Or is a country all of its people? Are those speakers willing to die for all of the people who make up what they think "their country" is? Truth be known, there are probably far more people they hate than like, so there are probably far more people they would not be willing to die for, including…

…people of different political affiliations or different ideologies or a different religion or no religion or a different sexual orientation or a different race or any one of the many differences and biases that such radically-nationalistic thinkers as those in the "willing-to-die-for-my-country" group might believe in.

(Most of those persons in the "willing-to-die-for-my-country" group are Type Sixes, and such a comment is exactly the kind that comes from Type Sixes who are talking in their sleep, thinking they are choosing that belief system when in fact it has been programming into them.)

What about “I am willing to die for love”? If one knows the Oneness and knows that Real Love is knowing that You Are everything, then how could one die for that? Of course the way most use that statement is to refer to their personality, as discussed in the last series.

In that case, they are not willing to die for love. They are willing to die for the perpetuation of a false identity, such as the case when Lover must have Lover to “exist” and when Spouse must have Spouse to “exist.”

What they really mean then is, "I am willing to kill myself and / or anyone who interferes with my delusion, either by trying to leave or by trying to take away the one playing the co-dependent counterpart to my role and the one who is, therefore, allowing my illusion of 'love' to continue."

Then there is, “I am willing to die for my principles.”

In fact, no one has any principles. Principles are defined as “rules that are upgraded to the status of values.” The point to such persons lost in that delusion is that there is no set of “your” principles, “your” values, or even “your” mind.

The reference is really to “their” principles, “their” values, or “their” mind which the speaker has adopted without question and now assumes that those principles or values are “his / hers.” In fact, all three of those are rooted in any given culture’s teachings and programming and conditioning.

What the speaker in this case is saying in effect is that, “I have blindly accepted the rules and values of a group of persons who handed down to me the nonsense that was handed down to them, and in order to make them love me and respect me and value me, I am willing to die by fighting others who have different principles and values. What I am really willing to die for is my distorted programming and silly conditioning and bizarre acculturation and our desire to force our beliefs onto others."

Tomorrow—as pointed to in the last postings—this series will continue with a discussion of the assertion which produces more belief in “better-than-ness” and “separate from-ness” (and which generates more insanity and hated and murder than with any other source), namely, “I am willing to die for my God.”

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.

A JOINT POSTING FROM THE SITE CO-HOSTS: On Personality (a.k.a., Ego) and Arrogance (a.k.a., Egotism), Part Eight, 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.

This is the first joint posting and came about spontaneously. More may happen spontaneously…or not. You are invited to visit next week when Louise will be posting.

F.: A buck and doe and two yearlings have been passing across the property recently. One of the yearlings is calm and sedate. The other is rambunctious. One recent evening at dusk, all four were here in the front yard.

The energized yearling was running in circles at breakneck speed, crossing the front yard here, running the length of a neighbor’s yard, and then running back here where it circled the other yearling that was watching the antics with what appeared to be a “stop being a jerk” look.

The yearling was playing, almost like playing a game, and that is natural. In nature, games are played without agenda (mating games being one exception, though those are natural as well).

Non-Realized persons play games, too. The difference is that the games played by persons all have agendas, are all based in desires and fears, so all induce the inevitable misery that personality's desires and fears always eventually generate.

The games are learned by persons from their cultures, and the games are taken to be very real, very important, very consequential…and indeed they are, relatively speaking. As with the yearling, all of the forms in nature that play games, except for persons, do so for the sake of entertainment. Only non-Realized persons play the games which now bring about planet-wide fluctuations between happiness and unhappiness as well as disorder and chaos.

In the case of non-Realized persons, the inspiration for playing the games that are taken to be so significant comes from the desires and fears of each assumed personality, and all misery and suffering is rooted in desire and fear.

The games are never entered into by choice but are driven by programming and conditioning and acculturation. So, there is The Religion Game, The Spirituality Game, The Self-Help Game, The Self-Improvement Game, the Growth Industry Game, The Famous Teacher Game, The Politics Game, The War Game, The Relationship Game, The Marriage (or Marriages) Game, The Accumulation of Knowledge Game, The Accumulation of Possessions Game, The Stud Game, The Find A Rich Person To Pay My Bills Game, ad infinitum.

Specifically, Type Ones play The Judge And Reform Game; Twos play The Rescuing And Saving Game; Threes play The Develop An Image To Receive Applause Game; Fours play The I Can Know-It-All Game; Sixes play The Find Someone to Take Care of Me Game; Sevens play The Escape Game; Eights play The Get Earthly and Godly Power So I Can Control Everything Game; and Nines play The Avoid And Be A Doormat Game.

Once a speck of consciousness with the slightest bit of wisdom sees what has been motivating every thought and word and deed, a “peripetia moment” can happen…an “Oh my gosh!” moment can manifest.

RECEIVED THIS WEEK FROM A SITE VISITOR: Aha! Damn!!...it really IS all BS! Mac

Reply: Finally, welcome aboard, mate.

If awakened to the silliness of personality-driven games, then those debilitating persona-games can end and whatever games that follow will be agenda-less…merely for entertainment. Then, fun happens. Joy happens. Bliss happens.

Have you ever paused to consider, “How much fun am I to be around, really?” Are you the super-serious, super-dedicated person, trapped in some form of monomania that makes everyone you approach look for an exit?

Are you obsessed with your recovery program, your religious activities, your spiritual exercises, your philosophy, your ideology, your politics, your job, your children, your pets, your mate, or seeking mates? Are you as boring as can be? Are you that way because you are bored? If so, are you creating disharmony and flux and even chaos on occasion because the only time you really “feel alive” is during an adrenaline rush?

Are you failing to see how debilitated you feel in the wake of the adrenaline drop-off that follows your post-excitement, post-inspired, post-chaotic participation in whatever events are being driven by your personality / personalities?

Or, are you using your recovery program, your religious activities, your spiritual exercises, your philosophy, or your ideology not to overlay Reality on the relative but in order to try to escape reality?

When was the last time you played The Let’s Walk Along the Edge of the Lake Holding Hands Game? When was the last time you played The Let’s Enjoy Sex for the Fun of It Rather Than Trying to Please the Pope and Make A Baby Every Time Game?

When was the last time you considered playing The Throw Away Your Stick and Quit Beating Women Whose Burquas Are Too Short Game? When was the last time you played The Maybe I Don’t Have to Convert Everyone in The Four Corners of the Earth to Christianity Game?

Persona-driven games generate the three things that Maharaj tried for decades to help eradicate (to use his words): learned ignorance, stupidity, and insanity.

Maharaj: When you refuse to play the game, you are out of it

and

Maharaj: You…spend your time and money in vain and also miss what life offers you. Running after saints is merely another game to play. Remember yourself instead and watch your daily life relentlessly. Be earnest, and you shall not fail to break the bonds of inattention and imagination.

F.: Regularly, some persons who have not stayed long enough to be visitors to this site, but who are just passersby instead, ask why religion or spirituality are “hated here.”

Those are not hated here. Nothing is hated here. The pointer is offered regularly that religion and / or spirituality comprise the third of the seven steps from identification with the body-mind-personality to understanding the Absolute. The religious or spiritual role must be assumed and must be played for a time.

So here, it is not about “hating religious people.” Here, the invitation is to be free of learned ignorance, stupidity and insanity, so it is the prime source of those that is challenged. It just so happens that the prime source of those three is, both historically and presently, what is taught by persons involved in religious and spiritual movements.

The Gottman Institute, after decades of research into marriage and relationships, has found that the single requirement for “breaking up” or for divorcing is…disgust. A marriage can survive almost any challenge, the Gottmans' research has found, except when one partner feels disgust for the other.

[While disgust is also persona-based, it could point to what Maharaj was witnessing just before people were run out of the loft. He did not hate the person, there being no person to hate. Yet might the pure consciousness have been registering a sense of disgust in the impure presence of learned ignorance, personality, arrogance, stupidity, and insanity?]

What are persons up against, though, when the call is for an objective view of their religious or spiritual beliefs?

Louise: Just as the individual or “personal” fiction-filled mind dissolves under investigation, so the fiction-filled invented stories of religion can be similarly dissolved when viewed with clear sight. The difficulty is the shared or collective delusion – hundreds of thousands with a shared imaginary discourse that they do not want to relinquish.

F.: And the problem with trying to develop the requisite “clear sight” to see lies and to see Truth is that blind faith pre-empts any chance of seeing anything clearly.

Did Maharaj reject the content of any and all holy scriptures? Yes. Did he hate religious and spiritual role players? Hardly. Did he speak of their contribution to learned ignorance? Yes. Did he speak of the “stupidity” and “insanity” of the masses, using those very words? Yes. Was he judging? No. Was he witnessing accurately? Yes.

Did he hate people? No. Did he make clear time and again that this entire “journey” is about being free of learned ignorance, stupidity and insanity? Yes. What is more insane than thinking you are a role because people in your culture told you so and then allowing that role to determine your thoughts and words and actions?

And what is more insane than believing in duality? Learned ignorance, stupidity and insanity are rooted in duality. For millions of years, humans lived in a no-concept, non-dual fashion. In the absence of language, dualistic concepts could not be taught, so the proliferation of dualistic nonsense came about after language developed and after controlling persons dreamed up stories about other worlds that are occupied with gods and goddesses that control everything that happens on this planet.

Only at that point in a multi-million history of humanity on this planet did persons come up with supernatural causes for totally natural events.

Louise pointed out one such example yesterday: The leader of Tehran's Friday prayers, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, has declared that "immodest clothing - such as trousers - cause natural disasters." The Iranian cleric stated, "Many women who do not dress modestly lead men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which causes earthquakes." He was especially critical of the wearing of western-style pants, garments which seem to really upset Allah.

[See, Allah is like the other two versions of the god of Abraham, the Jewish God and the Christian God, all co-dependents, all capable of being upset by people rather than being able to control their emotions and rather than being able to determine for themselves how they feel....a very powerless condition for such supposedly all-powerful beings, yes? Learned ignorance...stupidity ...insanity.]

Only when programmed to believe that natural events have supernatural causes could persons accept as truth the lies whereby totally natural events such as floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes (or God-inspired personal acts by his representatives on earth) are said to be caused by god / gods / goddesses as retribution for human conduct that angers those extraterrestrial powers:

"Pants?! Die, mortals!" "Negative karma?! Drown, New Orleans!" "Wasting the seed?! Be damned for eternity, hedonists!" "Non-Christians, gays and liberated women in the Twin Towers?! Burn, sinners!" "Jews and Christians in the Twin Towers?! Die, infidels!"

Really? Can they possibly be serious? Yes, very much so. Very serious. Very bored. Very limited in their one-dimensionality. Very ignorant. Very stupid. Very insane.

Only after persons have been programmed and conditioned to believe that a religious role—a religious or spiritual personality—really defines who they are can they become so ignorant as to believe that naturally-occurring events around the globe are actually the tools used by god or gods to punish people now (while eternal punishment awaits them later).

See, the assumption of personality removes all ability to choose, to reason, to be logical, to stop being driven by learned ignorance, to stop behaving in the stupid ways that personality inspires and to stop behaving in the insane ways that personality inspires.

Only free of personality can you be free of the influences of those disseminators of lies, lies disseminated in order to control your thought and words and deeds. There are tools being used that bring about (self)-punishment and misery and suffering all right, but they are the psychological tools being used to program you and condition you and acculturate you.

Be rid of the effects of personality and you will be rid of (1) being influenced or even controlled by ignorant and stupid and insane persons and you will be rid of (2) being controlled by the subconscious motivators that are the misery-generating desires and fears of each assumed personality.

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.